DISCLAIMER: As everyone knows I own none of these characters.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Hi everyone! It's been a while since I've last posted but I'm here dropping a one-shot I wrote for a class as a sign that I'm still alive. Thanks for being patient, reading, and sticking around!
King Cross Station was a hubbub of activity: raven colored train whistles went off with a shrill reeee, people in long woolen peacoats prepping for the September chill were yelling out their farewells as people boarded trains, and pattering of heeled shoes against concrete could be heard as their owners rushed to make their train doors before the allotted time on their ticket was past. So perhaps that's why this group stood out so strongly against those in the rush of King's Cross. The group was a mishmash of people and energy: two bewildered looking adults who were nervously scanning the crowds and two very different children in varying states of excitement.
The first child appeared to be the oldest but was the one who hung back the farthest. Her willowy figure was hunched down and her thin shoulders were folded in on itself, like her crossed arms. A jutting pout stuck out from her face and her brilliant blue eyes were icy; every fiber of her being radiated how adamantly she did not want to be here. However, she was being dragged along by her father, who was also tall and thin like his eldest, but his eyes were a warm green unlike hers. In fact, those eyes matched perfectly with the practically skipping fiery haired girl who was outpacing her family by leagues in her eagerness. Every once and a while though she looked back and seemed to shy away, a moment of her excitement lost, before looking forward towards the trains and regaining a broad smile.
Today was the day.
Today Lily J. Evans was to finally discover the odd school that had sent her a thick parchment letter in that envelope with green ink. She knew it had been coming. Though she did doubt it for a while, even though she trusted Snape. It just seemed too fantastical- a school for magic! Not the boring school she had known before with its silly arithmetic and grammar rules. Magic. Professors to teach her how to fly and transform and teleport and glow and all sorts of wonders!
Lily looked back at her parents and once again spotted her sister, who had managed to shrink to almost her height even though Petunia usually stood a clean 4 inches taller than her.
…Maybe they would teach her how to make an infinite cookie jar that could make mom's chocolate chunk cookies. Maybe that way she could make Petunia not be mad with her anymore.
Lily already knew she was special, knew a long time ago, but things had been different back then. Petunia and Lily had still gotten along then.
As Lily watched Petunia glare out at the trains, the pedestrians, the rolling carts of luggage- anywhere but her, Lily almost wished she wasn't different. Almost.
Lily adored her older sister who was beautifully willowy, sharp tongued, and proud. Sure, she could be harsh but what sibling wasn't? It was part of the deal, attack each other but protect each other from outsiders.
That deal had started shifting four years ago though. It started shifting that day Petunia had been sitting at the dinner table with Lily, lamenting that they couldn't eat cookies for dinner. So, naturally, Lily had been eyeing the cookie jar, wondering if her mother would really mind just one cookie being given to Petunia before dinner. Just as she was planning how to convince her mother the cookie was suddenly floating out of the jar and zooming towards Petunia's plate.
Even though Lily was young she knew something was odd. Cookies just didn't decide to fly at people after all. As Petunia reflexively caught the cookie in her hand Lily had begun to wonder then, what was it that had changed the rules?
She got her answer not even a day later when her mother had been upset about father accidentally mowing down one of her flowers. Lily had felt sorry for father who in turn looked so sorry about mowing mom's flowers that he looked ready to cry (mother's flowers were almost as important to her as Petunia and Lily were) and for the flower whose mangled petals of its white star had been shredded black with dirt. She wished that it could somehow all be fixed, but she knew things didn't work like that.
Then it did. Just like the cookie, the flower started breaking the rules. It sprung back up, stitching back together the broken strings of its stem. Its leaves turned a healthy green and its petals a pure, unstained white.
Lily didn't even know she had been concentrating on it.
She also hadn't noticed her mother stopping her argument with dad. Hadn't noticed mom slowly kneel down, eyeing the repaired blooms like they were going to disappear any moment. Hadn't noticed her mother's sky-blue eyes look at her then at the flowers Lily had been focused on. Her mother's fingers grasped her shoulders, jarring her out of her laser focus.
"Lily," her mother had said slowly, eyes now boring into her daughter's spring green ones. "Lily, did you do that?"
Her mother had looked at her unwaveringly, blue eyes swimming with some unreadable emotion. Lily knew it would be unfair to lie. "I think so," she whispered.
Mom looked at dad for a long moment and then back at her. Her grip on Lily's shoulder tightened, "Lily, don't do that in front of other people."
"Why? Is it wrong?" Lily looked back at the now healthy flower. She didn't think it was wrong.
"No Lil," her dad's voice answered her this time. "It's just that if other people saw," he fell silent for a moment. "It's special what you did Lil. Mommy and Daddy don't know anyone who can do that and we're just worried that people might take you away."
Lily didn't want to leave. Lily swore never to show anyone else.
"I know," Petunia had blurted out at the playground. "I saw what you did in the garden."
Lily looked up into her sister's face from the rubbery swing seat and felt Petunia's towering shadow block out some of the sun's overbearing heat. "Know what?"
"Don't lie! Sister's don't lie to each other Lily," Petunia's lips stuck even father over her already horsy teeth, which had grown diagonally from sucking her thumb for too long. "I saw what you did to mom's flowers." She paused for a moment and her eyes which had been dark from pouting suddenly lightened, "And the cookie! That was you too, wasn't it?"
She thought back to what dad had told her not even an hour ago and wondered if her sister was included in anyone else. After a moment she decided that no, Petunia was family. She wasn't just anyone else.
She nodded.
Petunia's face broke out into a smile. "So, if you can do it, I can do it too right?" She leapt into the swing seat next to Lily and Lily felt the coolness from her sister's shadow disappear. "Tell me how to do it!"
Lily tried to explain the sensation, the desperate wishing so hard that it just happens. She saw her sister's long face screw up in concentration, saw her fingers go white from clasping the hot metal chains links of the swing, but no matter how long Lily explained or how much Petunia thought- she couldn't do it. The sun started going lower in the sky and Lily knew dad would be here soon. She wondered if she had been right to tell Petunia.
"We can try again tomorrow okay?" Lily dragged her shoe tips into the woodchipped dirt, creating a dark smeared rut in the smooth ground till the swing slowed to a stop. She stood up and looked back at her still grounded sister who had never raised her legs to swing, who had not challenged her today to see who could go higher like they usually do. Lily didn't look back in time to see the dismay that had flitted across her older sister's face.
Petunia nodded, "Tomorrow."
But tomorrow didn't fix it either. Nor did the next. Or the next. Or the next.
A whole week passed by before she finally learned why she could break the rules and Petunia couldn't and the answer came from the rude, long haired boy with sallow skin- Snape.
Snape had called Petunia a 'muggle' and though Lily didn't know what it had meant, she knew it meant different.
She didn't like the way he said it. Didn't like the way Petunia's long face had drooped even lower. Didn't like the way her sea eyes had watered and gone dull. She had hated him then. She grabbed Petunia's hand and started towards home, acting as the protector for once in their sibling dynamic. The little boy in oversized clothes stood frozen and didn't follow them, but the damage was already done. Lily had barely even turned the corner before Petunia seemed to snap out of it and had snatched her hands out of Lily's.
"Freak," she had hissed. "That's what he called you." Tears spilled out of her eyes and dripped off her long lashes. "You're the freak!" Her voice trilled and wobbled. Her blue eyes were still dark but were focused on Lily. Her crooked teeth bit her thin lips. She whirled around and sprinted home, her white trainers smacking the pavement with a racing and rhythmic thud, thud, thud. It's frantic pace matched Lily's heart rate.
Lily desperately hoped, wished with all her might that this- whatever this was- could be fixed. That Petunia would come back and she wouldn't be crying- Lily had never seen her cry before. Not like that.
Lily wished and wished. Wished harder than she had ever before.
But the rules didn't change.
Lily looked towards the maroon brick pillar in front of her. The signs attached to the top left and right of it said 10 and 9 respectively. In between the two edges was Platform 9¾, the first step into a new section of her life. She looked back at her sister who was glaring at the floor. She tested out on her tongue the name of the school that she was going towards, "Hogwarts." It felt strange and new, but warm. It felt right.
She turned away from her sister and stepped through the pillar.
As she stepped she just missed Petunia looking up and watching the silver soles of her Mary-Janes slip through the stone.