The Missing Marauder: A Harry Potter FanFiction

Chapter 11

Black was not Rowan's color.  

It made her hair look rough and dirty, her skin look pasty-white, her cheeks look even more narrow than usual. It made her murky green eyes seem so sad and tired, she wished she could wear white to the funeral. She didn't need to look like a corpse at her mother's and brother's viewing.  

She wondered if her father would at least be there to see his dearly departed son if he didn't give a damn about her mother.  

Stop it, she thought, Stop thinking about it. It'll just make you angry, and you can't keep getting so angry.  

Staring at her reflection in the bathroom mirror, she turned the faucet on the sink, let water flow into her hands, and splashed her face lightly. It was so hot in her house, even though it was the middle of February. Looking deep into her own, murky eyes, she realized they were slowly flooding out of the corners, down the side of her cheeks. Her voice was so sore from the crying she'd done the days before, she couldn't find the energy to make a single noise. She could only gaze at the plump beads of water covering her narrow cheeks.  

God, she'd never been so depressed.  

She wished she had someone, anyone, anything, to hug. She wished she could squeeze someone so hard that they felt her pain. She needed someone to know how she felt, to know how she suffered, because of a so-called "Dark Lord." She knew how some people hated Muggles, and Muggle-borns. She knew how many people were like her, because this person hated them so much he was perfectly willing to kill them. She knew how much she wanted to be with her family again, to touch her mother, to embrace her brother and lift him up and fly him around the room. She wished she could hear his squeaky voice again, his tinkling laughter. She wished she could hear her mother call her inside after a long night staring at the full moon during the summer when she couldn't be there to comfort her friend.  

But these were all wishes that she knew, no matter how many stars shot across the sky, how many coins she threw into a well, how many dandelion seeds she watched fly in the wind, would never, not in a million years, ever happen.  

At the thought, she whimpered a bit, her eyes squinting shut, her knees growing weaker and weaker, until finally she collapsed onto the sink, bawling into her arms and wishing that she had someone to hold her hand when she had to walk behind the hearse to the cemetery.  

Maybe she didn't have to walk at all...  

No, that was a terrible thought. She lifted her head from the sink and looked at the mirror again, reached up to the corner, and pulled it open.  

The shelves on the inside were full of medicines and bandages and hair product. Things that got rid of headaches, stomachaches, depression...  

Well, she was sad, but she wasn't depressed...was she?  

Then she saw it. A bottle of painkillers, sitting on the top shelf so Robert couldn't get to them, practically called out to her, "You're in pain, Rowan. I can end your pain."  

She reached up and took it, brought it to eyelevel, and stared at it. Did she really want to try and overdose, so she could be with her family once again?  

Do it, a sharp voice hissed in her head, Do it. It will make you feel so much better. You will forget how you have suffered, you will float above the clouds with your mother and brother and grandparents. You will be happy again. You will be free...  

Think about Sirius, another voice whispered in her head, and she suddenly had a vision of two small versions of herself, one in angelic clothes with wings and a bright halo and the other a perfect picture of the devil, sitting on her shoulders, whispering in her ears. How would he react if you committed suicide? And what about James and Remus and Peter? What about Lily? Think about all these people who care about you! They'd be crushed if you left them behind. And what would your mother think, and your brother? They died so young, and they would have the knowledge to know that you should be the only one in your family to live a full, happy life. Don't disappoint them!