Chapter 2 — Sunday Bloody Sunday

If the sun was shining brightly in a roomy Yorkshire home, it was nothing compared to the blazing heat it was producing in the centre of London. If you stuck your head out of the back window, you might just hear the faint laughter and screaming of young boys in the distance. This had confused the young girl who was currently looking out since a very early age. So as she looked out of her window to try and where the faint screams were coming from that sunny Sunday morning she was not quite as shocked, as one would expect to see an owl flutter past. What made her even more surprised was the fact that the owl disappeared the moment she blinked. She sighed. She'd always seen these strange things, so it was not special to her at all to notice an owl flying past.

Sighing she made her way out of her roomy bedroom ad into the kitchen. Her sister was sitting there braiding her hair whilst munching on lettuce.

"You should eat some real food Petty, you're getting too skinny."

"What and get as fat as you are Lily? I'd rather give pancakes a pass and go on a date with that new boy mmm he's nice."

Lily sighed again; nothing was going right lately. Her sister was being specially horrible to her, and although her mother told her it was just her sisters hormones Lily couldn't help but wonder if puberty was the sole reason for her sisters wicked temper or not. She was only 9 but far to mature for her age, as her father kindly put it. This was the reason that Petunia was so cold towards her sister. She couldn't stand being 5 years older and 5 times as stupid.

Lily left the kitchen, with an ice-lolly followed by an evil stare from her older sister who was obviously craving for one herself, but had her figure to worry about. In Lily's opinion she needed to put on some weight, as her currently bony figure made her have amount twice the amount of neck that any normal person would have. Still mumbling to herself as she left the house, Lily picked up a Barbie rucksack that her parents had given her for Christmas.

It was July so her parents let her go down to the play-park at the end of the road by herself. They knew that she would be under the watchful eye of Antiona Figg the old grumpy lady who lived in the last house of Grimmauld place.

Lily did not like Grimmauld very much, the houses were very close together, quite dark and stuffy, and her back garden was very small indeed. What she did enjoy about it was the park at the end of the road, an extraordinary thing to exist in a London street. What was also unusual about the road, and what made Lily appreciate it even more was that there was no number 12. Along one side the houses went 9, 11, 13. And across the miniature road they went 8, 10, 14 there were any theories trying to explain why this was, but none seemed true or realistic. Lily found this brilliant, and fascinating.

She walked past numbers 10 and 14 as she made her way to the park, and heard the voices a little more clearly than she had ever done before. She spun round in an instant and out of the corner of her eye she saw a hand disappearing into the space where number 12 would have been, had there been room between numbers 10 and 14. She frowned, however walked on.

***

Several hours later while sitting on the swing that Mr Figg had tied to the nearby tree, mainly for his ditzy daughter, Arabella, Lilly saw her mother's car drive past the park — her parents were home, that means tea will be ready very soon. Deciding to go home and listen to some of her records on her Dad's Gramophone before dinner, Lily lazily made her way along the path and onto the miniature road along which the gloomy houses stood day in, day out.

Lily could hear an Elvis record being played in number 10 and Petunia's voice was audible from an upstairs window, singing along to Elvis with her friend ooohh-ing and aah-ing as she sang. The Smyth's were having another argument about what to call their baby. Lily thought this was stupid, Mrs Smyth was only 2 months pregnant, they had plenty time to decide.

In the place where number 12 should have been, which was only a metre wide, sat a fat tabby cat, which Lily assumed belonged to the Figgs (their daughter Arabella who was about 18 and still lived at home, was obsessed with cats). She tabby meowed at Lily.

"Shoo, you fat cat! Shoo!"

"That's not very nice is it now Lillian?" replied a voice, from behind the cat.

But no one was there.

Lily double checked, she wasn't usually scared, and the voice had so far failed to frighten her, she was guessing that it belonged the new boy Petty was talking about in the morning, and he was merely trying to scare her.

"OW! JAMES! STOP IT, IT TICKLES!"

Of all things that could have scared her it was the scream. Although it sounded distant, Lily thought that it cam from right in front of her. Yelling she raced down the road and into the house.

"Well done mate, exactly what you wanted to do!"

"Shut up!"

"Hmmm What I want to know is how she heard us? I know your house is unplottable, but doesn't it have Muggle repelling charms placed on it? I'm sure she wasn't screaming at the cat."

"Well it must mean that either the charms aren't working properly, or she's a witch."

"No way!"

A flash of lightning split the sky, and seconds later the two invisible boys heard a crash of thunder, and their footsteps could be heard trotting into an invisible house. Their Voices faded away and there was once more no sign of Number 12 Grimmauld place ever existing.

Lily hadn't heard the conversation between the boys because she had bolted across the street and into number 7 - her house — where it was safe and warm and dinner was already steaming and on the table. She sat down on her usual seat and soon forgot all about the strange voices and the cat and the mystery of number 12. She sat watching the Flinstones on TV whilst cuddling the teddy bear her granny had given her, and listening to the storm raging outside. She yawned and was soon in a deep sleep.

Little did she know that she would be hearing a lot of the voices that she had heard in the imaginary number 12 Grimmauld Place in a couple of years time, and forever after.