IWSC, round 8
Charing Cross Road - how wizards live in the muggle world
Beauxbatons, year 7
Main prompt: [setting] a muggle playground
Additional prompts: [word] superior, [plot point] segregation
Word count: 2498
Oh, I love Petunia's POV. I'm starting to like her, to be honest. All that angst. :)
Again, I'd like to thank my amazing betas from the Beauxbatons team. Thanks to Mandy who remembered the Madonna song for the title!
THIS USED TO BE MY PLAYGROUND
Petunia winced as the gate creaked. She could remember the days when the bottle-green gate had been as bright as the grass and trees, but now the metal was long abused by children swinging on it gleefully, and the bars were twisted, the paint flaking. The path was cracked, with weeds growing in the spaces between the paving stones, but it was easy enough to make her way into the empty playground. Or almost empty.
It was too late for any children to be about, but she saw a hooded figure by the far end vaulting the fence as she entered. Petunia wrinkled her nose; Cokeworth had become a pit since she'd left. Even the swings had rusted chains and cracked seats. She settled onto one, all the same, sighing nostalgically at the familiar groans that began as she pushed off with her feet.
She could almost hear the echoes of the past around her and see the dancing figures of the children she had known. They played in the grass; twirled around the roundabout; squealed at the height they could reach on the swings.
She took a slow breath as an attempt to control herself before her mind plunged headfirst into memories.
The swings were like two little thrones. Lily leapt onto one and Petunia the other, giggling and cheering that they had claimed them first. This was the third day they'd managed to get to them before the boys who lived down Spinner's End.
"We're so much better than them," Petunia announced, grinning. "This just proves it. Better than those Spinner's End kids."
Lily frowned from beside her, her hair trailing behind her as she began to swing. "Mummy says they're just poor, and we can't blame them for that."
"But we beat them to the swings!" The two of them were soaked in the August sunlight. Petunia smiled at her sister and began the age-old tune in a sing-song voice: "We're the kings of the castle!"
"And they're the dirty rascals!" Lily replied, laughing as they rose higher and higher with each kick.
Petunia closed her eyes against the tears. Hands shaking on the creaking chain, she rose from where she sat and wandered further into the playground. Damp grass wet her trouser legs, and the mud squelched below her heels. She trudged over to the roundabout, frowning at the state of the bars: they'd nearly been ripped from their lodgings, the metal warped and hanging dangerously. She pushed at the side of one of the faded bars with her foot, and the whole thing began to spin very slowly, making a harsh grating sound as it moved.
They were a little old for the playground, but this didn't stop them spinning the red-and-yellow roundabout as fast as they could, laughing as they scuffed their mary-jane shoes against the gravel while kicking off.
Once they were moving fast enough, they sat down side-by-side.
"We'll still be sisters, won't we? Even when I go to Hogwarts?" Lily asked, looking at her sister.
Petunia frowned. "Of course."
A group of Spinner's End kids came through the gate, and Petunia made a face, standing up. "Let's go. They'll just wreck this," she snapped.
"They're not all that bad, you know, Tuney. We're not superior to them, or anything, just because they're poor. Severus is really quite kind."
Petunia turned to Lily. The roundabout still spun underneath them. "He likes you," she said accusingly, thinking of the boy with greasy hair who had been spending nearly as much time with Lily as she had recently.
Lily made a face. "We're just friends."
"Yes. But we're sisters. That's … that'll always be important. Always."
Lily grinned. She had a tooth that stuck out into her upper lip. "Race you home?"
"Alright." They leapt off the still-moving roundabout and sprinted for the gate.
The criss-crossing ropes on the climbing frame were tattered. Some had been cut completely, while others were untied and hanging. They looked more like jungle vines than ropes, encrusted with muck and mould as they were.
Petunia raised a hand to touch them. They were tough, and the frayed material cut into her palm. She and Lily used to have races to climb up when they were younger, but now, all Petunia could focus on was another memory, tinged with anger and regret.
"Those Spinner's End kids shouldn't be able to come to our playground," Petunia said, glaring through the ropes of the climbing frame at the group of boys.
"It's not ours, Tuney. They live here too."
Petunia snorted. She saw the way Snape looked at Lily and the way he was looking at her now. "They're not even using it."
"Well, even we're too old for it," Lily said softly. "We barely actually swing or climb anymore."
"Well, that's because you're never here!" she retorted, lacing the words with bitterness. "You've been off at that school of yours for a year, and you've left me here alone!"
Lily's eyes widened. "It's just … oh, Petunia. I'm sorry. It's just … it's wonderful there. And I wish you could—"
"If you don't want to be here with me, go home then! Or back to your bloody school! Just because I wanted to spend time with you for once!"
"No! I do want to talk to you, but … why don't you like Sev?"
She felt the anger flare up in her chest. Did Lily not love her anymore? Why was it always about Severus Snape? "Oh, Sev, is it?" she spat. "You just want to spend time with your boyfriend. Your perfect, slimy, magical boyfriend. He's suddenly better company than me, just because he's like you? I'm just your boring Muggle sister, now? I thought we were always going to be friends!"
"We are friends, Tuney! And he's not my boyfriend."
"Well, it doesn't seem like it! For either of them." Petunia flounced off, relishing the hard earth beneath her feet as she stomped back towards the gate. She stormed past the group of unkempt Spinner's End kids with her nose turned up in the air and tears welling behind her eyes. She left Lily alone with one hand still clutching onto the climbing frame ropes.
The slide was cracked down the middle. At the bottom, it dipped before straightening out, and a pool of water had gathered there. Dead leaves and dirt and the floating carcasses of flies muddied the water, turning it into some sort of disgusting gloop. Petunia thought bitterly of the magical potions Lily had talked about and wondered whether that was what they looked like. She wouldn't be surprised.
She brushed the thought away and closed her eyes, resting her forehead against the side of the slide. The plastic was cool, and surprisingly clean nearer the top where the rainwater had washed off whatever grime had soiled it before.
She and Lily had never used the slide.
Petunia was on the outside of the playground fence, watching her sister. Lily was inside, by the slide, and standing with her was Severus Snape.
Petunia's hands were clenched into shaking fists, her eyes fixed on her sister's back. The two of them weren't doing anything, really. She watched them as they stood either side of the slide, talking from across the plastic and laughing together about who-knew-what.
She would never know what, she supposed: they were talking about magic. Magic: something which somehow made them better than all the normal people. It had been two years since Lily had gone to that school in faraway Scotland. Two years since Lily had suddenly developed a superior tone when talking to Petunia, as if she was a child. She was the older sibling! Who was Lily to belittle her and say, "You wouldn't understand," and shake her head in exasperation whenever Petunia mentioned magic?
It was a silly friendship, Petunia thought, between Lily and Snape. It shouldn't even exist at all. Lily was beautiful and kind (though not as of late), while Snape, with his hooked nose and greasy hair, was ugly and poor. When he smiled, it didn't quite fit on his face, as if he hadn't been created to manage an expression like that. He didn't deserve Lily Evans, Petunia thought. He looked almost like a bat, with his odd clothes that hung off his body like an extra layer of grimy skin, and his face had a sickly sheen like the moon on a winter's night. What did Lily see in him? Somehow his magic meant he was Lily's equal, rather than Petunia.
Mostly (though Petunia was loath to admit it), that was the concern: that Lily had chosen him over her. Petunia knew how awful he was—how terrible must she be to have been cast aside in such a way?
With a bitter sigh on her lips, Petunia turned away from the bottle-green bars of the playground and started the walk back home, alone.
Lastly, Petunia wandered over to the little patch of grass in the centre of the playground. It was open and empty and swamped with mud, but she stepped into the centre of it all the same, ignoring the stains it made on her trouser leg. She could almost imagine that the footprints in the mud were her own from two years before, when she'd stood opposite Lily and they'd said their goodbyes.
At the time, it wasn't meant to be goodbye, but both of them could feel the weight of it. Both of them knew what it meant.
"Lily?"
The woman turned, her beautiful mane of hair swinging behind her like a gymnast's ribbon, and smiled at Petunia. "Hi," she said. Her teeth gleamed pearly white as she grinned. "It's been a while."
Petunia wasn't sure what to say in the face of her sister, who had grown up so fast. "Well. I don't live here anymore."
"Oh. Where, then?"
"Surrey. With Vernon." Petunia couldn't help but look at Lily's eyes, her face, her hair. She was so tall now, and so beautiful. When had she grown up? Petunia hadn't even noticed it happening.
"Oh. Oh, yes. Of course." Lily looked sad. Why were her eyes so dull?
"What's … what's going on with you, then?"
A pause, before everything came out in a rush, like she'd been waiting for years to say it. "There are things going on in the wizarding world, Tuney. I need you to stay safe. Don't come looking for me." Lily let out a shaky breath and looked down at her feet. "I don't think we'll be able to see each other for a while."
Petunia blinked. She thought it had already been a while. "Oh."
It was a miserable day. The mud was thick beneath their feet, and the wind carried a bite. Against the grey canvas of the sky, Lily's hair was like a lick of red paint. Petunia wanted to reach forwards and touch it again, or plait it like she used to, back when everything was okay.
"I'm pregnant. And I'm scared."
Oh. She really had grown up, then. "With Potter?" Petunia couldn't think to ask anything else, not when Lily sounded so wretched about it. A thousand words unsaid hung over them in a cloud, built up from the days when their friendship had first begun to go sour. She wanted to ask what was going on, and how Lily was, and how the baby was, what it was called, where they were living. Instead, they stood opposite each other in silence.
"Yes. And I love him. And I want it—the baby, I mean. But I don't think I'm ready. Not … not now." Lily's bell-bottoms were too long, and the legs had little smears of dirt along the hems. Petunia looked at the floor, at the distance between them and the empty playground around them. The whole village was flooded with memories of what was too far gone to even hope to recover. It was why Petunia had insisted she had Vernon move away.
"I'm … I'm sorry." Everything that came out of her mouth sounded empty and meaningless. She wasn't even sure what she was apologising for.
Lily just smiled. It was a sad smile—nothing like those blinding grins she had once flashed as a child—but a smile nonetheless, and Petunia was grateful for that. It felt like Lily hadn't smiled at her in years.
"Goodbye," Lily said. "I'll come and see you. After this is all over."
Petunia nodded and managed a smile in return. "See you."
Lily Apparated away with a crack like breaking bones.
Petunia wanted to scream in anger or loss or grief, or whatever this odd squeezing was in her chest, but she pushed it down and closed her eyes against the barrage of thoughts. She hadn't screamed since she was thirteen, and she wasn't keen on losing it now.
As she stood, she was painfully aware of everything around her: the twisted bars of the gate, the rusted chain of the swings, and the grating rasp of the roundabout as it turned. She thought of the ropes hanging from the climbing frame, the crack along the centre of the slide, and finally the little patch of grass where she'd seen her sister for the last time. Lily, on that miserable day with the cold and the mud, had been beautiful. She had been sad and beautiful and ready to die.
Petunia had seen it, even then, but not recognised it for what it was. She hadn't registered what the pain in those green eyes might have meant. Now she thought: was it the baby? Lily hadn't wanted it. It felt like Petunia was bringing up a child who symbolised only what had made Lily sad, that day. Even if Petunia knew it was something more, something else, the thought stuck with her, and she couldn't quite brush it off.
Now, she wanted to rip the swings from their chains and pull at the crack in the slide until it expanded into a gaping chasm in which she could throw herself and imagine there was something underneath other than mud and memories.
Instead, she picked her way through the mud and towards the gate, which groaned as she pulled it open. Stepping out of the playground was like stepping away from everything she'd lost and everything she might have had had Lily not received that godforsaken letter all those years ago.
The gate creaked closed behind her as she strode back towards the car.