Then she raised her head and sniffed, her delicately upturned nose wrinkling. Tilting her head, she could now discern shouting from downstairs...her mum was yelling, clearly angry about something.
Frowning, Lily grabbed a pillow and wrapped it around her head, covering her ears completely. Now there was only blessed silence surrounding her. No accusations, glares or reprimands. The smoky smell lingered, however, and she buried her nose in the rug.
"How stupid are you?" Mrs. Evans said loudly, her brown eyes cold and hard.
"I just--I wanted--"
"I told you to do ONE thing! One single, solitary thing, and you muck it up?"
"Tess," Mr. Evans said tiredly, "you know I'm--"
"Yes, and I DON'T CARE!" she yelled. "You're rubbish in the kitchen. When will you learn to JUST STAY OUT?!"
Letting out a sharp breath, Mrs. Evans wheeled around and stormed out of the kitchen. Mr. Evans simply stood there for a moment, looking slightly shell-shocked. Then he scraped the blackened contents of the burnt frying pan into the rubbish bin and put the pan into the sink to soak in soapy water.
He went to the front hall, collected his coat and umbrella, and left the house quietly, closing the door behind him. It was only half-past ten on a Sunday morning, and he felt as if he had been left out on a clothesline during a hurricane.
Light rain pattered on his umbrella and he wondered if it was too early in the day for a drink. Or maybe two.
An hour later, Lily had left her place on the rug and retreated to the sanctuary of her bed. She had been up late the night before, reading a novel about werewolves. The book was so sympathetic towards werewolves that Lily involuntarily thought of Lupin, and how innocent he seemed. Of course, it was a Muggle book so it couldn't be counted on to be accurate. Her schoolbooks, the ones that portrayed werewolves as bloodthirsty monsters, were bound to be more accurate. Weren't they?
Lily rubbed her eyes. It had been after four a.m. when she finally fell asleep, and she had been expecting to sleep until morning turned to afternoon. However, being a light sleeper, she had awoken a little after eight to hear loud bickering from her parents' bedroom; after which she was unable to fall back asleep.
Ever since Lily had come home from Hogwarts at the beginning of the summer, she could sense that something had changed while she'd been gone. The house was thick with tension and uspoken words, but whenever she inquired into this her parents assured her that everything was fine. She was tired of hearing them reassure her while their eyes flashed daggers at each other.
When she had coaxed Petunia into coming for a walk earlier in the summer so they could talk privately, she was surprised at how shattered Petunia seemed. "Oh, it's been simply awful while you were away!" she wailed. "They didn't fight in front of me at first, just like they're trying to hide it from you now. But then they simply couldn't contain themselves, and they had the most horrid rows..."
Sniffling, Petunia allowed herself to be embraced by Lily's awkward, fumbling hug. Petunia didn't understand any more about it than Lily did, but at least she wasn't blocking her out.
They had gone on to the park and sat on the swings peacefully, rocking back and forth. Petunia felt a little uncomfortable at first, claiming she was too old to be on a swingset, but when Lily pushed off from the ground, her legs pumping to propel her as high as possible into the air, Petunia smiled involuntarily and joined in.
Lost in the moment, Lily had closed her eyes and raised her face to the sun as the wind mussed her hair. Then her sister's voice fell on her ears, mingling with birdsong and the low sound of traffic from the street behind them.
"I've really missed you, Lily," Petunia told her affectionately. "It's been so dull and...solemn without you around."
Lily smiled at the compliment, her green eyes glowing as she slowed her swinging and looked her only sister in the eyes. "I missed you too, Tuney. Only you were so angry when I got my Hogwarts letter, and then the whole year I..." she trailed off hesitantly.
"I was, I know. Angry, I mean. And it was horribly childish of me," Petunia told her firmly. "I've had a few long talks with Mum, and I've realized...well, we each have our own talents. If yours happen to be more complicated and intricate and tied up with magic than mine, so be it."
"Wow, you really have come to terms with this, haven't you?" Lily teased, a little smile on her face though she was still unsure of Petunia's feelings.
"Completely," Petunia assured her. "Though the frog bits do worry me sometimes...we'll not let this sort of thing happen again, okay? I won't let anything come between us ever again. Sisters for life!"
"Sisters for life," Lily echoed, and then, because she felt too much like an angel after Petunia's passionate speech, her smile broadened and she pushed her sister off the swing, tumbling with her on the sand and laughing as Petunia shrieked that her shirt was getting dirty.
Now Lily's eyes brightened with reminescence, and she resolved to go to the park. Tami was camping with her dad and Petunia was at her job in the gardens, but there was no reason Lily couldn't go on her own. She was leaving for Hogwarts in less than two weeks and, silly as it seemed, she wanted to bid farewell to all the places that held such vibrant summer memories for her.
She had planned on making a quiet escape, perhaps leaving a note so that her mum wouldn't worry, but it seemed she was out of luck this particular morning. When she reached the kitchen on her way out the door, her mum was sitting at the table, her head in her hands.
"Mum," she started, but stopped with a short intake of breath when her mum looked up, her face streaked with tears.
Lily had seen her mother cry perhaps twice before in her entire life. Neither of those were pleasant times. Her mum had to be really far gone in her misery to let her children see her cry.
"I'm a horrible person, aren't I?" Mrs. Evans whispered, her soft blue eyes searching through Lily's striking green ones, exactly like her husband's.
"No, Mum! Of course not..." Lily was frightened, shocked and had no idea what she was supposed to do. She briefly considered going ahead to the park like she'd planned, but her mother looked so miserable. She sighed, the slight sound inaudible between her mum's sniffling.
"Cup of tea?" Lily asked.
"What?" her mum said distractedly. "Oh yes...I suppose..." But the next instant she had grabbed Lily's arm, her fingers clenching tight. "What should I do?" she asked brokenly, and Lily's heart turned over in her chest.
She loved her mum. Despite her faults--and yes, over the summer she had come to realize that the mum she used to idolize did in fact have faults--she was a good person, and a kind one too, most of the time. Lily didn't understand what had come between her parents, and she had no clue how to fix it.
"Apologize?" she ventured slowly. She expected her mum to nod, or sniffle some more, but in fact she did none of those things. Mrs. Evans laughed. Loudly and derisively, almost as if she were laughing at herself.
"Apologize?" she echoed. "Oh no, love, it's far too late for that..." she shook her head, composing herself in an instant. "I'm sorry, Lily. You shouldn't have to see me like this."
"Won't...won't you tell me what's wrong?" Lily tried, the back of her throat prickling.
"Dear me. No...it's complicated, love. You don't know...you wouldn't understand." Her mum sat still for another minute, and then stood, mumbling "No" once more under her breath.
Lily was tempted to throw back a sardonic reply, but stayed silent, biting the inside of her cheek. Her mum was right--she had no idea what was going on. And since it didn't seem as if that information would be forthcoming in the near future... "Mum, I'm going to the park for a bit. I'll be back in a couple hours or so, is that all right?"
But she was already turning to the door and putting on her rain jacket as she spoke. Her mum nodded absently and turned away, heading up the stairs. Lily looked back once when she reached the door, and saw that her mother had paused on the upstairs landing and curled herself into a shaking ball of misery. She felt oddly like she was trespassing and darted out the door quickly, feeling guilty that she couldn't think of anything to say or do that would make her mum smile.
The light rain intensified as she walked down the street, and soon it was pounding with a drumming regularity, rippling into puddles and curtaining the world.
Not the best day for the park, Lily thought idly, glad that her jacket had a hood. Still, a simple jacket didn't do much against a deluge of cold rain, and she stepped beneath the awning of a baker's while she waited for the rain to lessen, wondering if she should just turn around and go straight back home.
The spray of a passing car flew up at him, drenching him in muddy brown water. Idly, he glanced down at his jeans and dark t-shirt, barely registering how wet he was. What did he care? It was only rain.
And sometimes rain could wash away the dirt of the world, if only for a little while, enveloping everything with that fresh, clean dampness...but here was the indelible proof that the dirt had to go somewhere. You couldn't just flush things away and hope for them to disappear. The ugliness of the world would always cling to some people more than others, and whether it was their own fault or not he didn't, couldn't, know...
He shivered, just once. Enough to remind him that he was caught outdoors, in a cold rainstorm, with no protection. The Muggle clothes he wore seemed silly and pathetic, and he longed for his favorite robe, wrapped around him with its familiar warmth.
Raising his gaze as he waited to cross the road, his dark hair plastered to his hollow, pale cheeks, he saw the light at the end of the tunnel. A baker's shop, with an awning stretching out over the street. He briefly observed that someone had already taken temporary shelter there, and as he slid under the awning, breathing a sigh of relief at being out of the immediate onslaught of the cold storm, he looked sideways, a quick glance, just to discern who it was that shared his temporary shelter.
And then he looked again, emerging from the tunnel and into the light; his dark eyes widening in surprise and some deeper, tormented emotion, quickly shoved out of sight.
"Lily?" he asked, his voice slightly hoarse and grating.
She turned, her green eyes luminous and curious, and he witnessed the very second that her gaze recognized him. He waited for any sign of distaste to crowd her face, as it did nowadays with nearly everyone he knew. But instead she grinned, throwing her arms around him shyly.
"Oh, Sev," she said happily, her eyes dancing.
His imagination conjured a thousand things she might say next, after barely speaking to him for an entire year. But of all the things he imagined, what she said was so very like her old self, the one he knew and loved, that he instantly forgave her for her cold silence the year earlier, though she had not yet attempted to defend herself against it.
She looked briefly into his eyes, smiling. "You are so very wet."