i call it magic (when i'm with you)

iv

He can act as good as the next bloke in line, but now that the foundations of his world have irrevocably shifted into strange and unfamiliar shapes, Brett knows that whatever he's been doing to get through this playacting isn't going to work this time. Not when his heart has changed its tune.

When they had made their deal about fake-dating each other, he had been so very sure his feelings wouldn't wobble an inch from where they'd stood stalwart in his chest. And now, well. The circumstances have changed; he isn't the same Brett who had so offhandedly thought a fake romantic relationship between friends would be all that there is between them. And if the casual, platonic understanding on which the very premise of their agreement has been built upon has changed, then that means this charade can't go on any longer.

And so—and so.

He pens a letter, one that isn't enchanted; these words are for the two of them alone.

Look, don't be surprised. This was bound to happen sooner or later, and I just sped things up so we can get it over with.

I'm getting tired of being your trophy partner. I'm getting tired of being used as a shield to keep others away from making advances at you. Did you know most of them don't ever talk kindly of me? They say the stupidest things behind my back, and try as I might to ignore them, they are stressing me the fuck out. I'm getting tired of not understanding what I feel about you, of being so unsure about where I stand with you, if friendship is really all that this is, and I —

I'm tired. I just want things to go back to the way they were before I ever met you.

So here it is: I'm fake breaking up with you.

Not that it really matters, yeah? We've established since the beginning that we could end things whenever we want to. This is the end of the stick for me. I'm sorry that I have to break things off through a letter that won't even allow you the courtesy of having me look you in the eye, but it's easier this way. Detached and dispassionate, see; it's the better way.

And that thing about me being a stone-cold creature? Well, maybe you're right. But it's just how I am.

Don't come near me. I don't want to see you.

— B. Yang

Brett charms it to it's received after suppertime, when the curfew forces everyone into their respective common rooms, and then immediately skips Quidditch practice the next day, not that he really had to be there even back then. Eddy doesn't seek him out just as expected, and so the next time he sees his once-upon-a-time fake boyfriend, it's at the Great Hall three days after the letter had been sent.

They don't sit together at the same table, for starters. Brett feels a multitude of gazes pinned to his back as he forgoes sitting amidst the House of Halfwits and continues on walking until he finds a quiet spot at the end of the Ravenclaw table, the farthest he can get from his circle of friends.

Their eyes meet.

Eddy stares at him for a good long while until Benny jostles him on his way through, and then he's turning away to stride out of the Hall without so much as a glance back over his shoulder. Something shatters in Brett's chest, irreparable.

Well. That's that, he supposes.

*

He hadn't thought much on the timing of the fake breakup, desperate as he had been about escaping the situation with his heart somewhat still intact, and so it doesn't occur to him how the other end of the stick—the other party, fuck— might've truly felt about it until he gets the news.