It was about lunch time when the Evans family passed the town border of Cokeworth. The car ride was a sore one. drove like he was transporting a ticking bomb, and yelled at him every time the car rammed into a tree or lamppost. At the back of the car, Petunia was defiantly holding a tantrum. "I don't get why I have to go. It's Lily's fault take her away and not me!" Lily just looked out the window quietly; she was still filled with guilt and anxiety over what she had done, and how she had done it.
Her precocious little mind imagined different reasons for her parents taking her and Petunia out of Cokeworth spontaneously. The thought that they would send her far away to places like Antarctica and dump her there made her curl up in a ball and cry. But soft-spoken Lily, unlike Petunia, was quiet and conceited. Her cries ended up sounding like nothing more than small whimpers and yelps. Mr. and Mrs. Evans ended up even not notice her sob in the back seat, but of course the road was something that required more attention.
"Stop crying, Lily!" Petunia said coldly.
Lily looked up and faced her sister, and remembered how angry she had gotten when plants were blooming on her skin. Lily didn't like to see Petunia angry, she could hold grudges for weeks, refusing to play with her or talk to her until she was mad at something or someone else. Lily tried her best to hold her tears. Petunia could be quite persuasive if you feared her.
"Tuney, I'm sorry about making flowers grow on you. I really didn't mean it", Lily still had traces of a sob in her voice.
Petunia still put up a sour face, but it eventually softened up. "Its fine, I'm not mad at you, anymore." She opened up her arms to embrace Lily. She accepted the gesture and hugged back. "What do you thinks' going to happen? Are mum and dad throwing me away in a garbage can?" asked Lily.
"No Lily, mummy and daddy love you, they would never do that", Petunia gave her sister a warm reassuring smile telling her everything was going to be fine.
Mr. and Mrs. Evans stopped the car at a gas station. "Alright, I'll be going to an ATM to make a withdrawal, how much farther do you plan on us going?, said Mr. Evans
"I know an inn two towns over, we can lay low there for a while."
"Okay, then what's our plan for Lily. How will we find someone who's able to help us with what's going on with our precious little girl"
pondered for a moment, "I honestly do not know, but I'm sure we'll come up with something on the way."
"Oh, so you just plan on improvising as we go with the motions?"
"That's the idea"
Having no better solution in mind, Mr. Evans had no choice but to follow. He went to the ATM to withdraw money as planned, while Mrs. Evans tended to the girls.
"Mummy, how much longer is this vacation going to take?" asked Petunia.
Mrs. Evans held her hand with motherly affection. "Sweetheart, I am so sorry that this happened all so suddenly, that I pulled you away from your life at home, I truly am, but sometimes things happen at very inconvenient times. It may take a while before we can go back, but this is all for your sister. I hope you don't lash out on her, none of this was ever her intention."
Lily came over and tugged on her mother's blouse. "I-I'm sorry for what I did", she said softly. Mrs. Evans didn't say anything to that. She just scooped up both of them in her arms and smothered them in a hug.
Mr. Evans came back a minute later with a wad of cash in one hand and the car keys in the other. He unlocked the door and impatiently motioned for his family to get in. "Dear, it's another two hours to the inn. Do you mind if we grab something to eat first? I think I saw a diner not far from here", Mrs. Evans pleaded.
Mr. Evans looked up impatiently, "Sure, why not, you're in charge."
The family walked across the gas station, passing the brightly lit convenient store, and eventually making their way in front of the diner's bright neon sign which read, "Maurice's Diner".
Mrs. Evans pushed the two front doors, and the smell of breakfast foods immediately filled their nostrils. The scrumptious aroma of waffles, eggs, and sizzling bacon made Lily and Petunia forget everything which was going on. Their mouths were drooling and their stomachs churning.
Mr. Evans reserved four seats in front of the counter. One of the waitresses handed him a menu. As he flipped through the pages, he found it harder and harder to decide. There were just so many things that looked good enough to eat, French toast, Eggs Benedict and triple deck chocolate chip pancakes. After a day as exhausting as this, he would have gladly wasted all of his cash on breakfast.
Lily and Petunia preoccupied themselves with a colouring book Mrs. Evans found in the magazine rack. Then one of the waitresses came over and gladly supplied them with the colouring materials. Petunia claimed that she was too old for crayons, and handed Lily the entire colouring book for herself. But after seeing Lily occasionally miss outside the lines, she stepped in and meddled more that she had intended to, until she had completely filled out half of the book by herself.
So Lily took the two crayons her sister hardly used the green and the black one. She tried to experiment with them, figuring out what it is that she could draw with those colours. She eventually decided on a black and white stick man on a meadow. The man had a bowler hat, a cane and a waxed moustached. She took the paper placemat she drew it on and held it up high, to see how it would look from afar.
"Well, that's a beautiful picture little lady" Lily turned around and saw a middle aged man look at her drawing with admiration. His faced had a few wrinkles, and his greeting hair was balding. He flashed a warm gentle smile at both girls.
"I'm sorry sir, our mother told us not to talk to strangers" said Petunia. She stared quite suspiciously at the old man.
The man blushed with embarrassment. "Why, yes, it seems your mother taught you well. Don't mind me then, I'll just get back to my drink" The man smiled at both girls again and turned back to his odd beverage.
Mrs. Evans came back from the bathroom and sat with the girls. "Your father ordered us some delicious pancakes, they should be here in a short while", she said. Both girls resumed their work. Lily drew and drew until eventually the entire placemat was filled with drawings of more stick men, houses, birds, and her favourite animal which was a deer. She remembered their dad bringing them up to their grandfather's cabin in the woods once, and that was where she and Petunia played with a baby faun that had made its way to their cabin. Petunia fed it, and Lily petted it. She could still remember how the fur tickled her skin.
The waitress came over with a cup of coffee for Mrs. Evans. Meanwhile, Petunia still absorbed in colouring the few pages left in the colouring book dropped one of her crayons on the floor. Still unaware of the waitress, Petunia jumped down from her seat to grab her crayon, accidentally bumping the waitress in the legs. The coffee mug on the tray she was holding accidentally spilled. Most of the contents splashed on Lily.
Mrs. Evans jumped up, her motherly instinct telling her to grab a napkin and wipe the coffee of her daughter. The steaming liquid managed to cover all of Lily's drawings and her crayons. But none of that mattered compared to the stinging sensation of the hot burning coffee on Lily's skin. She screamed for a second and then continued to sob at the pain.
The waitress desperately scrambled to apologize to Lily and Mrs. Evans. While the latter resorted to any means to stop Lily from shedding anymore tears, but her efforts were for naught. Lily continued to sob and sob, not minding anything at all. Little did it occur to her that she was unwittingly controlling forces normally out of her reach.
The big willow tree just outside the diner's window began to sway and lurch as if it were sensing Lily's pain. The trunk began to twist itself and the branches swung like the arms of a madman, until it slammed itself against a window. Crash, the window shattered with a shower of glass. The crystal shards shimmered as they littered the floor. The Tree branch had breached the diner, and it continued to thrash, violently smashing tables and chairs here and there. Everyone diner staff began to panic, one of the braver cooks grabbed a hatchet from the supply closet and ran to attack the wild branch. He swung it down hard, burying the hatchet deep into the bark, but the tree only seemed annoyed at this.
The branch swung back and forth hitting the cook square in the chest; the resulting force flung him to the other side of the room. The waitress ran to crouch down under the counter top, wrapping her arms on a stool, while Mrs. Evans was still too stunned to speak or scream or do anything but sit there and watch. The ensuing commotion only made Lily sob even more. She could already imagine Petunia screaming at her again, calling her a freak, an abomination, but none of that compared to what she thought her parents would do. What happened in the house was harmless, but now, her strange abilities had achieved a new level of dangerous.
Her continuing sobs only made the situation worse. The wild tree branch shot out vines which spread throughout the entire diner, crawling across every inch, on the tables and on the walls.
The old man sipped his tea with nonchalance. He had been causally observing the predicament, assessing whether his previous assumption had been correct. Deciding not to allow the diner which he had rather grown accustomed to in the last month to be converted into a greenhouse, the mysterious old man began to intervene. He reached into his coat pocket, and pulled out a wand. It was 12 and a half inches long, made of ivory wood, and had a silver handle.
The man got up and raised the wand like a conductor signalling the orchestra. He muttered words and incantations softly under his breath. Afterwards, crimson light poured out from the tip, engulfing the room in it. The warm glow of the light brought calming vibes to everyone. The waitress released her grip from the stool, Mrs. Evans nerves became less frazzled, and the cook's wounds and bruises were healed and fixed up in an instant.
Slowly, the vines started receding and retreated back to the branch. The tree branch itself became immobilized. As the light poured on, the burly forest returned to the diner it was exactly before, ravaged tables and chairs were fixed, and the shattered glass reassembled into a window once more.
A second light burst forth from the wand, this time colour lime green. Compared to the first one it was weaker and hazier. One by one the diner staff dropped like flies into a slumber, the last one to fall being the waitress. After all was said and done, the old man lowered his wand and got up from his seat.
He walked towards Lily, stuck a hand inside one of his coat pockets and brought out an unusual type of chocolate candy. He grabbed Lily's palm gently and placed it there firmly.
"H'llo again miss, my name is Horace Slughorn. Now, were no longer strangers to one another."