The Scars to Prove It

Farren and her dad had spent nearly two weeks at the nursing home, returning only every other day to shower and perhaps sleep horizontally, instead of hunched over in a chair. Farren didn’t think she’d ever work out the kink in her neck, but it was worth it to spend a bit more time with her mother. Jocelyn was heavily drugged then, spending more time unconscious than not. They spent that week sitting in the quiet with red rimmed eyes, father and daughter each clasping a hand and thinking of things they wished they could have said.

Farren wasn’t there when it happened. It had been her turn to get tea, and she was suffocating in the tiny, sterile room. She had taken her time walking to the cafeteria, going down the stairs instead of taking the elevator, which had a peculiar smell. She filled the mugs with a practiced precision, knowing just when to cut off the water from the urn so they didn’t overflow. She steeped and fixed the tea and wished, not for the first time, that this god forsaken place had real milk instead of powdered creamer.

She watched the stairs on her way back up, trying not to slosh the tea all over her hands. Farren made it back up to her mum’s floor without spilling a drop. She was almost smiling when she kicked open the door, but it slipped off of her face as soon as she looked up.

Her dad was crying. That was the first thing Farren noticed. Her eyes flickered from him to her mum, searching for the tell-tale rise and fall of the blanket. There wasn’t one.

She didn’t notice when the tea fell through her hands. She didn’t notice when the mugs shattered. Farren didn’t notice she was standing in a puddle of tea. There was only one thought running through her mind: she’s gone.



Now her house was full to bursting of her relatives, mostly aunts, uncles, and cousins: Jocelyn was the youngest of two brothers and a sister. The funeral wasn’t until tomorrow, but they all felt the need to arrive early to provide comfort to the grieving family. The only thing the really brought was noise and pity.

At first, the noise was nice. It filled the empty spaces and kept Farren from thinking too hard. Soon, however, it filled her head with buzzing and she couldn’t think at all.

The pity was worse, though. She felt all the looks on her back. She heard the whispers: “Poor girl, don’t know how she’ll fair, no one to teach her.” They edged around her, afraid to mention mothers or dying. Farren thought she was drowning in it. So she fled.

This time, Farren didn’t just sit on the edge of the roof. She climbed to the peak and perched next to the chimney. When she leaned her head back onto the brick, she finally felt like she could breathe. Still, she longed to be able to hop on her broom and fly away. One of the Weasleys had dropped her trunk in the backyard when she and her dad had been at the nursing home. Farren wished they had stayed for at least a bit. They wouldn’t treat her like a china doll, like she would fly apart at any moment.

She had owled Carina about the funeral, asking her, begging her, really, to come. She hoped that she would. She didn’t bother owling the Burrow, since she knew that’s where her friend was.

Farren had closed her eyes in an effort to relax when she heard the scrabbling sound of something on the slates. She opened them again to see her dad climbing out of her window. She almost fell off the roof in shock.

Luckily, Farren recovered, and by the time she had made room, David Zabell was sitting next to her by the chimney.

“This is a brilliant idea, hiding up here. I can’t believe you didn’t share it with me sooner,” he said, nudging Farren with his shoulder.

“I didn’t know aurors hid, being fearless and what have you,” Farren teased back.

“Fearless? Yes. Infinitely patient? Not as much.”

Farren hummed in agreement. “How’d you manage to get away?”

“Told Uncle Todd I was going to speak with Uncle Mark, told Uncle Mark I was going to speak to Aunt Ellen, and told Aunt Ellen I was dashing to the loo. Then I sprinted up here like a Death Eater was on my tail.”

“Ingenious plan, Dad.”

“I thought so.”

“But what are you going to do when Aunt Ellen realizes you’ve been in the loo for too long? You know she’ll bring out those lozenges she gave to Marcus that one Christmas.”

“I’ll feed them to Archimedes.”

“He’s not here. Still at the Burrow, I suppose. Carina spoils him with treats. He always comes back so fat he can hardly fit in his cage.”

“Are they coming tomorrow?”

“I don’t know,” Farren replied, shrugging. “I hope so, but what will you tell the family?”

“I’ll figure something out. They aren’t especially bright, even for Muggles. Mum was always the clever one in the family.”

They both fell silent then, like whenever Jocelyn was mentioned, lost in their own thoughts. Farren’s dad broke the musing first and pulled something from his pocket.

“She would have wanted you to have this,” he said as he folded Farren’s hands around it.

A smile ghosted around Farren’s lips when she saw what he had given her. It was her mum’s necklace, the one she always wore. It was a simple thing, really, just a washer on a silver chain. On the ring a single word was inscribed by hand: believe. Jocelyn’s father had made it for his wife, and when they died in a car crash, Jocelyn had taken it. Farren couldn’t remember a time when it wasn’t around her mother’s neck. One of Jocelyn’s favorite stories to tell was baby Farren nearly strangling her when she played with it.

Her dad fastened it around her neck and Farren tucked it under her shirt. The chill of the metal on her skin made her feel like her mum was there with her.



Farren was thinking of hiding behind a potted plant in a funeral home. It was large and leafy and had an excellent view of the door. She was considering turning her skin and hair green in order to further camouflage herself in an effort to escape the notice of various people, relatives and so called “family friends.”

She hardly knew any of these people, and yet every single one of them insisted on hugging her and saying things like, “It will be okay.” Farren wanted to scream “But it’s not okay!” because it wasn’t. Her mum was dead and instead of sketching or flying like she so desperately wanted, she was standing in a room that smelled too strongly of flowers and listening to people tell her that her mother was in a better place now. Farren had to resist strangling them. She was quite certain that her mother would have preferred to be alive and well rather than dead and in a box.

Her route to the plant was cut off by an elderly couple that wanted to speak with her, she was left weighing the benefits of summoning her broom and getting the hell out of dodge against the rules prohibiting the use of underage magic, never mind all the muggles that would see, a murmur came through the crowd. Farren glanced toward the door to find the source of all the commotion. What she saw brought her first real smile in days to her face.

Carina, Fred, George, and Mr. and Mrs. Weasley had just walked in, dressed in the strangest outfits Farren had ever laid eyes on. She almost laughed aloud. Without so much as a good bye, Farren pushed past the stuffy old couple and forced her way to the only people she wanted to see and launched herself at Carina.

“Thank god,” Farren whispered as she hugged her friend. The friend in question could only let out a small “oomph” sound as all the air was squeezed from her lungs.

“Are you okay?” asked Carina when she could breathe again. She pulled back and studied Farren intently as Mr. and Mrs. Weasley wandered off.

Farren gave a noncommittal shrug as she hugged Fred and George, and she didn’t notice Fred holding on a little longer than necessary.

“I don’t know, really. She was my mum, and I miss her, but she hadn’t really been with us for a while. It hurts, a bit, her being gone, but the worst part is how I can’t leave. I have to stay and listen to people tell me how sorry they are. It’s bloody awful. And my dad has been telling everyone I go to reform school. They’re all looking at me like I’m some sort of loon,” Farren said, trying for some humor at the end. The twins smiled at her, relieved that she could still joke with them, but Carina didn’t look convinced.

She raised an eyebrow at Farren while the twins chatted about how excited their dad was to see some muggles. Farren’s smile fell minutely.

“Later,” she mouthed at Carina who sighed, but nodded. The small group continued to speak for a few moments before music started to play, signaling the start of the ceremony. Farren watched her friends search for their chaperones, taking a minute to compose herself. She hadn’t expected Carina to catch on to how devastated she really was.

Shaking her head, Farren took a deep breath and made her way over to her dad.