(minor reminder added to end of Author Notes, 5th March, 2016)
Disclaimer: I am not J.K. Rowling. I do not own Harry Potter.
Note: The following sketch is set in an alternate universe, where Lily Evans is, as in canon, a muggle-born witch, but the attitude of Lily Evans' parents to her differs considerably from that of canon.
Further Note: This story is a one-shot and is rated 'T'.
Lily was the freak of the Evans family – not like her perfect elder sister, Petunia, but the unplanned thing that her parents hadn't expected to happen; the redhead who was a throwback to some long-forgotten ancestors in the family; the one who 'stuff' happened around, with things always seeming to get broken when she was angry and the blame being put on her even when she hadn't touched the stupid things.
And then, when she was eight, she discovered that she wasn't the only 'freak' in the neighbourhood, when a boy from Spinner's End found her glaring at flowers in a local park, as they literally shrivelled up and died, and he told her that she was a witch.
And his name, it turned out, was Severus Snape.
After that, Lily spent a lot of time hanging around with Severus. His mother was a witch, and so Severus Snape actually knew quite a bit about magic and stuff like that – certainly much more than Lily. And as far as Severus was concerned, Lily wasn't a 'freak' but was special.
And hanging around with Severus got Lily out of the house, away from her parents, and her oh-so-perfect older sister, Petunia. Sure Severus' parents apparently had fights, and Severus himself seemed about as enthusiastic about his own parents as Lily did about hers, but they were Severus' problem, and whatever family arguments they might have, they didn't try and drag Lily into things whilst she was round there, whereas at home she could expect to be the regular target of everyone else's scorn and disdain.
Apparently there was a school of magic called 'Hogwarts' that she would probably get an invitation to attend once she was old enough, which was a boarding school which charged fees – although Lily reckoned her parents might be prepared to pay to send her there, simply to get her out of the house and their lives for as much as possible. Especially if she made out that 'things' would continue to happen around her, getting worse and worse as she got older, if she weren't trained to control stuff like that.
And in the meantime, Lily spent as long as possible with Severus, getting secrets out of him and his mother about the magical world and – when time permitted – getting in the occasional sneaky bit of potion-brewing.
According to Severus' mother, because Lily had 'normal' parents (what witches and wizards referred to as 'muggles', which Lily thought sounded much better a description of them than 'normal') that made Lily a 'muggle-born' – which meant that Lily would usually probably be quite poorly regarded by the powerful and influential when she arrived in magical society.
Lily could understand that a bit – having muggle parents meant for most of her life so far, she'd grown up not knowing anything about Merlin or snorkacks or venomous tentacula, or the history of important families such as the Blacks – and it was commonsense that if she was through sheer ignorance a kind of freak or dunce of society that people would look down on her.
But it made her determined – hungry – to find out as much as possible and to be the witch who it surprised the likes of the famous Arcturus Black to hear was actually a muggle-born. She would show them and make them respect her for her knowledge and her talents. Her muggle family didn't want her because she was different from them in a way that she had no say in whatsoever, but in this new world, once the time came for her to enter it, she could make sure that it was not through any failing of her own that she might look out of place.
In August of 1970, a woman from Hogwarts – tall and forbidding in appearance – turned up during an Evans family holiday to Blackpool with the news that Lily had known now for months, but had neglected to pass on to her parents – Lily considering that her parents would need to hear it from an adult. The woman (Professor McGonagall: Deputy Headmistress of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry), intruding on a rare sunny day spent on Blackpool beach, informed Lily and her family that Lily was in fact a witch, that there was a secret community of witches and wizards who existed in Britain, and that Lily's parents were being invited to pay out to send their daughter to a boarding-school for witches and wizards. The woman also mentioned other things such as the possibility of scholarships (whilst conceding it was unlikely that anyone 'muggle-born' would be able to qualify for one, unless their family were practically destitute), that due to the 'International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy' there would be grave ramifications if the Evans family did not take steps to ensure that their daughter received at least a basic level of magical education, and that there were a shortage of magical educational institutions other than Hogwarts in the country. The woman did sound slightly apologetic about the last, sensitive to the awkward situation into which it placed many families of muggle-borns, but Lily thought that her parents and sister were much too cross by now to pay any attention to that.
Possibly the deputy headmistress had noticed the rising temper of Lily's relatives, since she was careful to add that magical society did not think much of muggles who mistreated witches or wizards, and that they had law enforcement officials – of course possessed of supernatural means to detect and investigate serious crimes. From what she already knew from Severus and his mum, Lily suspected that there wouldn't actually be very much bother by Magical Law Enforcement about the mistreatment of one underage muggle-born; but her parents of course didn't knock that, and all that they had to judge by was the word of the woman who'd casually done that to the sandcastle that Mr. Evans had spent most of the morning building for Petunia and her dolls. Lily was fleetingly grateful to the deputy headmistress for the protection that she was trying to put over Lily to prevent her unkindly muggle parents from taking out any frustrations on her.
The deputy headmistress handed out a few leaflets about Hogwarts to Lily's parents, mentioned how they should contact the school by Christmas if they decided to send Lily, and departed.
There was a sullen silence, in the professor's wake, and Lily sensed that in the minds of her parents and her sister that this would ever after always be 'the family holiday which was going to be perfect, until Lily Ruined It Simply By Being The Freak That She Is.'
Petunia of course took advantage of the most recent development to start to blame Lily for anything and everything that went wrong; even things which were quite blatantly Petunia's fault (such as a vase of flowers which Petunia physically knocked over) became things which 'Lily made happen with her freakish powers'. Whilst this afforded their perfect Petunia ever greater leeway to get away with things in the eyes of Mr. and Mrs. Evans, it had benefits to Lily too, in that her parents grew less and less interested in stopping her from being out of the house as often as possible – and it certainly made the idea of sending her away to Hogwarts ever more attractive to them.
By Christmas they'd made their minds up that Lily was going. Petunia was exultant, until she realised that this meant that for once in Lily's life, Lily was getting 'special treatment' (being sent to a boarding school) that was denied to her. After that Lily had the satisfaction of seeing her sister go into a monumental sulk for several weeks. Lily didn't gloat about it though, in case that encouraged Petunia to try and find a way to talk her parents out of the decision.
Lily also continued to fail to mention to her family that actually Severus Snape was a wizard (and that his mum was a witch). It wasn't something that they actually needed to know and Lily wasn't sure if such news would lead to her parents forbidding Lily to go down to Spinner's End in case it was making her even more freakish than she already was.
By February half-term of 1971, Hogwarts had sent a letter confirming a place for Lily at Hogwarts and receipt of a down-payment on her school fees for the 1971-1972 school year. The letter also suggested that – in view of the distances that would otherwise have to be travelled – the school could send a member of staff out to take Lily shopping for her school supplies in London, over the Easter holidays. Since Lily's parents had little desire to put themselves out on account of their embarrassment of a younger daughter any more than was absolutely necessary, this idea was swiftly accepted. Lily supposed that maybe she could have gone shopping with Severus and his mum, who could travel to London practically instantaneously by the mysterious and exotic sounding 'floo' network of magical fireplaces, but since her parents still didn't know about Severus and his mum being magical, it was best to go along with the teacher idea.
Severus was delighted to hear that Lily would be going to Hogwarts, with him, and that proved the start of many long conversations between the two of them over the next few months about what they were going to do when they arrived at Hogwarts and were both sorted into Slytherin.
Severus gave Lily strict instructions not to ever talk about or even mention the topic of how his Hogwarts school fees were going to be paid for around his home, though.
"Mum almost didn't send me." he said, darkly, giving the impression that some sort of truly infernal deal or compromise must have been involved in the finding of his school fees. The Snapes were nowhere near as well-off, relatively speaking, as the Evans family.
At Easter 'Professor Kettleburn' turned up to take Lily shopping in London. He was a fairly cheerful man, but walked with a slightly awkward hunched gait – which he explained as being due to a 'slight temporary injury that was the result of a recent encounter with an overly frisky baby dragon during a NEWT level class'. Apparently he was in charge of 'Magical Creatures' classes.
He took Lily down to London by means of a stomach-lurching process called 'apparition', to a street called 'Diagon Alley', full of magical shops and other businesses. Here he proceeded with taking Lily around various stores with an air of efficiency which meant that from Lily's point of view, this first real trip to the magical world was all too soon coming to an end.
The last call was the wandmaker's shop, where the interesting grey-haired man behind the counter sold Lily a wand (after some searching) that was 'holly and phoenix feather, eleven inches, with a potential for greatness'.
Lily was particularly pleased about the 'potential for greatness' bit.
Then, it was unfortunately back home to Cokeworth (by means of yet another stomach-lurching 'apparition'). Professor Kettleburn made arrangements with Lily's parents to provide something called a 'portkey' to get Lily down to London, in September, to catch the special school train (the 'Hogwarts Express') to Hogwarts.
Well, that saved Lily from maybe having to mention Severus and his mum to her parents as a possible means for her to make the trip.
September the first arrived, and Lily discovered that portkey travel was even more stomach-churning than the 'apparition' thing that Professor Kettleburn had done at Easter. Lily felt sufficiently unwell from the portkey that she had to be helped onto the train with her trunk by Severus and his mum, who had travelled down by floo and who luckily spotted her looking queasy on the station platform. Lily hoped that a witch or wizard could get used to portkey travel, making it seem less bad; if not, she might have to try to find some way to travel on Hogwarts Express days with Severus and his mum – surely floo travel couldn't be anywhere near as bad as going by portkey? Fortunately, Lily wouldn't be going home again until the end of the school year, as it was possible to spend Christmas and Easter at Hogwarts; that would save on magical travel and cut down on time she and her family had to spend with one another.
Anyway, the start of the Express journey went past in something of a blur for Lily, as she recovered slowly from the portkey trip. Later, as she started to pay attention to her surroundings, she discovered that she and Severus had ended up in a compartment full of older Hufflepuff and Gryffindor girls, who 'didn't mind sharing with a couple of firsties'.
Lily didn't say it, but she didn't think that the older girls were much of an advert for either house. They seemed to spend all their time talking about nothing but makeup, hair-conditioning potions, and how attractive various boys their own age were, several of whom were apparently quidditch players. They answered questions from Lily and Severus about Hogwarts (apart, rather annoyingly, from ones about how houses were sorted, which sent them off into fits of laughter) but otherwise they seemed uninterested in anything important.
Eventually the train arrived at Hogsmeade, the village next to the school, and Lily and Severus travelled by boat across a lake to Hogwarts. The castle looked amazing, and Lily thought how jealous Petunia would be, if she knew that Lily were going to school in a place like this – that, and Lily thought how arriving at Hogwarts felt to her, somehow, like she was coming home for the first time, to a place where she would always be welcome.
On September the first, 1971, at the age of eleven years, seven months and one day, Lily Evans arrived at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and was shortly sorted (by what turned out to be a really old, thinking, singing hat) into Slytherin House.
Author Notes:
Lily in this universe doesn't spend much time hanging around Petunia, by choice, thus when Lily first meets Severus, there is no Petunia in the vicinity to participate in (or otherwise gain knowledge of) the conversation. This assists Lily in being able to keep that she is a witch from her family.
Much of this story was written before J.K. Rowling's comments to the effect that canon Hogwarts is at least partially Ministry-funded and charges no school fees. By the time that J.K. Rowling's information went public, the part of this story referring to Hogwarts charging fees was already written in, and I didn't feel like rewriting the pertinent sections of this story once it became 'official' that in fact the school of canon does not charge. This is thus a point of difference (alongside the main one of how Lily's family treat her) from the canon universe.
Insomuch as it matters, the wand that Lily obtains in this universe is the canon 'brother wand' to Voldemort's own. At the time that she buys it though, the Wizarding War hasn't really broken out, and Lord Voldemort is, at best, a rumour as far as the general public is concerned, so there's no particular talk about Voldemort and his wand from Ollivander when Lily gets hers.
I've assumed that Severus and his mother have access to the floo network, either in their own house (even if only on a few days a year) or somewhere nearby, for travel to London.
I was tempted to have Lily run into James, Sirius, Remus and Peter on the Express, something like in canon, but decided that the circumstances of her getting on board the Express were sufficiently different as to render it an unjustifiable coincidence.
Oh yes, Severus (later in the Sorting) sorts into Slytherin, too. He's not sufficiently different from canon to go into a different house, least of all with his having seen Lily already go to the green and silver.
This story is a one-shot. As mentioned in the opening notes it is also specifically a 'sketch'; not a full-on, everything-detailed, piece.