"How could my love for her be wrong? Sure, it was odd to some people, but it was love just the same."
Since your first day at Hogwarts, there have been rumors about that strange Lovegood girl who wears mismatched clothes and talks about creatures th...
Days later, I was laying in bed reading a book by the light of my wand. It was a muggle book about four sisters growing up, and one of them was terribly sick. I looked over at my clock that read 1:41 AM, and I was about to go to sleep when I hear footsteps running down the hall. Cora suddenly appeared in the doorway, breathing heavily. Her face was stained with tears.
"C-can I come in?" she whispers.
"Of course," I say, scooting over to the other side of my bed to make room for her. I pat the empty space next to me, and she jumps under the covers. Cora curls up with her head on my chest, and I put my arm around her. She's shaking.
"Nightmares again?" I ask. She nods.
"It was awful," she says, still crying. "The car- it was on fire, and-"
"Hey, talking about it and thinking about it won't help, will it?" I interrupt. She shakes her head.
"Right. So just...breathe. It's okay now. You're safe." I tell her, and she wipes her tears away. For the past few nights, Cora had told me about the nightmares she was having because of what happened with the twins' car. She had slept in my bed every night since then, as Evie conveniently decided to start spending the night in our room. During the day she barely talked or ate, and she hadn't smiled once since the accident (at least not that I've seen). Seeing her in such misery made my heart hurt. She's practically a baby, and she shouldn't have had such a close brush with death. None of us deserved that.
~Two Weeks Later~
The first thing I realized when I woke up was that my neck hurt. I had fallen asleep in a bad position, and my neck and shoulders felt stiff and sore. I lifted my head up and pain shot down between my shoulder blades. Cora was once again fast asleep on my chest, and Evie hadn't woken up yet either. I slowly moved out from under her so I wouldn't wake her up. It was Saturday again, and it had been two weeks since the worst (and best) day of my life. I went through my trunk and found a grey sweater and a pink overalls skirt. I usually don't wear skirts, but today was the first rehearsal for Romeo and Juliet, and I wanted to look decent.
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I tied my hair up and walked out of the bathroom to see Evie standing over a sleeping Cora, confused. She looks up at me.
"Who the hell is she?" she asks.
"A friend of mine," I respond, pulling the covers up to her shoulders. "She's...she gets nightmares, and she's more comfortable with me."
"Shouldn't you wake her up? It's almost breakfast," Evie said, pointing at the clock. It was almost nine.
"Let her be, this is probably the longest she's slept since-" I stop myself before I can tell Evie about the twins' car. She'd report it to McGonagall and they'd surely be expelled. "Since...a while," I say. Evie looks at me suspiciously, but she brushes it off and goes to the bathroom to do her makeup. I stick my wand behind my ear and I leave for breakfast without Evie.
Down at the great hall, I sit down next to my friends to find that they all wore solemn, faraway looks on their faces. It scared me a little, but I brushed it off and ate like normal. After five minutes of silence, I looked around at them.
"Okay, what happened? Who died?" I ask. Cedric turned to look at me with pain in his eyes.
"Did you really forget so fast? It's been two weeks today," he said. The others avoided eye contact. I suddenly feel someone sit down next to me; it was Cora. I was surprised she'd gotten dressed and down here so fast.
"Morning," I greet her. "Evie wake you up?" She nods. Everyone else is miserable, even Luna, and I hate it. I hate it with all my heart. I wished there was a way to delete that day from existence so they wouldn't be so sad. As if she could hear my thoughts, Luna looked up and spoke to everyone.
"I know of a spell," she said, "that can erase memories. It's called obliviate." Rory looked over at her.
"Luna, what are you getting at?" he asks.
"I'm saying there's a chance I could make it as if that day never happened. You'd have no memory of it at all," she responds. "But it's difficult, and it's dangerous. I can't do the specific memory, so it's got to be the whole day that goes away."
"You can wipe my entire two weeks' worth of memories if you need to," Cora says, tears starting to roll down her face. "I would give anything to forget." I hug her.
"Can we do it now?" Fred (or George) asks. Luna nods.
"We have to be quick, though. The Hufflepuff common room is closest," she says, leading us out of the grand hall and down the hallway. We go down towards the kitchen hallway, and we come upon a wooden door like the one in Ravenclaw tower, except this one had a doorknob and no knocker. Cedric opens the door and we all stand in the center of a small room with couches and plants everywhere. Luna takes her wand out of her back pocket.
"Who's first?" She asks. Cora stepped forward.
"You're sure?" Luna says. "If it goes wrong, there's no way to-"
"Please," she interrupted, "just get it over with." Luna nods and holds her wand to Cora's forehead.
"Obliviate," she said. Cora suddenly goes limp, and we all rush forward to catch her. Rory is furious.
"Luna, what did you do?! Is she dead?" he demands.
"I did everything right," she protested as everyone stood around Cora. After a few seconds of them going back and forth, Cora's eyes fluttered open.
"Guys, shut it. She's fine," I say over my shoulder to them. Cora sits up and looks around at us.
"What just happened?" she asks. Cedric squats next to her and gingerly touches the back of her head.
"That was a wicked fall you just had," he said. "You okay?" She looks confused.
"It doesn't hurt," she told him. He shook his head.
"It never hurts right after," he said. "Go wait for us in the great hall, okay? We'll meet you there in a few." She nods and skips out the door. I laugh with relief; Cora was finally back to being Cora, and I knew I wouldn't wake up to her in my bed anymore. Luna looks at us again, waiting for a volunteer. She successfully does Fred and George, Cedric, and Rory. Soon it was just her and I in the empty common room. Luna holds her wand to my head, but I gently push it away.
"Why not?" she asks.
"Were you going to do it on yourself after me?" I respond. She shakes her head no.
"Why?"
"Because I don't know how," she says. I heard a hint of doubt in her voice, and I knew she was lying.
"Are you sure that's the only reason?" I ask, stepping up to her. She looks down at her shoes.
"No," she mumbles. I gently tug on a piece of her hair and she looks up at me.
"As horrible as that day started out, it ended with something that I want to remember for a really, really long time. And if that means I have to remember how it feels to be in a falling car, if I have to remember seeing people I love suffer in order to remember how I feel about you, so be it. Because I never want to forget that," I say. Luna hugs me and kisses my forehead, and I think that was the first time I felt truly happy in two weeks.
