When Lily Evans turned 11, everything changed. The letter arrived, for one thing. But even bigger than the letter was the loss of her sister, although, Lily supposed; the two were inextricably linked. She didn't really believe it at first, she'd always secretly thought Sev was making it all up. She'd played along with it, just to keep Severus happy. Also partly to annoy Petunia, not that she'd ever thought it would drive such a wedge between them.

'You're a freak! A horrible, snivelling little freak!' Petunia's shrieks could shatter bones and turn them dust. Not literally, because unlike Lily, Petunia was normal.

Hot salty tears stung Lily's eyes, and a couple slid town her freckled cheeks, much to her embarrassment. She wanted to spit back something vile and cutting, but her mind was like sludge. All she could register was the cruel words being flung at her from her sister, her other half. Petunia and Lily had never been best of friends, but they had always been sisters at the very least. They didn't even feel like that anymore, and a malicious voice in Lily's head told her that they never would again.

The letter marked the beginning of a new era, and the end of an old one. The day it arrived, it was raining, and Lily Evans was standing outside, frantically trying to call her cat down from the apple tree in their back garden. Her voice was lost in the wind, and the cat barely noticed she was there. Her mother opened the back window to screech at her, 'Lily! Come Inside"

Lily had turned around in surprise, and squinted through the grey, trying to catch what her mother was saying. She walked through the back door soaked to the bone, and looked up at her mother, whose expression was flickering between disapproval and amusement.

'There's a letter for you' her mother had said 'I think you'll want to open this one'

Petunia had been so angry when she'd found out, so angry that she had screamed and cried for days, and refused to talk to anyone except their mother. Petunia could be like that sometimes. She was a dangerous hybrid of stubborn and petty, that didn't bode well for Lily.

Still, Lily had told herself, Tuney would've gotten over the whole thing by the end of first term, at the latest. By then things would've gotten back to normal. Petunia's face had been been the colour of beetroot as her and her smiling parents had waved goodbye from platform 9 and 3/4s, but even tuney couldn't hold a grudge for that long.