Never Had
Petunia first fell in love with a picture.
That was it. It was just a picture. A moving one at that, that her sister had brought back from her silly magic school. It showed a cluster of girls hung over each other by a lake, huge smiles on their magically perfect faces, (it had to be magic. There was no other way they could look that happy and flawless.) and wands stuck behind ears. Her sister's red hair blew in the wind in the photo, and draped her arms over the shoulders of the two girls on either side of her. On one side stood a girl with unusually catlike eyes and pure white freckles scattered across her face. Or maybe it was paint. Either way, the girl in the back, with dusky skin and dark hair, was giving the cat-eyed girl bunny ears. She nearly got swatted in response, but avoided it, and laughed with her eyes closed. A girl with long blond hair stood on the other side of Lily, her own hand over Lily's shoulder in turn, and her other arm clutched a little red dachshund, with what looked like little red wings peeking uselessly out from where its body met the girl's. And the last girl in the photo, one with her hand wrapped around that girl's waist, at least three different writing utensils tucked into her wild bottle blonde curls...
That was the one.
Petunia wasn't really sure what it was at first. She just knew that, of all the girls in the picture, compared to the freckled girl with her ethereal features, her bright and vibrant sister, the happy energy of the dark-skinned girl, and the sweet looking slyness of the girl with the dog... the girl with ink stains on her fingers and acid green spectacles around her neck and an emerald green quill hovering at her shoulder - she was the most beautiful of them all. Petunia was sure. It was in her eyes, curious and devilish and confident. It was in the way she held herself, bent closer for the picture but with the air of a person who stood tall. It was in the way she held the blond girl's hip, and the impish smile on her face when her eyes met with the camera before looking at the others, the impishness turning to adoration.
She looked like a movie star, or a model. She looked inherently sure that everything she wanted would become true, like the world couldn't win against her if it tried. Like she could just take a step into nothing and the ground would find her feet, not the other way around.
She looked like everything Petunia wanted to be, and everything she wasn't.
Petunia took to staring at that photograph whenever she could. She'd volunteer to take things to her sister, or set things away in her room. Their relationship was growing tense, but sometimes she could go in and just sit in the same room as her sister, not even talking because that would break the spell, but for a while just ignoring how weird her sister was and pretending it was all back to normal, and just staring at a picture of blue-green eyes, hair blown in the wind, and laughter by a lake that she'd never get to see.
By the time she realised what was happening, how much she had pegged onto that girl in the photograph, she was old enough to know that it was strange for a girl to look at another girl and find her beautiful. She was old enough to know that the girl in the photograph, no matter how lovely she looked, was a freak, just like her sister.
And she was old enough to know that, even if she hadn't known better, she never would have gotten her anyways. The enchantment of the girl in the photo lay in her confidence, in the way her eyes lit up and her very fingertips seemed to vibrate with the knowledge that she was something. That the world could only hope it was enough to contain her.
And Petunia was nothing.