The Transition: Year Four At Hogwarts
By: CNJ
PG-13
2:
Lily:
"Hiiiiii!" "Hello!" My friends and I hugged in a huge three-person embrace later on that afternoon. It was so good seeing my dear friends again!
"Hello..." Mum called from her room. Dad waved as he headed upstairs. My friends said hello to my parents, then arm-in-arm, we went into the kitchen for a snack. As we ate and drank, we talked about various things we'd done over the summer holiday.
I saw how my friends were growing. I guess Amelia was thinking the same thing because she commented that it looked like I'd grown.
"I have?" I looked down at myself. If the truth be told, yes, I guess I was growing. Not really much taller, but I could see that my breasts are growing. I pressed my loose red shirt against me and my friends and I grinned.
"Well, Zara's got it," Amelia sipped her tea.
"What..." I started, then it dawned on me. "Your period? Oh, congratulations, Zara!" I stood halfway and hugged her. Now if my turn would come soon...
"You'll be getting yours soon," Zara told me. I nodded. It's so hard to believe we're teenagers. We talked about what we were expecting for the upcoming year.
"I heard from my sisters that the work gets harder and you get a lot more homework and exams," Zara told us. She has two older sisters, one who's in college and another who's about to be a sixth year, and a younger one, who's going into her second year at Hogwarts.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Dad and I will be back in a couple of hours," Mum told us after a dinner of Shepherd's Pie.
"What about...?" I asked, my stomach tightening a bit at the thought of us being alone with Petunia. I guess Mum could tell because she reassured me that Petunia was out with Vernon and said she wouldn't be back until late. She stroked my red hair, kissed me and left with Dad.
My friends and I had a dessert of lemon pudding and played Exploding Snap for an hour, then headed upstairs to my room. There, we talked and sanded the small wooden table I'd brought with child-minding money. It has small drawers where I can keep books and things for school. When it was time to shellac the table, I figured that we should get some more old newspapers to spare the rug. So I headed down to where Mum and Dad keep the papers...in the cellar.
As I grabbed the papers and wadded them up, I glanced down by the door and saw something strange...like a loose tile on the floor by the door. Walking over, I saw that yes, it was a loose tile and under it were rather strange-looking leaves. They were flat and widely spaced. They also had an odd smell. Then there in a pitlike hole, I saw a bizarre-looking long thing that resembled a cigarette holder.
"What in bloody hell..." I muttered, getting an odd feeling about it. Could it be something of Petunia's? I wondered, turning the stick around in my hand. I decided to let Mum and Dad figure it out and was starting to put it back when I heard a garble of voices and footsteps coming down the stairs. Mum...Dad? I thought at first, but a shriek startled me and I whirled around to see Petunia and Vernon glaring at me from the foot of the stairs.
"Just how did you find my private hole, you little freaky sneak?!?!" Petunia bellowed, her eyes bulging. I backed away instinctively.
"Was getting newspapers..." I said shakily. "And saw it by accident...honestly, I wasn't snooping..." I was shaking and looking for a quick way out.
"Sure you weren't, you creep!" Petunia advanced toward me threateningly and I started to shake. "This is what I put up with from this little weird creature, Vernon, day in and day out!" Vernon also came closer, a cold grin on his face. I tried to dart around them, but Petunia pushed me back into the shelves and I let out a yelp as my shoulder hit the edge of a shelf and several pots crashed to the floor. "You'll pay for this, you spaghetti-haired nosy little brat...and don't think you can snitch to your mummy and daddy. Vernon and I need to shake you about some, so maybe you'll keep your Irish frog nose out of others' business!"
"Should we leave her on the roof or in the fuse box?" Vernon laughed cruelly. Petunia pushed me again and this time I fell over, crashing into a shelf. Petunia stepped over me, stamping on my right foot and my left shoulder, her eyes so full of hatred that I shivered again. Desperately, I tried to turn over and sit up, but Petunia kicked me down again. A howl escaped me and then another one. The next few minutes became a blur, then suddenly, Petunia and Vernon vanished and were on the ground.
I sat up in a daze and looked up to see my friends. "Oh...Lily!" Amelia's eyes welled with tears and she ran over and helped me up and hugged me. "Are you hurt?"
"I...d-don't think...badly..." I managed to stammer out. Petunia and Vernon sat up and I started to shake again.
"Don't. Touch. Her. Again." Zara pointed out her wand to them. They shrank back.
"Let's get out of here," Petunia muttered. "We don't need to spend another minute with her bizarre friends."
"Yes, since we married this afternoon..." Vernon added and they ran out the cellar door so fast it was as if they'd apparated. In a daze, my mind took in that they must have eloped and were now married. Zara then came over and hugged me. Slowly, we walked upstairs. Just as we were headed up to the bedroom, Mum and Dad came home.
"Lily, dear, what happened?" Mum eyed me with concern. Just seeing her brought tears to my eyes and I leaned on her. Dad's arms came around me too.
"Petunia was threatening her," Amelia told them.
"She and Vernon had her on the floor and were kicking her!" Zara put in indignantly.
"Oh my God..." Dad muttered. We went into the kitchen and Mum put on some tea and bit by bit, Amelia and Zara told my parents about the scene in the cellar. I cried on and off.
"They eloped," Amelia told them as we drank our tea.
"They...what?" Mum asked.
"Eloped...this afternoon," I told them. "Said something about getting out of here..." My mind was still in a mad whirlwind like storm clouds.
"Good riddance..." Dad mumbled.
"Maybe they'll be gone then," Mum added. "It's high time Petunia moved out of here since she's nineteen, although marrying isn't my idea of doing it. Maybe she'll learn some responsibility. "
Just then an owl tapped on the window and Zara went to get it. "It's letters for all of us about our school supplies...and another letter for me...and Amelia..." she finished, sounding puzzled. She sat after passing out our school notes. Mostly it was telling us what books and supplies to buy for our fourth year.
"I hope the Ministry understands that Amelia and I were doing it out of our friend's safety!" Zara told us.
"What is it?" I asked.
"I got one too." Amelia stated. "A note warning us to be careful about underage magic."
"What magic?" Mum asked.
Amelia and Zara looked at each other. "We momentarily stunned Vernon and Petunia with our wands to get her to stop hounding Lily," Amelia explained.
"I see," Mum nodded. "It sounds like a good reason. I'm sure they make allowances for emergencies." We spent most of the rest of the evening planning our trip to Diagon Alley to get our supplies.
I went to bed along with my friends, but it was a long time before I went to sleep. Before they drifted off, I thanked them for saving me from Petunia and Vernon's clutches.
"Anytime..." Amelia and Zara said softly. I'm so lucky to have them as two of my dearest friends. I thought over a lot of things, but one thing I thought over and silently accepted in my mind was that yes, Petunia was actually married to Vernon. Mum had rung the marriage license council and it was confirmed that Petunia and Vernon had married in a quick wedding and Petunia was going by Dursley now. I just hoped they'd move out of here for good.
I also mulled over how now we were growing. Soon I'll be wearing a bra; in fact, Mum had mentioned buying me some when we got the Diagon Alley. Also we'd be getting more books, since there'd be more required reading for year four. I had the feeling that this coming year would be a year of many changes and we'd see a lot more than we'd seen in the first three years combined. I felt quite a bit older tonight. Almost fourteen, I reflected, slowly drifting off.
More later!