How would Lily understand. She wouldn't. I wish she'd stop nagging me to tell her. It's not anything that exists in her world; she can't comprehend it.

I didn't go to school today. I didn't feel like it, so I stayed in bed. I slept until 10, so almost the whole day was wasted. After taking a long bath, I organized my wardrobe and avoided thinking about anything. I didn't think of Lily, of school, of telling.

Then I walked down to the library, just when everyone was rushing between classes. I sat down between some bookshelves far at the back, where no one really goes. I grabbed some books I liked when I was eleven and reread them. I thought I'd recall those happy days and feel depressed and nostalgic. Instead, I realized those weren't happy days. Azim's death was still fresh in my mind then.

Have I ever had happy days to recall?

I'd like to skip school more. But as soon as I think of what everyone will say and what I'll have to do to catch up and what my parents will say when they realize I'm failing... It definitely makes me want to never get out of bed.

When I was in the library, something odd happened. Remus Lupin, one of Sirius's and James's friends, came out from behind a bookshelf and greeted me. It scared the hell out of me. I was sitting there against the bookshelf, quietly reading with the book propped on my knees, and then I heard a low "Hello" and looked up to see someone standing above me. I dropped it and scrambled to my feet. My heart was racing.

"What are you reading?" he asked.

"Don't scare me like that," I growled at Remus. I took a deep breath to calm my breathing and sat back down, glaring at him. Sudden noises and movements don't go over well with me.

"Oh, I'm sorry," he replied. Did he look genuinely sorry? I don't know. I can't trust anyone who is friends with Sirius Black to be genuine.

"What are you doing here anyway? Can't you see I'm busy?" Maybe I was a bit snappish, but I had a right to be. Who was he to come and scare the wits out me and ruin my perfect and uninterrupted day?

"Sorry, Dahlia, didn't mean to do that." He backed away. "I'll let you read."

Then I suddenly felt guilty for being so rude, so I muttered, "Thanks."

But I couldn't get back to my book. Why was he there? It was class time, wasn't it? Remus Lupin is a good student. He gets straight "O's," just like my parents wish I would. Maybe I'll break a record this year and get straight "T's." Mama will be scream at me. I know she'll ask what I did to the fourteen-year-old Dahlia who maybe didn't get perfect grades (hey, school is hard) but tried and studied and had great ambitions. Abi will bellow at me, about how his only daughter is no good. I hate it when he's angry at me. His face turns red and he brings his eyebrows together and stares down at me with a glare of total disgust. He roars my name in a rumbling voice and slams the doors in his rage. When Mama is yelling at me, she grabs random items and starts destroying them as she walks around the room. She picks up papers and shreds them, throwing the pieces to the floor. She brushes her hair out her face every couple sentences and stops to stare me in the eye, muttering, "Dahlia, can't you get back on track?" If we're in my room she picks up my clothes lying on the furniture and throws them towards the closet; this is followed by an outburst of "You could at least try!"

Abi used to say if only I were a boy. He wanted to have two sons. I didn't mind. I knew he loved me anyway and Mama loved me as a girl and would never choose a second son instead. Once she was mad at me for ruining her dress robes by wearing them in dress-up and tearing the hem. She threw her hands in the air. I thought to myself how I wanted red nails like hers. "Your brother would never do this! What is it with girls?!" she exclaimed.

I stared at the floor, swinging my feet and imagining having red toenails. I knew Mama would get over it. It would all be fine. She had many dress robes. As she pulled out her magical sewing kit, I hurried to my room.

After Azim died, my parents never ever compared me to him. There were no comments about how Abi wished I had been a boy, nothing about having two sons. Except for one time.

I was eleven and I had just run home from my first year at Hogwarts several days before Christmas holiday. I had had a horrible time at Hogwarts. I had expected it to be a wonderful, miraculous cure from the hell I had been suffering at home. It wasn't. The crowds of giggling happy students made it worse. I had to fake everything. I was pretended to be laughing when I felt like crying. I made friends but I wanted to run and hide. So when I got home, I felt terrible. I didn't tell them I was home early. I burned the letter from the owl.

My parents had a Christmas party that year. We don't celebrate Christmas, but we've always had a party in December. We canceled the party after Azim died. And the next year.

This was the first year of having the annual party again. I was so angry at Abi when he told me that we would have the party. "How can you? How can you?" I shouted.

His eyes glowed angrily. "Don't you dare talk to your father like that, young lady. Apologize and go to your room."

"No!" I screamed, full of a fiery passion. "You should apologize! You're no father – to have a party after your son died!"

"Dahlia Khatir-Albi," my father rumbled, his voice trembling with rage. He stepped towards me and I was so scared and I ran. I ran out the door and into the backyard. I hid behind a tree, shaking with rage, then I thought I heard the door creak. I jumped and sprinted all the way down the block, where I climbed into a bush in front of the school and sobbed until my throat hurt. There was no one. My father had forgotten Azim. My mother brightly spoke of the weather if I ever brought up his name. My parents spoke to me glazy-eyed and distant. They had forgotten about me as well. On that awful day, two of their children had died.

Then the day of the party came. "I won't go!" I shrieked to my mother. "No! I can't celebrate anything! That would be like killing Azim all over again." As soon as my mother heard his name, she spun around. "Dahlia, don't you ever say that again." Then she did something she had never done before. She slapped me. My cheek stung from the impact and my eyes burned with unshed tears.

There was no argument after that.

I put on my ironed red robes and consented to having my hair brushed and tied with a green ribbon. I sat limply as my mother trimmed my bangs and cut my nails.

When the first guest arrived, I stayed in the corner, sitting in a chair turned away from everyone else. I swung my feet, kicking the wall with my shiny black shoes. Thump. Thump. Thump. I wondered if I could make a dent in the wall. My parents glared in my direction. I stopped.

After a while, Mama came over to beg me to have some food. "Here, eat this," she prompted, handing me a plate of roast chicken. I put one piece into my mouth but I couldn't swallow. I got up, carrying the plate. Mama beamed, thinking I was going to get more. I walked into the kitchen, past the counter covered in food, past the list of things to do and buy, past the empty space on the wall where a photo of my brother and me had hung. My feet stopped in the bathroom, where I flushed all the food down the toilet. I spat out the chicken in my mouth, feeling sick to my stomach. Then I made a slow journey back, the empty plate dangling from my limp hand.

"Dahlia!" my father exclaimed when I walked back into the living room, all ready to sit down in my chair in the corner. Then I realized it was gone. Mama had moved it.

"Come sit here!" she smiled, patting my chair, now in the middle of a group of adults. There was no choice. I went.

"We've been waiting for you, dear," my father said. He never called me "dear" unless it was in public.

"Yes, tell us about Hogwarts," my mother added cheerfully.

"It's your first year isn't it?" someone asked. "How exciting! It must be fun!"

Another person added, "My, she's so old already! We haven't seen her since the last party. I remember when she was such a little girl."

I scowled. "I hate Hogwarts. It's terrible."

A shocked silence. My parents tried to laugh, saying, "Oh, it takes time to adjust, doesn't it? We all need time to adjust."

I glared. "You don't need time to adjust. You never adjust. You act like Azim never died. You act like he never was your son. Maybe you don't care but I do! He's the only one in my family who actually loves me!"

My father could not let me off after saying that. Everyone stared, horrified.

"Dahlia," he growled, "apologize." He grabbed my arm roughly and pulled me to the kitchen, where he threw me against the wall and stood glowering at me. I heard my mother trying to explain quickly what a terrible time I'd been having while the guests sighed sympathetically.

"I am not going to apologize." I looked him in the face. "I hate you," I said firmly. I had never ever dared to say anything like that. Now I didn't care what he might do to me. If he hit me, it just showed what a terrible person he was.

"I don't know how your mother can stand you," my father spat. "You want Azim back? Well, so do I. I'd rather have him any time over you."

I grabbed a cookbook and hurled it at him. It missed, hitting the wall. "Go to hell," I snapped, trying to keep my voice from breaking. My face crumpled and I dashed to my room, sobbing. I cried and grabbed things and smashed them until my room was covered in broken bits and pieces. I picked up a shard of glass from my vase and carved "die" into my leg so many times the dress was streaked with blood. I don't know if it was my father I wanted to die or myself. I lifted the shard to my arm, but every time I tried to drive it across my wrist, the tears flowed down my face twice as hard and I dropped it, until it got lost somewhere in the carpet.

I crawled into my bed, in my blood-streaked dress robes, my face dripping with tears and my room everything strewn everywhere. My mother woke me the next day by opening the blinds. Then she closed the door and left. My parents left me alone after that. They didn't talk to me and I didn't talk to them.

When the train came for me to return to Hogwarts, I was actually eager to go. There was nothing left for me at home.