After another tale from Grandma Lana, I made my way to my room. I fell asleep easily, but a nightmare I had had repeatedly plagued my dreams that night. I was running down a long hallway. Grandma was at the end of the corridor, but a cloud of black smoke enveloped her before I could reach her. I was too afraid to go look for her in that massive cloud. Doubts held me back as I watched the cloud swell and expand. It reached out a tentative tendril of smoke, as if trying to grab me, but then I woke up, drenched in a cold sweat, my mouth dry.
I blindly reached out and clutched my security blanket that I kept despite mum and Grandma’s wishes. I squeezed it tightly; breathing in the rough scent of cologne my dad had left on the blanket. He gave it to me one morning before he left for work, but never came home.
However, the cologne was faint now, and the blanket was a bit faded on the edges where I had chewed on it as a toddler. I even saw the faint stains, wear I had drooled on it while taking naps, glowing faintly in the bright moonlight.
I wrapped the blanket around my shoulders like a shawl, and climbed out of bed. I walked across the chilly hardwood floors and made my way to our quaint little kitchen to get a drink of water. I heard the faint whispers of the wind as it passed over the north side of our small house. I clambered up onto the counter, opened a cabinet, and grabbed a glass before climbing down. I filled it with the ice water we kept in the fridge at all times of the year.
Once I was satisfied, I went to check on Grandma to see if she was okay. The nightmare had never included my grandma before. It was always my dad who was swallowed by the black smoke, the man I never got to know, not Grandma Lana.
I walked stealthily down the hall, and knocked gently on her door. When she did not answer, I softly twisted the silver knob, and quietly entered the room. Her frosty head of hair poked gently over the covers of her duvet. Her window was open and the room was frigid. I pulled the blanket tighter around my shoulders as a breath of cold air caressed my pale skin. I walked across the room and shut the window.
“Grandma I had a bad dream can I lay with you for a while?” I asked in a voice just above a whisper. I never climbed into her bed without her consent. My feet were getting cold and I was tempted to go get my slippers. However, I was sure that under those covers it was really warm; otherwise, she would not have let it get so cold in her room. My fingers were turning slightly pink, and I was sure my toes were already a rosy red hue. I reached out and tentatively poked her on the shoulder.
“Grandma,” I said a bit more firmly while tentatively shaking her shoulder.
“Grandma!” I exclaimed, partly anxious, and partly fed up with her “sleeping” act.
“That’s it!” I said in my normal voice, which admittedly was not much louder than my whisper. I tore the covers from her face.
I had expected to see Grandma grinning evilly beneath her sheets still playing the “sleeping” game. Instead, I saw the cold unblinking eyes of my late Grandma Lana.
“MUM!” I yelled as loudly as I could. I ran to my mother’s room, not bothering to be quiet anymore. She was out of bed shrugging a bathrobe over her shoulders when I reached her doorway. She swept me into a hug, picking me up in the process, and set me down on her bed. I cried inconsolably for a few moments before she coaxed my crying to a stop.
“What’s wrong, sweetie?” she crooned.
“It’s Grandma,” I said as a couple of tears slid down my face, which was contorted with sadness.
“Did you have a nightmare?” she asked soothingly.
I nodded but added, “it was a nightmare at first, but I woke up. I got a glass of water and then went to check on Grandma and she’s”” I couldn’t bring myself to say it. Mum did not hear me finish; she had already left to check on Grandma herself. I heard a partly suppressed shriek. Whether it was from the cold floor, or the sight of her mum, I would never know. The next thing I heard was mom bustling over to the fireplace. She probably called St. Mungo’s.
A week later, men in black robes were carting up Grandma into a coffin, to be buried amongst the others dead members of our family. Now it was just mom and I left. We had each other. However, we were both aware that a rift had grown between us throughout the years. I had grown close to grandma and now she was dead. She would not say it aloud, but mum blamed me for her death. I can’t explain why, but I had become the scapegoat for everything she had ever really loved and lost.
When I stepped up to the podium at her memorial service, I saw the empty look my mother gave me. I thought I could hear the thoughts she did not dare speak. With an aching heart I began my speech.
“The night before my grandma died,” I said boldly to the small crowd that had gathered to pay their respects to Grandma. “She did something she loved to do. She told me a story. It was about her days at Hogwarts. Most of her stories were about Hogwarts. She never did finish telling stories she started, with the exception of one. However, the story she told to me on the night she passed was about how she felt lonely at Hogwarts before she found a friend. She said she treated her friend poorly when they reached their adolescence, and she regretted it every day of her life. I’m not going to talk about my grandma as though I knew her better than anyone else here. I only knew her for about seven years of my life, and most of you have known her a lot longer. Instead, I’m going to ask you, so you don’t regret it later in life, to make up with a friend you had a fall out with,” I finished while scanning the crowd. My speech had been a little unorthodox and completely unrehearsed so I hoped I had not come out looking like a complete buffoon. My mother did not speak to me after the funeral. She never spoke to me again.
After Grandma Lana died my nightmares began to alternate. I would have a dream about Grandma one night, and dad the next. They would always end the same way, with a tendril of black smoke reaching out for me. I always woke up, grabbed my security blanket, and smelled the scent of my daddy’s cologne until I was soothed.
A couple of weeks later, mother took me to platform 9¾, and left me standing in front of the gleaming scarlet engine with a heavy trunk in one hand and an owl in the other. She never said a word and left as soon as she had set down the trunk.
My best friend, Sistine, was not with me. She had not been allowed into Hogwarts, as she had no magic, so I was all by myself. I dragged the trunk to the nearest entrance to the train, heaved the trunk up, and then climbed aboard. Sitting alone in my own compartment just made the feeling of seclusion worse. However, before I could dread on it, the Hogwarts Express started moving, and I was taken far away from everything I had ever known.