Petunia And Lily Evans

Part 3 - Parokeets and Toucans

Petunia scowled into her cereal bowl. Hot morning sunshine filtered in through the open kitchen window, setting her long, dull, mousy brown hair aglow.

Today was September the first - the day Lily was to attend Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry for the first time. The thought made Petunia's pale fists clench. Her parents had forced her to get up early so that the entire family could see Lily off. Like it was some big, important event.

Lily thinks being a witch makes her so special. Well, if brats like her and that Snape boy can be magical, it must not be that great.

She glanced across to where her mother was popping some bread into the toaster. Beside her was a framed photograph of the family at a picnic a few years ago. Petunia had been about eight or nine. Lily was six, with her shorter, scruffy hair and chubby cheeks. It was the year before her sister started showing signs of being a witch. They had gotten along so well back in those days...

[Flashback]

The mousy-haired girl giggled as she watched her little sister devour a cheese sandwich. She shrieked in disgust as the younger child spilled crumbs all over the scarlet picnic mat, which only made Lily laugh louder. The sun shone brightly on her vivid red hair. The girls' parents were deep in a cheerful conversation.

"Come on, Lily! Let's go and look around!" the older child suggested, recovering and jumping up from the mat. The six-year-old followed suit, her whole freckled face squeezed into a buck-toothed smile.

She grasped her big sister's proffered hand and they ran into the meadow, the wind whipping through their hair.

"Which way should we go, Tuney?" the six-year-old squeaked, glancing around with her bright, emerald-green eyes.

"This way!" Petunia yelled, and they ran up to a rocky outcrop at the end of the meadow. Beyond here there was a steep, grassy drop, and a brilliant view of the countryside and the nearby town with its many tall brick houses. Smoke issued from the chimneys, and pens of cows and horses looked miniscule from the hilltop.

"It's so pretty!" the red-haired girl exclaimed in excited tones.

"Yeah," Petunia agreed, pushing her long brown plait off the shoulder of her dress.

"Race you back to the picnic!" Lily shouted, suddenly tearing her hand from Petunia's and running back down the hill, laughing. Her sister followed, a smile on her pink, chapped lips.

[End of flashback]

Petunia snapped out of her reverie and quickly plastered the scowl back onto her face.

We were just naïve, stupid little kids. That was before I knew how weird Lily was...back when I trusted her to be fun and normal like me...

She was staring into her bowl again, considering attempting to drown herself in it, when the eleven-year-old Lily walked into the room with her tangled red hair swishing around her shoulders. The older girl narrowed her dark, hollow-looking eyes.

"Turned anyone into a parrot yet?" Petunia sneered, but her sister ignored her and sat down at the wooden dining table.

"Morning, darling!" Mrs. Evans exclaimed, with significantly more enthusiasm than she had offered Petunia. She kissed the ginger-haired girl on the cheek. "I can't believe my little Lily is going off to Hogwarts! Your father told me about his mother being a witch, but I never expected one of my own children..." She trailed off, apparently too overcome with joy to finish her sentence; her red-lipped smile was visible past her sleek bob of light brown hair.

Petunia just scowled harder, wrinkling her bony, horselike face.

"We're all very proud of you," Marlene said, then gave her other daughter a meaningful glance. "Aren't we, Petunia?"

But as the thirteen-year-old drew breath to insult, her father walked in and glanced at the clock on the wall, mussing his ginger hair.

"Blimey, it's nearly ten o'clock! We'd better hurry if we're to make it to platform nine and three quarters on time. The Hogwarts Express leaves at eleven." He scratched his nose and looked down at Lily, who was positively beaming as Marlene served her a bowl of Froot Loops.

Petunia rolled her eyes and scooped some more cereal into her mouth. Their dad had been telling them non-stop about Hogwarts ever since Lily had received her acceptance letter, making a few days seem like a few years.