A/N: As I said in the summary, this is just an L/J fic that I wanted to try out. It may not work, but if you like it, please review and tell me so I can continue. I know I shouldn't be starting any new stories right now, but I just had to try this out.
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Liliane Evans was a Slytherin. She wasn't just any Slytherin, though. She was one of the meanest kids on the block, as some people called her. Others called her the Tiger Lily, the Slimy Slytherin Sorceress, and other hateful names. And they had a point. It often amazed the teachers how she had happened to be a girl. She could shinny up trees faster than any other Slytherin; she could swim faster, fly higher, and suck up to teachers more than even her best friends – Severus Snape, Narcissa Moore, Lucius Malfoy, and Martha Summers – could even imagine.
She got good grades; that is, her grades were pretty good for a Slytherin. The teachers felt that she was as good as a Ravenclaw. Most Slytherin boys would go head-over-heels for her. In addition, Hogwarts was the one place where she had friends. All in all, life treated Lily well… in the opinion of others.
The truth was that Lily was just like any other girl or boy attending the school. She had a family, friends, and above all, she had emotions and feelings. Her tomboy appearance and personality was just a part of who she was. She often tried explaining this to her friends, but they didn't understand. Even Martha and Severus, who were almost as close as siblings, knew that something was eating her, but they could never understand the real reason. They would just figure she was grieving over her grades.
What was really bothering her, was that people would just look at the stereotype her. She was a Slytherin, and like all Slytherins, she was mean, had a fiery temper, and was good at hurling insults every which way. But she was more than just that. All Slytherins were. Or, at least, she and her friends were. They were human beings; they were witches and wizards; they were living, breathing, walking, and talking people. But somehow, though other Slytherins knew it, those from other houses just didn't recognize that simple fact.
To Ravenclaws, Slytherins were stupid name-calling idiots that couldn't put two and two together. But that was wrong. They could. Hufflepuffs thought of them as slimy, scheming, rats that had nothing better to do than foil others' happiness. But they weren't always happy when others were mad; on the contrary, they had feelings and knew that Hufflepuffs had them too. As for Gryffindors, it was a different matter entirely.
Gryffindors and Slytherins had been enemies ever since the school had started. Even the two founders of the school after which the houses had been named, Godric Gryffindor and Salazar Slytherin, were nearly enemies. It was just a 'thing' that all Gryffindors hated Slytherins and vice versa. It was just one fact about the school that had been going on for centuries.
But Lily never understood why. She would have liked to have friends in other houses. She would even go as far as gladly give up her position in Slytherin to have fun and get teacher-recognition with the Gryffindors, have endless study-sessions with the Ravenclaws, and do backbreaking work with the Hufflepuffs.
But she knew she would never last a day among the midst of the other houses. It was as though 'Slytherin' was a completely different ethnic background that she possessed. The other students were just blissfully unaware of the political situation within the school. Lily couldn't do a thing, and she didn't like it. She felt completely helpless as time carried on. First year, second year, third year… it was all the same. She was Liliane Evans; the girl who could outrun Amos Diggory, the best Keeper Slytherin ever had, Slytherin's most prized possession, and other such things. She didn't even know about the 'popular' kids in school.
Quidditch was the only thing that ever helped her to keep in touch with what was going on outside of her own house. She knew the other Quidditch players by sight and name, even if she hadn't met them.
Even at home, she felt unloved. She had always had a fascination for what the boys at her Muggle elementary school would do. Even though she was a girl, she was always picked first for softball, soccer, and football. She didn't mind being tackled by the other boys, and she would pick fights more than anyone else in the school. On certain rare occasions, she had been sent to the principal's office for punching a sixth grader on the nose. But this was all when she was a third grader, much before she had entered the world of magic.
When she finally did find out about the magic she possessed, her parents had been proud of her, and had hoped that she would finally get over her boyish ways and start behaving like a young lady. But they were wrong. They soon got sick and tired of her. In fact, they practically gave up on her ever acting like a girl. They started paying more attention to Lily's sister, Petunia, and soon Lily was more of an outsider that just happened to live with the other three.
Even Petunia, who had been her best friend until Lily received her letter to Hogwarts, despised her. Petunia hadn't minded much that Lily was more like a boy who looked like a girl than a girl who acted boyish, but she had rather used it to her advantage. And Lily, being the small child she was at the time, gave in innocently to whatever her older sister asked of her.
But that simple letter changed her life drastically. Often times, Lily would reach under her pillow in her dorm in Hogwarts and pull out the crumpled photograph that she kept hidden under there. It was a picture that had been taken at her tenth birthday, just a year before she had received her letter. She was wearing a pair of muddy jeans and a scruffy t-shirt, whereas Petunia was wearing a frilly pink party dress. She was standing at a picnic table in front of her gigantic cake with her parents on either side of her. (Petunia had been taking the picture.) The words on it said, "Happy Tenth Birthday, Lily, from your loving parents and sister." Those words meant nothing but a whole lot of rubbish now.
Lily tried her best to forget about what had happened. It worked most of the time. But when it wouldn't, she would get nightmares and all sorts of sad memories would stream through her mind, like the day when their old house, which Lily had grown up in for most of her life, burnt down, the day her Aunt Aggie died, and the day Petunia had slapped her across the face.
When such memories came to her, she would pick up her Silver Arrow broom and go down to the Quidditch pitch and fly like crazy. Sometimes her anger would show even in practices with her team, and her friends often got worried about her. But she would just wave them aside, with the phrase "I'm fine" and mount her broom again.
But not even Quidditch, which she loved so much and played with all her heart, not even it could keep her from longing for a day where everything would turn normal, the day when she and her friends would be finally accepted into the magical world of Hogwarts.
Yet another thing that Miss Evans didn't know, was that this day would soon come, when she was least expecting it.
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A/N: So, that's it! Please review to tell me if you like it so I'll continue, though I probably will anyway because I really want to write this story.
