There are always defining moments in our lives, when one wins a scholarship, find someone they can laugh with, have a child, go to a place, get a promotion….. you get the idea; this is one of mine.
Mum was pretty strict about going to bed on time. How ever much I wanted to read, 10 p.m. meant lights out and there were no two ways about it. I have been caught red-handed several times, trying to sneak in some extra reading time.
Imagine her surprise when she woke up at 5 a.m. one morning and heard a wailing emanating from my room. She quickly opened the door to see her eldest (aka me, if that wasn’t clear) sitting cross-legged on the bed, rocking to and fro, utterly disconsolate.
She tried asking me what happened, but I was crying so hard, I couldn’t form any words. She worked out that I had stayed up the entire night. After a couple of minutes, she started getting worried but I couldn’t get the words out. Saying it out loud would have made it real and I wasn’t ready for that.
“Ma, Sirius….”
I think that was the moment I probably would have gained the ability to see the thestrals.
