Heliophilia; d.m

XLV

VIOLET

"You can be calm, it happens, but I can tell you with confidence that nothing that you saw is real and will not be real."

These were Dumbledore's words, which he said in a confident and firm voice after I had told him everything from beginning to end.

He assured me that I was the daughter of my parents, that the Dark Lord was defeated many years ago, and that my mother really just had mental damage after his attack — I should not have been afraid and waited for a new day with fear, I should have let go of this dream, because dreams were dreams — they were only for one night, it was just a subjective perception of images, auditory or visual, with which I once dealt in real life.

The quiet conversations about Voldemort, the rumors about the horror of Malfoy Manor and its cellar, the bickering with Adele, the strained relationship with my father, and the subconscious attraction to Draco — these were all things that happened every day in my life, and according to Dumbledore, they were interpreted in my dream.

He talked a lot about it, finding explanations for everything, he even called a few more professors then, who also assured me that it was all a game of my tired, damaged brain, and after giving me a potion that was supposed to help me and my mental health, they let me go, making me promise to come to them if I got worse.

"But what about Seth Malfoy?" I asked when my hand was already on the doorknob, "I never knew him, why was he in my dream?"

I remembered the color draining from Draco's face when I'd asked him about Seth — this guy who'd started my destruction was real, and if everything in my dream was familiar, then I didn't understand why Seth was there.

"I can assume that you saw his name on the flyleaf of your potion book, and it stuck in your memory, even if you didn't realize it." The headmaster said, still keeping a reassuring smile on his face, which didn't disappear even when I had gotten to the part in my story where Draco killed him.

"But is he in Azkaban now?" I asked hopefully, shivering at the memory of the first time he'd appeared before my eyes after being released from prison — I wished every day that he would come back there.

"Seth? In Azkaban?" Dumbledore's eyebrows went up in surprise, and he exchanged glances with the other professors present, "He was a good person, a diligent student, and absolutely harmless. But unfortunately, he died three years ago."

Now it was my turn to raise my eyebrows in surprise.

It was strange for me to hear such nice words about Seth, when in my dream I knew very well that he was a terrible, cruel and merciless man, but when I heard that he was dead, I felt my stomach flutter with relief. Even if he was actually a good person, I was happy that I didn't get a chance to meet him.

So with a curt nod, I walked out of there, feeling a little relieved and relaxed, determined to live rather than exist from one day to the next, shuddering every time someone spoke to me.

I thought I should get better.

But seeing every day the faces of those I thought I'd lost was, on the one hand, unbearable. I was worried inside. Every day, it's gnawing at me more and more from the inside out. And every time something happened that was already in my dream, I would panic.

In that illusion, when I was in this state, Draco was the only person who could save me from this. And I wanted so badly to snuggle up to him, to hold him, to feel him next to me. I wanted to feel how he stroked my hair, how his eyes looked at me tenderly and at the same time intently, how his whisper sent goosebumps through my body. How my body relaxed in his arms, and how my worries dissolved with him by my side.