Gwen left Rugar woods quickly, afraid she might just kill her biological father with a single stroke of her wand. She apparated quickly to Hogwarts finding that the weather had changed from snowy to rainy in the short time that she'd been gone. It was raining steadily pouring in fact and there was no way she could make it to the castle without getting soaked.
As she came to the doors, dripping from her cloak, her hair plastered to the sides of her face she was surprised to see that Graves was standing under the stoop covering that housed the stairs up to the great doors. He looked up at her apprehensively, but he knew that he needn't push. She would tell him what it was that she needed to say. She only required patience and a little time.
Her words came out strained, her face soaked with rain and tears. "I just hoped that one day I would wake up and be afraid of him. I just kept denying it because I wanted to wake up and be normal. But I can never be normal."
"What are you trying to say?" He prompted softly, unsure of what she meant or where she was taking this conversation.
She closed her eyes. "Some people wish for extraordinary things to happen to them. But when it happens they wish it hadn't. Tragedy is an extraordinary thing and they don't often realize that when they make their wishes. One morning you wake up knowing you can make magic, but you regret it the next when you realize that it must be kept secret from the muggles. You find that great responsibility isn't worth the ability to fly."
Graves understood that feeling. He had felt it long ago when he found he could make things happen when he was feeling some great extreme of emotion. Yet he had found over the years that you get used to such things, they become commonplace like lost keys or arguments between siblings. You begin to see magic as a mundane thing.
And then Gwen had walked into his life and threw mundane out of the window. He hadn't had a moment of peace in his soul if she was near, but he wanted that restless tug. He wanted the feeling like the pull of the tide responding to the moon's sweet face. He wanted the ache that filled his limbs when she held him.
She had become his best friend before he even knew her. When they met she had become so much more. He looked at her now, not bothering to hide his intense longing to sweep her up in his arms and take away all her troubles.
She took a deep breath, her shoulders shuddering enough for Graves to worry that perhaps they should move inside. He slid an arm around her, intending to guide her indoors but she simply shirked his arm off her back. He stopped and remained perfectly still. It was so cold and she was so wet, but something was keeping her from joining the others.
She reached out a hand in apology, but found that they were shaking violently. She pulled them back immediately and began to pull on her fingers, trying to contain the shivers of nerves built up over nineteen and a half years.
"I found my father." She finally said as lightning arched across the sky.