Lily - The tale of a Phoenix

Chapter two: A scottish woman in a funny hat

January 29th, 1971

Spring, summer, Autumn and Winter had passed again. Lily, a little older and sporting two plaits over the shoulders of her green jumper sat at her dressing table. It now had a few little round jewellery boxes on it, and a poster of the Beatles given to her by Mrs Evans, who saw no use for it just sitting in a trunk at the end of her bed. She'd had to chaperone her niece to one of their performances in Liverpool, and had ended up quite enjoying it herself (though she had not relayed that to anyone at the church). Lily could see Petunia in the relection of the mirror sitting at her own dressing table across the room. It was littered with posters and a letter sat in the bottom corner of it from a friend she had made at her Grammar school. It was called 'Cokeworth Moor' and was part of some coalition with a few other posh schools around the country, including 'St Martins', 'Marsh Hall' and 'Smeltings'. She'd been overly proud of the fact that she had gotten in, and their mother had scolded her for boasting. Lily had taken the test in December to try and get in for September 71', but soon found out that they did not find her adequately intellegent, and Petunia liked to dangle that fact over the girls head, leaving around little trinkets she had gotten from school with their logos proudly facing upwards. She still wore her school uniform too, despite Lily already having changed out of hers. Though it didn't bother her much. The people at Cokeworth Moor seemed to be quite miserable and mean, meaning that they often suited Petunia quite terrifically.

After making sure her plaits were neat, Lily climbed up from her desk, walking over to the end of her bed to grab her coat. "Where are you going?", Petunia turned, revealling some terribly blue eyelids and red lipstick. She looked like a shocked and mistreated doll.

"Where did you get that makeup?", rebutted Lily quietly.

"My friend sent it to me. Her mothers a model". Petunia wiped her lips with a tissue. " Next year the girls are going to start wearing makeup, so im learning how to do it too". There was no way that their mother was going to let Petunia wear makeup. Not that she would listen to that of course. Lily decided to just nod, shrugging her coat over her shoulders. "Where are you going?".

"Out, to see a friend".

"You have friends?", scoffed Petunia, highly suspicious, "Did mother say you could?".

"Mummy said yes yesterday". Before Petunia could dare to inquire as to who Lilys friend was, she made her way quickly from the bedroom and into the hallway. After tripping over one of Petunias blazers, she skipped down the steps to near the Kitchen archway, through which Mrs Evans was cleaning up ready for dinner later that evening. "I'm going out to play mummy".

"Okay- be careful", she called back, counting the knives and forks, "Be back before its too dark".

Lily opened the front door with a shiver as an icy gust struck her skin. It had snowed earlier that year, and recent rain had washed all of the brilliant white left behind into piles of sludge at the edges of the streets. It was grey, miserable , wet and cold. Though Lily chose to ignore all of these factors. She skipped from her front door, waving at Mrs Dibbins as she tried to wrangle her sons inside, before passing down the street, across the zebra crossing, and towards the park on the other side. The ground was muddy and with each step she felt fit to slide onto her bottom. Though with great effort she stayed upright, heading across the boggy grass to where Severus perched in the distance on the dried roots of the twisted oak. In his hands was a book. He'd told Lily that he often took them from his mothers private collection, and that they were full of impressive, but dangerous magic. He never let Lily see them, and she didn't know why. In the end she just supposed that it was one of Severus Snapes strange qualities, like how his hair was always thick with grease, or how he hunched over his shoulders whilst walking, and frowned most of the time. The only time Lily really ever saw the boy smile was when he would look up to see her. He waved her over as she scaled the hill, coming to plop herself down on one of the lower roots.