Before Year One
Every Monday she would pull on her shoes with a hole in the right toe, laces blackened with dirty and walk down the street to meet Mrs. Figg's house where she could pet her favorite cats. It seemed that this small moment in the day was the only thing she could look forward to before the chores began and again she would attend to the needs of her family.
One day, in some far land where people were kinder, she thought she could find a warm home with a little life of her own. The only warm soul she knew or liked to pretended was part of her family was Mrs. Figg. While she never wanted to volunteer too many stories about herself she never stopped telling the most wondrous fairy tails in which Harri was the star and the land was filled with magic. It always began as her being a princess in a far away land with armies of people who lived to see her happy, but Harri loved the parts that describes her immediate family.
Sometimes, she thought she scared Mrs. Figg when she told her for certain she had two sisters out in the world, despite being reminded she was an only child to two deceased parents. She couldn't shake the feelings nor the dreams of the two girls - one with curly brown hair and warm eyes while the other had bleach blonde waves with crystal blue eyes.
They were not her blood sisters she always reminded her, but her soul sisters. One day they would be reunited and bring back glory to the entire kingdom with their rule over the land. Mrs. Figg often said if she believed that then it was okay, but to never mix up reality with dreams. Dreams couldn't be this realistic. She knew they were real and she was not alone in this world doomed to walk the Earth without her sisters. The dreams greeted her every night with a warm embrace that rivaled the goodness of Mrs. Figg's famous tea.
Mrs. Figg would weave stories about uncles who sacrificed their lives for her honor and spun intricate webs about her family history that dated back to the beginning of time. Those large stories gave her something to hold on to when she put her head against the moth smelling pillow as the dust settled and the footsteps began to cease. Yet, Petunia could never know about Mrs. Figg's stories or the chocolate chip toffee cookies she would slip her to eat before she left back down the street, because if she knew she could never return.
What Harri never realized was that Mrs. Figg had been preparing her all along for the realities of the wizarding world. All the tea parties, the magical lessons that she had with a stick from the garden and made up families from Mrs. Figg's head were real. Her family was real. The sisters Mrs. Figg said were stories in her head were not figments of her imagination, but real girls out in the world waiting to join her.
Harri all along was the princess from the ancient family, with the doting family, the endless riches and the castle with spiraling stair cases, until it all came crashing down. But, her sisters would be there and one day they would rule them all.