"Why are you shutting me out?!" My dad's voice woke me up. My room was right above the kitchen and that's where the yelling was coming from. "I'm just trying to talk to you!"
I rubbed my eyes as I sat up, pulling my legs out over the edge of the bed. Sammy was sleeping on a mattress on the floor. It helped with the nightmares to have him stay with me in my room. He offered to do it so he could be there if I had a bad dream.
I stood up and made my way over to the door that was half open. I snuck out of the room and towards the stairs where I chose to sit down on the top step.
"And now you're ignoring me, Liz?"
"I can't do this right now, George." My mum's voice was soft and full of sadness. "I just... can't."
"I know this must be reminding you of Carrow but—"
"This has nothing to do with Carrow!" My mother snapped. "I can't be thinking about that when our daughter is in pain. Bringing my situation into this is awfully selfish. It has nothing to do with him!"
"Lizzie." Dad sighed. "You are allowed to have your emotions about what happened. You were sexually assaulted and now our daughter has been the victim of rape. Of course that is going to bring back memories, especially because that's what you said when we decided to have kids. You were terrified of the world, terrified that anything like this would ever happen to any of them."
"And now it has happened." Mum said. "This... George.. this is going to haunt her for the rest of her life. She is going to learn how to live a normal life without trauma but it will be something she always carries and I hate that.. I hate that I can't take that pain away from her. She's fifteen years old. She shouldn't have been through something like that. And from someone who called himself her boyfriend. How will she ever trust another person to take that role?"
I looked up when a figure appeared and sat down next to me. It was Sammy. He didn't say anything. He just sat next to me, listening to our parents conversation with me.
"I don't know." Dad sighed. "Maybe she won't. Maybe she never will but we can't just... Liz, our daughter is going one strong girl. She's got that from you and with some therapy and our support, she will be okay."
"But—" mum started crying. I hated that sound and I hated that she was crying because of me. "This is my fault. I was the one who suggested that stupid no-dating-until-you're-seventeen rule when Fred first got in the age where he started thinking about girls. If I didn't suggest that, maybe she would have told us she had a boyfriend and we would be more aware of what was going on."
Sammy grabbed my hand and I put my head on his shoulder as I tried holding the tears back.
"You're blaming yourself?" Dad asked. "For what happened to Vivi? No. You can't do that. The last time you blamed yourself for something, we almost lost you. It's been nine years but I still worry every day about you and if you fall back into that deep hole of depression. Do not blame yourself, Liz."
"I'm sorry." Mum cried and I knew dad was hugging her. I knew them too well. "I'm scared, George. What if she can't handle the trial? If it's too much? What if she tries to..."
"She won't." Dad responded. "Okay? She won't. We will get her the help she needs and she will be alright."
I got up from the stairs and Sammy looked at me as I walked back up the one step and hurried into my room. I crawled into bed, pulling the duvet up to my face while I closed my eyes.
Their conversation kept running through my mind. Mum was scared that I was gonna try and kill myself. That thought had come to me loads of times so now I couldn't stop myself from feeling guilty.
Guilty that I had ever had that thought. Guilty that I had had that thought so many times. Guilty that I had even thought about ways to do it, thought about when to do it.
If they ever found out I had thought about it that seriously, they would break so they couldn't know. I didn't want them to break. To see my own parents break because of me.
"Vivi?" Sammy asked as he entered the room, closing the door behind him. "You alright?"
He came over and slowly sat down on the edge of the bed, moving the duvet so he could look at my face.
"I just want to sleep." I said, keeping my eyes closed. "Go to sleep, Sammy. You're going back to Hogwarts in the morning."