I wake up in the middle of the night, heart pounding, sheets twisted around me like they’re trying to trap my chest. Again. The same dream. Uma. Her face, that impossible, infuriatingly beautiful smile, the way her hair falls over her shoulders, the glint in her eyes that makes everything else blur into nothing. Three months. Three months since we broke up, since we last shared a smile, a laugh, a look that only we understood. And still… every night, without fail, she’s there.

Her power. That thing she keeps buried, the one even the whispers around Hogwarts call dangerous. Dreamwalking. Slipping into someone’s sleep, bending dreams, shaping thoughts—but never the ones she cares about. It’s why she’s always so careful, why even though magic runs through her veins, she’s never reckless with it—except… here I am. Haunted. Invaded. Her. Not in memory, not in fantasy. Alive. Breathing in my head. And I can’t—I can’t—pretend it’s okay.

We’re always cursed with distance, always in our own spaces. Hogwarts may be our home, but it’s enormous, and each of us has our own dorm. This is the weekend, quiet, the halls sleeping under the stars, and yet… she’s there. In my dreams. Always. And no one else would understand. Magic isn’t just spells and charms here—it’s everything. And yet, somehow, her power feels like it’s breaking the rules, breaking me.

I swing my legs over the side of the bed, hands gripping the sheets as if they could hold me together. Three months of pretending I’m fine. Three months of trying to push her out of my mind. But I can’t. Not tonight. I can’t sit in my dorm and hope she’s not the reason I wake up gasping, the reason my heart won’t let me breathe.

So I get up. I grab my cloak, wand in my pocket, and I step into the night. The castle is silent, corridors empty, stairs creaking under careful steps. I make my way to her dorm, the one room that’s always been hers, the place that holds her scent, her warmth, her laughter. My hand hesitates at the door, trembling—not from fear, but from everything I’ve been holding in for three months.

I knock. Once. Twice. My chest heaves, mind racing, heart screaming. And I wait, listening to the quiet hum of Hogwarts around me, hoping she’s awake… hoping she hears me.