Medicine - T. Nott

twenty six

Song for this chapter: TV - Billie Eilish

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Blaise has an arm around my shoulders as he leads me down to the dungeons. I physically can't stop crying so I'm grateful for the assistance to get down all of the stairs.

"I'm sorry, I really don't know how to help-," Blaise says, sounding slightly flustered, "But we can find Daphne and Pansy."

We get to the Slytherin common room and Blaise leads me inside. There are people scattered around the common room since class is done for the day, but I ignore all of them as we go upstairs. I'm barely in the dormitory door when Daphne and Pansy are right there.

"What happened?" Pansy asks as she sits down beside me on my bed.

I take a deep breath and wipe my face with the back of my hand. "Theo and I broke up," I say, my voice sounding raw from the crying.

"What? Why?" Daphne asks, sounding shocked. She's standing a few feet away from me while Blaise is standing near the door looking slightly uncomfortable. "You guys love each other," Daphne says.

"No, we don't," I say, "Or at least he doesn't."

Pansy pushes my hair behind my shoulders and shakes her head. "I'm sure it was just a fight or a misunderstanding," She says. "Theo loves you."

I laugh, "No, he really doesn't."

All three of them stare at me with various expressions.

"Everything was fake," I explain. "Our whole relationship, all of it was a lie."

"What?" Pansy says quietly.

I smooth out the crease between my brows because I have a headache forming. "Theo's dad was going to arrange a marriage for him if he didn't find someone, and Theo's my best friend so I wanted to help. So we came up with this whole plan that we were going to pretend we're in a relationship so that his dad would leave him alone, and-, and it worked. His dad dropped it and told him to take his time." Pansy has a surprised look on her face, Blaise is expressionless, and Daphne looks like she's trying to put all of the pieces together in her head. "Everything would've worked perfectly but I got attached and fell in love with him. I love him, and it was all fake," I say.

"You guys were lying to everyone this whole time?" Daphne asks.

"Yes," I admit. "I'm so sorry, I didn't want to lie to any of you guys but we had to make sure that everyone believed it so that it would work. I'm so so sorry for lying about it-"

"I'm not mad at you," Daphne cuts me off. "I can see why you did it, and I believe you. I just-, I don't believe that it's been fake this whole time."

I frown, "What?"

"All of the dates, and the sleepovers, Christmas," Daphne starts. "You guys were always together, even when no one else was around. And we all know that you were sleeping with each other. All of that couldn't have been fake."

"We got too caught up in everything, or at least I did," I say.

Blaise clears his throat and I look over at him. "And how can you be so sure that Theo didn't get caught up in everything too? That he didn't have real feelings for you as well?"

"Because I know him," I say, "And Theo isn't the type of person to get swept up by stuff like that and fall in love."

"Talk to him," Blaise suggests.

"No, I can't," I say, "Not right now, at least. I need to not be hurt by him anymore."

Pansy plays with my hair in an attempt to make me feel better, and it's working. "Just give it some time then," She says. "Maybe things will all work out in the end."

"Highly unlikely," I say. I am being the biggest pessimist right now but I really can't see the bright side right now. "Theo's going to fall in love with some lovely girl and it will be real. They'll get married and have beautiful kids and be so sickenly happy. And I'll watch."

- - - - -

February 27th, 1998

I wake up with a migraine and no desire to see Theo. I still feel like I'm constantly on the verge of tears and my eyes are so puffy that no amount of makeup can hide the fact that I was crying all night long.

Instead of going to breakfast with Daphne and Pansy, I go to the Hospital Wing.

Madam Pomfrey is bustling around the room even though there's currently only one student under her care. She spots me when I walk in and sets aside the rolls of bandages that she had been carrying.

"Miss Rosier, are you alright?" She asks.

"Uh-, I have a really bad migraine that won't go away," I say. It's mostly true, I do have a migraine that won't go away, but I could suck it up and go to class anyways. However that would mean that I'd have to face Theo and I'm in no mood for that.

"Oh dear," Madam Pomfrey says. She goes over to a medine cabinet and pulls out a vial and walks back over to me. "This should help," She says, handing me the vial. She looks me up and down, examining my current state. "But if you would like to take the day to rest, I can get you out of your classes."

"Really?" I ask. "Yes, I really would like to rest today, thank you."

Madam Pomfrey smiles at me. "Of course, dear. Now, take that potion and then go get some rest."

I uncork the vial and take the potion to help with my migraine. I hand her the empty vial and then she's sending me on my way.

I go back to my dormitory, passing the empty common room since the first class of the day just started. I change out of my uniform and into a pair of sweatpants. I go over to my wardrobe and start looking for a jumper. My hand catches on one of Theo's jumpers. It's dark blue and much too big on me. It's the jumper that Theo lent me the first week of school when I was drunk and passed out in his bed. I guess I never returned it.

I choose to ignore it and end up putting on one of my own jumpers.

Now that I have the whole day alone, I have no idea what to do. I kind of want to wallow in self pity, but it's so quiet that it's unsettling. I go over to Daphne's side of the room and flip through her CDs. I put it in the stereo and press play so that there's at least some background noise to all of my intrusive thoughts.

I've never had my heartbroken before so I don't really know how to feel.

When I dated Cormac McLaggen last year, I broke up with him. I didn't feel anything when we broke up but I also didn't like him that much. He was loud, and patronizing, and was always looking at other girls our whole relationship. So he didn't break my heart, I broke his. When he would flirt with other girls in front of me, I genuinely didn't care because I didn't like him enough to waste my time begging him to pay more attention to me.

The only thing relating to Cormac that makes me sad is that I let him take my virginity. I guess I wasn't even sad about that, I was just mad that I wasted it and three months of my life on him.

But with Theo, I would willingly hurt my own feelings over and over again if it meant that I could be with him.

That's why it hurts so badly.