The Sister's Story

Epilogue

I have now been in hospital for a total of five weeks, and I have nearly come to the end of my story. As I sit here in the hospital bed, writing in this notebook, I can feel those memories washing over me again. I have tried to write down everything as it was, and to try to capture the exact emotions I had felt at the time. In doing so, I realise that I am rely looking back into the past,I am re-living, and re-experiencing all the emotions I had once felt. The past which I have tried so hard to forget, the past which I thought I had forgot, has now been re-awakened in my mind, and I know that I will never be able to forget again. I don't even know exactly why I'd first started writing in this notebook. I suppose it's because Lily died a heroine, with everyone in her world knowing her name. Nobody knows or cares about me, except possibly Vernon and Dudley. Even though this will probably never be read, I still want to make some kind of statement to the world about the kind of person I am, and to give reasons for all of my past actions.

It's strange how events turn out. I got this as a present for my tenth birthday, the exact twin to the one my sister had. The same diary I read, on that day which seems so long ago. But whereas Lily probably kept a daily account of her life, I have now written my whole life in the space of a few hours. It's daylight now, and it was evening when I first started writing. Time passes quickly. I suppose in a few days I will no longer be here. It's something I can feel, something in my bones. I know that I will not be in the land of the living for very much longer. My sister was famous in death. What will happen to me?

Looking back, I have to admit that I regret it. And that if I had another chance, I would change it all. It all started out as a plan, an act, so that Lily would be able to make friends freely in her own world, and somewhere downthe line, that changed into hatred. I don't even know the exact turning point. And Harry...when I first saw Harry...that was when it all came back. I really should have acted kinder to Harry. My sister's son! But I had to hang onto my pride, and choose the easy way out. The easy way of maintaining my hatred for my sister and all things magical, and extending that hatred to her son. Maybe...maybe that was just so that I wouldn't have to admit to myself that I'd been wrong. Well, now I'm admitting it freely. And if I could turn back time, to the day when my sister first got that letter, I would allow my sister to comfort and reassure me that our friendship would not change.

It's funny. I've kept my sister's old school trunk for all these years, because I've never been able to bring myself to throw it away. Perhaps, somewhere deep in my subconscious, I still recognised that what I felt for Lily wasn't hatred. Or perhaps it was...people say there's only a very thin line between love and hate. I suppose I'll put this notebook into her trunk when I've finished. It just seems right, in some strange twisted way. As an apology to her. Yes, that's what I will do. I am tired now, and I think I hear footsteps. Perhaps I shall finish this later.

* * *

Harry turned the page, but it was blank. Those must have been the last words his aunt had written before she had died. Smothering a yawn, he turned to look at the clock on his bedside table. It was seven in the morning. He had stayed up all night reading the diary. He leant back, closing his eyes, but did not sleep. So that was his Aunt Petunia's story. It was definitely interesting. Harry had not thought much about his aunt before, always dismissing her as the woman who had contributed a lot to his miserable childhood. Now that he had read that, however, he saw her in a different light. He didn't forgive her - in his view her past treatment of him was unforgivable. But he did, to a certain extent, understand her more. He could understand, if not agree with, why she was the woman she became. I'd always thought of her as merely a horrible woman. I'd never really considered her character or personality beyond that before. I guess everybody is three dimensional, really.

Harry got up, pulled back his bed curtains, and walked to the open window. He leant outside, breathing in the fresh morning air. Looking up towards the sky, where a few stars could still be faintly seen, he wondered a question which no human had ever been able to answer. Are you up there somewhere, Aunt Petunia?

The ring of Ron's alarm clock interrupted Harry's thoughts. A few minutes later, the boys' dormitory became the usual early morning bedlam, and Harry had no more opportunity to dwell on the diary. Chattering excitedly about the Quidditch match to take place that morning, he went down with Ron to breakfast.

When Harry came up later, he found that the diary was no longer on his bed, where he had left it, but instead had somehow made its way back into the trunk, and was now nestled among his mother's various possessions. Curious, he picked it back up, and flicked through it. In one of the very back pages, he discovered a photograph which he vaguely remembered as having been somewhere beneath the diary before. He wondered idly how it had moved itself into the diary, before examining it closely.

It was a Muggle photograph, and the figures depicted were still. A blond haired girl around ten years old was standing on a grassy field, holding the hand of another girl with red hair, who looked a few years younger. The two were smiling brightly, their hair apparently messed up by the wind. They looked as though they were having the time of their lives. Harry flipped the photograph over. Very faint letters in the childish script could be made out.

Me and 'Tunia. Best friends for ever.

Harry smiled. Perhaps this was the diary's way of showing him that the hostility between his aunt and mother was now no more. The enmity, which had claimed such a large portion of their lives, had now died along with his aunt. She had done her part in reconciling with her sister, and, looking at the diary cradled amongst the various possessions of his mother, Harry believed that somehow, somewhere, his mother too forgave her sister for her past behaviour. He thought of the words on the photograph once more. Best friends for ever. Well, who would have known, that's turned out to be true after all.

Fin.