Chapter 1: Swimming With Sharks
I fidgeted silently in my bed as the horrors of that night floated around in my mind. Those memories were like sharks, and they were circling around me, taunting me, before finally going in for the kill. I'd promised myself not to let these thoughts engulf me like they were doing now, but those particular memories, like sharks, were dominant over all the others. They reigned victorious over my mind, and sickened every fiber of my being. All I wanted was a way to escape them. All I wanted was to forget the terror that I had felt. All I wanted to was to finally fall into a dreamless sleep, and never, ever wake up.
But it wasn't that simple. It's never that simple. Because just as I was about to slip into the subconscious world, Summer silently opened my door and slipped into bed beside me. As she did so, she pressed a finger to her lips, signaling for me not to scream. I obeyed her silent demand, and scooted over to make room for her.
"You remembered it again, didn't you? I heard you screaming," Summer whispered as she she rolled her petite body over in the bed to face me. I looked at my older sister, my protector, and slowly nodded. I didn't recall screaming, but then again, I didn't recall a lot of things lately.
"I try," I said as I sat up, pulling my knees to my chest, and resting my chin on them. "I try to forget, but I can't. All I can think about is coming home and seeing all those healers running into the house..."
An unreadable expression crossed my sister's face, and she violently flipped her soft, brunette curls over her shoulder and bit at one of her chipped nails. This had become one of her tendencies in the past month, and it amused me that my sister had become what my friend Rose Weasley liked to call a "hair-flipper". The nail-biting, however was fine, boring even, because she'd been doing that for as long as I could remember.
"Stop it Danae, it's over. It's in the past, okay?" she demanded. I sighed, but nodded in spite of myself. Summer hated when I brought up the accident. "Besides, we're going back to Hogwarts tomorrow, so you'll be able to get back to normal. And we can forget about this whole thing. It'll be like none of it ever happened."
Maybe for Summer it would be like that, but for me it would be different. The two of us are as different as sisters can be. And her way of grieving and dealing with things is by forgetting about them, pushing them further and further away until they finally vanish. But I obsess over what puts me in pain. It infiltrates my mind, and leaves me permanently scarred. I couldn't just forget about the fact that Mom had died. I couldn't forget the fact that she would never hug me, or make me her famous Cinnamon Cauldrons, or give me that knowing smirk when I blushed about a boy ever again. But Summer could. Summer wanted to pretend that nothing had happened. She wanted to go back to Hogwarts and pretend that Mom was still alive. And even though I knew that she had loved Mom so much (despite all her teenage angst and screaming sessions with Mom), I couldn't help but feel like she was going to forget about Mom completely.
"Hurry up, Dan!" Summer yelled as I slammed through the barrier to Platform 9 and 3/4 after her. Upon reaching the Platform, I had to take a minute to run my pale fingers through my unruly caramel colored hair, and tug on the zipper of my faded blue sweatshirt. I was well aware that I looked like a complete mess (Summer had kindly informed me of that before we even left the house), but today I didn't really care. I felt terrible today, and I hated myself for having to leave Dad behind. Without Mom, he was like a puppet without strings. And now he would be all alone in that giant house, with no one but the old Persian cat for company. And seeing how the cat had taken to taking six hour naps each day, she wouldn't really be that great of a companion.
I'd asked him to come to the station with us a few nights ago at dinner, but he'd replied that it would be too hard for him. It had been somewhat of a tradition for him and Mom to take us together, so I couldn't really blame him when he declined my invitation as politely as possible and excused himself from the table.
"I'm off to find Dominique," Summer stated, waking me from my reverie. "… unless you want me to sit with you. I could, you know. It wouldn't be a problem at all. Do you want me to? You know what? I will because-"
"Sum," I laughed, interrupting her pointless rambling, "It's fine. I was going to look for Rose, Al, and Scorp anyway. Go have fun, Sum." I smirked at my rhyme and glanced around as students said their goodbyes to their families. I tried not to dwell upon the fact that the only family I had here right now was Summer, and she didn't even count because she'd be going into her seventh year at Hogwarts, and so saying goodbye to her would be absolutely and utterly pointless.
She sighed dramatically and raised her perfectly tweezed eyebrows at me.
"Al?" she said with a little smirk that revealed her stunningly white teeth. "As in, Albus… Potter, maybe?"
I blushed to my roots and gave her a firm look. It wasn't exactly a secret that I was in love with the youngest Potter boy, and I'd spent the better part of fifth year blabbing to Sum about how gorgeous his deep, emerald eyes were. I didn't see why she was so smug. She'd snogged up James Potter on more than one occasion last year, so she's one to talk.
"Yes," I stated calmly. "Albus Potter. As in, brother of your tonsil-hockey buddy, James Potter."
Sum grinned mischievously at me as she started walking away. Right when I was about to run off to find my friends, she turned to look at me over he shoulder, winked, and shouted, "Remember to invite me to the wedding, alright? Maybe I can bring my 'buddy' Jamesy!" and the pranced off to find her best friend, Dominique Weasley.
"Sure, sure," I mumbled to myself as I fumed off to find a compartment on the already crowded train. The corridors of the Hogwarts Express were packed with people, and I wouldn't be surprised if some unfortunate soul go squeezed to death in the mob of magical teenagers. Despite my cynical outlook on the youth that were crowding the corridors, I realized with a sudden wave of emotion just how much I'd missed all of this. This was going to be my sixth year at Hogwarts, and it pained me to think that I only had two more years to go. I better try to make the most of it. That's what Mom would have wanted.
"Danae! DANAE KARMINE LIVELY!" a musical voice shouted from somewhere inside the mob. My eyes scanned the slowly retreating crowd and fell upon a wave of wild, red hair.
"Rose!" I exclaimed happily as I ran over to hug my best friend. "Oh, Rose, how are you?!"
She gave me a toothy grin and dramatically fluttered her eyelashes at me. "I'm great, actually. Guess what? You'll never believe it!"
"Scorpius finally asked you out?" I guessed with a content smirk. Her face fell into a mask of anger and disappointment.
"Well that ruins the surprise then," she grumbled. "How'd you know?"
"He sent me a letter over the summer telling me. He told me about how some strange girl had agreed to go out with him…" I teased as I suddenly received one of her famous Rose Weasley death glares. We teased each other on a regular basis, but we both knew that it was just playful bickering, so the glare didn't faze me at all. I reckon I could have let her tell me about it herself, but what fun would that be? And I definitely needed a little fun in my life.
"Ha. Ha," she said dryly, sarcasm dripping out of her every word. "Anyway, we need to fix you up with Al soon. And then we could double!"
"Rose, I highly doubt that Albus Potter would ever want to date me. He only thinks of us as friends, and even if he did like me I wouldn't want to compromise our friendship. Besides, I should concentrate on other stuff… like Quidditch… and, um, school."
"School?"
"Yeah, that's what I said. School. As in that lovely place we go to every year to learn magic. You know, that place? I believe it's called Hogwarts," I replied humorlessly.
"I hear what you said Lively, and I must say, I do resent your sarcasm. Since when do you care about academics?" Rose quipped as we finally found our way into an empty compartment.
After we both took a seat I looked up at her, and all traces of sarcasm left my voice as I replied seriously, "Since Mom died."
Rose looked extremely uncomfortable, and I hadn't meant to put her in that situation. But as she gazed out the window, staring at the passing fields and remarkably blue sky, thinking of something to say, I found myself drowning in those shark infested waters once more. And all the memories that I'd successfully pushed out of my mind since last night came back to me.
"Danae, I'm so sorry," Rose finally whispered. "And I didn't know if you wanted to talk about it or not, so I left it out of my letters, but you know I'm here if you ever want to talk, right?" I nodded at her, but even the sound of her soothing, melodic voice couldn't save me from those memories. Even she, my best friend in the entire world, couldn't save me from getting eaten alive by the sharks.
Just as Rose was about to open her mouth and start speaking again the compartment door slid open with a squeak, and Albus Potter and Scorpius Malfoy strolled in. They entered with a flourish, like always, and sent mini fireworks out of the tips of their wands. Rose gave me an encouraging smile that said, "See, they'll cheer you up", and even though the sight of Albus made me feel a little bit better, a dark gray raincloud still hovered over my heart, bearing the constant threat of a thunderstorm.
"Why hello ladies, how are you on this fine September day?" Scorpius asked as he waltzed over to sit down beside Rose, making his sandy colored hair shake with every step. Albus rolled his brilliant green eyes and ran a hand through his untidy hair. In all honestly, he'd never looked sexier. He seemed to have filled out a bit over the summer, and he definitely looked a bit tan. I made a mental note to ask him if he'd gone on any vacations over the summer.
"Now, now, Scorpius, calm yourself down and eat some fruit or something. No need to be so facetious so early in the year. I say we save our high-jinks for a later date," Albus said as he grinned that lopsided grin that I knew and loved. Merlin, he was beautiful.
"So in other words, Potter, you mean tomorrow?" Scorpius inquired as he casually placed his arm around Rose's shoulders. She bit her lip and blushed right to her already red roots, but I could tell that she loved it. And I truly was happy for her, because I knew that she was happy. That's why our friendship worked. We both genuinely felt the other's emotions so strongly, almost as if they were our own. Many people had taken to calling us soul sisters, and and marveling about how much we had in common. And we were guilty as charged, because we were just two girls who were high on life and didn't see the point of fretting over all the pointless stuff. We could stay up without getting bored until the ungodly hour of six in the morning just talking, and we had on various occasions.
Albus grinned as gave Scorpius a high five before sitting down beside me. My heart melted a bit when he gave me the grin I loved, and I moved the cage that held my snowy white owl, Kismet, off the seat to make room for him. When I did this she hooted in protest. I hadn't really been paying much attention to her lately, because she was a birthday gift from Mom, and just looking at her made me miss Mom even more. I would have left her home with Dad if I didn't need her to send letters so badly. I suppose I could use the school owls, but there was no guarantee that they would successfully deliver the letters, and Kismet was top-notch.
"Oh, hush," I growled at her as she hooted irritably in her cage. Albus gave me an analytical look, and suddenly his expression turned solemn. I could tell that he was about to say something, and it wouldn't be about my annoyance at the owl.
"How are you, Dan? Don't feel like you need to say anything now if you don't want to. We have all the time in the world," he whispered so only I could hear. I knew he was referring to Mom, and I just whispered a barely audible "okay" at him. He grabbed my hand and gave it a small squeeze.
"I'm here," he promised me. I smiled at him, because even though there were four people in this compartment, this moment that I was sharing with Albus seemed surprisingly intimate. And even though I liked it, even though I loved the feeling of his strong hand around mine, I wasn't quite ready to open up to him just yet.
Author's Note: This was just an idea for a story I had, so I thought I'd try it out. It's obviously next generation, and the main character, Danae Lively, is an 'OC' (original character, for those who don't know). Please let me know what you think! I'll try to have the next chapter up in about a week! Oh and some lady named J. (I know, I've never heard of her either!) owns everything, but the plot and OCs are all mine.