Chapter 14: Home
Lily landed with a thud in the fireplace of a neat, Muggle sitting room. Opposite her was a large, squashy sofa, and several armchairs of similar style were dotted stylishly around the room. The walls were covered with photo frames, which contained smiling pictures of a girl riding her first bicycle; a man and his daughters building a magnificent sandcastle on the beach; three sisters laughing madly at a birthday party with funny-looking hats perched precariously on their heads. These were the memories of Lily’s childhood. She was home.
She crawled forward and stood, dusting the dirt off her school robes. The room was eerily quiet, and she could not hear noise anywhere else in the house. “Hello?” she called questioningly. “Petunia?” There was no answer.
Lily crossed the room to the door and passed the threshold. She walked up the hall and entered the kitchen. It was empty. She wasn’t sure what to do. There was no one here to welcome her. She should have expected this. Since when had her selfish sister ever thought of her?
Leaving the kitchen, she climbed the stairs slowly, running her hand along the smooth wooden banister. She made her way through the various rooms, checking for signs of life, but to no avail. Everything was empty. When she reached her parents’ bedroom, she paused at the door. She slowly reached out her fingers to the handle, but withdrew her hand quickly as if scalded. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to do this. Gathering strength, she thrust her hand at the handle, turned it slowly, and opened the door.
It was as she had remembered it from her last visit in the summer. Everything was neatly in order, the bed made, the curtains drawn back and hooked to the side, the rug thrown carefully over the back of the rocking chair. But there were also signs of life. The book her father had been reading, open on his bedside table. Her mother’s lipstick and mascara lying on the mantelpiece. A shawl hanging on the handle of the closet. There was a pair of socks poking out from under the bed and an open box of chocolates on the chair by the desk.
Suddenly Lily couldn’t believe they were gone. Surely she would hear them come in the front door with the week’s food shopping, and gasp in surprise and happiness as they saw her come charging down the stairs with a grin on her face. They would open their arms to her and tell her everything was fine, they weren’t in any explosion. Then they would tell her to go back to school and work hard at becoming a great witch. Yes, this room was proof that they were still alive. They had to be.
She heard the distinct sound of rustling keys. They were home. Lily turned on her heel and ran out of the room and down the hall, flew down the stairs and shouted “Mum! Dad! You’re back!”
The door opened and a man entered. It was not her father. He was short and round, with a neatly trimmed moustache and small, watery eyes. He stared at her, puzzled. Then his eyes narrowed.
“Lily, I presume?” His voice was cold.
“Yes. And you are?”
“Vernon Dursley.” He said it as a challenge, standing straight and looking directly at her. Lily took the bait with pleasure.
“I see. And what the hell gives you the right to possess a key to my house?”
He opened his mouth to speak, but at that moment, a tall, slender figure emerged behind him. “Lily?” she exclaimed. “How did you…? I didn’t expect…” Petunia Evans bustled past her boyfriend to stand directly in front of Lily. “I only sent the letter yesterday.” She said this as if it was proof that by right there was no possible way Lily could have arrived so soon.
“One of the advantages of being a witch. It’s a lot faster than being a Muggle,” Lily replied, with a coldness that matched Vernon’s.
The look of shock on both their faces put a smile on Lily’s face. “Well, if you wouldn’t mind, I’m going to bed. I suppose it’s the shock, it’s made me tired. I didn’t have time to bring any clothes with me, so you’ll have to lend me some of yours, Petunia.” She turned on her heel and proceeded up the stairs.
“Wait!” This from Vernon. Lily turned. “Yes?”
“Well you can’t stay here, the house is empty, and there’s no knowing what you might…” He trailed off at the look on Lily’s face.
“Rest assured, Dursley, I can look after myself. I’m a big girl, you know.” She turned to Petunia. “I want to help plan the funeral. He’s not having anything to do with it. They were our parents, not his.” On that note she climbed the stairs, leaving them staring after her.
Once she reached her own old bedroom, Lily crashed onto the bed and buried her face into her pillows. There was too much going on to think about. Her parents were dead; her sister and that man were coming and going in her house as they pleased; her parents were dead, her parents were dead, her parents were dead. The thought went round and round in her mind, until finally a deep and lasting sleep claimed her.
***
Lily was surprised at how quickly a week went passed. She spent it living in her parents’ house, after finally persuading Petunia to give her some money to live on. She would not, however, leave Lily to herself. Petunia insisted on coming over to check on her every day, but Lily suspected it was more to do with her suspicions of what she might do with her magic than because of any kind of love or consideration for her younger sister. Lily didn’t mind. She had got used to the distance between them that had started ever since she had received her letter inviting her to Hogwarts. It hadn’t even been a shock when Petunia had moved out of the house last summer holidays. She was, after all, twenty years old. Yet it was the cruel way that she had taken everything from the house that she deemed as hers and moved it to Vernon’s flat without a backwards glance that had really cut Lily. She wondered whether her sister and her parents had made up before they had died.
Petunia claimed that they had never argued: a blatant lie, seeing as Lily had been there at the time. But what Petunia was really saying was that she had no quarrels with her parents on anything other than the topic of Lily. Once she had been safely reinstated into “that damn school” how could they not get on again?
This made Lily so angry that she had seriously considered taking out her wand and turning Petunia into something truly horrible as her sister suspected she would. She resisted the temptation, however, she was here to mourn her parents and celebrate their lives, not to give in and prove Petunia right about magic.
They spoke only when it was needed, and even then it was mostly based around the topic of the funeral. Lily had wanted a small affair, with only close relatives at the service. She didn’t like the idea of lots of strangers being present as she said goodbye to her parents. Petunia, however, had had other ideas. “I’ve already invited most of Mum and Dad’s friends, and we can’t very well uninvited them, Lily. They all want to be there.”
This included Vernon, of course. That man was the most irritating person Lily had ever had the misfortune to meet. She couldn’t imagine what Petunia saw in her. And then she realised: they were exactly the same as one other. In personality, at least. In appearance they looked comical together: Petunia was tall, slim and bony, whereas Vernon was short, dumpy and very beefy. They deserved each other. Still, Lily had argued against his coming to the funeral. His pure denial that she had anything to do with magic freaked her out. He and Petunia gave her constant sidelong glances, as if she would suddenly sprout horns. He flatly refused to meet her eyes. But Petunia insisted on his being present at the funeral. And that was that. She always had the last word. It was, she claimed, her right as the eldest.
The day went by as planned. The weather was beautiful, which surprised Lily. She had always thought it was supposed to rain on the day of a funeral. What she hadn’t counted on was how hard it would be to say goodbye to her parents. She sat through the service wishing she had someone other than her irritating sister to talk to, to lean on, to cry on, and to tell all her worries to. She found herself suddenly wanting James to be with her. He would know how to comfort her. He had always known her best since she had come to Hogwarts all those years ago, better than even her parents knew her. Now they weren’t here to know her at all.
As she threw a flower on their shared grave, Lily remembered how they had died. It sounded comical really. Blasted apart by a dark wizard as they wandered along the riverbank together. She shook her head sadly and wished every evil on Lord Voldemort. He was destroying the world he wished to rule. What a sad man, she thought, blowing a kiss into the ground and turning blurry eyed from the graveyard.
Love Conquers by dumbly_dorr
Chapter Notes: Lily is sent home for her parents' funeral, but as she comes to terms with their deaths, she must also face Petunia...