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Awkward Christmas (Lily)


Lily lay awake in her bed, the covers tucked up around her chin, staring at the wizarding photo on her nightstand. It was of Alice and Derek and the rest of the Bell family, standing on a short staircase in matching holiday jumpers, waving and smiling at her. The photo had come, along with a letter from Alice wishing Lily a Happy Christmas, by owl the day before, much to her parents' delight. The Evans could not get enough of how brilliant it was having a daughter who was a witch. They asked her questions constantly, delighting in the answers as their imaginations caught hold of the way things worked in the wizarding world. Each word out of Lily's mouth made Petunia glower at her with a bit more of a sour face, though. Lily had tried avoiding the topic, in hopes that would ease Tuney's anger with her, but no matter how hard she tried not to talk about Hogwarts, it seemed her parents were relentless in bringing it up.

Now it was Christmas, and normally by now the girls would be up and waking their parents, excited for their presents from Father Christmas and eager to get going with the festivities. A year ago, Lily remembered, she'd awakened her sister about this time with a snowman in that very room. It was the last smiling moment they'd shared, and even that had turned sour in the end. She hugged the blankets even closer and fought back tears as the sun streamed in their bedroom window.

In her bed, Petunia lay awake, also, listening to Lily's breathing, knowing her sister was also awake. She was torn between saying sorry to her and never speaking to her again. It wasn't fair, after all, that only one of the twins were granted with the powers and, as the slightly older sister, it should have been her that got them all. Wasn't it her birthright as the first born to be given power?

But it wasn't Lily's fault that was how nature had done it, Petunia thought. Fraternal twins, after all, were not the same as identical twins. They'd just grown together, that is all, from two separate eggs. One egg had been magical, the other had not. That was all there was to it. And that was biology, not Lily, that had done that.

It wasn't Lily's fault that their parents couldn't shut up on the topic of how lovely it was having a witch in the family – all of the time, even when Lily wasn't there, it was all that they talked about.

Nor was it Lily's fault that the horrible man called Dumbledore that ran that nasty old school she went to had said 'no' to Petunia's pleas to be allowed to learn magic, too. If he'd just let her learn, she, too, could be a witch. She, too, could come home with brilliant stories about Hogwarts and the games and the lessons and the ghosts. But Dumbledore had called her a muggle, which was a terribly offensive sounding word to Petunia, even though their parents seemed perfectly happy to be classified as such. Petunia hated it. It sounded dirty and ordinary and she didn't want to be dirty and ordinary. She wanted to be special, too.

And so the two girls laid there in bed, each staring their own direction, each with their backs towards the other, wishing things were different.

“Girls,” came Mrs. Evans voice through the door, “Are you awake?”

“Yes, mother,” called Petunia.

Lily felt a sting of sadness that Petunia had been awake all this time and had not said even a 'Happy Christmas' to her.

“Are you coming downstairs? Your father and I are headed down… There are presents,” she added hopefully. Mrs. Evans had been feeling the disconnect between her daughters, but was clueless about what had caused it, too enamored by Lily's magic to believe for even a moment that Petunia was not equally excited.

“Coming, mother,” Lily answered, hoping spitefully that Petunia would feel the same sting she had to find that she, too, had been awake all along.

They continued on laying there until they heard the stairs creaking as Mrs. Evans went away from their doorway, and then Lily heard Petunia get up and she, too, got up, pulling her bathrobe around herself and tying it at the waist before kicking her feet into her slippers. She turned around to say something to Petunia, but her sister was already opening the door and leaving without saying a single word. Lily frowned and pulled her hair out from the neck of her robe, the bright red falling down over her shoulders.





That night, after awkward Christmas day, filled with her parents talking about their trip to Diagon Alley to purchase Lily's Christmas presents, Petunia was even more angry with her than she'd been in the morning. When it was time for bed, they carried their gifts upstairs to the bedroom and Petunia deposited her little pile onto her desk and went straight to bed, pulling the covers up over her head.

“Tuney,” Lily tried, “I'm sorry about how they go on about Hogwarts, I really am. I'd love to hear about your school, won't you tell me about it?”

Petunia didn't answer. Didn't even move.

Lily sighed and put her brand new copy of Hogwarts, a History, First Edition into her trunk, along with her new potions kit. She turned back to her bed, where several new sets of robes were folded neatly, along with a lovely new book bag and, the main gift, a broomstick of her very own. She ran her thumb over the fancy gold plate on the handle. She knew nothing about brooms, if this was a good one or not. Petunia had been given a new bicycle – pink, Petunia's favorite color – and Lily had received this Shooting Star model broom. It looked much nicer than the ones at Hogwarts, but she would have to ask someone there about how impressive the model was. She hadn't the heart to tell her parents she wasn't allowed her own broomstick at school yet, as she was in her first year, and so she carefully tucked the Shooting Star into the closet behind some of her muggle clothes to keep it safe until next term.

Maybe, she thought, she'd ask James about it on the Hogwarts Express.

The thought of James Potter made her feel a strange mixture of things since they'd left Hogwarts for the holidays. She felt equally excited to see him and put off by the idea of him, and it made for a sort of lukewarm emotion she couldn't quite place.

Lily sat down on her bed and stared down at her lap, wishing she were already back at Hogwarts because the holidays had been anything but merry and bright as they were supposed to be. But then again, she reminded herself, things had been quite stressful those last couple days at Hogwarts, too, and she wondered about Severus and if his Christmas at the castle had been any better than hers back here at home.

As though in reply, there was suddenly a tapping at the window and Lily looked up to see a tired-looking barn owl, pecking at the glass. Bits of snow were stuck to her feathers, and a cold gust of wind spun into the room as Lily let the bird in carefully. Petunia let out a frustrated noise and pulled her covers tighter. “Why do you have to open that blasted window?” she demanded angrily.

“I've got an owl,” replied Lily.

Petunia made another frustrated noise, but didn't say anything.

Lily hastily pulled the note from the owl's leg and dove into her trunk to withdraw a knut to put in his little coin purse. The owl hooted and flew back out into the snowy night. Lily watched it disappear among the flakes of snow as she closed the window before turning to the rolled bit of parchment she'd taken from it. She unrolled it and found Severus's untidy handwriting, slanted and tight, scrawled across the page.

Happy Christmas, it said. I hope you're having a good muggle holiday back home. I do miss you. I am sorry for how I acted and if I embarrassed you at Slughorn's party. Love, Sev.

Lily stared down at the words, tears threatening her eyes. She hugged the parchment to her chest. She wished she hadn't sent the owl away without reading the parchment first for she would've sent a note back to Severus, but now it was too late to. She needed an owl of her own so that she might write to her friends when she was home, and she thought she might mention that to her mum the next day, before she went back to Hogwarts.

Lily fell asleep that night, dreaming of going back to Hogwarts.