Diary entry Friday 12 June

«Two and a half weeks.

That's how long it's been since Neville spoke to me.

Final exams are coming up next week and although studying is actually taking up all my free time I miss my best friends enormously.

Dinner in the Great Hall is insanely boring without company and I feel lonelier than ever.

Draco does his best to cheer me up when we meet in the library.

Once he even persuaded me to go for a walk with him in the evening. We ended up at the lake, though I insisted on not going to the bench because I was too afraid Neville would be there.

Instead, we just wandered along the lake for a bit and I kicked scattered stones into the water.

All the while he held my hand.

It turns out that our hands fit together perfectly. It just feels right.

My conversations with Emilia have doubled, so I've been to see her five times in the last two and a half weeks.

It helps me enormously to talk to her, which has made the last few weeks easier.

Without her, I would never have been able to do this and probably would never have come out of my room.

We are making great progress in terms of my control issues. It still scares me but it's getting better.

I made a decision and it includes a controlled part and a big uncontrollable.

I made this decision alone, without any encouragement from Emilia, although she was more than thrilled when I told her.

The graduation, that's the deadline.

I haven't talked to anyone but Emilia about it yet, not even Draco knows about it and I won't tell him either.

It's supposed to be a surprise.

I'm getting on a bit better with Min again, mainly because she no longer says in every other sentence what a bad person Draco is.

I don't like being alone anymore.

I like noises around me as long as they are not too loud. I like the hustle and bustle in the corridors and I'm happy every time someone says hello to me.

Nevertheless, I am often alone these days.

I have learned a lot about myself, why some things affect me so much or why I am afraid of other things.

I question myself and have come to the conclusion that I should have gone to a psychologist much earlier.

I don't blame anyone for not forcing me to go to therapy earlier, because if I hadn't wanted it myself, it wouldn't have worked.

It had to escalate before I could get involved.

I feel stronger than ever now that I'm admitting my weaknesses.

If someone asked me today if I am happy, I would say no. I am not happy but I am working. I am not happy but I am working on it.

There are moments when I am happy, really happy. Moments with Draco.

When he makes me laugh, when he laughs, when he hugs me and when he kisses me.

Kissing is madness and I still don't understand how couples can sit next to each other without wanting to kiss the other all the time.

Maybe they just have pretty good self-control.

It doesn't matter in the end, Draco makes me happy and I love every minute I spend with him.

I love his way, his laugh, his beautiful face, I...»

"I love him," I whispered to myself.

I was sitting in the Great Hall at breakfast on the last Friday before exams, writing in my notebook when this realisation hit me by surprise.

He was important to me, I had known that for months only until now I had never called it love.

It had never felt right to call it love but that was exactly what it was.

I loved him and to my surprise it didn't scare me.

I thought about the glow in his eyes and then I thought about my dad.

I thought about flying and now I knew why I wasn't afraid to fly then.

I had known he would catch me because he loved me.

It was the pure trust of a child in the love of his parents.

There would be another decision in my life and I was more than ready for it.

"I want to fly," I declared joyfully to Emilia as I took a seat in the armchair opposite her.

She looked at me questioningly.

"I want to fly because I love him."

I was so full of euphoria that it was no wonder I couldn't get an intelligible sentence together.

I loved someone, really loved someone. I had been afraid that I could never love someone outside my family for fear of losing them.

I was still afraid of that, panic-stricken even, but it didn't scare me to love Draco.

I didn't know why, but it didn't matter.

"I love Draco," I said aloud and now Emilia seemed to have finally understood what I wanted to say, because her questioning expression disappeared and she smiled at me.

"And now you want to fly?"

I nodded.

"Why now?"

She knew about my fear of flying, we had talked about it relatively early in my therapy.

"Because I don't think I'll be afraid of it anymore with Draco around."

That explanation seemed to be enough for her.

We talked about the topic for a moment and then turned back to my plan for the graduation.

I had already made the decision to go through with it, but it took a lot of talking and a lot of talking myself into believing that I wouldn't back out.

The conversation went well and I was sitting back in the library at my usual place with the No-Maj non-fiction books when I heard footsteps coming from behind the shelves.

I started to grin involuntarily, just at the thought of Draco.

But when I looked up it wasn't Draco's grey eyes I was looking into.

"Hey," he said quietly embarrassed as he sat down across from me.

Damn, why hadn't Emilia and I talked about how I should act when it came to this situation?

Or had we and I had just forgotten?

My hands began to shake and I suddenly felt cold.

It took me a few seconds before I managed to stop staring at him like the eighth wonder of the world.

"Hey," I croaked in a hoarse voice.

He was here, he had come willingly.

This was the moment to swallow my pride, to let him talk and not yell at him.

"I think we need to talk," Neville stated quietly and I nodded silently as I eyed him.

Emilia had more or less forbidden me to look at him, so it was only now that I noticed the state he was in.

His face looked narrower than usual and his skin was not as rosy. The rings around his eyes were like mine, dark and deep.

He looked as ill as I felt.

Did he expect me to start talking?

What was I supposed to say anyway?

What was I going to say?

"Everything that could go wrong did go wrong," he began quietly and I was relieved that he had started.

"I'm so sorry about that," I quickly interjected but he just shook his head.

Damn it, why couldn't I just let him finish?

"You had every right to come at me like that. I really did act like an intolerant ass."

Quoting my insult, he smiled slightly.

"I just went overboard. I'm sorry," I explained with my head down. I now deeply regretted what I had said although that was not the case at first.

I had let myself be guided too much by my anger, I knew that now.

"And I acted like a lousy best friend."

"Or just like someone who cares."

He snorted.

"I'm not a fan of Malfoy and I still don't think he deserves you but if he makes you happy then I will have to accept that."

At those words, a slight smile crept onto my face as well.

"I miss you guys," I confessed softly. I missed them both incredibly, just sitting with them at dinner and chatting was something I missed.

Neville stood up, came around the table to me, sat down and wrapped his arms around me.

I was immediately enveloped in his familiar scent and it took all my effort not to start crying straight away.

I wrapped my arms around him, pressed myself tightly against him and would have liked to never let him go again.

I had my best friend back and nothing in the world would ever stop me from letting him go again.

"I missed you," I sniffled into the hug as I finally gave up the fight against the tears.

He gently stroked my back and murmured as softly as I did, "I missed you too."

We sat in the library talking until dinner.

I jumped over my own shadows and told him about Emilia and how much it helped me to talk to her.

He told me that he had also been with her regularly at the beginning of the school year, but since he had been with Hannah, the conversations had been less and less frequent.

With him it was the other way round than with me. Hannah helped him to cope without therapy and Draco had convinced me to have one.

In their own way, they both helped us and that was something that connected me and Neville.

Arm in arm, we went to dinner in the Great Hall where an angry, three-eyed Hannah was waiting for us.

"Are you crazy Neville?!

I've been worried sick!

You can't just disappear and not tell me where you are!"

"I was with Daisy," he confessed meekly but Hannah didn't seem surprised at all.

"We talked," he continued, and only now did his girlfriend seem to realise who was hanging on her boyfriend's arm and what that meant.

Her eyes widened and her angry expression gave way more and more to a radiance.

"You're friends again?", she asked, completely exhilarated and feeling more pleased than I did.

"We are," Neville confirmed and immediately Hannah fell around our necks.

"Thank Merlin, I wouldn't have lasted much longer," she laughed.

Neither could I Hannah, neither could I.

It was probably the happiest dinner I'd had in ages and I felt I'd never laughed so much.

My stomach ached, and not because it was the first time I'd eaten properly in weeks.

How could I ever live without friends?

These two people meant so much to me and I would never let anything come between us again.

"Damn it," Hannah said abruptly, far too serious for the situation.

Neville and I looked at her questioningly.

"I have to tutor Arithmantics today and I can't put it off again and Nev you promised Dean you'd write his uni applications with him."

Neville sighed and slapped the flat of his hand in front of his head.

"Damn, I forgot about that."

"We can do something all day tomorrow. It's really no big deal," I quickly interjected.

Of course I would have liked to do something with them tonight but that could wait until tomorrow.

"You wouldn't be mad at us?" Neville asked.

"Why would I be? You have plans you can't postpone.

Besides, I haven't really seen Draco all week, I could make up for it today."

It had been a rather brave decision to mention Draco but neither Neville nor Hannah seemed bothered by it.

With that out of the way, we went back to the fun stuff.