Opia / D.M 18+

C O Z E N

{To trick or deceive}

✧✦✧

My vision was blurry as we made our way out of the chamber. My eyes continued to stay unfocused and unmoving as Draco placed the mask over my face. I was frozen, shocked that I had lost someone else. I thought my family would be all I could possibly lose. Though I was terribly wrong, I never understood how easy it was to lose someone so important to you.

Jasmine Lock died with a smile on her face, the thought of our bookshop fresh in her mind. She dreamed of the things we would achieve once the war was over. She thought of every little detail she wanted to place in our shop, and I would let her do whatever she wanted.

But she was gone, and it felt so surreal—to lose someone else.

No one had ever explained death quite like I felt it. It wasn't like there was something missing, but with every few steps I took—I realised Jasmine Lock was gone. I had those same realisations about my family. I often caught myself and realise that they were gone and I didn't know where they were. My eyes grew wide with the realisation and I always got stuck in the thought. I would never be able to see them again.

It never felt like they were dead though, it just felt like they were gone. I was used to not seeing my friends and family for months at a time. I had caught myself over the past few weeks thinking about going back home and telling Opal about the baby in my stomach. But then the realisation always hit me, and I felt like my reality wasn't real.

My brows scrunched as I realised these things, and I thought about how stupid I was. Stupid enough to think that they were just waiting at home for me when I witnessed them leaving our world behind.

That is what death and grief feels like.

You can't differentiate one reality from another when you've lived in the same one for so long.

I followed the boys, completely dissociated from the world around me. They lead me away from where it all happened. I followed without a word, only countless thoughts stuck in my mind. Thoughts of her voice, the way she sounded so hopeful. How her eyes widened when she realised we weren't dead.

I hadn't realised how much I'd missed her until she was really gone.

I blinked harshly when I bumped into Draco. He had stopped in front of me, leaving me confused. I stared in front of us at a door with no knob and no keyhole. Just an eagle knocker, bronze and harsh looking. I had never been to the Ravenclaw common room before. I had never had any friends in such a house. But I had always wondered what they held behind that door. There were three loud knocks, made by Charlie.

"I speak without a mouth," a voice started. "And hear without ears. I have nobody, but come alive with the wind. What am I?"

Blaise huffed, "How the fuck should we know?"

Speak without a mouth? Has no body? I thought and I thought. But it was hard when the only body I could imagine was hers. It was so hard to concentrate on the riddle at hand. The key to getting into the common room and devising our next plans. I needed to figure it out. I needed to understand what the riddle was trying to tell us.

The war had to end. It had to. We all needed it to. But I knew we wouldn't be able to unless I could get the fucking door to open.

I thought and I thought. Everyday objects, things you couldn't see. If it could hear without ears and had no body, then it was something we couldn't see. But if it could speak, then we could hear it.

"An echo," I whispered.

The door opened instantly, and the boys turned to me.

"We all knew you belonged in Ravenclaw, Ames," Blaise laughed.