Lily spent the first few days at her house with the vacuum cleaner, the mop and brushes, the washing machine, and the window-cleaner as her best friends. Petunia obviously tried her best, but she had had schoolwork to do and hadn’t been able to give the house a scrubbing-down, which was what Lily was stuck with. But the week after she returned home, she was so far advanced as to be able to set sticks of incense out to get rid of the headache-causing scent of the cleaning materials.
Her father, she knew, was grateful for a change in the meals he was served. Beforehand, Lily had had only so much time at home to write out recipes, and they weren’t very hard to follow. But, thanks to the willing house-elves, she was able to paste several hundred bits of parchment with spidery writing inside a notebook she kept hanging from a nail in the pantry. It included several of her own additions; stuffed peppers and Swedish meatballs among the rest.
Lily’s father left for work regularly at eight, and at that time, after cleaning up the breakfast dishes, Lily and Petunia would grab their swimming things and head for the neighborhood swimming pool. Lily couldn’t help thinking how much more she preferred her friends’ marble basins and stone statuettes to the chlorine-caked tiles, but it was water, and that was really what mattered, she told herself.
Her birthday started out quietly; she rose and took a bath at six-thirty, threw on a pair of pants and a shirt, whipped downstairs to boil water for coffee, and pulled bread and eggs out of the pantry and refrigerator. When the water boiled, she set the filter filled with the ground coffee over a pot and let the water flow through the filter; letting the finished coffee flow into a cup for her father. Taking it to his bedside table, she shook him gently, wafting the aroma of the brew towards his nose.
He sat up in bed, stretching. “Lily! Thanks, honey…oh, and happy birthday! I’m sorry—I meant you to sleep in—“
She interrupted him. “Dad, it’s all right. Really, I enjoy getting up this early. Breakfast in ten minutes.” She sped out of the room quickly, dashing downstairs and cracking the eggs in the pan, also tossing in about three slices of bread.
As promised, her father’s breakfast was ready in ten minutes, and as he sat at the table in his dressing-gown, gulping down coffee, she was occupied with watching several black dots outside the kitchen window quickly grow larger and larger. She jumped back just in time to let about five owls drop presents on the table and into her father’s toast.
“Dad—“
He interrupted her. “Blasted owls! Can’t your folk get any simpler way of delivering mail?” Then, seeing the hurt look on her face, he amended. “Sorry, dear. It’s just that I’m not used to this—er—this sort of delivery. I’d like my toast free of—oh, wrapping paper! Hon, your friends sent you birthday gifts, go on, open them!”
He cast a glance at his watch and stood up abruptly, almost knocking the table over. “Sorry, Lily. Have to go. Very late.”
Without waiting for a nod or a sign of comprehension from Lily, he left the kitchen, leaving Lily a bit sad, and a bit confused; neither of which feelings she had explanations for. However, she shrugged it off as she moved towards her friends’ gifts.
Deciding against keeping them in the dirty kitchen while the remains of her father’s breakfast was still on the table, she took them upstairs to her room, placing them on the bed before whisking back to the kitchen to rinse off the used dishes. When she finally got back upstairs to her room, Petunia was already stretching lazily in her bed.
Lily sat down on the edge of her bed, back against her pillow, one foot tucked underneath her, and picked up the first present: a pale cream paper with burgundy ribbon forever twisting itself into interesting shapes and sizes, including a Chocolate Frog and several kittens.
“Remus!” Lily thought before even looking at the card. She didn’t know how she knew; it was just the sort of thing Remus would think of. And she was right; it was from the friendly werewolf. Peter’s name was also on the card, but Lily was certain Remus had done the charmwork on the ribbon.
Carefully taking off the paper, she uncovered something she’d been eyeing in Flourish and Blotts for the longest time. It was a cookbook with a miniature figure almost like a house-elf inside; it gave directions and helped out when the baker was doing anything wrong, but it could do only so much, being just three inches high.
Still, Lily thought, if Petunia wasn’t too frightened to use it, this would be extremely helpful to her and to her father when Petunia was at a friend’s house or something.
Laying Remus’ gift aside, she picked up the next one; to her from Eva, Amanda, Vanessa, and Miranda. Covered with forest-green paper, it was long and thin, and when the paper was put to one side, it revealed a grayish cardboard box. Opening it, Lily smiled.
It was a broomstick; not the most expensive one—the Silver Arrow—but a Shooting Star. In the card, the girls had added:
I think you should learn to fly on this—it’s a disgrace having one of James Potter’s friends not knowing how to fly! We shall hate you forevermore if you do not learn! Forevermore! Quoth the raven, “Nevermore”! Can ever dissever my soul from the soul of the beautiful Annabel Lee! Okay; too much Edgar Allen Poe. It’s just that Mrs. Potter’s a diehard fan of dear old Edgar, and his poems are tacked up all over the house. And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain that is presently waving unnervingly in our window and is making us stop quoting The Raven, of all things. We’re starting to hate everyone’s owl that is completely black. Urgh.
--US
Lily sighed, remembering her first disastrous encounter with a broomstick, which had resulted in her sporting a nasty bruise on her wrist for a few days, but resolved to try. Tomorrow.
Sirius had sent her a rather smallish present; he had covered it with a lavender-smelling sheet of—well, it looked more like papyrus than anything else. She took a box about eight inches long and two inches wide and thick out of the papyrus, and, on opening it, gave a pleased sort of intake of breath sounding like a gasp.
It was, of course, a replica, but it looked to real to be outside a safe. Sirius was one of the only ones that had patience and understanding for her hunger for other languages, and he had given her a black piece of marble, cut so as to fit in the box, and covered with the ancient Egyptians’ hieroglyphics; beneath the carven Egyptian letters were engraved the Greek equivalents.
He had also tucked a slip of paper with the English equivalents of the hieroglyphics, but he knew she would get more out of the Greek. He had also given her a book that taught the structure of the ancient Egyptian language, along with several slips of imitation papyrus. Though, of course, being purchased in the magical world, it was a very good imitation.
Severus’ and Lucious’ presents came by the same owl; an invitation to spend some of the summer at Severus’, a beautiful silver picture frame from Lucious with imitation black pearls decorating it. Lily smiled as she recognized her favorite combination of jewels. Severus, on the other hand, had given her something in the same style, though far more beautiful. Imitation black pearls for her ears, and with thin silver threads hanging from the pearl, forming an intricate pattern of a flower. Lily didn’t want to think about the cost of it, and she never intended to ask.
She quickly penned a short reply to Severus and Lucious, saying that she’d have to see whether she could come or not, but that she’d ask her father and inform them the minute that she found out, either way. She saw Alisande take off into the brilliant white wispy clouds, and, when her owl had finally vanished from sight, Lily turned to her last present.
Wrapped in violet-blue paper, the color of his mother’s eyes, James had charmed the surface of the present to squeak whenever it was breathed on, apparently. Lily tried not to as she pulled the paper off of the box.
She almost dropped it.
He had obviously worked very hard at this; and it wasn’t to be sniffed at. Long, wide, and flat, it was a piece of canvas. Lily didn’t know how he’d done it—it was a painting. Done in the duskiest shades Lily imagined existed on a palette, it was of Lily mounted sidesaddle on Svordsja through the waters of the Alendoren Cove, with the pentacorn rearing as two waves clashed underneath her. The dress that she was wearing in the picture was a white, filmy substance resembling a cloud more than anything as it whipped out behind her into the midnight-blue sky and trailed in the sea-blue ocean; her hair was unbound and her feet were bare.
Behind Lily’s head, partly covered with streaming dark red strands—he had managed to actually glisten as if they were wet—the moon shone, casting a halo-like glow around her head, and sending a beam to the tip of Svordsja’s horns, making a sparkling glow issue from it. Lily caught her breath.
She had had no idea James was this good at painting—no, he wasn’t good; he was wonderful. This was better than anything she had ever managed to sketch, ever. And she had never seen anything that he had done—besides this. It looked as if it had taken weeks; maybe a month. She turned the canvas over, and on the back he had penned something.
Lily,
I hope you like this—I tried as hard as I could to do you well—you move so fast and you’ve always got an odd expression on your face—somewhat as if you’re sent down here from another world. I tried as hard as I could to replicate it, but it turned out rather flat. Svordsja was easy enough. I can’t possibly imagine doing a creature that grand without making her look—well, fit for Olympus or something of the sort. But you were different. Humans don’t usually look like you do. That’s not an insult, mind. I wish they all did. Still, this isn’t making any sense, really, so I’ll stop here—
--James
Lily set the letter down, thinking hard. Her thoughts, as usual, were somewhat odd.
I don’t know why he tells me I look like I come from somewhere else. I’m definitely nothing special; I’m more ordinary than I’d care to be. I’m not in the least pretty, I’m only clever because I—I guess I was born liking books and languages, and I’ve got no special qualities that might make me out to seem like an immortal. I’m eccentric, that’s all, though I sometimes wish I wasn’t.
It was easy for her to see herself that way—she was hardly ever complimented because she took the compliments in such an odd way; she would stare at the person with a rather surprised and halfway angry expression—and she was told that she was clever by her teachers and by other students that usually needed desperate help with their homework. To be honest, this was the first time anyone, even her family, had told her something like what James had written, and she didn’t quite know how to receive it. She didn’t know how to receive it now, as a matter of fact, and she had no idea what to write him in the way of thanks, as this certainly deserved something more than a simple Thank you for your present. Yours sincerely, Lily Evans. In the end, besides formulating a rather long letter, she decided on something she’d wanted to do ever since school began.
That evening, as soon as her father returned, she put her request to him as soon as he had received a glass of fresh lemonade and had been relieved of his briefcase and other papers.
“Dad, one of my friends invited me to spend the summer with him—about twenty of my other friends will be there. Would you mind very much if I joined them?”
Her father, clearly, wanted very much to give an emphatic “no.” He had hardly seen his daughter that year, and this summer was an ideal opportunity for him to spend some time with her—besides, Petunia wasn’t as adept at managing the household as his younger daughter was.
Petunia complained more about the work and a somewhat tight budget, while Lily accepted whatever there was for her to accept with a straight, set face and squared shoulders, and she never seemed to object when he refused her a privilege. She also never let a sound escape her if she had been injured in any way—a few days ago, she had spilled boiling hot water on her right hand and never let out a sound.
He liked that—a quiet, well-run household, and if he was to be left with Petunia, there was hardly a chance of that happening. But now, with the innocent, forest-green eyes directed almost piercingly at his own pale gray ones, he felt rather abashed at saying what he thought out loud. Harrumphing several times, he made several mumblings about how she had her duty to her family.
Lily saw what he really meant, but she was sharp enough not to let it seem as if she had noticed.
“Father, Petunia is so much more advanced in everything than I am—she is so much older than I, and she knows what you like so much better. I really think it would be better for you if you didn’t have a crying child underfoot—and besides—“ here a wistful, longing look adorned her lips—“besides, I have so looked forward to this.”
Her father, it must be admitted, was never one of the brightest people. Lily had mentally slapped herself several times for wondering why on Earth her mother married him. He sat there, considering what she had said, and, looking up at her pensive face, he capitulated.
“Promise me not to get into any—er—trouble.”
“Of course, Father.” It was her unconscious custom to call him Father in circumstances that seemed terribly formal to her, as this one did. A beam lit up her eyes.
“And you will write—er—owl us every other day.”
“Of course, Father.”
“And you will have your hosts pick you up.”
“Of course, Father.”
“All right then. Give me a hug.” He opened his arms and was pleased to notice that she wasn’t tense; that she was almost shaking with inward excitement.
Lily ran over her letter that very evening; she had added a post-script.
Dear James,
I can’t put into words how much I love the painting you sent me. It’s beautiful. Funny—you never told me you were an artist. You should do more things; that was simply amazing, though I don’t agree with you about your sentiments on my personality. I’m eccentric, that’s all, and the picture turned out looking exactly like me. You’re simply wonderful.
I don’t suppose I’m sounding much like a fifteen-year-old in this letter. I read the last paragraph over, and it seemed to me that what I wrote reminded me strongly of an old authoress, sitting rather uncomfortably in a wheel-chair and lecturing a naughty grandchild. I hope and pray that I never grow that old.
Please don’t pay any attention to that last sentence. It was a stupid impulse that made me sound even more eccentric than ever; and I don’t wish you to think oddly of me, though probably you already do. What I really meant was that I would hate to be bound to a chair for twenty years and not be able to dress myself or to do anything by myself except lecture enduring and fidgety children.
I remember you very well, though I didn’t think that you paid that much attention to me to be able to paint what you did. I think that if I tried, a picture of you would come out rather nicely, since I’m usually confronting you. But one of my faults is that I’m terribly lazy unless I’m motivated, which right now I’m not.
I remember you inviting me to spend some time at your house with the rest of the school (well, almost.). I rethought and decided that I really didn’t like the Muggle world at all, and that I don’t fit well into it. This evening, I asked Father if I could visit you, and he gave in. Would it be too much of an inconvenience for you or your family? You see, Father can’t take me to your house, so I would have to ask your parents to pick me up.
I hope you don’t mind too much. This house, with its regularity and almost scheduled sameness drives me almost mad. Not that I was completely sane before, mind. Anyway, I’d really like to visit and get out of a house where my sister flinches at the merest mention of the words ‘magic’, ‘Hogwarts’, ‘Hogsmeade’, ‘boarding school’, ‘broomsticks’, ‘summer work’, ‘Ordinary Wizarding Levels’, and even ‘basketball’. I simply explained to her the rules of Quidditch and mentioned that it was a bit like basketball on broomsticks with six hoops, and now she avoids any mention of basketball. She dragged me out of the chlorine-caked swimming pool in our neighborhood when about six boys showed up, dribbling one of the balls. Oh, well. Muggles. Can’t you see me shaking my head and rolling my eyes and doing all sorts of condescending things? Good. Because I’m not.
I would start being apologetic about annoying you with my ramblings, but I say that in every letter I send to you. Almost. But please reply rather soon.
And thanks again for the painting. You’re simply wonderful.
--Lily
She saw Alisande fly off into the dark night—the moon was hidden behind a cloudbank. Wondering how long she would have to wait for an answer, she fell asleep, still dressed.
Next evening, her answer came. Lily quickly handed Alisande an Owl Treat and opened her cage door, then slit the letter open that Alisande had dropped on her bed.
Lil!
Sure you can come. We’ve got more room here than we’ll ever need or use or anything else. So you’re quite welcome. Don’t know why you thought for an instant that you wouldn’t be welcome. Eva’s here—Vanessa’s visiting some cousin in Japan. Amanda’s here, the entire Quidditch team, Sirius, Remus, and Peter—of course—, several Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws I don’t think you know—well, you know Sheila. She’s here. And her friends. And there’s someone else you haven’t met yet—she’s from Wales. Lora Tempesta is her name—her parents were killed in one of those Tom/Ministry fights. They work with the Ministry, by the way. So she’s going to be coming to Hogwarts; she’ll be in our year; she’s Eva and Vanessa’s cousin; just a year older than they are. And boy, does she live up to her last name. I expect she’ll rival me and Sirius in a few months.
Still, I’ll let you judge her when you get here. My parents said they’ll pick you up tomorrow around eight in the morning. It has to be that early; they’ve still got to go to work. Do you have a fireplace and is it working? Because if it is, they’ll use the Floo Network. Write back soon.
--James
Lily smiled, looking forward to a summer promising to be vastly more interesting than the last few weeks had been. Dashing to her desk, she picked up a quill and a bit of parchment.
Dear James,
I can really come? Oh, wonderful! I wasn’t looking forward to a vacation with only Petunia and the neighborhood brats at all. Yes, tomorrow’s fine. We have a fireplace, and it’s pretty clear of junk. Does it really matter if it hasn’t been used in about a year and a half and had piles of paper placed haphazardly everywhere? Because if it does, you might want to find another way of picking me up. Of course, I could always clean it out. Yes. That will work. So—I’ll see you tomorrow, I guess! And I’m looking forward to seeing Lora. She sounds interesting!
--Lily
The next morning, seven o’clock, an extremely laconic reply came with James’ eagle owl.
I thought you’d like her. Yes, the fireplace might want to be clean, unless you want to burn all of the papers.
--James
At eight o’clock and six minutes, Lily was sitting in the living room, trunk corded and otherwise ready. She had asked her father if he needed the papers in the fireplace, and he had shaken his head. This, she considered, was an extremely easy way of cleaning up. Her father was at work, and Petunia had hightailed it out of the house when she heard that a certified witch was coming to their place.
Lily was just putting her book away when a pop came from the fireplace. Mrs. Potter appeared in the midst of several whirling pieces of flying paper. She had changed the black robes for a violet-blue that matched her eyes and brought them out beautifully, and she wore the same silver ring she had worn at the station. Her hair still fell to her waist, but this time she had placed an almost helmet-like chain of silver over it. All in all, she reminded Lily of an Eastern princess.
Mrs. Potter held out her hand to Lily; the other hand held a wand that she was pointing towards Lily’s trunk. Quickly levitating the cage and black-and-gold trunk, she smiled at the excited fifteen-year-old.
“Ready, dear?”
Lily was almost enraptured. The lady had the most musical tones she had ever heard anyone speak with; she could have been wonderful in operas. Nodding somewhat too energetically, she stepped in front of the fireplace, which Mrs. Potter instantly ignited. She reached into her robes and took out a pinch of greenish powder, which she threw in the fire.
“La Versailles, dear.”
Lily almost gaped. “You—you live in Versailles?”
Mrs. Potter laughed. “Not really. The main building is a very good replica, however. Go on.”
Lily faced the green flames and stepped into them.
“La Versailles.”
Instantly, she was whipped around and around, blinking rapidly as she tried to keep the soot from her eyes. And then, almost faster than thought, she was trying to keep from pitching forwards as she found herself standing in the Hall of Mirrors of the Chateau de Versailles.
