23rd July, 2014
Hi, my name is Anita Kerecsen and you are—for some inexplicable reason—reading my diary. Maybe you stumbled upon it, maybe you stole it, but nevertheless you might want to know a bit more about me before I start spilling my heart’s ache for you. Let’s start with a completely empty phrase: I’m your average teenage witch. Really, I am. If you’d really like to know, I’m fourteen and in my fourth year at Hogwarts. Everything else is not really important.
And now a few words about my diary. I got it from Aunt Fleur, who is not really my aunt, but that’s a rather lengthy story. Although, come to think of it, it’s my diary and you decided to read it, so I could just start with explaining that remark.
I live in Wales with Aunt Verity and Uncle Charlie, and yup, they are my real aunt and uncle. Aunt Verity was—or rather is—my mother’s youngest sister and Uncle Charlie is her husband. They are the best foster parents in the world, but of course that’s a pretty biased statement seeing that I never got any other foster parents before them. I’ve been living with them since I can remember and I’m very grateful for that. I know other young witches who have foster parents or stepmums or stepdads and their lives are not as good as mine. Some of them even keep a diary about their misery, and my best friend and cousin, Addie, even let me read hers. Adeline is my Aunt Hope’s daughter from her first marriage. Uncle Frederic died in the Second War and Aunt Hope remarried two years ago. Addie doesn’t like her new father that much and I can totally understand her—her stepfather has those cruel eyes. Brrrr! I don’t like having dinner with them.
I don’t think that I’ll let anyone read mine. So if you are a boy called Michael or John Weasley, please, clear off. In case you (I mean some other you in the future) wanted to know who Michael and John Weasley are, well, they are my brothers. That means they are Aunt Verity’s and Uncle Charlie’s sons. They are eight and ten. Michael is the prankster of the family; John is his father’s son, as Aunt Ginny always says.
Well, where was I before I started introducing my family? Oh, yes, my diary! I got it from Aunt Fleur who is the wife of Uncle Bill who is Uncle Charlie’s older brother. You see, I’m at my family again. But they are pretty important to me. So you will hear a lot about them in this diary. I have almost forgotten to tell you about my favourites! Aunt Chastity and Uncle Meical! They have four kids and I like spending time with them. They live in Wales, too, so we are pretty close. But that’s enough of my family for one day. Maybe one more thing. I’m related to the famous Harry Potter. Well, not really, but since he married Uncle Charlie’s little sister, we usually spend Christmas together.
I don’t remember my first Christmas, but it must have been wonderful! I spent it with Mum and Dad. Unfortunately that was the only Christmas we spent together as a family. My mum’s name was Faith, and she was a beautiful and powerful witch. Dad’s name was Kerecsen Mátyás János. Yeah, that sounds complicated. He was Hungarian, and they write their names in reverse order. His name could be translated like John Matthew Saker. I was only once in Hungary and that was last summer, when Uncle Charlie brought me to my grandma’s. Before that, it was always grandma who visited us, but she is getting weaker and weaker every year. She has an old wound from the First War and it cannot be healed. Uncle Meical says that the Healers can slow down the effects but at the end she will die. I’m really sorry for her, because she loves life. Just like me. We talked about that last night. I mean Uncle Charlie and me. He said he was so glad that I can enjoy life to its fullest. I don’t quite understand what he meant by that, but it must be something positive, because he said the same about grandma. We have the same eyes. I mean me and my grandma. Uncle Charlie says it’s like dawn in the winter. I call it grey. And it’s boring, really.
Sorry, got to go, dinnertime!
27th July, 2014
Aunt Verity saw me today as I was heading to the garden with my diary. She smiled at me and I smiled back and I’m sure that’s why she approached me. She told me about my mum a bit and reassured me that she wouldn’t let John or Michael take the diary and make fun of it. ‘Good luck,’ I told her and honestly I didn’t want to sound disrespectful, and I certainly didn’t want to hurt her in any way, but it seems that I do that a lot lately. Grandpa Weasley says that every teenager is like this and as long as I apologize it would be alright. Well, I didn’t. I mean I didn’t apologize to Aunt Verity, because it didn’t strike me as an insult or something like that. I wish she would come back. I would hug her and everything would be okay then, I guess.
And now I lost my inspiration to write anything…
She came back. And I did hug her. She just smiled and caressed my hair. I guess I love her. I don’t know how you are supposed to feel when you love someone, but it must be this feeling. I mean my heart is filled with joy and I feel like it could burst any moment. I wish I had known my mother, but maybe I will now. Because when Aunt Verity came back she brought something with her.
It seems that Mum left me a diary. Her diary. It was in a big envelope; and my name was scribbled on it. While I opened the letter, I saw that Aunt Verity traced the lines of the writing. She must miss mum terribly. They were very close.
There was a letter in the envelope; it was addressed to me and Aunt Verity. I will copy it down here, because I promised Aunt Verity that she can keep the letter.
My dears,
I’m so glad that this day has come. The day when you, Verity, thought that Anita would understand everything that is written in my diary. I love you both, my dears.
Anita, my precious, I wish I had had the time to get to know you better, but I bet that you are a clever and nice person just like your father was. You will read about him too, and I hope it will satisfy your natural curiosity which never ceases to amaze me, even though you are only a year old as I write this.
Verity, my dear, I hope that you enjoy Anita’s presence in your life just as much as I did. I’m sure that you are a good mother to her and I know that you give her everything I would have given. You were always the baby in the family and I know how much that annoyed you. You are now all grown up and I bet you can handle Anita on your own just like you were able to handle everything on your own in the past. However, if you ever need some help with her, Chastity and Hope (yeah, I wrote her them too) agreed to help you.
Be good to each other, my dears.
Yours Faith-fully.
When I read the letter I gave it to Aunt Verity, but she shook her head. I told her it was for her, too and then she took it. She told me she couldn’t read the diary, she didn’t see any writing in it, and so she knew then that it was meant only for me. And she was right. I can read it.
Aunt Verity left with the envelope, saying that she would leave mum and me alone. I’ll let her read the diary, after reading it myself.
And now, good bye!
1st August
Sorry for not writing in the last couple of days, but I was reading my mum’s diary over and over.
She started writing it when she noticed that she was pregnant with me. Her love makes me feel complete. I felt a certain emptiness before and I realized that I missed her, although I never knew why I felt like there was an vacant spot in my heart. I mean, I love Aunt Verity and Uncle Charlie dearly, but I guess that we are born with the knowledge that we should have someone we can call mother. Not that I didn’t call Mum mother before, it’s just… It’s so hard to explain. I didn’t know her. I called her Mum, because Aunt Verity told me she was my mother. I saw pictures of her, tons of pictures at my grandma’s, but I guess you can’t say that you know a person when all you know is their face. You have to know their thoughts, their desires and their heart to really know them.
I will copy some of her diary entries for you to see how she was. And how my father was.
I’m really proud today, my dear! This was the first time you had actually saw ME, not just a blurry spot in the distance. I saw how your little eyes focused on me. I burst into tears, to tell the truth. I know you trust me. And that’s why I would like to tell you something, Anita, because I would like you to learn this from me. Someone else might have ‘accidentally’ told you about this, but then I would like you to hear my version as well. Yes, you were born eight months after our marriage, and no, you weren’t a premature baby, no matter what mother tells everyone. I’m not ashamed of it and you shouldn’t be either. It’s natural that two people who are in love with each other would like to make love to each other. And I would like you to know that no matter what other teenagers say, you are not allowed to do that until you are seventeen. And that’s your mother speaking from beyond the grave!
I think Mum must have been a very funny person. Aunt Verity says that her smile was contagious and that she always made people laugh. The pictures I have seen at grandma’s—she was always laughing or smiling in them. I think I would like to be like her when I grow up. Aunt Verity says that I’m more like Uncle Charlie than my mum, and I don’t mind that, I just guess that every girl wants to be like her mother (at some time in her life). And I would like to find a husband like my dad was. And yeah, I already knew about the secret she told me, Aunt Verity explained it to me, thinking that I should learn the truth from her, and not hear it ‘accidentally’ from someone else. I was ashamed a bit for a while, but then I thought things over. Why should I be ashamed? My parents loved each other and they loved me. These are the only things that count.
I’ll tell you something, Anita. There is no thing like love at first sight. Yeah, there might be something like liking at first sight or attraction at first sight, but love is a process. And you shouldn’t mistake attraction for love. Love is so much more than that. It’s friendship, it’s respect, it’s the ability to find and agree to compromises. I admit that there is a physical part to it, but that is just what it is. A part. Your father and I are proof of that. We were colleagues first, then we became good friends, and then we discovered that we loved each other. And then there is you. A proof of our love. Okay, before I start crying, I’ll just say that you made me laugh today. I was feeding you mashed peas and you screwed up your nose and spat it out. Your face was beyond funny. I wish I had a camera. But your father says I would only go crazy with the thing and would take photos of you all the time. He is probably right. But he is calling the pot black; he is just as besotted with you as I am. I guess all first-time parents are like this. They even celebrate when their offspring made a really awful you-know-what into their diapers. And now I made you embarrassed, I guess.
Just a little bit, Mum. Just a little bit. Here is another one with my father in it. And that’s the last one I’ll copy.
Your father came home early today. This is your birthday, sweetheart. We sang a couple of songs each, he in Hungarian, me in English and then we both burst out into a fit of laughter. We are not great singers, I have to admit that. He was so sweet! He brought you a cake from his mother. You didn’t know what to do with it, so you took a handful and smeared your lips and your shirt with it. I guess you still like chocolate cakes. He even brought a toy dragon, although I think I won’t give you that right away. I think we don’t want another dragon-maniac in the family.
That’s why they died. I mean they died because of dragons. There was an epidemic among the wizards and they both got dragon-pox. They died before my second birthday.
I decided not to write in this diary anymore; I don’t have too much to say anyway. What could I say compared to my mother? She had so many thoughts, she had so many desires, she loved so much! I will lock it away until my first child is born and I will start anew then. I hope I will have more to say then, I mean something more profound than now. And my firstborn will receive my diary when I die.
Many thanks to Lys, my stellar Beta!