Lily sat by the door, waiting impatiently for her mother to get off of work and take them home. She already had her tennis shoes back on, curled up on the linoleum floor, hugging her knees with her back pressed against the wall. Tuney was still sitting in the parlor with Mrs. Fallows, working on her homework, probably with the stupidest, self-satisfied grin on her horse-like face—overjoyed that Mrs. Fallows had chewed out her little sister for wandering onto private property with an impoverished, scruffy boy who was only headed to juvenile detention and had hopefully put some sense into her.
Lily was thoroughly sick of them both, but especially of her sister for being such a sensitive, tattletaling coward. If Tuney had something against Sev, why couldn't she confront him herself? That would win his respect in a minute. But instead she always chose to go off to report her personal problems to the authorities and have them deal with it, and that just made Sev hate her more. What a crybaby she was being.
Dear god. What would Tuney think of me if she knew? She kept asking herself. I don't think Tuney could stand to be in the same room with me again. She'd go crazy if she even suspected there was something abnormal about me. No. There's no way any of my family can find out what's wrong with me. Lily concluded. She sighed, feeling so empty inside, yet heavy with a secret.
What if I can't control it either? She wondered. What if Tuney makes me so angry I set her on fire too? No. I'd never do that to my sister. But still something could happen…. Or even like the flowers. A completely innocent wish overcame me so badly I wanted it to be fulfilled. What if I can't stop this sort of desire? True, I can be manipulative and competitive to get what I want…but now, even with magic…it'll be even worse.
Lily heard her mother's footsteps step onto the wooden front porch and immediately she stood up and tried to smooth out her clothes. Her mother rang the bell, and Lily waited a few seconds before she opened the door.
"Oh, Lily!" Mrs. Evans exclaimed, eyeing her daughter in surprise. "How was your day, darling?"
"Fine." Lily shrugged.
"Mother!" Petunia cried, running towards the door with an open backpack clutched in her hands and her homework folder sticking halfway out.
"Hello, dear." Her mother said.
Tuney pushed past Lily to hug her mother, dropping the backpack.
"Mother, Lily's been simply awful today. Sev threatened to beat me with a stick and then he and Lily ran off onto private property so Mrs. Fallows couldn't punish them."
"That's not how it was." Lily protested, knowing it was useless when Tuney had worked up a story in her mind to fit her warped perception of reality. Her sister would no longer listen to anyone, except to someone of higher authority—but only if they repeated what they had to say over and over to her.
"Who is Sev?" Their mother asked.
"Severus Snape. Just the neighbor boy that lives down the street in that dump of a house. He's a lot of trouble that one. Kicks the neighbor's dog." Mrs. Fallows said, standing behind Lily with her arms crossed.
"Only once when it attacked him." Lily said, trying to remain calm. She already felt herself getting emotional and didn't want to start an attack—what she had decided to call the slips of magic. She worked hard to take deep breaths, concentrating on the ugly pink and yellow floral print on the white linoleum and counting the squares.
"Why don't we talk about this later?" Her mother sighed, noticing both her children's distress. She retied the belt around her beige trench coat and helped Tuney to zip up her backpack, leading her out the door with Lily following. "Thank you, Mrs. Fallows." Their mother said, closing the door behind them.
As soon as the door closed, Tuney started up again. "Mother, you can't let Lily run wild this way. You must talk some sense into her. She's not very mature." She said. She had obviously just learned this word.
Her mother sighed. "Well, Tuney, she's younger than you are. You need to learn to be patient."
Tuney scowled. "That's no excuse. Only by one year."
"True." Mrs. Evans said. She looked at Lily, who seemed to be thinking about something very hard. "Well, alright, Lily. Why don't you tell me your version of the afternoon?"
"Sev and I were going to play pirates. Tuney wanted to join us, and she couldn't handle a practical joke and blew the whole thing out of proportion, running to Mrs. Fallows to tattle on us. So we decided to go deeper into the forest to play by ourselves. We didn't know it was private property. We thought it was Mrs. Fallows'."
"I didn't blow it out of proportion! Sev tried to hit me with a stick!"
"He was just playing. We're pirates after all. Pirates have swords."
"Enough." Their mother said. "Lily, I think Sev might not be the best of friends to have. Whether or not it was for play, he did try to hit your sister with a stick."
"We were sword fighting!"
"Well then, did Petunia have a sword?"
"No!" Petunia said.
"Well, she could've been resourceful and found one."
"From my understanding your friend had a stick and tried to attack Petunia, who was defenseless. He doesn't sound like a very good friend. He sounds like a bully."
"He was just playing! He wasn't trying to attack her. And there were tons of sticks on the group she could've used."
"I don't care, Lily. Playing or fighting with sticks isn't a safe thing to do. You could've gotten hurt."
"We weren't going to hurt each other. We were playing pirates and fighting for Captain."
"You see there, that word fighting. That isn't playing."
"I don't want you to hang out with this friend of yours Sev, Lily. I don't think he's a good influence on you. You must drop this friendship." Her mother continued.
Lily said nothing.
"Do you understand me?" Her mother asked her.
Lily stared at their front door, waiting for her mom to unlock it. Finally, she nodded.
"Good." Mrs. Evans said, opening the door.
Tuney grinned victoriously as she walked first into the house, followed sullenly by Lily, and their mother closed the door behind them.