A/N: After a barrage of Black chapters please enjoy a magic and torture free chapter about a daydreaming redhead, her bossy sister and her bookish father. I find that it helps if you imagine him as a bearded Ewan Mcgregor! :P (Also sorry about putting this up for a day or two before and then taking it down but I wasn't happy with it. May you find it hopefully much improved?)

"Girls! Washing!" Lily put down her quill, thoroughly frustrated with the letter she had been struggling to write for the past three days. She dragged her overflowing laundry basket out of her room and in to the hallway. Petunia pushed past her with a glare. Several pairs of Lily's underwear, four dresses and a rogue sock spilled down the stairs. Petunia stamped on them as she carried her half empty laundry basket down to the kitchen, but didn't spill a word. Lily sighed and collected her dirty clothes. It had been like this for a week. Their mother noticed the tension but seemed to refuse to address it. "Would one of you please take your father some tea?"

"I'll do-"Petunia nudged Lily out of the way and took the laden tray from the counter top. Lily stood empty handed, staring at her mother utterly aghast. She simply carried on stuffing clothes into the washing machine. "How long is she going to keep this up? I apologised!"

"Darling, humiliation takes time to heal-"

"And I'm just a walking, talking humiliation aren't I?" Lily snapped. Her mother closed the washing machine, added the detergent and set the timer. She straightened up, hands on hips and sighed.

"Do you have to be so dramatic?" she asked, "I regret ever buying you a single book. If only you'd had the same affinity for dance as Petunia you might have learned some discipline, a little self-control-"

"And have the flexibility to stick my head up my own arse!"

"Lily Evans!"

Lily stormed back upstairs. Petunia was standing eavesdropping in the hall, using the banister as a ballet barre, right leg stretched out across it, body arched towards her toes. "You're so emotional! Got the decorators in?" she sniped. Lily did a mocking pirouette and gave her sister the finger.

"No, but here's a suggestion: why don't you go outside and play a nice game of hide-and-go-fuck-yourself?"Lily slammed her bedroom door on Petunia shouting for their father. Such animosity hadn't always existed between them. Once upon a time they had happily spent every waking moment in each other's company. Lily no longer wasted time wondering what had changed. She knew that it was her, as she had recounted a week and a half ago in a letter sent to her best friend, Marlene Mckinnon:

Marly,

I've sent you a sickle because you won the bet, okay? It's been less than three weeks and I already want a dragon to airlift me out of here and feed me to its young! An entire day of back to back History of Magic class would be less gag inducing than the last few days. Every summer going back inside my bedroom feels like investigating the scene of a crime. Do you get that?

Petunia had this ballet recital the night I got home from Pete's party and she only bought two tickets! So of course dad pulled out 'in the name of a girl's night out' and I went and I haven't seen Petunia dance in a really long time and she was great but she's always so nervous when I'm around people. I really tried my best to be normal. I didn't wear a cloak or talk about how I can banish things with my mind. One of Petunia's friends called Warren even sat down next to me and he was so sweet and attentive. Then out of the blue, he was all "When Petunia told us you went to a special school, I thought you'd be weird but you're not at all." Naturally, I asked him what kind of special school I apparently go to and he said 'one for people with emotional issues'. Emotional issues? And you're thinking, 'did you just laugh in his face'? No. Ironically I let my emotions get the best of me. I called Petunia out and she was jealous because she has a crush on Warren. I really don't know why I did it but I just strode right up to the guy and kissed him...and then I slapped him and said my 'issues' were playing up.

SoI think I've broken my personal best when it comes to time taken for Petunia to hate me. I'm finally starting to understand why my mother named me after a funeral flower. I ruin people's lives. Please tell me that you're having a better time at home. Have you been forced to spend time with your insufferable neighbours yet?

Love Lily

Marlene's barn owl Ava had brought a reply the very same day:

Lily (Ruiner of Lives),

My room always feels more like hotel room, than a crime scene, but I guess that's because I haven't killed myself yet. There's still time though!

Now, you just have to remember how summer always starts out feeling never-ending and unbearable and then as soon as you start to love it, it's over. Petunia was a total bitch not to invite you to her ballet thing, but she's had your parent's to herself all year. She's probably just not ready to share them again. Telling people you go to a special school was probably a good move and you know she could have just said one for child prodigies, but then people might have asked you to solve really intense mathematical equations or play difficult things on the cello. You really should be thankful.

Oh and I looked it up and Petunia's are a symbol for resentment and anger. Does your mother know things that we don't? Seriously, it's creepy. And are you only asking about my neighbours because you got dirty with one of them in the woods?

IF YOU DO NOT TELL ME WHAT HAPPENED I SHALL HAVE EMOTIONAL ISSUES.

Love Marly

Ever since, Lily's elf-owl Archimedes had remained in his cage watching his owner write several renditions of a return letter; telling the truth, versions of it and then just outright lying. Marlene also had an older sister and as much as Lily appreciated her good advice, she could not return the favour and spill the beans on her woodland encounter with James. There had been something sacred in that silence, in the tiny particles of dust floating in long slants of morning light, in the dew glistening on their cold hands and the single leaf he'd picked out of her hair. She'd pressed it between the pages of her favourite book and laminated it before it fell apart. She had dreamt about his thin fingers, her soaked slippers and those deer brushing snouts six nights in total. Every time she had woken well rested and content. She carried Peter Pan with the leaf as a bookmark everywhere she went. After fights with Petunia, something about it reminded her that she wasn't 'a freak' and that she did belong somewhere. She wasn't entirely sure why, but it comforted her. Perhaps it was the fact that whilst she was lost, she was actually safe in James's arms and their friends were out looking for them, calling their names. Whenever Lily read about missing children in the newspaper, she always thought that there could be no better feeling than hearing a search party shouting close by, your own name echoing out towards you like a pair of enveloping arms.

"Lily!" Her father popped his head into her room with a stern expression. Lily looked down at her hands in her lap expecting to be chastised. "There's a call for you." Lily practically fell down the stairs in her haste to get to the phone. Nobody ever rang for her, but she wouldn't have put it past a certain boy to get her number and call from a phone box.

"Hello?"

"I'm having emotional issues." Lily felt a little guilty when it wasn't who she had been expecting.

"Marlene!" But she was still ridiculously happy to hear her best friend's voice. It had been less than two weeks since they had last seen one another at Peter's party and Lily had no doubt that it was the exact reason that Marlene was calling.

"Are you going to leave me waiting forever?" Marlene was impatient. She had never been a fan of cliff hangers. Everything had to have an ending as comprehensible and immaculate as she was herself. "Did Potter touch you inappropriately?" With an imagination as virulent as hers, clear cut endings were just a necessity. "Because I will go over there and violate him with his own broom-"

"No!"Lily laughed. Marlene had badgered her incessantly in person the day after Peter's birthday and had been slipping mentions of the event into letters ever since. She was stubborn, but Lily was a woman of her word. "We just slept. I swear. One-"

"Kiss a year!" Marlene chimed in a bored tone, "I know, but James Potter does not restrict his range of available filth merely to kissing. I am being a good friend-"

"I know darling and I appreciate that." Mary was dainty and soft like a Disney princess and she thought James's proposals were romantic. Whilst Dorcas insisted that boys only wanted one thing and suggested that Lily at least give James the chance to prove her right, Marlene had never questioned Lily's refusal to date James, perhaps because she knew him best. Marlene had explained once how even as a child James had never been the type to let her win simply because she was a girl. He had always refused to accept a victory unless it was truthfully earned. Of course Lily had read too many tragedies to believe in a true love's kiss or happy ever afters and there were no dragons for James to slay, golden stairs to climb or glass slippers to fit, but without ever meaning to Lily had fallen in love with idea of his earning her.

"So tell me what to do about the fact that I want Sirius to eat my face." Lily gripped the phone a little tighter. The moment Marlene had mentioned her waxing affections for Sirius Black; post party at an all-girl's picnic at the Mckinnon's, Lily had felt grey clouds forming above her head. Her inability to keep a secret had brought Sirius and Remus together, but if she told Marlene the truth it could tear them apart. She didn't want to be responsible for any pain or heartbreak, but she also didn't want to be dishonest. She had asked her father for advice and without looking up from his textbooks he had said that 'she was between the devil and the deep blue sea'.

"I'd suggest seeing a doctor-"

"Lily! I'm serious! I never like boys because-"

"You grew up with James Potter?" Marlene's romantic history also happened to ancient history. At the beginning of second year, twelve year old Sirius had given her a chaste peck on the lips, effectively ending Lily's short lived relationship with him, but he and Marlene had not dated and it seemed that she had never set her sights upon anybody else. Lily supposed that it would have been easy to fall for Sirius. They did spend a lot of time together on the quidditch pitch and at the Potter estate where both spent much of their summers. He was kind and accepting; always willing to lend an ear or help you exact revenge. Now that she thought about it, that was all probably because he wasn't, as it turned out, particularly interested in that 'one thing' Dorcas believed all boys were. Dorcas herself had actually been on more dates than Marlene, mostly as a result of harmless prompting from her mother, but each had been unsuccessful. She was studious and few boys liked girls who made them look stupid. Taking note of her friend's unhappiness, Lily had subconsciously made a point of only courting boys with better grades than her. To date she had experienced three short, but sweet relationships. Ravenclaw Glenn Parish was gifted but boring and adorable Hufflepuffs, photographer Hadrian Blake and fifth year Noah Finch had seemed to care more about having a girlfriend than who their girlfriend actually was. Not one of them had dared to argue with her and Lily had realised that what she needed was to be challenged. She was not a passive prize to be won and flaunted.

She would not end up like Mary. Apart from a brief stint as James Potter's mistress at the end of third year, she had only had one serious relationship in her time at Hogwarts. For almost all of the rest of third year, she had laboured under the false delusion that charming third-year Hufflepuff, Gilderoy Lockhart was the man she was going to marry. Girls had envied her and salacious gossip and cruel name calling followed. Gilderoy had endlessly defended her honour, only for James to reveal to Mary that her boyfriend was something of a pathological liar and the origin of all slander against her name. Dorcas, ever the cynic, had restrained from telling Mary 'I told you so' and Marlene had hit Gilderoy in the head with an expertly aimed bludger at the end of the next quidditch game.

Marlene had been the subject of name-calling too. Slytherins addressed her as 'muff munching Marlene', but she never changed to please them. She continued to wear the boyish clothes she found comfortable. She played and she partied with the boys. She was at ease with them, which sadly meant that she was often mistaken for one of them, most often by the boys themselves. Locker room talk of weekend sexploits never stopped on her account and girls came to her desperate to know what had been said, leaving her reeling, confused as to which codes to break. Her loyalty to the boys simply never gave her the vantage point she wanted. Any boy who had shown an interest in her had done so with no intention of being her boyfriend, rather a quick fling she could jest about with the boys. She never complained because she didn't want to be that girl and Lily maintained that Marlene intimidated the male population of Hogwarts. The intensity of Marlene's sense of self-respect was Lily's favourite thing about her.

"Yes and also because I have really high standards, but Sirius is quality stock and I want to buy all of those shares." Lily wanted to smile, because she had never heard Marlene so excited about a boy, but she had chosen the wrong one. "And put them in my-"

"How do you even know he likes you like that?" Lily instantly regretted her phrasing. "I mean, you said you just had a heart to heart over a cigarette. I've had loads of those with Sirius-admittedly I was not smoking but-"

"Yes but you're not interested in him, right?" For a moment, Lily considered saying that she was, if only in the hope that Marlene valued her friendship too highly to pursue someone she had feelings for. "You're just friends?" Her liking of Sirius would have had far too many Potter related consequences and she could not bear to see a friendship fall apart over a girl, let alone her. A lie was not the answer.

"Yes and so are you-"

"But I don't want to be his friend, Lily! Why are you so up in arms about this?" Lily held the phone away from her face and hit herself lightly in the forehead with the receiver, trying to think of a valid excuse.

"Sirius-he...doesn't date nicegirls like you. I...just don't think you're his type." A brief silence followed. Lily bit her lip waiting for her friend to exclaim 'fuck him.

"Then I'll become his type." Marlene's infamous self-respect was missing in action. "I have to try or I'm going to become a cat lady."

"You love cats!" Lily personally volunteered to lead the search team.

"But they don't love you back! Not really. They just pretend to. They're the frenemies of the animal kingdom-little furry balls of lies!" Lily laughed because she was allergic to cats and, as it happened, to lies. "I want to-"

"Who are you talking to?" Petunia was standing on the stairs, leaning over the banister looking down at Lily. "I need to use the phone."

"I've got to go-"Lily could not stand being in such close proximity to her sister.

"Lick the phone before you give it to her and blame your emotional-"

"Goodbye Marly. Real talk. I'll write to you. Goodbye!"

Petunia snatched the phone and sat down on the bottom step, smoothing out the skirt of her beige shirt dress. Lily stood awkwardly on the doormat pulling at her pyjamas. Petunia glared across at her, a finger poised over the dial. "Can't I have some privacy? Or do I have to share everything with you?" Their mother stepped into the kitchen doorway with a disapproving tut.

"Excuse me Lady Muck," she said tapping at her watch, "But it's almost noon. Get dressed and make your bed." Lily sighed and went back to her room, wondering why she had ever left school.

"Lady Muck?"Lily turned on her heel at the top of the stairs, crossing her arms.

"What?" she snapped. Standing in the doorway of his study, her father simply smirked.

"As nicknames go, I much prefer Wendy bird," he said, draining his teacup and placing it back down in the saucer. "Are you wishing you were back in Neverland?"

"A little, but Wendy came back because she loved her father," Lily said, slipping past him and into his small room at the front of the house. It only had a chair, a desk, several overflowing bookcases and a record player rather than a radio, but it was Lily's second favourite room in the house. There was a fluffy fraying rug in the centre of the floor. It was printed with a tiger Lily had once named Rajah and she had often laid across it, writing stories of her own and scribbling crayon drawings detailing what the two of them would do together. One of them remained framed above his desk. It was a silhouette of the tiger drawn over some traced leaves. Now, it reminded Lily of another leaf.

"Wendy came back because she wanted to be loved and little boys so rarely know how to love anybod,y but themselves." The smile drained from Lily's face and her father tucked a lock of red hair behind her ear. "Who is this boy you fly away with? You're hardly ever here. All summer you've been off daydreaming."

"And you've been locked up in this chamber," Lily changed the subject, "What are you working on?" Lily ran a hand over the stacked, clipped and highlighted papers on his desk. She sank down into his leather chair and he ran his hands through her hair, undoing the knots with his fingers.

"Editing English Literature texts for college students," he explained and Lily nodded, "The metaphysical poets with their conceits and their epigrams." Lily wished that people and not just poets had the ability to say what they meant in as few words as possible. It would have untangled several metres of crossed wires and saved her hours of confusion. She certainly would have been on good terms with Petunia. Her father had refused to take a side and seemed to speak solely in idioms and lines of poetry. As a child her father had read to her the likes of Walt Whitman and Edgar Allen Poe. She had frequently requested to hear his lilting, Scottish voice recount to her Poe's tale of 'Annabel Lee' in her kingdom by the sea; ever since she had wanted 'to love a love that was more than love' that the angels in heaven would envy.

"Have you seen my typewriter?" Lily asked, drawing her knees up to her chest. Her father leaned down to kiss her head.

"I think Petunia borrowed it a few weeks ago and forgot to put it back." Lily let out a scathing sigh and slouched out of the door. "Write her a story about Princess Pet like you used to."

Lily would write her a story alright-about a spoilt princess who danced her way right into a ditch. The last time Lily had written Petunia a story was probably around the same time she had last been in her room. It was still powder pink and hung with floral bunting. Her desk was clear, her bed was made and shoes were lined up neatly by the door. Her bookcases only held a few titles; stories about damsels in distress, fairytale princesses, 'The Tale of Peter Rabbit', numerous cookbooks, embroidery instructions and chunky texts on ballet form and history. The rest of her shelf space was taken up by gold and silver trophies and printed certificates in frames, detailing competitions she had won and performances she had either featured in or lead. Fingering the medals which hung from shelf brackets, Lily remembered why she didn't often visit her sister's room. The stacked shelves of gleaming prizes and the glare of the sun on framed congratulations had always made Lily's bookshelves look like foolish child's play. Petunia had spent hours refining her skills; putting her all into perfectly positioned feet, perpetually pointed toes and knowledge of dance related casual French. Lily had been studying magic for four whole years. If she did have anything to show for it, her parents were the very last people she could show it to.

"You're not at school now." Petunia was standing in the doorway, hands on her hips. Lily fumbled with the medal she was holding dropping it to the ground. Petunia swept into the room to snatch it up and replace it. "My initials on the door mean it's private."

"Well you seemed to have no problem breaking that rule when you needed to borrow my typewriter," Lily sniped as she heaved it off of Petunia's desk.

"Well it wasn't much use to you and you prefer more medi-evil methods now-"

"I can't be bothered arguing with you," Lily sighed as she crossed the hall, "Just put it back next time."

"Who knows what's lurking in there," Petunia said from hallway, nose wrinkled in disgust at the state of Lily's room.

"I forget," Lily remarked, swiping papers and old biscuit wrappers from her desk and replacing her beloved typewriter, "about the dragon in my desk drawer and the goblins under my bed...and the hag in the room across the hall." Petunia looked over her shoulder and then back at Lily scowling when she realized what she meant.

Lily brushed her hair and her teeth, washed her face and swapped her pyjamas for a sun dress. She made her bed, filled her old messenger bag with a blanket, a tin of pencils and a notebook and tiptoed down the stairs. She edged quietly into the kitchen where her mother was standing at the sink washing dishes, grabbed a few carrots from the vegetable bin and stashed them in her bag. She slipped into a pair of boots sitting in the rack by the front door and left the house. She had nowhere to go, but the library or the sparse high street and no one to go with. She passed the living room window and pushed through the side gate which led to the back garden. She picked a rose from her mother's conservatory and hid it in her left boot. "I've caught you in the act." Her father was hanging out of his study window at the side of the house. "Flower thief! I can really only blame myself: children clearly only turn to crime as a result of bad parenting."

"There are worse thieves," Lily laughed and he nodded.

"Oh indeed. Unrequited love is the first and time is the second worst," he said and then he extended a fist and motioned for Lily to come closer to the house, "Wherever you're off, be safe." Lily held out her hands and he opened his fist, dropping his old pocket watch. Lily caught it with ease and thanks. "This window will always be open for you." Lily laughed and carried on into the garden, pushing her father's watch into the safety of her satchel.

"Did you clean up that pigsty?" her mother shouted out to her from the kitchen window. "Come here. I've got something for you."

"Yes. It's clean," Lily muttered, pausing beneath the window. "I don't need any-"Her mother wiped her hand dry on a tea towel and passed a creased piece of parchment through the window. Lily took it from her, mouth dropping open in horror.

"Don't worry. I didn't read it. Though you really ought to find a better place for your letters than your pillowcase," her mother explained with a knowing smirk. Lily turned away to hide her blushing face and went to the garden shed, unlocking it and removing her bike. "Where exactly are you going?" Lily relocked the shed and tested her bike bell.

"To see Severus-"She wheeled her bike down the garden, careful to avoid her mother's cabbage patch and flower arrangements.

"Dinner's at one!" She pulled open the back gate. "Invite our Sev-"

"We'll go to the cafe-"And stepped out into the back alley lined with empty dustbins.

"Make sure you're back for tea!" Lily had left school and yet curfew remained. She couldn't stand the constant rules and regulations. She just wanted to go where she pleased and for however long. She was too old to be babysat and too young to live alone. Eventually she'd have to stop trick or treating and suicide or motherhood would be the only options left open to her.

She pushed her bike down the twenty feet of cobbled road to Severus's back gate, propped it up there and stepped inside. His house had a small cement yard instead of a garden with a washing line instead of a tree. Lily skipped up to the back door and knocked lightly upon the peeling frame. Severus's father answered. He was wearing a tattered bath robe and holding a half-empty bottle of beer. "What is wrong with you people?" he slurred, "We have got a fucking front door."

"I know that, sir...I'm sorry," Lily replied politely, "But, is Severus, home?"

"He's dead." He slammed the door shut again. Lily might have panicked if it were the first time he had said this, but she had already called for Severus several times since summer had begun. Somehow they kept missing each other. She had passed him once on the bus and he had stopped by at her place when she was at the ballet and then shopping. She had blown her gifted whistle once or twice, but Severus had not come running. In his absence she had developed a contact system of her own. She pulled herself up on top of the small shed which sat directly below his bedroom and slipped the rose stolen from her mother's conservatory into the lining of his window. The fact that he had removed the last one let her know that at least he knew she was thinking of him and vice versa.

Lily left his garden and the alley and got onto her bike. At some point whilst cleaning her room, replacing a fallen copy of 'The Silver Brumby' back on her bookshelf she had decided she would visit a favourite childhood haunt. She turned onto Spinner's End and began pedalling down it and away from the high street. The further she went, the less people stopped her to say hello and the more rural her surroundings became. She passed the factories, the flour mill and the dairy farm until eventually she had to get off her bike and push it the final stretch over an uneven field. Then she set her bike down, laid out her blanket, dropped her notebook and retrieved the handful of dirty carrots, only to find that the field was empty. Every summer as a child their mother had taken Lily and Petunia to the farm to volunteer for the day, grooming and feeding animals, cleaning and eating and getting paid in fresh produce. Petunia had hated getting her hands dirty, but liked sharing Lily's strawberries and porridge oats. Lily had gone mostly for the chance to ride the horses and continued to visit them every summer after she had received her bike for her 10th birthday. As she was about to sit back down, at the end of the field the paddock doors were flung open and four horses stepped out into the sun: a bay mare, a palomino and a skewbald stallion and a sorrel filly. As a child Lily had devoured every book to do with horses that she could get her hands on. She had known every breed and colour and enthusiastically maintained that if she had a daughter she would name her Sorrel no matter what her husband thought. Though now she barely thought about horses or rode them anymore or could even really ever see herself getting married, she still thought Sorrel was a beautiful name for a little redheaded girl.

The horses were still as friendly as Lily remembered and she liked to imagine that the elders at least remembered her. The stallion Willoughby was a handsome horse named after one of Lily's least favourite Austen character,s but a little too boisterous for her tastes. Whilst the bay mare Muffin had always been too shy causing Lily to choose to ride the beautiful dark palomino, Caspian. She decided to name the adorable filly Yuri after a character from 'The Silver Brumby'. The four of them finished off Lily's carrots quickly leaving her a little guilty that she hadn't brought more. She petted them, stroking her hands down their muzzles and over their manes until they wandered away. Then she sat down and rifling through her bag coming across the creased letter which had almost met the depths of the washing machine. It had arrived the day after the regrettable events of Petunia's recital as though the sender knew just when her spirits were in need of raising and it was creased because she had read it so many times.

Doe,

Recent trips to my library have taught me the following;

deer can adapt to just about any habitat

the area they inhabit is called the 'home range'

deer are excellent swimmers, have a great sense of hearing and night vision

they are herbivores

they also have a four-chambered stomach (that's a lot of vegetation!)

their breeding season is between October and January (hello first term!)

females are known as does and males as stags or bucks

their young are called fawns

fawns are protected by a lack of scent as predators cannot smell them

fawns stay with their mother for 1-2 years

the life expectancy of deer is 20 years

I could do so much in twenty years with you.

Buck

Lily preferred her new nickname to any she had received previously (Ginger, Annie, Rusty, Strawberry Shortcake, Torch, Evans, Red and even Wendy). She had written an immediate reply, but waited almost an entire week to send it and it seemed that he was doing the same. Regardless, looking forward to hearing from James Potter wasn't a sensation that she was accustomed to. That was how she knew for certain that she was having an utterly abysmal summer. She put the letter away and tried to draw the horses, but after a few failed attempts she realised that her horses were coming out too squat in stature and lithe in shape with tiny muzzles and hooves. She slammed her notebook shut and threw it in her bag with her pencils, the letter and the rolled up blanket. She took one last look at the horses wishing her life was so simple and then headed to the library, intent upon finding a solution for ridding her of a ridiculous preoccupation with...deer.

A/N: Did you like this? What were your childhood nicknames? I wish you all well and love and adore you for reading.

(Mine was Minnie because I was so skinny and because my first name is Jasmin. I much prefer it to Jaz at any rate.)