Something that must not be named.

This is a story that starts with my love of Harry Potter and my depression, a strange crossover of sorts.

It's the winter of 2016.

Little old me has moved away from Brighton, England, back to her boring French suburb. Life is pretty bleak to say the least. I had made plans, over there. Something about getting a solid job, getting out of retail and zero-hour contract. Something about moving out of the hostel I called home and into a real flat with my friends.

Life got in the way.

My mental health got in the way.

My brain was at an all-time low. I could barely get out of bed in the morning, and when I did, I never did anything substantial. My phobias stopped me from going outside. If I did, it had to be

a- in broad daylight

b- with someone else, or

c- involved me running where I was going, and I am a terrible runner.

I couldn't see a way out.

I couldn't even imagine a way out.

The only thing I do is listen to music.

It's lunch time, and I am sat in front of the old family computer. The browser is open on YouTube's main page. As usual, my recommendations are filled to the brim with cheery pop-punk songs, most of which I know off by heart already. Play any of these songs, and I can sing along perfectly, throwing in the instruments, too. This music has been in my blood since I was a kid.

There's only one song I don't know.

It's called Voldemort, and it's performed by a band I have only heard of in passing called With Confidence. I don't know their music, I don't know who they are, but I love Harry Potter, and I want to understand why they have named their song after the villain.

Two minutes and fifty-four seconds later, I am none the wiser, but I am in love.

See, I love angry pop-punk. Late into my twenties, I'm still the cliché of the angsty teenager listening to loud rock music in her bedroom. My playlists are filled with songs about grief, about wanting to get out of one's hometown, about friends and parents who don't understand, about struggling but getting to the other side just fine, about hating your ex-significant other's guts.

On an ordinary lunch time, I decide this band must have something special for me to fall in love at first listen with a song that sounds, well... Happy.

I'm not used to that anymore.

I want more of that.

Since the first fateful listen in our old family flat, I have pressed play on Voldemort by With Confidence many times, to a point where I knew the song off by heart, instruments included, where I could have described the music video in great detail without seeing it. I quickly moved on to the band's debut album, Better Weather, their old EPs, Distance and Youth, to all the acoustic renditions and badly-recorded covers I could get my hands on.

I started watching their interviews, and that's when I knew I was in too deep, in for the long haul.

I don't watch interviews. Ever.

As it turned out, With Confidence were about to embark on quite the extensive European tour, and I decided I would attend their show in Paris. The more I listened to them, the more I found myself smiling when Voldemort kicked in, the more I decided one show wasn't enough.

I booked myself on a coach to Leeds, then Manchester, just to watch them play.

I could barely walk to the nearest supermarket by myself without having a meltdown, but I was willing to spend thirteen hours in an uncomfortable coach to watch a band play live.

I didn't know how to do anything by myself anymore, but somewhere in the upbeat two minutes and fifty-four seconds of Voldemort, I found the strength to travel alone.

My first With Confidence show was at the Key Club, in Leeds. They opened with Voldemort, and I don't think hearing those lyrics first was a coincidence. It made sense. It made sense to start the evening shouting along to "Despite the weather, it gets better."

I smiled more in the hour they were on stage than I had in the past two months or so. I made friends at the end of the night, and we went to the Manchester date together. Sat in the Arndales shopping centre the next morning, I decided to add two more shows to my pile. There would be Berlin, and then, Leipzig, in Germany.

On the sixteenth of March, 2017, at eleven PM or so, after With Confidence were done playing the back of a restaurant in Paris, I felt happier than I had for months.

They were coming back to Europe in May, and, for the first time since I'd come back home, I felt like I had something to look forward to.

Three years later, my depression is quieter. It comes in waves, it's still there, and it still tricks my brain, but it's not as bad as it used to be. My love for Harry Potter is stored in a drawer at the back of my mind, and I am not sure I would click on a song because it was named after a character.

Three years later, I have seen With Confidence live twenty-eight times in eight different countries, two continents, and three American states. The girl who couldn't go to the other side of the road by herself flew eleven hours across the world to see the band with the song that made her smile.

This is the story of how a song changed my life.

This is the story of how, one day, I clicked on a YouTube recommendation, and the song made me smile so much, so bright, so wide that I let it in and gave it all the power to help me turn my life around.

This is the story of how despite the weather, it got better.