Where Lilies Grow by Pondering

When I was a very young child I used to believe in magic, because who doesn’t at that age? There are so many things that cannot be comprehended by a small kid and the universe is just one of them. So we make up explanations; tales that fill in the gaps of our knowledge.

Then we grow up and we go to school. We are told why the sky is blue, why the sun rises every morning and why we can’t simply flap our arms and fly away like a bird. The magic of life is taken away from us, little by little. Then all we are left with are the harsh realties of the world, haunted endlessly by questions regarding our own existence: why are we here? What is my purpose in life?

But there is a different sort of magic in the world, a magic I had never really thought about until I was nine, when a woman named Minerva McGonagall came to our house to tell my sister that she was a witch. My parents were outraged at first and threw the strange woman out of the house. Magic wasn’t real, certainly not, or so they believed.

A few days later they came to accept that the strange things that had always happened around Petunia were manifestations of magical talent. Professor McGonagall came back again and told us all about the magical world: hidden alleys in London, dragons and unicorns and a hidden castle in Scotland where my sister would be attending school.

I was enthralled, naturally, because this meant that magic was real; it truly existed. My sister couldn’t control her magic yet, but she had a certain way with flowers—especially with lilies, my namesake. She could grasp the stem of one, stroke it, and if it was only a bud it would spring right open. She had no idea how she did it, but she did.

We went to the platform and said good-bye to my sister. I was full of hope that I would one day be joining her on The Hogwarts Express.

Petunia wrote us letters every second week. She told us about her classes, about banquets in the Great Hall and about her classmates in her house of Gryffindor. I knew that Hogwarts would soon be my home. I belonged there.

The year I was eleven I checked the mail every day; looking for a heavy envelope made of parchment that smelled like olden times. But the only letters I unearthed were bills for gas, water and electricity and the odd message from Petunia. No letter for Hogwarts ever came for me.

I never stopped waiting, though. September the first was the day I was due to start at my new school. I spent the morning gazing out my window, quite certain that my letter was coming, that it had just been lost in transit. It did not matter to my hopes and dreams that I had never fallen without a scratch, changed the colour of my hair or made a flower grow. All I knew was that I had fallen in love with the idea of Hogwarts and the deepest desire of my heart was to go.

I dragged myself to school that day; everyone else was excited. But the disappointment and resentment was growing within me like a tempest. I wanted to stand on my desk and shout, ‘I’m better than each and every one of you, because I’m going to be attending a school of magic, Hogwarts is where I belong, not here.” But somehow I couldn’t summon up the energy because I felt too close to tears.

When I came home my parents asked me how school went. I managed to plaster a flimsy smile on my face and said, “It was great!”

I ran up to my room and let myself cry. I shouldn’t be trapped in this house, shouldn’t be here. I should have made my way to Scotland by train, should be eating at the Welcome Feast in the Great Hall. But I wasn’t. I had gotten all my hopes up and that is what I hated most of all. Well, apart from my sister…

She sent me a letter that night, telling me that school was simply grand. I threw the letter out the window, watched it flutter, watched it land. I didn’t need to hear that. It might make me sound like a horrible sister, but I wished that she was having a horrid time, so she could be as miserable as I was.

When she came home for Christmas that year, I locked myself in my room and did not utter a word. I didn’t even come downstairs to unwrap presents or wish her a happy holiday. I didn’t even look at her. I had no sister.

Eventually she stopped coming home from school at all. She was tied up in examinations she told us—it must be said that she had never been particularly smart—she was studying at all hours, into the middle of the night.

I liked it better that way. The less I was reminded of Petunia and the existence of magic, the easier it was to move on with my life. And I did. I stopped dwelling on my normality, I started new hobbies and made some friends. But I still felt like a significant piece was missing out of my life, and that piece was magic.

Petunia finished school when I was fifteen. I tried everything to keep her from talking to me, but she didn’t let me ignore her forever. She took my arm and dragged me into the garden.

“Lily, I have to tell you something.” Her eyes were sincere, welcoming.

“What?” I asked, struggling against her tight grip on my arm.

“Lily, the wizarding world’s at war,” she told me, her voice sad.

“So why should I care?” I asked haughtily, turning my face away from hers.

“Because I know you always felt that it was your world too.”

With one violent gesture, I broke away from her, crying. “Don’t you dare say that!” I spat, tears running down my cheeks. “Like I care about your world!”

Petunia’s face darkened and for a moment it looked like she wanted to slap me in the face. “Don’t lie to me, Lily; I know what the neighbours have been saying about you.”

I stared at her, an incredulous look in my eyes. “That’s all you’ve ever cared about, is it, the neighbourhood gossip? I always knew you were a little busybody, sticking your nose in where it is most clearly unwanted.”

Petunia turned away from me and her shoulders drooped. All was quiet for a little while, an awkward break in the conversation. The silence was almost deafening and I almost pleaded with her to either say something or let me go.

“I came here to give you a present,” Petunia said slowly, “But as I see that is not necessary…”

My breath hitched. “A present?” I asked.

“I wanted to show you this field, this place that I’ve been working on. You’ll see when we get there; it’s not far away from home.”

I was naturally intrigued, because even though I’ve been ignoring it for five years, shows of magic still enthralled me.

Petunia nodded and smiled. “Look, Lily, just follow me.”

It was a dark night and we walked in tandem silence, just me and her, normal old Lily and magnificent, magical Petunia. The night was dark and the moon was full, casting an eerie white light all over the streets. We walked along a nearby stream and into a small clearing on the edge of the woods.

She stopped walking at a particular spot and I halted alongside her. “Here,” she whispered. With a furtive glance around her to make sure that no-one was watching, Petunia pulled out her wand from the back pocket of her jeans. “Lumos,” she muttered.

I stood back, wondering what the spell would do. I was mildly disappointed when all it did was emit a narrow beam of light. But then I looked at what I could now see with the help of the light. Lilies. My eyes widened. “Petunia, did you do this?” I asked, my voice nervous, quiet.

“I always knew your favourite magic trick was the time I made those lilies bloom, so I thought that maybe…you know.” She shrugged, her cheeks a pale pink.

I looked at the lilies. They were beautiful, the most perfect flowers I had ever seen.

Petunia watches my reaction closely. “I just wanted to give you something to remember me by, you know, if something ever happens to me…”

I nodded numbly, not wanting to admit the truth: being a witch sounded more dangerous than I thought it would be, if Petunia seemed so insistent that she was going to die sometime soon.

She was right. In the end she was murdered by an evil wizard whose name I never knew. It made sense; in a fairy-tale world where things could happen with the flick of a wand, there had to be evil to counterbalance the greatness of magic. But I have since remembered an important lesson, one I wish I hadn’t forgotten a long time ago: that real magic isn’t the swish of a wand, or muttered Latin spells.

Magic is knowing that your sister loved you until she died, and watching her lilies grow.