Too Close For Comfort

Grace had already made it through five years at Hogwarts and she had thought that her sixth would be the same as the others. The Enlightened had revealed magic to the world and she had to worry about her dad more than she ever had done before but even though things were tense inside the castle, Hogwarts was a safe haven for all of them and Grace was grateful for that. She’d had to deal with her group of former friends making her life hell ever since the start of her first year but she had developed a thick skin. Their words didn’t hurt her the way that they once had, there were times when they still hurt but at the end of the day she knew that she wouldn’t have to put up with them for too much longer and she tried to stay away from them as much as she could. She still didn’t know why they had turned on her the way they had done but she couldn’t change the way they felt about her and if she was honest she wasn’t sure that she really cared enough to either. They had showed her their true colours and she knew that she was better off without them. Now and then she found herself thinking back to the way things used to be but she knew that she couldn’t go back and change it so it was just one of those things. She had different people around her now anyway and that wasn’t a bad thing. Her group of friends was small, she didn’t like drawing too much attention to herself if she could help it and even though her dad had made it clear that journalists were to keep her out of any stories they printed about him the kids at school still knew what her dad did and that meant that a lot of them were able to figure out what she was as well so she tried not to give them too much to talk about if she could help it.

That day she had been doing nothing but mind her own business when her former friends decided to target her. She had been talking to Ryan and everything had been fine but when he left they’d seen to it that her necklace was taken from around her neck and it could have cost Grace her life. She was born a vampire which meant that she had never known what it was like to be human. That was something that the group liked to use against her, she had lost count of the amount of times since the start of the year that she had been called a cosmic mistake and told that she shouldn’t be at Hogwarts and that she should just let herself burn. Those words hurt more than she would ever let anyone know but she always tried to put on a brave face and it normally worked. It wasn’t her fault that she had been born different but the truth was that she didn’t blame her dad one bit either. He had wanted to start a family and the two of them were happy with their little family unit. That unit was gradually expanding to include Summer and her girls since her dad’s relationship with the woman seemed to be going well and Grace was glad that he was happy.

She knew that her dad would be fine if anything happened but that didn’t make the fact that she could have died that day any easier to deal with. If Bailey hadn’t helped her and she hadn’t been able to get a message to anyone then she would have been trapped outside and the spot she had managed to get to wouldn’t have stayed shady for too long. She was shaking as she made her way through the castle and she kept her head down, trying not to draw too much attention to herself. She eventually caught Samuel’s eye, though, and he insisted that she go with him after hugging her and telling her that it was going to be okay. She dried her eyes quickly, knowing that she couldn’t let herself break down yet. She didn’t like anyone seeing her as weak so she always tried to hold it together until she was alone. Samuel sat down next to her and wrapped his arm around her shoulders as they waited for his mum to arrive. Normally Grace would have shrugged his arm off but she didn’t have it in her to do that right now so instead she stayed where she was with her necklace still clutched in her hand and her eyes moved to the door as it opened. Grace opened her mouth to speak when Kirsten asked what had happened but she couldn’t find the words so she was relieved when Samuel broke the silence and said about going to get her some blood. She started nodding when Kirsten said she had some and Grace couldn’t deny that she was surprised but it was definitely a good thing. “I’ll be fine, don’t worry,” she assured Samuel as he asked if she would be alright on her own. “Thank you for staying with me,” she added, offering him a weak smile. He still hesitated a little but then he seemed to think better of it and he left the two of them alone as Kirsten went to get a blood bag for her. “Thank you,” she said, reaching out for it and opening it before taking a long drink from it. Lowering the bag, she wiped a hand across her mouth and could already feel her strength starting to return to her as she looked over at Kirsten. Reaching forward with a shaking hand, she held her necklace with its severed chain out to Kirsten. “I was outside earlier talking to Ryan but when he left to go to class my old friends had a girl steal my necklace from around my neck. I heard them laughing as I burned,” she explained, a shiver running down her spine at the memory. Her voice shook as she spoke knowing that she wouldn’t have to explain how serious it would have been if she hadn’t been able to find someone to hide. “They took it with them and left me out there.”

KIRSTEN MARIE MADDOX

Grace had known she’d had a target on her back even before she arrived at Hogwarts. Her friends had turned their backs on her before the start of her first year and she would be the first to admit that she wasn’t always very good at connecting with people. There were a few people that she was close to and they made being at Hogwarts special but there were more who didn’t want her to be there and they weren’t afraid to let her know it. Grace had grown pretty good at letting their words bounce off her, she had developed armour that let her keep it together when she was in the firing line but when she was alone it was sometimes a different matter. She had made it through five years at Hogwarts in one piece and she had hoped that this year would be the same but now she wasn’t so sure. No one had ever tried anything like this before and the truth was that it scared her. She knew that the Enlightened had scared everyone and now they were terrified of anyone who was different. Her dad was working hard to try and keep everyone safe and so were Professor Belacqua and Professor Maddox. They were all trying to stop the threat that was outside of Hogwarts from getting to any of them but, as it turned out, the threat for Grace was inside the school’s walls. She’d had the girls try hexing her in the past and they’d tried other things as well but she had always been able to hold her own until now. Grace wasn’t sure how long they had been planning this but they’d roped in another girl to do their dirty work and that told her that it wasn’t a spur of the moment thing. Bailey had helped her get back into the castle and the girl had helped her get her necklace back but the fact that they could even think about doing that was enough to shake her to the core. Right now she wanted nothing more than to see her dad but at the same time she didn’t really want him to see her like this. It was just the two of them and it had been throughout her whole life. He was always strong for her and everyone else and Grace tried to be strong for him in return. She didn’t like letting anyone see weakness in her not even her dad and she’d done so well at holding it together until Samuel found her and then a few tears had slipped through but she hadn’t let it be any more than that. She hadn’t broken down yet but she knew that chances were that would happen later. For now she just needed to get through this and even though she had kept most of what the girls had done to herself in the past, this was different. They had never tried to kill her before and she knew that she couldn’t let them get away with that.

Even though she knew that she was doing the right thing, it still wasn’t easy waiting for Professor Maddox to arrive back at her office. Grace wasn’t used to letting her armour slip but the events of the day had definitely dented it and she knew that she needed to do something. This wasn’t the first time someone had tried something like this, a year ago one of the dad of one of the Slytherin girls had tried to kill a Gryffindor girl and the Slytherin girl had then attacked her in front of everyone in the Great Hall afterwards. Things like that were bound to happen at Hogwarts and Grace had been attacked before but she had always been able to stand up for herself and she had never really minded doing it because she knew that it made her stronger. What they had done today was such a cowardly thing, instead of confronting her directly they had stolen her necklace and left her vulnerable. It was something that she hadn’t seen coming and even though she knew that the chain could be repaired and strengthened, she was starting to think that perhaps it might be time to make sure that she had a backup daylight amulet on her at all times just in case.

Right now having Samuel with her made her feel better but it was only when Professor Maddox arrived that she felt like she could breathe again. Watching Samuel go, Grace took the blood bag and took a long drink from it, already starting to feel her strength returning as she lowered the bag once more. Holding the necklace out to Professor Maddox, it felt strange giving it to someone else given that she’d had it for such a long time and it was so precious to her but she knew it was only temporary and it backed up her story. “I just need blood, the burns have already healed,” Grace said, doing her best to keep her voice level before she took another sip. There were things that blood alone couldn’t heal her from but fortunately when it came to damage from the sun her healing had kicked in and now it was just getting back to full strength that she needed to think about. Truth be told she didn’t want to draw too much attention to herself right now and she knew that going to the Hospital Wing while she recovered would do just that so it wasn’t an option as far as she was concerned. “I’m not sure. It felt like a lifetime but it couldn’t have been that long. I managed to get to some shade but it wouldn’t have stayed that way for long,” she admitted. The sun had been moving in a way that would have seen her spot bathed in sunlight it she had stayed there too long and that hadn’t been an option. She’d tried to remember what her dad had told her to do if she ever caught herself stuck outside without her necklace but it had taken a while for the memory to come to mind. “I don’t know the name of the girl who took it but she came back to help me. I’m not sure she realised what my necklace is,” she explained. The girl had done an awful thing but she’d tried to make it right and Grace knew that without her help then she wouldn’t still be here. “I had to fight them to get it back but the girl helped me with that too,” she added, her hand forming a fist as she recalled it connecting with the ring leader’s face. She had been acting on pure adrenaline then but it had gone now and it was all starting to hit her properly, enough that she had to quickly blink away the tears that formed in her eyes.

KIRSTEN MARIE MADDOX

Grace hated feeling like this – throughout her whole life she couldn’t remember ever having felt this weak before. She was used to putting on a brave face when she was around others and making out that what people said about her didn’t affect her at all but when she was on her own it was a different matter entirely. She’d had to develop a thick skin in order to get by, it wasn’t her fault that she was born a vampire and she didn’t blame her dad in any way either, she blamed the other students for being so ignorant. She wasn’t the first of her kind, there were others who were born to two vampire parents and were just like her and she wouldn’t be surprised if they’d been met with some level of scrutiny for that as well but she wasn’t sure whether they had ever had something like this done to them. Summer had never mentioned going through anything like it but Grace knew that she was definitely going to have to ask her the next time she saw her. It was one thing for someone to hurl insults at her or make snide comments when she walked by and her former friends had even tried to curse her when her back was turned on more than a few occasions but this was something else entirely. This time they had tried to kill her and she honestly had no idea what could have driven them to do that. She knew she hadn’t done anything bad enough to deserve that from them but they had tried it anyway. She had managed to keep it together for the most part until she got to Professor Maddox’s office, only a few tears escaping when Samuel had hugged her, but now the shock of it all was setting in and she felt numb. Her hand shook as she handed the necklace over to Professor Maddox but the blood helped to steady her a little and she was grateful for that.

Samuel had seen her shed a few tears when he found her but Grace never liked letting people see her cry. The adrenaline was starting to wear off now but Grace knew that she still didn’t want to break down now, not here. It would be different when she was alone but for the time being she knew that giving in would only make it worse. She needed to tell Professor Maddox what had happened so the girls could be punished and there was a part of Grace that hoped that she was never going to have to see them again. She had held her own against them for the last six years but she didn’t feel safe being around them any longer after seeing just how far they were prepared to go. She knew she wasn’t completely innocent in all of it, she had said things to them as well but she had never tried to hurt any of them and when she had fought back it had only ever been in self-defence. As Professor Maddox asked about the girl who had helped her, Grace shook her head. “I don’t think so. When the others left she came over to where I was hiding and tried to shield me from the sun. It was weird, she said she didn’t care what happened to me but that she was sorry she hurt me. She was in Slytherin too and around my age I think. When I asked why she did it she refused to answer but said that wouldn’t be a question if I knew her family,” she explained, not sure whether that would help narrow it down a little. Grace got the feeling that the girl was probably from one of the pureblood elitist families but she wasn’t certain. Grace was surprised when Professor Maddox sat down next to her and pulled her into a hug. The way she started rocking was enough to remind Grace of her dad, he used to do that to comfort her when she was little and she wrapped her arms around Professor Maddox in return as a few more tears rolled down her cheeks. She couldn’t let the floodgates open, not yet, but for the first time since it happened she really did feel safe. “What’s going to happen to them?” Grace asked when she found her voice at last although she made no attempt to break the hug, knowing that she needed to know so she could prepare herself for what was to come.

KIRSTEN MARIE MADDOX