This is written for the "So you think you can write?"-competition over at HPFC. My prompt was "You could NEVER understand! You never WILL!" and the theme was "Inner Demons". Please leave a review and tell me how you think I did!
"SHUT UP! You just don't get it, do you? You with your perfect face and your perfect life and your bloody perfect boyfriend, or should I say fiance? Well, let me spell it out for you! I. Don't. Care! I don't bloody care, Victoire! So just leave me alone and get the hell out of here!"
The older girl stared at her sister, shock apparent on her beautiful features. Her hair, the hair that normally fell perfectly down her neat shoulders, was now messy and she had tears streaming down her face. For the first time in her life Dominique had decided to not to what was expected of her and Victoire had freaked. First she had thrown a tantrum – a loud one, the same kind that she used to throw when she was six and Dominique stole her clothes to play dress-up – and when she realized it was of no use she'd started crying. Then she'd decided to play the blame card.
That was when the younger girl, the one with not so perfect red, curly hair and big, brown eyes, things she'd gotten from their father, had it. She took her sister's dress and she ripped it apart, right in front of a shocked and horrified Victoire.
The two sisters had always been very different, even as small children. Victoire had her mother's stunning looks and always acted like the perfect lady, making sure to never once loose her face in front of anyone. Dominique was the exact opposite. She didn't have the same face, the same hair or even the same kind of body, but that wasn't it. Even though she was taller and had muscles and was strong in a way her sister would never be, Dominique differed from her sister in more ways than that.
Because Dominique would never be that perfect lady. When someone asked her for a dance, she would either spit him in the face and tell him to get lost or smile neatly and latter stomp on his feet and laugh at how he'd cry out in pain. She was every guy's nightmare and her sister envied her for it.
Victoire would never be able to be that kind of girl, carefree and not thinking about what others thought all the time. She wanted it so badly and when she saw Dominique riding her broom or hanging out with Louis, their brother and only one year younger than the red-haired, smiling and laughing and just chill out because she could, she wondered why she didn't just let loose and became a little wild.
"Why do you make it sound like that, Nikki?" Victoire asked, tears streaming down her face. "Like I'm the one to blame because your life fell apart. It's not my fault that he broke up with you or that I'm getting married! I thought you would be happy for me, I really did!"
Dominique could only stare. How dare she say that? From the day she was born Dominique had looked up to Victoire, wanting to be like her but knowing she couldn't. When Victoire found her Teddy she had told her sister before their mother and though Dominique desperately wanted to be as happy she couldn't. She was falling apart and her best friend and sister couldn't see it.
That's why she left. She picked up her bag – already packed with her wand and a set of clothes – and walked out the door, not turning back even as Victoire screamed after her. Their relationship was too ruined and not even their brother's pleadings could get the two sisters to talk again.
Victoire was married without her sister on her side. She was supposed to be the maid of honor, the red rose next to the white one, but she wasn't there.
Dominique lost a child without her best friend to support her. As she was informed that she had been miscarrying, she only had eyes for the girl's pale skin and blonde hair. the same that her sister had-
It was an early morning in august nearly four years later when they saw each other again. This time, everything was different.
Dominique had grown up. Her hair had been cut short and her smile didn't come quite as easily as before. Once it did, though, it was as stunning as ever.
Victoire had grown up, too. Carrying her baby son Arthur on her hips and a bag with diapers in one of her hands she made her way from home to the supermarket to buy more milk and ran straight into her sister. They both stopped dead.
"-Dominique?"
Dominique had imagined that moment so many times and every time she did the heard Victoire telling her in a cold voice that it was too late and that she didn't want to talk to her ever again. Now, however, she looked on her sister with wonder and their was a longing in her voice that she used to have when they were small and she wanted somethign but didn't know how to get it.
"Hi", Dominique answered and tried her very best to keep the Weasley blush away from her cheeks – in vain. "That's him?"
The little boy hid his face in his mother's hair and changed the color of his own from a pleasant light brown to a screaming red. Victoire chuckled and ruffled his hair, nodding gracefully.
"Yes, this is Arthur. Arthur, meet your Auntie Dominique", she said and the little boy looked up from his hiding space to take a look at the strange woman that his mother seemed to like so much.
"Hi", he said before hiding his face again.
Just like that, the two sisters started to hang out again. On Sundays, Dominique would join family dinner at the shell cottage, something she hadn't done in years. Victoire left Arthur home with Ted and came to spend the weekend in her sister's flat in Edinburgh and to outsiders it may seem like things had never been wrong.
For those who knew, though, the signs were there. As little girls the two would curl up close to each other in one of their beds and talk until their mother forced them apart and even as teenagers they did it at least a few times every month. That just didn't happen anymore and though they sometimes hugged awkwardly they never shared those sisterly touches anymore, the casual hugs and kisses on the cheek.
Almost a year after their reunion they finally brought the fight back up. So far, they had, much like everybody else, tried to"-and since you weren't there I had to take Roxanne as my maid of honor, and be as she may but she was never much of a hostess, now was she?"
It wasn't said cruelly but Dominique could tell that Victoire still was bitter that she'd missed her sister's wedding. Perhaps that was something you could never really forgive, she mused. And then she decided it was time for her sister to know the truth.
"No, I guess she wasn't", she agreed,"but Tori, there's something I need to talk to you about." Victoire nodded and placed a hand on the bump of her stomach, where her second child was resting until it was time for him or her to come out. "First, I'm sorry for running of and abandon you like that. You were my best friend in the whole world and you just wanted med to be happy with you. I can see that, now."
Saying that she glanced at the golden ring on her own finger. She was to marry the next winter and often found herself amazed by her luck. Taking her NEWTs and graduating from Hogwarts she had been tired of everything and certain that her life would be nothing but watching her older sister shine. Now, however, she was shining too and it was the best she had ever felt.
"You did hurt me, but I guess you at least can understand what it feels like. And I'm willing to forgive you."
Ever the lady. Had she said the same years to Dominique from five years earlier, the latter would have left the room never to return. Now, however, they had both grown up and the younger knew that if she didn't tell her sister she would never be able to tell anyone.
"That's the thing. I can understand you. But do you even know what I went through at that time? You could NEVER understand! You never WILL! Because you wouldn't take the time to check a second time."
"What are you talking about?"
Victoire was crying now and much to her surprise Dominique realized she was, too. "When he broke up with me, it wasn't because he had found someone else. He just couldn't handle a child."
Shock in the beautiful, blue eyes. "You were pregnant?" At least she knew well enough not to ask about the child just yet.
"Yeah", Dominique mumbled and when her sister wrapped her arms around her she let herself sink into the embrace. "He left me over a child; our child, Tori! And she looked so much like him and so much like you-"
Her voice broke and for a few second the two sisters sat in silence. Then Victoire spoke up.
"I'm sorry", she whispered, truthfully. "I should've seen it, and I would've too if I hadn't been so obsessed with Ted and the wedding. I failed you, Nikki."
They spoke for hours, until nothing was left to be said, and then they lay down on the couch, close together with their hands intertwined.
Their battles with their inner demons where far from finished but much like when you're eight and terrified from the monsters in you closet it's so much easier to be brave when you have someone to hold your hand and show you the way.