#also I have many Thoughts about the role class dynamics played a role in Petunia's life and worldview

[nogenrealldrama]

Lily Evans never quite feels like a lily.

[Petunia&Lily growing up - Microfic/fic excerpt - 362 words]

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Lily Evans never quite feels like a lily.

Lilies are the flowers that guests sometimes bring to her mother’s dinner parties, stiff stems already cut and pre-arranged in the crinkly wrapper. Her mother slots them into a vase in the middle of their dining table and they linger for a week or two, their white petals never getting to unfurl in the sun or to sway in the wind.

Lily broke that vase once, while trying to make Tuney play the new version of catch that the Blythe boys had taught her. The lilies spilled all over the dining table, the water that soaked into the tablecloth smelling a little like a creek in high summer. Tuney scolded her right away for being careless. Later, their mother got back from the shops and scolded Tuney for the mess.

By the end of the week there is a new vase on the dining table, and by the end of the month it is again filled with lilies, pale and elegant and still like a wax sculpture.

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Petunia Evans never quite feels like a petunia.

Petunias are the flowers that tumble down the windowsills of half the neighbourhood, their streaked and striped and spotted trumpets a confetti of every colour available in the newest gardening catalogues. In spring, she helps her mother carry trays of them from the market, little bundles of leaves that seem to know nothing of the tireless display that would soon be expected of them.

It was a thrill guessing which of the plug plants would produce the most outrageous colours, until Mrs Blythe mentioned that she finds petunias quite naff. Petunia wasn’t sure then what that meant, but next spring her mother comes back from the market with fuchsias and begonias instead. Petunia had never wanted to vie for the windowsill spot but now she retreats further, to the back bench in school and to the quiet obedience at the dinner table.

She tries to warn Lily, Lily who is still loud and bright and who plays with boys in the creek, but Lily never listens to her. And, as years pass by, Mrs Blythe never mentions that lilies are naff at all.