Crys's Memories

Chapter Three- The Arrival of the Letter

The neighborhood I went to wasn't particularly interesting, aside from the park and the mall, which wasn't too far away. My school was fine, and my teacher saw that I was interested in science. Why? I'm still not sure. Maybe she didn't really understand the astounding thing about water. (Yes, we had a unit on water. How many droplets could fit on a pence and all of that sod.)

But come on! It's water. It's silvery yet clear, can save lives, it fits anywhere, it can be spread apart without tearing, and best of all? I could hold it together. I could make it look like it was in an invisible water bottle when I poured it out.

That pence project? I got up to 330ish. I probably would have fit more, but the instructor got bored so I made it topple over. My other classmates got up to around 82 or so. It turns out Lily got even more than me, and so the teacher called us in her office. I'm sure my sister listened, because they had a bit of a row. I caught a few words here and there- cheating, secondary school, proof. 

Meanwhile, I zoned out. A couple of things ran to my mind- the quid I lost, the pukka last episode of Mr. Bean that I saw, and so on. Finally, somewhere in there, I realized that I never see Severus at school. Actually, I wasn't even sure he owned a uniform. I didn't have much time to think about that, though.

Mum picked us up, Lily talked some more. Can you believe that she kept going on until we up in our room? Tunes wasn't home yet, so we got a bit of privacy.

"Installing a magnetic force, she doesn't even know what she's talking about, I was telling her it was luck, and then she mentioned something about a special pence, oh she can check, she won't find anything, it's real, she gave it to us-"

"Will you put a sock in it? I was about to slag you, going on like there's no tommorow..." Was that mean? No, I'm her sister.

"You've got to stop using lingo. It annoys everyone. You listen too Dad to much." Exactly.

"You're just telling porkies because you're in a nark." I smirked, and she sent me a death glance. "Oh, and did you notice that Severus doesn't go to school?" She looked highly uninterested.

"Yeah, I noticed. He said he's going to learn everything he needs to at Hogwarts anyway." Typical Lily.

***

The next day, just as Sev had predicted, two letters came in the mail. It took a while for Mum and Dad to believe it wasn't some hoax, but as usual, Lily the Pukka did her flower trick while I did the invisible bottle thing with the water.

I looked over into the doorway of the living room to see Tunes there. She looked astounded. Running in the room, she stared jumping up and down like a child desperatley wanting to go to the loo.

"Did I get one? What about me?" I looked down at her and noticed that her eyes were filled with doubt and hope. How is that possible?

"No, darling. Just Crys and Lily." But sadly, not even mum's comforting voice could help Petunia. She ran out of the room. Who could blame her? She was the only non-witch in the family, besides our parents. She was completely left out. She couldn't control nature. She was just ordinary.

We searched left, right, and centre for her. I was the only one that found her, though. At the local park, there was this amazing tree that was completely hollow. It held at least two kids, and I remember that Tunes used to tell me how much time she used to spend in there back before we were born.

So that was the fourth place I looked. Why fourth? I don't know, I'm not a blooming genuis. But she was there, sobbing her head off. I crawled into the tree. She wouldn't look at me, so I just started talking.

"You know, I'm not exactly wanting to be a witch." Her sobs stopped momentarily. "Lily's always better than me at everything. She's going to Hogwarts too, and there's no doubt she's going to be a better witch than me. If I had a choice, I would stay here with you. " All of this was actually true. Sure, I was a bit excited, but Lily ruined a bit of it. Okay, more than a bit.

"It's just hard. I'm the oldest, but I don't get anything special. I get to watch you all do magic while all I can do is stand around."

Then from somewhere, I told her something I regret saying even today.

"Maybe your magic just hasn't come out yet." Of course, this brightened her up immensly. But the park, which had been shrouded in a dark shadow, was slowly getting immersed in little droplets of water. We hurried home, trying to get there before mum called the police.

As we were rushing home, we passed Sev's house, where there was a rather lot of commotion. That's when I got another one of those 'pity moments' for Sev.  

Thankfully mum hadn't called anyone yet, and she gave us hot tea. Petunia had to ruin everything when she exclaimed that maybe her powers hadn't come in yet. That was when I realized how impossible that was. They're wizards, aren't they? They should know everything.

I talked to Sev and Lily later and both of them told me I made a mistake. Yeah, like I didn't know that.  Of course, you've probably heard of the incident where he and my sister found Dumbledore's letter to Petunia. I found out about this through Tunes after she was done ranting.

See, I also had my friend over. Saralyn was rather amused by Sev and spent most of the time laughing at him. We ended up on the computer, though, looking at funny pictures of animals. How this is relevent to the story, I have no idea.

***

My mum (who seemed to really like Severus) volunteered to take him to Diagon Alley. He came along, showing us which trolley to get on and where to buy everything. The only problem?

We needed wizard money. I thought I saw something that looked like a bank. "Gringotts" was written in huge letters, and Sev reckoned that we came to the right place. The huge doors were open, and the thundering silence was broken when I stepped in.

"OMYGODSWEEET!" I didn't expect to see goblins. Actually, I didn't know that these were goblins. I just assumed that we were in a hall surrounded by midgets with big ears. So what was I supposed to do? I ran up to one and poked it.

"HUAAAAAA! SWEEEEET!" I was escorted out shortly after that and was forced to wait outside while my parents exchanged their money for galleons and knuts and sickles.  I know, unfair, right?

Sev said he didn't need anything, but we got him robes and bought him a wand anyway. He said he already had textbooks.

And then came the part I loved the most about that day was getting my pet. My dad didn't want to go in, because he thought that all cats despised him. The list said that we each had to get an animal, so my dad resolved to just get this moment over with.

We looked at cats first. I really wanted to get one that reminded me of a fluffy siamese cat, but mum didn't allow it for dad's sake. We moved onto owls. Sev liked the barn owl the best, but he didn't let us buy it for him. Lily, the lucky head, got an elf owl, and I was stuck with getting a rat which I called Hamster because of Fawlty Towers. 

Now all we needed was to get to school...