I knelt on the cold stone floor of the dormitory. It was empty; the entire student body was at the funeral. I was not going. I could watch the whole thing from here in the Ravenclaw tower, but I was not going to. The longer I avoided it, the longer I could pretend that he was still alive.

My hand tightened around the old wrist watch I had modified long, long ago. The minute hand read Dumbledore, and it was lazily spinning, never coming to rest. Even in his passing, a part of him was antsy. I put it back in my pocket; I could not look at it, but I could not part with it either. I did not him to see what I was about to do.

It is amazing, what hatred can do to a person. It can turn tender hearts to stone, turn glances into daggers and make the sweetest tongues forked and poisonous. I was so aware of it percolating inside of me, and yet I did not care. The more I steeped in my anger, the more I could ignore my grief. The more I steeped in my hatred, the further it drove me to the edge.

I opened the old book in front of me, filched from the most remote shelf of the restricted section. I was calling upon old magic. Dark magic. A curse.

In one bowl, I deposited the banes of the villain:

Atropa, for his poisonous thoughts.

Nettles, for all of the pain he has caused.

Unicorn blood, for the unforgivable sins he has committed.

I drew the runes with a firm hand. I was so sure, so deliberate. I would make him pay for everything.

Taking the frame from my bed side table, I removed the photo and held it over the bowl. All that was left to do was set his image aflame in it's banes, and he would be cursed.

It was the Eventus Pestis Pestis; the Curse of the Pariah. Draco Malfoy would be exiled in the hearts of all who knew him. He would be doomed to live a life as bleak and lonesome as the one he had wrought around me.

To those who had known him here, he would be deemed a traitor. He was given so much- he who had so much already- and threw it all away.

To those who had corrupted him: the death eaters and those consumed by darkness, he would be deemed a coward. He had not carried out his assignment, yet left all the damage just the same. Coming to think of it, my curse would not be so potent after all; he had cursed himself well enough as it was.

I held my wand to his stupid, smirking face. It was odd to see his image, flirting and winking. I almost did not believe I had ever loved him. It seemed so far away now, years and years ago even. And now I felt nothing.

Tears sprang to my eyes, as if to prove myself wrong, for the thousandth time.

I felt so much. Everything hurt. I was confused, and alone... and I needed to talk to Dumbledore.

Oh, Albus. What would he think of me right now? What kind of advice could he have lent me?

Suddenly, an idea came to me. It was so brilliant that it almost surprised me, as this had not been a good year for me in terms of brilliance.

I tossed the picture aside, and ran from the dormitory as fast as my feet could carry me. The stairs disappeared beneath me as if I was flying over them, and if I had run into anyone in the halls I am sure that I would have breezed through them like a ghost. I could hear my heart beating in my ears, It was muffled and pained like the ticking of my broken watch.

I finally reached Dumbledore's office. Well, what used to be his. As I clambered through the entrance and burst through the doors, I was painfully aware of how empty of Albus it was.

All of the peculiar instruments had disappeared. The desk was bare, and the perch whereupon Fawkes used to sit had been taken away.

I looked wildly around the walls, searching the portraits of headmasters past for a familiar face. There were none.

I sat upon the empty desk, defeated. As I did, a frame that was leaning against the side fell with a clatter to the stone floor. It contained a blank canvas, empty and silent. There was a monogram along the bottom frame, it read Headmaster Albus Dumbledore.

The portrait was empty. Just like the office, the school, and my heart.

I cried then for my lost mentor. I cried like I had never before.