No Air (Open)

OK. Savannah clasped her hands together, thinking for a moment about what she wanted to ask. The question foremost on her mind was how JJ had lost her voice in the first place, but there were other questions on her mind.

Leaning towards her, she adopted an empathetic expression, "You're a completely different person than you were the last time I saw you. You're a nervous wreck. JJ, what happened to you?"

J. J. bit her lip as the question was asked and the words spoken. She had known that she had been all those things, but something about it being said allowed, knowing other people saw it too made it all the worse.

She closed her eyes as she thought about it. What had happened to her? She was... was...

The girl winced away from the memories. She could feel her skin crawl and phanom pains were creeping their way back into her psyche.

With a shaking hand she let the quill hover over the paper.

I, she wrote in wobbly scrawl and paused for a long moment was another pause. What to say? How to put it. She didn't want to say it, write it, relive it attacked, taken

Staring down at the words JJ had written, her expression hardened. Someone had attacked JJ. The only person in this school who she really found possible to have a conversation with for a long period of time. And someone had attacked her to the point that she'd morphed into a nervous wreck.

"Do you know who did it?" Savannah asked, looking up at her, her wand emitting red sparks as she clutched it. If she found out who did it, she was going to make them suffer.

The girl shrinked nervously from the sparking wand. Giving it a wide-eyed look that she couldn't quiet control. Savannah's rage scared her. Everything scared her but rage always lead to, lead to...

Why had those girls done it? They hadn't been angry, they hadn't been, hadn't been...

They had been bored.

J. J.'s lip began to quiver slightly and she felt warm liquid fill her eyes as she shook her head.

Girls she wrote, her hand shaking so badly that the word was almost illedgable, Just girls.

Noticing tears in JJ's eyes, Savannah put her wand down, moving towards her. Glancing down at the words she'd written, Savannah bristled slightly, but hugged JJ nonetheless. "It's alright," She murmured into her brown hair, pausing for a second, "Well, not now, but it will get better. If you know what the girls look like, we could track them down, and then we'll make them pay for what they did to you8,"

J. J. stiffened at the first contact - she wasn't so very touchie-feelie now adays- but after a moment, she softened into the hug and nodded, the tears suddenly falling uselessly from her face.

She hated it, she hated everything.

She shook her head. She didn't want to get the girls, she didn't want anything but for it to not to have happened - for it to go away.

They were just girls, she managed to write after a moment, her tears dripping on the page and making some of the words bleed together slightly Twins... they were twins.

As JJ cried against her shoulder, Savannah tried to comfort her, rubbing circles on her back like she'd seen people do for crying people in the past.

She wasn't good at being with crying people, but she could try. She wasn't about to leave JJ, especially not in this state. Glancing down at the words she'd written, her expression cleared to a rather blank one, "Are the twins blonde? Hufflepuff? First year? Because there are a identical twins in one of my classes..."

J. J. shook her head vehmently. She didn't want someone who didn't deserve it to get the blame.

NOT HOGWARTS she scrawled in big letters, and underlined them. The girls hadn't been from their school, they'd been from that other one, the one that Iva always use to state she wished she had gone to.

Craning her neck to glance at the parchment, Savannah nodded, "Do they go to Durmstrang then? That'll make it difficult to track them down, because I know no one there,"

Sighing in frustration, she tapped her foot against the floor, wondering just how she'd get this plan off the ground.

Durmstrang. That was it. Did she really want to send Savannah off on this chase? Those girls weren't anything to sniff at.

Using the back of her hand she wiped the tears off her face, and gave a non-commital shrug.

They just didn't go to Hogwarts.

"Well, it makes sense to start searching there. Now all I have to do is meet someone from Durmstrang. And then the search will begin,"

Smiling to herself, she looked over at JJ, watching her wipe tears off her face. Frowning, she patted her shoulder, "Don't worry. I'll make this right again,"

J. J. nodded her head. There was nothing she could say to stop Savannah now. She could see that. Perhaps she shouldn't even bother trying. Those girls, they, they...

Well they certainly shouldn't get away with what they did.

Worrying her lip she picked up the quill again, Thank you, Savannah.

Nodding at JJ enthusiastically, Savannah grinned, feeling very giddy, "You're welcome. I wouldn't be able to do this without your help,"

J. J. looked at the girl. She was so excited about this. The enthusaisim almost reminded her of...

No - she shook her head. This was completely different. There was nothing the same about these situations at all. This was, this was...

J. J. didn't know what this was, but it must be different, right?

She gave a wan smile in responce. She didn't want to go back there. She couldn't help.

I can't be much help. I do not remember well.

That was both a lie and the truth. There were things she remembered perfectly - that she would not forget. Like the way Cicile...

But the things Savannah would want... they were gone in a blurr of... of... who knew what.

Looking down at JJ's words, Savannah nodded solemnly, "It's alright. I understand that you can't. If it was me, I'd never be able to go back there or face them,"

Shuddering at the idea of being in JJ's shoes, she began tapping her foot again.

J. J. nodded her head and smiled every so slightly. It was a great effort to pull her lips in such an action, however, that one just might have looked the most genuine. Her brain no longer on complete auto-pilot.

Fidgeting in her feet slightly, she begin to play with the edge of her sleeve, feeling suddenly very tired. It was funny the things that exhusted her these days.

Grinning at JJ's smile - a real smile, the first she'd gotten from her all day - Savannah watched her for a moment play with her sleeve, rather content to just sit there. Glancing down at the letter her mother wanted her to write, she pulled a quill from her bag, continuing to write it.

J. J. looked at the girl writing for a moment, and then pulled up the book she had gotten orginially.

She put it infront of her, with the pretence of reading but really the words just went past her. She was lost in her own world, in another place and time.

After a moment she shivered slightly and pulled the sweater closer around her.

Glancing up at JJ, she noticed her shiver slightly. If only she'd brought her cloak with her, but it was rather impractical to carry it around everywhere she went. And other than her school robes, she wasn't wearing anything else, so she couldn't exactly hand over her robes. Frowning, she said quiety, as not to frighten her, "You look cold. Do you want me to head upstairs and grab a cloak?"

J. J. looked up at the voice, feeling some relief that she didn't startle at all.

After taking a long moment to process what was said she shook her head.

No, she wrote, [it] thank you. I'll be okay.[/i] She looked at the last words she wrote and felt the sinking of untruth about them.

She shivered again.

Shrugging, Savannah kept her gaze on JJ, "Your decision," Biting on the end of her quill, she glanced down at her letter with a twinge of annoyance. Writing letters to no-one wasn't going to help anyone. In fact, it was getting her more agitated and annoyed then she already was. Looking away, she glanced over at the bookshelves, not really paying attention to the steady stream of people past her.

J. J. nodded and went back to her book. But once the shivering began to take on an uncontrolable quality she decided to give up.

Closing the book slowly, so she wouldn't make the noise that was sure to startle her, she set it on the table and pushed her chair back.

I am going back to my commonroom she wrote slowly the words geting slightly slurred as her shaking arms began to displace them, Thank you Savannah.

She nodded her head at the girl and then turned to leave.

Glancing over at JJ as she heard the sound of her book closing, Savannah watched her write on the paper again, nodding as she read the words, a smile slowly spreading across her face, "You're welcome, JJ,"

As she left, Savannah smiled after her before staring back down at her letter with a sigh.