No more holding it in.
How many years can I pretend?
Nothing never goes the way it should
No more sitting in this place
Hoping you might see it my way.
Cause I don't think you ever understood
That what I'm looking for are the answers
To why these questions never go away...

Crossfade, So Far Away

It was raining outside, well, pouring rather, on the cobblestone streets of Muggle London. Nothing could be seen through the mess of water falling, draining out into the rusty sewers. Cars screeched and honked on by, splattering water from the gutters. The wind blew harshly against street signs and the air smelled of mildew. Thunder clapped and lightning flashed in the black sky. All the trees were bare. Fall was coming, and soon. I can feel it.

An old women is walking her rather tiny husky. She lives next door. . . She's very nice. She just bought her dog three days ago. I sigh. It feels like I was just at school three days ago.

I had school the next day and I was almost dreading it, on account of my lack of a social life. I don't know why, but I never had one. But I will be excited to see Harry Potter's friend, Ron Weasley. He's extremely funny. Baboon's backside. . . Ha, ha! He's the only thing that makes me get up in the morning. Too bad Ron doesn't know I'm alive. . .

Tomorrow, I will be on my way to Hogwarts, my fifth year, the supposed hardest year so far. But what should I expect? Shouldn't school get more challenging each year? Yes, it should.

I still have all my packing to do and a last minute assignment. Oh, well. . . I could always do it on the train. But I know I wouldn't. I would be reading the Quibbler like I always have. I know if I don't finish the assignment tonight I won't do it at all.

I pick myself up and head toward my room. Before I reach the stairs though, I hear it. And everytime I hear it it tears at my insides, making bile rise in my throat, making me wish I had been able to do something about it. The true agony of it.

As you all know, my mother died when I was nine years old. I told you all it was an accident. I said it was inadverdant that my dear, old mother happened to just blow up an experiment, herself included in the process. I may have lied. . . . I did lie. There was an explosion from one of her experiments, but it never harmed her. It was nominal and irrevelent. She hung herself in our attic. Yes. . . . horrible, isn't it?

There she was swinging back and forth, back and forth from a rope. It creaked eerily as she swayed, her head tilted to one side. One side was tied around one of the water heater pipes, the other tied around her neck like you see in Muggle books. Beside her dangling feet was a chair from the kitchen that had been knocked over. I screamed as loud as I could. I was already scarred for my life. Father rushed in and he dropped the pan of bacon on the floor where it clattered. He'd been cooking breakfast. He always cooked breakfast.

He immediately untied her and tried to revive her with his mouth for a good five minutes while I watched silently, crocodile tears running down my eyes, not comprehending what was happening. My mother had been drinking coffee and talking animatedly on the phone with my aunt one second and ten minutes later my father had me rush downstairs to call for an ambulance. I'll never forget the phone call. . .

". . . What's your emegency?" The cool voice of the operator somehow managed to speak tranquilly to me.

"My mom isn't breathing!" I cried hysterically into the phone.

"What happened?"

I couldn't answer and continued to sob incoherently. Actually, at the time, all I wanted to do was vomit.

"Sh- hun, you're gonna have to calm down," she said. "Tell me what hapened."

"I don't know! She's hung herself!"

"Where?"

"In the attic!"

"Alright, what's your address, hun?" . . .

The paremedics arrived several minutes later, but it was no use. . . My mother was pronounced dead before they could reach the hospital.

It was hush-hush around town. My father told neighbors and passerby that she fell down the stairs. We didn't want them to think us a dysfunctional family with problems. Only the doctors and my father and I knew the truth. No one ever knew and no one ever asked any questions.

As I ascended the stairs I sighed. 'It' was - I mean, Dad was crying in the kitchen again. He usually gathered in there when he needed a good sob, puddling himself on the rug near the sink, wearing his oven mittens, lying in a fetal position. It had been years . . . . six actually, but he still did that every now and then. Often more than not.

I slowly folded each clothing item into my trunk as I always did so carefully, placing my wand, ink, rolls of parchment, and books on top when I had finished. I shut the trunk case and locked it.

Blocking out the sobs of my father, I made myself go to sleep. I needed that sleep. Too much was on my mind.

Even though I know it happened, I deny it, I repress it so far back into my mind, and sometimes it helps. But than again. . . when I repress those memories it feels so unreal to me, like nothing ever happened to my mother. Like I'll wake up the next morning to the smells of my father making breakfast and the vague voice of my mother chatting with friends on the phone downstairs. I sometimes wonder that this is all in my mind, that maybe I'm schizophrenic, you know, having hallucinations. That all I see is only what I'm allowing myself to see; a life without my mother. Maybe I was the cause of all of it and I was only keeping her away.

It's thoughts like those that makes me wonder whether or not I'm truly as "loony" as everyone says I am. Maybe I am crazy. . . .

But I get the image of my mother's body dressed in her night robe and hanging from the rope. Back and forth . . . back and forth. . . Creeeeeeak. . . Creeeeeeeak. . . Her face sallow and blue, her body cold as ice as my father attempted vainly to bring her back to life with recesitation. Her neck was raw and red from hanging so long there in the attic.

I don't know what it would be like to suffocate to death.Would it hurt? Did my mother cry before she died? They say that before you die your life flashes before you. Is that true? Did my mother think of me? Did she consider how sad she would make father and I before she killed herself? She probably did, but it wasn't enough to keep her here.

Why didn't she say anything? If she was depressed or angry at father and I, or someone else, than why did she not speak up? She just . . . died and didn't even say good-bye. I hated her for that.

Anyway, father had to get a second job after mum died. Not because his job didn't pay enough, but because after my mother commited suicide, all he did was lye around in bed all day and all night. I'm not sure he slept at all. He'd just lay there with his eyes wide open. And when he got up to finally take a shower, he cried loud and openly with the door locked, only to get dressed and put himself back in bed. He cried openly in the shower . . . Maybe he thought no one heard him. It was so loud in fact the whole street probably heard him.

After he didn't return to work, they fired him. So now he works for the Quibbler.

Before that though, I often caught, mostly heard him in the bathroom throwing up. Now I knew my father and he normally had never been sick a day of my life. I knew he was making himself sick, mentally or physically, but he was doing it on purpose. He was doing penance for still being alive when my mother wasn't. He was doing it for not stopping her or realizing that she might have psychological problems.

He doesn't do it anymore. I'd know.

I didn't commit any type of penance for my mother being away. I never cut myslef or made myself sick or starved myself. I just hated her for being gone. I realized later on that that hate was my only means of letting go. I was only able to let go because I had such a pure hatred for her than and I told myself I didn't miss her. But I'm not angry anymore.

. . . Sometimes I hear my mother (or I think I do) when I first wake up and the sun is so bright. . . She's wishing me good morning. "It's time to rise and shine, Luna my love!" Despite this deep hope and hallucination of mine, when I open my eyes my mother isn't there. I know there is nothing that will bring her back. I accept that.

As I head onto Platform 9 3/4 and pulling my trolley behind me, I put a smile on my face. It's good to put a show on. No one worries that way. But sometimes it's hard because I still think about my mother. Even though it has been six years I still feel depressed now and then.

I sit in my lonely compartment where I open the latest issue of the Quibbler, I turn it upside down and I stare straight through the new pages. I'm not even looking at it anymore. . .

Nobody joins me on rhe ride to Hogwarts. No hello's. I don't even get a person to open my door on accident.

I finally shut the magazine when it has grown dark from the rain clouds. I invision the day before I got on this train, how rainy it was and how I smelled fall.

I roll onto the seat and lay down, my arms resting under my head. I close my eyes.

Though, I'll never understand why my mother did what she did, I think about it every day. I think about her. . . I think about what happened. I wonder why she did what she did. She seemed so happy, so content. . . but I guess she wasn't.