A/N — There's ... not must to this, ngl :P Written last night when I should've been sleeping; unbeta'd
[950]
She didn't need Lily, Petunia decided, though the thought had that stubborn forcefulness behind it which usually indicated a lie. She pretended not to notice.
"Hi, I'm —" she began, but the girls were already walking past. Right, okay then. It didn't matter; she'd realised her mistake almost as soon as she'd spoken. Next time, she'd find someone on their own, not already in conversation. They probably just hadn't heard her.
The next girl was perfect. "Hi," she called, jogging to catch up — this girl was fast! — and reaching the other girl a little out of breath, "I'm Petunia. I just started here, and I —" The girl sped off before Petunia could finish.
Well, that one had been an obvious mistake. She needed to choose someone she could keep up with! A friendship between her and that girl wouldn't have worked, anyway, 'cause Petunia would always be too out of breath to talk to her.
She stood for a moment, thinking. She'd need to choose more carefully this time; the bell was about to go, signalling that they needed to be in class ready for registration. Petunia didn't want to be late for her first registration.
There was a girl sitting alone on a bench. She might be a good friend. Though, Petunia had hoped for someone a little more outgoing … she shrugged, and made her way over.
"Hi," she said, sitting beside the girl.
The girl looked up, and said, "Hello," sounding a little confused.
"I'm —"
"Katie!" another girl called, running over, pulling Petunia's potential new friend to her feet and hugging her. "Who're you talking to?" she asked, looking at Petunia with vague scorn.
"Oh, no one," the girl — Katie — said, and they, too, walked away.
Maybe girls just formed friendships too quickly? Maybe Petunia had missed her chance? Everyone was already paired off. Maybe she should try — no. She couldn't talk to boys. Boys were … Petunia shuddered. No.
She wandered over to the classroom door. They'd been told they had to line up outside the building, and Petunia was already dreading winter — she hated the cold — but that today they were free to wait inside. She didn't want to go inside just yet. She hadn't made a friend.
"Hi," a voice said, startling Petunia. She turned, seeing a girl about her age. Great! Someone else in the same — "Sorry, I need to …" The girl gestured behind Petunia, to the door she was inadvertently blocking. Oh.
"Right, yeah, sorry," Petunia muttered, hurriedly getting out of the girls way. She could feel her face heating up, and hoped her blush wasn't too obvious. The girl walked past, giving Petunia a look over her shoulder, like she was being strange.
No one wanted to sit next to her in class either, or talk to her during lunch break.
.oOo.
"How was your first day?" Lily asked, all endless excitement. "Did you make a lot of friends?"
"Yeah, loads," Petunia lied.
Lily's expression got impossibly brighter. "Can I meet them?" she asked. "They must be great! 'Cause they're friends with you." Yesterday, Petunia would have loved this, but today … today, the way her sister looked up to her made her feel a little sick.
"No," she snapped. "They won't want to hang out with someone younger."
"Oh," Lily said, her face falling. "Okay."
"So I probably won't hang out with them a lot," she said, thinking quickly. "Outside school, at least."
"Really?" Lily's grin was back in place, and she was looking up at Petunia with wide, bright eyes.
"Yep," Petunia said. "And I probably won't hang out with them at all when you start next year."
Lily jumped up, hugging Petunia just a little too tight. "You're the best sister ever."
Petunia couldn't help her own smile, and hugged her sister back. "I love you," she whispered. Maybe this school year wouldn't be so bad; it was her first day at a school without Lily, she had probably just been too nervous to make friends. Surely it would get better, and then she could show Lily all her new friends when Lily moved up to secondary school the following year.
She'd have loads of friends by then, and Lily wouldn't need to even worry about all this.
.oOo.
Petunia needn't have worried. Lily went to a different school, a special school. A better school, a small part of her mind kept reminding her. A school that Petunia wasn't good enough to get into.
"Did you make any friends?" she asked Lily the night she returned for Christmas holidays, trying not to think on how she'd failed miserably at doing so herself.
"Yeah, loads!" The excitement in Lily's face hurt a little, but then Lily had never been good at hiding her emotions, even when she wanted to. "Though the boys are annoying," she adds, like it's an afterthought.
Petunia nods in agreement. "Oh yes, boys are always annoying."
"Yeah," Lily says enthusiastically, "there's this one boy, Potter — oh, we have to call each other by our surnames — well, Potter, he keeps playing jokes on me, and this one time," Lily leans close, as if about to whisper a secret, "this one time, he tried to kiss me!" Lily pauses, and then asks: "Have you ever been kissed?"
"Oh, yes, lots." Never.
"Oh, I haven't. Potter's doesn't count, 'cause I think he just licked my mouth." Petunia wasn't jealous, she thought resolutely. "And his friends were all watching and laughing. But Marlene punched him for me — Marlene, that's my friend. We're in the same house. Anyway, Marlene punched him, and —"
Petunia stopped listening, lost in her own bitter thoughts.