Disclaimer: Everything from HP books belongs to JK Rowling
Sisters
You got to watch her grow up. You got to witness every moment of her childhood for seventeen years. It was a show, a life forever moving forward that you were completely blind to until she was gone. A life you never cared to be part of because you were too immersed in your own world, in your own story. It saddens you sometimes, saddens you until you remember that you hated her. Saddens you until you realize she was everything you always wanted to be and everything you could never measure up to.
You remember the day she was brought home from the hospital. You were five and prior to her birth you were the pampered only child, the only jewel in your parents' eye. You wonder if that's where it began. If at the moment you saw her cute fingers and looked into her bright eyes you resented her. If the moment when you realized you were no longer your parents little darling sealed the hatred you harbored for her. But you were five when you met her, most of what you know about then you know because they told you how you acted and how you felt. They told you what to remember. So really, you don't know if you hated her then. You aren't sure if you ever hated her at all.
You saw her grow from that small baby into the beautiful woman she became. Got to be there for her first birthday, got to give her her first Christmas kiss. You remember her as a child, long red hair down to her lower back, big green eyes so curious about the world around her. You remember everything, every tear she ever cried, every scrape she ever got. A girl like Lily is hard to forget.
You have a diary, her diary, one she kept from her school days, starting before she knew she was a witch and ending a little after she graduated. You read it sometimes. You walk outside of your house and sit in the lawn furniture out back as Vernon wastes away at work and Dudley sleeps through school. There you get to glimpse into her life, get to see a person who you used to ignore. A person you never cared to get to know until it was too late.
She wrote so elegantly. Even as a child her cursive writing just flowed from page to page and her words entranced you so it didn't matter if she was writing about that day in fifth grade when Percy Campbell pushed her into the mud or when she was seventeen and describing the exact moment she knew she loved James Potter, because everything about her life captivated you. It tears you apart sometimes. For over seventeen years she lived just down the hall from you. For seventeen years you sneered at her smiles and envied her abilities. For seventeen years you ignored your little sister to the point that this girl you're always reading about feels more like a complete stranger than family. Sometimes, you feel as if you imagined her, imagined that fascinating girl with the bright red hair and vibrant green eyes. You look in the mirror and ask yourself, who was she?
But you were there every step of the way, there when she rode her bike for the first time, there when she received her first letter by owl. You were there as she lay in the hospital sick with the flu and there when she broke her arm after climbing to the top of a tree. You were there for it all, but only now does her life register in your mind. Only now do you see and feel everything you never witnessed because through her diary you enter a world that isn't your own. A world unlike any place you've ever been.
It's magical, you think. You shudder as you use that word but nothing can be truer than that. Her life, you experience all of her trials and successes, feel all her happiness and pain, and there isn't anything that can be more magical. And so like usually you scoff at her school and laugh at that son of hers who is so devoted to a stupid piece of stick and know that this is what real magic is. Know that theirs doesn't even compare. So, you stroke the cover of her diary, trace the worn leather and golden letters that have faded with time, and you know that once this opens you'll submerged in another world, in her world, and you'll get to meet someone who in reality you know nothing about.
You got to feel her fall in love. Before you witnessed it. You remember when she would storm into her room or scream at the top of her lungs because that Potter boy mailed her yet another letter, because that Potter boy sent her another lame birthday present. You remember witnessing her hatred for him when she was fourteen and fifteen and can almost hear her ranting to your mother about the dumb pranks he always played, about the way he annoys her each and every day. You shiver slightly and it's as if your thoughts come alive, as if memories of the past are resurrected and you delve into the past when you were twenty, a student at the University. You see her standing over by the pool crying in your mother's arms because James Potter called her a know-it-all loser right before he asked her out. You see her ranting to your mother about the boy that makes her life a living hell as he charms his way into her heart. You see her face turn red with anger and suddenly remember that time she threw a lawn chair into the pool.
In these pages you feel her anger come alive. You forget that you once laughed at her red face and sneered at her tears because when she's angry in her diary, you become angry. When she cries, you cry. You feel this blind hatred for Potter in a way you never felt before. He made your little sister, your strong little sister, cry like a baby in her mother's arms. You want to punch him, hit him, make Harry do a spell on him, and then you read a little more and that hatred which was created in the bottom of your stomach just fades away.
You remember suddenly when she came home after sixth year without the usual rants. Remember your mother questioning her about Potter and remember seeing her blush. You remember her looking down and away, anywhere but into your mother's eyes, and hear her saying that he's become a really good friend, someone she values very much. And then you read her summertime entries about his perfections, about his amazing hazel eyes, and your cheeks blush red as you ache to run your hands through his messy hair. You just need to know how it turns out, if your sister loves him or not, if he loves her as well. Even though you know they get married. Even though for the past fifteen years their child has lived in your home, has eaten at your table, and lived with the same knowledge that your sister once lived with. But you read on so intrigued by her life and you fall in love with James Potter as she falls in love with him. Fall in love with him as she describes their first date. Fall in love with him as she writes about the way he looked in his scarlet quidditch robes.
But mostly, you fall in love with your sister. Fall in love with the girl in the book that you never cared to get to know. Fall in love with your feisty sister because she lived a life you could only dream of. You fall in love with a complete stranger. A person who spent their life trying to make you see them, spent their life wishing for some sort of affection coming from you knowing that each attempt to lighten you to her would fail. Always knowing that in some way you resented the fact that she was ever born. You read those few entries when she wrote about your broken relationship and it tears you up inside. Tears you up that you could ever be so cruel to hurt your baby sister so bad. I'm sorry, your mind screams before you turn the page and move on to the next entry.
And you read on. Read on as her friendship with James develops into love. Read on as she fights with her best friend, finds out another friend is a werewolf, and then read on to the night before graduation when James got down on one knee and asked her to be his forever. You close the book after that, close the book as you cry silent tears. Close the book when you remember her as the five year old child who used to beg you to play hide and go seek, the girl who loved you to read her bedtime stories. You close the book as you remember the girl you thought you hated for your whole life and realize that you never hated her at all. Realize that she is everything you always wanted to be, everything you always valued. And you cry because you want more than anything to go have lunch with her or see a movie, just talk to her, and yet it's impossible because she's no longer alive. You cry because you had your chance to love her and dismissed her from your heart, dismissed her love with an indifferent smirk. And you mourn for her as you hold her diary in your hands, mourn for her death and her life, but mostly mourn for the relationship you never allowed yourself to have with her. You mourn what should have been. And then you smile sadly, she could have been an amazing friend.
END
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