A/N: Hi there! This is my first published fic, so I hope it's decent enough for you. I'm currently in my last year of school, so I won't be able to update frequently, but I'm going to try to write at least once a week. If you can handle that, read on!
I started Hogwarts exactly one week after my sister, Lena, died in an accident in London. It was a Saturday and Mum and I were at Diagon Alley getting last minute school supplies for my first year at Hogwarts. I had asked Lena to meet us at the Leaky Cauldron at half past twelve for lunch as she worked a few kilometres away in a muggle bank.
We waited for her for fifteen minutes before Mum called her mobile the first time. Lena was always punctual, but we'd thought she might have had a rush of customers. She didn't pick up the phone, so Mum tried the bank. They told her that Lena had left at twelve thirty on the dot, but that they'd just been told by some customers that there were an awful lot of cars on the roads, so she might have just been stuck in traffic. We waited for another fifteen minutes before Mum tried again.
This time, the phone was picked up within three rings.
"Hello?" I heard the person on the other end answer. My heart pounded in my chest. Not Lena.
"Uh, hello. My name is Mary Walters. I'm looking for my daughter, Lena. Is she there with you?"
"Mrs Walters, this is Sergeant Ryan Phipps. Are you sitting down?" the voice said soothingly. Something bad had happened to Lena, my brilliant big sister, my role model. I listened to the faint lulling tone of Sergeant Phipps' voice with dread, wanting so badly to curl up into a ball on the sofa, my mum's arm wrapped around me.
"I'm so sorry, but there's been an accident. Your daughter…" My ears filled with a fierce wind, blocking my ears off to the rest of Sergeant Phipps' sentence, but I knew what was coming. Lena was gone; dead. I felt a tightening in my chest and struggled to keep the sobs that were about to wrack through me at bay. I closed my eyes and reached for Mum's hand, trying to offer her the little comfort that I could. Giving in, I buried my head into Mum's side and wrapped my free arm around her waist, choking on the tears that were now streaming out of my eyes.
The last thing I remembered was Mum's hand gripping the edge of the table. I've never asked Mum what happened after that. It would be too painful for her to talk about. All I knew was, my beautiful, incredible, perfect sister died and it was my fault for asking her to come to lunch.
I'm not one of those popular girls who hates everyone because she thinks they're beneath her, that it's her Merlin-given right to treat everyone else like crap. I'm one of those girls who tries to be nice to everyone, to never get angry. I'm trying to be my sister, or like her, really. It's been five years since she died and I think my doing this is helping my parents adjust to life without Lena.
I'm not trying to sound down about it, but I think she was always the favourite. She was perfect – silky blonde hair, big blue eyes, slim but with curves in all the right places. And her personality wasn't like the snobby girls who think they're Merlin's gift to the world. Lena was calm and courteous, studious and serene, thoughtful and talented. She could brighten someone's day with a quick quirk of her perfectly-sculpted lips.
Everyone deals with grief in a different way, right? Well for me, it was to follow in her footsteps. And I think, so far, I've succeeded.
I'm a prefect for Gryffindor, a chaser on the Gryffindor Quidditch team, I'm top of most of my classes (I'd be top in all of them if James Potter wasn't beating me in Defense and Astronomy), and I'm among the top ten most popular people at Hogwarts. I'm almost everything that my parents had in Lena, but not quite.
There was something about Lena that just…was. She had a way about her that had people practically falling at her feet, and everything just came to her so easily. Me, I've had to work for everything I've got, for everything I am. And sometimes it's hard. Sometimes I just want to lie in my bed and sleep until school is over, so I don't have to try so hard to be perfect.
But I look in the mirror, at the face that resembles Lena's so well, and think, "No. Lena wouldn't give up and neither can you, Jenny. When the going gets tough, you need to pick yourself up, dust yourself off and keep going."
And sometimes that is the only thing that keeps me going. Maintaining an air of perfection can be hard.
A/N: Now, I know it was really short and I'm super sorry about that, but it is a prologue so you can't expect it to be super long. Please let me know what you think!
Edit 27/01/2013: Added the first part of chapter one to the prologue. Will delete chapter one until I add more to it.