One day... (A British Royal Family FanFiction)

Future

It was almost five years after our mother's death, when Wills, Harry and I were so dreadfully reminded of walking behind her coffin, as both boys were required to do the same again for our grandmother, when she died in 2002. I had offered, but Papa had said that my efforts were best served with Granny, as he knew that this would be an incredibly hard day for her. 

Up until then, our lives had slowly returned to normal, well as normal as they were for us. William and I had finished school and while he was happily up in St Andrews studying history of art, I was coming to the end of my teaching degree in Bath. I had long had a desire to become a teacher and despite knowing that one day my duty to my role within my family would come, I wanted to do something for myself while I was young and still had time. Harry was coming to the end of his time at Eton and despite everything that had happened with Mummy, he got on ok, it was mainly the sport that he was interested in. He hadn't had an easy time. Where William and I had put everything we had into school work and university and sport and helping Papa with charities and family work. Harry had struggled at school and turned to drinking and smoking and Papa, William and I were becoming increasingly concerned. 

I was living in a small apartment in Kensington Palace when I wasn't in Bath and it was there one evening in the summer holidays last year that Harry admitted that he didn't know where else to turn. He said drinking made him feel numb, like the pain of loosing Mummy never happened and all of the trauma that went with it. He said he felt calmer when he was drinking and I saw first hand when he didn't he was on edge all of the time. 

Since then the smoking had started too and both Papa and Granny had expressed their concern to me about what they were to do with him. William and I had both been to see therapists. I had gone almost consistently for five years while Wills had been off and on when he felt as though he needed it. No one thought that this would work for Harry, including Harry himself and they quickly dismissed the idea but weren't sure where to turn to next. I didn't know either, so them asking me was virtually pointless.

While the boys and Papa processed down the Mall behind Great Granny's coffin. I went in the car with Edward's wife Sophie behind Granny's car where she was with Grandpa. I, too, felt heartbroken about the fact the last time we had done this was for Mummy's funeral, however, I knew that this was not about Mummy today, or indeed Harry, William or I. Today was about Granny, and the fact that she had just lost her mother.

When everything had finished that evening at Windsor, Harry, Wills and I got into a car and were driven back to London. Both of them would stay with me in my apartment this evening before we went our separate ways tomorrow morning. Harry was off back to school, William and I to university. We decided to have dinner together, so on our way to Kensington, we stopped on the High Street and got some food. I also picked up something extra for my boyfriend, Henry, who was joining us this evening. And when we pulled into the courtyard of Kensington Palace, Henry was stood outside his car waiting for me. I got out and kissed him, while the boys got out behind and hugged Henry in turn too. 

Henry had been the boy, who I had chatted to on the phone from Harrow, who I spent as many Saturday's of my final year of school as I could, stood on the sidelines of his rugby matches. We were seventeen when he went to my father and asked if we could start dating. He had agreed and for almost three years we had kept the whole thing a secret, but as time went on, the press found out and I worked hard to ensure that they didn't make Henry's life a living hell in the same way that Mummy's was. They weren't that interested in him, so he managed to get by ok. William and Harry had become quite fond of him, and now even referred to him as the third brother, which I welcomed. All I wanted was for Papa and the boys to like him, and Mummy if she were here.