dursley [h. g.]

••dursley•• || 2013

The sun seemed to torment Kendra from its place in the sky, a constant reminder of what today should have been. For the first time in weeks, the cloudy, grey skies that had covered England were nowhere to be seen. And for the first time in weeks, Kendra wished she could not see the sun.

She leaned against the back of her wheelchair. Hermione had offered to come with her, but Kendra decided this was something she needed to do alone. Not to mention that Hermione was very busy with work right now and Kendra didn't want to make her feel obligated to take away from that.

Nervously, she bent forward as best as she could and lay the flowers down on the earth. She stared at them for a moment, unsure as to what she was going to do next. It had been years since she had last been here, and part of her felt incredibly guilty for that. At the same time, there was a strange sense of relief she got from just being there.

"Hi, Lisa," Kendra began awkwardly, unsure where to look. The ground? The headstone? The sky? Or perhaps she was supposed to just stare at nothing in particular. "Sorry it took me so long to come and visit you again."

A nearby bird chirped at Kendra, whose gaze drifted towards the tiny creature sadly. She sighed and turned back to the stone slab sticking out from the earth. "A lot has happened since we last talked. Luna and Ginny finally got married. I guess they waited just long enough for gay people to actually get married. We missed you there.

"I wish you could have seen it legalized," Kendra said with a sigh, her gaze drifting back up to the sky as her eyes burned. "I don't know if you were serious when you told me you would officiate my wedding in fourth year, but I always planned it like you were."

The vice around her heart gripped and Kendra had to pause again to try and choke back the tears that were forming in her eyes. "I miss you," Kendra whispered. "Happy birthday, Lisa."

Unable to hold herself together anymore, Kendra turned and left the cemetery, her heart aching and eyes burning.

——————————————

Kendra had cried a lot that year. She cried when Hermione asked if they wanted to try the fertility treatment one last time. She cried when it didn't work—she had cried a lot that day. She cried when they finally finished the adoption application and sent it in to be processed. She cried when they got the news that they had been approved to adopt.

But Kendra was beyond tears when they brought home eight-year-old Lyra. She had known no life but the orphanage, one of the many that had popped up in the wizarding world after the war (though they had all lost a significant amount of funding from the ministry after Kingsley left office).

Lyra was a shy and quiet girl at first, but she let Hermione and Kendra into her personality. She had an infectious giggle and she wanted to be a knight when she grew up. She was right in between Harry's two children— James, who was nine, had decided that Lyra would be his partner in crime, and Remus, who was seven, thoroughly considered his cousin was like a better, nicer version of his own brother.

June of 2013's summer saw sweltering temperatures in England. Fans were running in every room across the country, those with the ability to do so had put cooling charms on everything they could manage to, and Kendra Dursley was mooching off of her rich and famous cousin's success (which among many things, including owning a house with a pool in the back garden). Lyra was playing some underwater tag game with James and Remus, Hermione was "supervising" the kids in the pool (though really, she had seen a chance to beat a bunch of children at their own game and was relishing in the competition), and Harry had gone full-on dad mode, from the grill he was cooking on to the patterned button-down he was wearing. And Kendra was sat by herself on a lounger, staring up at the sky through her sunglasses and getting lost in her thoughts.