Thanks for the reviews! Review responses are down the bottom, per usual. I am now on 11 people's author alert lists. I would like to say thank-you to everyone who has read this story even if they haven't reviewed.
Now on with the story!
Lily looked into the hallway; her bottle green eyes went past the irritating policeman and landed on the woman lying in the hallway.
Because lying in the hallway, in her neat, mother-like dress was Petunia Dursley. Petunia sat up rubbing her eyes and suddenly hugged Lily. She was crying (a feat that had not occurred for nearly a decade) and as she hugged her, she mumbled "I'm sorry Lily. I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to…I…was scared…I'm so sorry…please forgive me! Especially about Harry…I didn-"
Lily pulled out of the hug upon hearing Harry's name. Because she had started to cry again. Her green, long sleeved T-shirt looked like it had been outside in a rainstorm. The policeman looked disgruntled. Since he was standing in the doorway of Lily's cell, he had been caught in the middle of the hug.
"Why are you talking about Harry?" Lily asked. "HE'S DEAD, ALRIGHT? HE IS NOT COMING BACK!" Lily ran to the door but her escape was blocked because the policeman was standing in the doorway. He didn't look very amused. The poor soul had probably had his first hug in twenty years. And it wasn't voluntary either.
"Call me ignorant, but can someone explain what the hell is going on here?" the policeman yelled, he looked thoroughly frightened now, he seemed desperate to just leave and take some aspirin and pretend this never happened.
"LET ME THROUGH!" Lily screamed and attempted to push the policeman aside. This attempt was futile since the policeman was at least two heads taller than she was and was quite obviously much stronger.
"Harry's not dead." Petunia said softly.
"You don't get it, do you? HARRY IS DEAD! You don't have to pretend to care, I already know you don't care, by the face you never visited, you never came when I invited you to Harry's first birthday party and you never even wrote a SINGLE LETTER! And now your trying to tell me Harry is alive. I'm not an idiot, if I didn't die, Harry did."
"If I didn't care, I wouldn't have come here. If I didn't care, I wouldn't have taken in Harry after you died. Do you know what Vernon wanted to do? HE WANTED TO LEAVE HARRY IN SOME BACK ALLEY IN DOWNTOWN LONDON! I cared, Lily, I did."
Lily's head was spinning from all these new revelations. She chose to voice the one question she had when she woken up in next to the windowsill in Godric's Hollow. The same question she had been trying to answer in all the time she was in the holding cell.
"What do you mean, 'after I died'?" she asked fearfully, and she seemed to shrink back as she voiced the question, because she was scared the answer mightn't be the one she wanted to hear.
"It's been ten years Lily, I can't explain why you're here now, but you were dead…I saw…at your funeral," Petunia let out a small sob here "Your eyes, they were glazed over…they were dead. And the most suprising thing…your face…it was surprised."
"My funeral?" Lily shook her head. "This is unreal. This is unreal. This is unreal."
"Lily, maybe we should discuss this at my house. At any rate, it would be better than standing in this hallway. I think the policeman over there has been mentally scarred." The policeman absent-mindedly nodded his head.
Petunia grabbed Lily's wrist and dragged her into the main room of the police station. The policeman trailed behind as Petunia pushed her way past a sad looking man holding a broken pair of sunglasses and a policeman holding on to three youths who looked slightly like punks.
When she reached the counter, she took a note out of her purse and threw it down on the counter. Still holding onto Lily's wrist, Petunia ran out of the door, her hat falling off her perfect blonde hair as she did so, and one off the punk youths laughed. Lily, who was still being dragged by Petunia, fell over a dead household plant. The youth howled with laughter.
The policeman leaned on the counter and thought to himself.
"I think I'm going crazy!"
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Lily had reached Number Four, Privet Drive. And she did not like it at all. To her, a house was not a house without a little bit of clutter proving that people did actually live there. In Petunia's house, she felt like she had wandered into a display home by mistake. But she and Petunia had always been different as kids, and it wouldn't be different now. Especially since they had hated each other. But Petunia had just proved that blood is thicker than water, and she had come to save her.
Lily watched as Petunia prepared some tea, and sat down in an armchair. Still watching her, Lily followed her lead. Petunia sipped her tea with her pinky up in the air. A nervous habit that Lily had known for all of her life.
She lifted her tea off the tea tray Petunia was holding and her hand shook. She managed to lift it to her mouth and take a sip. It was much to hot but she couldn't taste the tea. She had questions and she wanted answers.
"What do you mean you took Harry in?" Lily finally asked.
Petunia shook shiftily side to side. She didn't answer.
"Petunia?"
"He's upstairs." Petunia said tonelessly.
"My baby? He's upstairs!" Lily made to run to the stairs, but was stopped by Petunia.
"He's not your baby anymore. It's been nearly eleven years."
"Nearly eleven…" Lily's knees shook. "Nearly…eleven…eleven…"
"And…you must forgive me…but…but…but…but…we…haven't…really been that kind to him."
Lily's temper flared. She suddenly stood up, knocking the pot of now cold tea to the floor. She grabbed Petunia's shoulders and shook them hard.
"YOU HURT MY BABY!" she screamed. "I HATE YOU! I HATE YOU! I HATE YOU! ALL THESE YEARS YOU CALLED ME A FREAK…BUT YOU, YOU'RE THE REAL FREAK! YOU…YOU…YOU…" Lily was running out of words to say so she resorted to something she didn't really wanted to do. She punched Petunia in the jaw.
She squealed loudly and upset her cup of tea, making it land on the floor. Just then the door opened.
"Petunia! Darling, I'm home!" He walked into the lounge room and screamed a rather girlish scream. But it suddenly turned to a low, threatening voice.
"What are you doing with my wife?"
It was quite obvious that Vernon didn't recognize her. Though Lily remembered him. He was just as purple as usual, making him look like a big, swollen bruise. Exactly like the same time she had seen him. (had it really been eleven years?)
"You don't remember me." It was not a question, but a statement.
"I don't make a point to remember every person in the neighbourhood."
"Well…Hi, I'm Lily Potter. How do you do?" she said in fake politeness, extending her hand while she did so.
Vernon just stared at her hand. Petunia stared at the mantelpiece. Lily followed her line of sight to a handful of pictures of what looked like a huge, skin colored balloon.
Lily met Petunia's eyes and hastily looked at the tea stain now decorating the kitchen floor. She wondered how thick a rug would have to be cover up that stain.
Vernon was still giving her an evil look, so she turned her head and looked at him instead. His moustache looked like it had something living it. It was gray with breadcrumbs and obviously ungroomed.
She shuddered and instead looked above Vernon's head. There was a small window, and she looked out and saw a normal neighbourhood. The kids having water fights on their front lawns while their parents yelled at them.
Kids were racing each other on their bikes; the smaller ones were falling off half the time. They grazed their legs but didn't cry.
She wondered what it was like to have a normal life, but she didn't get to wonder for long. The door opened again. A fat…no, obese boy was standing in the doorway.
"Mummy, I'm home!"
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I hope this was a little bit longer. And it's time for (insert drum roll here)…
Reviews Responses:
Yami's Guardian Angel: Yukita: Your dark wants to know? Well it does now!
IamSiriusgrl: I tried to make this chapter a little longer.
Jeran: Yes, I hate pigeons too. So does Lily.
Please review and thanks for reading!
Thoughts and Pondering