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The asphalt was melting. Lily stood barefoot on the pavement in a peach crochet vest and borrowed shorts, the loosest, coolest things she owned. Cokeworth never got this hot – they’d been saying that for days on the radio. But this week it did. Every day was worse than the last. She didn’t dare go to Sev’s, not after their fight at the end of the school term, but even if she was driven to a point of desperation so great that she went to seek him out, she suspected his mother wouldn’t be using Cooling Charms in any case. Pretty well all she knew of Sev’s father was that he hated magic. She didn’t know at what point comfort and relief from the heat triumphed over prejudice. At what point did the pearl-teeth families in the big detached houses on the better side of the river let the grimy plumbers inside to fix their sinks? When did they grit their teeth and concede to a Pakistani optometrist? What was the boiling point for human hatred? Admittedly, Lily didn’t feel especially gregarious herself in this moment, as sweat dampened the back of her neck. Mostly she wanted to scream.
Her feet pounded as she turned blindly for the park, wand slick between her fingers. In six months, she could use a Cooling Charm and hide away inside. In six months, she could Apparate to Diagon Alley and buy a paper to learn whether or not the proposed Historical Heritage Act had passed. Hell, in six months she could blow up the whole bloody town if she liked, and the Ministry of Magic still wouldn’t be able to nab her for underage magic. Six months separated her from the ability to look after herself. Three children in their front garden amongst browning bushes, ice lollies dripping over their fingers. Hot tears prickled her eyes stupidly. What did it matter? Her heart sunk with each dribble of lemonade flavouring that watered the dying grass. Her fringed bag slapped her thigh as she passed. How was it that some people won the lottery of birth, and others got stuck in a crap street with a broken refrigerator? She glared at the useless stick in her hand. Some part of her longed to snap it. It seemed worse than anything else that she knew how to cool herself down, and her mother, and old Mrs Bright with the yappy dog across the road. She knew, and she could easily do it, but for the law. She’d had two warnings; a third would see her chucked from school. What was it worth? How was it right that pricks like Evan Rosier could lounge around on leather armchairs in the cold of his enchanted sitting room, refreshed after a full night’s sleep, with the news drifting past him from the wireless, and be entirely unbothered, for either way it made no difference to his life? And if he decided he was too lazy to pour himself a glass of water, he could flick his wand and Summon it and the Ministry would never be any the wiser, for an adult wizard was around to take the blame.
Burns blistered on her fingers, souvenirs of nights spent in the chippy, frying fish. Mostly the money went towards supplementing what had been lost with her father’s wage, but she had a sock under the bed in which she stashed a fund for schoolbooks and potions supplies and train tickets to London. She nearly had enough to cover her books and one ticket, but she was hoping to get a return from Liverpool to London so she could go down sooner. That way she could get her shopping done, instead of owl-ordering upon her return to Hogwarts and spending the first week or two of her N.E.W.T-level studies without supplies. Besides, if she could get to Diagon Alley, she could get some kind of news. If Muggle-borns were even still welcomed. A hot gust of wind blew her permanently-greasy hair into her face. If Potter was around, doubtless she’d get a share of Sev’s old nicknames – the parts of her palms that now always smelt like old fish wouldn’t help. Fine. Whatever. She’d earned her own coin with her sweat and skin and sinew, which was more than he could say. His face blazed like a fire within her, hotter even than the ungodly sun.
It had been much too warm to sleep properly, as well, which had only added to her irritability. She worked until midnight at least every night but Tuesday, and often later, scrubbing pans (another job which could have been greatly simplified by magic, but why should a Muggle-born get the benefit? Only the magical kids whiling away their summer in Diagon’s ice-creamery got so lucky) and throwing out old stock. Once she did collapse into bed, the pooling sweat made it a game of tossing and turning and writhing and wiping herself down with a cloth. If after al of that, the sheer exhaustion got to her, her nightmares were dogged by a grey-faced ghost in long black robes who whispered “mudblood!” and nothing else. Her own sullen, personal poltergeist, in the form of one Severus Snape. She would have rather dreamed of Potter, and that was saying something. Maybe in the dream, he’d be devoid of personality, and she could for once admire his good looks (again, how was it fair that he who had everything else also got to be dashing?) without his pain-in-the-arse comments. Though a lot of girls fancied his Quidditch-playing and his cheeky retorts, too. Lily didn’t care for them at all. Yes, alright, she did tend to be pleased when they won a match, and he did tend to be the scorer that secured the game, but all the same, they’d find someone else if he happened to vanish off the face of the earth. And a lot of his jokes were really sort of mean, and she had no right to laugh at them – though they weren’t exactly untrue, when it came to it. But it didn’t matter. Why was she thinking about Potter anyway? The point was that she was in a really foul mood, and thoughts of her nemesis ought to be worsening it, not making her lips twitch on an empty street as she remembered what he’d said to blustery Bertram Aubrey before he’d blown his head up.
Lily vented her frustrations by aiming a kick at the swingset as she came into the park. The nearer swing bounced off her toe and swung limply. Lily sat on the other one, dragging her toes through the remainder of the bark.
“Ginger!” A few boys a little younger than her sat on top of the yellow climbing frame, smoking. “C’mere! Got something for you!”
“Piss off, Rod!” she shouted back. Rod and his gang were even worse than the boys at school, if only because she couldn’t hex them here. A punch wouldn’t be quite the same. No Bat-Bogeys, only red knuckles and a bloody wrist. She could live with that. They sniggered at her. The river gleamed broad and mousey just beyond the park’s edge, reflecting the colour of the churning smoke from the mill. There was a strike on for almost everything at the minute – the miners, and the bus drivers (which had been a sharp end to Lily and Patty’s nights out in town), but somehow not the mill. She supposed the world really would be at an end if the chimney stopped billowing – not even You-Know-Who could manage that.
Lily reached into her bag and unscrewed the cap of the short little vodka bottle Patty had nicked. She was opposed to theft, theoretically, but Patty had made it so obvious that the bloke at the counter really easily could have figured it out, if he’d had the ability to stop staring at Lily’s cleavage. He’d deserved it, she decided, on account of being so thick. She swallowed, ignoring Rod’s jeers, and wiped her mouth as she replaced the cap.
She shoved it back into her bag and winced as she made contact with some sort of wrapper. It wasn’t like her to carry food around, and she couldn’t remember the last time she’d used this bag, actually. Lily bit her lip. Had it been when Patty’s boyfriend had taken them over to Manchester? That meant the wrapper could be just about bloody anything. Lily put the vodka on the ground and peered into the contents of her purse. It was difficult to see inside. A Wand-Lighting Charm would help greatly, but no, of course not. Lily was rather starting to wish she’d saved up all her accidental magic for useful occasions like this, rather than making flowers bloom as a kid or scaring Tuney off with falling foliage.
“Is it true Davey Edgars got a leg over?” Rod’s mate Paul bellowed, flicking ash. Lily made a rude gesture. One flick of her wand and he’d have leeks for ears, or a fluffy bunny’s tail where his… well, his girlfriend wouldn’t like it much, to say the least. Or maybe she would. Might be an improvement. Maybe she’d have to add Duelling Club to her list of commitments back at school, if she could wrangle the time, because the heatwave had excited something vicious within her veins. When she closed her eyes, she saw Matthew Mulciber towering over Mary Macdonald, snakelike slits of eyes glittering… She thought the incantation. Her pulse stuttered. She looked to her wand and sighed with relief – no, of course not, she was being an idiot. Nonverbal magic needed a wand movement except for the very best of casters, and she hadn’t even started to learn. All the same, though. Could they trace it to her if she didn’t speak the words? Would they believe her if she said it was an accident? Probably not. Any excuse to chuck a Muggle-born, she reckoned.
She steeled herself and grabbed the wrapper. Her fist closed around something soft. She pulled it out and opened her hand, staring at the flat. It was purple, and shuddered. Lily shrieked. She threw the thing as far as she could, which set the boys off to laughing.
“I’ll get it for you!” one of them yelled. “What’ll you do for me then?”
Lily stared at her palm like the answer was etched into it. Oh. She felt stupid now, and a wave of guilt crashed into her. The chocolate frog package had landed by one of the poles that propped up the swingset. She stashed her vodka away and jumped off the swing. She had entirely forgotten… She blew off the bits of bark and brought it up to her eye. Did they…? They weren’t really… It was just an enchantment. Lily shook the box to see if the little confectionary creature within would move again. By her count, it had been in there for at least four weeks. She flipped it over, searching for a ‘Best Before’ date.
Lily had never much liked the chocolate frogs. The whole idea sort of creeped her – why did the wizarding world think it such a lark to eat something that acted like it was alive? They had to have some degree of sentience, if they were able to move, because the enchantment put on them surely didn’t dictate that they ran away from their would-be consumer. Didn’t sentience mean life? It was that same thing that put her off Transfiguration, once they went from pins-to-needles to kittens-to-cushions. Was its life less because it was given by magic, rather than biology? Because it was born to die? What kind of people were they, if they got around biting the heads off creatures that could run scared? Her teeth gnawed at her bottom lip. Would they do it to the toads that some students at Hogwarts kept as pets – the ones with names and beds and special packs of treats? What made the chocolate variety so different? Accidents of creation. As if that made a difference.
She broke the outer wrapper and opened the box, exposing the frog to the sun, and realised what a stupid idea it was right away. If it hadn’t been killed in its month-long confinement, or when she pegged it at the other side of the playground, it would surely melt now. She probed it gently, feeling for signs of life. A little chocolate came away sticky on her fingers. The frog tilted its face up to her. She spun, turning her back to shield it from the narrow eyes of the boys on the frame.
“You’re alright,” she said quietly. It was the first thing she’d seen in about a week that she hadn’t wanted to break. It blinked. Was it surprised at its prolonged life? What had it been doing to occupy the time? She adjusted her bag over her shoulder and cupped her hands, holding the frog on top of the shiny card beneath. Lily started towards the big tree at the water’s edge.
The chocolate had come courtesy of one James Potter, two days before the term had ended and about a week after the incident by the lake, accompanied by a simple written apology. She supposed the crumpled parchment was in her bag somewhere, too – written in crimson ink and a surprisingly elegant hand. It had arrived via Peter Pettigrew, who appeared to be temporarily enlisted as Potter’s owl. Lily had been in the Middle Courtyard with her friends, and squinted up at him, tufts of his blond hair drifting in the sun.
“Thanks,” she’d said, and dropped the chocolate into her bag. A peace offering, Potter’s letter had called it. Not quite an olive branch. Somehow it had survived several Mancunian nightclubs and a run-in with a tetchy policeman with a large moustache that reminded her of her sister’s boyfriend. It felt strange, now, knowing she’d been going about town with that little token of the wizarding world, and of Potter, with her. But how hadn’t it melted?
She held the lid over its head to shield it from the light, and that’s when she felt it. A whisper of cold brushed at her battered fingers, sparking with that distinctive crackle of magic. Lily swore. Naturally, though. Nothing else would have made sense. She poked the package all around with two fingers, checking. A Cooling Charm – clearly expert work, made to last – insulated the contents, ensuring the frog’s purpose of life wasn’t ruined by something as trivial as the weather. Lily ducked around the other side of the trees from the boys, knowing she’d look a bit of a twit, and pressed her forehead to the inside of the enchanted box. Relief. She exhaled. Thank God for Potter. Had she really thought that? Yes. Unabashedly, when it came to the matter of a pinprick of respite from the endless summer days. Thank God for Potter and the oodles of money he apparently had lying around to spend on attempting to make things right with his offended classmates.
“You’ve been living it up,” she accused, and the frog’s neck swelled without sound or breath. “Can’t I climb in with you?” It returned her gaze, reminding. She’d numbered its days in opening it. Nothing ever stayed as good out of its packaging as within. Once it was exposed to that other, different world, one in which it could never truly belong, it was a goner. It was only a matter of time. Lily’s back slid down the tree’s trunk as she sat amongst the gnarled roots and prematurely dead leaves. “I’m sorry,” she told the frog. “I should have known better. Or Potter shouldn’t have bought you. He’s basically funding this whole, mass-killing of magically-animate beings thing, you know, by buying chocolate frogs.” The frog’s throat engorged again. Lily sighed. “Or maybe he was being nice,” she admitted. He’d given her a break and a friend, and she couldn’t add it to her list of reasons to hate him, as much as she might’ve liked to. She held the lid of the chocolate frog package to her forehead and balanced the bottom half, with the frog on it, in a divot between two big white roots. She expected it to run away and go free, but there it sat. Tamed, almost. Like it knew the laws of its existence, and that it wasn’t meant to go about doing as it willed. She felt a little nauseous.
Lily reached into her bag and dug. After a moment’s consideration, she withdrew two items. She took another swig of the vodka and then flattened out the scrap of parchment over her thigh. Creases ran some lines through, fading the letters, but she could make out most of it. It was short, in any case. He was sorry for having a go at Snape in front of the whole school, and he was sorry for asking her out, too, in front of everyone. He’d been a prick, he said, and he was going to leave her alone from now on. (Unless she decided he wanted her company, in which case she was welcome to ask him out – this bit had been mostly scratched out, but she made out the contents over the lines of red scribble). He hoped she had a good holiday.
“He was being a prick,” Lily told the frog, who only watched. She folded the note back up, not sure why she’d pulled it out at all. Something about it tugged just behind her navel – it smelt of school, and the pleasant Scottish breezes that liked to play with her hair. She tried to muster the rage of earlier, but it wouldn’t come. Potter’s at home with a Cooling Charm, she told herself, adjusting the bit of icy cardboard on her head. He can do as much magic as he likes. He and Black are probably swaggering around using poor Peter for target practice. Potter would be insulted at the insinuation he needed practice, though. More likely, he was flying. Lily’s eyes turned to the clear sky, as if she might spot a bespectacled loon on a broomstick swirling in the mill’s smoke. It’d set a bloody fire up Rod’s arse, that was for sure. He’d be pointing and demanding to know how some idiot who wore glasses, of all things, could fly. She smiled, half-wishing Potter would turn up. God. What was getting into her?
The frog was melting. His little legs dribbled into the portrait of the snooty-looking witch below – Lily hadn’t even checked the card. His chin was drooping. Lily’s heart flipped. He’d been alive – properly alive, in the elements – all of five minutes, and now he was dying. How was that fair? He’d barely got a chance. She wracked her brains for a Stasis Charm – if something was worth being expelled for, she thought, it was the frog. He was the first friend she’d had in four weeks who’d known anything about her other world too. Her chest got very tight. She didn’t want him to go. Not yet. He’d go, and she’d have to give him a proper little burial in his box and chuck him out, and there would go the only bit of magic she had - Potter’s gift. She couldn’t bear it.
She brought the top of the box away from her face and frowned, thinking. Immediately, sweat raced to take the place of the bit of clear, cooled skin. The frog watched her. She didn’t want to give up the top of the box, but she couldn’t lose the frog either. She had to pick one. And, in that case, there was really only one option.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “It’s for your own good.” She closed the lid over it softly, and clamped around the edges, trying to wedge it back together. She could use a sewing needle, once she got home. Inside, it moved, butting against the cardboard, and Lily’s eyes squeezed shut. “Better not to know,” she said gently, not sure if she believed it. “You’ll last longer.” That was the theory, anyway.
Lily looked over the river one last time, to the houses with the lush green gardens and six windows on their top floors, and pictured James Potter in one just like that, on his broom, hair messed, cool as you like. Not knowing she was standing here in Cokeworth with spirits lining her stomach and his handwriting in her bag and his frog in her hands, thinking of him. How the other half lived. She almost laughed. No doubt he’d think she was a prat, if he knew, or a liar. He’d tease her for drinking (“Swotty Prefect Evans?”) or say she was taking the piss. He’d probably grab the frog from her and bite its head off for a laugh. But maybe he wouldn’t. She wanted to think that he wouldn’t. Sometimes he got a bit dorky in Transfiguration, and rambled on about philosophers and books and what his dad said, and maybe he’d look at the frog and start talking, letting his mouth run a mile ahead of him. Maybe he’d given it to her because he’d got it from someone else, and couldn’t bring himself to kill it, the way she had (by opening the box, by dooming it). A coward’s move, but one she could appreciate. Could respect. In her soft underbelly, she had been realising, she had enough of the killing instinct for two people. She stood up unsteadily. Or maybe he’d just wanted to be nice.
She swallowed, and faced the heat haze.