a letter for lily
30 January, 1971
She had seen the letter come in. The letter delivered by the owl, that is. The minute it had floated through the slot in the door, she had wanted to open it so badly. What a curious thing it was! Delivered by an owl, I mean, can you imagine? It was like the pigeon-carriers she had heard of in the bedtime tales their mother told her and her little sister, Lily. They always loved those stories, there was something magical about them. Magical about it all.
But then, she had seen the careful cursive beneath the red wax seal. It had been addressed to Lily. Petunia couldn’t help but frown. Her sister was 11 years old, getting fancy mail already? She felt the familiar twinge of jealousy in her heart, the same jealousy she had felt when Lily had first befriended that boy. The strange one, with an even stranger name. That was the first time Lily had done something without her older sister.
“Lily! Oh, for God’s sake. LILY!” Petunia called up the stairs.
“Oh–Jesus Christ, WHAT, TUNIE?”
The bedroom door was slightly ajar, Petunia could hear the music coming from inside. She opened the door further to find her sister sitting cross-legged on the floor, eyebrows furrowed as she tried to plait her hair. Petunia never understood how Lily had turned out so differently from the rest of them. Bright red hair and fierce green eyes—quite the opposite from her family really. But, then again, that didn’t matter. Lily was the first thing that had truly been her’s. Lily and Petunia, them against the world.
Lily startled when she noticed her sister lingering in the door, but Petunia only rolled her eyes and stepped forward.
“Letter came in the post. For you,” she tried to hide the bitterness seeping into her voice, but couldn’t quite manage it. Lily looked at her oddly, before snatching the letter. As though Petunia even wanted it in the first place, it looked boring anyway.
She watched as her little sister’s eyes nearly crossed, an awestruck expression making its way to her face. Her mouth opened in a gasp, and Petunia hadn’t meant to peek, really she hadn’t, but she wanted to know too. Wanted to know what had pulled her sister’s focus so deeply that not even her big sister could pull her back.
Before she could even think to ask, Lily took off running down the stairs. Petunia could hear her calling for their mother, shrieking with excitement.
She knew it was something bigger than her, considering the way her sister’s eyes widened like saucers when she saw her mother talking to her as she read over the letter.
She brushed away the discomfort lodged in the middle of her chest, hand coming up to brush her sternum. After all, she was only 12, Lily 11. Not much was that important those days. She blinked as Lily came up in front of her, skidding on her socked feet as she ran. She knitted her brows together as her sister panted from all the running. Finally, it seemed Lily had caught her breath.
“Tunie! Tunietunietunie! Guess what? Guesswhatguesswhatguesswhat?” the words came all jumbled together and in a rush, Petunia huffing in amusement.
She rolled her eyes and asked, “What, Lily?
“I’m magic!”
“What?”
“I’m made of magic! I’m even going to a fancy school for what is it…” Lily glanced at the ink on the parchment, “wizards! At least, that’s what mummy said. Oh, and the letter! Here, read!”
The letter was shoved into her hands and Petunia pored over it, not understanding what half the words meant. The one thing she could understand was that it was going to take her sister away from her. She had only ever wanted the best for Lily. Her face must have made some expression because all of a sudden,
“What? What is it? Why do you look like you’ve eaten a lemon?”
She forced a laugh and pressed the letter back into Lily’s hands.
“Nothing, just seems silly is all.”
She didn’t miss the way her sister’s face fell at those words. Suddenly, Petunia had the sole desire to protect her sister from all the harm the world could bring.
“No, no that’s not what I meant, it seems very cool!” Petunia tried to remedy the situation before the tears sprung into the corners of Lily’s eyes. Cool was certainly not the adjective she would choose herself, but clearly calling it that did the trick because Lily brightened.
She couldn’t help but reach over and ruffle her hair, Lily pushing her away with her lips quirked upwards.
“Piss off, those are my plaits!” Lily screeched, though, anyone could hear the smile in her voice
And suddenly, everything was back to normal. Or at least, as normal as it could be. What, with her sister being a wizard? Surely, they couldn’t stay ordinary for long.
***
Things did change after that. Apparently, wizards were strangers to proper inventions like the bloody telephone, and Petunia heard less and less from her sister, until she stopped hearing from her altogether. There were rare occasions when the flames in the fireplace would suddenly burst forward bearing Lily’s face, bright green amongst the coal.
She would talk and laugh to her sister as she always had, before something would catch Lily’s attention, effectively pulling her away from Petunia.
It had been months since there was an uproar of flames, with no word or letter from Lily, until suddenly, there was. It was late one night, Petunia tucked into bed, when there was a rapping at the window that woke her.
She got up with a start, grabbing the first thing next to her bed, and approaching the window with caution. She swung the textbook at the window, before realizing it was locked. Well, so much for defending herself.
She rubbed the sleep from her eyes and took in the sight before her. An owl. A stupid, scraggly looking barn owl stared almost impatiently at her. The audacity, truly. But Petunia understood what it meant when she noticed the scrap of paper tied to the poorly looking bird’s leg.
With a sigh, she opened the window and snatched the letter up before slamming it shut. She sat on her bed and took in the words on the page.
Hey Tunie!
Sorry I haven’t been able to talk much, my new friends here have seemed to take up all my time. Did you catch that? I’ve made friends Tunie! And you’ll never guess what’s happened, Severus is here too! He’s in a different house than I am though, a Slytherin. I hadn’t seen him all year, imagine my surprise when he suddenly showed up to my potions class after two months! Speaking of, I’ll be home for the winter hols next weekend, and I wanted to know if you’d like to meet my friends. Mary lives in Coventry, and Marlene’s family is from Dudley, but wizards have got something neat called the floo. That’s when my face shows up in the flames, but did you know you can also walk through the fireplace??? Bloody cool, isn’t it? I’ve never been much for swearing, but there’s this boy named Sirius in my year, and he’s so cool. Not nearly as good as his friend Remus, though. And before you ask, NO, I don’t fancy them, so leave it alone. I was thinking when I’m home we could go do something, just the two of us, like it used to be. Then we could probably see Marls and Mary, and we could all get together. Severus has been a bit reserved to say the least, so I doubt he’d be much for meeting up. Okay, that’s all, just wanted to catch you up. I’ll see you soon, okay? And I’ll be sure to bring you a cool magic Christmas gift. Love you loads, Tunie.
Yours,
Lily
With a sigh, Petunia tucked the letter neatly into her bedside drawer, under the vase of flowers she always kept. Lilies. She replaced them each week, but she’d be sure not to next time. After all, she couldn’t let her baby sister catch wind of her sappiness. She pulled a spare piece of paper from her school bag, and scrabbled out a quick reply containing okays, and yeses, and loveyous. When she got up to her window, she saw the owl still lingering, looking quite a bit peeved. Tying the letter to it’s leg, she sent it off and shut the window.
As she crawled into bed that night, she hoped that things would soon go back to normal. That she could finally have Lily back home, looking at her like she was the coolest person in the world. She knew better than that, but loving Lily? That was the easiest thing in the world.