Chapter Text
The moment she arrived back home Lily marched with a determination that was primarily fueled by her anger towards Snape. The rest of her determination was fueled by her Gryffindor bravery, or stupidity based on what she had been planning to do during the train ride home. The seven hour ride gave her ample time to stew in her anger and frustration over the catastrophic meltdown of her childhood friendship.
She shoved her trunk into her room and pivoted to look at her sister’s room across the hall from hers.
The door was closed and Lily could hear the radio faintly playing. She swallowed a bit and mentally prepared herself for the very possible, and inevitable, “I told you so” from Petunia. But it would all be worth it if she could get Petunia on board. The moment term started for her 6th year she would start a bit of chaos that even the Marauders would be thought to have been the instigators behind it.
“Come on, Evans, are you a lion or not?” She muttered to herself as she patted her cheeks, while slapping them would have been a dramatic look she wasn’t Potter or Black.
Lily stepped forward and knocked on the door, before she could fully chicken out, and waited a second. It cracked open for Petunia to peer out and stare her down with a rather unimpressed look. Seizing her chance, Lily discreetly shoved her foot forward to prevent her sister from closing the door.
“I need your help,” Lily blurted out. Great job, Evans, eloquent and to the point.
“Can’t your magic help you?” Petunia retorted, her mouth curling and snarling around the word ‘magic.’
Shoving back the wince and clasping her hands together, Lily shook her head.
“Please, I’ll owe you and I think you’ll like this as I need to plan revenge against Snape.”
That got her sister to pause and actually look at her.
“Oh? What happened to the precious friendship of you and Sev?” Petunia asked, she opened the door a bit more and leaned against the frame.
“At the end of term there was an incident and at first I thought maybe we needed time to cool off. But then my friends started telling me more things about what he has said and done, and then I told them about how we became friends and how you and I were no longer friends, and Alice says that while Snape had an unfortunate upbringing that doesn’t excuse him for being terrible to you and everyone else who is a muggleborn.” Lily let it out in a rush as the more she said the more she felt the frustrated, hurt tears building. Her voice started to break and hitch and her chin began to wobble as she willed herself to not cry.
Petunia’s mouth opened slightly in shock and Lily decided to keep going, in for a knut in for a sickle she supposed.
“I’m so sorry, that he was cruel to you and I was too excited about magic to realize he was being so mean to you. He was my first friend in this new world and I didn’t want to lose him, and because of that fear I made excuses and looked away at how he treated you and some of my friends. I don’t deserve your forgiveness and I get it, I really do. But I need your help for my revenge plan to work.”
The door opened fully. Petunia stood there, her eyes wide and huge with her eyebrows trying to hide behind her fringe or maybe merge with her hairline. It had been a lot to take in, Lily figured, and she had said a lot without really breathing between words. She had also begun to hiccup and sob as her tears finally broke free.
A tissue was shoved into her face, and Lily realized she hadn’t been paying much attention to Petunia. She accepted it with a wobbly smile while her sister stared at her with what she hoped was concern and not thought her mental.
“That was a lot to unpack, and I feel like there is more than the abridged version you just told me,” Petunia said slowly, fingers toying with the ends of her ponytail. “But I hate Snape and I want to hear about this revenge, so, please come in.”
She moved to the side and awkwardly gestured for Lily to enter her room.
The room had changed over the years, Lily realized as she stepped in. Posters and pictures of horses and castles had been replaced by cutouts of fashion magazines, covering the faded pink walls. The desk, shoved up by the window, looked full with bolts of fabric and a sewing machine on it. It looked like Petunia had been in the middle of cutting out more pictures that interested her based on the amount of magazines on her bed with a neatly cut stack of pictures to one side and the scissors on the nightstand.
Lily stood awkwardly in the middle, unsure of what to do.
Petunia snorted and with a roll of her eyes grabbed her desk chair. “Honestly, Lily, sit down and tell me about this revenge or leave.”
“Oh, right, well I don’t know if you know this…but apparently discrimination exists in the magical world.” Lily began as she sat down, watching her sister settle back onto her bed and begin to sort what she had already cut out.
“Really? I couldn’t tell what with Snape thinking he was better than me for having magic,” she said drily.
Lily blinked owlishly at the sarcasm and wondered if she would be shoved out of the room for laughing at the joke. “Right, well, apparently I’m considered a muggleborn and we’re considered lesser than purebloods, those with long magical ancestries. At the end of our exams some of us went out to enjoy the nice weather by the lake. Potter and his friends at some point decided to pick on Snape and flip him upside down with, well, magic.”
“I like Potter and his friends, they have good taste,” Petunia interrupted with an approving nod.
“They do make an impression, but you see at this moment I still thought of Snape as my friend so I went to defend him. There was some shouting and at the end of it he called me a slur.”
Petunia’s brows furrowed. “You’re white?” She made it sound like a question with how confused she probably felt.
“The whole muggleborn and pureblood things I mentioned? Apparently there’s a not very nice name to say instead of muggleborns, it’s ‘mudblood.’” Lily spat the word out. “And there’s been a lot of tension around this whole blood purity recently because of this dark lord rising to power, Voldemort.”
“Hold on,” Petunia said, raising her hand, “that’s the most lazy insult I have ever heard. But your people don’t seem to be grounded in logic, so there’s that. This is further proved by the fact that this ‘dark lord’ has a name that means flight from death.”
Lily gaped. “How do you know that?”
A proud smile curled on her face like the cat who got the cream. “I have been studying French at school, and my teacher says I have quite the knack for the language,” Petunia answered.
“That’s amazing, you probably wouldn’t like the butchered Latin and Greek we use then for spells!” Lily smiled at her sister who preened a bit under the attention. “I have to tell my friends to get the word out about that.”
“Thank you, but where does this revenge come into play?”
“Well I figured if I’m somehow lesser than those with ‘better blood,’ then I would rub my upbringing in their faces. We use so many outdated items like quills and scrolls of parchment instead of pens, pencils, and notebooks. So I thought if I had your help, I’d get the most normal school supplies ever and still be a better witch than all of them combined.”
Petunia leaned back and tapped her fingers together as she thought. Lily waited, slowly tearing the tissue in her hands, and she started to recite potion ingredients in her head.
“It’s a good plan, but it needs more finesse, you know?”
“How so?”
Humming Petunia pulled one of her magazines onto her lap. “The other side, your magic community, it’s like another culture. Rubbing this blood status is one thing, but wouldn’t it sting if you were an expert at their culture while still being as normal as possible?”
Lily leaned back in the desk chair, pulling her feet up to rest on the cushion and hooking her arms around her legs. “It is like a culture, sometimes I’d notice I’d do or say something in response to someone who grew up with magic and they’d either look confused or offended. Sometimes Snape would explain why and sometimes he didn’t though.”
Petunia nodded. “So what we’ll do is get your supplies swapped out, you will need to see if you can find any books on their etiquette—for lack of better words—and we will change up your clothes too.”
“My clothes?”
“If you’re going to do things normal you should also do clothes or else it will look like you’re only halfway rubbing it in. Don’t your people have fashion magazines?”
Lily thought about it, it all sounded good in her head and had merit. But as for fashion…
“Well, their fashion is a bit dated with the robes and stuff. But I wonder if I could ask Madam Malkins for a catalogue?”
Clapping her hands Petunia stood up. “Right, you’ll need to go into your shopping area for the last two things. But for now, let’s go take a look at your odd school supplies.”
A wide smile broke out on to her face as Lily followed her sister out of her room and to hers. The sting of losing the friendship with Snape still hurt. But possibly rekindling the friendship she had had with her sister would be worth it.