"Leave me alone."

Dawn folded her arms around her head, pulled her knees up, and leaned against the window. The huge windowsill in the abandoned classroom on the fifth floor had become her favourite place to wallow in sadness over the years. Even though she had no more tears left to cry.

A huge, gaping emptiness filled her heart. It raged around inside her like a tornado, like a black hole, tearing at everything around it. It ripped her heart into tiny little pieces until there was nothing left of her.

Alora sat down in front of her and put her hands on Dawn's knees. Her dark blue eyes – matching her House, they'd always said – pierced into her own. "I'm your best friend. I'm not leaving you here by yourself when you're hurt like this."

Tears pooled in the corners of her eyes. "Aren't you sick of this? It's, like, the third time, this year alone." She failed to blink the tears out of her at that realization.

Three times. In the past 8 months, her on-again-off-again boyfriend Elias had broken up with her and taken her back three times. And every time she'd been stupid enough to let that make her happy. How unbelievably pathetic was that?

"A little bit," Alora admitted. "More importantly, aren't you?"

Unable to look her best friend in the eye, Dawn turned back to the window. The classroom overlooked the Black Lake, where the Giant Squid was doing the back crawl across the entirety of the lake. It seemed to be its daily workout, as it usually did that after spending all day relaxing in the sun.

There, by the largest tree beside the lake, she and Elias had shared their first kiss, two years earlier. The thought filled her with a longing so strong she almost screamed out in frustration. She wanted nothing more than to run out of the room and hold onto him until he had no choice but to take her back. The mere act of staying in the windowsill drained her willpower. She felt so tired.

"Yes," she said eventually, her voice sounding hoarse. "But what am I supposed to do about it?"

When her Ravenclaw friend didn't answer, she took it as agreement. Her bond with Elias was unbreakable. Forged from the strongest steel, she was chained like a prisoner. A prisoner of her own heart. There was nothing she could do against that. They both knew it.

"Actually, I might have an idea."

Dawn's eyes widened. "You do?"

"Maybe," she said. "I've been reading this book. It's incredibly informative. The author poses that witches and wizards haven't used magic to their full potential. That many of the spells we use for mundane things actually have much deeper power behind them."

Her eyebrows knitted together as she tried to figure out what her friend was saying. Her brain was fuzzy through the haze of pain in her heart. It weighed on her shoulders, as if gravity had suddenly become ten times stronger. "Okay, so wizards are lazy. That's nothing new. What does that have to do with my situation?"

"I think there might be a spell that can help you fall out of love."

A strange sense of hope kindled deep inside her soul. Falling out of love with Elias... Two years of a rocky, messy relationship failed to do that. Could Alora have found the answer? "How?"

"You have a broken heart," said Alora. "Let me see if I can repair it." She took her wand out of her pocket and aimed it at Dawn's chest.

A pang of fear ran through her body. "What spell are you going to use?"

"It's just Reparo," said her Ravenclaw friend. "If it doesn't work, nothing should happen. It'll be safe."

The encouraging nod of her friend's head did little to soothe her nerves. As a muggle-born, even in her sixth year of learning magic, it still felt unpredictable to her. Reparo seemed innocent, sure, but then they'd never actually cast it at a human being, had they?

Still, it was only Reparo. They'd known this spell since their first year at Hogwarts. And Alora was the smartest girl she'd ever known. If she said it was safe, it was.

Besides, she was tired. At this point, she would do anything to get the rest she needed. No matter what it cost her.

"Okay."

Alora's eyes lit up at the prospect of this new little experiment. She stood up. "Okay. Ready?"

Dawn had barely nodded when the wand tapped at her chest and her friend said, "Reparo."

She blinked a few times, then looked up.

"Did it work?"

Dawn tipped her head to the side. The gaping hole in her heart didn't seem to have shrunk any. Her soul still screamed for Elias. "No. I don't think it did." She sighed and leaned back against the window. "Thanks for trying, though."

A few moments of silence passed between them. It wasn't until the Giant Squid stopped swimming and dove underneath the surface of the water that Dawn looked up. Her friend still stood in front of her, biting her lower lip with a deep frown on her face.

Dawn recognised it as her thinking face. She wore it when Professor Flitwick got into one of his deeper discussions; the ones half the class couldn't follow. She wore it sometimes when the password-puzzle to the Ravenclaw tower was particularly difficult.

"It's fine, Lora," she said, forcing a smile to her face. "I'll be fine."

"I'm sorry," Alora muttered, sitting down beside her. "I know you're hurt. I wish I could do something to help."

"You are helping." Dawn lay her head on her best friend's shoulder, staring out to the horizon. "You're here for me. That helps."

"I have another idea," Alora muttered so quietly that Dawn barely caught it.

"Yeah?" She felt tired. She just wanted to sleep. She wanted to sleep until Elias changed his mind again and would take her back, as he always did in the end.

"It's..." The Ravenclaw shuffled in her seat. "It's a bit more dangerous."

Dangerous... She wanted to ask what was so dangerous about it, but the fog in her head stopped her from asking. As long as it could help her get rid of this awful pain in her heart, anything was worth it. "Well... Do you think it could work?"

Alora nodded slowly. "I think it might. You going back to Elias all the time... It's like a bad habit. And habits are just ingrained, deeply-rooted memories forcing you to act. I think I might know a spell to erase those memories; that bad habit."

Her friend's words pushed against the fog in her head, but couldn't quite pierce it. All she could think about was Elias. All she could feel was the emptiness in her heart in the place where he should be.

"Alright." She lifted her head from her friend's shoulder and looked into her ocean-blue eyes. "I trust you."

The Ravenclaw looked at her hesitantly. "Are you sure?"

"Do it." She nodded.

"Okay." Alora raised her wand once again. It trembled slightly in her hand, making Dawn's stomach jump nauseatingly. She cleared her throat and whispered, "Obliviate."

Her breath caught in her throat as a surge of adrenaline shot through her body, clearing the fog in her head. She jumped to her feet. "Obliviate?" she screamed. "Obliviate? Have you gone absolutely bonkers?"

Alora's eyes had widened as she stood up. "Dawn –"

"Are you insane?" she raged on. "Obliviate! I could've lost my bloody mind because of that horrible spell!"

"But you didn't, did you?"

This made her pause.

"How do you feel?"

"I..." Dawn straightened her back, considering the question. "I feel fine, actually. Better." The emptiness inside her had lifted, however slightly. She didn't long for Elias' arms as much. Her heart felt like a few of the pieces had blended together again. "Good, even. Wow, Lora, you... I think you did it."

Elated, relieved laughter filled the abandoned classroom as the girls fell into each other's arms.

"Obliviate, honestly. You're an idiot, Lora," said Dawn, as they sat back on the windowsill. "You're the smartest idiot I know."