"I have learned now that while those who speak about one's miseries usually hurt, those who keep silence hurt more."

― C. S. Lewis

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I stumble into Dippet's office. I was still stunned.

"What was THAT!!" Abaddon shrieks and I flinch, waking up from my silent stupor.

"I-I don't know." I breathe, and sit down, trying to calm down. "He talked to me?!" I gasp and cover my head with my hands. "Abaddon?" I ask, and I hear him sigh in my head.

"I don't know. I honestly don't know, Val." He cringes.

"I'm bleeding. He hurt me!? I wasn't even there!" I shriek, my breathing becoming heavier and quicker.

"I'm sorry, Valentine," Abaddon whispers. "I know that wasn't what you wanted to see. You were dead young one."

"Valentine?" I hear someone ask, and I look up, still trying to breathe properly. My vision was distorted.

Someone rushes up and grabs me in a hug. "Val? My goodness! What happened, dear!?" Pan demands and I hug her back.

She reminded me of Luna. She reminded me of home.

"You're bleeding!" She gasps.

"Valentine! Tell me what happened?! Did someone hurt you?!" She demands and I nod, resting my head in her lap as she sat beside me.

"Who hurt you? I'll kill him!" She scowls, and I laugh, tears blurring in my vision. I burst out laughing so loud, my laughs begin to be contorted into sobs. I was laughing and crying at the same time.

I was having a mental break down, and I'm pretty sure Pan knew that. She holds me closer to her, hugging me tightly.

"Shhh. It's okay. I'm here now. No one is here. Just me. Pandora. You're friend, Pan." She whispers and starts playing with my hair, letting it out of its tight ponytail. "Shhhh." She starts humming a song.

The song has my heart clenching even more, and I sob even more. It was the song Luna hummed all the time. She hummed it in the same sing-song voice as her great-great-grand-daughter. I listened to it, feeling more homesick than ever before.

She stops humming, making me sit up and stare at her. Her pale eyes meet mine gently. "Who hurt you, Val?" She asks, making me shake my head, wiping my tears. I was so stressed. My emotions were overflowing, but the crying session had helped more than I liked to admit.

Breathing in, I release a shaky breath and bring my knees up, hugging them before I answered her.

"I didn't recognize him."

No, I did not recognize that man. That man was a stranger. He answered to his true name, but that wasn't Tom Riddle. That was the man who killed my parents.

That was the man who killed my sister and her husband.

He left four kids as orphans that day.

Ettie and Harry.... the twins who lived, were barely living.

Petunia, the one who raised the twins projecting her own resentment and sorrow on the pair.

And myself.

I survived that day. Somehow, I survived.

I lived and continued living every day with a desperate need to stop.

No, that man was unrecognizable to me. The man who had whispered my name like a melody on his snake-like lips... like a dehydrated man seeing water for the first time.

That was no man.

That was a monster.

I touch my cheek gently, and I shake my head, looking up at Pan. "I didn't recognize him," I confirm, making her eyes soften even more.

"Come on. Let's get you cleaned up." She says and helps me up.

"Why are you awake?" I ask her. She smiles in response.

"I had some things to do. Dippet wanted them done by tomorrow." She sighs, and I notice the exhausted look on her face.

"Let's get my cut healed, and I'll help you." I grin at her. She whirls around to stare at me, eyes wide.

"No, Valentine! You're traumatized." She gapes, and I scoff.

"No, I'm not. I'm shaken. I've been through worse, believe me." I say softly then, I beam at her. My smile was cracking, and I'm sure she saw the sorrow buried within its depths because she nods slowly.

"Okay, if you insist." She asks, tentatively.

"I do."

She links her arm through mine and gives me a meaningful look. "Val, you don't only have to depend on yourself anymore."

I give her a questioning look, but she shakes her head.

"You have me to lean on. You have Abigail. You have Claude and Chris..... Greta when she wakes up." She adds softly. "We're a team. Us five have always been friends since first year, but we've grown closer this year. You're one of us now. You're family, and we take care of our own." Pan declares, silencing my rant.

"I'm always here if you ever need to talk." She adds, making me smile at her.

"You're the best, Pan. You know that?" I ask, grinning, and she gives me a look.

"Of course I do. I'm spectacular." She scoffs, making me laugh.

"You'd get along with Riddle fabulously."

"You still didn't tell me how you two grew to know each other?!" She demands, and I chuckle.

"We grew close over the Christmas holidays. Ironic isn't is. The two orphans being friends." I muse, making her shrug. The fact that we are both orphans was gossip known throughout the whole school.

"Not really. Friends are made when they bond over something in common." Pan muses. "For us, it was our need for friendship that made our group become close friends. You are an intellect very much like myself, so we became close easily. You share the same sense of humour as Chris and Claude. You are exceedingly kind, making you easy friends with Abigail and Greta." She tells me, and then I chuckle, shaking my head.

"Greta bless her heart would be friends with anyone," I say, making her nod in agreement.

"Authentic truth to those words." Pan agrees.

"You and Riddle bonded over something you both share as well." She continues. I look at her, eyebrow raised.

"Our growing habit of annoying each other." I scoff, making her laughs.

"No, although that is very entertaining to watch." She gives me a look, and I shrug.

"You bonded over pain."

I grow silent.

"Building a base over something so unstable is dangerous," I tell her.

"Building a base in water is possible. Nothing is more unstable than water. It's not even a solid."

"We don't build architecture directly in the water, we build it in the sand under it." I grow confused.

"Exactly."

"Exactly what?"

"You bonded over the pain in the beginning and then bonded over other things as time moved on."

I look at her bewilderment, my jaw dropping. She laughs at my expression. "I know. I'm amazing." She grins, making me nod slowly.

"Hell yeah, you are." I smile as she leads me into the Infirmary.

Abby was on Greta watch tonight. She was asleep on the chair beside Greta's bed.

I smile at the sight, and we continue deeper in the Infirmary. We wake up Madame Strout, and she stops the bleeding from my cheek with a wave of her wand. There had been poison in the cut, preventing it from healing.

The words make my blood freeze.

What kind of sick person dipped his nails in poison?

Voldemort. Voldemort was that sick, tormented person.

"Who gave you this cut, girl?" Madame Stout asks me, and I tell her the same thing I told Pan.

"I didn't recognize the man that did it."

She lets us leave after placing gauze on my cheek, with a healing potion dabbed on it. We walk into the Infirmary, and I try to grab Pan to lead her out of the room, but she was frozen in place.

"Pan?" I ask and move to stand in front of her. "Pan, are you alright?" I ask.

Her jaw had dropped open, and she was staring at something behind me. She points, and I whirl around to see what has stunned her so much.

I let out a shriek of pure surprise, jumping back into Pan.

"You see her, too, right?" I ask, and she nods, tears brimming in her eyes. I sniffle, and tears come to my own eyes.

There was Greta, sitting up, and staring at us with her usual calming, bright smile. I didn't realize how much I missed that smile until I'd gone weeks without it.

"G-Greta?" Pan asks, and Greta grins, nodding, her own eyes brimming with tears.

Pan lets out a happy cry of joy and leaps at her childhood friend, engulfing her in a hug. She was sobbing, and I had to put a hand to mouth to keep from crying myself. I move and grab Greta's hand, holding it tightly, as if she might disappear in a second. I engulf her in a hug of my own. Pan never let go of her once.

"You're a-awake!!" Pan cries, sniffling and sobbing into Greta's hospital robe.

"I'm awake Panny." Greta says in her usual musical voice.

"W-what's going on?" Abby slurs in her sleep, yawning.

"Hi, Abby." Greta greets her friend, turning to give my hand a humorous squeeze.

"Hi, Greta," Abby answers, yawning as she rubbed at her eyes, exhausted. her words register in her brain, and she freezes, eyes slamming open. "OH MY GOD GRETA!!" She screams and leaps on all three of us.

She starts crying too.

"D-don't DO THAT ANYMORE!!" She screams. "I saw you die." Abby wails, grabbing Greta in a hug so ferocious I was scared for her ribs.

"You alright?" I say in-between my crying. "Any pain?" I ask and instantly, as if my words were a nuclear bomb, the two girls leap off of Greta.

"GRETA!! Are you in pain!!??" Pan shrieks and my hospitalized friend bursts out laughing.

"I'm fine, guys. Honestly." She beams at us, and Abby shakes her head frantically.

"I'm getting Madame Strout." She demands.

"No need."

Madame Strout chides us and gives all of us withering glares. "You woke up the entire country with your screaming. Honestly, girls." She demands and then gives Greta a soft look.

"Welcome back, Ms. Ollivander." She tells her and Greta smiles back.

"Happy to be back madame."

Madame Strout proceeds to check all of Greta's vials and then looks at all of our impatient, waiting looks in amusement. "Your friend is fine. She needs a good night's sleep and then she'll be alright to go back to school tomorrow. I'm going to send a letter to the Ollivanders." She informs us.

"My parents were here?" Greta asks, sitting up and looking desperate. "Both of them?"

Her eyes were hopeful, and I send her smile, answering her before Madame Strout could. "Yeah, Greta. Both of your parents were here." I answer, making her whole face light up.

"My brother too?" She asks, almost in tears.

"Your brother, too," I answer again.

Her whole body relaxes, and she looked so relieved she might've started crying, had it not been for her audience.

"Are they safe?" She demands, grabbing my hand. She knew from the look in my eyes that I knew more than I should've.

I give her hand a reassuring squeeze and look her dead in the eyes. Her grey eyes both cloudy storms clear into soft, transparent grey skies with shimmering suns in them at my next words.

"They're safe."

"Numbing the pain for a while will make it worse when you finally feel it."
― J.K. Rowling,