My Sister's Ghost

"You spend your passion on a misprised mood!"

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Perhaps I'm being childish. Perhaps I'm being intolerant. Perhaps I'm being cowardly. Perhaps I'm being cruel. All I know is that the instant my nephew, left on my doorstep like a changeling, first woke up and fixed me with Lily's green eyes, I knew that this child would be his mother's son, and that he would die of his abnormality as his mother had if I didn't do something, and fast.

Lily. My sister. My beautiful, headstrong, too-wonderful sister. She died two years ago and I still don't know if I miss her or if I want to slap her.

It's difficult to believe now, with all the bitter words that were exchanged and the years of silence, but there was a time when we were inseparable, two halves of a sisterly whole that even a year's age difference couldn't interfere with. We played together, made the same friends, slept in the same room, braided each others' hair, finished each others' sentences, walked with the same stride... Oh, there were arguments, but they always, always, ended in forgiveness. And if she was prettier than me, or if people always liked her better than the plain, prickly older sister, who cared?

Then came the letter.

That letter. That damned letter. That damned school. The owl delivered the message on her eleventh birthday, when the sun was shining and we were laughing together over some joke or another... That's when that bird, that blasted bird, came swooping in and dropped the letter in her lap. No words were exchanged between us as she read it but when I took one look at the glowing eagerness on her face I knew that I had been replaced. I knew it. Lily might have still loved her sister, but one look at her face was all that I needed to tell me that she loved magic more. I didn't ask. I didn't have to. One look at her face was all the proof I needed.

Now I'm not so sure. But it's too late to say anything now.

With the coming of the letter things that I'd always thought were unimportant gradually became more and more important. Like the way she hogged the covers at night. The way she never remembered to put the cap on the toothpaste. The way she sang off-key in the shower. The way she always pulled too tight whenever she braided my hair. The way I always had to help Mum with dinner, since Lily couldn't cook to save her life. Little things, gradually mutating into bigger ones. It wasn't fair that she was prettier than me, that she was more popular than me, that her Christmas presents always seemed nicer than mine, that our parents always seemed to love her more than me. It wasn't fair that she had magic, that she could do impossible things, that she could go off to that place, that school, and learn magic. It wasn't fair that magic was going to take my sister away from me.

The breakdown of our relationship was subtle at first. A resentful glance here. A snide comment there. Bickering. Snarling. Not enjoying each others' company as much as we once did. Then viciousness began to take a broader scope, creeping into our lives until interaction had become just another excuse for anger and dinnertime was so chilly I'm surprised that the silverware didn't glaze with ice. Our surprised parents tried to make peace, but to no avail. Finally, matters came to a head when I walked in on Lily trying to levitate a book. To see magic being worked by strangely dressed people in that Diagon Alley place was one thing, to see my own sister doing was quite another. I froze in the doorway.

A month of coldness couldn't quite override years of sisterly love and concern. "What's wrong, Tuna?"

I couldn't stand the worry in her eyes. "I - " My wide-eyed gaze took in the still-hovering book. "I - " Finally, I managed to find my voice. "It's all so - unnatural."

Lily's eyes blazed. "Tuna, what's wrong with you? Ever since I got my letter you've acted like I'm a leper or something!"

"Me?" My voice rose an octave as the past month's suppressed frustrations burst out. "What's wrong with me? At least I'm not a freak going to a freak school!"

I'll never forget the shock on her face, the way she flinched back as though I had just struck her. In that instant, if I had apologized, if I had said even one thing that wasn't meant to hurt... Lily would have forgiven me. I know she would have.

But I said nothing.

Finally, her gaze lifted. Her face was pinched and shuttered, the way you would look at a stranger that you didn't particularly want to meet, and she said, "Get out of my room."

Not our room any longer.

And as I lie in bed tonight, listening to the muffled sobs coming from the cupboard beneath the stairs, I can only hope that Harry's magic can be stamped out before it's too late, before he turns eleven and goes off to that... that... school, where he'll learn how to do magic until it chokes him, and I refuse to let Lily's son suffer the same fate as his mother. Because magic is not some glorious thing to be prized, whatever the storybooks say. Magic is a poison. Magic is a disease. It sucks its victims in with sweet promises, and then it kills them. Oh, yes, fine that Lily was Head Girl, that she fell in love and was treated to a fairy tale of a marriage, but it didn't last, did it? It didn't last. None of these things, however nice, could save her, and it's all magic's fault. No, I won't let Harry make the same mistakes his mother did, and have magic. Magic took my sister away from me; magic killed her. And if making a three-year-old boy sleep in a cupboard seems cruel, it's worth it if I can only save him from his own abnormality. Maybe then my sister's ghost will stop haunting me.