Chapter 2

The Park

Finally the summer holidays had begun.

Lily woke up early on the first Saturday of the holidays. She was pleased to see that the sun was raising high into the cloudless sky.

Creeping out of her room and down the corridor to her sister's room, she hoped that she wouldn't wake up her parents.

'Tuney, Tuney, can we watch a video?' she whispered to her dosing sibling.

'Lily,' Petunia complained, rolling over to look at the clock, 'It's like six in the morning. Go back to sleep.' She whispered back.

'Please?'

'Fine, but I'm choosing.'

An hour later Mr and Mrs Evans came down the stairs to find their daughters engrossed in Disney's version of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. Petunia was trying to persuade her sister to fast forward through the section about the evil stepmother. Lily was having none of it.

'Lily, it's just the vultures, they scare me.' Petunia admitted.

'You chose this one!' Lily retaliated, 'If you didn't like it then we could have watched something else.'

'It's only this part.' Petunia insisted 'I like the part where she's singing to the animals, and when the prince takes her of to marry her at the end.'

'Urrgh, you're such a girl.' Lily complained. 'They're only birds anyway,'

'Lily! I don't like them! Please.'

'Urrgh,' Lily thrust her chin back, her head banging against the back of the sofa, as she finally handed over the remote.

By the time the film had ended, the sisters had forgotten all about their spat and happily settle down at the dining room table to eat their breakfast.

Mrs Evans turned to her daughters who were talking away over their bowls of cereal.

'What have you two got planned for today then?' she asked.

'May we go to the park?' Lily answered.

'Well perhaps,' their father said, 'do you want to meet your friends there, Lily, or is it just the two of you going?'

'Just us.' Cut in Petunia, Lily was starting to think that her sister didn't necessarily approve of her friends, but she had no proof yet, and was going to wait until her sister brought it up.

'Then of cause you can go this afternoon.' Their mother said smiling at her two daughters.

Lily spent the morning reading. It was fast becoming her favourite hobby, reading and playing outside. She was part way through a fictional adventure story, which was her favourite kind of book. This book was however, one that she already knew, though it was the first time she had read it. Her father often read to her and Petunia before they went to bed each night, and a few years previously this had been the book they had read through. It was one of those books that had long poems and songs written out in italics, when her father had been reading it she had insisted that he had read out the songs, even singing a few of them. However, now she skipped them out, they weren't important to the story line. She argued to herself. They were simply for someone reading who is interested in the culture and background to the story.

After lunch Lily and Petunia walked to the park. It was only five minutes from their house, and the girls often went there by themselves. Before letting them go, their mother had warned Lily to behave for her sister.

'Don't do anything that Petunia tells you not to, Lily. She knows what's safe.'

Lily had agreed, even though she hated it when her sister was bossing her around.

There was a group of five or six boys playing football at the other end of the field to the park. Lily thought they looked quite old, though they may have only been a year or two older than Petunia. They were shouting and yelling to each other, but apart from them the whole park was empty.

Petunia settled herself on a swing facing the football players, Lily wondered if she knew any of them from school. The boys, nevertheless, took no interest in the sisters, Lily was sure that they hadn't even noticed that they were there. She played for a while on the roundabout, but it was hard to spin it fast enough whilst siting on it, so she gave up and settled down on a swing next to her sister. Petunia was still watching the boys, who were now slowly making their way across the field towards the playground. Lily tried to start up a conversation with her sister, but Petunia wasn't interested in Lily.

As the boys came nearer, to Lily, they seemed to get bigger, and older. A couple of them seemed to recognise her older sister.

'Hay, that's Petunia Evans!' one of the boys near the front of the group called out behind him to the rest of the group.

'Do you know them?' Lily asked her sister, worried.

'They're in Year Six.' Petunia told her as if Lily should have already known.

'Evans, you should have come over and said Hi,' said the boy who had recognised Petunia.

'I had to look after my little sister, Tom.' Petunia told him, nodding towards Lily. Lily frowned, why would her presence stop Tuney from talking to the boys?

The boy called Tom jumped over the fencing that separated the swings from the field, Lily wondered why he didn't just use the gate like the boys who were slowly following behind him.

He was quite tall and obviously sporty; he had a haircut similar to Alex's though he had dark hair where Alex's was almost blond. He had on a red football top with blue shorts, but Lily didn't know which team that was. She and her friends weren't into football that much, they preferred making their own games up.

Petunia had stopped swinging and was dragging her feet on the asphalt, bringing the swing to a stop. Lily continued to swing back and forth. The boy had now reached the edge of the grass, where the asphalt under the swings started. His eyes' following Petunia's every move. His friends had hung back and were now leaning against the fence, watching.

'You never said you had a little sister,' he commented.

Petunia blushed.

'It never really came up.'

'Don't worry,' he told her walking even closer towards her, 'I think your more pretty.'

'Derk, come on. I'm hungry.' One of the boys called, opening the gate, leading the way out.

The boy looked around at his friends,

'See you then, Evens,' he said, following his friends out of the play area and down the road.

Lily watched Petunia's eyes follow the boy until he was out of sight.

'Do you fancy him?' she asked suddenly.

Petunia turned a shade of deep red,

'No.' she said too quickly.

'You fancy Tom Derk?' Lily said again, starting to swing higher and higher.

'Lily!' her sister complained, pushing off the ground. 'Lily, don't shout it round!'

Tuney fancies Tom Derk!' Lily sang louder.

'Lily, mum said you had to do what I said.' Petunia demanded, the suddenly scared, 'Lily you're going too high! Lily, stop it!' but her sister merely giggled and continued to swing.

'Tuney, look how high I can jump from!' she called down to her worried sister.

'Lily, don't do it!' shrieked Petunia.

But Lily had let go of her swing at the very height of its arc and flown skyward, she quite literally flew, launched herself skywards with a great shout of laughter, and instead of crumpling on the playground asphalt, she soared, like a trapeze artist through the air, staying up for far too long, landing far too lightly.

'Mum told you to do what I said!'

Petunia stopped her swing by dragging the heels of her sandals on the ground, making a crunching, grinding sound, then leapt up, hands on hips.

'Mummy said you weren't allowed, Lily!'

'But I'm fine,' said Lily, still giggling. Trying to distract her older sister from her previous behaviour Lily picked up a fallen flower from a nearby bush 'Tuney, Look at this. Watch what I can do.'

Petunia glanced around. The playground appeared deserted apart from the two of them. Petunia advanced, evidently torn between curiosity and disapproval. Lily waited until Petunia was close enough to have a clear view, then she held out her palm. The flower sat there, opening and closing its petals, like some bizarre, many lipped oyster.

'Stop it!' shrieked Petunia.

'It's not hurting you,' said Lily, disappointed at her sisters reaction, but she closed her hand on the blossom and threw it back to the ground.

'It's not right,' said Petunia, but her eyes had followed the flowers flight to the ground and lingered upon it. 'How do you do it?' she added, Lily was sure she heard a definite longing in her voice.

'It's obvious, isn't it?' Came a voice. A boy, about Lily's age, had jumped out from behind the bushes. Petunia shrieked and ran back towards the swings in surprise, but Lily, though clearly startled, remained where she was. He was skinny under his mismatched cloths; too-short jeans, a shabby coat, overlarge, that might have belonged to a grown man and an odd smock like shirt. His overlong black hair fell in front of his chalky white face; a dull flush of colour mounted the sallow cheeks as he looked at Lily.

'What's obvious?' Lily asked curiously,

He had an air of nervous excitement. With a glance at the distant Petunia, now hovering beside the swings, he lowered his voice and said, 'I know what you are.'

'What do you mean?'

'You're … you're a witch,' whispered the shabby boy.

She looked affronted.

'That's not a very nice thing to say to somebody!'

Turning her nose in the air, Lily marched off towards her sister.

'No!' said the boy. He was highly coloured now, in his over-large coat flapping after the girls, looking ludicrously bat-like.

The sisters considered him, united in disapproval, both holding onto one of the swing poles as though it was the safe place in a game of tig.

'You are,' he said to Lily, 'You are a witch. I've been watching you for a while.' Then seeing her face he added 'But there's nothing wrong with that. My mum's one, and I am a wizard.'

Petunia's laugh was like cold water. She was obviously still hurt about Lily's teasing and unsettled by the sudden appearance of this strange boy.

'Wizard!' she shrieked, then as her courage returned to, 'I know who you are. You're that Snape boy! They live down Spinners End by the river.' She told Lily; turning again to the boy she asked 'Why have you been spying on us?'

'Haven't been spying.' Retorted the Snape boy, hot, uncomfortable and dirty haired in the bright sunlight. 'Wouldn't spy on you anyway,' he added spitefully to Lily's sister, 'You're a Muggle.'

Though Petunia evidently did not understand the word, she could hardly mistake the tone.

'Lily, come on, we're leaving!' she said shrilly. Lily obeyed her sister at once, glaring at the boy as she left. Lily turned as they marched through the playground gate; he stood watching them bitter disappointment on his face. She wondered momentarily whether he had been planning this for some time, it had, evidently, all gone wrong.

Curled up in her bed at the end of the day Lily thought back to what the boy had said. Did he really mean that she was a witch? Was he really a wizard? Petunia said that he had just been bullying her, trying to make her feel insecure about herself, but Lily wasn't convinced. The look on his face had been genuine, she thought. He looked like he really believed that she was a witch. Could she really do magic?

'Abracadabra.' She whispered pointing at her wardrobe, but the doors didn't suddenly fly open, as she had expected, they hadn't even moved an inch. She was being silly, of cause she wasn't a witch. Hadn't she been watching Snow White that morning? Witches were evil. She wasn't evil, was she? And she couldn't do magic. No, she was being silly; the boy must have been lying like Tuney had said.

But then a thought came to her, what about the dry water? And hadn't she proved to Tuney at the park that she could make small things move without touching them? Hadn't she made the tree in their garden blossom early at Easter just by blowing gently on the newly grown buds? Hadn't she changed that awful bright pink dress of Petunia's into a nice shade of blue when her mother wasn't looking but had told her that she had to wear it?

'I can.' Lily whispered to the dark empty room. 'I am.'

Lily trailed behind her older sister, who was defiantly more excited than she was. It was sunny, without a cloud in the sky, probably the hottest day of the year so far. And yet they were going to be cooped inside for the next two hours. Probably the longest two hours of Lily's entire life.

As she dragged her feet along the pavement, Lily's mind went back to the previous Saturday when she had been told that she was a witch. Tuney had confirmed that she wasn't and witches only existed in stories, they weren't real. But that didn't stop Lily from wondering. There was all that stuff she could do. And the conviction of the boy in the park, he had seemed like he really was telling the truth.

'Come on Lily!' Petunia called back to her sister impatiently, bringing Lily back to the present.

It was of cause Tuesday, and dance class. Both Petunia and Lily had half an hour tap and ballet lessons. Lily's first, and then Petunia's. The walk was short enough for the girls to walk it themselves but too long for Lily to walk home without her older sister.

'Mum,' Lily had wailed, 'I'm nine now, I'm going to be in year five! Please, please can I walk home by myself?' But to no avail.

Lily normally cherished the time to walk with her sister. The girls were such good sisters. But Lily did not cherish the idea of sitting in a sweltering room for an hour watching her sister when she could be playing with her friends or having a water fight. It was the summer holidays! Her feet dragged along the hot pavement her dance bag, containing her shoes, skimming along the floor.

'Come on Lily,' Petunia encouraged, 'I bet she'll have the doors open and then you can sit outside.'

'Yeah, I guess, thanks,' Lily mumbled in reply. The sooner this was over the better in her eyes, at least this was the last class for ages, she did have the whole summer holidays to spend with her friends.

'You'll enjoy yourself when you're dancing.' Petunia couldn't have been more right.

Despite the heat, Lily really did enjoy dancing. Petunia, being a year and a half older and in a higher class, was much more technically correct, concentrating and perfecting the individual movements, but Lily had a love for the movement and flow, hating the exercises, loving the dances.

After her lessons she got changed and sat watching her sister for a while, then becoming distracted wandered out and sat on the step of the open door.

'Just stay where I can see you!' the teacher called out behind her.

'Okay,' Lily acknowledged.

From there on the step, Lily watched the cars and people pass by, the cars sending waves of the warm summer air that buffeted her hair across her face. Across the road was a row of houses, hidden from sight by a few trees, Lily watched the trees move in the breeze.

It was then that she noticed a figure watching her hidden in the shadow across the road. She stood up alarmed. She moved to go back into the dance studio. But the figure moved and she recognised the boy from the park. Not the older boy who had talked to Petunia. But the one who had called her a witch.

She hesitated for a moment, unsure of whether to go in or not.

In that hesitation the boy had crossed the road and was now standing on the pavement.

'I … I'm sorry about before.' He told her in a voice that sounded as if he didn't apologise very frequently. 'I … I didn't really introduce myself. I'm Severus.' He held out his hand, like an adult would do when introducing themselves to her father.

'I'm Lily,' she answered warily, gingerly taking his hand and shaking it, like her farther did.

'Being a witch isn't a bad thing.' Severus insisted as they dropped hands. 'It's a good thing, really.'

'But –'

'Lily who are you talking to!' called her dance teacher, interrupting her. 'You know you mustn't talk to strangers.'

'It's all right,' Lily informed her teacher as she came out to see who Lily was talking to, 'I've talked to Severus before.'

'I'm sure you have dear, but you need to come inside now.' And with only a small wave and a sad smile, Lily was steered inside once more.

'Who were you talking to?' Petunia asked as they set off for home at the end of her lesson.

'Oh, Severus, you know the one from the park,' Lily told her.

'What?' Tuney's mouth opened in shock. 'He turned up again? What did he say? Why were you talking to him?'

'I think I said about three words to him. Does that count as talking?' answered Lily moodily. She wasn't sure why her sister hated the Snape boy so much, and she wanted to get out of the blistering heat.

'Only if those three words were 'Don't talk to me''

But Lily didn't answer, not even to correct her sister in the number of words used. It was too hot to argue.

This chapter owes a large part of its existence to:

Harry Potter by J K Rowling