Chapter 7: Enemy Mine

Life without Lily wasn’t proving as wonderful as Petunia expected, mainly because it didn’t feel like Lily was gone at all. She haunted the house like a ghost, mentioned every day in every conversation, her face staring out at Petunia from the photographs stashed in every corner of the room, so much so that Petunia believed there was nowhere she could escape her sister.

Lily’s first letter arrived in the second week of September. Her parents had wanted news sooner but didn’t make a fuss because it arrived in the talons of a tired looking owl, who promptly flew to the nearest tree and fell asleep on its branch. Mum and Dad agreed it was reasonable to expect a delay if a bird had to fly mail down from Scotland.

Only the three Evanses knew that Lily lived and studied in Scotland (and Mrs. Snape, who didn’t count). Mum and Dad had been eager to share the news that Lily was accepted into a special, gifted school with anyone who would listen. They would tell the whole world about Hogwarts if they could, but the magical Statute of Secrecy severely limited what they could say. For starters, they couldn’t tell people it was a magic school. That was obvious. They also couldn’t tell people the school was located in Scotland, though the Statute, strictly speaking, wasn’t to blame for that. Uncle Patrick travelled to Scotland frequently for work and because that’s where his wife, Aunt Esther, was from. He would demand to know the precise location of Lily’s elite boarding school and would leave no Callanish stone unturned until he had every detail they told him confirmed by his many acquaintances scattered about the country, who would quickly suss out there wasn’t a Hogwarts School listed in Scotland, prestigious or otherwise. Scotland made a poor stage for selling lies in general. It wasn’t some attractive foreign capital of culture—it was in their newspapers often enough, most recently regarding the liquidation of their largest shipyard. Their economic situation was so dire, the blokes who worked at the mill were lifting pints to the poor Scots on the dole queue for having it worse. Trying to spin a story about Lily’s glamorous new Scottish school would raise eyebrows even in a place like Cokeworth.

Mum and Dad believed the best solution was to lie that Lily’s school was located further north in Sweden, which they picked because it was unverifiable. The rest of the family knew as little about Sweden as they did, and the likelihood some Cokeworth neighbor had connections to Sweden was much lower than the chance they had connections to Scotland. It makes sense, they said. It takes time for mail to travel from Sweden. Their cover story allowed them to share the pieces of the truth they believed were most important: Lily was studying in a beautiful castle near the mountains on special invitation, at a type of school impossibly rare to gain admissions into. They wanted everyone to know they had a daughter who was incredibly special. 

Unfortunately, the fake story didn’t account for questions like why Petunia couldn’t get into this school too, especially with her sister attending. Friends, family, and strangers drew their own conclusions. Petunia could sense it in the looks they gave her. They assumed Lily must have scored so high on the eleven-plus exam that a school for geniuses contacted the Evans family; meanwhile, Petunia’s marks must truly be average if the school refused to accept a pair of siblings. There was simply no way to translate magic into ordinary terms. Words like “exceptional,” “extraordinary,” and “gifted” didn’t give people the impression that Lily could soar through the air. They gave people the impression that Lily was prodigious at maths and languages or sciences and painting. 

Petunia understood to an extent. Lily’s gift of magic was even more impressive than the fake stories would lead someone to believe, but that didn’t stop her from feeling bitter and angry. She would feel embarrassed anytime a listener whispered, “What about Pet?” and Mum or Dad waved them aside because they couldn’t bother creating a lie that made Petunia look good too. She couldn’t even try ignoring it. Mum changed the details of Lily’s cover story so often, Petunia could barely keep up. When the neighbors would notice Petunia’s comments about Lily’s school didn’t match Rosie’s, they attributed it to a poor memory, which Petunia remembered because she had an excellent memory. It ate at her like a budworm. She was stuck living a fake life in the shadow of her gifted sister, while Lily, who didn’t have to lie to anybody, was off enjoying herself.

Lily slept in a tower of a castle. “Like a princess!” Mummy said. She ate on golden plates as mountains of food appeared out of thin air onto her table. She lived next to a forest filled with unicorns and she could study them for class one day. She had started flying lessons. 

Pages and pages of letters describing various wonders and not a single mention of Lily speaking to Headmaster Dumbledore like she said she would on the train platform. Petunia was unsurprised that she had been tossed aside. She only wished she could do the same to Lily. If she had her way, she’d bin every letter her sister sent without reading it, but her parents read the letters aloud at the breakfast table every morning that they arrived and sometimes again over supper. The surrounding fanfare over Lily was too loud for Mum and Dad to notice Petunia wasn’t joining in. If they observed a sullen expression cross her face, they would shrug it off to the fact that she was 13. Her mood spread like the smoke that blotted out the blue sky above Cokeworth, hanging over the atmosphere, chilled and miserable. Petunia turned snappish and stiff, and not everyone was as oblivious to the change as her parents.

When Poppy had asked Petunia a few questions about Sweden too many, Petunia had been very harsh to her, and Petunia now found that her friends sought out other company. Poppy and Janie began hanging around Hattie Blight and Emma Downer, the ultimate betrayal. She still had Jill, but it was poor comfort. Jill and her older sister took the bus to the same stop as Petunia. Becky, three years older, had better things to worry about, and Jill probably stuck around because faking their friendship out of politeness was less awkward than walking in the same direction and not speaking. She found herself labelled jealous behind her back by the very people she considered friends. It felt as though Lily had been gifted and she had been cursed.

In a matter of weeks, the real Petunia Evans ceased to exist. Not a single soul knew the genuine her, Petunia Evans, the ordinary sister of a witch. Somehow Petunia’s life had been traded for the life of an imaginary girl whose genius younger sister studied in Sweden. She hated it. No one asked her if she wanted to be assigned this role, but she found herself reading up on her part in the library so she wouldn’t look stupid when she was inevitably questioned, “What’s Sweden like?” Over half of it is forest. There’s so much forestland, the whole UK could fit inside of it. Did you know? The philanthropist who established the Nobel Prize was born there.

She hated Sweden. 

In her loneliness, Petunia debated doing what she imagined unthinkable several weeks ago: she considered breaking the Statute of Secrecy. Wouldn’t it be worth risking making the wizards cross on the chance she could find some respite? She decided it would be. The trouble was, would anyone believe her if she tried to tell them magic was real. No, they’d think me mad, she wavered again. But she had proof! She could show her magical feather. It was hidden away like those giant pieces of herself were hidden away right now, begging to be shared. Would the feather be enough to convince someone her sister was a witch who was part of a magical world?

Petunia considered all the people in the papers sent to the madhouse for believing they see objects floating in the air as though carried by an invisible hand or hear voices from people they can’t see. On her way upstairs, she stole a flower from the bouquet Dad had bought for Mum—because she missed Lily or because they got into a row—Petunia hadn’t paid attention to the reason. Lilies, of course. A single flower wouldn’t be missed out of the dozen sitting in a vase on the table near the telephone. Lying across her bed, she plucked the petals one by one, flinging them away like falling white feathers. They would believe the feather was magic. They would send me to a madhouse. They would believe the feather was magic. They would send me to a madhouse. They would believe the feather was magic. 

They would send me to a madhouse.

Lilies only had six petals, so her answer wasn’t a surprise. She stretched herself like a body in a casket, clutching the bare stalk to her chest where a flower should go, but hers had no petals left. Lilies were a funeral flower. 

There was one ray of light shining through her dismal circumstances. Her Latin class was reading a translation of The Odyssey. Latin was the subject closest to anything Lily studied, which should have made Petunia hate it, but Ms. Sterner taught the class so rigorously, so draconically that it was as unlike anything magic that Petunia could imagine. She found herself pouring her heart into a story that spoke to the parts of her she wished she could share with another person. At its core, the ancient poem was a story about longing to return home. She caught herself spending more time with the fit hero, Odysseus, who captured her dreams. In the arms of a beautiful enchantress, he longed for his plain, ordinary wife. He faced magic with none of his own, and overcome it every time, armed with nothing but his own ingenuity. And despite myriad adventures, he missed his normal life in his boring, dull Ithaca. What a dreamboat. 

Her class’s lengthy assignment on The Odyssey had two parts, a Latin component and a literary analysis. She thought she had done well on both counts until Ms. Sterner handed back their papers with scathing commentary on Petunia’s reading of the poem. Apparently, Ms. Sterner didn’t care that The Odyssey was named for Odysseus. Petunia had neglected Athena! She was sharing her side of the story with Mum, whose sympathy was misplaced.

“Ms. Sterner would’ve loved Lily!” Mum sighed, dusting a collection of Lily’s photographs for the third time that day. “Maybe you could write to Lily for help, Pet? Lily has a smashing grasp on Latin because they speak it for magic at Hogwarts.” Petunia didn’t bother pointing out that her Latin segment received top marks and it was her interpretation found lacking. There was no point because Ms. Sterner would’ve loved Lily. Lily would’ve known to turn Athena into the hero of the story because Athena was magic, and magic was all Lily cared about. Petunia couldn’t help care about it. It was the sun of Lily’s orbit and the black hole of Petunia’s event horizon.

In early November, her sister’s newest letter caused a stir. It started off happily enough. Lily learned her first magic spell from class and could now make a feather float in the air. This extraordinary feat came on the back of promises of levitating heavier and larger things. Mummy and Daddy were thrilled.

“Looks like I’ll never have to lift anything heavy again,” Ned tittered happily. “There’s our girl, conquering gravity.” Mum had a glint in her eye.

“I’ve been meaning to move the birdbath. I’ll have Lily do that the minute she’s 17. Too bad we have to wait so long.” 

Petunia had taken a sip of orange juice, but it tasted like vinegar down her throat. Lily was only eleven and already doing the impossible. Hearing about a floating feather floated to mind the magic feather Petunia still had hidden in her air vent. It was the only piece of magic she had under her control. She was deliberating how best to destroy it and tuning out the conversation her parents were having about Lily’s Halloween Feast when her mother let out an ear-splitting shriek.

“Lily doesn’t want to come home for holiday!” Rosie wailed, casting the letter on the table as if it bit her hand. “She wants to experience Christmas at Hogwarts!” 

Petunia perked up. She wouldn’t mind a Christmas without Lily. With savage glee she thought of the perfect cover story. Round trip flights between England and Sweden were expensive. 

“We haven’t seen her for months,” Ned protested, tossing aside his newspaper and rising to look at Lily’s letter himself.

“The Halloween Feast was so spectacular, I want to see what they’ll do for Christmas,” he read aloud. He and Mum looked at each other in horror. Petunia thought it was high time the two of them realized how demoralizing it was to compete against magic. Maybe losing the competition would humble the pair. They could know what it was like to find themselves consigned to the rubbish bin. They could feel how it felt to find themselves bland and unappealing against magic, like boiled potatoes against a slice of mouthwatering banoffee pie. This was the closest Petunia had come to feeling happy in months. It wasn’t happiness per se, but it soothed her own pain the same way stubbing a toe might take her mind away from a fresh paper cut. This was the type of feeling so base it could only be expressed by an abstract, cerebral name. Schadenfreude in German, or Cicero called it malevolentia in Latin, pleasure derived from malevolence which brings no advantage to oneself. Petunia could see Mum, hit hardest by the rejection, struggling to claw her way above it.

“We could have our own feast! Platters of delicious food just like they’ll have at her school, so she won’t miss anything,” Rosie said quickly, grabbing at Ned’s arm. “And decorations! We’ll buy the most magnificent decorations, Lily will never think of missing a Christmas at home again! I’ll do the shopping, you can hang them—” 

“How are we going to afford all that,” Ned asked crabbily. This was like watching the plot of a soap on the telly, she had no idea what would happen next. By the way Mum’s eyes turned to slits, Petunia grew afraid an argument would start. It would be like the last time her parents had fought over money and Mum blamed Dad for not earning a higher salary so the family could afford more lavish things. 

“We’ll make some sacrifices and save,” Mum said with a tone so balanced and reasonable it lured Petunia into sharing her opinion for the first time that morning.

“Why can’t we just have an ordinary Christmas, and you can write to Lily that she has has to come home because you said so?” Petunia asked. It was option obvious in Petunia’s head, but Mum glared at her with such contempt you would think Petunia suggested they invite the Snapes for the holidays.

“Ned, talk some sense into her,” Rosie icily instructed her husband. She was already drafting a battle plan how to compete with Hogwarts. 

“Pet, the Christmas feast isn’t just for Lily. It’s for all of us,” Ned told his daughter in exasperation. “The whole family would get to enjoy something special. Having something special is what really makes a difference in life.” He pinched the bridge of his nose and waved Lily’s letter in her face, like the words could lift themselves off the page and argue on his behalf. “Without something special…life isn’t even worth living.”  

Oh, Petunia realized that. She spent the next few days wondering how she could ever compete with Lily making a feather float in the air, let alone whatever else Lily would learn in her seven years of schooling. With spiteful ferocity, Petunia stood on her bed unscrewing the grate to her air vent and imagining how easy her life would be if she could float the screwdriver to reach the screws in the ceiling with a wand. She was alone in the house until 6 on this Tuesday afternoon. Dad was at work andMum was on Bush Gardens playing bridge with a few ladies from church. Mum had to keep up her church charity drive connections so if someone spotted her buying cheap groceries in bulk, they would assume Mrs. Evans was buying them for the church pantry and not her own household.

The lid popped off the grate, but Petunia’s hands were too preoccupied to catch the scarlet feather as it plummeted to the floor.

Petunia retrieved the feather from her rug and examined it closely. The whole feather rippled with an otherworldly, iridescent gold. Soft to the touch yet strong as steel if she ran her finger over it. The longer she scrutinized it, the more deeply she became convinced destroying it would be her ticket to freeing herself from her misery. There were stories like that, spanning pharaohs’ tombs to fairytales, where ordinary people found themselves cursed by a magical object and could save their fate if they could break its spell. Everything could be so simple if this feather was the source of all her unhappiness. She intended to shred it into a million tiny pieces and toss it with the rubbish. How hard could a feather be to destroy?

Nothing worked. She found the feather impossible to cut. Her scissor blades couldn’t slice through it, nor could a knife. Next, she had tried burning it in the fireplace. It did burn, but in the most curious way. The feather would catch fire all at once, so the entirety was engulfed by flames. Gradually, it would turn to ash from both ends, and when the feather had become nothing more than a pile of cinders, the flame would appear smothered for a moment, only to ignite once more and burn the ash into a feather again.

Petunia found this intolerably strange. The reformed feather would put out its own fire and was never hot to the touch, always the same warm temperature. Once, she had put it in ice water thinking it would finally chill, but the feather warmed the water, melting the ice, and felt warm and dry itself the moment she took it out. It was impossible to pluck the barbs from its shaft or crush it in any way. Fed up, she resolved to bin it whole, glowing or not, but as though the feather had a mind to play tricks on her, the moment she tried to throw it out, it stuck to her fingers. She shook her hand vigorously over the open bin and the feather flew aside, not to be seen. She spun round, wondering if it could have disappeared only to find it glued against her back five minutes later after returning to her room. She tore it from her dress and flung it to the floor, digging her heel into it out of spite. 

She wasn’t losing to a stupid feather! 

She finally decided on tossing it into the murky waters of the black river to let it die in the sludge. It would be the final test. Could a small bit of magic survive Cokeworth’s muddy depths? The thought of carrying the feather all that way unnerved her, but the alternative was unbearable. Was she supposed to keep it hidden for her whole life hoping no one would find her secret? 

Petunia waited until her father’s Christmas party, which the tyre company scheduled nice and early in December. He and Mum would be gone for several hours because it was the closest they were getting to a proper good meal until the Evanses held their lavish Christmas feast. With the glowing feather hidden in the kangaroo pocket of her jumper, she set out towards the river for a bridge south of her home, closer towards the mill, where she could dump her cursed feather in secret under the cover of the starless sky. The cold bit at her fingers, the tip of her nose and the tops of her ears. Cokeworth had received its first flakes of snowfall for the season and the snow was already dirty, wet slush on all the streets. Sleet fell from the sky and she drew her scarf tighter round her neck, uselessly tugging up her falling hood. Her mackintosh kept away the dampness but not the chill.She found herself involuntarily shoving her gloved hands deep into her pockets where she could feel the warmth of the feather pressing into her abdomen beneath her coat.

There were other pedestrians braving the weather on the busier streets, but hardly any she could recognize. The closer she neared her destination, the thicker the fog became and the fewer cars she saw driving. By the time she neared the river’s edge, the fog had become so dense, she could hear the water lapping beside her before she could see it. Petunia was confident she was alone. Her side of the river was well-lit with street lamps. She could see no shadowy figures cutting through the fog on the pavement, and no one would be closer to the water in this weather. Water levels had been rising steadily for the whole month and the recent rainfall made the grass slippery and the soil dangerously unstable by the banks. She felt the soles of her fleece-lined galoshes sliding as she stepped onto the bridge. She only went half-way. A single lamp looked to be flickering in the distance on the other side, which was ominously dark. She wanted to get out of here.

Her hands were trembling as she tried to unzip her mackintosh, it was so cold. As she wrestled the feather free from the pocket of her jumper, she was loathe to get rid of it. It had a warmth like a little furnace and when that warmth went missing, she felt even colder. She looked over the bridge rails, the distant water black like a tar pit. She was sure her feather would sink; light though it may be, nothing could survive these waters, not even a bit of magic. She felt deeply miserable staring into its black depths, like she would never be happy again. Unbidden, a memory surfaced to the forefront of her mind of the magical creatures Snape had described to her sister years ago, the Dementors, malevolent beings which fed on happiness. She wondered if they were here in Cokeworth, on this bridge, and felt more determined than ever to rid herself of this magic burden. The feather felt like the only obstacle to her happiness. She wanted to cast it away once and for all, but an irrational fear seized her, and she feared the feather would somehow drag her into water along with it, like a millstone around her neck.

Suddenly, through the parting fog, she spotted a dark figure on the river bank right beneath her. 

Tall, thin, corpselike.

She shrieked, staggering backwards, and a black hood fell back revealing the gray face of Eileen Snape, so startled by another human being that her open mouth looked ready to suck out someone’s soul. Her plans for the feather abandoned, Petunia turned on her heel and ran off the bridge, not paying any attention to Mrs. Snape at all, whose faint cry of “Wait!” had been swallowed up by the wind, unheard.

The bridge scare proved such a failure that Petunia didn’t make a second attempt. She returned the feather to its hiding place in the supply air vent in her bedroom and resolved to forget that it existed. That night, she dreamt she had let the feather go; the moment it was free from her fingertips, she had begun to rise, floating upwards, upwards. She was flying. When she woke up, she promptly disregarded the fantastical elements of her dream, forgetting that the ordinary act of releasing the feather was part of the fantasy too. When her life started to improve in small ways, she fooled herself into believing it was because the feather was truly gone.

By mid-December, Poppy wanted to be friends again. Petunia should have known: Hattie and Emma were such horrid excuses for human beings that only a severe lapse of judgment could have drawn Poppy to them in the first place. It was never going to last.

“—and they’re boring, Pet,” Poppy finished. “They only ever talked about you and that Hattie won a gold ribbon in the summer festival at Morgan Farm.”

“So did a pig,” Petunia said scathingly as she, Poppy, and Jill passed Hattie by on their way into Ms. Sterner’s classroom. She had taken Poppy back right away because she missed her and because she had a heart that stirred for groveling. Janie Pierce, who took a front row seat next to Emma and Hattie, had chosen to switch sides permanently. Petunia, Poppy, and Jill sat a few rows behind them as the class filled in. No one dared to make a sound even though Ms. Sterner hadn’t yet entered the room. As was her wicked way, she had left a puzzle for them on the chalkboard.

The only sounds were notebooks being pulled out of bags, the rustling of pages, and the scratching of pens. Petunia recognized the verses. They were reading the Aeneid and that was from the scene where Dido killed herself, when she’s cursing Aeneas and his descendants with war and death. 

My dying curse invokes I curse 

Imprecor. Petunia switched back to her first option. She had lost points in the past for being too literal in her translations and then for being too imprecise. There was no winning in this classroom.

The sound of heels clacking down the corridor alerted them to Ms. Sterner’s incoming, and as chairs scraped back so everyone could greet her in chorus, several pairs of eyes glanced to Fanny Packet, who usually did the best on these exercises—not that it mattered. Ms. Sterner hated all of them. 

Sure enough, something had set off their teacher to a worse mood than usual. Every minute of her class felt like torture, and she had bizarrely digressed into a diatribe against the fallen Queen’s lost love-led suicide. The topic was out-of-character, but her tone remained calm and measured, so no one knew what to make of it. Jill and Clara had been taking notes until Sterner had insulted them for it, and now all the girls sat with their hands nervously folded, protecting their palms from the ruler that lay across the chalkboard ledge. 

“No one expects any of you to amount to anything,” Ms. Sterner coldly informed them from the front of the room where she sat behind her many certificates and awards. “Poppy. Hattie. Fanny. Pet.” Hattie looked like she was going to cry. Annie and Janie held their breaths, but Anne and Jane were good enough names to pass muster for now. Ms. Sterner sneered. “You would think your parents were naming bunnies.”

The bell rang before she could disparage them any further. For once, no homework was assigned for Latin. They filed out of the room silently, starting to whisper in the corridor about whether they’d get a pop quiz or a surprise essay tomorrow. Jill was asking whether Petunia and Poppy thought Ms. Sterner expected them to read lines in Book 5 when Hattie past them.

“Oh, Pet. I would ask you which way Fanny went, but I guess you already forgot,” Hattie said, walking away with Emma and Jane, a smirk on her face. Petunia stopped walking. She had no clever comeback. 

“I would spit on her if she were on fire, but only because I’m so nice,” she muttered through her forced smile.

“I wouldn’t need a fire to spit on her,” Poppy said. “I spit in her water two weeks ago.”

“Poppy!” Jill gasped.

“She drank out of my teacup, so she doesn’t care about my saliva. And she didn’t drink it,” Poppy added with disappointment. The trio joined the crowd of Tuft students heading to the bus stop and got on the second Midland Red to arrive, the same as Becky and her friends. Poppy had begun to abuse Ms. Sterner, and Petunia tried to be happy. She couldn’t tell her friends the truth about the past few months, but this was as close to normal as life was before. 

“She must be happy as a lark, coming home to her dusty old books! Her first name is Candace, can you believe it? She’s Candy. They should’ve written Cunty Sterner on the birth certificate. It would’ve been more accurate.”

They all agreed Candy was an adorable name for a girl, utterly wasted on Ms. Sterner, at which time Poppy got off the bus at Old Ham Lane. Jill and Petunia took it a few stops further to Buckfast, where they got off with Becky, who began telling them about the boys in sixth form where her boyfriend went to school.

“When a boy asks you for French lessons, he is obviously talking about snogging,” Becky explained, Jill and Pet hanging on her every word. Petunia used to think Becky could predict the future, but now that was Lily’s domain. She had told the family Hogwarts taught a divination class where older students learned how to predict the future with magic. Mum and Dad were amazed, making lists for what to ask Lily to predict for them after she came of age. For now, Petunia was sticking with Becky who seemed to know everything.

“But is he looking for snogging lessons?” Jill asked. Petunia had the same question. “What do you do when you’re not at the instructor stage?”

Becky shook her head, beckoning them closer. “You don’t need to snog anyone to know whether you’re good at it or not. There’s a test to find out. If you can tie a knot in a cherry stem with your tongue, it means you’re a good kisser.”

Petunia and Jill glanced at each other nervously, each relieved the other hadn’t heard of this before either. 

“Does that really prove anything?” Petunia asked, scrunching her face as she imagined her tongue tying a taut line hitch into a cherry stem. “What’s a tongue supposed to do in there?”

“Well you don’t want it to stab the chap, or flop it around like a dead fish.” Becky made her point. They were coming up to the fork on Deacon’s Plow, where Petunia followed Bush Gardens to Highcourt Street and the Crandon sisters continued to their home on Brewer’s Yard. Becky fell in step alongside her. Becky was shorter than Jill, though she was the elder sister, reaching midway between Petunia’s shoulder and elbow. “Pet, I meant to ask you…”

Couldn’t she go one day without someone asking about Lily?

“Does your dad still work at Michelin Tyre’s?”

That was a completely unexpected question. “Yes. Why?” All three of them stopped walking. Becky gestured to Jill.

“We heard there were layoffs before Christmas and anyone left on payroll agreed to a wage cut.” 

Petunia adjusted the strap of her bookbag higher on her shoulder. “No, he’s doing really well,” she lied. “He actually got a raise. It’s how we bought all the new Christmas ornaments.” Her dad spent the weekend putting up garlands and brand new lights under Mum’s direction as part of Lily’s Christmas extravaganza. They had four-foot tall Nutcrackers outside and three grand, plastic Christmas trees in the house. It was really impressive. Everyone in the neighborhood had walked in front of their house to see it, and the Crandons must have too.

Becky and Jill accepted her lie as easily as they had accepted that Lily was studying in Sweden. No one guessed the Evanses were affording their Christmas wonderland on rations of soggy cornflakes and tinned tomatoes on toast, but Petunia was left unsettled. They made their budgeting plans calculating for Dad to earn his full salary. How were they affording all this if Dad had gotten his wages slashed? It couldn’t be true, she rationalized. How would Dad keep that a secret? But Petunia headed home unconvinced.

“Happy Christmas!”

Lily came home soon after that. Dad had driven to London to pick her up, giving Petunia and Mum a few more hours to prepare.

“Pet, the secret to competing with a Hogwarts Feast is starters, entrees, and puddings,” Mum whispered, reading between the lines of one of Lily’s letters. “My plan is we serve faux de gras, duck with cranberries and pistachios, smoked salmon pâté…”

Petunia stared gobsmacked but starting listening closely because Mum expected her to cook everything. Part of Mum’s divvying up the responsibilities was that she planned and shopped, Dad muscled the decorations, and Petunia did the cooking, which left one place for this competition to fail. The burden rested on Petunia’s shoulders. She’d never cooked some of these dishes before, and never so many at once, but she had three days to prep and Nan’s cookbook to guide her. She helped Nan make roast duck two Christmases ago when they went to visit the McDermott side of the family, and all the puddings Mum picked out were recipes Petunia had baked. Lily would be out with Dad, who hired a farmer to give Lily a carriage ride in a horse-drawn sleigh on Christmas Eve, and if there was anything left to do on Christmas Day, Mum would distract Lily with the dozens of presents she had wrapped. Then for Boxing Day they could all enjoy leftovers. Lily wouldn’t be home for her twelfth birthday at the end of January, so Mum and Dad wanted to celebrate it on her last day at home. It would be one big celebration from Christmas through early January.

“She’s home!”

Petunia stood next to the plastic angels lining the staircase bannister, the only sour-faced blonde in a line of plastic smiles. She could hear Lily gushing over the house’s festive transformation. 

“Do you like it?” Dad asked.

Lily was thrilled, wrapping her arms around him a second time. “I’m so glad I’m home!”

Mum and Dad exchanged giant smiles. They had done it. They had won against magic. In the end, it took a blow to Dad’s bank account, a bruise to his back, a package of lozenges for Mum’s sore throat, weekly foot baths for her tired feet, two days of Petunia in the kitchen and a first degree burn to her index finger to create a perfect Christmas dinner that was better than a magic Feast, yet Lily was in chatterbox mode with a magical world she couldn’t seem to leave behind for two measly weeks.

“I hope there’s snow when I get back,” Lily said excitedly. “Polly’s older brothers know spells to enchant snowmen.” Mum and Dad were tickled Lily knew a Polly who was Hippolyta and not Paula or Dorthy. "We're going to have the best snowball fight in the world."

“There’s bound to be more snow in Scotland,” Dad replied.

“Don’t get caught in wet clothes while you’re up there,” Mum chided. Petunia would bet Mum would’ve moved near Lily in Scotland to keep an eye on her if Hogwarts didn’t have special enchantments to keep away non-magical people. 

“There are spells to instantly dry and warm clothes too,” Lily sang smugly. 

Of course there were. Magic removed any difficulty out of life. 

Noticing Lily was taking her last bite of honey-glazed carrots, Mum lifted up the two serving platters nearest to her. “Would you like seconds of—”

“Everything!” Lily enthused, raising her plate. “This is really delicious!”

“Petunia did the cooking,” Dad hummed cheerily.

“Thanks, Tuney!” Lily beamed. 

She was expected to say something. “It didn’t appear on the table magically out of thin air, but I guess it’s alright,” she sniffed.

“In Hogwarts, the food doesn’t appear out of nowhere,” Lily said. “It’s made down in kitchens for us by elves.”

Petunia’s eyes met Lily’s with a chill so cold, her sister could’ve warmed herself out on the pavement. She was not Lily’s little elf!

“You know what I need to do,” Mummy said, putting her serviette on the table. “I need to call Nan and wish her and Grandad a Happy Christmas! You’ll have to say a few words too, Lily. I told them so much about your new school!”

“I can’t say anything,” Lily said between mouthfuls, “Statute of Secrecy.” 

“You just need to say how beautiful the castle is.” 

Lily grimaced. “Is Nan even home? Maybe they’re at Uncle Connor’s,” she said grimly.

“No,” Mum sang, standing up and pushing in her chair. “They’re by themselves. All the McDermotts are having a quiet Christmas this year.” She left the room and made her way to the telephone.

Whenever Rosie was on the phone, she was loud, and the three Evanses heard her half of the conversation from the corridor as clearly as if she had been speaking directly to them at the table. 

“Esther? What are you and Patrick doing at Mum and Dad’s?” Mum asked in surprise. There was a long pause.

“What do you mean Mum invited the whole family? Conner is there too?” she yelled. Dad traded nervous looks with Lily and Petunia. 

“How about pudding?” Dad asked mildly, but any answer was cut off by Mum’s roar.

“Oh, I understand completely! Christmas just for the family.” There was a clack as Mum slammed the receiver and everyone’s eyes went wide. She stormed into the dining room and silently began removing plates of goose and sloshing cranberry sauce. 

“Rosie, love, let's have pudding. We have a beautiful Christmas at home—.” 

“—by ourselves. Because the adopted child doesn't count as part of the family.” 

Dad stood up. “Don’t take it that way. They took you in, didn’t they?” Ned said pointedly—a reference to Grandad Evans, whom they never spoke about—but Mum had already stalked up the steps. 

“Pet, why don’t you try to cheer up your mother, hm?” Dad asked defeatedly. “We don't want her ruining Lily’s special day.”

So it was Lily’s special Christmas Feast after all. Petunia went upstairs and tried in vain to persuade Mum to return to the table, but she didn’t even know if Mum could hear her on the other side of the locked door. After about an hour, Rosie came out of her own accord, deciding she didn’t want to waste a single precious second more of Lily’s limited time at home. She faked cheer and positivity for the next two weeks to soak up every minute with her youngest daughter until it was time to put Lily back on her train.

“I tried really hard to impress your mother. I took my very first paycheck to the florist to pick something out for her. I couldn’t afford roses, so I bought her a pot of petunias.” 

Dad was telling them the story of how Petunia got her name as they hit traffic outside of Watford. Petunia hated this story. There was nothing like knowing you were named after the best your parents could do until they could do better.

“I gave her the flowers, and she told me it was a decent start, but I would need to improve if I was being serious. A week later I switched jobs, a month later I got my first promotion, and the rest is history!”

“That’s so romantic!” Lily sighed dreamily. “To have someone change for you because they love you so much. Winning your heart like a knight from a fairytale!”

Petunia pulled a face. “No, it isn’t! It’s romantic to meet someone who doesn’t need to change because he’s so perfect. Like Prince Charming,” she argued. Lily opened her mouth to retort, but her mother intercepted her. 

“You never know,” Mum said coyly, “you might meet a prince in disguise.” Petunia knew her mum said this to diffuse tension, but it was such a little girl answer. She hated it. 

“What do you think, Lily?” Dad asked loudly to intercept a brewing argument. “Are you going to kiss any frogs in witch school?”

“Ew!” Lily shrieked. 

“One of them might be a prince! Frog-kisser! Frog-kisser!”

“Ned, you are acting like a child,” Rosie said waspishly, crossing her arms and straightening in her seat. Ned wasn’t paying attention to his wife. He was looking in the rear view mirror where Lily’s reflection was sticking her tongue out at him and he nearly clipped another car, which Mum commented on endlessly until they reached Platform Nine-and-three-quarters.

“Don’t kiss any frogs!” Ned called out to Lily loudly as she boarded the train. Several heads whipped around to look at them. Petunia had received hateful looks before, had given plenty of hateful looks too, but this was different. The looks they were getting were downright murderous. She couldn’t understand why the atmosphere on the platform had changed so drastically from the last time her family was here. In September, they had seemed to walk the platform unnoticed. Today, it felt as though every eye under the brim of a pointy-hat was trained on them with a hostile glare.

“Mum, people are staring at us,” Petunia whispered.

“That’s because your father is making a fool of himself,” Rosie said through gritted teeth. “Ned, people are staring,” Rosie hissed to her husband. But at that moment, Lily must have settled into a compartment because she was opening a window that faced out onto the platform. 

“No promises! I love you!”  Lily shouted, sticking her head out the train window and waving wildly. 

Rosie pursed her lips. She looked like she very much wanted to reprimand Lily for causing a scene with her shouting, but couldn’t do so without shouting herself. “No yelling in public!” she hissed at Ned and Petunia, and her hissing was so fierce it rivaled the steam from the train whistle that sounded for the final boarding. As if to spite his wife, Ned chose that moment to run along the train, waving to Lily as the train picked up speed. 

“Love you too!” he shouted after Lily, who was laughing and waving. 

“Bye, bye!” she called. 

The people were still staring, mostly at Dad, but at Petunia and Mum too, the latter of whom noticed onlookers but was too angry to register just how hostile the onlookers appeared. Her hands were balled into fists and her nails were digging into Petunia’s arm painfully. Ned took his time to walk back to wife and remaining daughter. 

“Mum, can we get off the platform?” Petunia asked. 

“What’s the rush? This is the most magical thing that’s going to happen to us until Lily comes back home,” Mr. Evans shrugged.

“Let’s get off the platform, Ned.” 

The three Evanses were supposed to stay in London for a few hours to look around, but Petunia’s heart wasn’t in it after the wizards on the train station. Her parents spent the time annoyed at each other and pretending not to be, and lunch was spent with Mrs. Evans on a diatribe. “Don’t you ever stick your head or any part of your body out of a train window!” she lectured vehemently, even though Petunia hadn’t been the one on the train.

❀

Severus had stayed at Hogwarts over the holiday, but Lily had plenty of other friends to sit with on the train. As the Hogwarts Express sped out of view of the station, she left her solitary compartment and began looking for her dorm mates. In the next compartment over, Luke Lloyd-Kennedy, the boy who joined her and Mary in Diagon Alley, gave her a tentative wave. She purposely turned her head away, not having forgotten that when she approached him the first week of school, he told her he didn’t want to be friends with a girl. Nichola Santos was sitting a few doors down with Mara Benson of Ravenclaw, whom Lily sometimes helped with Potions homework. Lily slid the door open.

“Hello! Happy Christmas?”

Nichola gave her a look of utter disdain and muttered, “No. How do you think it went?” Mara looked troubled too, which was normal for Mara, but Lily couldn’t escape the feeling this time it was warranted.

“I don’t think anyone had a happy Christmas.” She held up a copy of The Prophet from December 23rd. Its headline read “Ministry of Magic Declares War.” With dread, Lily reached for the article and scanned the story. She couldn’t understand half of it! 

The British Ministry of Magic has declared war against He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named and his Death Eaters. You-Know-Who is an enemy of the Ministry, aiding and abetting this criminal carries up to a life sentence in Azkaban…Death Eater activity is illegal and membership in this group is outlawed within the borders of England, Scotland, and Wales by decree of Eugenia Jenkins, Minister, and the acting body of the Wizengamot. Those who oppose us will face the full strength of our Department of Law…Aurors are hunting He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named and searching for the whereabouts of Zoltan Meszaros, 91, Order of Merlin, Second Class…in these troubled times, wizards and witches are discouraged from gathering together in large numbers. All citizens are warned to report possible sightings of You-Know-Who or his Death Eaters to the Ministry and not to directly engage in combat with these dark wizards under any circumstances…

Who was You-Know-Who?

“This is—” She didn’t even know how to word a question. War was bad. Anyone knew that, but what did war mean for the Wizarding World? Would wizards be conscripted? Would people be fighting in the streets? She thought of the telly playing in the front room of her home the weeks she spent in Cokeworth with nary a mention of warfare in England as men in suits reported conflicts in Vietnam, India, and Pakistan. Were Muggles going to learn about magic now? How do you wage war with magic while hiding the fact magic exists?

Mara took pity on her confusion.

“Don’t worry. It shouldn’t affect us in Hogwarts,” she said reassuringly. Though Mara hadn’t clarified the situation, Lily felt a rush a gratitude for the girl until Nichola sat up.

“Lily’s Muggle-born,” she informed Mara icily. Mara paled and put a delicate hand to her lips. 

“I-I didn’t realize. I’m sorry.” 

Nichola had a blunt manner, but Lily could trust her not to mince words. 

“What does this war have to do with Muggle-borns?” she asked, green eyes narrowing. The article hadn’t mentioned Muggle-borns. She shifted between the girls who clearly knew something she didn’t. Mara was trying to blend in with the upholstery. Nichola was drumming her fingers on the windowsill. 

“The Ministry might have declared war two weeks ago, but the situation with You-Know-Who has been going on for a long time. The Department of Magical Law has been dealing with a string of disappearances that date over a decade. The case files were passed from the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes to the Accidental Magic Reversal Squad, cross department to the Spirit Division of Reg. and Control before going to the Improper Use of Magic Office and finally to the Aurors. They used to be written off as coincidence. Someone disappears every couple of months, hard to say whether they’re connected. Recently, a few successive disappearances have been Muggle-borns.”

“—The Ministry officially declaring war is them giving the situation all their attention and wandpower,” Mara jumped in nervously, like she wanted to make up for her earlier gaffe. 

Lily tried to wrap her head around what she was hearing. The disappearances weren’t new; the Ministry of Magic was finally giving them proper attention. In this light, declaring war was a good thing. It meant the Ministry was closer to stopping the danger, so why was a pit forming in her stomach? This war didn’t sound like the wars she learned about in primary school, with bombs, tanks, and guns. Based on Nicola’s description, it was more like a large-scale police investigation for missing persons. Come to think about it, she hadn’t remembered reading anything about disappearances in The Prophet before—never in the front-page headlines. Maybe this situation was less serious than she imagined it being. 

“So Zoltan Meszaros is one of the Muggle-borns who disappeared?” she asked, pointing to the name on the page.

None of this felt right. If this were true, why wasn’t the paper reporting it? And how could anyone tell who was Muggle-born anyway? Mara hadn’t realized Lily had Muggle parents a moment ago. She searched the article once more. How many Death Eaters were there? What were Death Eater activities? The paper answered none of her questions. What rubbish!

“No, Zoltan Meszaros is a Hungarian war hero who lives in France. He was last sighted in London on official business at the Ministry before disappearing on December 21st,” Nichola explained with a heavy tone. There was a slight pause before she added, “He’s from a prominent wizard family in Hungary… purebloods.” Her face puckered with distaste at the last word even though Lily knew Nichola’s entire family was magical for generations.

Lily turned her piercing gaze to Mara, who was noticeably holding something back and began wringing her hands under the pressure.

“He does have a Muggle connection,” she squeaked. “He…he’s famous for being one of the first people to oppose the last dark wizard, and…he left Hungary because he…has a Muggle wife. He caused quite a stir—”

Nichola shot Mara a look so poisonous, the latter retreated into the corner of the compartment.

“Why?” Lily asked. If things kept going at this rate, she was never going to figure anything out. Mara’s eyes darted between Lily and Nichola before continuing with all the eagerness of a bunny leaving the safety of its burrow. 

“It would be one thing if he just had a Muggle wife—perfectly acceptable—” she added quickly “—but…his first Muggle wife died and he remarried a second Muggle—”

“And what’s wrong with that?” Nichola demanded at top volume. Mara put up her hands.

“Nothing! Nothing! It’s just…unusual. For a pureblood from the Eastern block, I mean!” Her eyes were pleading with Lily to save her. “No one would bat an eye at one Muggle, but…they wouldn’t normally run in same circles, so…I mean, some people saw it as scandalous, and it makes sense that he has a lot of enemies. Not that he should!” 

Lily cut off Nichola before she could say a word. “What you’re saying is that the recent disappearances have all been Muggle-borns and this one pureblood who has Muggle connections.” Nichola jumped in before Lily could mull the theory over, banging her fist against the windowpane. 

“It’s not that simple a pattern! The disappearances are a lot more varied than you would think, including some witches and wizards so anti-Muggle it would make your blood curl.” She whipped her head from Lily to Mara so fast that her sharp bob sliced through the air. “You have to trust that the Ministry is doing their jobs! They have information the public is not aware of—they have to keep intelligence out of The Prophet for the success of their investigation!” 

Nichola was bringing her full strength as a Ministry-spokeswitch to the conversation. Meanwhile, Mara was as shaky as a leaf blowing in the wind, the permanent crease between her eyebrows was now so deep it looked like the space would never return to normal. She adjusted her glasses and began a skittish explanation for Lily’s benefit.

“Right now, the Ministry hasn’t released much information to the public, so most witches and wizards are making their assumptions based on the European war 27 years ago. The last dark wizard believed wizards and witches should rule over Muggles. He killed and tortured hundreds of them across the continent. The first to oppose him were people who had Muggle relatives, friends, or spouses—they became targets themselves until more and more wizards were dragged into the conflict. When the war ended, some of his old supporters were never found. Some wizards think You-Know-Who is one of the acolytes who escaped capture or a British sympathizer who never had the chance to join him. That’s why people are concerned this war could be bad news for Muggle-borns. With the recent number of Muggle-born disappearances, folks are putting two and two together and running scared.”

Lily’s throat seized up. Torturing and killing Muggles? This wasn’t a missing persons case; it was worse than anything she could have ever imagined. With the Statute of Secrecy in place, she imagined Muggles and mages lived segregated lives. She would have never imagined wizards could be a threat to Muggles. 

In the seat next to her, Nichola had taken Mara’s words as a personal affront. She flexed her shoulders and launched a counterattack.

“You can’t believe everything you hear and superimpose the last war onto what’s happening now! The Department of Law has kept a lot of their intel out of public eye. There are multiple theories on the identity of You-Know-Who.” In a hushed but no less vicious voice she added, “There are Aurors who know of him as a powerful dark wizard from the East. He’s built a reputation for himself.”

Nichola pressed her lips together, battling her urge to say more in the Ministry’s favor. Lily released a shaky breath, relieved by Nichola’s claim that this war wasn’t a mirror of the continental war Mara described. She didn’t want to needle her roommate, but this was her opportunity to get answers to some of the huge questions she desperately needed answers to. Two very different pictures were emerging in Lily’s head, one of a full-scale war with all the frightening images the word brought to mind; the other was that of a very large police investigation, a man-hunt for a single madman—still serious, but much less so than a war like the one Mara described. Some of Nichola’s phrases clearly sounded like she repeated them from another source, and right now Lily needed her to act as a Ministry mouthpiece.

“You mean people in the Ministry know this wizard’s true identity,” she prodded. She had wondered how they knew to call him He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. That changed a great deal. If the Ministry was hunting one wizard…

“He has many names,” Nichola said slowly. “He goes by ‘The Dark Lord,’ but Crouch wouldn’t stand for that—”

“You mean the Minister,” Lily interjected.

“Her too.” Nichola dismissively waved her hand and then chopped it down decisively. "Crouch refuses to put that in print, so that’s why the Prophet officially uses He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. You-Know-Who kind of caught on from the public because, well—whenever there’s bad news…” Mara gasped. Nichola gave a great sigh, but leaned in closer, lowering her voice. “I’m not supposed to know this, so you can’t tell anyone. I mean it. This is classified Ministry secret intelligence. No one can know.”

This was what Lily was hoping for. She nodded her head vigorously. Mara pressed both hands to her mouth in shock, which Nichola took as silent agreement.

“I overheard my mum tell my dad he appeared in Crouch’s house.” 

“What?”

“Crouch has all kinds of security, the best protection spells wizards know, and You-Know-Who got around them like nothing. He disappeared—Crouch probably tried to attack him; I have no idea how he could’ve gotten around the Anti-Disapparition Jinx—and Crouch FLOO’d to the Ministry to warn Jenkins and the Law Department, but You-Know-Who had beaten him there. They found him sitting behind the Minister’s desk. The office portraits had gone to sound the alarm…on You-Know-Who’s orders.”

“What did he want?” Lily asked breathlessly. Mara looked close to fainting. 

Nichola paused, her whisper growing more ominous. “He said he was there to offer peace. Mum didn’t say more. The Ministry released their war declaration hours later.” That meant You-Know-Who had been at the Ministry and they hadn’t been able to catch him. On the other hand, from the sound of it, he had operated alone. It was impossible to tell if that made his security breach better or worse.

“But they'll handle this?” Lily addressed Nichola. She tried to keep the fear out of her voice by digging her fingernails into the seat cushion. This was the time for Lily to prove she belonged to the House of bravery.

“Mum says the Department of Magical Law Enforcement is a mess. Everyone had to work overtime through Christmas.”

That should have been reassuring, but it seemed like a plaster over a sawed off limb. The girls didn’t speak much for the rest of the ride. The trolley-witch had come and gone, giving out free lollies, which no one ate. Lily’s unsettled face matched her companions’ now. She hoped Headmaster Dumbledore would explain what was going on at the return feast. 

She thought of her parents, who had happily waved her off at the platform, oblivious to the war news. She wished she could talk to them even though they’d be more clueless about this war than she was. Lily tried to think. What would Mum and Dad do in her place? They would read the news, ask their questions to the people they respected most, and keep their ears open for the most frequently repeated statements because that’s how you knew what the facts were. If everyone agreed on something, that’s how you knew it had to be true.

Maybe she’d ask Sev if his Mum had written him anything about the war?

There was nothing to be afraid of. There were no disappearances at Hogwarts, and Headmaster Dumbledore was there. He had beaten the last dark wizard, something-Grindebald? She consulted her Chocolate Frog Card, which she had wedged between the pages of her Defense textbook as a bookmark, afraid that if she kept it in her pocket at home like she usually did at school, she’d leave it behind by mistake. Grindelwald. Gellert Grindelwald. That was the Muggle-torturer, the mass-murderer. When she first learned Dumbledore defeated him, she had foolishly imagined Dumbledore stopped evil Grindelwald from doing any harm, but hearing Mara’s description of the war put the battle in perspective. Grindelwald’s defeat hadn’t saved any of his victims. Dumbledore’s victory felt hollow in the shadow of Grindelwald’s campaign of destruction. On the other side of the card, Headmaster Dumbledore looked back at her with a reassuring smile on his wise face. 

She made to return her textbook to her trunk but stopped herself. When Sev had excitedly described Defense Against the Dark Arts to her, she had thought it sounded brilliant. How had she never questioned the existence of such a class before? Seven years devoted to learning defense—there was nothing like that in a Muggle school. Military schools maybe. Were they all being trained as little soldiers? She glanced out the window at the rolling landscape shifting out of view. The orange sun was sinking beneath a dark line of trees, like the giant star had snuffed itself. What in the world was out there?

Lily thumbed through her textbook one-handed, past the chapters on vampires, hags, zombies, and gnomes. There was nothing listed in this book about how to wage war against dark wizards. In her free hand, she gripped her Chocolate Frog card more tightly. This trip, Dumbledore stayed with her the whole train ride, his blue eyes radiating calm and safety. 

The sky was dark when the Hogwarts Express pulled into Hogsmeade Station. Lily had gotten her wish for snow, which dusted the grounds and treetops, melting into puddles under warming charms on the station. Prefects had already made rounds explaining that everyone had to line up by year and House outside the train; trunks would be packed up and brought to the castle separately. It was a new, temporary safeguard Professor McGonagall set up as Deputy Headmistress. Mara looked terrified to walk off alone, but Lily and Nichola had to join the group of Gryffindor first years gathering together a yard from the door they exited. By the looks of it, they were the last two missing, and there were adults walking along the station anyway. Lily saw Hagrid, Filch, and Professor Sprout ushering students along.

“First years, first to the carriages!” shouted a prefect with a lantern. “Hurry up, first years! If your House is together, raise your hands. That’s it!”

The seven Slytherin first years standing next to Gryffindor had their hands raised. Sev would be back at the castle since he stayed behind for Christmas holiday. As Lily neared her own house mates, she raised her own hand for Gryffindor, but Potter distracted everyone with his shouting.

“I know who the Death Eaters are,” James Potter boasted loudly. “They’re right there!” He pointed down the Slytherin line up. “My dad says if you want to end the war, you should wrangle up anyone who sorted into Slytherin House and throw them in Azkaban. War’s over.” Pettigrew snickered and high fived him.

Lily recoiled. The houses were roughly equal in number. Could someone honestly expect a quarter of the population to be Death Eaters? 

“Ten points from Gryffindor for joking about the war!” shouted John Flyweather, pushing through a throng of students. Despite being a seventh year, the longhaired Hufflepuff was shorter than many of the second years. “Disgraceful behavior, Potter. I’ll be speaking with your Head of House.” 

The Head Boy didn’t know Lily existed. What could Potter have done for Flyweather to know him by name and voice?

“How dare you,” Avery said, looking between Potter and Black contemptuously. “My father is the Head of International Cooperation. It’s your family who are the nutters pushing to legalize Muggle hunting, not mine!” He jabbed a finger in Sirius’ direction, who bristled.

“You can wrangle up my family to rot in Azkaban,” Sirius declared, but his words sent off louder alarm bells in Lily’s head. Her eyes met with Mary’s. 

“Muggle hunting?” the other girl mouthed. If it was anything like what it sounded, it was making Lily sick.

“Into the carriages, please,” Flyweather exhorted. Avery was last to enter his. The Slytherin first years were all smushed together because seven was too small a number to split up, especially for a group of eleven year olds who generally didn’t need much space. 

“How come they don’t get points docked?” Pettigrew sulked. To Lily’s surprise, Flyweather answered him.

“If I had my way, anyone condemning those in favor of Muggle hunting would be awarded points. Now into the carriages!”

The nine Gryffindors split into two carriages, the four boys in the first and the five girls in the second. Flyweather had his hand stretched out oddly in front of Lily’s carriage, like he was about to wave it to send the carriage off, when he swore. 

“Bugger! Are there eight Slytherins? I sent off the carriage with seven.” He started to pull a list out of his robes.

“One stayed behind in Hogwarts,” Lily shouted. “He’s my friend.” But her words went unnoticed because Lucius Malfoy had spoken at the same time as she had.

“One is already at the castle,” Malfoy said. Potter must’ve heard him too because Lily heard him snickering from the other carriage.

“Even Snivellus’ parents didn’t want him for the holidays.”

“—I have one from your House,” Lucius finished, gesturing with his lantern to Charlie Yang of Hufflepuff, who ran to join his housemates. “Sprout wants us to double the pace.” Malfoy used a spell to amplify the sound of his voice over the platform. Flyweather conjured a megaphone, the plain, conical sort, and began announcing the same call for second years to move into carriages, leaving his wandtip lit. Lily liked his way better. The two Gryffindor carriages started to move at a brisk pace and the first Hufflepuff carriage rumbled to life not far behind them, leading a fleet of horseless carriages up to Hogwarts.

Adeline was telling them about the chaos in the Ministry as ambassadors, expatriates, and tourists tried to leave England in droves after the war declaration was made. “There weren’t enough emergency portkeys for everyone, and people were so desperate, they were pleading to go anywhere else just to get out of Britain.”

Mary tapped the side of her arm. “Sirius took Christmas photos with his Slytherin cousins,” she whispered pointedly. Before holiday, she might have been too embarrassed to divulge she knew that about Black, but now, with Muggle hunting on the table, his family connections weren’t regular gossip about a boy anymore. If Black was writing off his relatives to Azkaban, what did it say that he posed together for photos with some of them a few weeks ago? “Lucius Malfoy was in them.” 

The self-driving carriages came to a stop at front doors of Hogwarts and magically knew to leave as soon as they were emptied. Lily saw Professor Slughorn, looking deathly pale, shepherding students into the castle. A lightbulb went off in her head. Professor Slughorn was an adult she respected. She’d get his opinion on how serious this war business was before involving her parents. She kept herself at the end of the line.

“Professor!” 

“Miss Evans,” Slughorn greeted in surprise. “My dear, what can I do for you?” As Lily approached him, she was taken aback at how unwell he appeared. His skin had a waxy sheen resembling some of the slimy ingredients she’d seen stored in jars in his Potions Classroom. His eyes were bloodshot and his cloak collar clung tight around his neck. She considered suggesting he go to the Hospital Wing, but the topic of war was on the tip of her tongue.

“Professor, are we going to be safe at Hogwarts?” she asked anxiously. Slughorn regarded her very somberly.

“Miss Evans, there is no place on Earth I feel safer. As long as Albus Dumbledore remains Headmaster of Hogwarts, we have nothing to worry about.”

Lily’s hand reflexively brushed over the spot where her Dumbledore card was hidden in her robe pocket under the protection of her winter cloak. She already felt lighter. There was no better endorsement Hogwarts could have received. She’d be safer here than Cokeworth. Slughorn’s words seemed to do himself some good as some color returned to his features. 

“Thank you, sir. I should rejoin my House.” She pointed to the castle door.  

“Yes, yes! Get yourself out of the cold.” 

Professor Slughorn opened the door for her and waved her off. There were nice Slytherins, like Sev and Professor Slughorn. There was no way all of them were Death Eaters.

In the Entrance Hall, two Ravenclaw prefects directed them closer to the annex off the oak doors of the Great Hall where the first years had waited before their Sorting Ceremony. 

“First years this way,” called one. “Please line up against the wall.” Since Lily had been last in line into the castle, she wound up closest to the doors, which had just closed for the first year Ravenclaws. That put her beside Black—just as well because she had been watching him warily ever since Avery accused his family of advocating for Muggle hunting. Nearby, the pair of older girls resumed their conversation.

“Can you imagine Tackett and Rechtwig at the Station right now? Bet they’re shocked they actually have to do work for once. Lucius is the only one in that House that does anything.”

“Anne told me the fifth year prefects are decent. Malfoy probably does extra because he’s aiming for Head Boy. I can’t imagine who else will get it.”

“I wouldn’t count on him,” Sirius interjected. To Lily’s surprise, the prefects seemed very interested in what he had to say. “Honors come down to politics. Dumbledore would never make him Head Boy after his dad puppeteered the resignation of the first Muggle Minister for Magic.”

One girl gasped. “That’s true, is it? I always thought it was a Quibbler headline getting circled around.” 

Sirius shrugged a shoulder. “Everyone knows Abraxas did it. They can’t prove it.”

“You would know, wouldn’t you?” The other girl surveyed Sirius keenly. “So you’re the family traitor,” she teased invitingly, but he bristled at the implication. Lily didn’t know what to think of that. The only quality he had going in his favor was that unlike every other member of his family, Sirius Black alone had sorted into Gryffindor. That had to count for something.

“Send in the next set,” Filch called, coming in with the chatting first year Hufflepuffs and a group of second years close behind them. Lily heard him muttering under his breath about the trail of watery footprints being dragged through the Entrance Hall like they didn’t have magic to clean it all up.

“You lot can go in now.” The doors the the Great Hall opened.

She barely registered sitting down next to Mary. Her eyes were trained on the empty seat in the center of the Head Table where Dumbledore was conspicuously absent among the staff. It was hard to get a picture of the danger of present affairs from the professors. Some looked downright festive, like there was no war at all. Professor Slughorn was noticeably paler than any of them, even Binns, who only attended meals during the feasts. If Lily didn’t know better, he seemed to have downed a vial of potion when Professor McGonagall approached the podium. The entire Hall had filled in without Lily’s notice. Despite her determination to catch any bit of war news, she couldn’t pay attention to McGonagall as the Deputy Headmistress welcomed them back from winter holiday and she didn’t take any of the food that appeared on golden platters in front of her. The person to her left had their Prophet on the table, its front page facing up. She could make out the headline from this angle, “Minister Addresses Magical Britain,” but an arm blocked most of the page from view. She peeked at the sentence in the corner closest to her, leaning her neck just enough to get a better look without attracting attention. “I would like to reassure the Goblin community we are investigating the disappearance of Yarak, son of Knurl, with due attention.” It looked like the article in question was a transcript of the Minister’s New Year’s Day war speech. If the kid to her left could move his arm. 

Serendipitously, the troublesome elbow lifted and she tried to slip the paper a smidge closer for her reading, but she was caught red-handed.

Lily groaned internally. Of all the boys she had to snag a paper from it had to be Lupin.

He smiled at her and pointed to the paper in her hands. “You can have it if you want. I’m done reading it.” 

“Thanks,” she said awkwardly, forcing a small smile until Remus turned back around to the other three Gryffindor boys, who were so engrossed in their discussion, they hadn’t noticed Lupin getting distracted. 

She didn’t have anything against Lupin—it was hard to when he was so nice. He was just…odd. He was known for turning up missing the next day after the Welcoming Feast and not reappearing until a week later. Without fail, Remus Lupin missed nearly a week of every month last term. She’d seen him leaving the Hospital Wing a couple times, pale and withdrawn. He was obviously sick—not that she would ever be rude enough to ask him about it, unlike some Housemates—and that was why Lily felt so bad she didn’t like him. She didn’t dislike Lupin, but sometimes she felt he was the least Gryffindor of the bunch. She’d seen him change his mind about his favorite Quidditch team under pressure from some older housemates, and she’d bet he’d change his favorite color if someone didn’t like it. 

She felt bad about thinking that way about the sick kid, but Lupin’s mysterious illness was the least peculiar thing about him. He had this annoying habit where he would talk to you normally and everything would go fine until you laughed at his joke, or paid him a compliment, or asked him a question, or shared a bit about yourself. All it would take was one innocuous comment to send him running for the hills like he was scared of his own shadow. He did the same thing to everyone. One minute, he’d be laughing with Potter, Black, and Pettigrew like they were a four man band, and the next minute he’d be dashing off to hide away in the nearest loo until their next class started. It was downright bizarre. You’d think he had an allergy to friendship, and the only thing he feared more than being liked was being disliked. He seemed in decent health whenever he was out of the Hospital Wing, so there was no reason for his illness to affect his spine.

She unfurled Lupin’s copy of the Prophet. There on the cover was a close up photograph of the Minister in front of a podium. She recognized Minister Jenkins from the witch’s appearance at Hogwarts the second week of school. 

Lily had been to one funeral her whole life, when she was seven and her paternal grandfather died. That was her first time meeting Jack Evans. She could never bring herself to think of him as Grandad. Her parents wanted her and Tuney to see him one time before his body was buried because no photographs of him existed, so they arranged for a viewing for close family in the funeral chamber before the burial. She had been afraid to look into the coffin because she imagined a dead person as flesh rotting off a skeleton, but Tuney, who had gone ahead of her, told her, “It looks like he’s sleeping.” The Minister looked like that dead body, touched up by the morgue beautician. Her hair was styled nicely and her face painted a healthy rose color, but her eyes looked like what you might find if you lifted the eyelids of a corpse. Haunting and lightless. 

“Witches, wizards, magical beings and creatures of Great Britain, I am addressing you today as your Minister—”

She started in on the article, but didn’t make it past the first sentence before the entire page was wiped away. Gone were the photograph and accompanying story. In its place was a giant moving photograph of Dumbledore under the headline “Dumbledore Assures World Grindelwald Remains in Nuremgard.” According to the caption, this was a photograph of Dumbledore, Austria’s Chancellor of Magic, and the Minister of Bohemia outside of Grindelwald’s prison. The newspaper’s magically moving photographs weren’t as sophisticated as magical moving pictures, which could interact with you and leave their frames. They were like short film reels. This particular photograph played so seamlessly it formed an infinite loop. Three figures in the distance were walking on a path towards the camera, grim-faced and somber. They would pass under a gate, closer and closer until they split apart and exited the borders of the photo from the right and left. For a moment, all that would be left was the open gate, “For the Greater Good” carved over its entrance like a banner, and then the trio of small dots would appear in the distant horizon again, getting closer and closer. Now that Lily knew Dumbledore was in the center, she studied the approaching blobs a second time. The figure in the center seemed stooped somehow, like he was leaning on the person to his left to support his weight. But that couldn’t be right because the figure in the center had to be Dumbledore, and the moment he appeared close enough in frame to be distinguishable, he had the ferocity of a lion etched into his face. Lily waited until he exited the frame again and then looked back to his seat at the Head Table. Vacant. 

Her gaze drifted over to Slytherin table, where Lucius Malfoy sat with Sirius’ cousins and a couple of other older students she didn’t know. The group appeared to be enjoying themselves, virtually unaffected by the war news. Between what she heard about the Blacks and what she heard about Lucius Malfoy’s father, she had no appetite. What was going on? People in her House had family members legalizing Muggle hunting. People in Sev’s house were removing Muggle-born Ministers out of power. Muggle-borns might be targeted in an upcoming war. This was not what she imagined Hogwarts to be like. She scanned the students further down the table until she locked eyes with Sev, who sat near his Housemates looking off-color and deeply troubled.

Professor McGonagall instructed them to return to their dormitories and go to bed. Lily gestured to Sev across the Great Hall. Although students were supposed to go straight to their Common Rooms, there were a couple of minutes to exploit. 

Sev dawdled while rising from his table and Lily made a beeline to the door from hers, so they met near the doorway. 

“Hi,” he said nervously, though it was difficult to hear him amid the entire student body exiting the Hall simultaneously. “Meet you tomorrow at the courtyard?” They were already by the Dungeon steps. 

“Wait,” Lily said. She wanted to stop and talk but fighting off the shoves of other kids was like trying to swim against the current of a strong river. Sev started to follow her up the steps of the Grand Staircase. “I wanted to ask you if you heard from your mum.”

“What?” he asked, unable to hear her above the chatting. Lily sighed.

“Seven o’clock,” she shouted. Tomorrow was a Saturday but she couldn’t imagine waiting any longer to ask him about the war. Sev nodded. Some of the Ravenclaws on the landing ahead of them were crossing the hall to go up a different set of staircases. She was about to repeat her question to him about hearing from his mum, but at that moment McGonagall interrupted them. 

“Mr. Snape,” McGongall said critically from her spot on the landing, “since when does going to the Dungeons require one to walk up steps?” 

Sev opened his mouth, but thought better of it and closed it immediately. “Sorry.”

“Yeah, Sniv, to the Dungeons with you,” Black jeered. 

“No way to go but down,” Potter chimed in, his voice too low for McGonagall to hear. “Story of your life.” Lily turned to glare at them, but even Potter and Black were swept up in the rush of moving students.

Lily didn’t sleep at all that night and left to meet Severus as early as she could, curfew be damned. It was the first time she’d arrived to a meeting place before he had. She sat atop the stone bricks that formed a window nook overlooking the courtyard to wait for him. It was still dark outside, and it was snowing heavily. The snow fell across the courtyard like a thick, white blanket. The sight of the grounds looked so peaceful and beautiful, it was hard to believe there was a terrifying war going on at all. 

She lit her wandtip to reread Lupin’s copy of the Prophet, which she had brought along to keep Dumbledore with her more than anything. She could trust that Grindelwald lay safely in his prison, Dumbledore saw to that twice over. You-Know-Who was not Gellert Grindelwald, so it was possible that his war would be nothing like the one that had ravaged Europe, but who else could his Death Eaters be except Grindelwald supporters? If they had escaped capture since the last war, what had become of them? As far as Lily knew, the only crimes You-Know-Who was charged with were his break-ins and potential involvement in these mysterious disappearances. Did that mean his Death Eaters were accomplices to kidnapping, or were these the very same Muggle torturers and murderers from years past?

What did a Death Eater even look like?

“Hi.” She jumped. “Sorry, didn’t meant to scare you,” Sev whispered. “Filch has really good hearing.” 

Lily shifted in her seat so Sev could join her against the window. She was incredibly glad to see him, and not just because he wasn’t Filch. 

“Did your Mum say anything about the war?” she asked immediately. 

He frowned. “Mum doesn’t have an owl to write,” he said awkwardly. “But a lot’s happened at Hogwarts. Students have been talking—and teachers.”

She leaned her temple against the glass grimly. “Mara Benson already told me the theory about You-Know-Who being a Grindelwald follower.”

Severus hopped off the brick and paced the stone floor pensively. “Well, Professor Flitwick reckons he isn’t, or else European governments would get themselves involved.” 

Lily’s brow wrinkled. Flitwick said that? She thought it over. It did make sense that another government would be responsible if they had a criminal on the loose internationally, but couldn’t some country on the continent try to pawn off their mess on England? She studied the image of Dumbledore united with Austria’s Chancellor of Magic and the Minister of Bohemia. Her shoulders slumped hopefully. After what she discovered about Grindelwald’s campaign of Muggle torture and murder, she wanted Grindelwald not to be involved in this war in any capacity. 

“Did you hear any good news?”

Sev shifted his weight between his legs. His grimace spoke for itself, but he seemed to be searching for something to cheer her.

“It’s not good news exactly. But—you know that really old teacher who looks like she could’ve gone to school with Professor Dumbledore?”

“The one with the giant mole on the tip of her chin that looks like a third eye?”

Sev raised his eyebrows, deigning not to comment. “That’s Professor Vector. She’s in the top five Arithmancers in the West, top two of all of Europe. On Christmas Eve, people from the Ministry came to speak with her.”

Lily leaned forward. “From the Department of Magical Law?” 

“Not just them. Someone might’ve been an Unspeakable. They came to consult her on the missing people to see if she could predict who would go missing next or track where someone went missing.”

“Arithmancy can do that?” she gasped. 

“Well…it’s not so straightforward,” he said dejectedly. “For things like tracking locations or revealing missing pieces of patterns, Arithmancy needs a lot of data and time to work. Vector couldn’t help them. She didn’t have enough information to cast her spells. What she told Ministry was classified but Hannah Haymitch, the Head Girl, said Vector told the Ministry one reason their pattern might not fit is because they aren’t checking whether or not Muggles have gone missing.”

“So she gave the Ministry a new lead?”

“Yeah. That was the only part Hannah heard, but she said Vector gave the Ministry way more than that. They stayed here for days, and two of them didn’t leave the castle til yesterday morning.”

That was promising. If people in the Ministry believed Professor Vector might be able to locate the missing persons, maybe there was still hope they could be found. Yesterday, Nichola told her and Mara not to project the previous war with Grindelwald onto this war with He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. Maybe this conflict wouldn’t turn into anything nearly as bad as the last one.

“Are people going to die?” she asked childishly. She knew war meant death, but this was so different from the wonderful world of magic she imagined. 

“People have died. The Ministry declared war because it was someone important this time and Minister Jenkins wants to look like she’s doing something so she doesn’t get sacked,” Sev explained cynically.

For once, Lily had her own piece of news to share. Nichola had told her the true reason Jenkins declared war, that You-Know-Who appeared in the Ministry, but she couldn’t bring herself to mention it to Severus. It turned her stomach to think about it.

Briefly, even as Lily knew it was unfair, she felt a flash of resentment towards Severus. He promised her a world of magic and she walked into a war. Yet, as soon as that anger flared up, so did a memory. She recalled one of her first Wizarding World lessons with Sev when she had asked him if she would be thrown into the wizarding prison for doing magic outside of school. Severus had plainly told her Azkaban was for people who did really bad stuff. She knew that’s what prisons were for, but, for a reason she couldn’t explain, she had imagined that a world of magic was free from the dangers you read about in the news, like killings and awful crimes. That was entirely on her. She never stopped to wonder what crimes people might be committing in order to deserve the punishment of soul-sucking, happiness-destroying Dementors. Her view of the Wizarding World had been kid-sized, like a homespun adventure from the children’s section of the library where she was the main character.

Sev painted a picture of a fun, exciting magical school in a castle, and that was exactly what she found until yesterday. He had told her a little bit about life outside of Hogwarts, like how wizards banked at Gringotts and that people could work with dragons, but he never pretended the magical world was peaceful or problem-free. So far, everything Sev had told her proved true. It wasn’t his fault she had giant gaps in her knowledge because she had Muggle parents. 

Lily stared out the window morosely. “I thought once we got to Hogwarts things would be different, but I’m still the one asking you a million questions.”

She caught Severus’ reflection in the glass. He was a jumble of nerves hovering behind her. Lined up in the window againstthe snow falling outside, he was a flailing snowflake tossed about by the wind. Gone was the boy from Cokeworth confident in his own destiny. Lily wondered if he ever existed or if she had only imagined him one summer, sprawled out in the grass.

“Er—How was your Christmas?” Sev asked awkwardly. 

Lily was about to rake him over the coals for asking about her holiday in the middle of a war, but she stopped herself just in time. With a twinge of sadness, she realized this might be her only chance to tell a friend about her Christmas back home with her family. She missed them. Her eyes pricked with tears and she swiped at them furiously.

Lily only turned around when she was certain no tears would spill out of her eyes. She told him about the special decorations her parents bought, about the dinner Tuney cooked and the extra trees in the house, about the electric red train that looked like the Hogwarts Express and the mounds of presents wrapped in Gryffindor red and gold. 

And when all her wonderful memories had spilled out of her, she remembered Severus had spent Christmas here by himself. She didn’t think he had any friends besides her. She had seen all of his housemates outside the train—maybe it was for the best he avoided them—but Lily thought she saw every first year on the platform except for him. That sounded incredibly lonely.

“How was your Christmas?” Lily asked with a pang.

“Brilliant!” he enthused. “It was just me and a couple of Ravenclaw 5th and 7th years whose parents told them to live in the library until exams are over. One of the 7th years left out all the books she pulled out from the Restricted Section,” Sev exclaimed. You’d think he stumbled upon a Leprechaun’s forgotten pot of gold. He realized he’d been louder than he wanted and continued in a lower voice. “Madam Pince likes them, so she didn’t check in much.”

“Naturally, you put them back?” she teased.

“And go into the Restricted Section? Lily.” Severus was a grin of crooked teeth.

She had heard Dumbledore stayed for school holidays. Her eyes widened. Sev might’ve gotten a chance to talk to him during the Christmas Feast. “Did you see Headmaster Dumbledore?” she asked.

Severus shook his head. “He was gone the whole time. McGonagall was her usual self. The season didn’t make her jolly or anything.”

“Sev!” She rolled her eyes. Her best friend wasn’t fond of her Head of House, whose words to him on the staircase yesterday hadn’t helped.

“Filch had more holiday spirit,” Sev protested. “He caught me roaming the castle in the night, and he was going to take me to my Head of House, but once he saw Slughorn was gone, he let it slide. Even Binns leaves for the holidays!” 

“Slughorn was gone too?” Lily winced. Severus’ ideal Christmas sounded incredibly lonely to her, but Sev didn’t seem affected.

“He came back yesterday. Some dinner with a former student who edits The Prophet and then a long holiday in Senegal, where they never got the war news. He felt so bad he forgot I stayed behind he let me set the Common Room password.”

“What’s the password?”

Severus grinned slyly. “I’ll tell you after they change it.” 

She had hoped she could trick him into sharing it as payback for the time she had caught up with him after the sorting, excitedly told him the Gryffindor Common Room was located behind the portrait of The Fat Lady on the 7th floor, and naively asked where the Slytherin Common Room was hidden—only for Severus to smile enigmatically and say, ‘it’s a secret.’ Knowing her best friend, he picked some foreign word with an impossible pronunciation that would drive anybody up the wall. She’d keep her eyes peeled for any large congregation of Slytherins in the dungeons muttering extremely long words.

Sev made a great secret keeper. She blinked. Why not tell Severus what Nichola told her about You-Know-Who? Nichola asked her and Mara not to repeat it, but Sev was her best friend.

“I heard something on the train from one of the kid’s whose Mum works high up in the Ministry,” she whispered. She proceeded to retell Nichola’s story to Severus, who listened with wide eyes. He was silent for a long time. Then he glanced to Lupin’s copy of the paper.

“If You-Know-Who appeared at the Ministry, why did Dumbledore go to see Grindelwald in Nuremgard?” Severus asked. 

“What do you mean?” She frowned.

“The whole Ministry knows what Grindelwald looks like,” Severus said. “Unless they suspected Polyjuice or human transfiguration, Dumbledore would’ve known it wasn’t Grindelwald before he got to the Alps.”

They both looked down at Lupin’s copy of the Prophet where Dumbledore marched up to the front page, his eyes blazing beneath the entrance of Nuremgard. For the Greater Good. It was too bad Grindelwald had taken the slogan for his own twisted ends; it suited Dumbledore much better. 

“I don’t know,” Lily said slowly. Maybe he was looking into the Ministry theory that He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named was one of Grindelwald’s supporters? She was certain Dumbledore had his reasons. 

Severus was still mulling over her story. 

“So he just—sat in the Minister’s chair and declared war?” Severus asked, his brow furrowing. 

“No,” Lily said, shaking her head. “He offered peace.” Severus’ brow furrowed more deeply. Lily yawned, the exhaustion from last night catching up with her. 

“I’m going to go back to my dorm for a bit before breakfast,” she said. Severus waved her off and took her spot staring out the window. He said he was going to watch the snow fall. They couldn’t see it from the Dungeons, and it looked peaceful. 

As the months passed, life at Hogwarts steadily returned to normal. Lily purchased a subscription to The Daily Prophet and scanned the news every morning, but there wasn’t a single disappearance mentioned. For the first week since her return to Hogwarts, the Prophet was reporting a relentless string of war-related news: Minister Allocates Funds to the Department of Magical Law, Minister Boosts Auror Recruitment Program, Ministry Suspends All Auror Activity Abroad for Home Defense, Department of Transportation Introduces New Security Measures, and so on. Then, silence. The bulk of students who picked up the habit of reading the paper at the breakfast table exclusively for war news, dropped their subscriptions.Most students fell back into the routines of homework, studying, preparing for exams, attending Quidditch matches and, for the older students, outings to Hogsmeade. Lily found herself doing the same. In the protective cocoon of Hogwarts, it was easy to fool herself that the Wizarding world was as wonderful as the magical place of unicorns and fairies she believed she had entered in September. She filled her days laughing with friends, doing her schoolwork, reading about cool spells to master and practicing magic.

Only one piece of war-related news had been published before the end of the school year. At the end of April, two arrests had been made in connection with Death Eater activity. Prussel Linton, 43, and Jack Cropper, 29, each had previous convictions on multiple counts of Muggle-baiting and, for Linton, one case of magically assaulting a Muggle. It sounded like a promising step forward for the Ministry, but Lily later heard Sirius Black say the Ministry set up two recidivists in order to look productive. Severus had reached the same conclusion and told Lily the article meant the Ministry were chasing their tails and threw two wizards in Azkaban to cover their arses. From the look of things, it worked. The arrests came at the heels of Britain’s Quidditch victory over Ireland, something that hadn’t happened in half a century. People were in good spirits.

Then, in May, Professor Vector’s Arithmancy calculations found one of the missing persons. Lily didn’t count it as war news because Patty Oslop was an outlier. She had appeared on the Ministry’s secret missing persons list after her husband reported her missing in June of last year. Unbeknownst to anyone, Mrs. Oslop had been the victim of her own backfired spell, accidentally turning herself into a teapot for eleven months. Who knows how long she would have stayed that way if Professor Vector hadn’t been scouring the missing persons data with her spells and led the Accidental Magic Reversal Squad to her doorstep? The reappearance of Mrs. Oslop caused great relief to the magical communities of Britain, giving many people the attitude that every missing person was a scatterbrained Patty Oslop stuck as a household object. War was far from public mindsets, and the Prophet’s front page articles transitioned to Quidditch news and helpful guides how to reverse transfiguration accidents and potion mixups at home. 

As June rolled around and her first year at Hogwarts came to an end, Lily decided not to tell her parents about the frightening article from December, which she hadn’t mentioned once during spring holiday. War was a scary word. It loomed over the reality Lily was experiencing as ominous and intangible as a dark cloud. In her heart she might have suspected what was taking shape on the horizon, but she wasn’t ready to confront what it meant. 

She met up with Severus on the train ride to London. She hadn’t seen him much over the last two weeks because she had been making time for the friends she wouldn’t be seeing over the months of holiday. She and Sev would have the whole summer to share together.

“Can we split a subscription to the Prophet over the summer?” Severus didn’t look too eager to agree. “I’ll pay the fee and you can put your address for the delivery. Then we can both read it at the park.” 

“Alright,” Sev said slowly. He might’ve been concerned about his neighbors seeing an owl carrying a newspaper to his window. It would’ve been a concern for Lily, but her bigger issue was that she didn’t want her parents to know there was a wizarding newspaper. Who knew what her parents could read about—the war, disappearances, even something as innocent as a violent duel after a Quidditch match could clue her parents in to the fact that the Wizarding world was as dangerous and unpredictable as the Muggle world. Maybe more. If they knew that, they might change their tune about magic and not let her attend Hogwarts the following year, a possibility which filled Lily with unimaginable dread. 

“Thanks!” Lily held out the subscription form for Sev to fill. She already asked to borrow Greta’s owl for the task and didn’t want to miss her window. She should’ve sent an owl before leaving school. None of the Gryffindor prefects were Muggle-borns, so she had asked John Flyweather how to mail a subscription to the Prophet through the Muggle post when everyone was boarding the train. He had been adamant that it was impossible. She tried to explain that her sister had sent a letter to Albus Dumbledore through the post, but the Head Boy insisted no letter would reach a magical establishment through the Muggle postal services. He was so unwavering, Lily decided it was best not to take any chances and send a letter from the train. 

Sev handed the completed form over and Lily made an exaggerated show of squinting at the letters.

“It’s not that bad,” Sev said defensively. “The train is moving.” 

“Lend me your quill, Sovonus Snopi.” He handed it over testily. “You may be left-handed,” she informed him cheekily.

“Oh, sod off.”

“It’s good news!” She closed the door to the train compartment and briefly opened it again. “I’ll be right back.”

It took her longer to return than she anticipated because Polly was in Greta’s compartment with an augury orb. They were supposed to reveal the minimus significantes, the ‘insignificant significant,’ by changing colors when something noteworthy was happening in your life, like if you met the person you were going to marry in the future or you read information that would turn up on an important exam. The girls in the compartment were arguing whether or not it worked and Lily stuck around as they attempted to test it without luck. It suddenly flashed an orange glow when she opened the compartment door to leave, but nobody could figure out what it meant. She would’ve dallied a little longer, but the girls had convinced themselves it meant Lily leaving would free up a seat for someone’s future soulmate and shooed her off. By the time she met with Sev again, he had changed into his Muggle clothes and was reading a fancy book. It was a thick, old tome with letters written by hand, the kind you’d find in the Hogwarts Library.

“Where’d you get that?” she asked.

“Lucius leant it to me.” His huge smile made Lily nervous. “He stopped in to say goodbye.”

Lily eyed the book like it was a venomous snake. 

“You should watch out for him, Sev. He’s bad news.”

“What do you mean?” The smile was gone from Sev’s face.

“People say his father did something to get former Minster Nobby Leach out of office. Blackmail…or something evil.”

For a moment, Sev looked lost for words. “Nobby Leach is alive,” Severus said dryly. “People catch him shopping in Diagon all the time. He hangs out at Quality Quidditch Supplies and the Leaky.” 

Talk about missing the point! Lily could only stare at him in cold disapproval until she realized Sev hadn’t heard the rumors linking Abraxas to Leach’s sudden illness. He didn’t pay attention to that sort of stuff and Lily only knew because she had went looking for it. It must’ve sounded like a conspiracy theory coming out of her mouth. No one had actual evidence connecting Malfoy to Leach, but if you knew his views on Muggle-borns and traced his donations to many of the speakers and groups who protested Leach’s election, it all made sense. She took a seat across from him. “I know you care about proof, Sev, but don’t you think it matters if Abraxas Malfoy engineered the resignation of the first Muggle-born Minister of Magic?”

Sev raised his eyebrows and tapped his fingertips together like he was humoring her. “1966…Lucius was like, eleven? Twelve? What does Lucius have to do with anything you’re accusing his father of?” He and Lily faced off and the air turned frosty. “So, you think Lucius is bad because his father is bad,” Severus said. He was so angry he started to shake. 

“I didn’t say that,” Lily protested, but her backup reason was that Malfoy was dating a Black sister and she chose not to share it.

“Why is Black the exception then? Look at his family!” Sev snapped his book shut. 

“Sirius isn’t anything like his family. He’s in Gryffindor!” 

She may as well have said the others all sorted into Slytherin. That’s what they were both thinking.

Severus stood up. “I should let you get changed,” he said furiously, pulling his trunk down from the rack. It was noisy and time consuming but Lily didn’t dare suggest they try to levitate it together. “See you later.”

He left cradling the book to his chest. Lily wanted to say something to stop him, but didn’t know why he was so defensive about stupid Malfoy. Maybe Sev was miffed about her Gryffindor comment, but he wan’t like the other Slytherins. He refused to see it. 

Sev didn’t come back, and the train pulled into King’s Cross Station minutes after Lily got changed into her Muggle clothes. She didn’t spot her friend on the train or platform, but she didn’t look too hard. She was seized with the panicking thought that Mrs. Snape might have spoken to her parents sometime between now and Spring holiday. She didn’t know why she hadn’t considered the possibility before and now visions of Mum swam before her eyes. Sorry, darling, we think it’s best you don’t return to Hogwarts. Then Dad would say, We’re disappointed too, poppet, but Tuft Grammar is much safer. Having already said goodbye to her other friends, she walked directly to the barrier between Platform nine-and-three-quarters and the Muggle world and found her family squarely on the Muggle side of things, sitting at a row of benches. To her relief, no one was talking to them and they seemed blissfully unaware of anything out of the ordinary. 

“Home for the summer, poppet!” Dad cheered, taking her trunk. Lily chatted to Mum and Dad about all the good things that happened since Easter even though she wrote about most of it in her letters home. Tuney didn’t seem interested. As they left King’s Cross, Lily followed her sister’s eyes to a police barrier set up in front of the station. Pedestrians were pushed away from the caution tape and police cars.

“What happened?” she asked, her mind jumping to the thought that the Wizarding World had collided with the Muggle world after all, and this was another disappearance orchestrated by You-Know-Who. 

“There was a death,” Mum said quietly, keen to sweep it under the rug. 

“Was it…an ordinary death?”

“No, Lily,” Petunia bit out in exasperation. It was the first thing her sister had spoken to her since a hearty “goodbye” (and good riddance) at the end of spring holiday. “What’s ordinary about a woman in her twenties dying in front of a train station?” 

“These things happen everyday,” Dad cut in. “Unfortunate, but young women really don’t have business traveling alone. It’s dangerous.”