Obliviate My Choices {Book 4}

1. Don't Let Me Drown

It takes ten times as long to put yourself back together as it does to fall apart.

~Suzanne Collins, Mockingjay

It was almost one in the morning by the time I finished writing the letter. It had taken me forever to decide what on Earth to put in a letter this final, but once I knew what to say, I couldn't write. My hand shook and tears covered the paper.

But now the words were written, and were being placed on Harry's writing desk. He was slumped over it, holding Sirius' knife in his hands. He'd done that since we'd returned to Privet Drive. He wanted to hold onto something. Quite unlike me.

Seeing him sleeping there, so vulnerable and unaware made me almost want to wake him up to say goodbye. But I knew he'd want to stop me and lock me up, so I settled for gently pushing his messy hair from his eyes.

He stirred in his sleep, but didn't wake. He would wake up in the morning, and see the words Sorry. I hope you understand. He'd be angry at me, I know, but not when I saw how happy I was.

Then I slipped out of his room, and crept down the stairs. Using my hair pin to unlock the door as I did every night, I entered the crisp August night.

Pulling my thin jacket around my shoulders, I walked down the street, a deep feeling of anticpation crawling over my skin. Holding my wand out into the road, it took moments for the Knight Bus to arrive.

"You again." The new conductor grunted. "Where do you go? Make kissy faces at your boyfriend?"

I winced, an evil hiss of It wasn't real travelling through my mind. "Oxford Graveyard." I said blankly, tossing coins into his hand. "That's where I go."

Grunting, the conductor took my money and I took a seat on the bed behind the driver. The bus shot off, leaving me curled up against the window. As the countryside flashed before my eyes, it made everything more real. 

Was I really going to do this? Go against everything I'd ever thought of?

"We're here, love." The conductor said in a gentler tone. "Don't be out too late."

"Trust me, I won't be here long. Soon it'll all be over." I sighed, swinging my legs off the bed.

I desecened the bus steps, and turned around as it whizzed off. That reminded me of another time a lifetime ago, when a blonde haired boy was sick in the bushes... Feeling sick myself, I vaulted myself over the locked graveyard gates.

There was an eerie feeling about being in a graveyard at night, the sort of creeping feeling that a zombie could jump out at you in any moment. But there was also a beautiful silence about it, the kind that allowed you to grieve alone.

And the privacy matter. Nobody would think to look for you in graveyard at one in the morning.

As if in a trance, I followed the path of already falling leaves towards Jenna's grave. I still couldn't believe that Mark hadn't been lying about this grave, that he'd actually taken the time to give Jenna a proper burial after killing her.

I knelt in front of the grave, patting the headstone as if I was touching Jenna again. It was a simple black headstone, with the engraving: 

Jenna Emery Oswin

18th December 1959~3rd August 1994

A wonderful mother of four daughters. She will missed.

Mark had even put a small framed photo of Jenna within the gravestone, a photo of a suntanned Jenna from our holiday to Paris when I was eight. It made me ache just looking at her.