Innocence Impaired

The pair was seen together always after that initial day of being placed next to each other. Miss Henderson knew that the girl wouldn’t exactly be a loud case for she seemed almost identical to Harry in her demeanour, but she never expected them both to draw in on themselves completely.

Even the rest of her class had come to ignore the presence of the two silent students instead of tormenting and teasing them whenever they thought the teacher wasn’t looking. It almost seemed as if there had never been a new girl; she had never spoken accept for the odd ‘good morning’ and ‘good afternoon’ in registration.

The two were never seen in the playground and had seemingly found a sanctuary from the boy’s cousin in the school library. Said cousin wouldn’t dare set foot in the library, even in lesson time he would kick up such a fuss that his home teacher had all but given up on him. The boy had a fear of the cantankerous old librarian ever since he was scolded for scribbling in a textbook.

The girl and boy, Harry and Amy were never far from each other, choosing to sit together on one large beanbag rather than their own ones, drawing comfort from the silent company of the other person, knowing that finally, there was someone for them to talk to, even if it was only each other. Just because they didn’t chatter in front of other people didn’t mean that they didn’t talk at all, quite the contrary actually.

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“He did it again last night,” he said softly after they had settled onto a large black beanbag in the furthest corner from anyone in the library, his voice was gentle, his lips quivered with a fierce remembrance of the mantra he had been forced to speak by his brutish uncle.

“Show me,” her own voice hoarse because of hours of screaming as a result of her own punishments, he rolled to his side away from her and she lifted his once white now grey school polo top and slightly too big navy jumper, up and away from his back so as to not irritate what she already knew would be nasty wound.

She grimaced indifferently at the clear outline of a leather belt strap which had done its damage multiple times, evident by the multitude of lacerations of the black and blue flesh, not only the leather of the belt but also what she guessed was the buckle end too as the blood had dried smeared all over his abused skin, puncture marks leaving her horrifically intrigued as to why Harry hadn’t died due to internal bleeding. Surely the stab marks went deep enough...

“I’ll try, but-but I don’t know if there’s much a can do. He really laid into you,” she whispered in his ear as she took off a leather glove placing it under his top subtly and on the small of his bad, feeling the radiating heat from the scorching and soon-to-be-infected-if-they-weren’t-seen-to wounds.

Harry, due to his families ‘tender loving care’, had a very high tolerance for pain, in fact he and Amy shared that feat; most adults wouldn’t have been able to handle the pain they both suffered from, under their carers hands. As such the healing process Amy performed felt like a small pinch in comparison. Healing naturally nearly always caused some sort of pain; it was unavoidable.

It was like fixing a piece of broken furniture, once you had located the broken parts, you either had to remove them and replace them or simply fix them with the materials you had and since Amy couldn’t replace muscle and bones, she concentrated hard on her inner core, releasing the small bright burst of yellow sending it from her centre to her fingers and still further away from her, fixing the tiny fractures in Harrys hip and spine, alleviating the stress on his back by easing the pain and trying to encourage the regeneration of the slowly healing strained muscles and ligaments.

He turned back round once he felt her hand had vanished from her back and saw her intense blue eyes looking at her scarred hand, before quickly slipping the glove back on and looking back at her friend. Yes, he was her friend and she had helped him, she gave him a small smile and he replied with a small upturn of his lips, his way of a smile.

Whilst Harry could talk with ease, expressions were something entirely different considering the scars on his face. The scars were never seen too for fear of them being found out of child abuse so when ‘it’ had happened his aunt had been forced to take care of him, but she didn’t take care of him well enough and infection had taken root and caused severe nerve damage; eventually he had gone blind in his left eye. Try as she might, no amount of help from Amy could even change that; although some of the much smaller and less noticeable scars had disappeared.