Part I: Jillian

Chapter 1: Fire and Blood

I'm a good kid. Really, I am! I'm polite, I respect my elders and put up with my grandparents when they pinch my cheek and tell me how much I've grown. I thank my mom for dinner even if it's something absolutely revolting like cream-of-mackerel soup. I had only had one ex-boyfriend in my life and I had dumped him, he hadn't dumped me.

When it's time for school, I get shipped off on a scarlet and black train to the best place on earth. A haven. Hogwarts School of Magic. Yep, you heard right. I am a wizard. I perform magic. I can disappear in one place and appear in another. I can change a rat into a tea cup. I have a group of friends. But this year, my sixth year, was different.

Everyone has their embarrassing little secrets, right? Like maybe you wet the bed until you were twelve or maybe you still slept with your stuffed bear. But me, mine's a lot worse. I have the worst sleepwalking problems. I get up and I do things that when I wake up I have no memory of doing. Once, for example, I got out of bed, still sleeping, and tied my mom's hair to her bed posts. I went right back into my bed, still asleep, and woke up to my mom screaming her head off. And I had no memory of tying anyone's hair to the bed post that night. My parents knew about my problem so they knew it was me. I went to the doctor (a non-magic one) and got some pills. Everything was fine after that but if I forgot to take my medicine, I would sleepwalk.

I'm sixteen years old. I don't usually tell anybody about my problem because I have to be cool, right? Well I'm not exactly that cool. I never go to sleepovers because something bad might happen, I have never gone on a vacation more than ten miles away from my home because if I went to Miami, Florida and forgot to take my pills, what could we do about it? I could end up breaking into someone's hotel room without even knowing it. I'm a pretty lame kid.

At Hogwarts, everything is different. I'm different. I don't sleepwalk. It's like a safe place for me. I don't need to hide myself or anything about me.

Two weeks before I was driven to King's Cross Station is where this story begins. It was ten o'clock. I had just watched a movie and I was in my bathroom brushing my teeth. My short black hair was pulled back in a headband from washing my face. My eyes were red and tired looking. I bent down to spit in the sink and rinsed my mouth off, wiping it on my sleeve. I opened my bottle of prescription pills and took one, washing it down with a glass of water. I yawned and took out my headband.

Two more weeks, I thought to myself happily as I turned off my lights, closed the door and jumped into bed. I looked out my window at the crescent moon until my eyelids grew so heavy I had to close them. I fell asleep soon after.

It seemed only seconds later that I woke up suddenly and found myself stumbling down a dark hallway. I was seeing everything in red for some reason. I rubbed my eyes and opened a door in front of me. Feeling my way around the room I was now in, I found the bed. Something flashed in front of my eyes.

I fell to the floor and had the wind knocked out of me. My eyes opened and I gasped slightly, regaining my breath. What a weird dream...

Just then, I felt something wet on my hands. I walked towards my bathroom and turned on the light. I almost screamed when I saw crimson, dripping blood on my hand. There was some splattered on my clothes. Then I realized my hand was clutching something to my side. I lifted it up and felt a sob escape my mouth as I saw a bloody kitchen knife. I saw drips of blood down the hallway leading to my brother's bedroom. No. No.

I ran into his room. The scene in front of me caused my head to spin and my eyes to blur up with tears. My brother was slumped on the floor, blood gushing from his neck. He was dead. And his room had been set on fire. I screamed louder than I ever had before. In anger and hatred at myself and in sadness and fear. "No!" I screamed as I flung the knife on the ground and threw myself over my brother's body. "NO!" I had murdered my brother and set my house on fire. But the pills! I had taken my medicine! What was wrong with me? I screamed and cried some more but then realized that the room around me was slowly being engulfed in flames. I ran out and fell to my knees in front of my parents who had come out of their room.

The look on their faces told me something clear: I could not tell them I had done it.

"Jillian! Are you alright?" my dad asked as my mom screamed and tried to run into my brother's burning room.

Both my parents realized what had happened. With devastated faces and tears trickling down their faces, they said something that seemed to be in some foreign language.

Everything was a blur after that but soon I found myself sitting across the street, sobbing uncontrollably with my Hogwarts trunks beside me and ambulances and fire trucks in front of my house.

Then suddenly we were at the hospital. My parents sat on either side of me in the waiting room.

"Jillian, sweetie," my mom said in her broken voice. "You took your pills, right?"

All I could do was nod. I couldn't find my voice. I couldn't remember anything except that dream. I was about to try and talk to my parents about it but then remembered. I was a murderer and nobody knew. Police were trying to search for the "killer" when I had been there all along. Would I have to tell someone eventually? Turn myself in?

I couldn't think. I wanted to tell them so badly but I felt like the deadly secret was locked inside of me forever.

"Are you sure?" my dad asked. It sounded like his whole world had crashed down. "You had come out of his room after he was... after it happened."

I swore in my head. If I weren't a good liar, I would have had to tell them. My I choked on a real sob and said, "I woke up and I smelt something weird. So I went into... his room and saw him there dead on the floor. I tried to stop the bleeding and I got some on my clothes. I saw the knife lying beside him and his room was on fire. But-"

I broke off and covered my face with my hands, rough with dried blood. I was such an idiot. What had I done? This whole thing was my fault. My fault. I had killed my brother. I was an idiot for lying, for keeping it to myself. I was an idiot of a daughter. My parents deserved to hate my guts.

"Jillian, it's okay. It's all going to be okay," my mom said, putting her arms around me, crying.

No. I thought. Everything was not going to be okay.

"We believe you, sweetie. You did everything you could," my dad assured me. "We love you."

No! I screamed in my head. No! Don't believe me! Don't tell me I'm innocent! Don't tell me it wasn't my fault! Don't tell me you love me! You shouldn't! You should hate me!