For the Child I Will Sing.

My name is James Adonijah Potter. I am fifteen years old. I am a wizard. I attend Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. I am a Gryffindor, like my father before me.

My father is Adonijah Potter, a partner in the wizarding law firm Potter, Potter, and Haphram. If you want to know, he's the second Potter, the first being my uncle Solomon. Haphram is my uncle Moses, my father's brother-in-law. My mother is Hope Potter. They're both kind of up there in years.

I'm afraid I won't have parents much longer, because of what happened here tonight.

I was an only child until I was ten years old. Four months after my birthday, on July 31, 1970, my mother gave birth to a girl, Elisabeth Harriet Potter. I nicknamed her Busy because she was always moving. She would kick her legs and wave her fists, and when I put my finger in her cradle she would grab onto it and try to gum it to death. I fell in love with her the first day I saw her.

When she learned to walk, she followed me everywhere. Her first word was "Jamie", then "Kitch", which was the closest she could get to "Quidditch". Mum wrote and told me that she had cried for hours after I left for Hogwarts, and I always sent kisses home to her when I wrote. As much as I loved Hogwarts, I went home for Christmas that first year just to see her.

My second year at Hogwarts I made the Quidditch team, as a Chaser. My best friend, Sirius, was a Beater (he had to do something with all that restless energy of his) and my other best friend Remus was reserve Keeper. Peter couldn't balance on a broom. The first match of the year, Mum showed up with Busy to watch the match. Remus got permission from our captain, who wasn't intending to relinquish his position for this match, to go sit in the stands, and Busy insisted on sitting on his lap. Peter sat with them, and the four of them cheered the team on.

We won that match, and afterwards, I promised Busy a treat. I set her on the front of my broom and took her on a slow lap around the pitch. She loved it more than anything else in the world.

When I think back now, that was my favourite memory of Quidditch so far--circling the stadium, Remus and Sirius flanking me, Busy sitting on the front of my broom, gripping it with both of her chubby little hands and giggling. Busy made Mum take her to all our matches after that. She missed a scrimmage match we played against the Hufflepuffs--just an informal practice game--but that was the only match we lost all year. After we won the Quidditch cup, our captain proclaimed Busy our "lucky charm".

Busy was two that year, happy, healthy, vibrant and full of life. But that summer, just before her third birthday, she complained that she was tired and started spending a lot of time in bed. I got worried, and Mum and Dad finally took her to St. Mungo's for a check-up. I was supposed to be getting ready to go back to Hogwarts, but I told Dad that I was going to this check-up with Busy and if he tried to make me stay home I wouldn't go back to school, so he finally let me go.

I'm glad I did. I was the one who was holding her when the healer delivered the verdict. Busy--my sweet, innocent, helpless baby sister--had The Grey.

If you have never heard of The Grey, you are one of the fortunate few. It is a debilitating disease, unique to wizards. A witch or wizard is born with the dormant disease, and it eventually flares up, whether at four or forty. Fortunately it's rare; less than one percent of the wizarding world are born with the disease, although if someone in your family has had it, you're more likely to be part of that small percentage. The characteristic trait, which gives the disease its name, is a greying of the entire body--the hair, the skin, even the eyes. One Healer-in-Training called it "fade to black", and that's almost what it was. There are other symptoms too--fatigue, dry, racking coughs, fever, headaches--and it eventually ends in complete organ failure. It could be a matter of months--or a matter of minutes.

I had to go back to Hogwarts for my third year. I didn't want to leave Busy, but my parents insisted, and Busy told me I had to go play Quidditch for her. I tried my hardest to be normal, and I guess I pulled it off. Two weeks before the first match, the captain asked me if our "lucky charm" would be at the match. I told him I didn't know. To my shame, I started crying in front of the entire team as I told him that Busy had The Grey.

Just before the match started, the captain called us all together. He looked us each in the eye, then told us that we had to win this one for Busy, even if she couldn't be there. We did win that match, and someone took a picture of it. We all signed it and sent it to her.

She couldn't make it to the next match--which we won--either, but Mum and Dad talked the healers into letting her come to our final match, the match for the Cup. Busy made Mum write and tell me she would be there, and I told the team, who cheered.

We won the cup for the second time. Before he took the Cup, the captain talked Professor McGonagall into letting him talk over the loudspeakers. I still remember that speech, every word of it.

Ladies and gentlemen, I'd like to take this opportunity to make a special announcement. Many of you may not know this, but we of the Gryffindor team have a very special mascot. Our mascot isn't an animal, but she's as brave as a lion, as tough as a badger, as cunning as a snake, and as smart as an eagle. Our mascot is a three-year-old girl named Elisabeth Potter--that's right, folks, she's the beautiful baby sister of our Chaser, James Potter. Elisabeth started coming to our matches, and we started winning. She's our lucky charm.

She's missed a few of our matches, but she's here today, and we're all glad to see her. In honour of this brave and beautiful little girl, we have a special surprise for her. We're going to make her an honorary member of the Gryffindor Quidditch Team. We couldn't have won the match without her.

One of the other Chasers and the Seeker had worked together and made a miniature Gryffindor Quidditch robe in Busy's size, with a big number 1 on the back, POTTER written over it, and MASCOT written underneath it. Sirius and the other Beater put it on her, then lifted her up on their shoulders triumphantly as the captain led the whole crowd in cheering for her. Busy's skin was already going grey, and her eyes were starting to turn, but just then, she looked almost like she used to. The captain let her hold the Quidditch cup for a moment, and we did seven laps of the pitch, each of us taking it in turns to let her ride on our broomsticks. She was over the moon.

Busy had to move into St. Mungo's full time shortly after her fourth birthday. I saw her whenever I could, and the rest of the team went too from time to time. Even Peter went to see her. He sang some funny songs with her and even stayed with her for a couple hours so Mum could get some sleep.

She was lingering. It was painful to watch her. Her cough had grown worse, and she cried a lot because she was in severe pain. She was slowly going blind. The only thing that was still functioning the way it should was her heart, and that was keeping her alive.

Mum and Dad tried to be optimistic, and they told me to be cheerful when I saw her, so when I went in and found her alone a week before her fifth birthday, I smiled big and asked her what she wanted for her birthday. She looked up at me with what little vision she had left and said weakly, "I...want to...go...home."

I held her hands in mine and told her that the doctors said she had to stay here until she felt better, but she could go home soon, and started talking about the tree outside the window of her bedroom at home, which she hadn't seen in almost a year. She closed her eyes, squeezed my fingers, and told me that wasn't what she meant. She wanted to go home.

I couldn't bear to see her like that. And I couldn't say no. So I came to her room with Mum and Dad. I listened to them trying to be cheerful that she was five. When Dad took Mum home, I said I'd spend the night. When the left, Busy looked at me and said just one word. Please.

I smiled, I kissed her forehead, I told her how much I loved her. And then I covered her mouth with my hand and pinched her nose shut. I felt her smile under my palm, and then she closed her eyes.

My name is James Adonijah Potter. I am fifteen years old. I am a wizard.

And I just killed my baby sister.