maple syrup | remus lupin [1]

24. pancakes make me sad

hi! this is not rly a tw, more of a note, but this chapter involves dealing with grief so i just wanted to say that if anyone is dealing with it and needs help there is this rly good website that i found!

www.griefresourcenetwork.com

and if anyone is dealing with something heavy;

you've got this, good things are coming!

(my messages are open too of course!)

IF YOU HEARD of the type of depression that was called seasonal depression, or more like seasonal affective disorder, you would tie it together with the darkening winter months.

But for Claudia, the worst time of the year wasn't specific to a season; but to a date.

She didn't know if she was depressed, but she knew she was sad. Something felt off so often, but she just couldn't put a finger on it. It was a funny feeling, feeling sad but also not. The thing was, Claudia could barely even separate sadness from happiness sometimes. And during this time of year - everything felt slow, pointless and completely empty.

There were two specific parts of the year when Claudia felt everything growing a little worse;

The time around the death of her aunt and the time around the death of her mother.

Her mum died during the summer, when she was twelve. That was a story for another time, however.

Her aunt, Gemma, passed away on December 8th only a little over a year after; when Claudia was thirteen.

Claudia was having an anniversary reaction.

And there was nothing she could do about it.

Getting up on the Monday morning that was the two-year anniversary of her aunt's death was pretty much impossible. But in a short moment of strength; she did it.

But that short moment of strength didn't last long. As she entered the Great Hall with Betty, Inez, and Pandora, she saw how the students of Hogwarts were chatting and smiling and laughing.

She saw how the Marauders were practically falling off their seats from laughing too hard over something. She saw how Remus glanced at her quickly, waved his hand cheeringly, and then looked away as he had realised what he had done, his hand awkwardly retreating to the table.

She saw how Nolan and Evan looked at her with wide grins; they knew what day it was.

She saw how Nicolas didn't even look her way.

She saw how Regulus looked at her with a guilty expression; that she had no idea why he was giving her.

She wanted to go back under her covers and stare at the ceiling for another day.

Claudia had been doing that pretty much all weekend, besides the fact that she also had spent it reading "The Little Prince" by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. It was her mum and Gemma's favourite book to read to Claudia as a child, so she read it every time their birthdays were creeping up to celebrate their lives somehow. Their short, short lives. It was one of the few things that felt ever so comforting to her.