She turned a button into a shilling yesterday so she buried it in the backyard. She doesn't know how she did it but it happened and now she just wants to forget. But Tuney won't let her. Tuney keeps asking about it, wanting to knowhow exactly she turned that shilling into a button – because she saw it with her own eyes – but Lily hasn't an answer for her. One moment a button fell off her jumper. The next moment she wished she had enough money to buy ice cream. The button turned into a shilling. And that's all.
But then teakettles start to sing whenever she walks by, and her favorite doll blinked this morning, and everything is suddenly very wonderful and very very strange. She can make things happen. And that scares her. But fascinates her all at once.
She begins to wonder if she can control it. So instead of playing in the schoolyard with the other children, she sits in the grass. Tuney isn't too far off, probably waiting for her to make something explode, but Lily tentatively picks a flower instead. And she stares at it. And she concentrates. But nothing happens. She's about to give up but then the petals close. She feels silly, being in such awe of herself, but she can't help it. She makes the petals open again just to make sure that she hadn't imagined it.
She hears a rush of footsteps behind her and suddenly her older sister's shadow is to her left.
"How did you do that?"
Since then, when things happen, it isn't at all by accident. She can have proper tea parties with her dolls now, who are fully attentive and just short of being alive; the pages of her books turn completely on their own; and she can change the channels of the telly without getting up from the couch. Tuney doesn't understand it, but she watches carefully and without a word. Sometimes, when she thinks no one is looking, Lily sees Tuney staring intently at objects, waiting for the moment when they, too, will come to life for her, but nothing happens. Nothing ever happens.
She wants to somehow reach out to her sister, to comfort her, but she doesn't know how. She doesn't mean to be like this, she doesn't really, but she is and she can't help or explain it.
"Maybe I'm like Doctor Who," she says aloud one day, grinning broadly while jumping on her bed, books and toys levitating around her.
Tuney's head immediately snaps in Lily's direction, a hard look on her face. "The Doctor travels throughout time and space," she says firmly, "he doesn't know how to make things…move."
Lily shrugs, and continues to bounce up and down until a stern Lily what did I tell you about jumping on the bed sounds from the kitchen. She gives her sister a mischievous grin that, this time, isn't returned.
"Just stop it," Tuney pleads. "I-I don't think Mummy and Daddy will like it."
Lily shrugs again. "They might."
Petunia purses her lips together, unsure.
The two girls soon find out when they are called down to dinner ten minutes later. And making things happen is wonderful and all in good fun until a glass is accidentally knocked from the table and shatters; without a moment's thought Lily fixes it and her mother screams.
The Mystery of the Self-Repairing Glass becomes quite the event in the Evans' household, as the Mr. and Mrs. do not realize that it was their youngest daughter who caused the ruckus. Having no logical answers to fall back on, they begin to panic and believe that a supernatural entity has inhabited their home. Soon a priest is coming to exorcise the house and Lily thinks it's awful funny but Tuney isn't particularly amused.
"You have to stop with that," she orders Lily later that day, "you're scaring Mummy and Daddy."
"Maybe I should just tell them it's me…"
"No, they'll think you're possessed."
But she can't help herself; it's become so much a part of her that she can't stop all together. So she retires from repairing broken glasses and soars off the swing set instead and soon catches the attention of a scrappy boy who is just like her.
Magic, he says. You're a witch, he says.
And she knows it must be true.
And it sounds all so wonderful – and Tuney isn't it just wonderful? – and it must be because Tuney gives her a slow nod and a tearful look that she doesn't see because she's already asking Severus to tell her more about this Hogwarts.
A letter comes – just like Sev said it would – along with a tall woman with black hair whom she is to call Professor McGonagall.
Lily waits for her parents to be afraid of her, just as Tuney had predicted, but they are quite the opposite. The official news of her being a witch is met with excitement and relief that there had been no evil spirit plaguing their home – just their daughter, their wonderful and special and unique daughter.
From then on, the Evans house is filled with talk about magic and Hogwarts and Lily, and it's only Tuney who remains silent while Lily is peppered with questions about how she can make things happen.
Her parents want to see; they want her to show them. So she takes a shilling out from her pocket – her shilling – and she turns it back into a button.
They cheer and she laughs and looks up to see that Tuney is the only one not smiling.
And she hardly ever sees her sister smile since.
A/N: Written for Day 1 of Jily Week on tumblr! The prompt was childhood - hope that you enjoyed it :D
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter and I hate myself for it