The girl – no, woman – in the mirror looked flawless.
Crimson hair in silky curls, and eyes lined with kohl. An elegant yet daring wedding gown which only seemed to bring out her best features. And then there was the jewelry.
Emerald earrings, ruby necklaces, diamonds the size of one's small toe. They were all at her disposal. None of it had been required though. None but the combs.
The combs were definitely something of interest. Inlaid with every gem (or so it seemed) from across the empire, the heavy pair where set into her hair. It caught the lights' reflection each time she moved.
She looked grand.
She hated it.
Lily Evans was not the type of girl you would see at a social gathering having high tea with the trophy wives of London. No, that was more of her sister, Petunia's usual setting.
Petunia was the golden child that her mother had always, always doted upon. She was the older child of Harold and Rose Evans which gave her an automatic advantage over Lily, but that couldn't be enough. Of course not. Petunia also had to be perfectly fine in the company of high-strung socialite women, and polite, and normal. The very image of an ideal housewife. On top of that, she was tall, blond, skinny, and had pale blue eyes. In her mother's opinion, she "looked like the Victorian beauty everyone craved for". In Lily's opinion her sister revealed too much and looked like a wench, but that would see to her being locked up so she couldn't say that.
Lily was the exact opposite of her mother and sister. While they were both blonde, she had a horrid shade of untamable and constantly frizzy red hair that made her look as though her head was bleeding eternally. They were comfortable being thrown into any type of gala with the most fake type of women while Lily was not. Her mother and sister were tall while she was the epitome of short. She had green eyes, they had blue eyes. She didn't belong in her picture perfect family.
Her father, even if he looked the same as the other half of the family, was the only sensible one there. Rose got caught up in the idea of money, fame, and power. Harold had given his morals and family priority over all else. Lily and her father both believed that women were equal to men while Petunia and her mother were quite content with being mindless, "ladylike" bimbos. Lily had always preferred riding one of the estate's horses and cramming more knowledge into her brain than any other woman that wasn't a nun.
So of course it would make sense for her to be at one of those wretched events when her life was turned upside down. Quite literally, but that part comes later.