Doors open.

Realer Pain.

Pansy sat with me as long as she possibly could. Until her legs fell asleep and she was holding her own head up by her arm.

"Y.n, please, let's go to bed." She whispered, her voice so strained.

Yes, I should go to bed. I should be able to stand up on my own two feet, and carry my self to my dorm.

But I couldn't.

I felt as if I melted into that wall, and I now was imbedded there. I tried to tell my feet a billion times now, to just get up. Just go to bed. Take yourself to the comfort of your bed.

But they didn't listen to me.

My eyes stayed, plastered on the wall in front of me. I wasn't sure the last time I spoke. What time it was, and i desperately prayed to Merlin, this was a sick dream, and I would wake up in my bed at Theos house.

But I wouldn't.

"Y.n?" She spoke again.

"Go." I whispered, I didn't even recognize my own voice.

"Im not leaving you here." She protested.

"Please, pans. I'll be up in a bit. I just need-" I took a deep breath.

"If you're not up in twenty minutes, im sending the boys." She muttered, finally peeling herself off the floor and into our common room.

The sobs racked through me. As I sat there, shaking.

My life was not short of loss. I experienced every pain a 17 year old girl could possibly face. But his words... his eyes... it was a loss I never experienced.

I never expected.

The loss of my own sister, the betrayal of my own mother... it didn't even scratch the surface of what I felt now.

And that terrified the absolute shit out of me.

"Just remember, if I can't call, if I can't text, it I can't see you, you'll be on my mind every second of everyday." He whispered.

"Has Mattheo Riddle grown a heart?" I laughed.

"Only for you. It will only ever beat for you, y.n" his tone grew serious.

"Matt, you're scaring me." I cocked my head to the side.

"I just never want you to forget how much I love you. Im being serious, yn." He took a long breath, "this summer is going to be hell for me, but I'll make it through, because I know I'll have you waiting on me. That's all I ever need to know, to get me through. That you're waiting on me."

"I'll always be waiting on you, Mattheo. Always." I almost had to tippy toe to kiss him, on the platform of 9 and 3/4, "I'll always be here to bring you back."

"Yn!" Theo shouted and I jumped, "Merlin! What the fuck happen?!"

I said nothing.

My cheeks stained with tears, my body visibly shaking.

"Yn?!" He shook my shoulders.

Nothing.

"Come here." He pulled me to my feet, and threw his arms around me.

My arms laid dangling by my side, and air still felt like such a foreign substance to my lungs. But he squeezed, and squeezed.

"He doesn't love me anymore." I suddenly spat out, my shoulders shaking with sobs, and my arms wrapping around his body. "Theo, he doesn't- he doesn't want me!" My words were almost inaudible.

"Yn, yn!" He said firmly, "I need you to breathe darling? please."

"What did I do?!" My sobs grew louder, my breath more shaken. "Why doesn't he love me?!"

"Darling, please." I heard his voice shake.

"Theo! I can't- I can't breathe!" I yelled. "Theo- the- please!"

I don't know what I was begging for. Everything just crashed around me. My legs gave out and I tried to fall, but he caught me, wrapping my legs around his waist and carrying me up to the dorms.

He walked past the girl staircase, and towards the boys.

"Theo no!" I screamed into his neck.

"He isn't my roommate anymore. He opted for a private room. I'm alone. It's just me." He whispered.

And he was right.

He carried me into his dorm, put me on his bed, turning to grab me a t-shirt, and throwing it back to me.

He sat on the bed next to me, as I wrapped my arms around my knees and let the sobs take over.

I don't know how I still was crying, how I had anything left.

He sat me up and slipped the tee shirt over my head, slipped his hand to the zipper on my dress, and very politely pulled it down from my thighs. Slipping sweatpants up my legs in replacement. He grabbed a cool washcloth and washed my smeared makeup off my cheeks.

"You may have obviliated me, and took my memories away. But a heart never forgets how they feel for a person." He whispered and he wiped my cheek, "I may not be inlove with you, anymore." He sighed, "but I could never forget how much I love you. And seeing you like this- physically sick over him, it's tearing me up. Please, breathe for me."

His words stunned me, and activated deeper feelings to surface. For a moment, I forgot all about it. I forgot he wasn't my best friend, and how much all of this must've took out of him, but he did it anyway. He would never let me down.

"Theo I just-" I gasped, I didn't want to cry anymore. I couldn't, "I just don't understand. We left each other perfectly fine. And then- it's like he didn't even know me." I took a breath, "he actually pinned me to the wall and told me to stay out of his way, or-" the memory played in my head and I felt my lungs begging for air again, but I took a breath, "or I would know real pain."

I watched this face change. Heat rose to his cheeks, and anger danced in his eyes.

"I don't think I could know a realer pain than this, Theo." I whispered, falling into his shoulder.

He didn't say a word.

He walked over to his cabinet, and handed me a vile of dreamless sleep.

"I think it's best you take this." He nodded, unscrewing the tiny cap off the vile, "you need to rest. Properly. Please don't fight me."

And I didn't.

I took it from him with no hesitation.

Because I didn't want to feel.

I didn't want to feel a fucking thing.

And I didn't know that this would become my vice. And for the next two days, before class started, I locked my self in my room, practically banning Pansy to Theo's.

And I would drink vile, after vile, of dreamless sleep.

Until the hours blurred into minutes, and then into seconds.

Until the harsh light of the morning sun woke me, two days later on Monday, and I was expected to begin my last first day, of school.

And as I dragged my self to the bathroom, and I looking into the mirror, not recognizing the face that stared back at me. Her sunken, sad, blackened eyes, I did what I knew how to do best.

The only thing my mother ever taught me.

I painted my face with my makeup, I threw on my freshly pressed robes, and fastened my tie.

And I headed out for the day.

I had a vile of fire whiskey in my robe pocket, and a rolled up herb Pansy and I hid in our room last term.

I would get through the day.

I would.

Or I swore I would.

Until I turned the corner in the Great Hall, stopping dead in my tracks.