Disclaimer: Betcha you can guess.
This chapter is dedicated to JKR, because without her, I would have positively too much spare time, and nothing to fill it with.
Chapter Four- He killed the kid!
"The truth is rarely pure and never simple."
-Oscar Wilde
Lily had flopped down in a most ungraceful way on the sofa and was about to turn on the TV, when she heard a noise outside the window. She turned around, stuck her nose against the glass, and looked down the hill to see where the noise was coming from. What she saw was Susan, running up the hill, full-force, screaming her name like a banshee. Thinking something might be wrong, Lily ran to the front door and pulled it open just as Susan reached the house.
"Suze? What's wrong? Is Aunt Lucy hurt?"
Susan's eyes were as wide as tennis balls, and she seemed to be hyperventilating a bit.
"Lily! I'm a witch!" she shouted, and ran headfirst into Lily, hugging her, nearly knocking her down with the force of the impact.
Lily looked amazed for a moment, but then she started to think, as Lily was prone to do in excess, especially in strange situations.
"How do you know, Suze? Aren't you only ten?"
Susan opened her mouth, but then closed it after a moment, with a concerned look on her face.
"I don't know, Lily. Mom just told me so."
Lily was very confused, and that wasn't something she was used to. At all. So, she decided to get some answers.
"I'll be right back, Suze. Get yourself a cookie from the kitchen; they're fresh- Trisha baked them just this morning" Lily said calmly, and when Susan had entered the house, she started walking down the hill to see what was going on.
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James slurped the last of the tomato soup out of his bowl, shoved the remaining half of his grilled-cheese sandwich in his mouth, stood up, brushed the crumbs off of his shirt, and pushed his way through the swinging kitchen doors. Having just finished his lunch, he was in a hurry to go find Sirius so they could talk about their...
Idea -Yeah, that's it, idea-
That they had gotten when they first arrived at the farm. He lazily pushed against the doors, but found that they simply wouldn't open. He rubbed his eyes and tried again, but no avail. It was almost like the doors were pushing back. He tried one last time, this time deciding to tackle them with all his weight. He backed up about five feet, and started to run towards the doors. Right before he got to them, though, they swung open to reveal a small girl that he recognized as Susan on the other side, her eyes as wide as tennis balls. In the split second before they crashed, James tried to slow down, but it was no good- she was too close, and the smooth tile floor offered no traction whatsoever. He closed his eyes, and...
The next thing they knew, they were both on the floor in a tangle of limbs. James, scared to death that he was going to crush her, jumped up and away from Susan, who was lying on the floor spread-eagled, looking rather unconscious. James started hyperventilating.
"I killed the kid... I killed the kid... I killed the kid..."
Sirius, who had gotten tired of waiting for James, decided to go and find him. The first thing he saw when he rounded the corner was James, pacing erratically back and forth, tugging on the ends of his hair.
"I killed the kid... I killed the kid..."
Sirius was very concerned for his friend. Apparently, he had gone completely psycho, and was in desperate need of some help. Sirius started to walk towards him, until he put his foot down on something rather squishy. He looked down, just as he heard James squeak, to see his rather large foot smashing a tiny little hand. He yelped and jumped backwards.
"YOU KILLED THE KID!" he bellowed at James, who backed into a corner.
Patricia came in to see who was causing all the ruckus, took one look at the two boys and Susan, and high-tailed it to the main house.
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Lily knocked quietly on her Aunt's bedroom door, even though it was open, because her mother had always taught her that that was proper manners. Lucy turned around from making her bed, saw Lily, and smiled.
"Lily, come on in." She smiled, and patted the bed next to her. Lily hopped on the edge of the bed next to Lucy, her feet dangling over the edge, even though she was seventeen. How she hated being short.
"Susan told me that she's a witch." Lily said, hoping that her aunt would realize the unspoken question.
Lucy sighed and fell back on the bed, blinking up at the ceiling. "Yes, we had an interesting visit from a Charil today. A rather cheeky one, at that." Lucy added, one side of her mouth twisting up into a smile.
"Except, she's only ten." Lily said slowly.
"Well, I was under the impression that things worked a little differently sometimes on opposite sides of the ocean. Perhaps the magic schools here start earlier." Lucy theorized. Lily bit her lip.
"Aunt Luce, how did you know what a Charil was?" Lily asked, now thoroughly puzzled. Lucy closed her eyes for a moment and took a deep breath. Her niece always was just a tad too smart.
"Well, Lily, I got top marks in Care of Magical Creatures class." Lucy said slowly, wondering if she was doing this the right way. She had never thought that she would be the one to teach Lily about their family's heritage.
"Care of Mag... Hogwarts? Witch?" The words were just tumbling out of Lily's mouth without her consent, and she rather disliked it. She didn't like not being in control.
"Yes, Lily. Our family was pureblood- not as old as the Malfoys or the like, but still a wizarding family. I went to Hogwarts when I was eleven, like everyone expected, but your mother never got her letter. That's when we knew for sure- she was a squib."
"But... why didn't anyone tell me?" Lily demanded, her temper flaring. How dare her family keep something so important from her? From Susan? From all of them?
"Lily, you have to understand- the prejudices that exist in the wizarding world are... exstensive. I watched as your mother was ridiculed by the community, my friends, her friends, everyone. When we both married muggle men, we realized that the chances of our children, especially hers, had a great chance of being non-magical. So, we decided, we wouldn't tell them about magic, or Hogwarts, or any of it, until –if- they got their letters. That way, if they were non-magical, they wouldn't feel like they were missing anything, or like they were substandard. They would just be normal. They would think of magic as a special gift, not a right or a given."
"And Petunia, and Lavinia?" Lily asked, still working to sort things through in her head.
"Non-magical. Not surprising, since their fathers are muggle. But, you and Susan-"
"Our magical gene showed up. Which wasn't very likely in the first place, since the magic itself is extremely recessive. But 'Tunia and Livi still carry the gene, right?"
Lucy shrugged, not even bothering to try to comprehend that. "Honey, you know more about it than I do."
Lily was just about to ask the next question on her mind, when Trish stuck her head in the doorway, obviously out of breath.
"Sirius killed the kid." Was all she could manage.
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As a consolation gift for Susan and a special treat for the Hogwarts gang, Lucy and her husband, Mike, decided to take the kids out to the county fair the next day. Sirius, James, and Trisha were the most excited, as they had never been to a muggle fair before, and absolutely couldn't wait to experience the phenomena known as "funnel cakes" and "cotton candy", as was apparent when they practically jumped out of the van in the parking lot, climbing over the rest of the people in the too-full van, anxious to be the first ones out, even if the car was still moving.
"So, they just dump sugar into a fan, and it turns it into candy?" James asked Remus, making sure he had the right idea.
"YES already, James!"
"And then they wrap it around a piece of paper?"
"Yeeeees"
"And for those funnel cake things... they pour liquid into a pot, and it..."
"YES!" Lily exclaimed, rolling her eyes. They had explained the process to him about five times in the car, already.
"I want to try a chili-dog" Trisha said matter-of-factly.
"Ew" Audra said in response, wrinkling her nose.
"If you don't experience new things, you'll never grow." Trisha chided.
"You are what you eat" Melinda shot back.
"Play nice with the other kids, Lindy" James teased, jumping out of the way of Melinda's attacking hand.
"Someone has a temper!" he clucked happily.
"He is way too cheerful." Melinda grumbled, crossing her arms.
Sirius, Trisha, and James turned to each other and said at the exact same time, "Chin-up, apricot!"
Susan raised her eyebrows at looked at Lily questioningly. Lily shrugged.
"Oh, it's a Martin Miggs thing..." Remus explained, seeing the confusion. "A bit of an in-joke, really."
Susan grinned, bobbing her head, and stored the phrase in her mind for later use. If there was a magical in-joke out there, she definitely wanted to be a part of it. Maybe, someday, she would be laughing about Martin Miggs with Lily and her friends, instead of just watching them.
"Alright, admission's free on Student day, so you can just walk in those gates over there," Mike explained, pointing to a set of black metal gates. "We'll meet back at the car in-"He checked his watch, "five hours. Alright, scram!" He finished, shooing the kids into the fair with a smile. He wrapped an arm around his wife's waist as they walked into the fair together, already long behind the hoard of teenagers that had just run in the direction of the entrance. Lucy put her hand on her abdomen gently, smiling.
"I think we should tell Susan and Livi tonight." She said determinedly, looking up at Mike to see what he thought.
"It's up to you, Luce. If you want to do it tonight, that's fine with me." He said, glancing down at his wife's midsection and not being able to stop his wide smile.
"It's a boy this time, Luce. I can tell." He said with conviction.
"Oh is it, now? Because I seem to remember you saying that last time, oh, and the time before..."
"Brat" He teased, flicking a ringlet of her coppery hair. She stuck her tongue out at him, and they walked, laughing, into the park.
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Okay, I think it's shorter than usual, but that just seemed like a perfect place to stop. Tell me what you think! What could I do better, what didn't work, etc. I'm never going to get better if I can't figure out what I can improve!
Many thanks to Socra, for giving me tips on the new WB system... (growls at WB, but grins at Socra)
And Callie, for faithfully reviewing every chapter, even though she doesn't have to. huggles
Next chapter: inside the fair. Trisha gets a sugar high, Sirius has an argument with a Carnie and Karen yells at the carousel.
Oh yes, and...
Charil: chair-ill. n. A very smart but ridiculously hard to tame small creature that is found in the Americas, as far north as southern Canada and as far south as Brazil. The official mode of communication of Elizabeth Conrad's School for Young Witches and other magical establishments in the region.
Xo- Laura