Only One Life to Love You
Author's Note: Well, back for chapter five. I tried really hard to find a reasonably original idea for Petunia's hatred for Lily. I hate that whole, over-used, witch-hating thing. Plus, someone told me that I needed to come up with something better. Well, this was the best I could come up with, both staying true to what I've written already and to the book/movie's view of their relationship, or rather, lack of one.
Just a few notes for you before I start:
1.LESLIE HOWARD IS A MAN!!! For those of you who don't know, he played Ashley in
movie classic "Gone with the Wind."
2.You can find bios of all the incredible old actors/actresses mentioned here at- http://www.reelclassics.com
3.Lily's mom's hair- http://www.hairarchives.com/private/archive/petal/petal.htm
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If you want the rainbow,
You must put up with the rain.
~Dolly Parton
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Chapter 4- Doctor's Office
Lily threw her things on her big, comfy bed and looked around her room. It was almost painful to see all of the stuff from her life before Hogwarts. Three of her walls were dark blue, but the wall that had her bed against it was painted plaid in shades of purple. Her sister Petunia had laughed cruelly when she had seen that wall.
"Plaid!" she had shrieked. "What kind of loser paints their walls plaid. Oh wait… your kind!" Her voice had been malicious and slightly jealous. She had sneered and flounced out.
She had posters of Queen, Led Zepplin and The Beatles pasted all over her walls, not to mention Clint Eastwood, she'd seen his film "Kelly's Heroes" about four million times, plus her favorite old movie idols like Joan Fontaine, Virginia Mayo, Clark Gable and Leslie Howard.
She sighed and opened her rather bulky armoire. A sea of black and purple came rolling out at her. Damn, meant to clean that up. She thought.
Lily managed to extract herself from her clothing and began digging for something clean to wear. She selected a pair of purple cord pants and a sheerish black peasant top with huge angel sleeves. She gazed up at the picture of beautiful, statuesque Joan Fontaine that hung by her bed and sighed with longing. Lily thought that she was one of the most beautiful woman to ever live, next to Grace Kelly of course. Lily had secretly always dreamed of being like her.
Lily shrugged and brushed out her still extremely long hair. Lurlene's spell had chopped it off from her knees to the middle of her behind. Lily liked the change, it was easier to take care of. She clipped the blood-red mass back from her face with sparkly, purple clippies and sprayed it with some mini-mist instant shampoo.
She rolled on some cherry kissing potion lip gloss and sprayed herself with some Enjoli and headed out, leaving the rest of her clothing laying in a heap on the bedroom floor.
"Lily!!! Are you ready!?"
"I'm coming mother! Keep it in your pants!" She yelled, barreling own the stairs.
"Hurry up! We'll be late!"
"I said! I'm COMING!" Lily's mom never got the picture, it was always nag, nag, nag.
"Well, get it moving. We can't keep Dr. Stillman waiting, he won't be happy."
Lily trudged into the kitchen, her mother was slathering pieces of bread with PB and J. She looked like a model on the front cover of Good Housekeeping. Rosemary Evans was dressed in a 50's style flared, polka-dotted dress, complete with crisp white apron. Her strawberry blonde hair was pulled up into an elegant petal coif. She had her hands submerged in a sink of sudsy water.
"Hello dear, are you ready?"
"Sure mom, whatever…"
"Don't be so negative dearie."
"Sorry mom, can't become Susie Homemaker overnight just to please you." Lily said sarcastically.
Lily couldn't see the look on her mother's face, but if she could have, she would have been just a little nicer. Rosemary closed her eyes shut, trying to calm herself down. Sometimes Lily could be so damn difficult. Rose shook her head and sighed, going ahead with her dish-washing.
Before Lily could dish out any more sarcasm, Richard Evans came in, looking as jovial as ever. "Well sweetie, you ready?"
"Yes, dad."
"Let's go then!" Richard went to kiss his wife good-bye and hustled Lily out the door.
***
Lily waited impatiently in the doctor's waiting room. She felt like she was going blind. Whiteness all around. The walls were white, the floors and ceilings were white, the chairs were white, the desks and tables were white. The nurse was pale, blond and dressed in white. Worst of all, everything was immaculately clean.
"Dad… can we just forget this and let me go back to school. This room is making my head hurt." Lily whined.
"Now Lily, I know you don't fell well, but please, it will make both of us, your mom and me, fell better. Please humor us, sweeting, just once?"
Lily squinched her eyes closed. She could feel a migraine coming on. Her parents were so paranoid sometimes. Always getting on her back, telling her what was best. Sometimes she wished she were an orphan, just so she could grow up unobstructed. My life is one bloody guilt trip. Is it my fault Mum's unbalanced? No… it's not. Goddamn Petunia, always on me, stupid parents, always worried. "Are you alright, sweetie?", "Do you need something, darling?". Gag me with a spoon…
"Whatever, Dad." she sighed, aggravated.
Lily's dad gave her a pained, sideways look. "Lily… can't you be a little more agreeable? Would it kill you to do that?" he asked quietly.
Lily glared at him and started to say something. A door opened. "LILY EVANS!" she heard her name called from behind her. She turned and saw her doctor standing in an open, and very white, door. Lily shook her head in exasperation and followed the extremely black doctor through the door, her father on her heels.
Once Doctor Stillman had them all seated, he folded his fingertips together and rested his chin lightly on his hand. "Well Lily. I heard you had a little episode at school a couple of weeks ago. Can you tell me what happened?"
Lily studied the doctor carefully. He looked rather odd in this office. He contrasted starkly with everything around him. He was like a little black ant on a huge white marble floor. She shrugged. "I dunno." she answered, being purposely difficult.
"Come on Lily, you must remember something about it. Or maybe your friends told you what happened?"
She shrugged. "Maybe."
"Lily, I need you to tell me…"
"What if I don't want to?" she challenged.
"Lily…" her father's voice held a controlled warning.
"Dad…" she shot back sarcastically.
"Lily, quite this. Just answer the man, he's trying to help you!"
"I don't need to be helped. I want to leave. I want to go back to school!"
"Oh, so you can faint again. I don't think so! Now answer him!"
Lily crossed her arms and put her chin to her chest, staring down at her feet.
"Lily… we are not leaving until we get this resolved!"
Lily sighed and looked up at the doctor. "I was feeling bad, I was on my way to the nurse, I fainted, I was out for like two weeks. That's what happened! Alright! Happy?"
"Can you describe how you felt bad?"
"My head hurt, my joints felt like they were scraping together. I was light-headed, faint and achy. I felt like throwing up. My moods were changing horribly. I didn't fell like myself anymore."
The doctor nodded vaguely, he was obviously absorbed in his thoughts. He flipped through Lily's file, which he had pulled from a nearby file cabinet upon entering the room. "You are taking… Zoloft. Are you not?"
"Yeah, so?"
"Hm…." he frowned, going back to his quite contemplation.
"So…….?" Lily's father asked impatiently.
Doctor Stillman looked up at him. "Oh… right. Good news."
Lily and her father looked on expectantly.
"I know what's wrong with you. At least I think I do." He smiled.
Lily's father looked immensely relieved. "Good to hear…. So, what is it?"
The doctor turned to Lily. "You've been feeling better, have you not?"
Lily nodded.
"How long has it been since you've taken your medication?"
"About two weeks… " comprehension dawned across her face. "oh…"
"I believe you've been afflicted with a very rare, very violent condition called Aethracassitis. It's caused by a combination of side-effects from the medication and extreme stress. It usually hits very swiftly, and stays as long as you are on the medicine. This condition makes your muscles weaker and it gives you such utterly horrid mood-swings that it's like, as you so put it, you're not even yourself anymore."
Lily was immensely relieved. So that's why I've been so strange around Potter later. "Well… good to know…"
"So… I will write you a prescription for Desyrel, or more commonly referred to as Trazodone. Hopefully, it will control your depression and not cause a relapse."
Richard Evans nodded. "Well then, when will this prescription be available?"
"We…" Dr. Stillman began. "I could give about two weeks worth right now, you can send Lily back to school and pick it up later. Or we can have it ready in about two days and you and Lily can pick it up then."
"I'm going back to school. " Lily said stubbornly.
"We'll pick it up in a couple of days." Lily's father answered, looking at her pointedly.
"But…." Lily whined.
"We'll pick it up in two days." He gave Lily a don't-start-with-me-young-lady look.
Lily sighed loudly and crossed her arms. Damnit! I don't want to be stuck with Petunia for the next two days…she thought bitterly.
She was so lost in her own sulky thoughts that she didn't even notice her father rise and got o the door. "Lily! Come on, girl!"
Lily looked up. "Oh… sorry Dad." She followed him out the door.
***
Later that night, Lily was laying on her bed, thoroughly engrossed in Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca. She had already read that book about a million times and the paperback was dog-eared, rumpled and tea-stained. She had just gotten to the part where the "second Mrs. De Winter" dresses as Rebecca for the costume ball, (She always thought it strange that the book's heroine was never credited with a name.) when Petunia came into her room.
"What the hell do you want Petunia?" Lily asked, idly.
"Don't take that tone with me you little brat."
"If you are just going to insult me, then you can leave." Lily looked at her haughtily over the edge of the book.
"I want to ask you something."
"Then ask it AND GET THE HELL OUT!" Lily was getting extremely hacked off at her.
"Why are you such a little bitch to Mom and Dad?"
"What did you just say to me?"
"I asked you why the fuck you have to always be so rude to Mom and Dad. All they ever did was try to help and support you and you continually disrespect them!"
"You want to know why…?" Lily asked, her voice cold and calm.
"Yes… I want to know why." Petunia stared at her defiantly.
"Because you people ARE ALWAYS ON MY FUCKING CASE! Why the hell can't you just LEAVE ME ALONE!"
"You are so ungrateful… We had a perfect family before you got here. Nice and normal, no depression and no suicide attempts. Then you came a long and FUCKED EVERYTHING UP!"
The two girls were yelling at each other, Lily had abandoned her novel and was face to face with her sister.
"It's not my fault Mom can't handle life! It's not my fault that she slit her wrists! You can't blame that one me!"
"It was your fault! You told her that you hated her, that she was a lousy mother and that if she had any respect for others she'd drop off the face of the Earth! It was your fault Lily! I almost lost the only person I care about because you're a spiteful little bitch!"
Lily was quiet. She remembered that night. She had been 11 years old and her mother had told her to go take their golden retriever, Mab, out for a walk. Lily had been reading a book and was intensely hacked off at her mother for making her stop. When she had just walked the dog down the street and back, her mother had told her that she had to take Mab out longer. Lily had gotten even madder and had started yelling at her.
"I told you so…" Petunia said quietly, reading Lily's expression Petunia shook her head and left.
Lily sat down on her bed, numb. It had been her fault. She'd never seen it the way Petunia did. She had always thought her mother was the stupid one… it was her fault… Her mother had almost died because of her…
Lily curled up into a little ball and hugged a pillow to her chest. Tears rolled down her cheeks. I almost killed my mother… she thought, angry at herself. I have to apoologize to her… I'll do it first thing tomorrow… Lily closed her eyes and drifted off into a fitful sleep.
***
AN: Well? Like? No Like? I need feedback!!!!!! Please review! What'd you think of the Petunia/Lily thing?
Next chapter: Lily has a confrontation with her mom, and she heads off back to school.
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