Summer sat down at the desk, she wasn't feeling too nervous. She'd had a handful of detentions between Beauxbatons and last year, and writing lines weren't the worst thing in the world- so she was relieved when she found out she only had to write until the message 'sunk in'. But there was something missing.

"Um, Professor, don't I need ink?" She asked, and Umbridge let out a high pitched giggle, as if what she said had been completely ludicrous.
"Oh, you won't need it, just write, and see." Summer said nothing, only studied the pen and shrugged before beginning to write.

At first it was only a strange burning and scratching sensation from the skin or her hand, but after the second attempt at the letter 'I', she saw it. Shining scarlet ink appeared on the parchment, and she moved on to her next word, that was until she realised what was happening. The letter was a fresh cut in her hand, gleaming under the candlelight, and stung as she tried to touch it- wincing as the blood transferred to her other finger.

"Wha- What?" Was all she could say, feeling too shocked at this cruel and unusual punishment for words. In fact, it was more torturous that a punishment for talking back in class, and Summer threw the quill down in disgust.

"What are you doing? Finish your lines, unless you want further detention."

"But it's hurting me!"

"That's the point Miss Blanchet. Naughty children deserved to be punished."

"But-"

"No buts! Silence from now on."

Summer put her head back down. She wiped away a tear as she finished the second word,  and braced herself for the last part of the sentence, which was going to hurt even more.

"Stop crying! You're showing weakness."

"I can't," she said through a sniff.

"You must do as I say, I will have order!"

"I'm sorry! I can't control if I'm going to cry or not!" The harassment was only making it worse as sobs sounded from the girl, and Summer even tried closing her mouth to suppress them.

"I said, silence!"

Umbridge grabbed the pen over her clasped fingers and dragged it across the paper, going back and forth until the pain became so unbearable, that they evolved into silent cries, which turned into screams, and the professor eventually let go, blowing the hair out of her face. She could only whimper as she clutched her arm, feeling the warm blood start to seep through the sleeve of her jumper.

"You may leave."

Summer stumbled out of her office, feeling a little light headed as she made her way back to Gryffindor tower. She was desperately trying not to focus on the searing pain that started on her hand and felt as it were burning all the way up her arm. Tears still streamed down her cheeks as she recalled the last half an hour, and became even heavier as she felt more blood oozing out and trickling across her skin.

When she reached the common room, she was relieved to see that most people had gone to bed. Unfortunately however, her friends hadn't, and even more to her dismay, they all turned to greet her when she came into view. She gave a quick wave as to not be rude, but kept her face hidden as she scurried up the steps to her room. The door hit against the wall as she flew through, making a bee line for the bathroom, and slammed the door shut behind her. As if she hadn't already been crying, she broke down into even more tears, sobbing, muffled into her hand, the other lying limply on the floor, blood smudging on the cold stone beneath her.

After what felt like forever, Summer sniffled a little, then ran a hand through her hair, shaking it out of her face, then reached for a cloth. When she had soaked it in water, she placed it first to her forehead for a minute, then, after a deep breath, held it over her hand. But she had no time to think further as a knock on the door caused her to jump.

"Summer? What's going on?" Katie's voice sounded through the wooden slabs.

"Nothing, I'm fine," she called back, doing her best to sound normal.

"But you looked as though you were crying, and you didn't come to sit with us!" Now Alicia's voice could be heard too.

"I'm just tired from the detention, nothing serious, I'm going to go to sleep in a minute." This wasn't entirely false, and made Summer feel better about not telling them the truth about her horrifying time with Umbridge. She heard a sigh from the other side of the door.

"Alright then, but you better tell us what happened tomorrow."

"Oh yeah and the boys would have come to check on you, but, you know...the stairs and all."

"It's okay, thank you guys, night."

"Night," they replied in unison, and Summer heard the shuffling of footsteps away from her, relaxed her tensed shoulders, and cursed herself for not locking her bedroom door. She was thankful for being in a spare dorm room for herself, as when she finally left the bathroom, she quickly turned the key in the lock, then proceeded to carefully manoeuvre herself down onto her bed, staring up at the ceiling of her four poster.

She wondered what the others were doing right now, her mind even wandering as far as Hayden, and how he was doing right then in that moment. They had of course been exchanging letters by owl all the time, yet it still felt weird, almost unnatural, to not be seeing him every day. To not be able to just go up to him and ask for his advice, or laugh about something together, instead having to wait for his reply, which was distant and disconnected at best. She really couldn't help but worry about him, after all, he had given her every reason to- and not being able to check in on him every day was getting to her.

Summer sighed. At least she had her friends here, and Kalen and Fred. Although, Kalen was rarely seen, always in his classroom or office, Fred on the other hand, was always there- never failing to find a way to make her laugh or smile. These positive thoughts lingered in her mind, like clouds of smoke. But not the opaque type, the unclean, unresolved type, these were pure and white, and just their presence in the forefront of her head, helped the pain subside, eventually leading to Summer drifting off.

The next morning, Summer was awoken to banging at her door, which felt like it was rattling in its frame. She still felt a little hazy, and moaned out loud as her vision came into focus.

"What?" She grumbled, although probably too quiet for anyone on the other side of the door to actually hear. Just then, she heard her name being shouted louder and louder.

"Summer!"

"Summer, come on, we're going to breakfast!"

"I'm not coming!" She yelled back, and sunk back into her mattress, pulling her covers over her head- and that's when the pain of her arm hit her. It was as agonising as it was before she had taken a pain potion the night before. Summer avoided thinking about it, and instead turned her attention to the girls that were threatening to leave a hole in the door. Eventually, after a good few minutes of silence on her end, the banging and complaints of her friends finally stopped, which thank god they did. Summer almost thought they could have knocked the door down at the rate they were going.

After running through her options in her head for a while, she came to the conclusion that she didnt have many. Either she could go to Madame Pomfrey, which would only cause more problems, cover her hand using some kind of spell or makeup, or wait out the healing process. Telling her friends wasn't on the list. Summer's embarrassment about the situation was growing, she had only been back a few days and was already subjected to some of the worst physical torture she'd endured in her life.

As it turned out, the spells or makeup option didn't work out either. Her spell-work was hopeless, and she gave up after fearing she'd make things worse, so instead got out some of her concealer, and patted it sort of everywhere there was a word, or line. At first she thought it had worked, but after a couple of seconds, it began to sink into the wounds, and Summer rushed to the bathroom to rinse it off. Not only was she out of options, but now the little healing there was had been undone, with fresh blood breaking through the cracks.
"Fuck!" Summer crashed back into bed- holding gauze against her hand. "Wait it out it is then," she muttered to herself- and wished she had more potion left- or that she had listened to Kalen when he offered her some Essence of Dittany to put in her trunk.

Two days had passed, and the incessant knocking of her friends at the door had finally subsided. However now that the weekend was over, Summer knew that she wouldn't be able to get away with missing her days of lessons without being in the infirmary. She finally admitted defeat, and rose to get changed into her uniform for breakfast.

When she finally unlocked the door, she almost tripped and fell over a small array of snacks her friends had appeared to have left out for her. Guilt shrouded Summer and pushed down on her shoulders as she stepped over the food and headed down the stairs. The common room was fairly empty, except for a few eager to please first years, who had their noses deep inside textbooks. Summer dreaded being in the crowded hall, and every step that she took felt wrong, like she wasn't supposed to be going this way. She nervously pulled down the sleeve of her sweater over her hand, then folded her arms, and unfolded them- deciding she looked unnatural.

It took less than a second before her eyes found her group of friends. Her arrival provoked all kinds of reactions, from relief, to anger, to squeals- that were mainly from Katie.

"Summer, finally!"
"What happened?"
"You stayed in your room for two days, that's like, forever!"
"We thought you were never gonna leave."

It continued like this for a few more seconds until George piped up. "Alright, alright. Shut up the lot of you, so she can actually speak."

"Nothing happened, I just had a ton of work to do, that's all," Summer held her sleeve even tighter with her fingers. Alicia eyed her suspiciously.

"It's the first month of term, how much work could you have possibly been given?"

"Not necessarily homework, just... revision. We do have the most important exams of our lives soon."

"Uh-huh." Lee went back to eating his cereal, looking very disbelieving of her. Alicia took another spoon of hers too when Fred jogged over and sat down next to them, looking a little flustered, his hair fluffed in all directions.

"Hey I've still got time to eat breakfast right? I was tryna get Ginny to see if Summer had left her room and- Oh, Summer!" He looked surprised to say the least, when he caught sight of Summer a few seats to his left, and quickly made an effort to smooth down his hair. As soon as Alicia picked up on this, she winked over her bowl, making Summer choke on her water, and Lee proceeded to smack her on the back- which proved to be even more unhelpful than Katie's giggling from opposite her. After she had stopped coughing, Summer began to get an overwhelming feeling that everyones eyes were on her, and glanced around nervously. It seemed to be safe, but she couldn't shake the feeling that someone was going to find out about her 'punishment', and stood up abruptly.

"I...Uh, forgot something upstairs." But before she could take another step away, Alicia's voice stopped her.

"Wait a minute! Did you get the food we left for you?" She asked as she began to butter her second croissant.

"Oh... No I didn't find it until about ten minutes ago," Summer admitted a little sheepishly.

"Wait, so you didn't eat at all for the whole weekend?"

"What?" Fred rose now too, moving to stand in front of Summer- taking her hands into his. "Sit back down," he said calmly, directing her into the seat next to his own.

"Yeah, do what the man says," Alicia shouted a little too loudly- earning some confused looks from some surrounding students.

"Oh no, I had a pumpkin pasty leftover from the train- I was just so wrapped up in revision."

"And? Thats just a snack Summer. Here." Alicia began piling an assortment of food on her plate, and Fred poured her a selection of tea and juice, as Summer just sat there feeling- and probably looking- helpless. She had only picked at some fruit and some toast for a few minutes before she started to get a stomach ache. Not wanting to announce this to the whole table, she nudged Fred in the arm and whispered to him.

"Just a few more bites, then we can take some stuff for a snack later, how about that? Just eat a little bit more regularly for a few days."

"Sounds good," Summer rubbed her abdomen lightly, as she wrapped up a couple easy items of food that she could save for later. It probably didn't help that she had already had all her tea, plus the orange juice, and something told her that that might not have been the best combination.

Later that day, Summer was just coming out of charms when she ran into Fred standing in the hallway. He leaned down to kiss her, and she wrapped her arms around his neck as he did.

"How's your day been so far, love," he asked as they made their way to the common room quickly before dinner.

"Not too bad, the teachers have been laying the pressure on though," she pointed to the masses of parchment she was carrying. "That's all just information, not even revision!" Fred raised his eyebrows
"That must be heavy, let me take it." Before she could object, Fred had already taken them from her, and she had to admit, it felt nice.

Once they had reached the common room, Summer took her things back from Fred, who appeared confused.

"You don't want me to leave them here? Where are you going?"

"Upstairs, I just need to be alone, to focus on studying."

"Summer, what's up? You've been isolating yourself for days." He leaned closer to her and held a hand behind her head, but instead of warning to his touch, she shied away.

"I-"

"Have I done something wrong?"

"No! No... I just..." She reached up to move his hand away, and her sleeve fell down just enough to show her hand. Fred's eyes caught a flash of deep red and he froze for a moment.

"What's on your hand? Is that blood?"

"What! No." She yanked her arm away from
his sight and pulled her sleeve back up.

"No, there was something on your hand, show me."

"There's nothing Fred, I swear."

"No let me see, I'm serious," Fred made to grab her hand, but she pulled away once more.

"Fred, people are looking!" She exclaimed in desperation to get away from him.

"Then come up to my room, so we can talk, in private."

"Fine." She could feel a few pairs of eyes follow the pair as she traipsed upstairs after Fred. Of course, he wasn't necessarily forcing her. But she felt as if she had no choice now, as she prolonged every step she took. It consoled her to know that she had tried every other possible option to avoid this situation. After she had entered the room, Fred carefully shut the door behind her, and sat beside her on his bed. Summer allowed him to take her arm in his, as he took a closer look at the words cut into her hand, and the horrific lines after that followed up to her elbow. His face contorted from sadness to anger to befuddlement, and Summer had to remind him that he was gripping her rather tightly now.

"I don't get it... Did you cut this into your hand?"

"Obviously not!"

"Who did this to you then? Who?" His anger visibly rose as he stared intently at the wound, and his hands clenched into fists.

"Remember my detention with Umbridge? She told me I was going to write lines," Fred nodded, but she could tell he wasn't really following, so she tried to find the words to explain properly. "But she only gave me a quill, with no ink. I didn't get it, until I started to write. My arm felt, I dont know, itchy I guess, then when the words appeared on the page they were red..."

"No... She made you write with your own blood?" Summer nodded.

"Blood traitor..."

"Why didn't you tell me Sum!"

"I don't know," she put her head in her hands, "I was embarrassed, I didn't want you to worry, lots of reasons." She used the edges of her fingers to wipe away her tears, and finally looked Fred in the eye. His stern expression softened when he saw her quivering lip, and sighed.

"Come here," he wrapped his arms around her shaking shoulders, and squeezed Summer tight, and she hugged him back- the smell of him calming her. His hand entwined in her hair, rubbing gentle circles, and her breathing slowed, the pain lessened. Fred slowly leaned back, so that he was lying down now, with Summer curled up in his arms. It was as if she fit perfectly, thought Fred. They both lay there, on top of the duvet, until Summer's thoughts melted away into the comfort of Fred's sweater, and she closed her eyes.

She was awoken what felt like a few hours later, when Lee and George re-entered the room, chattering. She only got a general idea of the conversation, but heard Fred's voice, low and gravelly. "Leave her. Come on guys, she's sleeping."

"Alright, alright, that better be all you guys are doing," George said, earning a snigger from Lee. Summer stirred, and moaned a little.

"Shh," Fred gently stroked her hair, until she fell back asleep again.

The next morning, Summer awoke to the birds chirping outside the thinly paned window. The boys were all still sleeping, and she looked down at Fred's face- so peaceful, that she tried her best not to disturb him, as she got out of his embrace, stepping lightly onto the annoyingly creaky floorboards. She heard a ruffling of sheets and Fred's eyes fluttered open slowly.

"Where are you going?" he said groggily.

"I need to shower and change before breakfast," she whispered back. He groaned and reached a hand out towards her. Summer moved closer, but as she did, he grabbed her with his outstretched fingers and pulled her into him- kissing her anywhere on her body his lips could reach, and she giggled as she crouched down to kiss him properly. He held her to him for one last long kiss, then pretended to shoo her away.

"Oi," Summer laughed as quietly as she could, and shut the door behind her, finally letting herself smile from ear to ear. When she reached the bottom of the boys stairs, she was surprised to see Alicia sitting in an armchair in the common room.

"Oh no..." Summer said out loud, as Alicia began squealing.

"Oh my god Summer! You didn't?"

"No no no I didn't. It's actually way less exciting."

"How could you spending the night in his bed not be exciting!" She made another high pitched noise, and Summer covered her ears and ran up the stairs as fast as she could, ignoring Alicia's shouts to come back.

She returned thirty minutes later, looking sour. When Dumbledore had announced that there was going to be a problem with he elves and laundry this week, she hadn't thought too much about it, until now. She had significantly less uniform than the rest of her friends- so when she came to find her fresh laundry shrunk by the elves, it was a choice between that, or her dirty shirts- and Summer didn't quite fancy smelling like her brothers old socks. Her shirt's buttons were pulling around her chest, and her skirt only just covered her bum.

By now, most of her friends were sitting on the sofas, and when they saw Summer, each gave a different reaction. The girls yelled in encouragement, and the boys turned slightly warmer in colour, and Lee yelled out a 'whoop'.

"Take this," Fred threw Summer his sweater, and although it came down to her knees, it covered her bra at least.

"I would've let you borrow some of my uniform Summer, oh my god... Dumbledore wasn't kidding was he." Katie looked both sympathetic yet amused at the same time. Summer groaned and followed the rest out of the portrait hole for breakfast. She got so many stares, that even Fred noticed, and took her hand in his- squeezing it gently before they took their seats.

"Miss Blanchet, do you not have a school jumper in your own size?" McGonagall stopped the girl in the hallway after breakfast and Fred halted aswell.

"It was my only choice Professor, the elves shrunk my normal one, and well, you wouldn't like to see what's underneath."

"Very well, but you will need to purchase new uniform by next week. Normally the school would reimburse you, but I know of your financial situation so I presume it won't be a problem."

"No..." Her face began to turn red. "I'll get my brother to get it, thanks."

"Good, on with the rest of the day then." She shuffled past the pair and off back down the corridor as Summer groaned. Not only was she embarrassed that McGonagall had brought up her family's wealth in front of Fred, but now she had to somehow motivate Hayden to go to Diagon Alley, wrap and send her some new uniform.

"I'll write to mother and Hayden tonight, see if either can help me out."

"If not I'm sure my mum would, she'd love to help."

"That's sweet Fred, thanks." He smiled down at her and they shared a kiss before heading to their first lesson.

About half way through it however, Summer's hand began to sting. She gripped the sides of her desk in pain as Professor Flitwick continued talking about their upcoming topic. It wasn't until the pain graduated to searing, leading her to bite her lip so hard that it bled that Fred noticed something was wrong.

"What's going on?" He whispered to her from his desk.  She said nothing, her mouth frozen and feeling unable to process what she would reply with. She slammed her head down on the desk- a movement which she had no control over- and left it there as she cried onto her parchment. She heard Fred's voice again, this time loudly.

"I'll take her to the hospital wing Professor."

"Yes yes you better. Quickly!"

"Can you stand?" Fred spoke gently in her ear, yet all he received in response was a moan. Taking this as a no, he pulled her into sitting, then standing, and finally lifted her up, after her legs had become wobbly.
Summer knew that everyone in the class was staring at her, not their professor, and kept her eyes shut as they left the classroom. They walked for a moment before Fred sat down on some stone steps- resting Summer on his lap sideways, her legs over his and and her head leaning against his chest.

"Summer tell me what's wrong so I know what to tell Madame Pomfrey."

She stirred yet only continued crying, and Fred patiently stroked her hair over and over.

"Shh, it's alright. Is it your hand?" Summer nodded, and pulled it up from beside her for Fred to take into his and he gasped. The bloody writing which had been scabbing over, now glistened brightly with fresh blood, and the surrounding skin had turned pink and tender.

"What the..." He noticed Summer had been holding an arm over her stomach at all times that day, and fought with her to lift her shirt. He won, and when he saw the words on her stomach.

'Maybe this time it'll sink in.' Fred had no idea Umbridge could choose the placement of her punishments, let alone that Summer had even gone back for another detention that week. Nevertheless, he hastened his pace as he took her the full way to the hospital wing this time. Upon arrival, he placed her down on a bed and informed the matron of what he knew. She tutted.

"Something ought to be done about that woman. I have never seen such cruel punishment to children in my life," she said as she began mixing dark shades of purple together in a vial and applying it to some cotton. She applied it to Summer's hand first and Fred watched miserably as she screamed and her eyes found his. He broke from his state of shock and kneeled next to her, and offered his hand for her to hold. She didn't nearly break his hand until Madame Pomfrey was doing her stomach, during which, she writhed and squeezed Fred's hand harder than she ever had before.

When it was over, she looked exhausted, beads of sweat lay on her forehead, and her hair was a mess. Bandages had been wrapped around her hand and fixed onto her stomach, and Fred carefully pulled her jumper back down.

"Fuck me..." She rolled her head to the side and gazed tiredly at Fred.

"What the hell happened?"

"You... should know, you witnessed the whole thing. I couldn't even think."

"How come it randomly started hurting? When did she do that to your stomach? How? I-"

"Stop. I can't talk about this right now." Summer let go of Fred's hand and ever so slowly fluttered her eyes shut. He sighed in frustration and stood up.

"You better get back to your lesson Mr Weasley."

"Yeah... Will she be okay?"

"I'm positive. That potion heals wounds in no time. I expect she'll be out this evening."

"That's great," he said, and kissed Summer on the cheek. "I'll be back to get you in a few hours, love." Her face slid into a sort of smile, and he returned to charms.

The rest of the day was spent eagerly awaiting for the end of lessons, and the clock seemed to be going slower and slower. Finally, after the longest double ... lesson he'd ever had, Fred packed up his books and raced to the hospital wing. There he saw Summer, sitting upright on her bed, reading a book.

"Oh hey," she looked up when he came in, and put her book down. "Come to take me away I hope."

"Yes, let's go. I have your bag aswell," he held it up to show her, but when she tried to grab it, he moved it out the way. "No, I'll carry it don't worry." He gave her a hand to help her up, and together they thanked Madame Pomfrey.

"No Quidditch for the next two days remember!" She called after them.

"I know!" Summer replied.

"So, how about you come back to my dorm and we can spend the evening together." Fred suggested when they were alone in the corridor.

"I'd love to, but I'm sure I have so much to catch up on from today."

"No need. I used a spell to make copies of everything I wrote, it's all in your bag for you."

"Oh my gosh, really? Thank you," she side hugged him and looked extremely relieved. "I'll take you up on that offer then, I still feel so tired for some reason."

"I guess you're just feeling a little rundown still."

"Mm."

Finally they made it back to the common room, and the two were swarmed by their classmates, all asking some rendition of if Summer was okay.

"Yeah, it was nothing really," she didn't want to give anyone anything to be interested in.

Once upstairs, Fred rushed them into his room and shut the door behind himself.

"You wanna hang out here for a bit?"

"Yeah, why not." She walked over to the bed and sat down, laying back so that she was staring at the ceiling of the four poster.

"You sure you're okay?" Asked Fred, manoeuvring himself closer to her.

"Yeah, I'm sure," she lifted up her bandaged arm and made a feeble thumbs up, Fred tried to smile and lowered it carefully back to her lap. The two talked for a while, mainly Fred asking questions, or trying to make her laugh, then eventually, Summer drifted off in his arms, as Fred placed a gentle kiss on her forehead.