Severus entered the main area, the beginnings of lunch now underway. Daisy was nowhere to be found, and Severus quietly ate a bowl of soup. He couldn't think of why Daisy wouldn't be at lunch. Well, he figured that whatever brought her here was acting up right now if she wasn't leaving her room, but what was it? What could keep someone so bright, full of life like Daisy, in her room?

He thought of the moments that she faltered in her brightness, those nearly invisible cracks that sometimes came to the surface. He'd seen them, from time to time. A sideways glance at a group of laughing women, her eyes dark and bothered. Maybe the girls here were hard on her? Severus remained pensive, stirring his soup rhythmically, one stir clock-wise, two counter clockwise. He did this unconsciously, for his best thinking he did while brewing. He hadn't been able to brew potions for weeks before he had his break. Weeks. His spoon clinked gently as it scraped along the bottom of the bowl, and Severus frowned. He couldn't remember the girls saying or doing anything to Daisy. The only bad incident of that sort at Oak Tree that he could think of was the one with him and the Auror in the hallway.

Come to think of it, the Auror had yet to bother him since that incident. Obviously, he'd decided to give up on it. Severus was surprised. Maybe Joseph really had fixed something for him. He wondered if Joseph could help fix up whatever or whoever was bothering Daisy. Perhaps he would tell Daisy that this place wasn't quite like the rest of the world ... that sometimes people actually backed off. Severus wondered what Joseph had said to the Auror to get him to leave him alone. He hadn't the guts to ask, for he had a worrisome suspicion that Joseph would be surprised, and admit he actually hadn't had time to talk to the Auror about his violent behaviour. That the Auror had just mysteriously backed off and Joseph really hadn't given a damn after all.

Severus shook his head. Perhaps Daisy hadn't told anyone about the other girls, if they were indeed cruel to her.

Yes. That has to be it. The other girls are mean to her. Why else would she sit with me?

On a whim, Severus took the chocolate biscuit he'd been given with his lunch, wrapped it up, and put it in his pocket. He knew exactly what he was going to do. No more guessing if Daisy was okay. He was going to visit her himself.

The tricky part would be sneaking into the women's hallway.

Severus watched the healers, counting them off on in his head. Time to put that spying to good use.

He watched them move around the room, the trainee healers stacking books and putting them away on shelves, preparing for the next activities that would be taking place after lunch. It was no use. They were all too near the entrance to the women's' hallway. They would never let Severus through those double doors so he could go knock on Daisy's door.

He'd need a diversion. A distraction. Something to draw the healers closer to the men's hallway, which was far enough away that they wouldn't notice someone slip through that door. A diversion ...

No goats, Professor, they might get wise, Severus could swear he heard Potter saying in his head. However much Severus loathed to admit it, the words Potter had spoken following the goat incident had been valid.

What if I recruited Potter? Get him to knock something over, make a commotion?

No. Stupid. I refuse to sink that low.

Ah, but you considered it, Severus ... you really must have gone mental.

Severus bit down on his tongue slightly, as though he believed that doing this would prevent his thoughts from voicing themselves.

Where are the Weasley twins when you need them? Diversions are their specialty. They flooded a bloody corridor for goodness sakes!

Flood.

FLOOD.

Naturally, there was nobody in the shower during lunch. Everyone was in the dining hall, so nobody would think to knock on the door. Severus made good time, secreted away in the warm, damp room to perform his prank. He was worried for Daisy. He wanted to make sure she was okay, and if she wasn't, he wanted to make her okay. A kind of dizzying desperation filled Severus' chest, a pressure he as sure would only be relieved when he went to see Daisy to confirm she was still getting by. It was a strange feeling, to be so worried over somebody else. And while he knew the healers would be watching over her from time to time, he still felt his stomach twisting. The healers did that for anyone who stayed in their room, but he didn't trust them to know how Daisy was feeling. How could anyone know how it felt to be here, unless they had been committed to Oak Tree as a patient? Severus knew. He knew exactly how it felt.

So he performed his task of mischief as quick as he could, covering the drain with an upside down glass he'd filched from the dining room and then sealing the edges with one of the thin towels from the stack in the cupboard to seal it further. The water wouldn't have time to seep through the towel and under the glass. It would overflow, and the corridor would start to get soaked. Severus twisted the water tap on so that the shower was on full blast. He managed to avoid the stream, and then he crept out of the steaming room. Nobody was looking.

So far so good.

Then, he went out into the main area, and he waited. By the time anyone noticed the water was starting to pool at the mouth of the men's hallway, which was only a few feet from the shower, Severus was ready to act. The water was seeping out from under the double doors. Severus smirked as a few of the healers went running to see what the commotion was about. The others turned their eyes to the spreading water. Then, as though he had done so the entirety of his time here, he walked over to the women's hallway and slid in.

It was empty, everyone either at lunch or in their rooms. The women's hall was exactly the same as the men's hallway, with the doors and their patients' names labelled. Some too were decorated. Severus knew Daisy's room right away, for the door was covered with drawings of pine trees, and a few other little things her roommate probably put up. He stood outside it, fear pumping through his limbs. Knowing he had five minutes or less before people got bored with the flooded shower, Severus knocked.

"Daisy, are you okay?" he called as loud as he dared.

To his relief, the door whipped open in less than five seconds.

Odd. If she was depressed that wouldn't have happened so fast.

"Severus!" Daisy said, shocked, wringing her hands but not looking displeased to see him. In fact, she even seemed rather pleased. She was wearing a pair of cosy flannel pyjamas, looking strange to Severus, who had only seen her in robes.

"Are you alright?" he asked, now feeling completely embarrassed and feeling himself going red now that she was standing before him. "You weren't at breakfast or lunch."

"Oh ..." She looked at her feet. "Oh ... I'm fine, Severus. I just ... coul - er, didn't want to go."

"Are the other women bothering you? I could get them to back off." Sure, making promises now, Severus. Wow, you're pathetic.

I probably could get them to lay off, though.

Girls are bitchier than James Potter, and you couldn't even get him to lay off you. Moron.

Severus dragged himself out of his thoughts, ignoring the sinking feeling in his stomach.

"They're okay," muttered Daisy. "It's not that. It's not them. I've known some awful women but it isn't them."

Severus glanced over at the double doors at the end of the hallway.

"Listen, Daisy, I can't stay long, I flooded the shower so I could sneak here to see if you were okay so -"

"You flooded the shower to see if I was okay?"

"Er, yeah." Why is she looking at me like that? You'd think I rode in on a horse ...

She smirked. "Are you sure you're a Professor?"

He scoffed. "Funny. And the goat thing was your idea, really. So do not give me all the credit."

She smiled, but shrugged to say that he was right.

"Oh, before I go ... I brought you something," Severus said, pulling the biscuit out of his pocket and putting it in her hands.

Daisy looked down at the chocolate biscuit he'd pressed into her hand. For some reason, she let out a small sob.

"Severus, I can't," she said to him, her face suddenly wracked with pain.

Oh no what did I do - what do I do -

"It's just a biscuit, Daisy," he said, and tears started to run down her cheeks. He stared, baffled and thinking he'd missed something completely. "I thought you'd be hungry. Besides, you look like you could use it."

She sobbed a little harder, shaking her head and muttering something. She had such a strange look on her face. It was like she was in pain, but she was also glad.

"You s-should go or they'll catch you and you'll be in trouble," Daisy said, choking back sobs again. "B-Bye, Severus. T-Thank you."

"O - Okay, take care of yourself," he said numbly. The door closed and he fled the hallway.

He escaped into the main area, the healers none the wiser.

What the hell just happened?

It was only when he was sitting in his and Potter's empty room that it occurred to him that without her robes, wearing just her less loose fitting pyjamas, that Daisy was way skinner than he'd realized. Skinny at a glance, but upon further scrutiny, way too skinny.

But still, who cries when someone brings them a biscuit?

Skinny. Sickly. Skeletal, even.

He thought again of the way she looked when he said he thought she needed the biscuit.

I am so stupid. So stupid.

He spent the rest of the day waiting for his session with Joseph and mulling over his suspicions. Dinner was spent in silence, his head swirling and guilt rising in his chest. Had he done the right thing? How could he have been so foolish? The signs were there. Daisy's hate for meals, her constant skipping of them ... her anxiety around the other girls ...

He'd seen it in some of his Slytherins before. Their thin arms and pale moon eyes, their lack of attendance at meals. He usually just sent a note to Poppy to book them in for a check-up. And sometimes an intervention.

There was a scraping noise. Thin arms and pale moon eyes. Daisy was sitting across from him. There was rice on her plate. Just rice and some carrots. But there was food.

"Thank you for bringing me the biscuit."

Severus smiled, relief pouring through him.

"I'm sorry I freaked out earlier," continued Daisy, turning red. "It's just ... I'm not sure I'm ready for biscuits yet. See ..."

"You don't eat enough, that's why you're here, right?" he said quietly when she fell silent. His voice was calm. Encouraging.

"Yeah," she said, seeming relieved. "It's more complicated, though."

"If either of our problems weren't complicated, neither of us would be here," Severus said sagely, eating a mouthful of rice and steamed vegetables. He had to admit. St. Mungos could cook.

"It started with the girls in my office," admitted Daisy, stirring her rice. "They were awful to me. Stupid stuff. Bitchy stuff. And after a while I got too ... I dunno ... anxious to eat. Then I started to realize that it made me feel better when I didn't. Like I had control? Something like that. So I just started eating less, and then some of the girls started complimenting me, saying I looked good. That was about four years ago, and it sort of started to slowly get worse. After a while it made me nervous to eat at all ... and things were getting worse at work. Then I started fainting so I took time off for my health, and though I knew what the problem was I just couldn't convince myself to eat. Guess I thought that nobody would like me if I gained any weight at all. The girls were so mean to me, and the only thing that seemed to make me forget how terrible their words were was that I was thinner than they were. Something like that. I guess.

"My sister came to see me, because I wasn't returning her calls, and finally she got me sent here. Stayed a month or so in a different ward, you know, so I could get some ... weight on me. Now I'm here. Today I ... I got bad. My roommate was complaining she's fat - and she isn't here for the same thing so she doesn't get what that kind of talk can do. She's heavier than I am, so it sort of sent me into a bit of a ... flashback. Relapse. Whatever you call it."

Severus nodded. "Rough," he muttered, not sure what else to say. It seemed to be enough for Daisy. "Well, that explains the biscuit incident. I was worried I'd done something wrong."

"No," Daisy said with a sad little laugh, her eyes sparkling and damp. "I was just taken aback. You didn't even know about my ... my issues, and you basically told me outright what everyone's been telling me non-stop for ages. That I look like I could use a biscuit."

"Well, you do," said Severus, smiling.

"Thank you, for what you did today," she muttered. "It helped me remember that it isn't just my body, I guess, something my healer says a lot. He says others care about me too, and want me to be healthy. You reminded me of my sister for a moment when you said that thing about the biscuit. I have to eat for the people that care about me, if I can't always do it for me."

He nodded.

"I actually think I can relate to some of that," admitted Severus quietly. "I didn't eat much before I came here either. Still don't. Sometimes it gets hard, but I guess I find it easier to skip eating too. Some days I cannot stomach the idea of food. Usually I am just so ... depressed I cannot eat. Different reasons, but the same result."

He opened his mouth to continue, but he found he couldn't. Daisy nodded, looking relieved to hear his words.

"I guess you're probably wondering why I'm here?" he muttered at last.

Daisy, still chewing thoughtfully on her rice, swallowed.

"You don't have to tell me," she said. "Not if you don't want to."

"I - I think I do want to."

Daisy gave him an encouraging nod.

"I tried to ... I tried ..." he began, his words sticking in his throat. "Well, it's lucky I'm still alive. If that makes sense?"

He had expected her to be shocked. Or shy away from him. Instead, she reached her thin, frail hand over and put it on his.

"Yeah, yeah it does," she told him.