She could feel him moving towards her. Somewhere in the back of her mind she wondered what he would do, if he would try and talk to her in cajoling tones. Even in this state she couldn’t imagine Raphael Malfoy being comforting. At most, perhaps he would crack a joke, ask her why she had to go this one alone instead of wait for him to show up for her to drag him through it like all the other times: the Santa Antoina, The Sanditon Season Close. At least she had grabbed him afterwards to hide the body.

But instead, she felt his hand on her wrist. Let him pull it away, and allowed herself to peek out from behind her free hand. He wasn’t cracking jokes at all. In fact, his expression told her he knew what she was going through. If not all of it, then how much she was reeling from reliving her attempted murder. Her mind buzzed with what would have happened had she not been able to get to her wand. A broken “Hello.” was all she could manage before leaning forwards, finally giving into her earlier impulse and falling into him. As sobs heaved at her lungs, she tried to calm herself down; knew this was likely making him uncomfortable. She couldn’t stop feeling the ghost of Walter’s fingers on her skin. She needed something else to try and get rid of that memory, and she wanted to admit whose touch she craved instead. But this was hardly the time or place.

She’d just made him witness something horrific. She couldn’t bring him further into it. “Raphael, I don’t know how much longer I can do this, I can’t — I don’t want — but I need to. You heard him, Papa already owes him so much.” She managed to get out through her sobs. “So…so I need to do this.” She looked up at him, swiping at her tears. “But…but you don’t need to. You don’t — you don’t need to get more involved in this.” Because it wasn’t going to end well. “You've already done more than enough.”

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