Christmas 1998
"Demmy!" says my mother, and I smile at her, take the obligatory seat at her table.
We exchange pleasantries, and I think how is it that you don't know me? But we make conversation. I discover that childhood friends I haven't spoken to since before Hogwarts have moved away, dyed their hair, got married. I nurse my coffee.
Finally, she looks up, and notices the dark circles under my eyes and the lankness of my hair. Her face softens.
"How are you?" she asks in a way that she means to be sympathetic, but comes across condescending.
Surviving.
"Fine."
She gazes at me, ties to see into the lies. "What do you do all day?" she enquires curiously, with real interest.
I draw. I watch the sunset. I hold onto his school shirts and cast a charm so they always smell of him. I print out every picture he's ever taken and put them in an album, then burn it. I go to memorials. I sleep. I dream. I go to funerals. I wait. I am always waiting. Sometimes I look at my wand and consider snapping it. I go to visit Lavender Brown in hospital. I drink myself under the table with Michael Corner and Padma Patil. I laugh with the people I didn't know until September last year.
I smile at her for the first time, with real warmth. "I'm coping." I say, and it's true.