Petunia

Lily was her hero and her sister and her best friend. They were inseparable, Petunia and her older sister Lily, from the day Petunia was born, it seemed. Not even a full year apart in age - Lily had been born in early June and Petunia in late May, the year after. They celebrated their birthdays together, with one big celebration that all the neighborhood was invited to.

For the first few years of their lives, it was impossible to speak of one without mentioning the other; even when Lily started school and Petunia was still roving the block, the first thing Lily did when she got home from school was to tell Petunia all about it - in exchange, Petunia told her sister about what she had done that day.

When Petunia started school, Lily was always there to help her with whatever she needed help with, be it homework or a bully on the playground. Petunia looked up to her sister, and she was one of the most helpful souls in the school. If Lily helped her, she would help other people.

The summer after Lily turned eleven, she got a letter from a school called Hogwarts - and it taught magic! Even before their parents knew, Lily and Petunia were jumping around with excitement - magic was real, magic was real!

Every week that Lily was at Hogwarts, she sent a letter home to her younger sister, telling her about what she had learned and done that week. And when she came home for Christmas break, she brought Petunia what might have been the best Chirstmas gift she'd ever gotten - a real chocolate frog.

The weeks passed, until it was summer again; Petunia was eleven now, and hoping she might get a letter to Hogwarts, too. But as summer wound to close, she still hadn't, until finally she gave up hope.

Lily found her crying, hiding outside at dusk,

"Oh, you mustn't cry, Pet," Lily murmured, hugging her weeping sister, "Even if you're not a witch, I still love you, and Mum and Dad do too, and I'll always be there for you if you ever need me, it doesn't change anything."

Finally Petunia stopped crying, and Lily smiled at her.

"Would you like to learn how to play Exploding Snap?"

~

When Petunia was thirteen, Lily brought home one of her friends from Hogwarts, a girl named Keisha who was "pureblood", which Lily explained meant Keisha had always known she was a witch.

They spent most of Keisha's three weeks at the Evans' together, chatting about people and places Petunia couldn't even begin to understand. They included her when they could - they all went to cinema once or twice - but that didn't stop Petunia from feeling left out.

She started avoiding her sister and Keisha, spending her days around her own friends from school. They weren't always available to play, though, so she was alone for more time than she would have liked. Petunia just wanted her sister back, the way she had been before.

When Keisha left, Lily went back to her sister, and it was like nothing had happened, nothing was different.

Almost.

~

Sixteen now, sixteen and heartbroken and alone crying in the dark. Petunia desperately wanted someone to be there to comfort her, but no one was-- her parents would be out 'til much later, because they certainly weren't expecting their daughter's boyfriend to break up with her tonight, in front in a whole crowd of people from school.

She sobbed harder, curling up into ball on her bed. She hurt so much, she never wanted to see him ever again, because she had loved him, or at least she felt like she had.

If Lily was here, if Lily was here, she would hug her and comfort her and let her cry and whisper soft reassuring things.

Lily should be here! She should! She was home for the summer, but she was visiting a friend in London, but Petunia needed her here, needed her sister. She remembered Lily's promise.

"She told me she'd always be here if I needed her," whispered Petunia, shakily, to the darkness.

If there is anything, anyone, listening, anyone at all, please, please, let Lily know how much I need her right now, she prayed, only half-aware of what she was doing.

She lay in silence for a few minutes, beyond tears now.

Then, uncurling, her gaze rested on a teacup - a trick teacup that Lily had given her for her fifteenth birthday.

Petunia picked it up. Lily wasn't going to be there anymore. She hurled the teacup against the wall.

The shattered porcelain fell to floor with an almost musical sound.

~

"Petunia, I'm getting married!"

Lily was eighteen, Petunia was seventeen. Isn't she a little young to be getting married? Petunia couldn't help but think, bitterly.

She couldn't help but feel like she had the right to be bitter; Lily had been home for three days without saying more than hello to her younger sister. And now, there was going to be a wedding, and who would care about her? She didn't want to be, but she knew was being self-centered.

At first, Petunia tried to help her sister and her parents with the wedding plans, but as Lily was having a "wizarding ceremony", there didn't seem like much she could do. In fact, Lily's friend, Keisha, who was also in on the planning, had told her "We appreciate your helping, Petunia, really we do, but there's not a whole lot for you to do, d'you now what I mean?"

Petunia had known what she meant, and had left them alone. She had avoided them all - her parents and her sister's fiancé, who she had never met, included --

And apparently, she had been forgotten. She wasn't even one of her sister's bridesmaids.

So she sat in the audience, nursing her embittered thoughts and slowly developing hatred of the wizarding world.

~

"Get away from me, freak," she hissed, pushing her sister away.

Lily looked hurt. Hurt? Petunia was hurt that her abnormal, witch freak of a sister had dared show up at her house - in the middle of the day, of all times - and thought that she would be welcome.

Petunia was married, but it seemed her parents didn't care. Bring Vernon into the conversation - oh, James said something similar the other day, he and Lily were doing this, wasn't it wonderful?

Petunia had a place in this community, she was liked, people didn't ignore her - but wherever Lily was, Petunia didn't. She wanted Lily to go away.

"I guess you don't want to talk to me," Lily said, slowly, almost disbelievingly.

"No."

With a terribly sad expression on her face, Lily turned away from the door, walked back to her car.

That was 1979.

~

Two years later, when a baby boy named Harry Potter showed up on Petunia Dursley's doorstep, she took him in. She wouldn't have left an innocent child alone in to whatever might have happened to him, otherwise.

But he was Lily's child, and he would know how much pain Lily had caused Petunia.