2Disclaimer: I am not claiming I am J.K. Rowling, I do not own Harry Potter, and no profit is being made off of this fic.
A/N: Written for challenge three over at Once Upon a Time (for the link please see me profile); it won second place ;).
My Sister, Called Bitter
By elliekat
When I was three I threw a temper tantrum like you wouldn't believe and the results were more than anybody could have ever expected. As my screams of indignation reached every corner of the room a long crack appeared in the nearest window and the glass fell out and shattered. No one remembers why I was in such a temper but my mum figures I wanted something that she would not give me, she tells me that that was the first sign of anything special about me.
I am a witch; I cast spells and brew potions, like any stereotypical witch but unlike the witches that I used to hear about in fairy tales, I have no warts on my nose or any evil purposes. I come from a normal family and I had a relatively normal childhood and adolescence, filled with confusion and hormones. I went to a boarding school and there I made friends and came into my own, but it was no normal school, it was a school for witches and wizards, like me.
Even though I am a witch, none of my family has ever shown any magical ability, that includes my older sister, Petunia. Even though we are sisters, Petunia and I are like night and day, in fact she is even different from my mum and dad. She could never accept the fact that I was a witch; I don't know why it seemed to eat away at her, slowly, but surely eating its foul way all the way to her heart.
"You're not my sister," she would hiss at me and then just brush me aside.
It hurt, more than anyone knew, because she was my sister and I loved her as such. Petunia broke my heart more than once with her remarks and cold shoulders; I wanted an older sister that I could laugh with, not one that I would someday cry over when she declined an invitation to the happiest day of my life, my wedding. She declined it with a snide comment and what one could have called a sneer.
My husband, James, called her bitter and jealous, but I could not see her envying me being a witch, after all she would murmur under her breath "freak" whenever I passed her. I later realized though that she was jealous of not my magical ability but my special ness, I was different from her and she couldn't stand it.
I've only seen her once in the passed two years and I miss the sister that I once had before I got my Hogwarts letter, the sister that had, at one time, stood up for me when an older neighborhood girl had pushed me on the pavement. I wonder if she misses me and I know that she does not at the same time. I wish I could know my nephew, I only know his name, Dudley.
James says it's a shame that that little boy will end up as narrow minded as his mother and father and I agree.
I have only met her husband, Vernon once; it was at their wedding and my mum and dad had invited me, along with James who was only my boyfriend at the time. It was a lovely wedding, traditional and extravagant, just as she had wanted it. James was on his best behavior as was I and no one would have even guessed that there was something strange about us, but Petunia hated it that we were there. She cornered me in the ladies room during the reception and told me that I was not welcome with that "freak." I got angry with her and we shouted at each other. I had never shouted at my sister, just pitied her and wished that she could be different.
As I walked away from her, fed up with her hatred of me, she hissed to my back: "thank God I'll finally be free of you." She hated me so much that marrying and moving to a new home would be freedom to her; my sister just did not hate me, she loathed me. Petunia threw her wedding ring at my retreating head as I left she was so angry, I cried for ages after that.
I'm pregnant now and with my mum and dad gone from this world and my sister absent from my life I have no family besides James. I have no one besides James' mother to ask if that or this is normal when it comes to being pregnant, and I wish she was there. As I enter this new stage of my life she is notably absent and like all the other things, I wish she was there. I'll always wish she was there and I always feel like there is a part of me missing whenever I flip through an old photo album from our childhood. Petunia is my sister whether she's in my life or not.
Please review!