I'm sitting in Potions class when Professor Aden announces that we'll be making a sleeping potion. Not just any sleeping potion. The draught of living death.
My mouth goes dry. I may be a hopeless potion-brewer, but I could name every ingredient in that potion. It's not a particularly long ingredient list. Asphodel. Wormwood. Lavender root. Traces of chamomile. Just a sip of the stuff and you're catatonic. It's used mostly to feign death, like in Romeo and Juliet, but it can be used to aid death.
They found it in his system. The asphodel is the easiest to detect. The symptoms alone are usually enough—cyanosis, yellow irises, whitened fingernails. After we saw that, it was only a matter of waiting to hear the doctors tell us what we already knew. The amounts of the potion were so slight that they couldn't prove that it was intentional. They'd had to give us the life insurance money.
And in the end, that's all it was about. Money. They gave us the insurance money because he was dead. He was dead because we needed some way to get money. We needed money because of me. All I've ever been is an expense—one more mouth to feed. Suicidal depression runs in my family. But when you can factually prove that you should never have been born, then it's probably justified.
I look into the cauldron that Goyle is stirring, and all I can see is my dad. His and my mum's wedding picture. Mum was pretty then, like Lina is now. Mum still is pretty, but she's got grey hair. Guess whose fault that was. Then I remember the look on Dad's face when he saw what that werewolf had done to me… He carried me home, even though I was bleeding all over him, staining his shirt with red. He cleaned me up, he comforted me, telling me it was all right, that it wasn't my fault. Then I see him lying on the ground, utterly still, as the mortuary department tells us how sorry they are. They aren't. Lina and I just sit there, staring at him. He looks so pale. Death doesn't suit him, not like it would have suited me.
Death, in my mind, is the shadowy green color of the swollen river as my dad must have looked down on it that night. I've imagined it before, but never this clearly. The wind's blowing. The river is half-frozen, and I remember how cold it was when we found him. He smiles bitterly and plunges in—he's being smacked against the rocks as he pulls out the vial—drinks the contents quickly—he's gone limp—I can't see him anymore—it should have been me…
I don't remember passing out, but somehow I've ended up on the floor and everyone's staring at me. Nott's laughing at me. That's fine. I get up somewhat shakily. It takes me a minute to remember how to breathe. Alethia gives me a sympathetic look. She's been my best friend since we were five; she's the only one in here who has any idea what's going through my mind. I try to get back to work, but I can tell that someone's still watching me. I turn around. Ember's studying me carefully. "Are you okay?" she mouths.
Am I okay?
Now, that's a good question.