Chapter 9

In the afternoon on the day after the wedding Lily was on the train from London to Surrey. Through the soot covered window vast green fields and small bushes rolled by, not a single tree in sight. Petunia was allergic to most trees at summer, and Lily imagined her husband uprooting every single tree in Surrey, his wide face reddening with effort, in order to make his bride's new home perfect. The thought made her smile.

She told no one except Mrs. Chamber that she was going. The Marauders were playing Quidditch behind the house when she left; Potter was hovering on his broom with a dancers grace, catching the Quaffle lightly and passing it on with a careless smile. She knew that if she told him she was going he would insist to take her there. She hadn't decided yet if it was a good or a bad thing, bust right now she just wanted to be alone.

She hadn't been alone in the room with Potter since what had happened the evening before. During lunch and dinner they were surrounded by his friends and the other house workers, and Lily spent the whole day with Mrs. Chambers and Madeleine in search of a way to get rid of the particularly stubborn African Fire Ants that kept returning to the kitchen cupboards, no matter what spell the three witches used. Lily kept herself busy with work and thinking about the afternoon she was going to spend with her sister, trying not to remember moment she sat with Potter in the car and felt that if he would kiss her right now she wouldn't mind. It was a stupid thought, and a moment of weakness that wouldn't repeat itself.

She got off the train in the suburbs of Surrey and took a taxi to Petunia's new home, her heart in her throat. The ride was shorter than she would have hoped, and she found herself on a straight street of identical, whitewashed houses with perfectly trimmed gardens and lawns.

Lily paid the taxi driver, and as he drove away she stood for a few moments and looked at the house. Flower bushes grew under the windows, just like Petunia liked. But otherwise the house was devoid of any personal features. An ordinary Muggle house, of a regular Muggle couple, that all they wanted was to be normal... Lily suppressed the bitterness and told herself to be happy for her sister. After all, it was all Petunia had ever wanted.

She stepped on the white path in a measured step and knocked on the door with apprehension. Petunia opened almost immediately, as if she was waiting for her behind the door. Her blonde hair was sternly tied and she wore a dress that made her look much older than her age. The perfect housewife.

"Just in time," she noted with restrained appreciation.

Lily tried to smile and hugged her. Petunia put one arm around her and with the other closed the door behind her.

"The house looks wonderful," Lily complimented her, although the corridor leading to the bright kitchen was completely plain except the fact that it was extraordinarily clean.

"Thank you," her sister said proudly. "Dad's in the living room. I'll serve the tea."

Lily walked toward the doorway that led to the living room modestly when she noticed that in the cupboard under the stairs, whose door was open, a table lamp was on. It lit a narrow bed in a crowded space where the ceiling didn't allow an adult to stand up, and on the bed was the special cushion that supported their father's wounded back when he slept.

Lily turned to Petunia in shock. Petunia made an effort to hide her shamefulness behind a serious expression.

"We don't have a bedroom downstairs," she said in a tense voice. "And it's out of the question that we carry Dad up and down the stairs all day."

"Of course," Lily said immediately, and really tried to understand. That was the least they could do for him in his condition.

Lily's father sat in his wheelchair in the living room, watching television with glazed eyes. Lily sat down on the edge of the sofa next to him and took his hand, but he didn't notice her. He didn't look as though sleeping in the cupboard under the stairs was hurting him in any way, and Lily was relieved. Maybe it wasn't so bad.

Petunia came in with a perfect, organized tea tray that wouldn't have shamed Mrs. Chambers herself, and they began to talk. At first awkwardly and unpleasantly, and then more freely. They talked about the wedding, about their relatives, about Vernon and his work, about Surrey and Petunia's new neighbors – all the while dancing carefully around the subject of Lily's own existence.

When a sound of a car pulling into the driveway was heard outside the living room window Lily was convinced that Vernon had come home, but then the doorbell rang and Petunia straightened her dress before she went to open it. Lily, who didn't know someone else was invited, sat up and fought the urge to look out and see who the guest was.

After a few moments Petunia returned to the living room, followed by a graying pastor in a black suit that barely closed around his ample belly. Lily stood up and held out her hand to him, introducing herself. The pastor looked at her hand strangely and finally squeezed it briefly with his damp hand.

"Lily, this is Father Horton," Petunia told her. "Please sit down, Father. Tea?"

"Please," Father Horton said in a higher voice than expected from a man his size and sat in the armchair farthest from Lily's seat, arranging the cross chain on his weak chest with importance. He acted as if he wasn't a guest, but was summoned there against his will.

Petunia poured him tea and sat down in the middle of the third couch in the room. As the pastor sipped his tea intently, Lily thought to herself that her father must be the only person in the room that wasn't feeling completely uncomfortable.

"Well, let's get to the point," the pastor said at last, putting his cup aside and focusing on Lily, his fingers clasping under his limp chin. "Miss Evans, your sister told me that you've long been straying from the ways of God."

Lily looked at Petunia in amazement, but she was especially concentrated on her cup and refused to look back at her.

"That's not true," she said defensively, to both of them. "I go to church every Sunday. It's true that I can't leave school and go through the school year, but I make sure to read a chapter in the Bible and pray in privet instead..."

The pastor's eyes made it clear that he wasn't convinced by her words. Lily felt a stab of betrayal in her heart. "Why would you say something like that, Petunia?"

Petunia continued to act as if Lily wasn't in the room, a behavior that characterized her after Lily had first received the letter from Hogwarts. Father Horton cleared his throat and replied for her, "Miss Evans, there is no need to keep secrets from me. Mrs. Dursley has turned to me especially because I am familiar with the condition of... Girls such as you."

Petunia began to peel off the skin around her fingernails, like she used to do when she was particularly stressed.

Lily felt she was getting angry. "Girls like me?" She said defiantly to Petunia, "You mean witches?"

Petunia cringed as if Lily had shouted the word, which she considered particularly crass. "Be quiet!" She hissed at her as she stood to close the window, "The neighbors will hear you!"

Lily longed to reply rudely but bit her tongue, pleading with herself to keep calm.

"Yes, witches," Father Horton said with false softness, although Lily didn't care what he had to say. The betrayal burned her inside like a blue flame. "I myself was born to parents who were... Different ... And as a result, far from God. I'm what people like you call A... Squib..."

"That explains a lot," Lily said with uncharacteristic cruelty.

"Impertinence will only keep you away from salvation, Miss Evans," the pastor said sternly in his squeaky voice. "Your sister is only trying to help you... All people are God's children, but people with special powers sometimes forget that they are only mortal and won't obey the divine laws." He cleared his throat. "But maybe it's not too late for you. First and most importantly, are you still a virgin?"

The blood rose to Lily's face at once and she leaped to her feet, feeling the ground shaking under her feet. She couldn't believe it was happening to her – she couldn't believe she was being humiliated like that, least of all by her own sister. She never did anything wrong – she always believed and worshiped and obeyed all the laws, everywhere and in any time – but for Petunia it was never good enough.

"How could you?!" She shouted at Petunia. Her sister held their father's wheelchair with one hand and with the other she was gripping the arm of the couch, eyes torn with fear. "I can't believe I thought you wanted us to make up! You brought me here just to remind me that I'm nothing to you!?"

"Do not worry, Mrs. Dursley!" The pastor squeaked, bending over the chair unsteadily and looking for something in his pockets with trembling hands. He took out a black container like the ones used by the riot police in the Muggle news. As soon as Lily realized what it was the tank sprayed pepper spray straight into the pastors eyes and he fell to the floor with a shriek of pain.

"Stop it!" Petunia screamed, kneeling on the floor. Their father woke up from his nap and looked around in terror, saying words Lily couldn't hear. Only then did she realize that her ears were ringing with a terrible noise; All the furniture in the house was rattling loudly and dust was falling from the ceiling.

She looked toward one of the windows and it shattered before her eyes. Petunia screamed, covering her head with her arms. Lily looked at her and felt a terrible satisfaction. Yes, Petunia deserved be afraid of her, after everything she had done to her...

No. She was her sister. No one should be afraid like that, no matter how hateful they were. And the fact that for a split second Lily enjoyed the suffering she had caused her sister made her want to scream.

Tears of self- hatred erupted from her eyes and she ran outside the trembling house. The front door blew over it's hinges as if Lily were a hurricane and then she was under the empty sky, the sun against her tears. She didn't even have time to shout when someone grabbed her and pulled her into a flower bush under the window.

She began to struggle but a long arm held her arms to her body and a cold hand blocked her mouth. She was terrified, and then a familiar scent of dust and iron rose in her nose. She squinted upward with an effort to see Severus.

People went out into the street to look at the house, which was trembling violently. A long executive car stopped with a screech in the middle of the street and Petunia's husband burst out of it, staring at his new house with an enraged astonishment on his purple face.

"Try to relax," Severus hissed in her ear. "Take a breath. If you won't stop this house will collapse on your father and sister."

Lily breathed against Severus's hand, salty tears still falling from her eyes. It didn't help, so she began to sing her favorite holiday carol in her head, thinking of her last good memory from her mother, like whenever she wanted to create a Patronus. They were sitting side by side in church, it was Christmas, and her mother was smiling to herself as the hymn played, creating a charm that could almost be tasted combined with the soft rustle of snow outside. Lily was only nine years old, but she knew she would never forget the sparkle in her mother's eyes, who was as beautiful as an angel.

The deafening crackle in her ears stopped, replaced by shouts and cries of panic from the neighbors. Lily breathed deep into her lungs the potions- cauldron scent of of Severus' hand and felt the glacier in her chest beginning to dissolve.

Severus released her slowly and she felt as if her body was about to fall to pieces. Her eyes burned from the salt of her own tears. It wasn't supposed to be like that. She wasn't supposed to end up hiding in a bush that choked her like dozens of searching hands.

"We can't stay here," Severus told her. "The Ministry will be here any minute. We could lose them between the houses."

Lily nodded silently. Severus pushed- dragged her while crawling through the bushes, in a cloud of suffocating flowery scents, until they reached the backyard. Only then did Lily realize that she had left her handbag in the living room.

"Wait here," Severus said sternly and jumped out of the bushes, breaking into the house through the back door. After a few moments he came back, pulled Lily out of the bushes, and ran to the path that connected all the backyard from behind. He looked grotesque, elongated and somber in his dark big coat and holding Lily's colorful handbag.

"The good news is you didn't use your wand," he said as Lily strained to keep up his fast pace. "They won't be able to connect you to what happened as long as you haven't used it. And if your sister has any sense of decency, she won't tell the Ministry anything."

The words slid over Lily like water. She felt like she was having a strange dream.

"What are you doing here?" She realized that Severus had no reason to be in her sister's flowerbed. He squinted at her with a black eye but didn't reply. "Where you following me?"

"No," he said immediately, and then, "Yes."

"How did you know – " She stopped in the middle of the question. She had learned long ago that Severus shouldn't be underestimated. "You were at the wedding?"

"Of course not," he said with a touch of disgust. He was a talented liar, but she knew him well enough to always know.

She considered the options deeply. When she reached her conclusion she stopped abruptly and pulled her arm away from Severus's grasp.

"You cast a tracking spell on me?"

Severus was silent, and it was as if he had admitted the whole truth. Lily snatched her bag from his hand and hit him with it once, helplessly. He looked at her with the same look that always reminded her of some aggressive dog that had disappointed it's owner and was now debating whether to lick his hand or bite it.

Now she was thinking about the night he had arrived at the Potter house. How could he look her in the eye after what he said to her? Isn't he even thinking of apologizing for humiliating her? And now he's also following her, unable to let her go, not realizing that he's hurting her, as if he were an internal organ in her body that had grown uncontrollably and threatened to tear her apart from the inside.

She turned away from him, locking her longing for her friend and the anger at the man who had hurt her deeply in her heart.

"Wait, Where are you going?" He called after her, catching up with her and trying to grab her hand despite her objections.

"I'm going back there," she said, steadying her voice with an effort. "I've broken the law. I'm going to turn myself in."

"You don't have to – "

"Why? Because Muggles are inferior and wizards can play with them like puppets?" Lily stopped and yelled back, feeling the old resentments toward Severus' ways awakening again and filling the over- cramped space in her heart. "In another life you and Petunia could've been perfect together. The two of you are full with so much hate for the people you think have hurt you and let the hate turn into who you are..."

"Your sister is a terrible person," Severus said in a quiet voice, looking at her as if he was willing her to stay frozen in space with the power of his gaze alone.

She wanted to shout at him, but felt that if she did she would destroy something else. Yes, the tow of them hated one another, but they could have been the same person. They both loved her once, until life and time made them different and they moved away from her, only to reach out and grab her, unable to let go, unable to live a life that didn't include hurting her.

"Just like you," she replied coldly. His voice from years ago echoed in her mind, breaking through the walls of time – Mudblood...

Severus's gaze was like burning tar. Lily wasn't going to let him make her look away. She wasn't going to give in, this time she wasn't going to turn the other cheek. But then a man burst out of the bushes surrounding one of the houses and ended the silent battle.

It was a man in his forties who wore striped trousers and a dotted shirt with such incompatibility and discomfort that it was crystal clear that he was a wizard.

"Excuse me," he said, but instead of leaving he examined them suspiciously, clearly trying to determine whether they were wizards.

"Are you from the Ministry of Magic?" Lily asked in an empty voice.

"Yes," he replied with great importance, realizing he doesn't have to pretend. "And who are you? Do you have something to do with what happened at number four?"

"Yes – "

"It was me," Severus interrupted.

"No!" Lily objected.

"It's good you've confessed now, son," the Ministry official said sternly, and echanted handcuffs appeared on Severus's hands. "You're under arrest."