Chapter 2
The Green-Ink Letter
“Petunia, could you get the door?” her mother called as the doorbell rang for the third time.
“Can’t Lily get it?” Petunia answered over the noise, “I’m busy.”
In actuality, Petunia wasn’t what you would consider busy. She was sprawled out on the couch, nose deep in a celebrity magazine, reading about the ‘torrid affairs’ her mother was so obsessed with. But this was the first time she’d had to relax in almost a week, and the last thing she wanted to do was leave her comfy little nest to go shoo away a vacuum cleaner salesman.
“Lily’s not here, Petunia,” her mother told her from the kitchen. “She went down to the river to play with a friend.”
“That Snape boy?” Petunia asked, saying ‘Snape’ in the same tone someone might refer to a millipede or some equally creepy-crawly creature
“I think so,” her mother replied nonchalantly, making it perfectly clear that she did not understand the seriousness of the situation.
Even though the information disgusted Petunia, it hardly shocked her. Everyday, since the day that boy came sneaking up on them in the playground, he and Lily spent everyday together that wasn’t a safety hazard to leave the house. And every night, Lily would come home babbling about the assorted nonsense that boy would tell her: creatures called Dementors, sports played on broomsticks, and anything and everything having to do with witches and wizards. What was really becoming frightening, however, was lately Lily began talking as though she was starting to believe what he said. No longer was this some little pretend game she simply indulged him with, but some secret world they were beginning to share; a world that neither Petunia, nor anyone else was allowed into.
The doorbell rang again, continuously chiming like a child was pressing the button down continuously.
“PETUNIA!” her mother shouted, leaving no room for argument.
Groaning, Petunia pulled herself off the couch and dragged her feet towards the front door. Through the top window, she could see a pointed, droopy hat of violet silk. It had to be one of her mother’s friends. Petunia shook her head; the fashions women wore these days.
But when Petunia opened the door, she didn’t see a woman in a ridiculous hat ready to pinch her cheeks and remark at how big she was getting. Instead, it was a very old man whose appearance put the horrible clothing sense of her mother’s friends to shame. Matching the violet hat on his head was a brightly colored robe and pointed, curled-toe shoes.
“Hello, young lady,” he smiled down at her, eyes gleaming from behind his half-moon spectacles. “Is your name Lily Evans?”
“No,” Petunia answered shortly. “There’s no Lily in this house.”
Lily wasn’t anywhere near the house, so it wasn’t technically a lie. All the same, Petunia didn’t even feel bad about lying to this weirdo.
“Well, can you tell me when Lily Evans will be here?” he asked, clearly not able to take a hint. “I have something I need to deliver to her personally.”
“Really?” Petunia replied flatly, not believing a word he said.
“Would it be alright if I come in?”
“No,” Petunia answered curtly as she slammed the door in the man’s face. Taking a few steps away from the door, Petunia stretched her back and the rest of her stiff limbs, breathing a sigh of relaxed relief. She hadn’t even realized how stiff she was from how long she had been reading her gossip rag.
“Who was it, Petunia?” her mother called out, even though she didn’t leave the kitchen.
“Jehovah’s Witness.”
Petunia was about to go back to her magazine when she was stopped dead in her tracks. Relaxing against the couch, feet up on the cushions, was the same man who she had just slammed the door on. His expression was one of perfect patience and calm, as though he actually been invited in.
“Thank you so much.” The man smiled as he popped a lemon drop into his mouth. “It’s actually very important that I speak with Lily. I don’t mind waiting.”
Petunia only remained frozen for a slight moment before she jolted across the floor as though the soles of her feet had been electrocuted.
“MUMMY!” Petunia screamed, “MUMMY, MUMMY, MUMMY!”
Sprinting into the open kitchen, Petunia nearly slammed into the counter in an effort to stop herself. When she looked up, she saw her mother had already abandoned what she had been doing at the time Petunia shouted for her. She was wiping her hands on her red-checkered apron and looking down at her eldest daughter with a look of thoughtful concern.
“What’s going on?”
“There’s a strange man in the house!” Petunia screeched in a panicked tone. “He was at the front door and now he’s in the house, and he said he wants Lily! He’s sitting on the couch and he’s says he’s waiting for Lily!”
“Who’s looking for me?”
In all the commotion, Lily had slipped in unnoticed through the back kitchen door, right into the chaos. Her white blouse was covered in dirt and grass stains, and she was soaked clear up to her knees, her sneakers squishing as she stepped across the kitchen tile. Any other time, Petunia would have driven herself mad wondering what Lily could have possibly been up to in order to come home in this state, but luckily for her, there was something much more dire accruing at the moment. Even their mother knew that now, her swan-like neck craning out to look into the living room and her bright green eyes growing wide with fear.
“Lily, get over by your sister!” their mother ordered. “I’m calling the police!”
“The police?” Lily exclaimed, beginning to panic. “What’s going on?”
“Lily, get over here!” Petunia shouted as she yanked her sister toward her by the collar of her blouse.
Pulling her sister back towards the south side of the kitchen, Petunia ducked down behind the side of the counter, crouching down to the floor. She tried to yank Lily down to the ground with her, but Lily fought her, long strands of dark red hair falling across her face and hiding her wild expression. All Petunia had in mind was protecting her younger sister from an invading stranger, while objective the single-minded Lily held was trying to see what had caused everyone in her house to become so terrified.
Even though Petunia eventually won the contest of strength and brought her sister down to the ground beside her, Lily strained to watch as the girls’ mother frantically dialed for the police and the color drained from her face as the dial tone came on and refused to stop. Petunia watched her sister’s eyes shift to the entryway, where the man in violet stood leisurely, a rod of some sort pointed at the telephone that their mother was still trying to call for help on.
But the man in violet seemed to forget all about the panic his entrance had created when his eyes finally found the little red-headed girl peering up from the corner.
“Ah, so this is Lily!” The man smiled at Lily, who returned a somewhat puzzled look. “I must say, young lady, you are one difficult little girl to get a hold of.”
Petunia watched her sister’s reaction. Lily wasn’t running up to him like he was her new best friend, but she wouldn’t say that Lily was afraid of him either.
“Who are you?” Lily asked in a voice that was pure curiosity.
“My name is Professor Dumbledore, Lily. I have something for you,” the man answered, reaching into one of the pockets of his robes and pulling out a yellowed, aged looking envelope. “Something I believe your young friend, Mr. Snape, told you might be coming soon.”
As soon as Lily heard the name of her friend, she snatched the letter from his hand and tore at the envelope like a small child attacking a present on Christmas morning. The torn fragments of the envelope fell to the floor as Lily unfolded the letter, her bright green eyes taking in the words with a hungry greed.
“Dear Miss L. Evans,” Lily read aloud, a very large smile spreading across her already bright expression. “We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry…”
“But I still don’t understand this,” Petunia’s father said later that night, after he had gotten home from work.
The atmosphere in the house had become much more relaxed than it was when Professor Dumbledore had first shown up on the Evans family’s doorstep.
Now, tea and hors d'oeuvres were spread across the living room coffee table, and questions and answers were exchanged over crackers and Earl Gray. Their parents spoke with this stranger as though they were old friends, with Lily sitting in between them, hopping up and down in her seat on the couch cushion. Petunia sat off to the side, alone, in a reclining chair. She held her back stiffly straight, like a cat getting ready to pounce on an intruder in its territory.
“Well, for the most part, it is exactly as the letter says,” Professor Dumbledore explained, setting his teacup down and sneaking another lemon drop. “Your daughter, Lily, is a witch; potentially a very powerful one from what I have been told. And I know that my school would consider it an honor to have her among our incoming first-years.”
A tiny, muffled squeal came from the back of Lily’s throat, and she kicked her dangling feet against the sofa, trying to contain her excitement. Petunia thought her sister just looked like she really needed to use the bathroom. Professor Dumbledore, on the other hand, remained calm and composed, giving the rehearsed responses as though he had said them a thousand times before.
“That’s because Lily is what is called a Muggle-born witch,” Professor Dumbledore explained. “Sometimes, witches and wizards are born into non-magical families, and nobody really knows why. But it doesn’t make her any less of a witch than the rest of the children we send letters to.”
“Did you hear that, Petunia?” Lily called over to her sister, making sure Petunia was paying attention to all of this. “It’s just like Severus said!”
Petunia tipped her chin mechanically, her jaw clenched and her molars grinding. Like an anthropologist watching some secluded native tribe taking part in a pagan ritual, she observed the scene unfolding in front of her. Her parents nodding, eyes wide, taking everything in, Lily hopping up and down in her seat like some hyperactive terrier, and Professor Dumbledore going on and on about what a unique opportunity this was. How few children from non-magical families got a chance to go to Hogwarts, how much Lily would be able to achieve with an education from this school. How their parents were lucky to have such a remarkable child. On, and on, and on…
“So, what you’re saying is,” Petunia asked the stranger, this Professor Dumbledore cautiously, “Lily is special.”
“Well, your sister is hardly the first Muggle-born witch in the history of Britain.” Professor Dumbledore chose his words carefully, as though Petunia was a time bomb that might go off at the wrong trigger word. “But, in a way, yes; your sister is special.”
Petunia offered a fake smile over pursed lips. Everyone else was just so happy for Lily, she could hardly afford to be the only sulking face in the room.
“Girls, it’s late,” their father directed at his daughters once he noticed Petunia’s expression. “Why don’t you both go to bed? Your mother and I still have a lot of things to discuss with Professor Dumbledore.”
Lily gave a whining moan at the unfairness of her father’s order, but Petunia barely waited a few seconds before pushing herself up onto her feet and making her way to the staircase. There she waited until Lily finally, begrudgingly, jumped from the sofa and joined her on the steps, each step up taking longer than the one below it. At the top step, she craned her neck back with her ear pointing in the directions of the living room, hoping to listen in on the conversation for as long as she could.
Even after Petunia eventually dragged her sister into their bedroom, Lily still sat with her ear to the crack in the door, trying to catch even the tiniest bit of the adults’ conversation.
“Lily!” Petunia scolded her sister as she fastened the back buttons on her nightgown. “Don’t eavesdrop! Daddy said to go to bed.”
“Quiet, Tuney!” Lily hushed her older sister. “Professor Dumbledore is talking about school supplies.”
Even after Petunia had changed her clothes, written in her diary, and sat in her bed reading, the covers pulled up and the warm lamp light finally casting a rosy tint onto her cheeks, Lily still sat crouched beside the door, still finding interest in everything she heard, and still feeling the need to relay everything to Petunia.
“Spell books…and potion ingredients…and magic wands! Tuney, I’m going to get a magic wand!”
Petunia couldn’t take much more of this. It was becoming clearer and clearer that no amount of subtle hints was going to make Lily be quiet. With a small huff under her breath, Petunia slammed the book cover shut and clicked the lamp light off. The room dissolved into darkness, the only source of light coming from underneath the door. It was just enough for Petunia to still see the ecstatic gleam on her younger sister’s face as she drifted off to sleep.
And with no one to tell what she heard through the crack, Lily simply repeated everything to herself.
“Mummy! Daddy!” Lily shouted back behind her shoulder, nearly stepping on the heels of the robed figure just in front of her. “Hurry up!”
Petunia was the one dragging the family behind, still choking on the lingering smell of smoke from the dim bar they had just walked out of. But where exactly they were going to find ‘school supplies’ in an empty alley was still a mystery to her.
Professor Dumbledore wasn’t with them today, though. He had been replaced, and leading them through the streets of London was a severe-looking woman with square-shaped glasses and her black hair pulled back into an uncomfortably tight-looking bun. And unlike Professor Dumbledore, Professor McGonagall was not one for sugar-coating matters of magic nor for slowing down or going back and explaining things.
Silently, she tapped her wand against the brick wall in a pattern Petunia couldn’t even recall once it was done. In shock, Petunia watched with the rest of her family as the wall opened up, brick by brick. Eventually, the alley gave way to a whole other street; a crowded street, lined with shops and street stands, crowded with people in more ridiculous outfits, even worse than what Petunia had seen before.
“This,” Professor McGonagall announced in an almost stately tone, “is Diagon Alley.”
Without waiting a moment longer, Lily raced ahead of the small crowd and into the busy street, rushing back and forth between the one shop to another. And no one tried to stop her. Professor McGonagall, strict as she seemed to Petunia, indulged her behavior, following Lily around through the stores. She pointed out every ingredient she would need for Potions, recommended books off her supply list that she thought would be beneficial to catching up to students from magical families. And she made sure to keep the rest of the family at arms length while Lily destroyed half the wand shop before she finally found one that seemed to choose her: willow and unicorn hair.
Once the supplies on the school list had been crossed off and their parents arms were filled with bundles, their father gave the girls a handful of the strange new wizard coins and told his daughters to go buy something fun while he and their mother brought the supplies back to the car. Professor McGonagall suggested an ice cream parlor whose name Petunia didn’t even try to remember. Once they got there, Petunia also noticed that they had no normal flavors of ice cream, like chocolate, vanilla, or strawberry. Petunia settled for a green ice cream flavor with about seven different kinds of nut, which she picked out of the cream, while half-listening to the conversation going back and forth between Lily and Professor McGonagall.
“Well, Lily,” Professor McGonagall explained, “no one really seems to know what makes a Muggle-born have magical powers. But what I have noticed in my years of teaching is that when one Muggle family has a wizarding child born to them, we’re all the more likely to be seeing a younger sibling sometime later.”
“What about older siblings?” Lily asked.
“Older siblings?”
Professor McGonagall raised one of her arched eyebrows above her spectacles.
“Well, in Muggle families, they wouldn’t really know what to look for in terms of magic,” Lily explained her reasoning to the bespectacled woman. “And letters are always sent when kids are eleven. What if a witch doesn’t show any signs of having magic until later?
“Well, has it?” Lily asked when she felt that Professor McGonagall wasn’t answering her question fast enough.
The woman, Professor McGonagall, shifted uncomfortably in her seat as she considered her words carefully.
“It’s rare,” Professor McGonagall stressed, as though she didn’t want to give her future student any ideas, “extremely rare. However, it is not completely unheard of.”
Once Lily had her confirmed answer, she turned her gaze to Petunia, her bright green eyes sparkling with possibility. And Petunia instantly knew what Lily was hinting at. Her little sister was convinced that she was a witch as well. And now she was trying to find a way to get Petunia into Hogwarts too! Lily was trying to find a way to make sure the two of them stayed together!
“Petunia, my flavor’s really good,” Lily suddenly said, holding the dripping cone that smelled like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich out to her sister. “Try some.”
Gratefully, Petunia took the cone from her sister and slurped at it purposefully loud, causing Lily to burst out laughing and Professor McGonagall to look on at the strange relationship the sisters shared.
Later that night, it was Petunia’s turn to be kept up by excitement while Lily collapsed into her bed. A few of the books lay open on the floor, their brown wrapping paper crumpled and strewn away like pieces of trash, but for once, Petunia didn’t mind the mess that had been created in her bedroom. In fact, it had been her that begged Lily to open up her school supplies so that she could see them. In fact, the two sisters had stayed up well past their bedtime quizzing each other from the schoolbooks, trying to get one another ready for Hogwarts.
“What are the two names for aconite?” had been the first question Lily asked her once she was tired of trying to learn these things for herself.
Petunia curled her tongue against the roof of her mouth as she searched her memory for the answer. “Monkshood and wolfsbane.”
“Correct,” Lily said as she set down A Thousand and One Herbs and Fungi in favor of another textbook entitled Standard Book of Spells: Grade 1. “Now, what is the incantation for a levitation spell?”
“Wingardium leviosar,” Petunia answered confidently.
“That’s right!” Lily smiled and handed a chopstick hair ornament to her sister. The girls hadn’t been practicing with Lily’s actual wand for fear they would accidentally blow up the house. “Now show me the wrist movement.”
Petunia took the hair ornament, pausing as she tried to visualize the diagram she had seen in the book. “Swish,” she whispered softly, reminding herself of the movements out loud, “and flick.”
“Right, right, right, right, right!” Lily exclaimed, bouncing up and down just as she had when Professor Dumbledore had first told her that she was a witch. “Goodness, Tuney! At the rate you’re going, you’ll know more about magic going into Hogwarts than the students who come from old wizarding families!”
Petunia couldn’t help, but feel proud of herself. She knew that if she did end up going to Hogwarts, she would be two years older than all the other first-years. So not only did she have to be on par with the students who had known about magic their whole lives, she also had to be at the top of their class. She would come into this school needing to prove herself even more than Lily had to.
“I’m sure you won’t be in with the first-years for very long,” Lily had assured her. “I’ll bet the teachers will give you extra homework and even work with you after class. You’ll be taking classes with the other thirteen-year-olds before Christmas!”
Petunia beamed at her younger sister’s praise. “You really think so?”
“I know so, Tuney!” Lily had seemed so sure of herself as she gave her answer. “You’ve always been really smart and ambitious; you’ll probably get sorted into Slytherin the second the Sorting Hat touches your hair!”
Once again, however, Petunia had been lost in the world that Lily had one foot in. Noting her sister’s confused expression, Lily went on to explain how Hogwarts had this special singing hat that had originally belonged to one of the school’s founders. As soon as the school’s new students arrived, there was a big ceremony where the hat would be placed on each student’s head and it would actually see into their heads and decide which house they would be in. Each house had different personality traits that they looked for in their students.
“Gryffindors are brave and daring,” Lily had explained, her eyes drifting upward as she tried to remember everything. “Hufflepuffs are hardworking and loyal, or they just weren’t fit to be in any of the other houses. Ravenclaws are intelligent and creative, but they can also be snobs and show-offs…
“And Slytherins,” Lily had finished with a certain amount of reverence in her voice, “are cunning and ambitious. And that’s you all over, Tuney!”
Again, Petunia felt a slight blush creep into her cheeks at her sister’s praise of her. This time, however, she couldn’t help but agree with what Lily said. She already knew she was ambitious, especially given her plan for climbing up two grades in a matter of months. As far as being cunning went, Petunia had always been able to talk people in and out of things, be it getting a better desk in the classroom or convincing someone to trade her their dessert for her carrot sticks. She couldn’t be quite sure if that could be called ‘cunning’, but maybe cunning was one of those things that became more sophisticated as you got older.
“Slytherin’s the house that Severus thinks he’ll be in,” Lily had gone on to say. “And if it’s the house that you’re going to be in as well, then I suppose it’s the house I want to be in too. I’m not so sure I’m cunning, but maybe you can teach me before we leave for school.”
Petunia had to fight very hard to keep from grimacing. To do anything that would associate herself with that Snape boy; the mere thought made her skin crawl. But then, she also supposed she and Lily would not be spending every moment together. Petunia would more than likely than likely be spending her time with the other girls her age as often as possible in the hopes that hearing about their lessons would help her accelerate all the faster. Who knew? If they became good enough friends, they may even help Petunia study. But Petunia would have her friends and Lily would have hers.
And they would be at Hogwarts together.
“What about their faults?” Petunia had then asked her sister. “Slytherin, I mean.”
Lily’s expression seemed to go blank, as though she had no idea what Petunia was talking about.
“Well, Gryffindors are brash, Hufflepuffs are rejects, Ravenclaws are snobby show-offs,” Petunia elaborated. “What about Slytherins, or are they the only perfect ones in the school?”
Petunia had only meant that last comment as a joke, but she noticed that Lily had suddenly became very uncomfortable. It was clear that Lily had an answer for Petunia’s question, but simply didn’t want to share it with her.
“You see,” Lily began, very reluctantly, “in the early days of the school, people who got sorted into Slytherin really believed in blood purity…and that students from Muggle families weren’t fit to learn magic.
“But Severus says all that was a long time ago,” Lily stressed before Petunia could even have time to react, “and that nobody cares about all that anymore.”
Everything was roses as far as Lily was concerned, which was why she was now able to sleep so soundly, a peaceful expression resting on her peaceful features. But one persistent thought was keeping Petunia awake: what if her letter didn’t arrive before it was time for Lily to leave? Lily seemed so confident that the school would be writing Petunia any day now, but the more skeptical older sister couldn’t help but wonder: what if they didn’t? What if they didn’t even know to write Petunia until Lily got to Hogwarts herself? By then it would be too late and Petunia would have to wait a whole other year before she could go to Hogwarts and just fall that much further behind. Who knew if she would even be able to catch up then?
While Lily seemed to have complete faith that the school would recognize Petunia’s potential themselves, Petunia was not so trusting of these strangers. Maybe she would have to be the one to remind them. Just how to go about doing that was going to prove to be a bit more of a challenge. She doubted it would be as simple as calling the school on the telephone. Did wizards even use telephones? Most of their communication seemed to be done through writing letters. A letter might work, but Petunia didn’t even know the address of the school. Professor Dumbledore had delivered Lily’s letter himself, so there would be no point in looking on envelope for a return address. Even so, if this school was really as secret as everyone said it was, they wouldn’t write the school’s address down for anyone to read.
And all these thoughts simply led her to more thoughts. Even if she did find a way to send a letter to Hogwarts, there was no way they would simply take Petunia’s word for it that she was a witch. These people were not stupid. If all it took into their school was for a person to say they were a witch or a wizard, they would soon be flooded with students without a drop of magic inside them and the professors would have nothing to teach them. Petunia wasn’t like that though, of course. She took to learning magic naturally, possibly even more so than Lily did. Just how she could make the school see that, though…
Suddenly, in a flash of brilliance, it came to her: her diary! She had been keeping it for more than a year, and maybe she had written about some form of magic without even realizing it! It all seemed so simple now as she grabbed the tiny blue-cover book from the surface of her desk. She would read through it herself first and mark all the entries that had mentioned magic in them, and then she would send a letter pleading her case. And then they would have to let her go school with Lily! As Petunia thumbed through the lined pages of writing, she felt filled with this wild new sense of energy, electricity almost. Hadn’t Lily once described magic as being something electrical? Oh, this only added to Petunia’s conviction!
The first possible proof she found was on the first day of school this past year. Petunia and Lily had parted ways on their walk, Lily going to the primary school and Petunia to the secondary school. On the way there, Petunia ran into a heavy-set eighth grade girl who made fun of her skirt, asking Petunia which rag bin had she fished it out of. As the girl laughed, however, she suddenly fell backwards into a very large mud puddle, the only one on the street. And then it was Petunia’s turn to laugh as she made her way to school, clean and dry. At the time, Petunia had simply assumed that the girl had tripped, but maybe it was she who made the girl fall.
As Petunia continued looking through the pages, she was able to find more and more proof that she was a witch. On Christmas, she had been able to predict every present she and Lily would get before they even opened them. And all too many times, she would set something down only to find it had disappeared a few moments later. On and on, she marked page after page until she was certain she had more than enough evidence to prove that she deserved a spot at Hogwarts.
Now all that was left was to write the letter. Still running on fumes from the electricity that had so filled her before, Petunia was able to write the entire letter without even needing to pause and think about the words. It was almost as though her mind had already spilled out the letter in front of her and her hand was merely picking up the pieces.
Dear Professor Dumbledore,
I’m not sure if you remember me. I’m Petunia Evans; you came to my house to deliver a letter to my little sister, Lily, inviting her to your school. You came to our home and explained to my parents and explained to them how Lily is what is called a Muggle-born witch, someone who doesn’t have any Wizarding relatives, but has magical powers anyway.
Well, since you have been gone, my sister and I have been learning and asking questions all about Muggle-born witches. The teacher who took us to buy school supplies, Professor McGonagall, was able to answer most of Lily’s questions, but one of the answers she gave has been forcing me to wonder ever since. Professor McGonagall told us that when a family has one witch in it there, there are probably going to be more. The reason I’m writing is because I think I might be a witch too.
Please don’t misunderstand me. I’m not blaming anyone because I didn’t get a letter when I was eleven, and can even understand why I may not have gotten one. Professor McGonagall also said that sometimes a witch’s powers don’t show until after most students begin their first year at school. I understand that these cases are extremely rare, but still, I think I might be one of them.
Just now, before I began writing this letter, I was thinking about all the things Lily could do and tried to remember anything I could have done in the past that might be considered magical. Enclosed is a journal I have kept for more than a year with marked passages of where magic that I have cast are mentioned.
So, as you can see, I really do have good reason for believing I’m a witch, just like my sister.
I know that if I were to come into your school right now, I would be two years behind all the students my age; but that doesn’t bother me. I don’t mind having to learn with the younger students for a little while. Lily and I would be together, so I think it would actually be good for us, the both of us being from Muggle families and not knowing anything about the wizarding world. And I’m sure I could catch up to the students my age in no time. I’m a hard worker and an excellent student, any of my teachers will tell you that. You can even go to my school and talk to them. None of them have to know that you’re a wizard; you can just tell them you’re the headmaster of a boarding school that is considering me for admission.
All I’m asking is that you give me a chance to prove what I can do. You gave Lily a chance to become a witch. Isn’t only fair that I be given the same chance?
Sincerely,
Petunia Evans
Petunia allowed the pen to drop from her fingers, noting the gentle ache that crept through the muscles of her arm. Now all that was left was to send it all off and keep her fingers crossed.
Carefully, Petunia crept down the staircase, watching the creaking steps, wincing at the smallest noise that might waken her parents. Only once Petunia finally made her way to the paper cupboard did she finally relax. She rummaged through the stacks of paper, searching for a carrier for her message out into the world. The only thing big enough to hold the diary was a single Manila envelope. Faint pencil marks were erased from the front, but it seemed clean enough to work for her purpose. Stuffing both the letter and the diary into the envelope, Petunia finally walked out into the cold night.
Dew had already gathered on the grass and stray clippings stuck to her bare feet. Thankfully, the outside light did not react to her movement, and she was able to sneak across the walkway under a cover of darkness. She raced for the neighborhood postbox, like a military scout running though enemy territory and dropped the letter inside up a loud clunk, Petunia gasping for breath once the task was finally done.
As Petunia stepped away from the postbox, she noticed a heavy metallic smell, like old coins, being carried on the wind. It was going to rain soon. As Petunia returned to the front door, she walked backwards, almost as though she expected someone or something to appear out of thin air and take the letter while she watched.
But Esau Have I Hated... by OliveOil_Med
Chapter Notes: A strange vistor in violet robes arrives at the Evans household with a letter for Lily and a ticket to another world. But the two sisters conspirer in a plan that will allow Petunia to tag along for the ride.
Thanks a ton, Kate!