Chapter Three
Gateways
Lily Evans awoke to the sounds of voices. She had been reading her book beneath the large tree in her backyard when she had somehow dosed off. She had been up late last night watching the stars so it was no surprise for she hadn’t gotten into bed until well after 11 p.m. But it had been worth it. Though she was rather tired. But the little unwanted nap seemed to have helped and she felt a little more awake then she had all day.
Lily slowly raised her head off her shoulder and yawned. She stood up and the heavy book fell to the ground upon her toe. Lily yelped and rubbed her injured foot cursing herself for being so clumsy. The book fell to the ground softly with a thump. Unharmed amazingly even though it had been so shabby and worn that it looked like it should have fallen apart.
Lily frowning and now slightly grumpy gave her foot a last pitiful rub and then stood up to her full height. She stretched out her arms and rubbed her eyes. Shoving several strands of her red hair out of her face she looked around the yard once again remembering what had awoken her from her slumber in the first place.
“James this is all your fault!”
“No it’s your fault!”
“No.”
“You were the one who stole my glasses in the first place.”
Lily heard the voices of two kids arguing about whose fault it was. Immediately curiousity filled Lily to the brim. If she remembered correctly there were no kids in the neighborhood within shouting distance. Those voices were awfully close. They seemed to be coming from the yard next store. Perhaps Ms. Brandy had some relatives over that had some kids her age.
Lily’s heart soared at the thought. She didn’t have many friends, other then Marabelle. But Marabelle was going to a different school next year over in France. So Lily was determined to make friends this summer.
Lily crept closer to the voices positively bouncing with excitement inside. She moved around the big tree and once again heard the two voices clearer and closer then before.
“Yeah but you enchanted the thicket!”
“I did not!”
“Did too!”
Lily pushed back the leaves of the hedge that separated the two yards. Peering through she saw something that made her heart leap with excitement. There sitting in the yard right beside the hedge were two children. A boy that looked about her age with messy black hair and glasses and a girl who looked younger and looked like she was his sister. For the girl had the same messy black hair as her brother. They both looked angry and were definitely having some sort of heated argument about whose fault it was for something.
“I could never pull that sort of stuff off.” The boy yelled at his younger sister.
“You’re older though and are always finding new stuff out and trying all that advanced magic and doing pranks.” The younger sister shouted back.
Their voices were rising steadily. Pretty soon Lily wouldn’t be the only one watching them. She could almost guarantee that. Mr. Till wasn’t home thankfully. But if he had Lily was almost sure that he’d be watching these two strange kids from his window and that it would be all over the entire town in a matter of minutes.
“I have no clue what this is let alone how to do it.” He said thrusting his hand in a gesture behind him towards the other yards, stone wall and thicket.
“Well it can’t be my fault.” The little girl said sulkily.
Lily stifled a little chuckle. Two all-to-familiar words explained all this, sibling rivalry. She had several of these heated discussions and arguments with her two older sisters Petunia and Violet. Despite how ridiculous it looked Lily could relate to what they were going through.
“That’s like it always is.” Said the boy looking away from her.
“What?”
“It’s never your fault because you’re the baby, the sweet girl and little miss perfect. Even though you’re just as bad as I am, you never get in trouble. I get all the blame.” He sulked. Then he continued on in a high pitch voice as if imitating someone. “Oh my sweet Tiffany darling. Yes poor James always torturing my little baby girl!”
The younger girl whose name was Tiffany reached over and slapped him on the arm. He flinched and glared at her. His expression of anger didn’t change but he decided to sulk instead of continuing on with his side of the argument.
Lily couldn’t help. They looked so funny and odd. She burst out laughing before she could cover her mouth. The laugh slipped and Lily quickly buried her shaking body from laughter into her hands. She could still hear her laugh and the odd silence that had taken over on the other side of the hedge. They had heard her.
Lily gasped and stood up not laughing anymore. She peeked through the hedge and her brilliant laughing green eyes now filled with shock looked into two pairs of identical brown eyes that were brimming with new found anger and could it be confusion or fear.
Hesitantly Lily bent down and crawled beneath the hedge. Slowly she crawled out into Ms. Brandy’s glamorous usually “kid free and perfect” lawn. Her knees dragged mulch into the green lawn leaving a little trail from the perfect dividing line of hedges. She wiped her hands free of dirt on her jeans and looked up to face the two kids who were now silent and staring at her.
Both siblings were glaring at her. But perhaps that was because they were still angry from their argument. Lily certainly hoped so. She smiled weakly at them but their expression didn’t change. Lily gave up and her smile deserted her face. No one had really ever liked her. Lily didn’t know why she had been expecting these kids to be thinking differently of her. Lily looked sorrowfully at the two kids as if pending on whether to go back into her yard.
“Hi.” Lily said trying to make another attempt. She sounded so lame. She hated introductions.
“Hi.” The boy said as if in disgust.
She waved to them lamely. It was almost as if these two kids were foreigners. She felt like these kids were from another planet and she was trying to befriend them. But in another sense she felt that these two kids were like her in some way.
“I uh heard you guys arguing.” Lily nodded, bending her head down to busy herself with something in the grass.
“Good observation.” The boy said sarcastically. Lily looked up at him a little but saw that despite his cruel tone his expression had softened a little. It seemed to be replaced with a look of curiosity. It was almost as if he too were seeing someone from another planet.
Lily brought her face up to look at his bravely. She looked into his brown eyes studying him and giving him a look over. Should she even bother trying to make friends with these two strange kids that didn’t seem to like her. Or should she just go back to her yard and finish reading her book and pass off her only chance at having some friends.
Lily studied the messy black hair and the brown eyes that seemed to have a glint of mischief in them. Was it just her imagination or was his lips tugging into a smile. His expression seemed to be softening too. He was probably going through a similar battle.
Lily’s face broke into a small smile that she couldn’t really hide. She bravely stuck out her hand. She would at least give this making friends thing a whirl.
“I’m Lily.” She said her outstretched hand quavered on the spot.
The boy seemed to be staring at her hand that was now trembling. The little girl was looking up at her brother to see what he would decide. The boy seemed to be fighting an inward battle staring at her hand. Then a small smile broke out onto his face.
“I’m James.” He said.
Lily felt another hand grip her trembling outstretched hand and they both smiled a little brighter as they let go. They stared at each other with an almost satisfaction but were abruptly broken from their gaze.
“I’m Tiffany.” Said a small voice. Lily had almost forgotten about the little girl. The girl smiled shyly up at her as Lily shook her hand and smiled too. The two let go and all three of them looked at each other as if wondering how to proceed.
“I live next door to Ms. Brandy.” Lily said boldly. She twisted herself around to point out her house over in the next yard. It was almost exactly the same as Ms. Brandy’s except for the fact that her house was a little bigger and was painted a light blue color.
“Over there.” She said with a feeling of pride. She had heard the story behind her house several times. It was a real mess before Lily was born and when her sisters and her parents had first moved in. But her father had fixed it up so that it looked no different from the other houses on the street. Perhaps it was more beautiful then the others. But maybe it was just because her father had worked on it that she felt this way.
Lily turned to look at the other two that were nodding their heads and looking the house over. The younger sibling had her face screwed up as if there was something she didn’t understand. She kept looking at James, Lily’s house, Ms. Brandy’s house and then she opened her little fist and brought some grass to her face. It seemed that she was smelling the grass and examining it close up as if seeing some kind of foreign plant for the first time. Lily gave her a queer look and the girl, realizing that she was staring at her dropped the grass quickly.
“There’s something different about this place.” Tiffany said aloud. She covered her mouth as if she had just said something she shouldn’t have but a new look of confidence crossed her face as she removed the hand.
“I mean I’ve never been here before.” She stuttered nervously hoping Lily wouldn’t think there was anything wrong with her. She had a deep feeling that she knew what made this place so different and strange to her and James.
Lily nodded still looking at the girl queerly wondering what she was talking about.
“James I need to talk to you.” Tiffany said tugging on her brother’s sleeve.
“Why?” James asked. He was still staring at Lily. He was probably trying to do the same thing she had done, try to figure out what made Lily and everything else about this place so different from home.
“Just come with me.” Tiffany grabbed him by the sleeve and began heaving him to his feet. James got up and allowed himself to be towed way by Tiffany looking back at Lily. He shrugged and grinned at Lily, mouthing something along the lines of “We’ll be back in a minute.”
“I figured out what makes this place so different.” Tiffany said to her brother in a low voice when they were far enough from Lily.
“What?”
“This place isn’t magical.” Tiffany whispered to her brother.
James looked around. Now it all made a little more sense. No wonder why their surroundings and the girl “Lily” had seemed so odd and strange. Now he knew why they had seemed to be foreigners and seemed to be out of place in this muggle settlement. That was because Tiffany and James had lived in an almost entire wizard settlement their entire life. Very rarely had James and Tiffany ever ventured into a world that had muggles in it with their parents. Yes it all made sense now.
“So that means that Lily is a” James couldn’t finish. He glanced back to where Lily was sitting watching them curiously and waiting anxiously for them to return. He liked Lily. This was very rare for James Potter because James Potter had never really liked girls as friends. There were tons in his neighborhood but James had preferred to be by himself then play with them. There were hardly any boys. James really missed having friends sometimes.
“Yeah.” Tiffany whispered. She too had liked Lily and she had only known her for what five minutes at the most. It was very strange, but the way they had met her it seemed like it should have been the beginning of a great friendship.
“James we have to get out of here.” Tiffany said getting back to business.
“How?” James inquired hoping his sister had a way.
“I don’t know but this muggle thing is making this a worse situation then before.” Tiffany gulped knowing that Lily or anyone else would know anything about magic. So here they were stranded until someone finally figured out what had happened to them and decided to go and get them.
“Hopefully Dad figures it out. He’s going to be mad.” James said.
“If he ever finds us. We might be stuck here forever.” Tiffany said trembling and edging closer to her older brother.
“Oh we’ll be okay. Someone had to find us.” James said halfheartedly.
“But what if we’re stuck here forever.” Tiffany wailed. Tiny tears started to form in her eyes as the two of them began to realize the seriousness of the situation that they were in.
“Don’t be ridiculous.” James said. But he just said that to comfort his “on the verge of tears” little sister. He started walking over to Lily. Tiffany thankfully came too, hastily wiping away the signs of tears on her face.
“We just had to talk something over.” James said to Lily as he and Tiffany sat down once more in the grass.
Lily wasn’t fooled though. She saw the signs of distress and looked at them worriedly. Something was going on that Lily didn’t know about. But whatever it was had to be pretty bad because the little girl looked like she was crying and James looked grave behind his cheerful smile.
“Is something wrong?” Lily couldn’t help it. She had to know. Her Mom would probably say “Don’t be so meddlesome,” if she heard Lily right now. But Lily needed to know what was bothering these kids. She wanted to know if she could help them out.
“No.”
“Yes.”
The two said at the same exact moment. They both turned to each other quickly and appeared to be trying to tell each other something with their facial expressions. These two were getting really weird. They were hiding something.
“We’re going to have to tell her.” James said to his sister sternly who seemed to be trusting Lily more. He didn’t know why but there was something about her that was magical. Perhaps she was a muggleborn witch and didn’t know it. Or perhaps she had relatives who were witches and wizards and therefore had a small bit of magical blood in her.
“James you know the rules.” Tiffany said biting her lip. They could get in serious trouble if Lily reacted to the truth about them like other muggles usually did. When they were very young their parents had warned them never to tell muggles about anything about their world. Their parents had always told them that no matter how trustworthy they may seem some bad things could happen to them if the muggles took it badly and called something called the “police”.
“Do you want to go home or not?” James asked her. The rules were going to have to be laid aside for this one. Lily was their only hope. Their first and probably only chance of going home.
“Tell her only a little. Just the finer points of our situation.” Tiffany said cowering and giving in to her brother.
“Lily you’re a muggle right?” James said wondering how to begin. Obviously this wasn’t the way to begin because Lily looked at him strangely.
“A what?” Lily asked confused.
“Oh well done brother of mine.” Tiffany said sarcastically seeing her brothers start.
“Never mind what I said.” James said glaring at his sister. It had been probably one of the worse ways to start a conversation so touchy like this.
“Do you believe in magic?” James asked.
Lily leaned forward interested. She was liking this. She remembered the wish all too clearly. Could this be the answer? These two kids could they be here to show her magic. Lily nodded quickly and hoped he would continue.
“You do?” James nearly laughed with relief. Lily seemed very interested in this topic. Perhaps she wasn’t like other muggles.
“Well, this is going to sound strange, but Tiffany and I come from a world in which magic is everywhere.” James continued.
Lily watched him listening with rapt attention as the story began to unfold.
Chapter Four