Halloween
Tonight is Halloween, my sister's favorite holiday. I always found that appropriate; after all, magically gifted people must enjoy having a night entirely devoted to them and their world, no matter how cliché or stereotypical our ideas are. However appropriate the idea was, I always detested the fact that the real cliché of their world killed them that night too.
Lily was my sister, and I loved her. Though I envied her long red hair and bright green eyes, she was so serene and…well, so Lily… that you could never hate her. We were not especially close, nor especially hateful to each other; indeed, we were normal siblings, sisterly and confiding, but still, at times, we fought. When Lily was eleven, she received something I had not. She received a letter that would transfer her to a place that would allow her to learn magic, to be what I could not, to offer her the friends that I could not be. I was insanely envious, but I was happy for my sister as well. I had always knew she was different. There was an aura around her of magic and joy. She made the best of everything she had, was sweet and had high morals, though she was never too uptight about anything. Being intelligent came naturally for her. But, despite all that, you could look deep in her eyes and see pain and distance, because she knew she was different, and longed to be where she wasn't. The school offered that to her.
I can not blame my sister for going, because, was I her, I too would have left. She had a presence of magic and perfection and it needed to be trained and shaped. And so she went, and I turned away before she left, so I would never see her leave. I always watched when she came back, however.
On my floor sits her son. He looks just like the man who took my sister form me, though he has Lily's lovely green eyes. He plays quietly with something that I cannot see, and I remember how Lily used to imagine toys. I give a weak and joyless smile as I remember that I was jealous of the toys she didn't have, because they took her attention.
Her child sets whatever it was down and looks up at me. His skinny legs stretch in front of him and his hair is messy, as always. His thin face looks thoughtful. To my surprise a lone tear runs down his cheek. He brushes it away, looking puzzled that it is even there. I wonder if he knows that tonight is the sixth year anniversary of his parents death.
I suppose I was naïve, thinking that Lily would finish her training and come back home. I always assumed that she would come home when she was seventeen, full of plans for the two of us to bunk together, like I was. I thought she would use her magic to help us have an easier time of things. I didn't think magic would be her life. But Lily, as many people do, as even I eventually, did, fell in love.
She came home that year with a tall, thin, good-looking man on her arm. He was playful and full of pranks, and I would have liked him, had he not completely taken my sister over.
The boy, James Potter, had messy black hair and huge hazel eyes. He was as loyal to Lily as he was to his friends, and he told me about their world. He was very knowledgeable, but even then I was slightly cold, because I could see my sister's attraction to him, though I was clueless to what it would mean. I wondered about my sister at night, about the gleam in her eye, and the glow that seemed to come from within her. I am sure Lily, too, wondered about me, for I had never detested her world or people like I learned to that summer.
And at the end of it, James asked Lily to marry him, in front of the whole family, and his friends and hers and even some of mine, and our parents. I will never forget the joy that awoke behind her luminescent green eyes; it was the joy I had failed to bring for her. My sister was lost.
When they married, I became sullen and dull. My life was meaningless; not even my sister, after all, would prefer to spend her last years as a teenager with me. One night, while sitting by my self at an outdoor café table, I met Vernon. A year ago, I would have scoffed at the man who nervously cleared his throat and caught my attention, but at the time I was desperate for anyone who would love me truly and never leave me for a world I didn't understand.
Vernon looked nervous. Though his body was not much to look at, he was not entirely awful. His hair was smooth and thick chocolate brown, and his eyes were a glinting black. He was handsome in the face, though he was slightly chubby. I didn't care.
We were so alike. He hated things unusual, and I too, was developing such a taste. He was strait forward and had a lust for business and doing things. He wanted to get out there in the world, and so did I. We fell so deeply in love, we could have finished each other's sentences, had we wanted to. But we didn't, for we were to practical for that. The only time we weren't practically was when lust and desire got in the way. The nights we were not practical let me see a whole other side to him, both literally and figuratively. He proposed to me, not with as much emotion or fervor as when Lily had been proposed to, but with so much love shinning in his gleaming black eyes that I could not say no. I didn't want to, anyway.
We pulled away from my sister. I began to loathe the wizarding world, for surely my beloved baby sister would have come home were it not for it. How many families, friends, and old lovers had watched their beloved choose the magical world over the normal one?
When Lily sent me a letter in the normal way, I was pleasantly surprised. I was sure that inside would be tear stained apologizes gushing that she had made the wrong choice, that James, the bastard, had left her, divorced her. I was ready to have my sister back. I knew I would let her stay in the guest bedroom, and we would sit at night while Vernon slept and giggle like school girls.
I glance now at her child. He reminds me of what happened next that night, when I received that letter. He glances up at me, looking innocent and honest. I almost want to say a kind word to him, but instead I glare and turn away, reminding myself once again of the letter.
The letter said in a note of unmistakable happiness that Lily had delivered a beautiful baby boy into the world. They sent us pictures that moved of him, and I noticed he looked just like his father. Even his name reminded me of the man who had stolen my sister; they called him Harry, Harry James Potter. I was sure the child would be like them. He would be magical. He would be dangerous.
It happened on my sister's favorite holiday. I didn't know until almost two mornings after, but an evil lord who had been trying to take over their world had killed my sister, my perfect serene sister, to get to her baby. And she had protected him. The child had somehow survived it. I hate the child.
He sits there now, looking sad that he, too, does not get a costume for the night. He does not even get to go out for candy. As I sew Dudley's costume (a giant marshmallow) he looks up at me, and I see a pain in his eyes. I wonder if he knows or remembers that his parents died because of him six years ago tonight. When he is older, I am supposed to tell him everything. I won't do so. I am indirectly protecting him and others from what his magic could do, were he exposed to that world. I think, someday, he will thank me.