Disclaimer: Harry Potter and all related characters belong to J.K. Rowling. I am merely borrowing them.
Author's Note: An interesting tidbit: I found this while I was messing around online, from an interview Rowling gave on August 15, 2004 at the Edinburgh Book Festival.
"Is Aunt Petunia a Squib?
Good question. No, she is not, but—[Laughter]. No, she is not a Squib. She is a Muggle, but—[Laughter]. You will have to read the other books. You might have got the impression that there is a little bit more to Aunt Petunia than meets the eye, and you will find out what it is. She is not a squib, although that is a very good guess. Oh, I am giving a lot away here. I am being shockingly indiscreet."
Apparently I am psychic. Sort of. Haha. Enjoy the chapter!
:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:MUGGLE
Chapter Two: The Rift Widens
Everyone is kneaded out of the same dough but not baked in the same oven. -Yiddish Proverb:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:Dear Petunia,
How's good old St. Mary's? I hope you're learning lots and lots of new things... and I hope you're paying mind to your studies as well! I'm having a wonderful time. I've been sorted into Gryffindor—we're all put in a different house the first night, and would you believe it, the Sorting's done by a hat! All the other girls in my year are quite nice and we get along well. I should say all the other girls in my year in Gryffindor, because some of the Slytherins are a bit nasty.
My classes are loads of fun, even though some of them are very hard. I like Charms the best so far. Professor Flitwick is so funny and very good at what he does. I know it's schoolwork, but still, it's much interesting than the ordinary kind. One of my classes is taught by a ghost. I guess one day he died and didn't realize it, and then just got up and started teaching like nothing had happened.
Write me back about St. Mary's and all the fun you're having there!
Love, Lily
:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:Petunia wadded the letter into a ball and chucked across the room as hard as she could.
"Bit angry, are we?" said one of her roommates, Lucy Edmonds, looking up from her magazine.
"Lily," said Petunia, gritting her teeth. "First she doesn't want to go to St. Mary's, and then she has the gall to tell me that her school is loads better than an ordinary one!"
Lucy raised an eyebrow. "Where exactly does she go, anyway?" she asked curiously, twisting a bit of curly brown hair around a finger.
"It's called Hogwarts," said Petunia, feeling a faint tinge of guilt because really, she wasn't supposed to talk about Lily's school to people who didn't know anything about the wizarding world. "It's got an, er, experimental curriculum."
"I never heard of any school called that," Lucy said, frowning. "And we looked at a lot of them when I was trying to pick one."
"I guess it's new or something," Petunia lied, knowing full well (from listening to Lily tell her absolutely everything about her new school) that Hogwarts was nearly a thousand years old and possibly the oldest school of any kind in the country.
Lucy shrugged. "How weird," she said. "And she wanted that over St. Mary's?"
"Yeah," Petunia muttered. "How weird indeed."
:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:Dear Petunia,
Two Gryffindor boys named James and Sirius played a big prank on the girls today by taking all our underwear and hanging it out on a line from the Gryffindor tower to the Astronomy tower. No one can prove they did it, especially since boys are not supposed to be allowed in the girls' dormitories and the stairs are supposed to turn into a slide if any boy tries to go up it. But everyone knows those two did it. They're the worst troublemakers in our year, and it's a good thing they're good students because otherwise I think they'd be expelled straight off.
Love, Lily
:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:"Hmph," said Petunia, and added another ball of parchment to the pile in her wastebasket.
:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:Dear Petunia,
It's almost the Christmas holiday! I can't wait to come home and see all of you and tell you more about all the things I've been learning. Yesterday we started doing Locomotion Charms and they're quite fun. We've been having races with matchbox cars to practice, but I can't quite figure out why all the non-Muggle folk are so fascinated with them. It's not as if a car is a particularly strange thing, really.
I've been learning how to fly, too, which I forgot to tell you about and I can't think why because it's so much fun. I'm not very good yet, and it's a bit frightening getting up in the air with just a broomstick under you. Some of the boys are very daring fliers, but of course they aren't supposed to be doing things like that yet. I like watching the Quidditch players and hopefully I can fly like that someday! They go so fast and my friend Hallie says that real Quidditch is even faster. I'm rooting for Gryffindor to win, of course.
Why didn't you answer my last letter? Oh, I suppose you're busy with all your studies, but please write when you have the chance. I miss you!
Love, Lily
"I suppose you're busy with all your studies, Petunia!"
:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:Petunia, who in fact was handling her classes rather well, ripped the letter in two and then shredded the pieces. "Gosh, you're really mad about your sister not going here," said Lucy from her bed.
"I'm just mad at how superior she acts," growled Petunia. "She thinks she's all better than us, just because her school is experimental."
"More like just plain mental, I should say," said Lucy.
"I would have to agree," Petunia said, and dropped the confetti of paper into the wastebasket.
:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:Petunia's train got in first at the station, so she waited with her parents outside the barrier to Platform Nine and Three-Quarters.
"So how was school this term, dear?" said Mrs. Evans absently, checking her watch against the clock on the wall.
"Everything went well," said Petunia. "I got high marks on everything, and you wouldn't believe some of the things that happened! Why, Julia Prissoms got herself locked into the lavatory and no one is quite sure why, but she was only wearing her underwear—"
"That's nice, dear," said her mother. "Oh, there's Lily's train now!"
Her parents went through the barrier with a cautious look around; Petunia watched them disappear and did not follow, wondering sourly if she disappeared herself would they even notice? What a thing to have a witch in the family, wasn't it—so much better than a normal girl who, apparently, did not have anything to say worth listening to.
:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:To Petunia's great relief Lily was not allowed to do magic at home, so she couldn't show off any of the strange things she had learned. But she could talk about them—and talk she did. Usually the louder of the two sisters, Petunia found herself pushed from the spotlight and into the background. Bitterly she reasoned that her parents already knew a lot about their boring Muggle world, so of course they would rather hear about the wizarding world—something that they had never dreamed was real.
Though she told herself she was comforted by this reasoning, deep down inside jealousy churned and boiled, festering into anger until she had to bite back acid comments every time Lily walked into a room. Her parents didn't notice (or at least didn't say anything about it if they did) but Lily soon got the hint. For a while she left Petunia alone, and then finally on the last night of Christmas holiday pushed open the door to her older sister's room.
"Go away," snapped Petunia when she saw who it was.
"What did I do?" Lily said, not budging.
"What?" queried Petunia innocently.
"You've been ignoring me the whole time we've been home," said Lily, crimson creeping up her cheeks. "And you glare at me whenever I come in. If you're going to be mad at me then at least tell me why you're mad at me."
Petunia swallowed a host of angry remarks and then turned to her sister. "Why do you think?"
"I think you're jealous!" said Lily. "You can't stand it that I didn't go to a normal place like you and you wish you could come to Hogwarts too, so you're mad at me."
"Jealous? Of you?" cried Petunia. "You think I'm jealous?"
"I can't help it I'm a witch," Lily said. "But just because you're not doesn't mean that you have to get all envious. You've got your own talents."
"I'm not jealous of a freak like you," snapped Petunia. "You're never going to fit into the real world and you'll realize that as soon as you get out of that place!"
"I'll be way happier as a witch than you ever will," said Lily, clenching her fists. "I'm sorry I tried to fix things," she added as she shut the door. "You always try too hard to fit in, Petunia, but you're just a gossipy freak too and you never will! I'm surprised you have any friends at all, the way you run your mouth off about everyone!"
Petunia heard her footsteps stomping away down the hall and flopped backwards onto her bed, trembling with rage. Maybe, she admitted to herself, she was a little jealous. Not of Lily's going to Hogwarts, but of the attention that she always got. No matter what Petunia did, no matter how hard she tried, Lily always seemed to easily win. It was just one more time... one time too many.
:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:Lily did not write any more letters, and Petunia did not mind. They reached an uneasy truce that summer, but never regained the old camaraderie. Their parents noticed, and worried—but both girls were growing up and since they were quite different people, Mr. and Mrs. Evans sadly decided that their girls were simply growing apart.
And so it went, each sister cordial to the other, speaking in pleasantries and not much more, drifting apart more and more with every year, not quite getting along but not fighting any longer.
At least, not until Lily's third year at Hogwarts and Petunia's sixth year at St. Mary's...
:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:Sorry for the wait, but I moved back to college and had to get my dad to email me the start I had made on this chapter when I discovered I had forgotten to transfer it on my computer.