Title: She was cold like ice cream

Prompt: Write about Lily Evans/Potter for TQLFC

Beta: NerdGirl95

Cokeworth, England - 1974

"Can't we get ice cream, Mum?" Our shadows were sharply defined puddles at our feet, and the sun was cooking our head. But Petunia was adamant, her knuckles turning white as she pulled at Mum's floral jumper, gravel building at her kicking feet. Her tousled brown hair was stuck to her shoulders like molasses, and when I had reached to push it back, she snarled at me, her thin lips curling.

Mum had been tired, and I could see the black lines building underneath her olive eyes — the type of green that was washed out, like she had cried too many times and the colour ran. It had disturbed me, and I wanted to reach towards her, but Petunia would have pushed me back, and I would be left to wallow in my own thoughts, waiting and alone. Petunia was something of a conundrum, and as we had traipsed to the ice cream parlour, I had stared at her with empty, glum eyes — eyes that I knew and seen. The same eyes that she had looked at me with.

If personality was an unbroken series of scornful gestures, then there was something gorgeous about Petunia, some heightened sensitivity to the iniquities of life, as if she was related to one of those smoke detectors encased in a plastic disc that sensed the smoulder of a burning cigarette. The responsiveness had nothing to do with the deafening, electronic screeches that stirred the asleep into hysteria — or maybe it did, but it was this loathing, a callous readiness that had frightened me — it was something I had never seen before in any other person.

No — Petunia turned out all right in the end; it was what preyed on her, what aloof judgment that muddled her thoughts that permanently closed me out of her interest. I wanted to say that I deserved it, but that was when I was thirteen and naive to the looming derision building beneath her sharp tongue. I would wait hours outside her bedroom, my back against the door, listening to the monotonous sound of her pen clicking against thin sheets of paper, and I remembered it wasn't parchment — and that for a short minute, I was mad.

Petunia was this tall, lanky character with an erect carriage and brown, sun-strained eyes that looked at me reluctant contempt — I was told I was beautiful with emerald eyes that pushed past the gritty piles of snow and reminded you of spring. But, I wasn't any better than Petunia; I never wanted to be. I wanted us to be the sisters that we grew up as, but to Petunia, that vision of us died along with her child-like imagination, died when I made a daisy blossom before her very eyes. I was a freak, but I never chose to be that way. Because if that meant Petunia hated me, then I didn't want it.

I wanted my sister.

...

"What ice-cream did you want, Lily?" Mum's tone was this idle, reluctant jocular that made my head spin, but I leaned against the cool counter despite the flutter of her eyes, lifting onto my tippy-toes to see the different flavours. Petunia was already sitting in a booth, staring at me with eyes as cold as the ice cream in her hands, and I had faltered. Mother wasn't looking at either of us; instead, she was counting the sterlings in her purse, her fingers trembling the slightest bit.

I shook my head, and Mum glanced at me. "I don't want any," I said, but I really did — the strawberry ice cream was calling my name, but I knew that it could wait. "My stomach hurts, and I don't think ice cream will help any."

She surveyed me for a minute as if she could spot any signs of my made-up pain. "All right," she conceded. "I better not hear you complain later on about not getting any, though."

I nodded, and we sat in the booth with Petunia, watching the traffic outside. It was Sunday, and I had caught eyes with a man holding a crinkled, coffee-stained newspaper. He was half-shaven, and his skin was the colour of yellowing parchment. He smiled at me, and I had smiled back, but his teeth were sharp, and I could see the gritty black of tobacco in his gums. But, Mum had taught me to be kind, and I continued to smile at him until he turned away from me, his attention raptured by the sway of pencil skirts.

Petunia had seen him, too. But she wasn't accepting of him, and when she had caught his eye as well, she sneered with this disgusted look in her brown eyes, as if he was this cockroach on the bottom of her shoes. I wanted to yell at her, but I recognised that look.

It was the same look she gave me.

I was a cockroach. I was the piece of gum she would leave underneath her desk at school. I was a freak, and there was nothing I could do about it. But, I wasn't a freak. I was a witch, and I prided myself in that. I was different, and if she couldn't accept that — then, I don't know anymore.

I didn't know if I ever would.

...

Mum had left us alone in the house that night, and I was stuck sitting alone in the unquiet darkness of the living room. Petunia was in her room, again, her door locked, and her pen clicking against thin sheets of paper. I was staring at her magnolia door; contemplating, thinking, wondering. She was my sister, and here I was staring at the white of her door, imaging the wood dissembling and revealing her slouched silhouette and smiling eyes. But, that was a short-winded dream — an abortive sorrow that possessed my thoughts every night I slept against her door frame.

I called to her at one point in the night, and I heard her shuffle as if she was scared to hear my voice. "What?" she yelled, and her shrill tone added to the impression of the fractiousness she conveyed.

I tugged at my jumper. "I love you, Tunie."

I could hear the click of her pen stop, and I closed my eyes, waiting for her response. She was silent, and for once — she wasn't screaming at me or sneering at me — or maybe she was. She was inside her room, and I couldn't see the disgusted look in her eyes. I couldn't see the disdain, and I couldn't see the envy. She was unknown to me. But, then I heard the door open, and I looked at her. Two empty eyes had established dominance over her pale features, and I could feel the hope building in my heart dissipate.

And, she walked past me, unturning and uncaring.