Lily Evans sat in her comfortable chair by the fire, with her bright red
hair spread around her shoulders and midnight blue nightgown. It wasn't all
that late, just around ten-thirty on July 30th, a very rainy night. It was
strangely cold for July; it had hit the forties, which hadn't happened in
around two hundred years. Her father had lit the fire as soon as he had
heard that it was going to sink down to 41 degrees and that Lily was going
to stay up a bit and read. He'd made her promise, though, that she wouldn't
fall asleep with the fire on and that she'd put it out before midnight.
The book she was reading was in Hebrew; it was one that her mother had brought back from her trip to the mainland, and right now, Lily was engaged in trying to translate as best she could. She had just reached a particularly difficult phrase when she heard the thump of feet on the hardwood floor.
"Lily, go to bed. I can hear the fire all the way into my room." Petunia, her older sister, had grumpily stomped into the living room doorway. "You can read that stupid book in the morning."
"Stupid?" Lily felt her face growing hot. "Did you just call this stupid?"
Petunia put on her annoyed face. "I did, and if you don't put that fire out right now--AAHHH! Mom! Help! OUCH!" She was grasping her stomach and sinking to the floor. Lily's eyes opened in amazement as her parents rushed into the room, awakened by Petunia's screaming. She had been fixedly staring at Petunia's stomach a moment before, to avoid having to look at her face. Her eyes had become hot, and just when the pressure behind them let off, Petunia had started to scream.
Lily gaped. "Wow. Did I do that?"
"Do what? Of course you did, you--you witch!" Petunia shrieked.
"Witch? Is that supposed to be insulting?" She shrugged and turned back to her book. She couldn't concentrate on it, though. Her mind kept running over the strange things that had happened just now. Practically in a sort of trance, she was rudely startled out of it by a rap on the window.
She started in her chair. The knock she heard was repeated again and again, almost as if it was Petunia's anxious boyfriend, Vernon Dursley. But Vernon didn't get out of bed at this time of night. Simply out of curiosity, she went to the window, pulling aside the curtains and undoing the latch.
"I'm asleep. I'm dreaming. I know I'm asleep." she kept repeating to herself as she stared out of the window at a large, tawny owl carrying a letter in its beak. The owl fluttered inside, landing on the sofa and dropping the letter on Lily's book. It shook itself, then, without even resting for a while, it took off again into the dark and stormy night.
Slowly, as if it were some kind of explosive, Lily moved towards the letter. With a quivering hand, she snat ched it up. The envelope was a sort of yellowing parchment with emerald green ink.
To Miss Lily Evans
Armchair in front of the Fire
777 Laner Street
She slit the envelope open. Inside were two sheets, but she only noticed the first words on the page.
Dear Miss Evans,
We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
Of the next two days Lily hardly remembered anything, besides the fact that she found out that this wasn't a hoax and that she would be taking a train to Hogwarts on September first. A small slip of paper inside the envelope that she hadn't noticed before gave directions on how to contact Professor M. McGonagall, who told Lily and her family how to get onto the platform and how to get her school supplies. Her father and mother were excited and pleasantly surprised, and after binding Petunia to secrecy, they were on the subway to the street in front of the Leaky Cauldron, the entrance to the place where Lily would find her supplies.
Petunia was grouchy most of the way, though as soon as they entered the small pub, her face was frozen in fear and she was silent until they got to a brick wall in the back, along with a rather small and wrinkly wizard.
"Let's see, now where are those bricks again? Oh, right, third left..." He tapped several bricks, and almost immediately, the wall, which had been secure before, modeled a gap which slowly grew larger and larger, until all of Lily's family could fit inside.
Lily's mother and father stared with popped out eyes at the first bit of magic they had seen performed. Lily grinned, then smiled even wider as she saw Petunia, who was sitting down on a trash heap with a banana peel poking out from under her skirt and her vocal cords frozen in an eternal whimper.
Tearing her amused gaze away from her sister, Lily looked back at the doorway. Through it she could see a crowd of many wizards and witches congregating about bright shops and window, some eating ice cream at a nearby cafe, and a group of boys oohing over a broom one of them had just bought. The street was cobblestoned, with sparks issuing from several random wands here and there; no trace of the rainy weather that reigned outside in the rest of London. Here, there was a bright and cheery sky, with several birds and--wait--gold balls with wings?--whizzing around among the clouds. Several people could be seen through a shop window trying on wands, others were being fitted for some type of clothing, and others were flipping through books at a place called Flourish and Blotts.
"Wow." Lily whispered.
"Well, welcome to Diagon Alley," the crinkly wizard grinned.
Lily was the first to step into the alley. She glanced around, looking for what the letter said was a bank; a large white building. She found it easily, as it was the tallest structure on the street. Half dragging, half pulling Petunia, her family walked past several goblins on either side of the doorway and to the desk of another goblin.
"We'd like to open an account and exchange some money, please." Her father spoke as if he had done this a million times before.
The goblin asked for his name, then told him that only wizards and witches could open an account. "Is it for one of the young ladies here?"
"Yes, sir, it is. Lily Evans."
"Lily it is? Well, then, follow me." The goblin headed for an elevator behind the counter, beckoning to the family. They stepped inside, while the goblin set a large golden dial on the side of the elevator to 472. The door closed and, with breathtaking speed, the elevator hurtled downwards. After about five seconds, with a gentle bump, the elevator stopped.
Petunia, rather green in the face, was the first to leave. The goblin followed her out to reveal a long corridor, all lined with iron doors, smaller golden dials, and padlocks. They didn't have to walk far before the goblin stopped them in fromt of a door without a padlock. He took out two small golden keys and turned to Lily's father.
"And how much will the young lady be depositing?"
"Er..." He looked around to Lily's mother. "About...I'd say, two hundred pounds. I think that should be enough."
The goblin nodded. "Very well, then." He set the dial to 200, then opened the padlock and door with one of the keys. Lily gasped. Inside were mountains of gold, silver, and bronze coins, more than she could ever have imagined seeing. She drew out several handfuls and put them into her purse, her mouth still hanging open. "Dad, I...thanks, Dad." She hugged him. Can we go and get my things now? I can't wait to get a wand!"
The goblin and her parents smiled. Upstairs, the goblin handed Lily her own golden key to her safe, then waved until they were out of sight. He finally turned around, muttering.
"Good Lord, that Muggle child was green!"
The next thing she knew, Lily found herself in the bookshop; Flourish and Blotts, to be exact. The salesclerk who was in while the owner was out to lunch immediately hurried over to her, a bit too overexcited to help.
"Let's see, I need Transfiguration,--Hey!" The salesclerk had dumped about seven books on top of the list where she had placed it, on a small table with a "Here you are, miss. That'll be seventy Sickles, four Knuts."
Lily raised one eyebrow. "How many first years have you had come in here today?"
He grinned a bit sheepishly. "About fifteen." He pulled out a cloth bag from under the counter. "Bag, miss?"
Lily nodded. "Yes, please." She left the store alone, having left her parents and Petunia at the ice cream parlor, where Petunia was scarfing down about a pint of mint dragon-eye ice cream to make up for the elevator ride.
The closest thing there was on the street was the robe shop she had noticed earlier. It had pale blue drapes on the windows and black robes on moving statues in the show windows. Lily stepped inside.
The owner, Madam Malkin, immediately flitted over and started taking her measurements. "Hogwarts this year, dear?" She went on without waiting for comfirmation. I remember the very day my mother took my measurements for my first Hogwarts robes...." She went on and on and on. Lily grew drowsy listening to the jabber and would have falen asleep, except that Madam Malkin used very sharp pins. About twenty-five minutes later, she left the shop gratefully with her new robes wrapped in pale blue tissue paper.
With difficulty, she pulled out her list again. "Wand. Wand wand wand. Now where on earth--OW!" She was knocked onto the cobblestones as a boy about her age ran into her, trying to dodge a few gold sparks.
"Watch where you're going!" she grumbled, quite miffed, as she retrieved her packages from where they went flying all over the street.
"I--I'm sorry. Really. Here, let me help you." The boy dusted off a few of the books and helped rewrap her robes. "First year, huh?"
Lily nodded. "That obvious, huh?"
He shrugged. "To me it is, just because I was one last year."
Lily smiled. "Hi--I'm sorry if I sounded rude. I'm Lily. Lily ________."
The boy, with wildly messed up hair, smiled at her. "You didn't. I'm James Potter. Hope I'll see you around at Hogwarts!"
Lily stared after James for a while, then came back to the real workd with a start. He had such beautiful blue eyes--just the ones she wished she had-- hers were green. She hated green. With a sigh, she nimbly stepped out of the way of an out-of-control broomstick and into the wand shop, which she'd just spotted. She couldn't remember a minute of her stay in the shop, except that Mr. Ollivander had large bulgy eyes and that he had an old owl in a cage on his counter that let out a dying croak when she entered the shop. When she arrived at a store for miscellaneous items, she spotted a friend of hers from school.
"Amanda!"
"Lily" Lily couldn't believe that Amanda was also a witch. This was amazing- -and now she actually had people she'd know at Hogwarts. they raced to each other and hugged, jumping up and down with excitement. "Eeek!" Amanda had always loved that work. "I can't believe this!"
"Me either. By the way, what do I need here?"
"Oh, that's easy. Over here, look. Parchment and ink. I got lots of green and blue ink, the sparkly kind, though Mom made me get some regular. Hey, you get some of the gold and silver, then we can swap when we want to! And here--"
Lily left the store with a bulging bag of firecrackers, ink, parchment, and a few colored quills. They said goodbye and went back to their families. "See you at Hogwarts!" both of them shouted as Amanda's family left Diagon Alley.
The book she was reading was in Hebrew; it was one that her mother had brought back from her trip to the mainland, and right now, Lily was engaged in trying to translate as best she could. She had just reached a particularly difficult phrase when she heard the thump of feet on the hardwood floor.
"Lily, go to bed. I can hear the fire all the way into my room." Petunia, her older sister, had grumpily stomped into the living room doorway. "You can read that stupid book in the morning."
"Stupid?" Lily felt her face growing hot. "Did you just call this stupid?"
Petunia put on her annoyed face. "I did, and if you don't put that fire out right now--AAHHH! Mom! Help! OUCH!" She was grasping her stomach and sinking to the floor. Lily's eyes opened in amazement as her parents rushed into the room, awakened by Petunia's screaming. She had been fixedly staring at Petunia's stomach a moment before, to avoid having to look at her face. Her eyes had become hot, and just when the pressure behind them let off, Petunia had started to scream.
Lily gaped. "Wow. Did I do that?"
"Do what? Of course you did, you--you witch!" Petunia shrieked.
"Witch? Is that supposed to be insulting?" She shrugged and turned back to her book. She couldn't concentrate on it, though. Her mind kept running over the strange things that had happened just now. Practically in a sort of trance, she was rudely startled out of it by a rap on the window.
She started in her chair. The knock she heard was repeated again and again, almost as if it was Petunia's anxious boyfriend, Vernon Dursley. But Vernon didn't get out of bed at this time of night. Simply out of curiosity, she went to the window, pulling aside the curtains and undoing the latch.
"I'm asleep. I'm dreaming. I know I'm asleep." she kept repeating to herself as she stared out of the window at a large, tawny owl carrying a letter in its beak. The owl fluttered inside, landing on the sofa and dropping the letter on Lily's book. It shook itself, then, without even resting for a while, it took off again into the dark and stormy night.
Slowly, as if it were some kind of explosive, Lily moved towards the letter. With a quivering hand, she snat ched it up. The envelope was a sort of yellowing parchment with emerald green ink.
To Miss Lily Evans
Armchair in front of the Fire
777 Laner Street
She slit the envelope open. Inside were two sheets, but she only noticed the first words on the page.
Dear Miss Evans,
We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
Of the next two days Lily hardly remembered anything, besides the fact that she found out that this wasn't a hoax and that she would be taking a train to Hogwarts on September first. A small slip of paper inside the envelope that she hadn't noticed before gave directions on how to contact Professor M. McGonagall, who told Lily and her family how to get onto the platform and how to get her school supplies. Her father and mother were excited and pleasantly surprised, and after binding Petunia to secrecy, they were on the subway to the street in front of the Leaky Cauldron, the entrance to the place where Lily would find her supplies.
Petunia was grouchy most of the way, though as soon as they entered the small pub, her face was frozen in fear and she was silent until they got to a brick wall in the back, along with a rather small and wrinkly wizard.
"Let's see, now where are those bricks again? Oh, right, third left..." He tapped several bricks, and almost immediately, the wall, which had been secure before, modeled a gap which slowly grew larger and larger, until all of Lily's family could fit inside.
Lily's mother and father stared with popped out eyes at the first bit of magic they had seen performed. Lily grinned, then smiled even wider as she saw Petunia, who was sitting down on a trash heap with a banana peel poking out from under her skirt and her vocal cords frozen in an eternal whimper.
Tearing her amused gaze away from her sister, Lily looked back at the doorway. Through it she could see a crowd of many wizards and witches congregating about bright shops and window, some eating ice cream at a nearby cafe, and a group of boys oohing over a broom one of them had just bought. The street was cobblestoned, with sparks issuing from several random wands here and there; no trace of the rainy weather that reigned outside in the rest of London. Here, there was a bright and cheery sky, with several birds and--wait--gold balls with wings?--whizzing around among the clouds. Several people could be seen through a shop window trying on wands, others were being fitted for some type of clothing, and others were flipping through books at a place called Flourish and Blotts.
"Wow." Lily whispered.
"Well, welcome to Diagon Alley," the crinkly wizard grinned.
Lily was the first to step into the alley. She glanced around, looking for what the letter said was a bank; a large white building. She found it easily, as it was the tallest structure on the street. Half dragging, half pulling Petunia, her family walked past several goblins on either side of the doorway and to the desk of another goblin.
"We'd like to open an account and exchange some money, please." Her father spoke as if he had done this a million times before.
The goblin asked for his name, then told him that only wizards and witches could open an account. "Is it for one of the young ladies here?"
"Yes, sir, it is. Lily Evans."
"Lily it is? Well, then, follow me." The goblin headed for an elevator behind the counter, beckoning to the family. They stepped inside, while the goblin set a large golden dial on the side of the elevator to 472. The door closed and, with breathtaking speed, the elevator hurtled downwards. After about five seconds, with a gentle bump, the elevator stopped.
Petunia, rather green in the face, was the first to leave. The goblin followed her out to reveal a long corridor, all lined with iron doors, smaller golden dials, and padlocks. They didn't have to walk far before the goblin stopped them in fromt of a door without a padlock. He took out two small golden keys and turned to Lily's father.
"And how much will the young lady be depositing?"
"Er..." He looked around to Lily's mother. "About...I'd say, two hundred pounds. I think that should be enough."
The goblin nodded. "Very well, then." He set the dial to 200, then opened the padlock and door with one of the keys. Lily gasped. Inside were mountains of gold, silver, and bronze coins, more than she could ever have imagined seeing. She drew out several handfuls and put them into her purse, her mouth still hanging open. "Dad, I...thanks, Dad." She hugged him. Can we go and get my things now? I can't wait to get a wand!"
The goblin and her parents smiled. Upstairs, the goblin handed Lily her own golden key to her safe, then waved until they were out of sight. He finally turned around, muttering.
"Good Lord, that Muggle child was green!"
The next thing she knew, Lily found herself in the bookshop; Flourish and Blotts, to be exact. The salesclerk who was in while the owner was out to lunch immediately hurried over to her, a bit too overexcited to help.
"Let's see, I need Transfiguration,--Hey!" The salesclerk had dumped about seven books on top of the list where she had placed it, on a small table with a "Here you are, miss. That'll be seventy Sickles, four Knuts."
Lily raised one eyebrow. "How many first years have you had come in here today?"
He grinned a bit sheepishly. "About fifteen." He pulled out a cloth bag from under the counter. "Bag, miss?"
Lily nodded. "Yes, please." She left the store alone, having left her parents and Petunia at the ice cream parlor, where Petunia was scarfing down about a pint of mint dragon-eye ice cream to make up for the elevator ride.
The closest thing there was on the street was the robe shop she had noticed earlier. It had pale blue drapes on the windows and black robes on moving statues in the show windows. Lily stepped inside.
The owner, Madam Malkin, immediately flitted over and started taking her measurements. "Hogwarts this year, dear?" She went on without waiting for comfirmation. I remember the very day my mother took my measurements for my first Hogwarts robes...." She went on and on and on. Lily grew drowsy listening to the jabber and would have falen asleep, except that Madam Malkin used very sharp pins. About twenty-five minutes later, she left the shop gratefully with her new robes wrapped in pale blue tissue paper.
With difficulty, she pulled out her list again. "Wand. Wand wand wand. Now where on earth--OW!" She was knocked onto the cobblestones as a boy about her age ran into her, trying to dodge a few gold sparks.
"Watch where you're going!" she grumbled, quite miffed, as she retrieved her packages from where they went flying all over the street.
"I--I'm sorry. Really. Here, let me help you." The boy dusted off a few of the books and helped rewrap her robes. "First year, huh?"
Lily nodded. "That obvious, huh?"
He shrugged. "To me it is, just because I was one last year."
Lily smiled. "Hi--I'm sorry if I sounded rude. I'm Lily. Lily ________."
The boy, with wildly messed up hair, smiled at her. "You didn't. I'm James Potter. Hope I'll see you around at Hogwarts!"
Lily stared after James for a while, then came back to the real workd with a start. He had such beautiful blue eyes--just the ones she wished she had-- hers were green. She hated green. With a sigh, she nimbly stepped out of the way of an out-of-control broomstick and into the wand shop, which she'd just spotted. She couldn't remember a minute of her stay in the shop, except that Mr. Ollivander had large bulgy eyes and that he had an old owl in a cage on his counter that let out a dying croak when she entered the shop. When she arrived at a store for miscellaneous items, she spotted a friend of hers from school.
"Amanda!"
"Lily" Lily couldn't believe that Amanda was also a witch. This was amazing- -and now she actually had people she'd know at Hogwarts. they raced to each other and hugged, jumping up and down with excitement. "Eeek!" Amanda had always loved that work. "I can't believe this!"
"Me either. By the way, what do I need here?"
"Oh, that's easy. Over here, look. Parchment and ink. I got lots of green and blue ink, the sparkly kind, though Mom made me get some regular. Hey, you get some of the gold and silver, then we can swap when we want to! And here--"
Lily left the store with a bulging bag of firecrackers, ink, parchment, and a few colored quills. They said goodbye and went back to their families. "See you at Hogwarts!" both of them shouted as Amanda's family left Diagon Alley.
