Petunia was always the worse sister - not as pretty, not as kind and especially not as magical as Lily. Jealousy and bitterness rule her life, until one fateful encounter changes her destiny ...
❀
Petunia was always the lesser out of the two Evaness...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Petunia fell to her knees, fisting the soft grass between her fingers and breathing deeply through her nose. Her vision was swimming and nausea crawled up her throat like a slow moving slug, forcing her to press her teeth together.
Not in front of Eugene, she told herself, a muscle ticking in her jaw. Don't you dare.
A warm hand smoothed over her back, soothing her with firm, slow strokes. "It's gonna pass in a minute, Petals. Portkeys mess with you when you use them for the first time." "I still don't understand," Petunia gasped, "why we had to touch that nasty thing in the first place."
"It's the most direct way to get here. They were set up and distributed specifically for this tournament."
"I'd vastly prefer Aspen - or even one of your fussy Hippogriffs."
Eugene chuckled. "An honour. Want some water?"
Petunia nodded mutely and carefully took a small sip from the canteen Eugene handed her. Lifting her head gave Petunia a chance to take her surroundings in for the first time and she had to come to terms with the fact that she was no longer standing on a gravel-path in Dorset.
Eugene had explained that touching a rusty old can - that looked more like forgotten trash than anything else - would take them to another place, but Petunia had been hard-pressed to believe it. But before her disbelief had time to settle, everything around her had been swallowed by a sudden whirl of motion and colour as soon as her fingertips had come in contact with the ribbed aluminium.
Now she was kneeling on a low, grassy hill overlooking a wide field speckled with small white tents that from a distance looked like a flock of sheep. Petunia could make out people moving between the tents and with a small twinge of discomfort realised that all of them would be wizards. She'd probably be the only normal one among them.
"Do we have to use this to get back?" Petunia asked, her eyes falling back onto the red can innocently lying next to her. She wanted to scoot away from it as if it was a poisonous snake but her desire to preserve her image in front of Eugene stopped her.
"Would you like me better if I lied and said no?"
Petunia gifted Eugene one of her annoyed glares before transferring it to the can. She would have kicked it away if she didn't fear getting transported to God-knows-where as soon as her polished shoe touched it. Instead, she stood up and handed the canteen back to Eugene, who obediently took it with a grin, before smoothing down her skirt. She had opted for one of her favourites, long cotton that fell to mid-calf and was printed with small yellow flowers. Petunia was glad to see that she had managed to spare it from grass-stains despite her rather abrupt landing.
"Let's go then, maybe I'll forget about this cursed thing once we're farther away from it."
Eugene took her hand and started leading her down the hill, his grip sure and warm. "Glad you're feeling better, Petals."
