Chapter 5
Shifting
“Alright, girls,” Lydia Evans said to her daughters, the large camera lens reflecting the two of them, “let’s see some big smiles!”
The corners of Petunia’s mouth turned up a little, but her lips remained pressed tightly over her rather large that the dentist still insisted she would grow into. But at the age of fifteen, she was running out of time and had suddenly become a bit insecure about them.
"Hold on. Lily...." Their mother set the camera on the side table and made her way to her younger child. "You have a strand of hair in your face."'
Lily brushed her hair out of her face herself, she looked just as eager to get this picture over and done as her older sister was.
The girls had been standing in front of the staircase, each of them dressed in their ‘school clothes’, for more than an hour. Petunia’s mother had tried her best to get her daughter to show more interest in the more fashionable clothes that all her friends’ daughters were wearing, but Petunia had either turned up her nose or rolled her eyes at every gaudy color scheme and low cut or short hemline.
At her side, her sister wore the same school uniform she had worn last year: a very plain, black robe that made her appear like every witch on every Halloween decoration Petunia had ever seen. How fitting! she would often think to herself. Underneath the robes were the clothes she would be wearing on the train in a few hours. The trendy clothes her mother had pressed onto her other daughter when she gave up on Petunia.
The lack of color made for a rather dull and depressing photograph, but it hardly mattered. It wasn’t as though their parents could ever frame these pictures, or even show them to anyone; especially not after Lily would take the film and cast that spell over it so the two sisters would move while trapped in the picture. Petunia had only seen last year’s picture once. For a photograph that had the ability to move, the two girls inside it certainly did not use it to their advantage. That stood side by side, stiff, and their smiles looking somewhat pained. Petunia didn’t imagine this photo would be any different.
Their mother flashed the camera, and appeared to, at last, be satisfied with the results. As soon as the light faded, the two girls recoiled away from one another as though they had been burned. Petunia smoothed the front of her jumper and slipped off her shiny leather shoes, while Lily bustled back forth across the hall, eyes flashing in every direction looking for anything that might have been forgotten.
“Dad already put my trunk in the car, right Mum?” Lily asked as she readjusted her robe over her shoulders.
“Yes, Lily,” her mother answer, packing the camera away into her purse for more pictures later. “He’s out waiting for us.”
Lily breathed a sign of relief and grabbed her carry-on bag from the side of the door, racing out onto the lawn.
“You’re not going with us, Petunia?” Their mother asked her this last year too, and she had already received her answer for this year, so Petunia didn’t know why she still bothered asking.
“No, Mother.” Petunia told her with a slight grumble in her tone. As though Lily would even be coming back from the car to say good-bye to her.
“Alright,” her mother said, making her own way for the door. “Have a pleasant afternoon, dear.”
Petunia’s mother didn’t so much as offer a backwards glance as she followed her younger daughter outside. A younger child might have throw a temper tantrum over the lack of attention paid to her, but that part of a person never really dies. Petunia was just a lot better at carrying out the behavior quietly.
For a long while after her family left, Petunia just wandered the house. She was actually surprised to see how much time had passed when she finally took the time to look at the clock. Still, driving to London and back was an all day affair; she would not see her parents for the rest of the day. Lacking any real energy, Petunia rested her head back against the arm of the sofa and sat on the floor, listening to every little echo that rang through her home. The houses in this town weren’t ones that were meant to be alone in; Petunia was fairly certain the homes had been designed that way.
“I think Gregory Rogers got some more muscles over the summer.”
Petunia slammed her locker door, but didn’t bother looking in the direction the gaudy purple-polished fingernail was pointing.
The three other girls surrounded her like jackals, leaving her feeling no less anxious or on edge. Petunia had spent enough time with these girls that they had earned the right to be given names in Petunia’s mind: Deborah, Kathleen, and Rhonda. They were simple, silly girls who care for nothing except make-up, their hair, and the local boys. Deep down, the topics bored Petunia, but she tolerated them for the sheer sake of having someone to associate with through her secondary years so her life could not become an after-school special.
In larger cities, anyone who was anyone was sent away for the education before they were twelve. But in this town, you never move a hundred yards from where you were born until you were buried. She knew because every adult in this town said nothing to convince her otherwise. Her parents both went to her primary school and her secondary school; all her teachers knew someone’s brother or sister, no matter how much older they were.
“Walter Ingrum has a nicer face though,” Kathleen took her turn. “Have you seen his eyes. They’re brown, but they’re not the ordinary dull shade. I just love them!”
“I don’t know. I like Charlie Grabble’s eyes better. I suppose I’m just partial to blue eyes.”
Petunia nodded along with the rest of the group, though secretly, she could have cared less. The town boys did little to stimulate her interest. She hated the way they talked, all a lot of grunts and chest thumping. She hated the way they stampeded through the halls, more like animals than humans. And she could help noticing they all looked faintly alike.
“So, Petunia, who do you fancy?”
Petunia stuck her head into her locker so the group couldn’t see her grimace. So far, she had not committed any offences worthy of being shunned by the shallow little gaggle of girls (though she doubted they would even recognize such an act even if they saw one), but Petunia saw the sad, pathetic existence led by students who made their way through secondary school alone. Her current associates may not have been much, but it was certainly a level up from where some people stood.
Before finally retreating from her locker, she withdrew a textbook from the top shelf. “I have to go to French.”
“Bye, Tuney,” the girls all shouted after her.
Petunia shuddered. She could never stand that nickname, no matter who was usig it. The fact that these girls could say it the loudest, though, made them the most annoying for now.
“Now, if everyone will turn in their books to the section on verb conjugations, let’s read the exercise out loud.”
Sighing, Petunia flipped her French book open to the verb table she saw on her neighbor’s desk. She took a deep breath, but her nostrils stung from the sharp smell that carried throughout the school.
Petunia disliked school as a general rule. It wasn’t that she was a poor student, she made fairly good grades without even trying. She just found everything she did all day so incredibly boring. She saw no way in which anything she learned, for bits and pieces of English grammar to geometric equations, she had learned nothing she thought of as useful to really life since she was twelve years old.
At the very least, Lily must have been completely tortured when she spent her days in class. She got to learn all these spells, potions, and charms, all day, everyday. She got to learn things that could make her life so easy, so effortless, and yet the laws of that wizarding world she loved so much wouldn’t even allow her to use any of it until she was an adult!
But instead of making her feel better like that thinking should have, all Petunia felt was even more anger bubbling in the pit of her stomach.
The French teacher began her paces down the aisles between the desks. “Everyone, please repeat after me.”
All the other children snapped their head up at attention and Petunia did her best to look interested as well.
And the teacher began. “Je suis,”
“Je suis,” the class repeated in mismatched unison.
“Tu estes,”
“Tu estes,”
“Il este,”
“Il este,”
“Elle este,”
“Elle este”
Petunia knew the verb conjugation. She had said it out loud a thousand times before, in this class alone. She droned off the words without even thinking, without even realizing the words or their meaning.
The bell pierced through the collective voices.
“Don’t forget, class,” the teacher told the class as they all scrambled out the door. “We have a quiz first thing on Monday. I expect each of you to study hard for it!”
Yes, yes, of course, Petunia thought to herself. She would do the readings she had been told to, but it could never be considered ‘studying hard’.
And for weeks afterwards, life went on as usual for the Evans household. Petunia’s father would leave every morning for the mill where he worked as a supervisor, her mother would ran around the house doing chores and running errands in town, and Petunia would go to her secondary school where her so-called friends would bore her, her classes did not interest her, and the endless, meaningless noise left her with a constant headache.
Every now and they, the dull ache would be pierced by a new, sharp pain whenever she would be reminded that her little sister was away in some magical kingdom.
One day, after school, proved to be one such instance. Petunia had just walked through the door, dropped her backpack beside the wall, and kicking off her shoes, which she had bought a half-size too small out of vanity and was now truly beginning to regret.
“Petunia, get in the kitchen!”
Petunia took her time walking to the back end of the house. She wasn’t worried. Her mother was always screaming for her family to come running as though the house were on fire, usually for nothing noteworthy. There was a time when it would bring Petunia running as well, but now it just bored her. Besides, her mother’s blood pressure would go back to normal once she actually saw Petunia in the kitchen.
“Petunia!” her mother called to her. “Petunia, Lily sent another letter!”
“Hmm,” she muttered an indifferent hum.
Lily’s letters were becoming more and more infrequent the longer she was away from home. While they became precious treasures to her parents, Petunia found herself becoming just as indifferent to her sister as she felt Lily was becoming to the life she had left.
“Strange,” her mother pondered, shaking the envelope. “Doesn’t she usually include a letter that’s just for you?”
But Petunia didn’t find it surprising at all. Lily hadn’t written any letters just for Petunia for nearly two years.
Dear Mum, Dad, and Petunia,
Classes have started full force here at Hogwarts. Gone are the days when I was a cute little student who was still allowed play time between learning spells. You would not believe how many hours one has to spend studying in order to keep up!
Sev is doing well. He’s one of the top students in all of our classes, especially Potions. He and I are still good friends, though I’m not quite sure about some of the boys in Slytherin with him. They seem like a really rotten sort, so I’m hoping it doesn’t rub off on him. It hasn’t yet, at least.
James Potter is still a constant annoyance. He and his cronie friends all act as though they own the school, and anyone to disagrees with them is horribly tormented. Sev doesn’t bow down to their supposed authority, so he takes up the brunt of the torture. I feel so sorry for him, and I also worry that this will only do more to push him closer towards his horrid Slytherin friends.
Classes are still going well. Professor Slughorn tells me it’s not too early to consider a career in Potions, but I really do enjoy Charms and Defense Against the Dark Arts as well. I started my elective courses this year: Ancient Runes and Care of Magical Creatures. I love learning all the different symbols, even though we haven’t done a lot of translating yet. I have seen a lot a fascinating creatures in my other class; along with some dull ones as well.
I hope all is well, and that Daddy’s work and Petunia’s schoolwork is not giving them too many troubles.
Lots of love,
Lily
The letter was informative, but quite generic in terms of the letters that Lily had sent in the past. It told everything necessary to sooth their nervous mother and make their father believe it was worth it to send her back after Christmas. Other than that, her writings were completely devoid of emotion, fake sounding, and something done more out of necessity than any real desire. Petunia didn’t care for them. Everything the sisters did and every interaction between them was forced and, in Petunia’s opinion, a complete waste of time.
“Do you want to take the letter for yourself, dear?” her mother asked, offering her daughter the scrap of paper. “I’m finished with it.”
“No, Mother,” Petunia droned. “I have French homework to do.”
One night, after her homework (which had taken a particular lack of effort) was complete, Petunia was sitting at her desk, throwing her pen against the surface and picking it up over and over again. Her father was working a late shift at the mill, and her mother was three doors down playing bridge with the neighbor ladies. Again, Petunia was reminded that this city’s houses were not meant to be alone in.
Even in her own bedroom, Petunia felt uneasy. Looking around, she supposed someone might be able to tell the room belonged to her. There weren’t any particular bands or movies she cared for, but she had a fair number of posters for the ones that everyone in the school halls said they liked, strictly for appearances sake. Vacuuming and other daily cleaning regiments kept the floors and windows spotless, and the bed was made crisply enough to pass military standards.
Then there was a dusty strip at the back corner of the room with a single bed and a desk pushed snuggly against the footboard: both Lily’s. The old floral sheets were gone now, for they had been completely worn through. Now the mattress was draped with the plain sort of sheets one might find in a hotel room. Even all Lily’s old stuffed animals were packed away (even she agreed she was now too old for them. Any hint of any…abnormalities about her were tucked out of sight and out of mind.
Petunia’s eyes drifted this was and that and her hands wandered freely. Eventually, when she finally made the effort to look back down at her desk, she saw a single piece of paper on her desk, freshly ripped from one of her notebooks which had been resting off to the side. It shocked her. She didn’t know why she would have done such a thing. When she found herself paying attention to her actions once again, she saw her pen back in her right hand. This was starting to get strange. One more lapse in attention, and the pen was to the paper. Petunia blinked her eyes rapidly and shook her head. Her body was moving, sneaking around behind her brain, without her head even noticing.
Giving up on controlling her movements, she pressed the pen harder against the paper and allowed her hand to scroll the loopy letters.
Dear Lily…
Petunia’s eyes widened in horror, but her hand didn’t stop moving. As before, her body was moving on its own, not caring what her mind thought.
On and on, Petunia watched as the lone of letters became longer and longer, eventually filling up the entire page. Her eyes followed behind the pen, having a hard time believing the words coming from her own hand. She read of lines of sympathy, telling her sister she missed her, how lonely she was, how she had no idea where their relationship went wrong, and how she just wanted her Lily back.
This letter didn’t even sound like her! How could she write these things? Finally, her left hand became a servant of her control, and she was able to snatch the paper out from under the pen. The ink stained in a deep mark on the polished surface of the desk.
Her left hand clenched tightly around the offending piece of paper to the point where Petunia was certain her fingernails would draw blood. Still, she crushed the paper tighter and tighter, finally throwing it to the ground, creating the only blemish in the room’s appearance. Her eyes stung and she kicked the backboard of her desk again and again and again. It was behavior that really should have worried Petunia more than it did, but so much of what had happened tonight had happened beyond her control, she didn’t care as much about what her other limbs were doing against her will.
“Petunia!”
Even though her foot was still slamming against the desk, Petunia was able to register the shrill cry of her mother, back early from her bridge game. But still, even the most frantic of her screams did nothing to put Petunia into a panic. The boy who cried ‘Wolf!’, and yelling ‘Fire!’ in a crowded theater, after all.
“Petunia, please!”
“I’m coming, mother!”
Eventually, Petunia was able to push her chair away and rose to her feet. She maintained her calm, poised posture as she made her way through the hallway and down the stairs. As she got closer to the kitchen, she could clearly hear her mother’s frantic pacing across the tile floor. Still, all this tension didn’t so much as touch Petunia. It was a wonderfully conditioned state of mind.
“I’m here, mother,” Petunia said once she entered the kitchen. “What is it?
But as soon as Petunia stepped further into the room, she could tell something was off. Her mother was easily a nervous person. Still, even in the worst of her nervous spells, Petunia had never seen her mother appearing like this: frail and shaking the way she was.
“Mother, what is it?”
“I got a call from the mill while I was at Mrs. Grabble’s house,” her mother answered, voice shaking. “There was an accident this evening. Your father is at the hospital.”
But Esau Have I Hated... by OliveOil_Med
Chapter Notes: Two years have passed and the two Evans sisters have been carrying on with their seporate life. But a sudden shock soon shakes the foundation of those lives.
Thanks to m_w for beta reading, and VV for offering so much help!