Disclaimer: I do not own the characters of Lily and Petunia or any other
characters you may recognize throughout this story. I also don't own the
wizarding world or basically anything else you recognize from the Harry
Potter series. That all belongs to the wonderful goddess of writing, J.K.
Rowling. So don't sue me!
Chapter 1: Flower Twins Forever
Lily and Petunia were the best friends you could ever meet. They spent every waking moment together, and in fact their non-waking moments together as well. Because Lily and Petunia weren't just best friends, they were also sisters. Yes, Lily and Petunia Evans were inseparable, and because of their flowery names many people referred to them as The Flower Twins.
Lily and Petunia weren't actually twins, though they were very close in age. Petunia was a little more than a year older than Lily, and Lily admired her in the way most little sisters admire and older sister. And, unlike most older siblings, Petunia admired Lily. No, as children Petunia and Lily always got along and shared everything, and never even became jealous of one another.
When Petunia started grade school Lily was terribly lonely during the day. She would spend her mornings drawing pictures for Petunia and would store every bit of information about the day in her memory, so that when Petunia returned home in the afternoon she could tell her what happened and it would be like they had never been apart. Every afternoon Lily would wait for three o'clock to roll around so that she might go with her mother to school to pick Petunia up.
Petunia hated her first year of school. Because she spent so much time wondering what her sister was doing at home, she didn't ever really make any friends. Whenever a little girl or boy would come over to talk to her, Petunia would engage in friendly conversation with them, but would always manage to turn the subject onto her sweet little sister who she adored. Eventually the other children grew tired of it, and just stopped coming up to her at all. Yes, that first year of school for Petunia was a bad year, for both of them.
However, once Lily started school, things became much better, for no one could resist The Flower Twins. While when the two were separated they could be quite annoying, only talking about the other, together they were immensely charming. They played of one another's personalities perfectly and had any child they came in contact with laughing with them almost instantly. Lily and Petunia could not have been happier.
However, there was one aspect of their life that made them both very sad. You see, Lily and Petunia's parents were not ordinary, in fact the were the exact opposite of ordinary, they were a wizard and a witch. Now, many may wonder why this would make them sad. Who wouldn't love having magical parents? Their chores were minimal because they're mother loved using household cleaning spells, after all she was better with a wand than Lily and Petunia were with a rag and bucket of soap water. Their father worked as a racing broom developer, so they always had the first glimpses of the latest racing brooms. And they had a house elf named Misty who they loved dearly. So why did having magical parents make Lily and Petunia sad? Well, because Lily and Petunia were NOT witches. Their mother came from a long line of generation-squibs, meaning that the magical abilities always skipped a generation, and with Mrs. Evans being a witch, this meant that Lily and Petunia would not be gifted with the magical abilities. It was hard for them to live so closely with the wizarding world knowing that they would never completely belong. But it was this more than anything that kept the sisters so close. Even when the children from the other wizarding families would taunt them, they always had each other to depend on. They were the squib sisters (though they really rather prefer The Flower Sisters!)
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Lily awoke one morning shortly before her eleventh birthday to find rays of sunshine streaming from her window.
"Petunia wake up! Do you know what today is?" Lily said prodding her sister gently. Petunia was definitely not a morning person, but Lily had perfected the art of waking her up.
"Wadaumpyfi," Petunia said sleepily, but nonetheless took the covers off her head.
"Come on, get up! Dad has the newest model of the cleansweep!"
THAT woke Petunia up much quicker. While she may not have had any magic in her, she absolutely loved flying. Everyone was very surprised when she was able to fly, considering it took a certain amount of magical ability that it was assumed squibs didn't have, but Petunia took quite naturally to the racing brooms and was a match for any wizard around. She even played a bit of quidditch when she was sure that her mother was occupied in some other fashion.
Lily and Petunia's mother, Renee Evans, was a very nice woman, but she was impossibly paranoid. While she always knew her children would be squibs, that didn't stop her from wishing they weren't. Not that she loved them any less, she just felt that one was safer when they possessed a certain amount of magical ability. And the idea of one of her daughter's flying around forty feet in the air, with no magic to help her if she got in trouble did not bode well with her at all.
Their father, Bruce Evans, on the other hand, LOVED that Petunia could fly. He had always had a knack for flying himself, and he was always happy to tell people stories of his days as the Ravenclaw Keeper, whether you asked him to tell you or not! When he learned that Renee would almost certainly have squib children who would be unable to fly, he nearly called off the wedding. Well, not really, but that's how he told it. Everyone who knew him knew that he loved Renee more than anyone could possibly love their wife, but that's just how he liked to tell the story of his joy at Petunia's abilities.
Anyway, needless to say, the day that Bruce and Renee walked out on a five-year-old Petunia riding a broomstick a few feet off the ground around their backyard, they were respectively the happiest and nervous they had ever been. Bruce scooped little Petunia off the broom and gave her the biggest hug ever and Renee proceeded to lecture her until she realized that, Petunia being a five-year-old, it wasn't having the impact she wanted. But to this day, Bruce can be seen sneaking Petunia out to try his company's latest brooms and Renee can be seen rushing out and lecturing them both, then eventually giving in and letting Petunia ride as long as she "doesn't fly more than ten feet off the ground" but of course, to play quidditch, you have to fly a lot higher than that, but ssh.don't tell Renee!
Back to that morning shortly before Lily's eleventh birthday, Petunia was downstairs and outside before Lily realized she had even left the bed.
Lily ran to catch up her sister when she ran smack into Misty.
"Miss Lily, you must not be running in the house, you may hurt yourself," Misty said picking herself up off the floor and immediately checking Lily for any damage.
"Oh, I'm so sorry Misty, are you okay?" Lily asked checking Misty in the same way Misty was checking her.
"Miss Lily, you are not to worry about Misty, Misty is just a house elf, not deserving of being asked if she is alright," Misty said with big blue eyes gazing up at Lily.
Lily let out an exasperated sigh and said, "Misty, how many times must I tell you to call me Lily, not Miss Lily, just Lily. And how many times must I tell you that you ARE worth something, and if I, or anyone else ever hurts you, accidental or otherwise, it is NOT okay. You are a living, breathing creature and you deserve respect.
Almost every day Lily gave this speech, and every time Misty gave the same answer.
"Miss Lily is very confused on the ways of the wizard-elf relationship." At which point she would walk away shaking her head making her long bat like ears do a little dance.
All of the Evans had tried to rid Misty of this self-depreciating habit, but to no avail. Misty had not always belonged to the Evans. They were actually very much against elf servitude, but they had discovered Misty starving and homeless about five years ago and they couldn't just leave her there, so they took her home. They tried to clothe her, but she immediately started crying and saying "not again" so they settled on giving her a pillowcase that Lily and Petunia decorated to look like a very pretty dress. While Misty didn't talk about her previous owners stating only that even though they were no longer her masters she would never speak ill of them, the Evans had gathered that they were dark wizards who must have treated her very badly, because even after living with the Evans for five years, she still thought of herself as nothing.
Lily put aside her frustration with Misty, and the anger she held for her unknown ex-owners, and ran into the backyard where Petunia was already gliding easily around their big apple tree.
"Ah! No fair! I saw it first. If it wasn't for me, you'd still be up in bed sleeping," Lily said as she gazed jealously up at her sister.
Petunia swooped down low enough so Lily could hear her say, "You can't even ride a broom anyway!"
Lily stuck her tongue out at her sister and Petunia retaliated by dive-bombing her.
It was true that Lily had absolutely no skills on a broom, and she and Petunia were just kidding around with each other, but sometimes it did hurt just a little that it seemed that while Petunia was a squib just like she was, Lily was the least magical of the family.
The day that Bruce had discovered that Petunia could fly a broomstick, he had immediately encouraged Lily to give it a go, but to no success. When Lily placed her hand over the broomstick and yelled 'up', nothing had happened. Not nothing like it only gave a little jump, or only rolled over a bit, absolutely NOTHING happened. Whether Lily liked it or not, she could not fly a broom, it just wasn't meant to be.
However, this didn't stop her from going on the occasional fly around with her dad, and sometimes even with Petunia, though if Renee ever knew that BOTH her daughters were flying around with no adult supervision she would have a heart attack.
Lily watched Petunia fly up and down and around and around for about ten minutes before Renee came streaking out of the house in her apron screaming.
"Bruce Ivadner Evans! I KNOW that you are not sitting there watching our twelve-year-old daughter fly about in BROUD DAYLIGHT where any muggle passing by could see her! Because I KNOW the husband I married has more sense than that!"
Bruce hung his head in shame while Petunia immediately flew down and dismounted the broom. Lily and Petunia were used to this by now. Their father was always letting them do things that their mother wouldn't exactly approve of, but like a child breaking a rule, he always managed to get caught.
Lily and Petunia quietly snuck away while their parents continued to argue, or more accurately while their mother continued to argue, and went inside. Lily and Petunia didn't worry about their parents, they knew that they loved each other very much, but that their father was a bit of a child, forcing their mother to be the adult of the house. To Lily and Petunia it was really quite amusing. Plus Renee usually wore herself out yelling at Bruce so that she was too tired to yell at Lily or Petunia for any fault they may have had.
Lily and Petunia walked into the front yard and lay down on the grass, looking at the clouds in the sky.
"We have a nice life, don't we Petunia?" Lily asked glancing at her big sister.
"Yeah, we really do," Petunia answered smiling to herself.
Lily was quiet for a few moments while she thought about the strange dreams she'd been having. Weird dreams where she saw flashes of her and Petunia as adults; flashes of a man in a dark cloak with strange red eyes; flashes of an attractive boy with unruly black hair and glasses; and what concerned her the most, flashes of Petunia walking past Lily on the street and not even acknowledging that she was there.
"Petunia?" Lily finally spoke up, looking at her sister with tears in her eyes, "We'll always be best friends, won't we? I mean, you'll always be here to take care of me and be my sister, won't you?"
Petunia turned and looked at her teary-eyed sister and said with absolute conviction, "Of course Lily! There's no force on this planet that could keep me from taking care of you. I will ALWAYS be here for you."
Lily turned her eyes back to the clouds above her, happier, but still plagued with the tiniest twinge of doubt.
Petunia, sensing Lily's doubt, got to her feet and walked over to their mother's garden. Renee loved to garden and had a special plot of land in their front yard dedicated to petunias and lilies. Petunia picked a petunia and carried it over to Lily.
"Here Lily. In case anything happens to make it so I can't be there to protect you and take care of you, you can keep this as a reminder that no matter what, I will always love you."
Lily couldn't speak. For a moment she felt like she was going to cry, but instead she jumped to her feet and threw her arms around her sister. Petunia returned the hug and smiled; she was glad she was able to make her sister happy.
Lily let go of Petunia and smiled at her, then walked over to the flower bed and picked a lily and handed it to Petunia.
"So you know that I will always love you," Lily whispered.
"Flower twins forever," Petunia whispered back.
They went back to staring at the clouds, pointing at different clusters that looked like strange objects, and generally enjoying their time together. Yes, these two were happy. They had a wonderful family and they had each other. There was nothing either of them could hope more for. What they didn't know was that something was about to happen; something that would change both their lives and test their solid bonds of sisterhood; something that would change the course of their lives.
**********
A/N: Well what do you think? This is my first attempt at fan fiction, so be gentle. Naw.actually be brutal, I'm pretty proud of how this chapter turned out, granted it is a bit of an introductory chapter, but you know, they have to be done. Don't you just love Petunia and Lily's relationship? I do! Oh, just so you know, I have NO idea if petunias and lilies can even grow together or if they grow in the same season or anything, gardening isn't my thing, but for the sake of the story, just pretend they do! Anyway, now that you've read, please review!
Chapter 1: Flower Twins Forever
Lily and Petunia were the best friends you could ever meet. They spent every waking moment together, and in fact their non-waking moments together as well. Because Lily and Petunia weren't just best friends, they were also sisters. Yes, Lily and Petunia Evans were inseparable, and because of their flowery names many people referred to them as The Flower Twins.
Lily and Petunia weren't actually twins, though they were very close in age. Petunia was a little more than a year older than Lily, and Lily admired her in the way most little sisters admire and older sister. And, unlike most older siblings, Petunia admired Lily. No, as children Petunia and Lily always got along and shared everything, and never even became jealous of one another.
When Petunia started grade school Lily was terribly lonely during the day. She would spend her mornings drawing pictures for Petunia and would store every bit of information about the day in her memory, so that when Petunia returned home in the afternoon she could tell her what happened and it would be like they had never been apart. Every afternoon Lily would wait for three o'clock to roll around so that she might go with her mother to school to pick Petunia up.
Petunia hated her first year of school. Because she spent so much time wondering what her sister was doing at home, she didn't ever really make any friends. Whenever a little girl or boy would come over to talk to her, Petunia would engage in friendly conversation with them, but would always manage to turn the subject onto her sweet little sister who she adored. Eventually the other children grew tired of it, and just stopped coming up to her at all. Yes, that first year of school for Petunia was a bad year, for both of them.
However, once Lily started school, things became much better, for no one could resist The Flower Twins. While when the two were separated they could be quite annoying, only talking about the other, together they were immensely charming. They played of one another's personalities perfectly and had any child they came in contact with laughing with them almost instantly. Lily and Petunia could not have been happier.
However, there was one aspect of their life that made them both very sad. You see, Lily and Petunia's parents were not ordinary, in fact the were the exact opposite of ordinary, they were a wizard and a witch. Now, many may wonder why this would make them sad. Who wouldn't love having magical parents? Their chores were minimal because they're mother loved using household cleaning spells, after all she was better with a wand than Lily and Petunia were with a rag and bucket of soap water. Their father worked as a racing broom developer, so they always had the first glimpses of the latest racing brooms. And they had a house elf named Misty who they loved dearly. So why did having magical parents make Lily and Petunia sad? Well, because Lily and Petunia were NOT witches. Their mother came from a long line of generation-squibs, meaning that the magical abilities always skipped a generation, and with Mrs. Evans being a witch, this meant that Lily and Petunia would not be gifted with the magical abilities. It was hard for them to live so closely with the wizarding world knowing that they would never completely belong. But it was this more than anything that kept the sisters so close. Even when the children from the other wizarding families would taunt them, they always had each other to depend on. They were the squib sisters (though they really rather prefer The Flower Sisters!)
**********
Lily awoke one morning shortly before her eleventh birthday to find rays of sunshine streaming from her window.
"Petunia wake up! Do you know what today is?" Lily said prodding her sister gently. Petunia was definitely not a morning person, but Lily had perfected the art of waking her up.
"Wadaumpyfi," Petunia said sleepily, but nonetheless took the covers off her head.
"Come on, get up! Dad has the newest model of the cleansweep!"
THAT woke Petunia up much quicker. While she may not have had any magic in her, she absolutely loved flying. Everyone was very surprised when she was able to fly, considering it took a certain amount of magical ability that it was assumed squibs didn't have, but Petunia took quite naturally to the racing brooms and was a match for any wizard around. She even played a bit of quidditch when she was sure that her mother was occupied in some other fashion.
Lily and Petunia's mother, Renee Evans, was a very nice woman, but she was impossibly paranoid. While she always knew her children would be squibs, that didn't stop her from wishing they weren't. Not that she loved them any less, she just felt that one was safer when they possessed a certain amount of magical ability. And the idea of one of her daughter's flying around forty feet in the air, with no magic to help her if she got in trouble did not bode well with her at all.
Their father, Bruce Evans, on the other hand, LOVED that Petunia could fly. He had always had a knack for flying himself, and he was always happy to tell people stories of his days as the Ravenclaw Keeper, whether you asked him to tell you or not! When he learned that Renee would almost certainly have squib children who would be unable to fly, he nearly called off the wedding. Well, not really, but that's how he told it. Everyone who knew him knew that he loved Renee more than anyone could possibly love their wife, but that's just how he liked to tell the story of his joy at Petunia's abilities.
Anyway, needless to say, the day that Bruce and Renee walked out on a five-year-old Petunia riding a broomstick a few feet off the ground around their backyard, they were respectively the happiest and nervous they had ever been. Bruce scooped little Petunia off the broom and gave her the biggest hug ever and Renee proceeded to lecture her until she realized that, Petunia being a five-year-old, it wasn't having the impact she wanted. But to this day, Bruce can be seen sneaking Petunia out to try his company's latest brooms and Renee can be seen rushing out and lecturing them both, then eventually giving in and letting Petunia ride as long as she "doesn't fly more than ten feet off the ground" but of course, to play quidditch, you have to fly a lot higher than that, but ssh.don't tell Renee!
Back to that morning shortly before Lily's eleventh birthday, Petunia was downstairs and outside before Lily realized she had even left the bed.
Lily ran to catch up her sister when she ran smack into Misty.
"Miss Lily, you must not be running in the house, you may hurt yourself," Misty said picking herself up off the floor and immediately checking Lily for any damage.
"Oh, I'm so sorry Misty, are you okay?" Lily asked checking Misty in the same way Misty was checking her.
"Miss Lily, you are not to worry about Misty, Misty is just a house elf, not deserving of being asked if she is alright," Misty said with big blue eyes gazing up at Lily.
Lily let out an exasperated sigh and said, "Misty, how many times must I tell you to call me Lily, not Miss Lily, just Lily. And how many times must I tell you that you ARE worth something, and if I, or anyone else ever hurts you, accidental or otherwise, it is NOT okay. You are a living, breathing creature and you deserve respect.
Almost every day Lily gave this speech, and every time Misty gave the same answer.
"Miss Lily is very confused on the ways of the wizard-elf relationship." At which point she would walk away shaking her head making her long bat like ears do a little dance.
All of the Evans had tried to rid Misty of this self-depreciating habit, but to no avail. Misty had not always belonged to the Evans. They were actually very much against elf servitude, but they had discovered Misty starving and homeless about five years ago and they couldn't just leave her there, so they took her home. They tried to clothe her, but she immediately started crying and saying "not again" so they settled on giving her a pillowcase that Lily and Petunia decorated to look like a very pretty dress. While Misty didn't talk about her previous owners stating only that even though they were no longer her masters she would never speak ill of them, the Evans had gathered that they were dark wizards who must have treated her very badly, because even after living with the Evans for five years, she still thought of herself as nothing.
Lily put aside her frustration with Misty, and the anger she held for her unknown ex-owners, and ran into the backyard where Petunia was already gliding easily around their big apple tree.
"Ah! No fair! I saw it first. If it wasn't for me, you'd still be up in bed sleeping," Lily said as she gazed jealously up at her sister.
Petunia swooped down low enough so Lily could hear her say, "You can't even ride a broom anyway!"
Lily stuck her tongue out at her sister and Petunia retaliated by dive-bombing her.
It was true that Lily had absolutely no skills on a broom, and she and Petunia were just kidding around with each other, but sometimes it did hurt just a little that it seemed that while Petunia was a squib just like she was, Lily was the least magical of the family.
The day that Bruce had discovered that Petunia could fly a broomstick, he had immediately encouraged Lily to give it a go, but to no success. When Lily placed her hand over the broomstick and yelled 'up', nothing had happened. Not nothing like it only gave a little jump, or only rolled over a bit, absolutely NOTHING happened. Whether Lily liked it or not, she could not fly a broom, it just wasn't meant to be.
However, this didn't stop her from going on the occasional fly around with her dad, and sometimes even with Petunia, though if Renee ever knew that BOTH her daughters were flying around with no adult supervision she would have a heart attack.
Lily watched Petunia fly up and down and around and around for about ten minutes before Renee came streaking out of the house in her apron screaming.
"Bruce Ivadner Evans! I KNOW that you are not sitting there watching our twelve-year-old daughter fly about in BROUD DAYLIGHT where any muggle passing by could see her! Because I KNOW the husband I married has more sense than that!"
Bruce hung his head in shame while Petunia immediately flew down and dismounted the broom. Lily and Petunia were used to this by now. Their father was always letting them do things that their mother wouldn't exactly approve of, but like a child breaking a rule, he always managed to get caught.
Lily and Petunia quietly snuck away while their parents continued to argue, or more accurately while their mother continued to argue, and went inside. Lily and Petunia didn't worry about their parents, they knew that they loved each other very much, but that their father was a bit of a child, forcing their mother to be the adult of the house. To Lily and Petunia it was really quite amusing. Plus Renee usually wore herself out yelling at Bruce so that she was too tired to yell at Lily or Petunia for any fault they may have had.
Lily and Petunia walked into the front yard and lay down on the grass, looking at the clouds in the sky.
"We have a nice life, don't we Petunia?" Lily asked glancing at her big sister.
"Yeah, we really do," Petunia answered smiling to herself.
Lily was quiet for a few moments while she thought about the strange dreams she'd been having. Weird dreams where she saw flashes of her and Petunia as adults; flashes of a man in a dark cloak with strange red eyes; flashes of an attractive boy with unruly black hair and glasses; and what concerned her the most, flashes of Petunia walking past Lily on the street and not even acknowledging that she was there.
"Petunia?" Lily finally spoke up, looking at her sister with tears in her eyes, "We'll always be best friends, won't we? I mean, you'll always be here to take care of me and be my sister, won't you?"
Petunia turned and looked at her teary-eyed sister and said with absolute conviction, "Of course Lily! There's no force on this planet that could keep me from taking care of you. I will ALWAYS be here for you."
Lily turned her eyes back to the clouds above her, happier, but still plagued with the tiniest twinge of doubt.
Petunia, sensing Lily's doubt, got to her feet and walked over to their mother's garden. Renee loved to garden and had a special plot of land in their front yard dedicated to petunias and lilies. Petunia picked a petunia and carried it over to Lily.
"Here Lily. In case anything happens to make it so I can't be there to protect you and take care of you, you can keep this as a reminder that no matter what, I will always love you."
Lily couldn't speak. For a moment she felt like she was going to cry, but instead she jumped to her feet and threw her arms around her sister. Petunia returned the hug and smiled; she was glad she was able to make her sister happy.
Lily let go of Petunia and smiled at her, then walked over to the flower bed and picked a lily and handed it to Petunia.
"So you know that I will always love you," Lily whispered.
"Flower twins forever," Petunia whispered back.
They went back to staring at the clouds, pointing at different clusters that looked like strange objects, and generally enjoying their time together. Yes, these two were happy. They had a wonderful family and they had each other. There was nothing either of them could hope more for. What they didn't know was that something was about to happen; something that would change both their lives and test their solid bonds of sisterhood; something that would change the course of their lives.
**********
A/N: Well what do you think? This is my first attempt at fan fiction, so be gentle. Naw.actually be brutal, I'm pretty proud of how this chapter turned out, granted it is a bit of an introductory chapter, but you know, they have to be done. Don't you just love Petunia and Lily's relationship? I do! Oh, just so you know, I have NO idea if petunias and lilies can even grow together or if they grow in the same season or anything, gardening isn't my thing, but for the sake of the story, just pretend they do! Anyway, now that you've read, please review!