Twenty-Twenty Hindsight

Chapter Seven

After that, he stopped hitting me for a long time. Through the end of winter and early spring, I would receive a beating every few days for one thing or another. But I think that he stopped because he realized that people were beginning to notice. He didn't want anyone - especially not my friends - to know what he was doing to me.

That was the best time in our relationship. We actually grew very close; closer than we had become during January, when practically all we did was talk to each other in carefully whispered conversations in the library.

He actually brought me flowers one day when we had decided to go for a walk through the grounds. It was our four-month anniversary, he told me. I wasn't sure he was entirely accurate, but I accepted them anyway. It was the sweetest thing he had ever done for me.

Because I was so happy, and I thought that our relationship might actually work out, I started eating more. Slowly at first, then I ate almost-normal-sized meals. I think that I had gone for so long eating half a roll - or less - at meal times that it was difficult for me to eat even a regular-sized meal without feeling sick to my stomach.

I also started sleeping more. I felt like I no longer had anything to worry about, so there were no terrified thoughts going through my head at night to keep me awake. I still studied late into the night, but I was now getting five or six hours of sleep every night, compared to the one or two hours I had been getting for the past few months.

Cynna and Alexis started to lay off, as well. They noticed that I was eating more; that I seemed more rested, happier; that I was talking to people again. He even started letting me go to our weekly parties again. I went every two weeks, usually. On the odd weeks, he and I would either sneak into Hogsmeade for a dinner out - on him - or we would spend a nice evening alone in his room or in the grounds, depending on the weather.

I should have felt neglected that, at this point, Ron, Hermione and Harry hadn't noticed anything different about me - except, perhaps, my weight loss. Even then, Hermione had only approached me about it once, asking if I was on a diet. I said no, I was just losing my baby fat, and she let it alone.

My physical wounds were healing, too. The almost constant pain in my ribs and legs that I had felt since February subsided, making me stand tall - at least, as tall as my short stature would allow - once again. Bruises I'd had for weeks disappeared, and I got a bit of colour back in my once-pale cheeks, although that might have simply been the warm air of spring allowing me to spend long, leisurely hours outside again.

He seemed to be happier as well. Maybe it was my imagination; maybe he was really changing a bit; maybe his father was backing off. Whatever the reason, he smiled more, and was much more openly affectionate towards me.

Ron, Hermione and Harry learned of our relationship at that point. I wasn't too bothered that it had taken them that long to put two and two together. By that time, I had managed to get Cynna and Alexis back on my side about my relationship with him. Everyone said we were the cutest couple in the school, and that made the eventual confrontation between myself and the Wonder Trio that much less...confrontational. I explained to them that we were in love, that he made me happy, and there was nothing they could say or do to change that.

I'm a little surprised that Hermione, at least, didn't see through the layers of lies and deceit that I had built up over the past few months. When you get that good at hiding something so major, even when things are going relatively smoothly you can't help but cover some things up. Being the most perceptive of the three, I had felt sure that, months ago, Hermione would be the first - and possibly only - person on my case about us. But I suppose that they had their own issues to deal with: Ron and Hermione had started dating and they were figuring out how to break the news to Harry with as little resistance as possible. He already knew, and I later found out that he only kept that from them because he enjoyed watching them tiptoe around the subject awkwardly.

Maybe at one point I would have found that sort of sadistic, but, being one who has kept many secrets from many people, I could understand the appeal of it.

May melted seamlessly into June, the weather growing steadily warmer. Things just kept getting better; I had chosen my subjects for sixth year and was one hundred percent prepared for OWLs. I leafed through my notes a few times a week to keep them fresh in my mind, but I had much more spare time than most fifth years.

I don't know what happened. I felt, in the back of my mind, that everything seemed too good to be true. But I brushed the thought aside carelessly.

That was the stupidest mistake I have ever made in my life.