On Lily's twelfth birthday, she received a Barbie doll as a present, the thing girls of that era wanted most. Mr. and Mrs. Evans had paid for it, but Petunia had chosen it.
When Petunia's birthday came around, Lily's "surprise" was releasing a swarm of Tree Monkey Frog tadpoles at her birthday party. They hopped onto the girls attending the party, landing on their bodies and in their hair, sending them screaming out of the party.
Lily never said how it had been dealt with afterward, but when Pomona went to spend the summer at her house the following year, Petunia was clearly still angry about it. She had even shut her door, as if she never intended to speak to Lily and her "strange friends" again for the rest of her life.
That lasted until Lily taught a lesson to a notorious local vicious dog that loved chasing children. Petunia had been chased by it too.
The first time Pomona entered Petunia's room, the sea of pink startled her. Even though Lily was often away from home, her bedroom walls were still covered with Beatles posters, and there was also a guitar she played terribly.
Petunia liked dressing Barbie's hair and sewing clothes for her. She treated herself the same way, and sometimes helped her mother bake pastries in the kitchen, as if she had been made of cake and ribbons.
One of Ben Cooper's few virtues was his skill with his hands. His father was a repairman, and Ben could fix practically anything. He had even tuned up the shared flying brooms used in school P.E. classes.
He was good at being alone. Unlike the other rowdy Gryffindors, he could sit quietly at a workbench and do precise work. Compared with people, he found ghosts kinder and safer,