A/N: This has been sitting in my head for a while and I wanted to put it up for just as long so here it is.
Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter no matter how much I wish I did.
Faeries
When they were little their parents would tell them stories about Faeries. They made the flowers bloom. Brought the the sun moon and the seasons. They helped little children who were lost find their way back home and helped beautiful princesses live happily ever after. Sometime though, they'd steal children away from their homes and into their world. Usually they'd replace the child with a changeling but not always...
When the children returned, nay, if they returned they were always different from how they left. Sometimes they hadn't aged even if they'd been gone for decades, sometimes they had no memory of their friends or family, but sometimes...
"Freak!" Petunia remembered everything. She remembered the meadow. She remembered the flower her sister held. She remembered how it bloomed in her hand. How she smacked it out of her hand.
"Freak! You're a freak Lily! I'm going to tell mum!" But she hadn't meant those words. Not really. Lily was her baby sister. Her best friend. She loved her more than anything else, how could she not? But Petunia had been scared. Scared of being left behind. Scared of people hurting Lily. Scared of so many things but more than the others she was scared of losing her sister.
No, she thought bitterly, not anymore.
Then the horrible boy came out of the tree. Like the a dark prince of the faeries he moved so gracefully. He reached out his hand to Lily and... she took it.
It was then that Lily was lost to her forever.
HOGWARTS SCHOOL
of WITCHCRAFT and WIZARDRY
Headmaster: Albus Dumbledore
(Order of Merlin, First Class, Grand Sorc., Chf. Warlock,
Supreme Mugwump, International Confed. of Wizards)
Dear Miss Evans,
We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment.
Term begins on September 1. We await your owl by no later than July 31.
Yours sincerely,
Minerva McGonagall
Deputy Headmistress
HOGWARTS SCHOOL
of WHICHCRAFT and WIZARDRY
UNIFORM
First-year students will require:
sets of plain work robes (black)
plain pointed hat (black) for day wear
pair of protective gloves (dragon hide or similar)
winter cloak (black, with silver fastenings)
Please note that all pupil's clothes should carry name tags.
COURSE BOOKS
All students should have a copy of each of the following:
The Standard Book of Spells (Grade 1)
by Miranda Goshawk
A History of Magic by Bathilda Bagshot
Magical Theory by Adalbert Waffling
A Beginner's Guide to Transfiguration by Emeric Switch
One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi
by Phyllida Spore
Magical Drafts and Potions by Arsenius Jigger
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
by Newt Scamander
The Dark Forces: A Guide to Self-Protection
by Quentin Trimble
OTHER EQUIPMENT
1 wand
1 cauldron (pewter, standard size 2)
1 set glass or crystal phials
1 telescope
1 set brass scales
Students may also bring and owl OR a cat OR a toad.
PARENTS ARE REMINDED THAT FIRST YEARS ARE NOT ALLOWED THEIR OWN BROOMSTICKS
It had Lily's name on the front and a wax seal of a giant 'H'. She hoped it was a joke, the letter, a trick from the strange boy. But they lived so near by and he looked at Lily in such a way that she could never even imagine him tricking her. She won't believe that it's true. She refuses to and, with shaking hands she rips the letter into a million pieces.
More letters come everyday. Accompanied by owls. At first it's easy to rip them apart or burn then but it's July 22 and they've been relentless. So she gives up. Let her have her letters to that freak school. There's no way Mum and Dad will let her go. They'll agree with Petunia and make Lily forget all about that nonsense and focus on her studies and plans for the future.
But they do. They won't. And they don't.
September 1st Lily boards the train, the Hogwarts Express, and for the second time she loses her best friend. That night while Lilly Evans was sorted into Gryffindor Petunia cries herself to sleep.
Petunia goes to her own school the following week. She is just entering secondary school and feels more alone than ever. People who knew Lily ask how she is and what school she went to. She tells them that she's doing well and it could be true for all that she knows, and that she's studying overseas for a term, which is technically true. She can't imagine her Lily who picks flowers in the meadow, her Lily that sleeps next to her when she has night mares, her Lily that wet the bed for three years would be comfortable so far from home.
She's not my Lily anymore.
When she misses Lily too much to bare she sends a letter to Headmaster, asking if she could go to the school as well. He responds swiftly, assuring her that she cannot be admitted into the school as she does not have the magic necessary for success.
She burns the letter and watches it turn to ash through tear filled eyes.
Petunia decides not to go to University. She marries Vernon Dursley instead. She hasn't seen her sister since she moved into a house on Privet Drive with him. He's not much to look at but he's good to her and pays the bills. Petunia sets to work at being an extraordinary housewife. She cooks, cleans, and hosts parties and social events for her husbands work. Once a week she meets with the neighborhood watch group and does everything she can to be a model citizen and wife.
After less than a year of marriage he finds herself with child. On June 23, 1980, a healthy beautiful blonde haired boy is born. She names him Dudley and swears to herself that she'll do anything and everything to keep her son away from them.
Little more than a month later Lily sends her a picture of her baby boy and asks if they could meet one day. She declines and hides the letter from Vernon but keeps the odd moving picture of her nephew sewn into the pocket of her apron.
Lily is dead a year later. No one tells her in person of course, it comes in the form of a attached to her nephew, left alone at her doorstep. When she finds him there Vernon is long gone, away on business. She takes the child inside, sure he is her sisters son only by his brilliant green eyes.
They were murdered, his parents. Her sister was murdered by some horrible man and now she was left with an orphaned nephew who would never know his mother or father.
Never know about magic.
She holds him close and cries softly, careful not to wake him up.
Her sister has been stolen form her once more, only this time there is no hope of getting her back.