Wedding Cake

Well, it didn't work. Not that I expected it to. Silly of me to try really. I should have known it was just a stupid Muggle superstition. Silly of me to get my hopes up.

Let me explain… I'm seventeen years old, and I've never been in love. Not real love. Pathetic, isn't it? My friends seem to fall in and out of love all the time, and here I am, spinster of this parish and likely to remain so.

I've had a couple of crushes, of course, but...do you ever have that feeling that your feelings aren't real, you're just feeling them because you feel you ought to? Wow, that was a sentence and a half. What I mean is, I sometimes think I just got to fifteen and thought, 'Well, I ought to be fancying boys by now, and Adrian in Ravenclaw's not that bad...'

But I'm still waiting for that thunderbolt, you know? That moment when you just know, when your knees turn to jelly and your stomach starts doing somersaults...or so they tell me. As I said, hasn't happened yet. Sometimes I'm scared it never will. Sometimes, lying awake in bed, I wonder if it's all just a lie, a big conspiracy theory made up by poets and songwriters and people. Maybe everyone goes through life waiting for that thunderbolt, and in the meantime they just settle for second best. Did my parents settle, I wonder? I look at them, and I know they love each other, I can see that every day, but it's a very comfortable, familiar kind of love. One day I'll ask Mum whether she ever felt that thunderbolt, looking at Dad. Maybe. In a way, I'm scared of the answer.

My cousin Margaret got married yesterday, and as I sat there in the church and looked at them together, I couldn't help but start wondering again. Was she really in love? Did she fall head over heels? Or did she just settle because he's a nice guy with a good job, and she gets on with him? I don't want to be so cynical and think like that, but I was just in that kind of mood at the time.

Petunia sat next to me during the ceremony, looking bored. I kept remembering this really strange conversation I had with her a few days ago. Actually, the fact that we were having a conversation was odd in itself, we don't really have many conversations at all now. I don't think she's ever really got used to Hogwarts and everything. Anyway, she's been going out with Vernon for over a year now, and of course she left school a couple of weeks ago, and while we were looking for outfits for the wedding, we started talking about marriage. And she said something about 'when she marries Vernon'.

I nearly fell over! I can't believe she's thinking about marriage already, she's still so young. I wanted to know if Vernon had actually asked her, and she said no, but she thought that they had some kind of understanding, whatever that means.

I still can't believe that Petunia is thinking about marriage and weddings and babies (presumably, she didn't actually mention that part), and I've never even had a proper boyfriend. I mean, she's only eighteen months older than I am, and I've never really thought of her as being that much more mature...

I just sort of feel as though it should have happened by now; I'm seventeen, for god's sake, I've only got one year left at Hogwarts. Though that's a scary thought in itself. This time next year, I'll have got my NEWT results, and I'll be out in the real world, and I still have no idea what I'm going to do.

Everyone's asking me now, especially on a day like yesterday - 'Lily Evans? Little Lily? My, you've grown! You must be leaving school soon, surely. Any idea what you're doing next?' And so many of them asked me what A-levels I'm doing, and if I'm going to go to university, and I kept being tempted to say, 'NEWTs, not A-levels, there actually aren't any wizarding universities, and I've been thinking about the Ministry of Magic...'

I suppose this whole career thing is a bit like falling in love. I don't want to settle. I don't want to drift into a career just because it's convenient, the same as I don't want to drift into a relationship for the same reason. I want to know, I want to be certain, I want the knowledge to hit me like lightning - yes, this is the one, the only career you'll be happy in, the only person you could ever be happy with.

I know it's wishful thinking. Probably only one person in a hundred, maybe less, feels like that, and yet...

I suppose, despite it all - and despite my reputation at school - I'm a romantic at heart. I like to think of myself as practical and sensible, but part of me is still waiting for that gallant knight to ride up on his white horse and whisk me away. Okay, yes, I'm an idiot. I blame the wedding.

The first chance I got to talk to my cousin Margaret was during the reception. I congratulated her, of course, and she said thanks; she then asked me if my Dad had had a bit too much to drink, and I had to admit no, he was completely sober, he always dances like that. We laughed together, and I think she realised I had something on my mind, as she asked me if I was all right. I hesitated, but eventually it all came spilling out; how I've nearly finished school, and I'm scared I'll never find the right career or the right relationship.

She just smiled and told me that probably most people feel like that at one time or another - she knows she did. I asked her if she's found it now, if she felt that thunderbolt. She said no, without hesitation or embarrassment, and then laughed at me. I suppose I looked surprised.

She told me that she doesn't think that that's what love is; if other people feel like that, then good for them, but does that last? She said that she knew that she was in love with Richard when she realised that she couldn't imagine a life without him, and that took her by surprise, for they were friends first.

I still felt a bit sceptical, for it seemed an awful lot like settling to me. But Margaret just gave me a hug and told me that she's sure I'll find that person someday and just to be patient. I snorted a little at that; patience has never been one of my strong points. She laughed at me, and told me that if I'm really impatient, there's one way to find out - if you sleep with a piece of wedding cake under your pillow, you'll dream of your future husband.

I'm not normally one for superstitions, Muggle or wizarding, and I wasn't going to try it...but we were all given pieces of the wedding cake to take home, and, well, I thought 'Why not?' So I put the piece under my pillow and went to sleep, expecting...I don't know what. Something.

But it didn't work. Silly of me to try really. I should have known it was just a silly Muggle superstition. Silly of me to get my hopes up.

I only had one dream last night that I can remember, and it had nothing to do with future husbands, I can tell you that. In fact, there were no people in it at all, husband-shaped or otherwise. I don't remember it terribly clearly, but I think I was in some kind of forest - maybe the Forbidden Forest? And I was chasing some kind of animal through the forest, but I could never see it clearly. I just kept seeing flashes of it; it was some kind of pale colour. I can't even remember whether I caught up with it or not, or what kind of animal it was...a unicorn maybe, or a deer, something horse-shaped at least. I don't know, maybe it means I'm going to marry a zebra.

If I marry a zebra, I'll be sure to write to Margaret and let her know.