The problem was, Jade could not for the life of her settle her mind down. No matter how much she concentrated on the slow rate of Dara's breathing, trying to match the rising and falling of her own chest with his, she couldn't fall into the lull of sleep. She worried about Andrew. What if their parents ever found out? What would happen? Would they be angry? Scared? They wouldn't be able to do anything about it- there was nothing anyone could do but stress and hope the already sucky situation didn't escalate, because unfortunately the tattoo did not wash off with a simple spell. What would happen if Andrew got sent to Azkaban like Justin's cousin? What would happen if he got killed?
Imagining life without her brother brought an uncomfortable sense of gut rot to her, and she rolled from the far side of the bed into a fresh position up next to Dara. He was on his back, as per usual, and immediately shifted to accommodate her as she snuggled under his arm, tossing one of her bare legs over his own and curling up. She sighed, trying to let out all her tension as she let out the breath, but it was still very much there as she finished exhaling. For a minute, she tilted her chin up and examined Dara's face, hoping that if sleep wouldn't come then she could at least busy herself being jealous of his naturally full eyelashes.
Only a few more minutes passed before another wave of restlessness hit her and she had wriggled out from under Dara's embrace to slide off the end of the bed. Moving carefully as to not wake him (though she figured he was already half awake, the damn boy was a light sleeper if there ever was one) she patted the nest of blankets in search for her underwear, which had been hastily discarded earlier in the evening. The search was fruitless, however, so she gave up and padded into the bathroom.
Her eyes squinted in the harsh light from her wand (she knew the knob on the wall made the ceiling fixture light up, but it had popped and gone out once, so now she didn't trust it). Gently, she pressed the door closed behind her and took up position in front of the sink, staring at her mussed ginger hair in the mirror and frowning at her murky reflection. She didn't look like a wealthy pureblood, not now with her smeared make up and clad in a shirt Andrew had long ago discarded. She didn't look like one, and that contrast surely had to be enough of a reason to prove that their family shouldn't have been threatened.
What would have happened if Andrew hadn't signed his life away? It was a worthless wonder and hopelessly depressing, but Jade had been in the limbo between being alert and being asleep for so long she couldn't stop herself from pondering it. She concluded that someone would have ended up dead. Multiple someone's, probably. Her cousins, her brother, herself. But joining them hadn't eliminated any of the danger- it had only postponed it. Now Andrew was in constant danger- whether he'd admit it to her or not, she knew. It suddenly occurred to her that perhaps bringing Dara into the entire situation, as clueless as she had been when she started seeing him, had probably not been the best idea. He had been a Hufflepuff; his name was strongly tied to his expressed opinions in the Daily Prophet. If his name was tied to hers, and hers to Andrew's…
With a truncated choke of a sob Jade realized tears had begun to drip down her cheeks. She didn't try to brush them away, because she was too miserable to bother, but she did at least have the foresight to turn on the faucet to mask the sound of her labored breathing. Hunching over the sink, she continued to cry, painfully aware that the fact that she was crying over things just made her feel even more pathetic. Here she was, feeling sorry for herself, when Andrew was out there with his arse on the line every minute of every day. At this rate she deserved to feel like shit- she was certainly acting accordingly.



