Red Dirt Girls
A/N: This is now officially my third fic-ish thing. Please please please before you read this, download the song Red Dirt Girls by Emmylou Harris if you have Napster. It makes a lot more sense that way…Now that you've listened to the song, you're probably thinking, oh my gosh, HICKSVILLE. I heard the song in my dad's car on NPR ok; I'm not a country person usually. But still, this song reminded me a lot lot lot of Lily, so I wrote the songfic. YUP. Ok and also, so I changed part of it, Petunia is really a brother…but other than that it's all Emmylou Harris.
Me and my best friend Lillian
And her blue tick hound dog Gideon,
Sittin on the front porch,
Cooling in the shade,
Singing all the songs that the radio played,
Waitin' for the Alabama sun to go down,
Two red dirt girls in a red dirt town,
Me and Lillian
Just across the line and a little southeast of Meridian.
The memories were those from the best times of my life. I still marvel at the luck of meeting Lily. My father and I owned a farm, and Lily's father came by on Lily's birthday to buy a dog from our newest litter. I was about…five? He picked the littlest runt and named him Gideon, which meant Great Warrior in Latin. The next week at the first day of Kindergarten, I saw Gideon following a girl with flaming red hair and marvelous green eyes. It was reminiscent of Mary's little lamb. Well, we talked for a while and ended up being really good friends.
Actually, we were inseparable. Lily and I were the best of friends. Her personality was so warm and friendly. You couldn't feel anything but comfort around her, and even though she was the top of the class, she could still get away with being fiery and mischievous. We had so many detentions in our school; we would pull pranks and jokes everywhere! Lily was so pretty too. Her hair was so crimson red that if you looked at it too long you would see green dots. Her eyes were the green of those sun dots. They glowed with her different moods. When she was happy they glittered like sun on the greenest of leaves, and when she was mad they darkened and stared straight into you like ice. I always wanted to look exactly like her, she was to me the picture of perfection. Lily had her faults as well. Every night, she would wake up from the same dream, covered in sweat and crying. The first time I slept over at her house, I was shocked that in the middle of the night, Lily, the perfect was talking to some unknown boy named Harry. She screamed bloody murder, saying "No! Don't take him, take me instead!" and then wake up crying hysterically. It was like that all the time without exception. The look of terror in her eyes was enough to unsettle the toughest of people, and I could only tell her it would be okay and dry her tears. It was torture!
We spent summer upon summer at the lake right by my house. There was this quaint little porch that we would sit on, dangling our feet into crystal blue water. The sun got so hot…the shade was comforting. Lily and I would talk incessantly, waiting for the sun to go down. Anything interested us, from the color of the sky to squiggly lines. The conversation was so comforting, and we would just let our hearts pour all the things that we thought into words. When we were seven, Lily and I had our little lemonade stand, you know, 5 cent a cup, 10 dollars for extra sugar. With the money we earned we went to an old thrift store and bought an old green radio. Lily insisted that it be green, even though I would have rather it been blue. After a while, we started bringing this little, green, and antique boombox with us. We danced around day after day by the lake in the red dirt, singing and giggling and talking. After a while, we would be covered in this unmistakably red dirt, and we would jump into the clear, fresh water. One day after our daily swim, I got my foot stuck in this squishy red mud, and started to drown. Lily screamed, and all of a sudden the water that was filling the lake hovered right above the water line. I quickly got my foot unstuck, and ran over to Lily, who was almost passing out with effort. I knew at that moment there was something unmistakably a gift about her…and in time I would come to know that she was a witch. For then, we were the red dirt girls. Lily liked to call us, the Juliela Rufia, or translated from Latin, the Youthful Red Girls. I always wondered about Lily's obsession with Latin…
Lily was the perfect friend, with her gift to her looks to her personality. But, I was never jealous of her…those dreams…and her sister…
Lily loved her sister
Yet I can barely remember back when
Petunia truly loved Lillian.
She would tell her "Little sister gonna ride the wind,
Around the moon and back again"
Petunia eventually turned to cynicism.
I was standing there with them when the telegram come for Lillian
Now Lily's in school somewhere bout a million miles from Meridian.
Petunia had this horrid horse-like face, and straw stiff blonde hair. Guys just shunned her completely, and the frustration brought downright hate towards Lily. Petunia, or Petty as Lily and I called her, was a terrible person. She had this irresistible urge for gossip, and if there was none, she made up the most hurtful of lies. Her only friends just pretended to care for her in fear of being insulted. Yet, Petty was likable once upon a time. She would comfort Lily in the middle of the night, being the only person who could penetrate the layer of fright plastered on Lily's face. She would sing her a lullaby, which was somewhat like "Little sister, gonna ride the wind around the moon and back again…back to safe arms". It could have passed for love.
Any love that was dormant in Petty shattered the moment Lily turned eleven. This giant gray owl swooped down by Lily and I when we were walking back from our daily swim, and dropped this strange piece of parchment on the red dirt ground. Petunia stood there in utter shock, anticipating more gossip. The letter was addressed to Lily in shining purple ink, and as Lily read the paper, her entire face lit up. She hugged me, and handed me the paper. It mentioned that Lily was a witch and she was accepted to a boarding school for wizards in England. My jaw dropped about four inches, as a gawked. So that was Lily's gift, real, true, actual magic. Not the circus magic where people were sawed in half, but then magic that involved wands and books by someone named Bathilda Bagshot. Of course, I was happy for Lily, but who in England for god's sake would be there for her, to sing and dance and swim with there. And more importantly, who could dry her tears?
She said there's so much hope for a red dirt girl
Somewhere out there is a great big world
That's where I'm bound
And the stars might fall in Alabama
But one of these days I'm gonna swing
My hammer down
Away from this red dirt town
I'm gonna make a joyful sound.
I don't think I ever cried as much as the day that Lily left to England. I felt the utmost despair, as if I was going to drown again only this time in loneliness, and Lily wouldn't be there to save me. She was leaving me, her best friend, all the way back in Alabama. The one person that I truly could relate to was leaving me. Leaving me friendless. And, I would have to put up with Petty, all alone for the rest of my life. While Lily was breaking away from the small town chains, I was stuck here. She told me to stay strong and visit her, and I will.
One day, I'm going to get away from this red dirt town to visit her. With the hammer of hope, I'm going to thrash the dungeon of Lily leaving. I'm going to drop the chains and shackles of memories and run singing away. No, not screaming, but singing. Singing about the times that we had and will have once I'm reunited with my best friend Lillian.
Petunia grew up tall and she grew up thin
Buried that old dog Gideon
By a crepe myrtle bush in the back of the yard
Her daddy turned mean and her mama leaned hard
Got in trouble with a boy from town
Figured that she might as well settle down
So she dug right in
Across the red dirt line bout a million miles from Meridian.
Ugh, Petty Petty Petty. She was such a dim, hateful bulb behind a mask of ugliness. One night, a few years after Lily's departure, Gideon was outside howling at the moon. Petty, being the cruel being that she is, got the axe from her Daddy's shed, and screaming, she murdered the old dog. The really disturbing part was what she yelled, "She's not flying up there you stupid animal, she's burning in Hell with her Pagan gifts and rotting for leaving us!" Petty left Gideon tombless by a bush, so I personally prayed for him, thanking Gideon for helping Lily and I meet. Truly, if it wasn't for Lily I would be…empty. At least she's still somewhere inside me.
Petunia found one man that liked her, which to me is a complete surprise. That man, Dursley, was equally as horrid as our Petty was. He is a fat, mean spirited, rude, slimy man, and I don't know what Petty saw in him. Her parents obviously saw Mr. Dursley as the idiot he was, and refused to talk to Petty when she told them she was getting married. Then, Petunia eloped with that disgusting man, and moved to England.
Petty tried hard to love him but it never did take
It was just another way for the heart to break
So she dug right in.
But one thing they don't tell you about the blues
When you got em
You keep on falling cause there ain't no bottom
There ain't no end,
At least not for Lillian.
Petty never really loved Dursley. It was just some selfish fling so she could leave this red dirt town. She has to fake her happiness with shallow enjoyances the will never replace real love. Her retched little boy Dudley will be raised on little enjoyances, and I pity him. Petty, her husband, and her little boy will never fill in their shallow hearts. They will never know real love.
But not Lily. Lily has her home, and her husband, and her happy little boy. She married a man named James Potter, who is intelligent and kind and obviously is head over heels for Lily. Her Harry is going to be loved with real love, the type that is deathless, radiant, and shimmering. Lily lives in a family that's love grows and grows and grows, and won't ever stop growing. If love were visible by radar this love would be picked up as a smiling, tingling, glowing ball that stretches everywhere. Lily has her beloved family, and always will.