- Text Size +
A Lovely Pigeon Lady


“We always hang about at my place,” Ali Prewitt said, “Let’s go to yours. I’ve never even seen your room and I’ve barely met your family.”

There’s a reason for it, thought Lily.

Lily had met up with Ali Prewitt to take in a film at the cinema. The girls had been inspired by some of the fashion in the movie and spent the remaining money their parents had given them on clothes from a second hand shop that they planned to alter with some of the sewing spells that Ali’s mum had taught her. They were trying to decide whose house to go to make their creations and Ali had her hands clasped before her, “Pleeeeease? If we go back to my place, my sister’s going to bother us and my mum’s going to want to help and she’ll never let me do my skirt the way I want to… Please?” She gave Lily wide begging eyes, “Frank will appreciate your willingness to avoid my mum once he sees how short I’d like to make my skirt.” She smiled slyly.

Lily said, “Well I’m muggle-born don’t forget… we can’t do any magic in my house or we’ll get in trouble.”

“We can trim the fabric there at least and use pins to put the hems in place. We can sew it at my house later. I just want to get the design of it done away from home so my mum won’t have time to say no!” She hopped up and down, “Please, please, please, please, Lily.”

“Alright,” Lily ceeded, knowing her parents wouldn’t mind. They were always asking why Lily didn’t bring her magical friends home with her. They didn’t understand the politics of the wizarding world, that being muggle-born was a burden and that the more people who knew where they lived the more danger they were in. She’d never told them about the threat from Regulus Black and she kept them blissfully unaware of Voldemort and the terror that he potentially represented for them. They were better off not knowing, she reckoned. But they’d welcome Ali Prewitt, the pixie of a girl, with open arms, she knew. “We’ll go to my house, then. But only for a little while, I’d rather avoid Petunia if I can.”

Ali clapped, “Yay!” she said happily, and she hugged her bag from the muggle second hand shop to her chest happily as they walked along. “How do we get there? Do we floo?” she skipped along beside Lily.

“Far less magical than that,” Lily answered and she took out her bus pass and pointed to the sign they were standing under. “We take the city bus.”

Ali looked ecstatic, “A muggle bus, oh my stars, I’ve never - this is very exciting! Is it like the Knight Bus?” she asked.

“The what?” Lily asked, confused.

“The Knight Bus!” Ali exclaimed, unable to imagine somebody who didn’t know what the Knight Bus was. When Lily confirmed that she didn’t, Ali launched into a long winded description of the great purple double decker and the magical properties the vehicle possessed. She talked so long that the real bus came and they boarded on and had gone through several stops before Ali had finished her tales about the experiences she’d had on the noisy, disapparating bus.

“It sounds scary,” Lily said. Br>
Ali looked around the city bus they were on, several people were asleep (one old man looked like he might even be dead, he was so asleep), and some children were fighting in the back. Several strange men, including a homeless man that was muttering jibberish to himself over and over and over, would peer periodically their direction. “Scarier than this?” Ali asked.

Lily said, “You do have a point there.”

So they got off the very next stop and watched in relief as the city bus hissed and groaned away, rumbling off down the street. They were in a part of London that Lily had never been before other than on the bus and she looked around nervously as Ali stuck out her hand to summons the Knight Bus. “Where are we?” Lily mumbled, “I don’t like this. We could get shot here if we’re not careful.”

She’d no sooner got the words out than there was an explosive BANG! and Lily ducked, pulling Ali down with her so that they were on the pavement, Lily covering her friend like a human shield. Lily’s heart raced when she realized they were both still alive. “Are you alright?” she gasped at Ali, frightened.

But Ali was laughing at her, “You nutter!” Ali cried, “That was just the bus!” She pointed and Lily looked and there at the curb was the great big purple bus, exactly as Ali had described.

The door seemed to sigh and it folded up, opening, and out stepped a boy in a purple uniform with gold tassels hanging on the pockets and fringe on the shoulders. He smiled down at them, not seeming to find it odd at all that the two girls were laying on the pavement. “‘Ello there,” he said in a thick accent, “Welcome to the Knight Bus, name’s Ernie. Where’re ya off to?”

Lily stood up shakily, pulling Ali up, too, and they dusted off. “To the Evans’s house,” replied Ali, sweeping dust from the ground off her bottom. “We’ll get you the address.”

“Well c’mon aboard then! C’mon aboard…” he waved them on the bus and hurried to take their sickles and the address for the Evans’s house and told the girls to have a seat.

Lily looked around at the assortment of plush arm chairs and rockers and couches that filled the space where normal buses would’ve had plastic seats. None of the seats in the Knight Bus were bolted down and she looked at Ali, “But don’t they move about once the bus starts going?”

Ali looked at Lily as though she were mad. “Of course they do. What do you expect to happen?” she shook her head and hurried over to a pair of flowered arm chairs and patted the one next to hers. Lily looked tenatively at the grinning Ernie, then hurried to sit beside Ali, crossing her legs on the chair.

“Evans! What’re you doing on the Knight bus love?” Lily looked up and she saw James Potter, sitting on what looked like a giant bag chair, as though he were in a swimming pool toy, his arms and legs hanging over the sides.

Lily stared at him in surprise. “Going home from a cinema. What are you doing on the Knight bus?”

“Oh you know - rescue mission to get Sirius out of Grimmauld Place. Remus Lupin’s around somewhere. He started getting sick with all the movement - poor chap. I reckon he’s puking up his beans and toast in the loo.”

Lily looked at Ali, “Does it really move so much that --”

But there was a great big BANG! and the bus lurched forward suddenly and all of the seats sort of swept off toward the back of the bus. Several witches and wizards that were in lawn chairs and recliners and couches and chaise lounges slid down the length of the bus, including James, Lily, and Ali, as all the chairs bunched together in a great crowd. James had thrown his arms in the air and shouted “WHOO!!” as they moved, and Lily shrieked, clutching the arms of her chair, certain it was about to tip over and she’d be smashed by all the other furniture as it crashed into each other.

“THIS CANNOT BE SAFE!” Lily wailed as the bus turned a corner and everyone was shifted to the left side of the bus. James’s shouts were echoing through the little room. Lily’s knuckles had gone white on the arm of the chair.

“Sure it’s safe! Wizards have travelled by Knight Bus for ages.” Ali said loudly over the sound of James’s continued WHOOOHOO!s, “There’s only been a few deaths.”

Deaths?!” Lily cried.

“It’s not so bad,” Ali said, smiling. “It’s sort of fun.”

“YEEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSS! YEAAH! REY YOU’RE MISSING ALL THE FUN!!!” James yelped as his bean bag chair slid the full length of the bus floor, slippery by nature, and Lily watched him go by.

Lily looked at Ali. “Only a nutter like Potter would think this is fun,” she declared.

Ali smirked, “Frank’s like that too. All the boys fight over the bean bag chairs because they slide about the most. It’s a boy thing, I suppose.”

Lily watched James sail by again as the bus turned another corner and she grabbed onto a metal rail on the wall to keep her chair from sliding away. “This is terrible.”

One of the turns sent her bag from the thrift shop falling off her lap to the floor and it slid away in across the bus, almost as fast as James Potter’s bag chair was going. He caught it up and said, “I’ve saved your shopping, Evans.” He peeked inside. “What have you bought today? Anything interesting?”

“Stop looking at my things, Potter,” Lily said, though there was nothing she could do to stop him, seeing as she didn’t dare let go of the metal bar.

He rummaged about and held up a pair of brown corduroy pants and a horrible smock-front shirt she’d got at the second hand shop because she’d liked the pattern of the cloth. “What’re you planning to do with all this?” he asked, “Are you making your Halloween costume early? Becoming one of those ladies in the park with all the pigeons?”

“Bugger off, Potter, and stop being so nosy.”

James laughed and dropped the stuff back into the bag, grinning. “You’d make a very nice pigeon lady, love.”

“Don’t call me that.”

James snickered.

By the time the Knight Bus arrived to the Evans’s house, with a loud groan as the top parts of the bus sounded as though it was trying to rip away from it’s axel, Lily was completely understanding why Remus was locked away in the loo to throw up. “Bloody hell get me off this disapparating death trap,” she cried and she grabbed her bag, getting up with weak knees, and rushing for the door.

“SAY HULLO TO YOUR PIGEONS FOR ME, EVANS!” James bellowed after her.

Lily was too pleased to be off the bloody bus to bother answering him.

Ali climbed off as though it were nothing, not even shaken up from the trip and they stood on the corner as - with a BANG! and a flash of James’s smirking grin out the window as he waved good-bye - the Knight Bus left. “I am never riding that thing again,” Lily vowed. “Never. That was positively the worst experience that I will ever have in my entire life. I cannot picture a single thing that would make it worse.”

Ali laughed, “I’m sorry you didn’t like it. We’ll ride your muggle bus next time, I promise.”

Lily led the way inside, still wobbly-kneed. Her mum and dad had gone out, the car wasn’t in the carpark, and so they sat in the kitchen, spreading their purchases over the table and Lily got her mum’s sewing kit from the drawer and dug about until she’d found the tomato-shaped pin cushion and the shears. “Here are are,” she said.

Ali was already working on folding the skirt she’d bought, creating a new hemline at least five inches shorter than the fabric had originally hung. She took some pins and clutched them in her teeth as she used them to hold the cloth in place, working her way around the skirt.

Lily had just set to work when the front door opened and closed and there was a flurry of voices and Petunia suddenly came into the kitchen, followed by two of her friends. Petunia had on gobs of make-up to cover up the freckles that she and Lily shared, one of the only things that was identical across the pair of them. Tuney’s soft brown hair had just been done, they’d probably all gone to the salon together, judging by the fancy styles that her friends had, too. Lily’s messy red braids and make-up free complexion were not to be compared to her sister’s beauty. She blushed a bit as she stared up at Petunia, who had stopped dead in the doorway.

“I like your hair, Tuney,” Lily offered.

“What’re you doing here? I thought you went to the cinema,” Petunia said rudely.

“We did,” Ali offered, looking up, “Then we went to a thrift shop and got some clothes to alter! We’re being fashion designers.”

Petunia and her friends all made faces - one of the other girls actually laughed, “Fashion designers? With second hand clothes? That’s ridiculous,” Petunia rolled her eyes. “C’mon, we’ll go upstairs,” she said to her friends, “And leave the freaks to it.”

Lily’s face burned fire hot.

Ali looked bewildered.

Petunia walked away with her friends and Lily stared very hard at the fabric in her hands, suddenly feeling less inspired. The corduroy skirt seemed just ugly and used and she couldn’t imagine anything she could do to make it better. Maybe her sister and James Potter were right - maybe she was a freak and she ought to wear the ugly smock shirt as it was and go find some pigeons to train in the park. She felt inadequate even for a second hand skirt.

Ali said, “I can’t believe you lot are twins, you couldn’t be more different.”

She’d meant it nicely, of course, but in her current mood Lily took it negatively. “I know. She got all the looks and I got all the magic.” She shrugged, “I would’ve been alright if we’d split them fifty fifty.”

“You got the better deal,” Ali replied.

Lily nodded, but she didn’t feel as confident about it as she forced herself to seem.