slide away {lorenzo berkshire}

65. nobody gets me

"I'm scared of the love I have for you. Because I know it will ruin me. And I also know that I will let it."
- sandarafreedompark

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Lorenzo Berkshire

After two weeks of laughter, snow, and stolen bottles of firewhiskey, Hogwarts had snapped back into its usual rhythm - the echo of hurried footsteps, the smell of damp stone and chalk, and the low hum of whispered rumors threading through the halls.

Christmas break had been... different. For once, it hadn't felt like we were suffocating under the Dark Lord's shadow. It had felt like we were still teenagers - stupid, reckless, alive. Those nights in the common room, Cassie curled on the arm of the chair, Theo making some smart remark, Draco pretending not to laugh - it had been the last chance to be normal. Or as close as we could get at this point.

And Cassie. She'd laughed more in those two weeks than I'd seen her do in months. Something about seeing her like that - unguarded, almost happy - had burned itself into me. I'd caught myself watching her too often, trying to memorise the way she tilted her head back when she laughed, or how she always stole my cigarette when she thought I wasn't paying attention.

I thought about the journal she'd given me for my eighteenth birthday. And the note she'd left in it. A lot.

"Here's eighteen things you're ridiculously good at. Or at least, eighteen things that make me think you're going to survive whatever comes next. Don't get full of yourself; just thought you could use a reminder. P.S. - stop smiling at the page like that".

Then there were pages of little details I hadn't thought anyone noticed. The way I always noticed when someone was pretending to be okay. How I could make a room feel lighter with a joke, even when I didn't mean to. That I never backed down from what I thought was right, even if it got me into trouble. Every quirk, every habit, every bit of me she'd chosen to notice, to remember.

The last one was the one that stayed with me. That she trusted I would never lose those things, no matter what happened. No matter the darkness, the orders, the choices I'd have to make. Even when everything else felt like it was slipping, even when the Carrows and the Dark Lord and the whole goddamn world made me feel like I'd become a monster, she had made me believe that some parts of me were untouchable. At least to her.

I'd read it again and again, and each time it hit me differently. Coming from Cassie, it was huge. It was the closest thing I'd ever had to her admitting anything - how she saw me, how she trusted me - even if it was wrapped in her own Cassie sarcasm. That was her language. And yet, hidden in all of it, was something real. Something that mattered more than she'd ever admit out loud.

And then there was Mattheo.

That was harder to think about. For so long I'd held onto the image of him as the boy who'd broken Cassie down, who'd bruised her spirit in ways I could never quite forgive. A part of me still hated him for it, and maybe I always would. But over Christmas... something shifted. He'd cracked jokes, lost at cards without throwing a tantrum, even let Theo wind him up without hexing him into the hospital wing. He seemed almost normal. Almost like someone who could actually be my brother.

But those two weeks were over now, and as much as I wanted to, I couldn't make them last forever.

For a moment, it had been too easy to forget the world outside those walls.

But the world had a way of reminding us.

The castle was too damn quiet at night.

Every sound carried - the scrape of our footsteps against the stone, the creak of shifting portraits, the soft flick of Cassie's wand as she adjusted her grip.