- Chapter 1: Highway Driving -
The sudden return of winter had spit a sleet storm on London, and I was wet and chilled to the bone when I arrived in my flat that dreary February morning.
The first thing I did was remove my cloak and toss it over the coat rack; and the second, kick my shoes off and throw them in the closet. Then I collapsed facedown on the living room couch and lay there without stirring. All was silent but for the sound of sleet rapping at the windows; my skull felt as if it had just been stuffed with cotton. Exhaustion had deadened my nerves and left me unable to keep my eyes closed.
A few moments passed before I rolled onto my back to avoid suffocation.
My flat was your typical city apartment: ten floors up, looking out over a busy street, windows perpetually dirty from rain, smog, and pigeon droppings. The paint was chipped in a few places, the doors all creaked, and the furniture, all secondhand, was frayed around the edges. But it was quiet, it had a good heating system, and it had running water. And above all, the rent was cheap.
After a time, I rose from the couch and headed to the bathroom for a shower; then, after drying off and donning some nightclothes, I sauntered back into the living room and sat down at the worktable I used as a desk. On it lay piles of paper and parchment: legal documents, a ledger, my rent contract, last year's tax returns, letters from friends and other members of the Order of the Phoenix, a journal, and other stuff of this nature. In the middle of all this chaos sat the crowning glory of my existence: a brand-new typewriter, which I had bought on sale for fifty percent of its original price, complete with two large packages of erasable paper; no wands, quills, or reams of parchment necessary.
Beside the typewriter was a bouquet of deep crimson roses in a blown glass vase-a Valentine's Day salutation from James, which he had sent just the day before alongside a delicate gold-rope necklace that I now wore as a talisman to stave off my loneliness. I hadn't seen James in almost two weeks.
His most recent letter was lying atop of a stack of extra paper, a corner of the page gently curling. Running my fingers lightly over the parchment, I picked it up and reread it.
Happy Valentine's Day, Lily!
Just wanted to send you a little something to remind you I'd still be asking you to go out with me if you hadn't already said yes by now. (And I really really hope you like it, because I actually have no idea what kind of jewelry you're into.)
By the way, I got your gift. Thanks, it was brilliant! I've never had a dress shirt fit me that well before, it was almost like I had a woman shopping for me or something. Now I'll have no excuse showing up to interviews or whatnot looking like an unmade bed. Lily, you are seriously making a man out of me. I'm not sure what I'm going to do about this.
Oh and the cookies you baked were TO DIE FOR. Why don't you bake more often? Actually, why are you ALL THE WAY OVER THERE, where I have to wait 'til every second week to see you?
How's the night shift been these past few days? You sounded tired-ish in your last letter, so I was wondering if everything's all right. Remember, life is too short to be taken seriously.
- I'm only being halfway serious about that. It sucks huge donkey bollocks that they keep you guys there so late, I still can't get over that. You should switch to the Gringotts janitorial staff so you can roll around in piles of gold at weird hours with me instead. - Maybe outside the vaults in the presence of a fire-spitting dragon and pissed off goblins. But that's not the point. I miss you. I want you to be my partner in this fight so badly - but more than that I want to be there to protect you. Maybe those are the same thing, I don't know. But it kills me to know that's not what's happening.
Life's been dull on my end this week. Driving me mad. I want to stir things up but I think I'm in a deadlock position right now. Which I guess is alright because I'm pretty sure I'll have an out in the near future, but I'm going mental all the same. Feels like a waste of life to be bored like this, but I guess in the scheme of things I'm better off than those bloody Death Eaters, who are so spooked by the world in general that they have to constantly inbreed just so they don't crap themselves in terror of their own offspring.
Love,
James
P.S. I have a day off coming up. I'm pretty sure it's not on the same day as yours, but I know Sirius's is. I'll switch with him and meet you at Headquarters after your night shift then.
I picked one of his roses out of the vase and held it to my lips, breathing its scent. I closed my eyes. All was silent and still. After a moment I flicked open my journal. Perhaps I could convince myself to go to sleep if I cleared my head a bit first.
February 15th, 1979
4:29 AM
My family left the city when I was about five years old.
I paused for a moment.
- For some reason this is what I'm thinking about now, moving out of London. Actually we didn't live too far away from where I'm living right now, maybe a 15 minute ride on the Tube if that. Our flat was kind of similar to the one I'm living in now, too, but bigger and less run down.
I miss my family's home off the coast. It was the fact that you could always see the sky, and when you walked into town the air still smelled fresh, you could still hear crickets. I miss those innocent days.
My head was filled with sleepless tension. I put my quill down and considered the typewriter before me. I was due in the mail room in less than eight hours.
Fuck it.
I pulled the typewriter to the front of the desk and laid my fingers upon the keys.
x.x.x.x.x.x
My family left the city when I was about five years old. My mother had given up her job as a criminal defense attorney because she was "tired of defending more hardened felons than innocent passersby" and felt it was time to stay home with her daughters; and my father, an engineer who had up until then been hard-pressed to find a well-paying job, had just gotten an offer from a building firm based near the coast. We bought a house in a small neighborhood near the western seaboard, where my grandparents lived, and moved out of London the following July.
We went through the usual moving routine-excavating everything from our closets to our wardrobes to our garbage bins and tossing the contents either into the dumpster or into boxes, haggling with moving agents, and waving good-bye to friends while secretly wondering whether we really would write to one another in one, two, three years' time.
I remember it being a hot day during the peak of summer when the moving van came, the kind of day that manages to be so humid that you can't tell the difference between the invisible mugginess and the sheen of sweat that refuses to evaporate from your skin. Traffic was heavy in front of our flat and pedestrians kept getting in the way of the movers, bumping into them as they schlepped our beds, our mattresses, our dining room table, our chairs, and our television down five flights of stairs and into the street. Mum and Dad were both disheveled and slightly frantic, still sealing boxes with large rolls of strapping tape and sticking colored labels on the sides; as for me, I was mostly just hungry.
I spent a good deal of time sitting on the balcony with Petunia and one of her school friends-a girl named Mary who lived one floor above us, if my memory serves me. Mary was small and round-faced with large brown eyes and a ponytail that stuck up at the top, where it was tied with a rubber band glued to a pair of pink plastic stars. She had a little sister who was about my age, a girl named Vicky with chin-length blond hair and who refused to wear anything even remotely pink. She and I had often played together-drawn on the sidewalk with chalk and played cops and robbers in the alley, that was-yet it had never occurred to either of us that the term for this relationship was 'friendship'.
Petunia and Mary understood it, though.
"Are you still going to come to our school, Petty?" Mary asked, sitting on the concrete balcony with her knees drawn up to her chest and looking demurely out at the scene below.
"No," Petunia sighed. She was perched on a footstool with her elbows on her knees, her chin rested on her palm-like a self-proclaimed queen staring resignedly at her rumpled kingdom and unconscionably frumpy subjects. "Mum and Dad say I'm going to go to a different school next year. This one's going to be too far away."
"So you're really leaving?"
Petunia sighed again, this time more dramatically; Vicky and I exchanged glances. Vicky rolled her eyes, and I smothered a giggle. "Yeah, I'm leaving," Petunia said. "Dad has a new job. That's why."
"Will we ever get to see each other again?" Mary said emphatically, her eyes wide. "They can't take best friends away from each other! Nothing can!"
"Yeah," Petunia responded, with equal fervor. "That's why I brought this." She reached into her pocket and pulled out two plastic friendship bracelets, each bearing half of a heart-shaped charm, jagged down their sides to make the heart look broken. With great ceremony she handed one of the bracelets to Mary, who promptly burst into tears. "As long as we have these, we'll never stop being friends."
A grocery truck roared down the center lane and a couple of cars blasted their horns. Vicky was sucking a lollipop. "That's mushy," she said, taking a loud slurp. "And stupid."
"I'm hungry," I added.
Vicky raised her eyebrows and popped the lollipop out of her mouth. She grinned, her teeth and lips stained with blue food coloring, and twirled it under my nose. I caught a whiff of saccharine and something else that may or may not have passed for blueberry. "Want some?"
"Eugh!" I laughed, swatting at her hand. "It has your spit all over it!"
"Heehee, want some? Eh, eh?"
"That's disgusting," Petunia gasped as Vicky and I began wrestling, I trying to keep the lollipop away from my mouth, and she trying to wave it under my nose. "Eurgh, put that away!"
"Oof-haha, Vicky, you got some on my chin, ew, it's all sticky-"
At this she hopped off of me and bounced into Petunia's lap. "Ooh! Want some of my lollipop, Petty?"
Petunia shrieked and recoiled. With a screech and a thud, the footstool fell over and sent Petunia somersaulting backwards. Two pale, skinny legs went sailing through the air, and one of her pink and brown sandals flew off her foot. It struck the railing of the balcony, bounced, and spiraled down into the street, where it crashed against one of our metal trash cans and flipped the lid upside down.
"Girls?" Mum shouted. I jumped up and looked over the railing. She was standing on the sidewalk alongside the truck, craning her neck upwards. "What's going on up there?"
"VICKY'S ATTACKING ME!" Petunia shrieked. "SHE'S ATTACKING ME WITH HER LOLLIPOP AND SHE'S TRYING TO GIVE ME HER GERMS! AAAGHH, MA-R-Y-Y-Y! GET YOUR SISTER OFF ME!"
"GIRLS! I TOLD YOU TO BEHAVE!"
"Vicky, stop that," Mary whimpered, clutching the railing. "That's icky, don't do that, you're making Petty mad!"
Not that this had any effect-Vicky and Petunia continued to grapple, Vicky with her ever-sticky lollipop giggling and smearing Petunia's face with blue sugar and saliva, and Petunia screeching like a banshee as she tried and failed to ward off her attacker. The two of them were causing a fantastic racket, squealing and yelping with limbs and shoes banging against concrete. I confess that I spent those two minutes jumping around by the railing and hooting in the manner of an alarmed monkey, knocking over the flowerpots Mum hadn't come for yet and sending dirt and potted plants flying through the air at positively thrilling speeds. Mary, for her part, had to keep ducking and cringing to avoid being kicked in the face by one of Petunia's flailing feet. At length Mum rushed in and pulled Vicky off of Petunia, told her sternly that it was not right to pick fights with other people's sisters, and threatened, half-jokingly, to have us all shipped off to the city zoo if we couldn't stop acting like animals.
"I'm not an animal," Petunia sniffed after Mum had left. "I hate you all. Really."
Mary went home shortly after the lollipop scene claiming her stomach hurt, and Petunia whiled away the rest of the afternoon sulking on the balcony with her knees drawn up to her chest, her cheeks dirty and tearstained. Vicky and I spent the remainder of our time playing with pebbles and talking quietly on the other end of the balcony as we watched the movers load the truck. Rush hour traffic began to clog the street as the clock struck four-thirty, then five o'clock in the evening. The cloud layer stirred itself up a bit and drifted in front of the sun, dulling its orange rays to a muted reddish glow.
"We should make a house for the mice," she suggested, making a small pile of pebbles and twigs. Her face bore an expression of seriousness. "My mum always puts out mouse traps for them. But I think they're cute."
I considered this for a moment. "How would we get them to live in the house, though?"
"Put up a sign that says, 'Mice, you can live here'. In a different language so they could understand it. Squeaks and stuff."
"Oh, what are you on about now?" Petunia burst out. "Trying to get the rodents to like our flat? Mum'll hit the ceiling."
"But we're not going to live here anymore, Petunia, just leave us alone-"
"Mum still doesn't want any mice," she interrupted, slumping back against the brick wall and folding her arms across her chest. "Stop making trouble for our parents."
"We're not." Even at the age of five, I couldn't fathom why any family of mice would want to move into an overturned flowerpot with a bunch of pebbles piled up in front of it-I suppose it was the influence of the books my mother had been reading to me, or perhaps the fact that no animal I'd met had ever done what I'd tried to get it to do. In any case, I still enjoyed pretending, so I turned away from Petunia and began moving the pebbles into a more pleasing arrangement.
This was the way our parents found us when the truck was ready to leave: Vicky and me crouched on the balcony playing with a cracked flowerpot, and Petunia sulking by the wall. Vicky was told she had to go home, and Petunia and I were hoisted to our feet by our tired, aggravated father. "Alright, kids," he said, wiping sweat from his brow. "We're ready to get in the car and leave now. Your mother's packed some juice and sandwiches for the trip; they're in the cooler in the backseat. Come on, we've got at least four hours of driving ahead of us."
"I'll walk you home, Vicky," Mum offered. "It's nearly six o'clock; you must be starved."
She shook her head vigorously.
Mum smiled and held out her hand. "Come on, poppet. Don't be shy."
Vicky stood rooted to the spot, as if she couldn't quite believe what was happening. Then, suddenly, she burst into tears and threw her arms around my neck, nearly strangling me.
"I'll never forget you, Lily," she sobbed. "I'll write to you every day for the rest of my life!"
"I'll write to you too," I replied. And with that I started bawling.
x.x.x.x.x.x
We drove northwest that night for nearly five and a half hours, Petunia and I dozing lightly in the backseat with the juice cooler while our mother squinted in the dark at a map. The first three hours were spent on the highway, with the sun sliding low over the road and eventually leaving an endless blackness to swallow us up. Street lights raced past us at regular intervals, flashing bright as we overtook them, and the highway hummed and whined persistently beneath us as we crossed bridges and overpasses, the sound muffling our parents' voices-that incessant, white-noise ringing of suspended concrete against tires and open air.
"You know, I can't really see this map...we should probably stop somewhere and have a look at it by a real light...was that exit forty-seven or forty-eight?"
"I don't know, darling; I'm focused on keeping this bozo from crashing into us, in fact he's being a bloody prick-"
"John, calm down; you're starting to drive erratically. We've got precious cargo in the backseat."
"Yes, I'm aware; it's just that-Jesus Christ, what are you doing, you idiot?" Dad spun the wheel and our tires screeched just as another car raced past us, coming within two feet of our side view mirrors and jerking Petunia and me out of our trances. There was a moment of chaos as we swerved back into the lane, eliciting a horrified gasp and a string of curse words from Mum; half a second later, a motorist roared past us, shouting and making obscene gestures with his free hand. Mum returned the gestures fervently.
"What a bunch of fucking idiots, swerving and tailgating like that! As if they're trying to get us all killed! And with the kids in the backseat to boot!"
"Bastards should be arrested," Dad muttered.
Mum slumped back in her seat. "Do tell."
Petunia and I exchanged glances. Her eyes were wide.
"Do you figure we'll make it?" she asked quietly, so that our parents couldn't hear her.
I drew my legs up to my chest and wrapped my arms around my knees, resting my head against the windowsill to stare out at the highway. "Maybe, maybe not."
Dad glanced up at the rearview mirror. "How are you girls doing back there?"
Both of us were silent for a moment; then Petunia burst into tears and wailed, "Dad, I feel like I'm going to throw up."
I was terrified of vomit, so I immediately followed suit and began crying as well. Mum sighed and reached into her knapsack for a plastic bag, which she handed back to Petunia; but rather than open it, Petunia merely crumpled it and clutched it in her fist, sobbing.
"Petunia, sweetheart, if you're feeling sick-"
"I think she's just tired, Laurel," Dad murmured.
"Well, it's certainly been a long day for all of us...Lily, love, calm down; just close your eyes and try to go to sleep, your sister will be fine..." Then she turned to Dad and said quietly, "Do you think your parents will still be up when we get there? At this rate we won't be arriving until past midnight."
"They should be; they both said they wanted to wait for us. They haven't seen the girls in years. Lily was hardly two last time we made it out to their place."
"Goodness...has it really been that long?"
"Time flies, eh?"
"It really does...are you alright, Petunia?"
Hiccoughing, Petunia shook her head and curled up in the seat, leaning her forehead against the window. Mum watched her for a few moments, her brow furrowed. She frowned. "Petunia?"
She didn't answer. Mum and Dad exchanged glances.
"Do you think we should pull over?" Mum said hesitantly.
Dad sighed and bore down on the steering wheel. "I think we'll be fine. Look; there's our exit, coming up on the right. We'll be there in no time."
We got lost on the back roads, of course. Mum couldn't see the map without a light on inside the car, and Dad couldn't see where he was going with such a light; besides, he said, we were in the countryside now, and everyone knew country roads made zero sense even when they were properly labeled, which wasn't often. The best thing to do was to backtrack and follow our migratory instincts ("evolution's gift to man," he called them). If birds could do it, he reasoned, then of course humans had the knack as well; surely a country road passed by more visible landmarks than a flock of birds flying a thousand feet up in the effing troposphere. At any rate, the worst that could happen was a cloudy sky if we had to get out of the car and find our position by parallax, ha ha ha.
"Alas," Mum said as we lurched around the bend of what appeared to be a gravel hiking trail, "I think those genes have lain dormant for so many generations now that nature has quietly decided to phase them out in favor of roadmaps. Look, there's a sign right up there: 'Petrol station: six miles'. If nothing else, we could at least ask for directions."
"Well, if we get out of this within the next few hours, we should have enough directions as well as petrol to make it to the coast. We're getting near now, trust me. I'm following my nose; I can-" he took a deep whiff for effect- "smell the sea from here."
"John," Mum bit out, "your nose has led us off the bloody map. It is time. To pull. Over."
"Excuse me, where did that come from? You've just spent the past two hours remarking on how you can't even see the map."
"Yes. Because you keep refusing to stop somewhere and let me have a look at it!"
"Kindly leave it alone, dear. I'm trying to retrace our steps, and the absence of streetlamps isn't making the process any easier."
"Don't fight," Petunia murmured. "Please don't fight."
"Stay out of this, Petunia darling," Dad said curtly. "Take a nap. We'll get there in short order."
Mum sighed and massaged her forehead, resting her elbow on the windowsill.
x.x.x.x.x.x
It was past midnight when we pulled into the drive of our grandparents' oceanfront cottage. I had fallen into a fitful sleep shortly beforehand, and I woke to the sound of our tires grinding to a halt against loosely packed gravel. The front porch was lit, throwing small pools and arcs of warm yellow light over the door and steps. Lifting my head from the windowsill, I saw Grandfather's gaunt, straight-backed form walking out in short sleeves and sandals to greet us, limping slightly.
Dad parked the car, turned off the ignition, and unlocked the doors. "Well, ladies, we've arrived at last. Say hello to Grandma and Grandpa!"
"Mm," Mum said, stretching. "I hope we haven't kept them up too long."
"Nah, my dad's almost always up late; he doesn't mind. Let's start unloading the boot, eh?"
"What about your mum?"
"She's a lot like my dad-likes to stay up reading at night. She'll be glad to see you."
"Well, as long as we're not descending on them..." She unbuckled her seatbelt and looked over her shoulder. "Girls, are you awake? Come on, sweethearts, we're here."
Petunia stirred in the seat; apparently she had begun to doze off. "We are?"
"Yes, ma'am," Dad replied, opening his door and swinging his legs out of the car. "Ah, how the foot loves gravel after six hours of pumping a pedal. Hoo, baby!"
"Hello, John, how've you been?" Grandfather said jovially, grasping Dad's hand and pulling him into a bone-crushing hug as the rest of us tumbled out of the car. "Good God, man, it's been years! Ah, and here are Petunia and Lily-" He kissed each of us on the cheek and ruffled our hair, laughing. "Lord, you two have grown. The last time I saw Lily she was hardly walking! And Petunia, my goodness! You're at least a head taller now; what happened to you?"
Petunia, still clutching her plastic bag, cracked a tiny smile. Grandfather gave her and me a gentle push forward. "Now go on, you two, say hello to your grandmother while I help your parents unload the luggage. Grandmother's making hot chocolate for you."
By now Mum had salvaged the roadmaps and snacks from the backseat and placed them back in her knapsack. "Hello, Laurel," Grandfather said as she joined us, pecking her on the cheek. "How are you?"
Mum burst out laughing, her voice suddenly lighter, more relaxed. "Oh, it's been a long day, but we survived. It's good to see you, Patrick. How have you and Helen been?"
"Very well," he said as he and Dad began hefting our overnight bags out of the car. "Things are quiet year-round out here; it does Helen a lot of good to be away from the city."
"She does seem happier now that she's out of London, I'll attest to that."
"Oh, there's no comparison," Dad said as we walked up the front steps. With his free hand he pulled the door open and poked his head into the house. "Hi, Mum, how are you?"
"Oh, wonderful, John, it's so good to see you-" She kissed him once on each cheek and then bent down to greet Petunia and me. "Ah, Lily and Petunia, my two little pixies! Look how you've grown! Goodness gracious, you've gotten big. You've been feeding them well, Laurel."
"Well, I certainly to try," Mum said as Grandmother bustled into the kitchen and came back with two steaming mugs. Pressing them into our hands, she said,
"Here, have some hot chocolate. It'll warm you up; it's chilly out there tonight."
Mum gave her a sidelong glance. "I'm not sure if that's a good idea, Helen; it'll keep them up all night. These two are a handful when they're all sugared up."
"Nonsense! It'll put them right to sleep. And besides, they're still so tiny, the two of them; they can use it," Grandmother said, gazing fondly at us. "I'm going to call them both Thumbelina."
x.x.x.x.x.x.x
Incidentally, Grandmother was right. Petunia and I fell asleep within minutes of going to bed, though I heard Petunia wake several times during the night-the first time when she rolled off the edge of her cot and landed with an impressive thud on the thin rug covering the wooden floor of the loft where we were sleeping, and the second when she jerked awake with a startled yell and spent the next minute or so sitting up in bed, hyperventilating and staring at me from across the loft. Towards dawn she fell into a deeper sleep, her body curled tightly beneath her woolen blanket with her back turned to me, her hair spread like a dim shadow across her pillow in the gray pre-dawn light.
It was about half past five o'clock when I awoke in earnest; my only indication of the time was the diffuse, colorless glow that seeped past the curtains near the foot of my cot and the sounds of my parents' and grandparents' voices in the kitchen below. Plates and coffee cups clinked softly in between snatches of conversation as Dad told the other adults which roads we would take on our way to the new house, and as Mum warned-two or three times-that that we should get a move on sooner rather than later, as the moving van was likely to arrive early from the warehouse where it had been parked all night. I could hear the rustle of a map being spread over the table as Mum and Dad double-checked our course while Grandmother and Grandfather moved quietly about the kitchen, making coffee and toast and talking about the driving conditions; it looked, apparently, like it was going to be a drizzly, foggy morning.
Curious, I pushed my covers back; and, with the cot creaking beneath me, I pulled the heavy brocaded curtain away from the window. Dim, cold light flooded the loft and illuminated my grandparents' trunks of clothing and linens, Grandmother's extensive array of quilts, and Petunia's sleeping form; and there, some fifty feet below, a hundred yards away, was the choppy, steel-gray expanse of the ocean, churning and frothing at the lip of the shore. A brisk, salty-smelling wind swept my hair away from my face and left my skin feeling cool and damp. A mother seagull was leading her brood into the surf.
"Lily, I'm trying to sleep," Petunia moaned. "Close the bloody window, you idiot."
Immediately I rolled my eyes and yanked the curtain back into place, then flopped dejectedly onto my pillow.
Something was poking my cheek. Lifting my torso onto my elbows, I began examining the pillow-the something was sharp, pointed. I picked it out of the fabric. It was a downy feather; the root was what had been poking me.
"And don't pick at Grandmother's pillows," Petunia sniped. "Down pillows are really rare. You can't even buy one for a million pounds."
I stuck the root of the feather back into the weave of the pillowcase and began pressing at the tip, but the stem broke. "Go away."
"Well, you stop being bad, and maybe I'll think about it."
"You said you were asleep, stupidhead, how do you know I was being bad?"
"I was asleep until you woke me up, and besides, I never said I was asleep in the first place."
I buried my face in my quilt and made a noise of disgust. "I'm going to tell Mum you were spying on me. Then you'll be sorry."
Petunia opened her mouth to retort, but that was when we heard Mum climbing the staircase; a few moments later, she was pulling back our covers and shaking us gently by the shoulders. "Rise and shine, sleepyheads, we're moving into our new house today. Come along and have some breakfast before we say goodbye to Grandmother and Grandfather."
Petunia rolled her eyes at me and swung her legs over the side of the cot to follow Mum down the stairs. Angrily I followed suit and kicked a small throw pillow in Petunia's direction, which she dodged with a dainty step to the side, crinkling her nose and sticking her tongue out at me.
Breakfast was a quick affair-Dad told Petunia and me to eat some buttered toast and bacon, drink some orange juice, get dressed, and help Mum pack our toothbrushes and nightclothes. Petunia jumped up from her seat as soon as she had finished and followed Mum back into the loft as Dad had instructed, but I hung back for a moment, wary of being behind Petunia on anything, most of all a staircase as steep as this one. Grandmother smiled and blew me a kiss from across the table. "Go on, pixie. Help your mother."
I looked up at Dad, who nodded; reluctantly I slid off my chair and pushed it back towards the table. Grandfather chuckled and reached into his pocket. "Well, before you leave, little lady," he said, grasping my hand and opening it with tawny, calloused fingers, "I think I should give you a good luck charm." And with that he placed a small, carved wooden dolphin in my palm, its eyes, beak, and flukes meticulously whittled. Grandfather winked. "He'll keep you company. They're always smiling, dolphins."
Amazed, I turned the figurine over and examined its belly-a smooth, reddish brown curve, cleanly faceted by the whittling knife. Grandmother blew her breath out in a light hiss. "Oh, yes, your grandfather just loves playing with his knives," she tutted. "I expect he'll chop off a finger one of these days, he does it so often. He'll carve anything he can get his hands on, honest to goodness. Sometimes I worry that he'll carve up our furniture if he can't find anything else."
"He could sell some of his figurines, Mum," Dad remarked, peering at the dolphin in my hand. "He'd get a nice price for them."
Grandfather made a clucking noise. "No, no, I wouldn't sell these." He reached into his pocket again and pulled out another small figurine, this one a blue whale. "This one here is for Petunia-ahh, and here she is right now! Petunia, come here, I've got something for you."
Curious, she left Mum's side and approached us. Grandfather took her hand as well and opened it, pressing the whale into her palm. "To keep you company during the drive to your new house," he said with a wink. "Someone to say hello to when you wake up in the morning."
Looking faintly dumbstruck, Petunia rolled the figurine about in her hand, running her thumb lightly over its back and fluke. Then her eyes moved to the dolphin I was holding, and she stared for a moment before looking away. "Thank you, Grandfather," she said, hugging him briefly around the waist. "They're very pretty. I'm going to put mine on my night table." Then she turned and shuffled towards the door, where Mum was waiting for us with our pajamas draped loosely over her arm, her knapsack on her shoulder. Blushing, I hugged Grandfather as well and kissed him lightly on the cheek before scampering after Mum and Petunia.
It was shortly after six by the time that all the farewells had been said and we were ready to leave; car doors slammed; overnight bags were thrown into the boot; seatbelts were buckled. The tires crackled dully against the gravel as Dad backed us out of the drive and onto the open road, and in a few minutes we were driving through a thin, sporadic fog, the only car to be seen for miles. From time to time I would tear my eyes away from the window and notice Petunia staring at my dolphin.
It was a short drive, only half an hour or so. Mum and Dad spent it speaking in low tones, Mum checking the inventory lists and making suggestions as to where our miscellaneous boxes should go. At one point Petunia asked why she and I simply hadn't stayed with our grandparents-surely our parents didn't want two little kids running around while our furniture was being moved into the house?
"Well, we were going to do that," Mum explained after a moment, "but your grandfather is having an x-ray of his leg today, and your grandmother has to go with him because the doctors don't want him driving alone. We couldn't leave you and Lily alone while they were in the hospital."
"Oh," Petunia said, glancing down at her feet. "Why not?"
"Because you're not old enough to be left alone. Something bad could happen and you wouldn't know what to do."
"Why does Grandfather need to have an x-ray of his leg?" I asked.
Mum and Dad exchanged glances.
"He was shot in the leg during World War II," Dad replied after a brief pause. "It wasn't a major wound, but it was enough that he's been having some trouble with it since he came home from the war. That's why he has that limp-he's being x-rayed today because the doctors want to be sure the bone is holding up. He goes back to have it checked once every year."
"He was in a war?"
"Yes, a very big one. He was a corpsman in the British Navy; he rescued wounded soldiers on the beach and took them back to the ships to treat their injuries. Very often he would have to do that while the enemy was shooting at him."
Both fascinated and disturbed by this new information, I opened my mouth to ask how he had survived, but a sniffle from Petunia's direction stopped me. Mum and I both turned to look at her; she'd started crying again, her cheeks already tearstained and grubby-looking. Mum leaned around the side of her seat and studied her for a moment. "Petunia. Sweetheart, are you alright?"
Now she burst into hysterics, clutching the whale figurine in her fist; I almost began shouting at her for trying to strangle it. "I wanted to trade with Lily because I thought the whale was so ugly and I didn't like it," she bawled, "but I-I-" hiccough- "the dolphin is so much prettier but I'm really sorry and-" another hiccough- "and-and I wish he didn't have to get an x-ray of his leg, and..." She curled up in the seat, sobbing into her knees. Mum sighed and turned away, rummaging in her knapsack until she found a handful of tissues.
"Here, Petunia," she said, holding them out. "Hold onto these, alright?"
"Yes, cheer up, Petunia," Dad added. "There's our house, right there, down the road! Look at that, eh? Two stories, a garden in front, and less than half an hour away from your grandparents. We can even visit them tonight if you like."
Petunia made no response. Dad watched her for a few moments, then sighed as he turned the steering wheel and guided us up the hill.
The neighborhood was richly packed with mature trees and shrubs. Light and shade faded into one another in the overcast dawn, and small beads of moisture gathered on the windows and windshield as the mist thickened. Large, full-bodied maple and oak trees lined the street, and shrubs, lilac bushes, and honeysuckle blossoms formed the property lines between the houses and cottages scattered along the semi-paved roadside-indeed, the entire place seemed to be bursting with green foliage, spread out over acres of overgrown lawns.
Dad parked us in the drive and unlocked the doors; I shoved my door open immediately and hopped out onto the gravel drive. I took a deep breath: the environs smelled of wet leaves and grass seed. The air was cool, fresh, damp. Immediately I felt my shirt begin to cling to my skin.
The house had a stone and cedar wood face, and near the front door stood a tall, broad-leafed cherry tree, its branches swaying gently in the breeze; there was a cast-iron porch light mounted beneath a dark wooden overhang. All of its curtains were pulled back, revealing its white walls, its wooden staircase beside the entrance to the kitchen, and its perfectly empty interior.
No sooner had we begun unloading the car than the moving van appeared on the end of the street, puffing clouds of grayish smoke as it groaned to a stop behind us. Petunia and I were told to stay out of the way; shortly thereafter Petunia disappeared onto the back stoop, and I perched myself on the front porch, leaning against the wooden pillar that supported the overhang. From there I watched the crew of moving men carry our boxes, beds, tables, and chairs in through the door, holding the dolphin quietly in my fist and thinking morosely of Vicky, Petunia, and a wooden peg leg.
x.x.x.x.x.x.x
Clumps of ice were sliding half-melted down my window when I finished, dotting the typewriter with lumpy, slow-moving shadows. Gray morning light was seeping through a layer of clouds. It was about half-past eight in the morning now, the quiet ticking of the clock barely audible over the muffled bustle of traffic in the street below.
A weary soreness was taking hold in the corners of my eyes. Gingerly I rearranged the piles of paper and writing utensils on the desk; then I gathered James's letters and rearranged those as well, placing them at the foot of the vase that held his roses.
I hadn't sent him a reply yet for lack of time, so I set about doing that now. I imagined him sitting on the floor beside my desk, a mug of tea in hand, looking up with curiosity as I replied to his letter out loud. He would grin and tell me I was up too high and that I should come and sit in his lap instead.
I glanced around the room: It was a depressing sight. For the most part I loathed myself for staying up until nearly nine in the morning, but there was another part of me that wanted to collapse in bed and huddle there like a lonely child.
Rubbing my eyes, I counted my reasons for being happy.
One: I am alive. Two: James. Three: Life could really be much worse.
I dipped my quill and blearily began to write.
Happy Valentine's Day, James!
Oh, so you did get my gift! So glad you like it, it's Italian-made and I thought you'd look so good in it. Wear it with a nice pair of jeans and a belt, and leave the top two buttons undone, please!
You guessed right about the necklace. It's gorgeous. Thank you, thank you. I'm wearing it right now and I don't think I'll be taking it off any time soon. I think of you every time I see it in the mirror.
Anyway, you know why I don't bake that often, I'm afraid I'll burn down the whole kitchen! Very much flattered that you think I'm so good at it, though. That was only my second time baking with magic and I was actually a little terrified that I was going to poison you, so I ate the first cookie. It seemed okay, so I figured you'd be able to handle the rest (wink, wink). Maybe you really did mean they were to die for!
I'm always tired when I write to you, so don't worry about it. What is this world if not a war zone, anyway? It's tiring for everyone. As for switching to the Gringotts shift, is that even possible? If it is, why don't you switch to the King's Cross shift? It's got to be better than whatever you're doing down in Gringotts. At least up here there's fresh air.
It's interesting how you talk about us being partners in this fight. When we first joined the Order I thought that was what we were going to be, fighting Death Eaters side-by-side or whatever that means. But now, to be honest, I don't really understand what either of us is doing anymore. I guess we're at the bottom of the ladder and that's why we haven't fought any Death Eaters yet. But I'm not even sure how we're supposed to climb it anymore. The Order is made of a couple dozen core fighters and then the rest of us just exist, working sentry shifts in odd places. It's obvious that we're not in that core group. I don't know what to think anymore.
At any rate, enough of that. What would you say if I told you I just started writing a memoir? Because I think I just have. I miss the innocence of childhood. Maybe that's why I just stayed up all night writing. Remember how we were barely a year ago, Christmas at Hogwarts, skating on the lake? And the sunshine during the spring? I miss that. I miss the younger us, James.
I miss you. And I'm not all the way over here, you're all the way over there. Come visit me.
- Lily
I put my quill down. To my surprise, my eyes were stinging with tears. I sucked in a breath and held it. Then, after a moment, I wiped my eyes and walked away from my desk.
In my bedroom, I watered the small houseplant sitting on my windowsill and gently pruned the dead blossoms from its stems, thinking this might help it grow new leaves. Then I turned up the thermostat and lay down on my bed, listening to the radiator hiss to life as a procession of trucks screeched into the intersection below.
x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x
Author's Note: I realize I'm pretty much the one-post wonder here on Portkey and that this is probably annoying the crap out of anyone who's bothered to read/care about my work over the years and years I've been around, so if any of you are miraculously not annoyed enough with me to just give up entirely and would like to read this story further, it's posted through Chapter 9 on Fanfiction.net (the link is in my bio). The background details don't quite make sense as I'm in the process of editing a bit, but the basic story is pretty well set.
Thanks for reading. Hope you liked!
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