Looking back on her life in later years, Petunia would come to understand that the bond with Snape had begun with this conversation, the one with Lily, and with those potions that shattered so suddenly.
————————————- Petunia stood at Lily’s door, heart unsteady.
“I can do this.
I am a mature woman.” The words came out as a murmur, steadying.
Finally, courage gathered, and a soft knock landed on Lily’s door.
Lily opened it.
The moment her eyes found Petunia, they seemed to light up, surprise and joy flickering all at once.
Her breath caught.
Then that smile broke across her face, bright as summer sun, and crystalline tears glimmered at the corners of her eyes.
Petunia didn’t quite know what to do with that.
“Petunia, you…
why did you come?” Lily’s voice held a faint tremor.
Emotions were clearly running just as high.
They stood there looking at each other, and for a long moment neither moved, as though time had stopped between them.
Then Lily finally reached out — tentative, careful, and took Petunia’s hand.
Petunia didn’t pull away.
Without a word, Petunia let Lily lead inside.
“I’m sorry!” Both of them said it at the exact same moment, like two shooting stars crossing paths in the dark, cutting through the silence all at once.
They looked at each other.
Then they both laughed.
Lily stepped forward and took Petunia’s hands in hers, those hands that had once been small and soft, child-chubby, now slender and sure, and held them tight.
“Petunia, I need to apologize first.
For how I behaved back then.” Her voice was warm and full of remorse.
“I must have looked to you like a child showing off a new toy, with no thought for how you felt.
You must have hated it.” Something distant flickered through Petunia’s eyes.
For a moment it was almost visible, the two of them, small girls in the park, Lily’s little round hand close by.
Those hands had changed so much.
Lily went on.
“And I’m sorry that my being a witch caused trouble for your relationship.” Lily drew a breath, voice unsteady but firm.
“Lily, I owe you an apology too.” Only the things that actually needed saying were always the ones Petunia could never quite get out.
As for the failure of that relationship, Petunia’s resentment fell far more squarely on James Potter than on Lily.
There was no hiding it.
“My breakup with Vernon — that wasn’t your fault.
That was your fiancé’s.” The sharp words came before they could be stopped.
“James Potter.
Always looking down on everyone, sneering at anyone decided to be ‘ordinary.’ Never made the slightest effort to know us — not even when one of us was your own family.
Never gave us a moment’s thought.
Lily, do you honestly believe a man like that is who you want to spend your life with?” “Petunia…
about James, he…
he really is, in some ways…” Lily tried.
The voice snagged, searching for the right words to defend him and not quite finding them.
“A bit…
ignorant.
And immature…” A flicker of disappointment crossed Petunia’s face.
It wasn’t as if tearing apart Lily and James on the eve of their wedding had ever been the aim.
It was just, Well.
What Lily could have said that would have been the right thing, that wasn’t clear either.
Trying to think about it from Lily’s side: if someone stood there and spoke badly about someone loved, the instinct would be to defend that person without a second thought, no matter what the truth was.
Lily was watching anxiously, fingers rubbing together without thinking, as though the small motion might ease some of the tension.
Petunia let out a quiet sigh.
The hope had been to make things right between them today.
That wasn’t quite how it was going.
Maybe things between them really couldn’t go back to what they once were, even with effort.
Some distance was fine, then.
At least things could stay civil.
Eyes drifted around the room, looking for something to change the subject, anything to break the uncomfortable silence that had settled.
Fingers moved without thinking, brushing lightly along the hem of a sleeve.
Then the gaze landed on the writing desk.
A neat row of crystal phials sat lined up along it, catching the light and throwing it back in small, dazzling points.
Petunia smiled and nodded toward them.
“Those bottles are beautiful.” The tension in Lily’s face eased visibly.
Petunia had finally stopped frowning over James, and that was enough.
With careful, tentative warmth, Lily began to tell her about the crystal phials, and the potions inside them.
Petunia listened closely.
Curiosity lit up those eyes, and something like genuine wonder.
Lily watched every flicker of reaction, afraid that even a hint of disgust might shatter this fragile peace.
But none came.
Instead, as Lily talked, a real and growing interest settled into Petunia’s expression.
That evening, Petunia found that setting jealousy aside, setting prejudice aside, and simply talking about the magical world was actually quite interesting.
They drifted back to something that felt like childhood.
Carefree.
Close.
Mrs.
Evans, watching from the doorway, felt her heart fill to the brim.
Her eyes shimmered with tears, happy ones, shed for her daughters finding their way back to each other.
Mr.
Evans put his arms around her.
At ten o’clock, Petunia said goodnight to Lily and carried the potions Lily had given her back to the room.
————————————- In the interest of moving the story forward, the shameless author then had Petunia accidentally smash every last one of them.
The potions mixed together and produced a very strange reaction.
If the Petunia Evans on this stage ever found out there was a hand pulling strings behind the scenes, there would have been exactly one thing to say about it.
“What the hell!” ➤ Next: Lily’s Wedding