Every year, like clockwork, students visited each other at their homes during the summer holidays. It was a time for everyone to take a break from the stressful day-to-day of OWL preparation and engage in day trips, sunshine and questionable antics. Sirius Black would visit James Potter, Pandora Lovegood would visit Remus Lupin, and Lily Evans wouldn't visit anyone. Nobody visited her either. They lived in a small house and her dad worked all the time. It wasn't fair to expect him to work nights with a group of teenagers who were surplus to requirements. At least that was what her mother always told her. All summer, pretty much her only company was her sister, Petunia. That wasn't the worst thing in the world. They were very close.

"How's Vernon?" she asked her the summer between her fourth and fifth years. They were sitting in front of the television watching The Good Life on their old black and white set. It had been the same for most of Lily's life. Apparently, quite a lot of TV was in colour these days, but not in their house.

"I think he's going to ask me to marry him," Petunia said. Petunia was two years older than Lily, and Vernon was six years older than Petunia. Lily tried not to think about how iffy that was.

"I'm pleased to hear that. It seems like you really like each other."

"He is everything a man should be. He has a good job, he wants to have children as soon as possible, he doesn't ask too many questions about you, and he's…"

"Normal," Lily finished.

Petunia nodded. "I could do with a little bit of normal."

Things were so strange at the moment, with warnings daily in the Prophet and pamphlets on how to stay safe in the current hostile environment (especially for families of mixed heritage) that Lily couldn't say that she blamed her.

"I saw his sister in Tesco yesterday when I was picking up cat food for Minnie."

"It seems cruel to name a cat after a fictional mouse."

"I named her after someone else. What was she doing with all that dog food, anyway?"

"Who?"

"Marge. She had two trolleys completely filled up with dog food."

"She's thinking about going into dog breeding. I hate dogs myself, but for Vernon's sister, I am willing to put on a brave face."

These were the types of conversations that were usually had when Lily was home from school. They would sit on the sofa and watch TV, this time it was Tom and Barbara starting a new enterprise, while talking about the mundanities of life. Lily was part of the most boring family ever. As long as she didn't read the paper she could pretend that there wasn't a war going on. That there hadn't been a muggle family three streets over that had died in suspicious circumstances three nights before. The muggle newspapers had reported the deaths as what they thought they were: acts of violence from some of the local "hoodlums" while The Prophet had reported what was broadly the truth. "More Serial Murders as Death Eaters Go Uncaught" and "Dumbledore Issues Warnings to Students in Muggle Areas". Vernon was never able to visit Petunia anymore as he didn't know about magic and to him, the house just wasn't there.

Their mother's voice came from the kitchen. "Girls, dinner!"

The two of them sat down at the table and started eating their beans on toast. Lily liked beans on toast. It wasn't really something she had access to at Hogwarts.

"Sorry it's so basic today, your father has work."

"It's fine, mum," Petunia said quickly.

"Yeah," Lily continued. "I love beans on toast."

Their father came downstairs and sat down at one of the remaining places.

"Good day girls? Vi?"

Their mother was quick to answer, "Melanie and Jonathan asked if they could come to visit over the October break. I think that sounds like a good idea. Tom?"

All the while she had been saying that Tom Evans, Lily and Petunia's father had clearly not been paying attention.

"That sounds alright to me, Vi," he said, after a moment.

Their father worked most nights. Neither Lily nor Petunia knew what he did, and they didn't know if their mother did either. All they knew was that it was something magical and probably top secret like a spy. Lily took after him, while Petunia took after Violet, who was a muggle and worked at a college. They had met in a coffee shop on Vauxhall Road when they were teenagers and had been attached at the hip ever since. Lily often wondered about how they had been at the beginning of their relationship. She had no idea of how you would go about explaining magic to someone you were dating. Most people she knew who were muggles and didn't know about magic, wouldn't have believed her even if she tried to explain it all to them.

"Lily?"

"Oh, I just wrote letters to my friends. Alice is going to a book festival and was wondering if I wanted to go with her."

"We'll talk about it later. Petunia?"

"Vernon and I went to the cinema. We went and saw Jaws which is about a shark."

"Oh, excellent. What are films like these days?"

"The effects are getting better and better. You would almost have believed that there was a shark in the room with you, but luckily it was still watchable."

"I'm pleased to hear that. Now Petunia, do you want to try again?"

"Oh, alright," Petunia acquiesced.

Their father went out into the garden to put up even more spells to deter muggles.

"Is he still trying that?" Lily asked Petunia, curiously.

"Yes. I don't know if he really believes it will ever happen, but he's been doing it at least once a week this year."

Petunia was still eating, picking away about her beans on toast while gripping onto her fork so tightly that her knuckles were white from the pressure. Their mother came back through from the kitchen with a bit of apple crumble for each of them. Lily accepted hers gladly.

"I'll go and pick up your cake tomorrow, Petunia," Violet said enthusiastically. "It's not every day that you turn seventeen."

"Thanks, Mum!"

"Come on Petunia!" came their dad's voice from the garden. "If we don't do this soon, it will be too dark to see anything. We don't have all day."

"Yes Dad!" Petunia yelled in response. "You would think he was the one without magic the way he talks," she said, confidingly to Lily.

Lily ate her cake while Petunia went out to the garden, clattering her fork on the table as she left. They were out in the garden for a long time, and Lily went upstairs to get ready for bed. Her room was just as she had left it when she had left to go to Hogwarts. At least her side was. Petunia's had photographs (the non-magical kind) of her and Vernon, as well as her and their mother on their trip to Paris that Lily hadn't been able to go on.

When Petunia finally came upstairs to their room that night after spending hours in the garden, it was past midnight. Lily could tell that the news was not good. Petunia climbed into Lily's bed, squished in side by side while they listened to their parents arguing downstairs, followed by the door slamming as their father went out to work.

"Not good?" she asked softly when there was a gap in the yelling.

"Not good," Petunia replied, burying her head into her pillow. It took a while for either of them to get any sleep. Petunia because she couldn't stop crying and Lily as she tried to comfort her.

The next day, all seemed to be forgotten. Lily woke up and went downstairs, and Petunia seemed to be in better spirits as she helped their mother with breakfast. Their father was sitting at the table reading the newspaper which had the headline "Twelve More Dead" on the front page.

"Any plans for today, Lily?" he asked, folding up the newspaper and placing it on the table. Out of sight, out of mind.

"Just meeting Remus and Pandora in London. I told you about it last week? There's a talk on the interdisciplinary applications of charms."

"Very good. I'll be at home all day today, so you can phone if you need anything. Are there still phone boxes all over London? There were in my day. Do you have any muggle money?"

"I have plenty, Dad."

He may have been raised muggle, but he had no concept of exchange rates. It had been a few years since Decimal Day and even she, who had been at Hogwarts at the time, had eventually managed to get used to the new system.

Her day with Remus and Pandora went off without a hitch. They met up in central London and walked to the conference centre where the talk was taking place. Lily didn't know what exactly she wanted to do for her career after school but supposed that Charms was as good as anything else. She left feeling inspired and arrived home excited to tell her family about her day.

Petunia met her at the door.

"Hi Pet! Good day? Have you seen Mum and Dad?"

"Dad's at the hospital."

"What happened?" she asked urgently. "What's happened, Pet? Are they both alright?"

"It's mum," Petunia answered in a tone quite unlike any that Lily had heard before. "They're saying that she's dead."

Lily's blood ran cold.

"Who's saying that? And why are you talking like that?"

"The Aurors. They came to tell me about the Death Eaters and they gave me a special potion to make me feel better after I wouldn't stop screaming."

"How? How did it happen Pet?"

"She was out getting my birthday cake," Petunia said dreamily, "and they got her on the way home."


A/N: I wrote this to try and avoid coursework burnout. It's all done and I'll upload a chapter every few days.