For weeks I had been dreading this moment and yet simultaneously counting down the days. I wanted to leave this place, yet was the alternative any better? Did I really want to go back to Hogwarts? Would it really be any better than the state of limbo that I found myself in?
As I lay in bed I could hear the movements of my parents downstairs. I could hear the sounds of cupboards closing, of spoons scraping and coffee mugs banging on the worktop. I glanced over to my alarm clock. They would be leaving for work soon. It had taken them both a while to find jobs again once I had brought them home from Australia. They had spent their entire lives building up their own dental practice, but that was all gone now. My fault of course. Now they were working for other people, working apart and working jobs that they hated. Again, all my fault.
With a sigh, I forced myself to get out of bed. My parents were still in the kitchen when I got downstairs, both dressed and ready for work. They would be leaving soon. In barely ten minutes time. If I was hoping for a declaration of feelings, for some show of forgiveness then it would have to happen soon. My parents both barely acknowledged my entrance to the room, my mum giving me a tight-lipped smile and my dad giving me a slight nod as he continued to sip at the coffee mug in his hand. After a minute of silence, I busied myself by going to fridge and getting some orange juice. Anything to fill in the tense and awkward silence.
It wasn't that we weren't talking. We did. We just didn't say anything. We ate dinner together most nights. Not because we wanted to. Not because it was pleasurable for any of us, but more because it was something that we had always done. No matter how busy my parents had been, they had always insisted that we had sat down to eat dinner together. To at least spend some quality time together where we could catch up with each other and share about our days. Now it felt like more of a chore, something that we felt we had to do. We had to at least pretend to want to be here, to be a happy family, even though we all knew how untrue it was. On more than one occasion my dad would call my mum 'Monica' and she would answer immediately, as if for that moment they had both completely forgotten who they were. That was until they saw me sitting beside them. Their faces would twist with confusion, then their eyes would light with realisation before their faces would fall. They tried to hide it, but I saw it anyway. Every time I would just swallow that tight hot ball of grief that was lodged into my throat and force myself to give them a small smile to tell them that it was okay, because again, I knew that it was my fault that things were this way. Eventually dinner became a silent affair full of awkward glances and held tongues, that was just painful for everyone.
When my mum had finished putting all of her used dishes in the dishwasher and my dad had drained the last of his coffee, rinsing it in the sink before doing the same, I saw them share a brief glance. One that I pretended not to see, because I suddenly knew what was coming.
My mum closed the door and seemed to brace herself before she looked at me. I could see that the smile around her lips was tight and strained. Forced. 'Are you all ready then? Everything packed?
Yep, it's all done.' I returned her forced smile, with one of my own. 'I finished it yesterday.'
She nodded thoughtfully, as if I had just given her a particularly fascinating piece of information. 'And you're going to stay with that family again? The Weasleys.'
There was something in her voice when she said The Weasley's name, but I just ignored it. I knew she didn't entirely approve of the wizarding family who so regularly welcomed me into their home. They had only met once or twice, usually when they picked me up from Kings Cross at the end of term, but I had always noticed the slight twinge of judgement from my parents. At first, I thought it was just apprehension at meeting magical folk, but as time when on I realised it was something more. My mother was a professional woman. She loved her job. She'd worked hard for it. Both of my parents had been Oxford graduates. It was where they met. Molly Weasley, stay at home mum with her seven children and her chaotic life and her hand- knitted clothes was just about as far from my mother's perfectly put together appearance as it was possible to be. My mother wasn't a snob, or one of those woman who always looked pristine with perfectly coifed hair and designer clothes. She liked camping, she went skiing but she still cared about appearances, she liked people who worked hard, who were ambitious. I couldn't help the feeling that they were not a family that she wanted to be associated with.
Yes,' I replied. 'I'm staying with them tonight and then we'll get the train to Hogwarts tomorrow.'
They nodded again but stayed silent. I thought I saw a look pass across their faces. Almost as if they wanted to say something. But as the silence continued, I thought that perhaps I had just imagined it.
Well, we need to leave for work now.' They shared another awkward glance, before my dad asked, 'Do you have everything you need?
I found myself nodding to each of them even though it was a lie. I didn't have everything I needed. My parents and I had never had the easiest of relationships. It wasn't until I saw the Weasley's big, loud and happy family that I realised what I had been missing out on for so long. But in spite of that, they were still my parents. I still needed them, I wanted them to tell me that everything was fine. That they forgave me. I wanted to know if they still loved me. But my family didn't do grand declarations of feelings. Real feelings might take the sheen off of the perfect family image we tried so hard to maintain. It was much better to keep everything bottled up than to ever admit that something might be wrong.
No, I'm fine,' I lied. 'I have everything I need.
Right,' he said. 'Well there's some money there,' he gestured to an envelope sitting on the worktop. 'It should be enough for the year. If you need more, then you can let us know.
Thanks,' I found myself muttering, awkwardly. I had barely spoken to them all summer. It felt strange to be taking their money, but if I wanted to buy new school supplies at Hogsmeade then I didn't have a choice.
Right, he said, again, moving towards me. 'Well have a nice year.' He opened his arms and awkwardly wrapped them around me. I'd barely had time to lean into him, to enjoy the comforting feeling of being in my arms before they were gone. My mums hug was just as brief, just as lacking. As she pulled back she dropped a hasty kiss to my cheek.
Well, we'd better be off. We don't want to be late for work.
In a quick flurry of movement, jackets were put on, bags were put on shoulders and car keys were picked up. Before I could make myself move, to say something to them, to try to get them to stay, to understand why I'd done what I'd done, there was another quick round of 'goodbyes' before the door was closed and I was left standing in the silent kitchen alone.
I stood in the kitchen for a long time, just staring at the door. I don't know what I was waiting for. If I was hoping that they would come back and tell me that everything was fine. Even just to say that they had would miss me. That they loved me. It took a noise from outside, a car speeding down the street, to finally snap me out of it and make me move.
I had to be at The Burrow for around lunchtime, so I had plenty of time. I had some breakfast and then tidied up the kitchen, before I went to the bathroom and went for a shower. The water was scalding but I couldn't bring myself to turn it down. The pain was a welcome release. I focused on the feel of the water as it hit my skin, feeling like a thousand sharp needles pricking and stabbing at my skin. It was a welcome distraction from the swirling back hole of emptiness that was raging inside me.
Once my hair was washed, I turned off the water and stood there, leaning my head against the cold, hard tiles. It didn't take long for the cold to seep its way through my limbs and travelling through my veins. Before long I started shivering. My lip started trembling as I struggled to keep everything inside, where I had kept it locked away all summer, but I couldn't. It had become too much, too large; my parents rejection making it swell so that it became uncontainable. As soon as my lips parted, taking in a shaking gasp, it all broke free. I slid down the wall of the shower hugged my knees to my chest. The sobs were loud and choking making it difficult to breathe. My tears were streaming down my face, mixing with the water dripping from my wet hair.
I don't know how long I sat there for, just watching the water drip from my body, snaking its way across the white basin and disappearing down the drain, taking my tears away with it. It wasn't until my skin had dried and my hair had nearly dried along with it that I finally forced myself to move. My hair was hard enough to keep under control at the best of times, never mind when I hadn't even combed it through.
I wrapped a towel around myself and went through to my bedroom and sat on my bed. Usually crying was a good release for me. Usually it was cathartic, but I felt just as numb now as I did before. I looked up and saw my reflection staring back at me from my dressing table. My puffy red eyes stood out on my pale face. My hair was hanging low on my back in a mass of tangled curls. I reached forward for my comb and set about the mammoth task of drying to detangle them. I really should have got my hair cut over the summer. Absently I thought back to when my last haircut had been. It had probably been just before Bill and Fleur's wedding, over a year ago. No wonder it was so long now. Oh well, I sighed. It was too late now.
Once I had gotten out all of the knots and tangles, I put some hair serum through it, although I wasn't sure why I bothered. It didn't actually make a difference anyway. I finished off drying it with my hair dryer before I twisted it into a messy bun, leaving a few shorter strands hanging down at the front.
Despite it being a fairly warm day, I pulled on a pair of jeans and a long-sleeved t-shirt. I couldn't wear t-shirts anymore. It was something else she had taken from me. I pushed my sleeve up and looked at the raised skin on my arm. I actively tried not to look at it. Every time that I did I wanted to claw and scratch at it and get it off of me. But there was nothing I could do. I'd already tried everything that I could think of. I'd tried healing charms, potions, creams, lotions, but none of it even diminished the vivid red words standing out clearly against the pale skin of my arm. I'd gotten so desperate I'd even tried a knife, tried to slice it off. Tried to score through the word that had haunted me for years, yet to my immense disappointment that hadn't worked either. The skin had healed around it, but the word itself remained. I began to suspect that it was deliberate. Her last vindictive punishment, knowing that she had cursed me with this word for the rest of my life, to be haunted and marked as simply that one cruel taunt.
I pulled the sleeve back down, feeling instantly calmer now that it was hidden. It was getting too easy these days to just push my emotions down, to keep them compartmentalised and locked away. My breakdown in the shower being a minor blip.
I tidied away my hair things, packing them into my trunk. I gave my bedroom one final look, making sure that I hadn't missed anything, even though I knew that I hadn't. It was spotless as always. There was really nothing else to do. I was packed, I was dressed and I had nothing left to stay for. Closing my trunk with a final click, I dragged it out of my room and pulled it down the stairs behind me. I could have levitated it, but for some reason, I wanted to do it the muggle way.
I sat my case down in the living room and couldn't resist having a quick look around, absorbing in all the details. I had spent so long in my bedroom, only coming out for mealtimes that I hadn't actually spent much time in this room since I got back. I could feel the tension and awkwardness that settled in the room when I walked into it and so I had done my best to avoid it, only entering the room if I desperately had to and never staying for longer than I needed to.
Finally, I had the room all to myself and I couldn't help but feel like I was trespassing in someone else's house. The walls were still the same colours, the furnishings were still the same, the pictures that hung on the walls were still the same and yet the room didn't feel familiar at all. It all felt like it belonged to someone else, except that it didn't. It was me who had helped to paint those walls, it was me who helped to pick out the furniture and it was my school certificates that hung on the wall. I walked over to the fireplace and looked over the pictures that stood on top of the fireplace. Pictures of my mum, dad and me all together and all happy. Pictures of us camping in the Forest of Dean, on holiday in France, at a family wedding, just all smiling and happy. I reached out and picked up one of my favourite pictures, a picture of me with my mum and dad on my first day at Hogwarts. I was already dressed in my robes and full school uniform before I had even left the house. I was just a tad excited that day. I lifted my fingers and traced the smiles of my mum and dad feeling warmth spread through me at how proud and happy they looked. When I first received my letter, they had both been in total shock and we all hadn't believed it at first. I mean, how could we? We thought it has been a joke, junk mail of some sort, but when the man from the ministry had turned up at the house and explained everything to us with a demonstration that left us all speechless, my parents had looked on at me with pride and wonder. I was a witch. I was special.
I knew that deep down that dad was slightly disappointed that I wouldn't be following in the footsteps of both my parents by going to Oxford. As a child I had been desperate to go too. I had grown up listening to my parent's stories of their time there and they made it sound amazing and magical. But one thing that I had never told either of them was that I had no intention of being a dentist. Teeth held absolutely no interest for me, but I was still determined that I would work so hard to get to Oxford and make my parents proud.
However, once I had heard about Hogwarts and all of the amazing things that I could do there I knew that I had to go. Anyone could get into Oxford if they worked hard enough, but this was something that I had been chosen for and it made me feel so special. I immediately told my parents that I wanted to go and even though they were both apprehensive about sending me away to a school in a world that they knew nothing about, eventually they both agreed. I wasn't a spoiled child, but I was very determined, and my parents would not deny me something that I wanted so badly, especially when I written a full five pages of argument with reasons why they should let me go.
My eyes fell on the picture of the young girl that stood in between my parents. She looked so happy and enthusiastic and so excited at what was to come. I couldn't help but think at how innocent she looked and how determined she had been to prove herself. I couldn't help but smile wistfully at the person I used to be and how so very prim and proper I had been. No wonder I had earned the title book worm. My smile slowly faded as I thought of all the things that the girl in the picture still had to go through, all the horrific things that were still to come. Would she still be that enthusiastic and desperate to go if she knew what path lay before her? Would she have chosen to go if she knew what evil she would have to face and what choices she would have to make?
I sadly placed the picture frame carefully back on the fireplace making sure that I placed it in the exact space that I had picked it up from. There was no point in dwelling on the past and what have been. Everything had happened and I couldn't change that now. I had made my choices and I was living with the consequences.
I knew how much I wanted to leave. I knew that I had to leave. To escape. To get out of this toxic atmosphere that made me feel like I was walking around with a gaping hole in my chest. I was sure that my parents felt the same. I was sure they wanted the awkward reminder of their traitorous daughter out of the way. Yet I couldn't shake the unmistakable feeling that once I left this house, there was a very real possibility that I wouldn't ever come back.
As the sorrow and guilt once again began to bubble up inside me, threatening to spill over I mentally shook myself, telling myself to get a grip. Today would be hard enough and there was no point in wondering about what might happen. I had done all that I could and if my parents wanted me back here then I would be there like a shot and if they didn't, well I would deal with that if and when it came to it. I lifted my trunk once more and moved into the centre of the room.
I closed my eyes and forced myself to clear my mind. Feeling that familiar pull in my middle, I felt my body constrict and twist, a rushing sound filling my ears, as I left my family for possibly the final time.