Tutoring the next couple months had gone by about as well as a muggle car on fire. Neville and Briar both acted incredibly awkward around each other, and Neville had broken a record number of vases during their recent tutoring sessions from tripping over his own feet. This usually would happen when Briar got close to him to look at whatever plant he had been talking about, and she felt bad that her actions had made him so uncomfortable. His reactions to her in these tutoring sessions only reaffirmed her insecurities further: he just didn't fancy her like she did with him.

So, Briar had been sitting in her dorm one day a couple months later as she tried to study for herbology, but her mind was preoccupied. After rereading the same sentence four times in a row, she slammed her book shut and tossed it across her bed with a loud huff.

She checked the time and realized that dinner was about to start. She needed a break anyway. She tugged her robes on with a scowl, smoothing all of the creases obsessively as something in the back of her mind reminded her that one particular boy would likely be at dinner that night.

After trying and failing to press out one particular crease, Briar threw her hair back with a hair tie and gave up on her appearance altogether. She knew that she looked like death anyway. There was no hiding the black bags under her eyes that had only continued to grow after she received a confusing letter from her father a couple weeks ago that hinted at his promises of her future marriage with Malfoy.

Most nights, Briar felt as though she couldn't breathe, and she spent a lot of time on the bridge, leaning against the railing as the cold wind threatened to freeze her bones. She wished it would. Maybe if she could freeze over again, this would all hurt less, but now, she was attached to someone who she could never have and who would never want her back.

Her heart shattered more with each passing day.

Each time Neville evaded her glances or Malfoy stared at her with his eyebrows drawn down and a hard look in her eyes, she felt the glass ball inside her chest splinter and crack a little further.

It was truly a miserable situation, and she felt trapped in her life with no way out. She was kicking herself for letting herself believe that Neville could be her way out. He clearly didn't want to be. She was foolish for thinking that anyone would ever want to seriously be in her corner for more than just sympathetic comments and pitiful glances.

She felt her breath becoming ragged with these thoughts, so she stared at the dark green lake water lifting and sinking against her room's window to gather some of her control back. She fluttered her eyes closed and focused on her breaths.

Breathe in, 2,3,4,5. Out, 2,3,4,5.

With each second of exhalation, she imagined herself pushing everything she was feeling into the darkest, most hidden parts of her mind, and she slowly felt herself regain control.

When she opened her eyes again, she felt her normal stony expression had returned, and her breathing had steadied into slow and regular cycles once more. She marveled at how her childhood practices to hide her emotions still worked now.

Briar had almost made it to the Great Hall with an even expression and cold, calculating eyes. She was wholly in control, and it felt good. She could do this. She didn't need to feel her emotions. She just needed to use her old tactics again. Occlumency was a tricky sport, but she had long learned that it was best to switch up your practices when one seemed to stop working. That must be what was happening now. She was okay, she was in cont-

She came to an abrupt halt, her boots screeching on the floor at the sudden stop, when her eyes landed on Neville being surrounded by two Slytherin girls in the year above her. She strained and heard the one closer to Neville snickering, "Hi. I hear you spend quite a bit of time with Davies. What a pity. She's a bit...you know?"

Her left eye began twitching as a rage began to bubble up inside her. She was about to ignore them, but then the one who had just spoken lifted a hand and began to march two fingers down Neville's chest and murmured something that Briar couldn't hear. Neville looked like he wanted to escape, but the other girl was blocking his exit, and no one else was around to notice the situation.

Ignoring her better instincts, Briar marched over to them with a hatred building up so intensely that it felt as if it were slowly consuming her. All the control she had just regained was thrown out the window as she reached the three of them.

The Slytherin in front that Briar believed was named Ambrosia innocently exclaimed, "Oh, Briar. Good thing you're here. We were just telling this twit here that it wasn't smart to criticize you in front of us."

Neville immediately squeaked, "That's not true, Briar! I would never!"

Her eyes blazed when the other girl named Wren roughly grabbed Neville and snarled, "You really think you can deceive a Slytherin? We aren't called clever for nothing."

Briar felt a sudden eerie sense of control wash over her in that moment. She looked back at Ambrosia with a raised eyebrow and a forced smile. She nodded and sighed, "Thanks for making me aware of this, Ambrosia."

Ambrosia's lips twitched into a cruel smirk as she nodded her head at Briar respectfully.

It took everything in Briar to not look at Neville as she heard his heavy, desperate breathing from beside her. She wanted to comfort him more than anything, but she wasn't going to give these two girls what they wanted. To make her look crazy.

Ambrosia glanced towards Neville with a sneer dripping off her lips, "Who does this loser think he is to criticize you anyway?"

Briar only realized what happened after Ambrosia let out a shriek and dropped into a crouch and held her face. Briar's hand throbbed, and her skin had torn into bloody cuts over her knuckles.

From her squatting position, the older Slytherin screamed, "You psychopath!"

Briar ignored her and looked at the other Slytherin with cold eyes and a head that slowly tilted to the side. She felt a complete and utter lack of remorse over what she had done, and she knew that was apparent on her face when Wren scrambled away from Neville. She left Ambrosia and sprinted down the corridor. Ambrosia cursed under her breath but stood up and chased her friend with a bruise already forming on her pale cheek.

Once it was just the two of them in the corridor, Briar didn't know what to say, and she felt unable to meet Neville's eyes. She felt sick knowing that he just saw that.

The innocent, sweet boy had seen a bit of the monster that she was inside, and she felt a hollowness start in her chest. She stared down at her shoes as she whispered, "Are you okay?"

Briar glanced up at him to see him nodding frantically. She brought her lips between her teeth and nodded. She turned to leave the corridor, but Neville stopped her with a hand on her arm. She looked up at his face, and her eyes blinked heavily to see the concern in his eyes. He panted, "I never said those things."

She just smiled at him and nodded before turning and making her way to the nearest bathroom to clean up her hand. She jumped when she noticed that Neville had shuffled along behind her, stopping at the doorway. He scratched the back of his neck and wondered, "D'you want any help with your hand?"

Her hand was throbbing, and she felt a protective coldness surrounding her heart once again, but she nodded carefully and held the door open for him to enter. She stalked over to the sink and turned on the cold water. Neville stepped up behind her and gently took her hand in his own. Briar felt goosebumps forming on her body, but she kept her face neutral. She had to. She couldn't let herself slip again.

She tried to ignore how Neville's hands felt so soft and gentle on her palm, and she had to look away when she saw the way his bottom lip stuck out in concern at the blood that had pooled in her cuts. He turned the water slightly warmer and brought her hand under it, running his thumbs over her wounds with a level of care that made the situation feel unexpectedly intimate.

Electricity was sparking over her skin, and her stomach was tumbling. Her lips slightly parted as her breathing became slightly ragged.

After Neville turned the water off, he looked up at her and grew very still. His hands were still on hers as the two of them stared at each other. The only sound in the room was the sound of their labored breathing and the occasional drip of water off their hands into the sink below.

Briar's eyes dipped down to Neville's lips as her own parted further. She swore she felt an electricity in the air between them, and they both seemed to be dipping their heads towards each other.

A horrible thought made Briar freeze. What if he just felt bad for what happened and was trying to make it up to her? He clearly was horrified at her desire to kiss him last time, so why would this be any different?

She pulled back and abruptly blurted, "I cannot make sense of the section about aconite. I read it four times, and it still made no sense."

"Oh," Neville murmured as he seemed to pull back too, wiping his wet hands on the sides of his robes.

Briar looked around the otherwise empty bathroom and tried to regain control of her ragged breathing. She clenched her fists and rambled, "Um, yeah. I just don't... I just don't get it. Do you want to meet tomorrow to study?"

Neville wouldn't meet her eyes and just nodded. Briar felt her heart sink at his lack of eye contact, but she just gulped down her hurt before she shuffled out of the bathroom with her hand still dripping and her entire being still buzzing from Neville's touch.

She just wished that she could have kissed him. Something in her had begun to crave his touch, his presence, his attention. It was intoxicating when she did get a taste of it, but it was torture because she knew that nothing had changed.

Briar was still the broken girl, and Neville was the boy she could never have.

———