Draco's Hufflepuff | Emerging

Seventy: Calming Draught

**

Thursday, 27th March, 1997

I think Draco had taken my sanity as well as my heart when he broke up with me. It must've been around 4:00am, and I was still wide awake, unable to get any sleep. Insomnia was a new habit I seem to have picked up within the past few days.

Whenever I do drift off to sleep, I would have the nicest, sweetest dreams of Draco. In one, I was the owner of a quaint little bakery, and he was a customer that would come in every morning, order the same thing – a black coffee with a ham and cheese croissant, and we slowly fell in love over the course of a year.

Another dream, he was my landlord, and had let me rent out the granny annexe behind his house for a cheap price. During one stormy night, he offered me his sofa, after which we spent more and more time together, and we fell in love.

In another, he was an ex-professional Quidditch player, one of the greatest talents in the history of the sport in fact. He was the Seeker for Puddlemere United, and the best Seeker they'd ever had. However, after a career-ending injury, he became grumpy, isolated, and bitter. I moved in next door to him, he slowly warmed up to me, and we fell in love.

In another, he had a young son, and his wife had left him for another man. He owned a successful apothecary in Hogsmeade, and I was hired as the live-in nanny, because he could no longer cope with it. We became firm friends, and we fell in love.

Another dream I had, he was the head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, in the running to become the next Minister of Magic. However, most of his colleagues believed he was too young to do so, and being a single, childless man, he wasn't mature enough. So, being a low-grade, bog-standard employee in the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes, he persuaded me to be his fake fiancée, and we fell in love.

In another, he was almost sent to Azkaban, and in order to avoid doing so, he needed to become pen pals and befriend someone he hated in Hogwarts. We didn't know we were writing to each other, and through our words, we fell in love.

We always fell in love, every damn time, it always ended the same way.

You would have thought that closing my eyes, and having these wholesome, sweet, meaningful, romantic dreams would make everything better, and easier, even just for an hour at a time. But it didn't, it just highlighted and emphasised the weight of my pain and loneliness.

I would wake up devastated, having lost him all over again, so I think my body just wouldn't allow me to sleep any more, to stop the daily breakdowns. It worked, I suppose, because now it was just a constant, dull, persistent hurting.

**

A couple of hours had passed, and I managed two hours of broken sleep. Every time my mind would picture Draco, my eyes would ping open, my senses on high alert.

Hannah, Megan, Susan, and Leanne were all getting ready to go down to the Great Hall for breakfast. I still wasn't eating, so I never joined them, choosing the spend the sixty minutes getting ready for the next torturous seven hours.

"...Maddie..." I heard someone say my name which made my ears stand to attention,

"How long do you think she's going to feel this way? I hate seeing her so heartbroken," Megan whispered, her tone sweet and concerned,

"Why is still acting like this, though?" Susan said indifferently, "I know that makes me sound like a heartless bitch, and I do feel for her, I really do, but... I mean, she's not the first person to have her heart broken,"