Fragments of Yesterday

Lily Evans liked to say her life had changed dramatically one rainy summer night, when she was shivering through her soaked nightshirt in a hammock and bemoaning the sorry state of her existence.

Of course, if someone were to ask Lily Evans what she had been doing trying to sleep in the rain, she would have promptly replied that she was there of her own volition after a nasty fight with her elder sister Petunia.  She would also have told that nosy someone that she would much rather be outside than inside, trying to get Petunia to switch that blasted record player off.  She was sick of the Beatles, nearly as sick as she was of Petunia´s desire to chatter on and on about boys, most of whom Lily thought to be a waste of perfectly good oxygen.  After relating all this, Lily would punch the lights out of the nosy someone for looking at her in her transparent little nightshirt.  Because that was just the sort of girl Lily Evans was.

On that particular night, however, Lily was coming perilously close to burying the hatchet and going back inside.  After all, the weather report had said nothing about... well, actually, yes it had.  But Lily agreed with her father that the weather reports always did their best to be wrong, and had therefore been sure of a cloudless night to sleep under the stars.  As this was not to be, Lily was wondering at what temperature a girl in a soaking nightshirt could freeze to death, and whether or not Petunia would leave any flowers on her grave when she died, or just laugh and go off to marry John Lennon (despite him already being married) and-

Lily grabbed her imagination by the scruff of the neck, metaphorically speaking, and dragged it from that path and back into some semblance of what she considered "normal".

Of course, that´s when the owl swooped down.

Now, out in her country home just west of the ocean, owls were a relatively ordinary occurrence.  She was not, perhaps, as wild as some of the village children, who calmly disappeared into the words for days at a time and returned unscathed to the unworried parents.  No, Lily´s father would say, it was her English side showing through.  Harold Evans was a simple Englishman who had had the good (or perhaps bad) fortune to lose his heart to Alanna O´Ryan, who, of course, just happened to be Irish enough to agree to marry him only if he came to her.  Accordingly, they lived on the rocky coast of Ireland, and on a clear day, one could easily see Wales across the channel.  Even so, Petunia was the English one.  Lily had the fiery temper and hair of her Irish mother, along with her whipcord figure and a smattering of freckles that seemed all her own, and entirely unwelcome.  An Irish girl living on the edge of nowhere should not have been surprised to see an owl.

Lily probably would not have been surprised, had the owl not dropped an envelope in her lap.  Furthermore, said owl then proceeded to hover above Lily´s head, blocking the majority of the rain, and obviously waiting for Lily to open and read the letter.  This was, understandably, nowhere near standard owl behavior, and thus Lily spent a few moments in silent bafflement before picking up the strange envelope.

In curly, bright green writing, it had her name and address carefully written across the front, though it was, for some odd reason, addressed to The Hammock Under the Pine Trees, which made Lily think she had slept out here too often in the past month.  "Come on, then," she said to the owl, standing up.  "If I´m to have a bizarre dream, I had rather be drinking a glass of warm milk, and I´m sure I can find you something to eat.  I wonder if owls like toast?"  With that question, she began to head up the hill towards the house, not at all surprised to see the owl following her in.

Lily pulled a jar of milk out of the refrigerator and poured some into a saucepan to warm up for herself.  She then hunted up some bread in the breadbox and buttered two slices.  She offered one to the owl, and the bird actually seemed to nod and hoot acceptance before beginning to eat it daintily, picking pieced of it off with its sharp talons.  Somehow, Lily was not at all surprised.

The milk warmed and poured, Lily sat down at the table just as the coo-coo clock struck midnight.  "All right, my friend," she said to the owl, taking a sip and leaving a white moustache across her upper lip.  "Let´s see what we have here."  She opened the envelope and began to read aloud.  "Dear Ms. Evans; We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry..." She looked up at the owl and blinked.  Was it just her, or was the creature grinning at her?  The owl winked.  Lily pinched herself.  The owl winked exaggeratedly again, and then floated to the window, undid the latch itself, and soared off into the night.  About that time, Lily started to believe.

And that was the moment she later claimed her life had changed course dramatically.  And she was entirely right.

***

As it was, the reader will not be surprised in the least to hear that Lily woke up Harold and Alanna Evans with her excited squealing, or the fact that she managed to trip over Petunia, who was heading to the bathroom across the hall from her room.  Muttering a quick apology to her sister, she flew into her parents´ bedroom and bounced on the bed between them.  "Mum, Dad!"

"She´s gone crazy, Alanna," Harold murmured, trying to sleep by placing the pillow over his head.  "´S your Irish roots, I told you..."   He yawned widely, then cringed as Alanna smacked him lightly without even opening her eyes.

"Lily, whatever is the matter?" she asked in her lilting accent, muffled and sleepy at the moment.

"She´s gone crazy," was Petunia´s sour opinion from the doorway.

Lily stuck her tongue out at her sister.  "Have not, Petunia!  You had better just watch out, or I´ll turn you into a toad!"

Petunia rolled her eyes.  At just barely twelve, she considered herself far more mature than her ten-year-old sister.  Lily´s eleventh birthday was just around the corner, but Petunia felt an age older than Lily, as she often told her in haughty tones.  Now was no different.  "Oh please.  Mum, I do believe Lily thinks she´s a witch."

"But I am!"

Petunia had not been expecting that sort of answer for her barb, and was left with a gaping mouth while she sorted this unexpected predicament out.  She struggled to think of something scathing to say, but the best she could manage at the moment was a reiteration of her earlier statement.  "What you are is crazy."

Alanna, however, was sitting up, completely alert, and looking at her youngest daughter with avid interest.  "What do you mean, dearest?" she asked curiously.  "You sound quite serious."

"I am, Mum!" she replied cheerfully, thrusting the by-now rumpled letter at her mother.  "Look!  An owl came and delivered this to me!  Can you believe it?  An owl!  And it winked at me!  Twice!"

Petunia snorted in disbelief as her mother, obviously unfazed, switched the bedside light on and began perusing the letter.

Harold, meantime, was having a hard time waking up.  "´Lanna, the bed´s all wet again," he murmured.  "Have you gone an´ let Petty sleep with us after a nightmare?  You know she wets the bed."

Lily sniggered and Petunia turned bright red and declared, "I have not done that in... months!"  Looking defiantly at her sister, as though daring her to laugh louder, she added, "So there."

"I wonder what they say about that at St. Mary´s," Lily grinned, referring to the all-girls boarding school Petunia had begun attending last year.  "I´m sure they´d be so very disappointed to learn that their idol actually wets the bed at twelve years old..."

Petunia made a choking sound as Harold sat up, still disoriented.  "I´m the most popular girl in my year at St. Mary´s!" Petunia replied haughtily.  "You can never hope for the girls there to like you nearly as much!  They´re proper ladies like me, not harridans such as yourself!"

"No name calling, please, darling," Alanna said mildly, still reading the letter.  "Besides, as it stands, it appears that Lily will not be attending St. Mary´s this fall."  She put down the letter and hugged her grinning daughter, wet nightshirt and all.  "Harold, we are to have a witch in the family!"

Harold sat up, wide awake, and looked puzzled.  Alanna and Lily grinned identical grins at him, and Petunia´s jaw nearly hit the floor.  Harold recovered first.  "A witch?"

Alanna nodded and thrust the letter at him.  "You remember Mum´s stories about her childhood friend Arabella, don´t you?"

"The one who disappeared when it was time to start finishing school and came back riding a dragon, calm as you please?  How could I forget an outlandish story like that?"  He smiled at the memory.  "I always wanted to meet this Arabella to see if the stories were true, but she well and truly vanished from the Isles, as Mary could never get in contact with her.  I remember she went to some crazy sort of school, too.  Pig-something... ah, well, stories are stories.  What in heaven´s name does that have to do with my daughter jumping sopping wet on my bed in the middle of the night?"

"Sorry Daddy," Lily said shamefacedly.

"It´s not Pig-something, Harold.  It´s Hogwarts.  As Mum said, the best wizarding school in Europe... and this lucky little pixie has just been accepted there."  She patted Lily´s bedraggled head.  Her hair had come out of the two long braids somewhat, and was making a messy carrot-red halo around her head.  "Congratulations, darling.  I never dreamed... there´s no magical blood in our family, I was rather convinced neither of you would be going there.  But... Petunia certainly wouldn´t have liked to be a witch though, would you, Petty?"

Petunia "hmphed" again.  "I want nothing to do with Grandma´s bedtime stories, Mum.  I can´t believe you believe them, really.  Witches, wizards, Hogs with warts-"

"Hogwarts," Lily said pointedly.

"Whatever," Petunia waved her off.  "Magic isn´t real."

"Is too!" Lily shouted heatedly.  "Just because you have no imagination to speak of, Petunia!  You never even believed in Santa Claus!"

"Because it´s ridiculous," Petunia stated.  "I still can´t believe you cried when Amelia told you he wasn´t real.  Honestly, you were eight."

"I still can´t believe you didn´t cry," Lily whispered softly.  Then she turned to her parents.  "Mummy, Daddy, I can go, can´t I?"

Harold seemed much recovered after reading the letter, and was positively beaming.  "I should say so!" he said jovially.

"Of course, Lily, but only on one condition," Alanna said slyly.

"Anything, Mum!"

"Promise me never to turn your sister into a toad?"

Lily sighed and made a face.  "Blast," she said.  "I´d hoped you´d forgotten.  All right, all right.  No turning Petunia into a toad.  Can´t say I won´t be tempted though."

Petunia rolled her eyes again.  "I live with a bunch of lunatics!" she exclaimed.  "I´m going to bed before I have another ridiculous nightmare."  With that, she stomped off, leaving Lily alone with her parents, who looked after their eldest with a mixture of concern and frustration.

"She´ll be all right in the morning," Harold reassured Alanna.  "You know how girls that age are."

"I´ll never be that way, even at that age," Lily said confidently.  Then, she looked at her letter again.  Cauldron, wand, spellbooks... "Mum, where on earth are we going to find these sorts of things?"

And Alanna just smiled benignly and said "Lily, honey, how would you feel about a trip to London?  You know you can get anything on earth there."  She got up and put on a dressing gown.  "Come on, I´ll make use tea before we go back to bed and we´ll talk.  I seem to recall Mrs. O´Malley in the village having a Hogwarts child. Molly, isn´t it?"

Lily stared at her mother´s back as she descended the stairs between her parents.  "Mum, how do you know all this?"  She took her seat at the familiar oak table as her mother began making tea.  "I know Molly better than you do, and all I know is that she goes to some boarding school in England..."

"But she never specifies, does she?" Alanna said comfortably.  "Besides, I saw her flying a broomstick a few months ago.  Of course, she promptly fell off.  I don´t think Molly is very coordinated."  The water boiled, and Alanna set a pot of tea on the table.  "So, I´ll ask Mrs. O´Malley tomorrow, and I´m sure she will be glad to tell us what we need to know.  I´m long due for a nice shopping spree.  This will be exciting!"

Lily imagined she felt something like her father looked: poleaxed.  "These Irish," Harold muttered, but with a smile on his face.  "They think they know everything."

"That´s because we do," Alanna replied good-naturedly.  "Sugar in your tea, dear?"

***

The next day Lily followed behind her mother as they took the long coastline route to the village.  "Mum, I´m scared," she voiced the doubts she had not had a chance to the night before.  "What if I´m no good at this?"

Alanna sighed and tweaked the end of one long red braid, even more glaringly bright in the sunlight.  "Darling, what´s the worst that could happen?"

Lily thought for a moment.  "Well, for one thing, Molly might not really be a witch, and when we ask, Mrs. O´Malley will be horrified and sic the village council on us, and they´ll burn me at the stake though I suppose they don´t really do that anymore, but couldn´t they make an exception?"

Alanna, by this time, had stopped, and was bent over laughing merrily.  "Perhaps I should not have asked," she finally managed.  "Your imagination, in any case, is perfectly intact."

Lily sighed deeply and only said ominously: "You´ll see."

Before they knew it, they were standing in front of the pretty O´Malley house, where roses bloomed all around.  "They seem gentle enough," Alanna said idly, rapping her knuckles on the door.  There was a sound of someone falling down the stairs, then a few moments of silence.  Finally, seventeen-year-old Molly opened the door, smoothing her hair, which was almost as shockingly red as Lily´s, and trying to look like she hadn´t just tripped. "Good morning, Mrs. Evans," she said politely.  "Good morning, Lily."

Lily waved weakly, but Alanna seemed perfectly at ease.  "You look lovely, Molly-dear.  Is your mother at home, by chance?  I would like to speak with her."

Molly nodded vigorously.  "Yes, she´s in the kitchen mending my school robes-I mean, uniform."  She blushed brightly.  "Um... please come in... I´ll call her for you..."  She ran into the house, hurriedly attempting to retie the bow at the back of her apron and not trip at the same time.  There was a muffled crash after she turned the corner.  Lily stifled a laugh as she stepped into the sunny hall with her mother.  She did not, however, stop clutching Alanna´s hand.

A minute later, a friendly looking woman with her hair in a bun and kind brown eyes stepped out of the direction of the kitchen.  "Lovely to see you, Alanna," she smiled. "Come into the parlor; Molly will bring us tea."

Lily followed her mother and Mrs. O´Malley into the equally friendly, sunny parlor, and thought that perhaps she had overreacted.  A little.  Mrs. O´Malley wouldn´t order her burned at the stake.  Probably.

"Thank you, Molly," Alanna said as the girl brought in tea and biscuits.

"Thank you, Molly," Lily parroted.

"I´m sorry about the unexpected visit, Brenna," Alanna began apologetically.

"No need to be sorry, dear!" Mrs. O´Malley grinned.  "She´s gotten her letter, I expect?  Always glad to help out a fellow witch in need... wizarding code of honor, after all.  I daresay we will have a lot of fun, won´t we Lily?"

Lily, at the moment, resembled a fish.  In other words, she was gaping silently, attempting and failing miserably to say something.  She finally managed a very intelligent "Er?"

Brenna O´Malley actually laughed.  "Weren´t expecting it, Lily?  Well, Headmaster Dumbledore... great man, him... he owled me asking if I would help you get ready for school your first year.  He felt sure that your parents would be supportive but not... particularly helpful."

Alanna sipped her tea with an amused look on her face.  "Always the first to know anything, Brenna," she accused.  "I´ll do what I can, simple country girl as I am."

"Oh, one of the best Muggles I´ve ever met, certainly," Brenna agreed readily.  "But I will have to take her places where Muggles just can´t go, since you can´t very well buy a decent cauldron in downtown Dublin.  Though of course, Aiden says Cauldwell´s is trying to open a branch there, so it won´t be too much longer."

Lily blinked.  And then, feeling very stupid, blinked again.  "Muggles?" she finally asked, seizing onto the only part of the monologue she was sure she knew why she didn´t understand.  She hadn´t understood any of that, actually, but at least this word she could ask about.

"Non-wizarding people," Brenna replied readily.  "Your folks are the best kind-open minded."  She beamed at Alanna across the coffee table.  "Then there are the Maguires across the way, who shut their shutters at any sign of witchcraft.  Poor Molly has to do her summer homework in a stuffy room because we shut all the windows so as not to give Annie Maguire conniptions."

"Ah," Lily said.

"But in any case, we were about to leave for London ourselves tomorrow morning; we´ll be glad to take Lily along.  Diagon Alley should serve well enough for all her needs.  I think... oh, 300 pounds should do for her shopping.  That will give her a bit to start school with too, once we convert it to real money."

Alanna paled.  "That´s an awful lot of money, Brenna..."

"No tuition," Brenna countered with a smirk.  "Only supplies and spending money.  No ferry ticket, no train ticket, no school tuition."  She coked an eyebrow.  "You pay more per year for Petunia´s schooling, Alanna, I know.  Hogwarts is... a very special school.  It runs entirely on donations and funding from the Ministry of Magic."

Molly had come back in and sat down.  "You´re going to Hogwarts too, Lily?  It´s wonderful!  Only... Arthur won´t be there this year..." and to everyone´s vast surprise, she burst into tears.

"You´ll have to pardon her," Brenna said with a sigh.  "Her beau graduated last year, and this, apparently, means the end of the world."  This said, Brenna did her best to calm her hysterical daughter, eventually sending her upstairs to wash her face.  "I hope the boy marries her before she cries herself to nothing," she sighed.  "Nice boy, old wizarding family.  Poor as church mice, though, and he´s preoccupied with Muggles... set his hair on end last year playing with electricity and ended up in the hospital wing for the parting feast, head boy though he was; Molly told me about it..."  Sighing, she began to clear the table.  "Lily, you´ve been awfully quiet.  Are you all right?"

Lily, whose head with still spinning with everything she was learning, finally managed to set her mind straight.  It told her the following things: One; she was going to a school without Petunia in it.  Two; she was going to London the next morning.  And three... she was going to be a witch and learn magic, live in a world where mail was delivered by owls, people traveled by broomstick, and her homework probably included explosions... which brought her to one conclusion.  "Hoorah!" she screamed, dancing around the living room, disregarding the strange looks she was getting from the two women.  "I´m going to be a witch!"

"I believe," Alanna said dryly, "that she´s going to be just fine."