The sun shined through the window showing the start of a brand new day. It was the day after the incident with Troy. She had been getting many owls over the past few days and most of what she had been getting was not that bad. She was still lying on her bed awake. She had woken up an hour ago and she was just lying there in silence. Her uncle was sitting in a chair next to her bedside fast asleep. She still had his suit jacket on. She sat up in her bed as the door opened to reveal Mrs. Weasley. She looked up and watched as Mrs. Weasley walked over to her and helped her out of bed. Sirius woke up at the sound of movement. He sat up and looked away from his niece not wanting her to feel uncomfortable. Caitlin slowly walked over to her closet and grabbed a t-shirt and sweatpants. She then grabbed a bra and underwear from her dresser. She looked in the mirror that was attached to the dresser and she took in her appearance. She looked badly disheveled and like she had been crying her yes out all night. She had dried blood on her cheek and a bruise was on her neck. She had dried mascara on her face and it mixed with blood. She looked like a mess and she felt tears threatening to pour from her eyes once more. Not wanting anyone to see her cry she ran into the bathroom and closed the door behind her. She slid down the door as the memories from last night came flooding back to her at full force. She broke down crying and she knew that she hadn’t cried this much since her uncle was arrested and taken away from her to Azkaban. She closed her eyes as the tears continued to flow down her face. She silently gathered up the courage to stand up and get ready to take on this new day. She put her clothes down on the counter and walked over to the bathtub.
She started to get a bath ready. She let the water run until it got to the way that she wanted it to get to. She turned the water off in the bathtub. She took Sirius’s suit jacket and her underwear off. She put her uncle’s suit jacket with her clothes and got into the water. She leaned back against the tub trying to relax her body and get lost in her thoughts. Troy’s words from last night floated back into her mind and she tensed up slightly. She had never known Troy to be like that and she wondered why he was acting like this. She was not sure, if it was because of how his parents treated him or if he was a mental lunatic. She only knew what she had seen from him and how he treated her. She had never done anything to him and now she was getting hurt because of him. A tear fell from her eyes as she thought about what had happened last night. She looked down at the marks that were still on her body and knew that the marks were going to be added on to the list of imperfections that she had and she knew that people expected her to be a perfect person and a whole bunch of other things from her. She knew that she could not be perfect. She was not a perfect person. She got out of the water after about an hour. She dried her body off and put her clothes on. She sighed as a few tears fell down her face. She wiped the tears away with her the back of her hand. She drained the bath water and grabbed her uncle’s suit jacket and her underwear as her thoughts got jumbled up in her head. She walked out of the bathroom and back into her room. She silently handed her uncle his jacket and crawled back into her bed. She noticed that Mrs. Weasley was still in the room. She wanted to lay in bed forever and get lost in her thoughts but she knew that wasn’t an option. Mrs. Weasley gently got her out of the bed and took her downstairs. She was guided into the dining room. She sat down in her chair and she looked around the room with a nervous expression on her face. George who was sitting next to her put an arm around her shoulders in a comforting way. She did not tense up as she had done the night before so George took that as a good thing. She sat there, played with her hands, and ate a little bit of her food. She was not that hungry at the moment. A group of owls flew into the room and surrounded Caitlin sticking their legs out at her and trying to get her to open their letters first. George handled the letters that were on the owl’s legs. Most of the letters where from people who were on her side and the other letters criticized her for being a blood traitor or some other nonsense stuff. She looked at the letters and allowed the encouraging words of the good letters flow through her mind and warm up her entire body and soul. Everyone else finished their food but Caitlin and she decided that she wanted to eat up in her room. Caitlin and her uncle went up to her room and she put her plate of food and her drink on the nightstand, lies back on the bed and started to eat the rest of her breakfast. Her uncle looked at her in concern trying to figure out her sudden mood change. He shrugged it off and decided that she was progressively getting better as the day went on. He kissed her forehead as George walked into the room his arms full of letters that were addressed to Caitlin. A Daily Prophet clipping was attached to one of the letters. Caitlin just stared at it as she silently gathered up the courage to actually look at the other letters that had just now come in. Sirius moved out of the way so that George could place the letters in front of her. He kissed her forehead gently and walked out of the room. Sirius followed his lead and left the door open just in case she needed anything. She tentatively went through the pile of letters and picked a random letter from the pile. She opened the letter and saw that it had nothing but kind words of sympathy in the letter. One of the letters had a Daily Prophet article on her attached to it and it made her sound like she was weak and a damsel in distress. She did not like the way that the paper was making her sound like she was a damsel in distress. Caitlin could handle herself in many situations and hated when people called her weak just because she was a girl. Girls could do what boys did to and it should not matter whether or not you are a boy or you are a girl as long as you get the work done. She finished eating her breakfast before resting against her pillow. She slowly drifted into a somewhat peaceful sleep.