Entry tags:

! log, 1998-march, x-character: delilah selwyn, x-character: kevin entwhistle

WHO: Delilah Selwyn and Kevin Entwhistle.
WHAT: Comforting, talking.
WHEN: Tuesday, March 3rd.
WHERE: Abandoned classroom.
RATING: TRIGGER WARNINGS: High for mentions of abuse, language, violence, suicidal thoughts, etc.
STATUS: Complete.

The last two days had been awful. Kevin had stayed with her through most of Saturday, but after that the two had sort of separated and Delilah went into hiding. Only, there weren’t any good places to hide. She couldn’t stay in her room all through Sunday, even if she had wanted to. Anytime Daphne got near, the pain was searing. Fortunately, Daphne didn’t want to be anywhere near her. Delilah spent a lot of time wandering around the castle, hexing any kid who got on her nerves. She didn’t sleep at all.

Monday had been just as bad, if not worse. She sat as far away from Daphne as possible, though she felt the still burning sensation bothering her throughout the whole time. In the hallways she had to hang back, be late to each class in hopes that she didn’t get too near Daphne and end up writhing in pain. Monday night brought the same issue that Sunday had - she couldn’t sleep in her own room, in her own bed, because the pain would be near unbearable. She slept in a chair by the fire - only to be woken up in agony by Daphne leaving for class.

It was Tuesday now, though the days were starting to just seem long and bleak and they all ran together. She went through the motions of classes, but by dinnertime she just couldn’t. She couldn’t sit at that table, as miserable as she was. She couldn’t look at Daphne, she couldn’t do anything. and Kevin - oh, Kevin. She didn’t know what to do or say to him. She avoided his gaze at every interval, ran when she saw him. She spent two whole days in complete fear and agony wondering when the other shoe would drop. When they would all know she was a muggleborn.

Overwhelmed, Delilah took refuge in the place she knew no one ever went, aside from Kevin on a few occasions. Her room, an old abandoned classroom that was dark and musty and filled with broken junk. She sat on the broken couch, tilted to one side, her forehead pressed into her knees she had pressed to her chest, arms wrapped around herself. Just crying, because there was so much in her that needed to come out. Crying, and crying, even though the tears just weren’t enough.

Kevin had done his best to keep to himself. Delilah was pretending like he didn’t exist, Daphne kept glaring at him every time he glanced toward her - which wasn’t really any different than it’d always been except...given the context, it all felt wrong. Like they all knew something that nobody else did, and they all hated each other for knowing it. So naturally Kevin went back to sulking, and pretending not to exist, and let Delilah do whatever it was she was doing.

It was hard to miss certain things, though - like having to walk past Delilah on the way to class in the morning, because she was sleeping in the common room. So maybe him going back to her room - the broken classroom - was on purpose. An attempt to catch her away from people, to see if she really wanted to ignore me and be left alone. Because it was getting hard to tell the difference lately.

In between classes, Kevin slipped into the abandoned class room, closing the door behind him. “Delilah?” He asked quietly.

---

She hadn’t expect him to come find her. She knew what he must be feeling - betrayed, first, and then confused. Everything had sort of all just crumbled at the same time, and it must have left him reeling. But she had hoped he would come. She had no one else - and it wasn’t just because she had no one else, that she wanted him. She just… wanted him. Delilah had no rhyme or reason for it, no understanding of why she wanted him in particular. She kept telling herself it was only because he was an outcast, too. But really, that wasn’t it at all.

Of course, just because she wanted him to come didn’t mean she wasn’t startled when she heard his voice. She flinched and wiped her tears, grabbing her wand up immediately. But it was Kevin, and she relaxed just slightly, setting her wand back down beside her. “Oh.” She said softly, unsure of what else there was to possibly say. What did he even want to hear from her, if anything at all? That she had let him suffer for five years because she was afraid? Because she had to? It probably wouldn’t matter what her reasoning was. She was sure Kevin hated her.

“Do you need something? Because I’m really just not in the - “ She couldn’t even finish the sentence, her voice cracked a little and her face crumpled, she went back to pushing her face into her knees, just trying to breathe.

---

Kevin hadn’t really decided what he felt yet. He could feel betrayed, pissed, resentful, maybe even sad, that she would befriend him in their last year together, after she watched him suffer for five years, without doing shit for him. He could. He just wasn’t sure he had the energy in him to feel those emotions, after he saw what happened between Delilah and her father.

“Do you…” Kevin paused. He didn’t really get closer to her, but he didn’t really leave the room either. “Want me to go? Because I can - like go - I just thought you might want to talk to someone, or something. But I can go.”

---

He asked if she wanted him to go, and Delilah honestly didn’t know the answer. She didn’t want him to stay because she felt guilty, and guilt was a whole other load of feelings she did not need to have right now. But she wanted him to stay because she was lonely, so heart wrenchingly lonely, and he knew it all. He knew everything. Basically, anyway. Not ever detail, but he knew.

“I don’t know.” She replied finally, after the silence had stretched on for a bit too long. “I just - I don’t know what to say to you.” She didn’t lift her head for any of this. It was like she didn’t have the energy to even move. “I’ve treated you like shit for years and what, expect you to comfort me now?” Delilah sighed heavily. “I understand if you hate me, too.” Said quietly, she sounded sort of pained by it.

“So its up to you I guess. If you want to stay or go.”

---

Kevin probably knew everything; or probably everything that mattered. Which was a really massive inconvenience for him, because now he couldn’t stop thinking about it and reacting to it, and worrying about it. Right now, all he could think about was that the last time he’d spoken to Delilah, she’d told him that her father was going to kill her. Something like that kind of made it hard to be pissed at her.

Kevin moved forward, into the room, clearly making his decision. “It’s alright,” he said. “Everybody’s treated me like shit. I’ll get over it.” It was an extremely detached way of looking at it - a way he seriously did not have most of the time. But he could either dismiss it, or kick her while she was already crying. But her telling him that she didn’t know what to say to him was kind of… terrifying. Things were changing now. He wasn’t sure if he wanted them to.

“Do you want to talk?” He asked, sitting down on the couch beside Delilah, but not too close. “About you, I mean. Or we can just sit here, in silence. I don’t really mind. I don’t really know what to do here.”

---

He wanted to stay, shrugging off the bit about being treated like shit always. That didn’t make her feel any better, not even the slightest. It just made her feel worse. But what could she have done? At that age - they were barely turning thirteen, she’d only known about her own heritage for just about two years, she had been too afraid to tell him. Too afraid to reach out. Her father would kill her - she was still reeling from the several attempts he had already tried when he found out. She just couldn’t do it. Couldn’t risk it.

But it was different now. She did trust Kevin, a bit. Their growing friendship was sporadic at best, their feelings towards each other new and strange, never quite sure if they were actually friends or not. But it was different. He asked if she wanted to talk, or sit in silence, and she had no answer. She lifted her head up finally to look at him, before she just sort of put herself on him - her face on his chest, her arms wrapped around his middle. She just needed something, some contact. She was so love-starved, so affection deprived.

“Talk about how my dad hits me, my mum ignores me, my dad has tried and failed to kill me more than once, you know the biggest secret of my life, the first happy thing I’ve had is dead and gone with Daphne who might tell everyone I’m a mudblood and get me killed because I know too much and have betrayed them all when I had no choice? Yeah, let’s talk about that.”

---

Okay, he hadn’t expected Delilah to launch herself at him, but he was just going to go with it. It took him a minute to move to rub her back slowly. “At least your sarcasm’s still mildly intact,” he said dryly. He didn’t even really want to know about any of that - he didn’t want to know what her life was at home, or how often her father tried to kill her or any of that shit. Because the more he knew, the more he felt the need to do something about it. Tell someone about it.

“Or… we could talk about something else, too,” he offered. “Like, you know, the weather’s not quite as shite as it was last week. It has potential to be damn near not terrible by the time we get back on the qudditch field. So that’s… good. My mum sent me some lemon squares… if you want some,” he added, but he didn’t really pause in his rubbing of her back, even while he floundered for other less pressing things to talk about.

---

This was nice. It was comforting. It’s exactly what she would have wanted from Daphne, but that wasn’t possible. But Kevin - Kevin could, and it was nice, and maybe it was even better. She didn’t know, her mind was so screwed up. She had no idea what she was doing here, with him, in this room. But he knew it all, basically, maybe not the details or the motivations or whatever, but he knew everything. And he still wanted to comfort her. He had his hand on her back and he was holding her and it was so fucking nice.

“I don’t want to talk about the weather, or the lemon squares your mum sent you because she loves you.” She said, trying not to cry again. She didn’t want to sound bitter, but she honestly didn’t want to talk about anything. She didn’t want to do anything. She was having trouble wanting to just exist. Everything felt so awful, she didn’t know where to even go from here. “I just. I can’t do this.” She said, finally pulling herself away and standing up, walking to the window, away from Kevin, turning her back on him. “I can’t do any of this anymore.”

---
Kevin grimaced, okay, bringing up his mum was a terrible idea. He hadn’t meant to - it was just so natural for him. Well - natural now that he could actually bring her up. “Sorry,” he said automatically.

And then she was pulling away, and Kevin frowned. He stood up too, but he didn’t really follow her or move much beyond that. He didn’t know what was too much, or what was too little. “What do you mean?” He asked. “What can you do if you can’t do this anymore?”

----


Delilah didn’t turn back, she didn’t want to look at him. Because he’d give her that look - the one that said he cared and some shit. “What do you think I mean?” She responded, a little more malice in her voice than she intended, coupled with a sort of sense that she’d given up. “I have no options. I have nothing to look forward to.” She replied, leaning against the window, staring out. It was pretty far up.

“If, for some reason, this never gets out among our peers? That’s a bloody miracle, but if it doesn’t? Then best case, I have four months left to just worry about it happening until I what? Leave Hogwarts, leave London, leave everything to go hide out and never show my face in the magical world again?” That wasn’t exactly something to look forward to. It had been looming at her for so long, and there was that slight hope she could run away with Daphne and now that was gone, too.

She just had… nothing.

---

“So what if we told someone,” Kevin said bluntly, quickly, because he couldn’t stop thinking about it. “What it we told a teacher, about your father, about you? About him trying to kill you. If he’s at Azkaban, Delilah, he can’t touch you - nobody can - if they’re in prison. Why not -” He continued, quickly, rambling, like he expected her to cut him off because he knew he was broaching a topic she wasn’t a fan of.

---

She turned around quickly and rushed up to him, covering his mouth with her hand. “Shut up, stop it.” Delilah stood there for a moment, frozen in panic, before she let her hand drop. “We can’t tell anyone, okay? We can never, ever tell anyone.” She remained there, close, trying to force the idea into him that it couldn’t be discussed, with anyone else, ever. “Please. You can’t let anyone know. My dad’ll find someone else to kill me. Besides, he’s not the only one who’s going to want me dead if this gets out.”

---

Kevin clammed up as soon as Delilah spun around. He even took a few faltering steps back before she clapped her hand over his mouth. His eyes widened, but it wasn’t meant to threaten, not really. It was just meant to shut him up. It was probably naive of him, to think that this could all be fixed just by getting Delilah’s father out of the picture. Even after her hand dropped, her eyes remained locked onto his, drilling that message home. “Then what are we supposed to do? If you’re just going to give up?” He snapped, frustrated. But he didn’t move. He felt more helpless than he should - since this wasn’t actually his problem, he just had the burden of knowledge. “If you give up, you’re dead anyways. You might as well lock the bastard up while you’re at it.”

---

“Great, fantastic, my options are so fucking brilliant aren’t they?” She said, frustrated. They were both mad, with the incapability of doing anything. It was like they were both frozen in this moment, where they could either fall off a cliff, or live. Except for Delilah it was just on a precipe, fall one way or the other. Take someone with her or not. She couldn’t stand this, she couldn’t stand any of it. Feeling the anger raising, she turned around and smacked the nearest thing she could - a few books all broken and jumbled off - and sent them flying across the room.

“I quit. I’m done. I can’t.” She went back to the window, gripping the edge of it tightly as she tried to stop, tried to breathe, tried anything she could to just make it stop. The shaking, the confusion. She wanted to be sick. She just… There was no hope. None at all. “I don’t know what to do, Kevin. I don’t have answers. If I had answers, do you think I wouldn’t have done something earlier?” She pressed her face into the glass of the window, the coolness of it helping calm her down.

“Why are you asking me what to do? I don’t fucking know. I’ve been living with this for seven years and haven’t figured it out, just because someone has finally seen what shit my life is doesn’t change it.”

---

That only made Kevin more frustrated. It didn’t make him angry at Delilah, though maybe it should have. But she didn’t have any answers here, she was - for all he could see - a victim in this. He was angry because of her - for her. He was angry at this whole goddamn system, the same system he’d been hating for the last five years. Where the less have more. It was insane that they gave so few people so much goddamn power and control. It was ridiculous that Delilah’s father had connections and protections he didn’t deserve, just because he was pure, just because he was malicious, dangerous.

Kevin was once again reminded that he wanted nothing more than to kill the man himself. To remove Delilah from the situation entirely, even at the risk of himself. And it was an extremely intense emotion to have for someone he wasn’t even sure he was friends with. Someone he hated mere weeks ago. Someone he tried not to speak to mere months ago.

“So you’re just going to quit then?” He demanded, his voice way more clipped and short than he wanted it to be. “Wait for him to kill you, have them write your murder off, so nothing happens to him? So what? They can win? Again? That’s what you want to be?” He continued, demanding, as he took a step forward. “You want your entire life to be a footnote in their successes? That’s bullshit. And pathetic.”

---

“I’m not going to fucking wait for anything. Don’t you get it?” She said, turning to him again, though only briefly. She couldn’t look at his face. The injustice, and all, she could see it in his expression. He was so goddamn emotive. She looked back out the window. Did these windows open? “I’m not waiting for it, I’m not giving him that satisfaction. I’ll do it myself.” The last part was said quietly, her forehead pressed to the glass and her hands clutching the edge. If she could just will the glass away.

“I don’t care if it’s bullshit or pathetic. There’s nothing else to do. There’s no hope. I have nothing. I don’t even have - ” She was going to say a friend, but she didn’t know. She wanted Kevin to be her friend, but it was selfish. She was selfish. Delilah was selfish in so many ways, it was fitting for her to end it all herself and not give her father that satisfaction. But she didn’t want to call Kevin her friend, because she was sure he didn’t feel the same. How could he? She was awful. “I just have nothing. So thats it. End of story.”

---

Kevin’s frown mutated into a scowl and then deepened further. “There’s nothing else -” he echoed, clearly at a lost. He moved forward, grabbing Delilah’s arm and pulled her, somewhat roughly, back from the window, turning her toward him. “No,” he said. “You’re giving up, fine. You can give up. But I’m not going to. And I’m going to keep going enough for the both of us. You can give up, but I’m gonna carry you, Delilah. So whatever you’re thinking ‘bout right now, you can forget it, because I’m not going to let you. I’m going to protect you, even if it’s against you.”

---

She was pulled from the window and started to say something like, hey! but she stopped. Delilah just stopped, and listened to what he had to say. Because he was monologuing again, but not in the annoying way, not in the explanatory way or just to talk. It was to tell her he wouldn’t let her give up. It was a declaration of some sort of protection, friendship, that he wasn’t going anywhere. Delilah had no idea what else to do, what else to say. She broke down into tears again, unmoving, just standing stock still and crying. “I don’t want to live through this, Kevin. I don’t think I can.”

---

That was the most heartbreaking thing Kevin had ever heard. He didn’t know what you had to live through to get to the point that it got too painful to live. He’d gone through a lot, but he’d never thought that it was too much to live through - to the point that he didn’t want to live through it.

Kevin hesitated, and then took a step closer, wrapping his arms around Delilah, pulling her close - because what the fuck else was he supposed to do when someone cried? And Merlin, Delilah had been crying a lot in front of him. But he’d also noticed that she hadn’t been crying in front of anyone else. He wasn’t selfish enough to ask her to stop.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m being selfish, I’m a dick.” Because he didn’t want to deal with the guilt from her killing herself, or her father killing her - he didn’t want that to be his fault, for having known and done nothing. “You don’t have to live - you just - you just need to hang on, a little while longer, so I can figure something out. You don’t have to live, just don’t fucking die.”

---

He held her, and she leaned into him, breathing him in. He had a nice smell. It wasn’t something she’d ever noticed before, or even thought of. But in all this turmoil, the one thing that could get Delilah to stop and think for a minute, was physical contact. She had lacked it her whole life - except for those four, beautiful years after she was adopted. But before that, and since then, she hadn’t been so much as hugged by anyone with any real affection. An arm around her shoulder from her dad or mum when they were in public. A quick hug from Calliope or Gwen or Pansy that really meant nothing.

Daphne was the first person to give her anything real, and that was gone, too. But here was Kevin, holding her, pleading with her - not to die. Just not to die. She didn’t have to do anything but survive. “Okay, okay.” She said, softly, moving her arms just a bit so she could wrap them back around him. She’d give that to him, that promise. She wouldn’t die - not yet, anyway. She’d let Kevin try and fix it, even though she knew it could never really be fixed. She’d let him try. And if he could, she’d love him forever.

Not that she would tell him that.

“I’m so sorry, Kevin.”

---

Kevin tightened the hug just a little at her apology. He didn’t much like apologies, especially when they were said the way Delilah said them. He didn’t know what she was specifically apologizing for; he wasn’t sure he wanted to know.

“Don’t,” he said, hugging her tight. “Don’t worry about it. I don’t hate you, you didn’t do anything wrong, don’t apologize to me.”

---

“I was awful to you, though.” She said, unaccepting of his refusal to take her apology. She held him tightly, not wanting to let go - no, not just that, she couldn’t let go. She needed this, needed him. It was selfish and stupid and completely irrational, but there it was. Delilah held him tightly.

“I hexed you, I was mean, and unforgiving. I - used you to punish myself. For everything.” She buried her face into his neck, her tears clinging to his skin, her body clinging to his. “I was awful, and you deserve an apology even if it’s been far, far too long and it means nothing now.” But she couldn’t just not. Not when he wanted to keep her alive, keep her from herself. When he had done so much already, in such a short time and when she didn’t deserve it at all.

---

It wasn’t that Kevin didn’t need the apology, it was just that he’d never expected one, so he’d stopped wanting one, and now that he got one - he didn’t know what to do with it, where to put it, what he’d planned on doing with it when he’d wanted it. It was like an unwelcome house guest who used to live with you - it did nothing but make him uncomfortable now.

“Okay,” he said carefully. He hesitated, and then smoothed a hand over her hair, kind of hugging her head to his chest, but gently - cautiously. He wasn’t the greatest with emotions, maybe his skin had gotten too tough for it. He could do all the hard, vile emotions - the hate, the anger, the violence - he could handle all of those just fine. But a girl clinging to him, crying into his neck, like she were afloat and he was her last life line… he didn’t know what to do with that, he didn’t know how to make it better. How to handle it. He swallowed hard.

“It’s okay,” he said softly. “I forgive you.” Because that was it, wasn’t it? So many of these kids here were so harsh, so steadfast in their behavior, so unforgiving, that the best thing Kevin could be to throw it into balance was to be their opposite. To be forgiving when they were not. To be kind where no kindness was found. “I forgive you,” he said, quieter.

---