Disclaimer: Any people, places, things, or events that you recognize belong to the great J.K. Rowling, and not to me!
Dedication: Dedicated to Melissa from Japan because she suggested that I write a reflection about Lily.
Lily's Fears
Throughout her life Lily Potter had many fears.
When she was a small girl she was afraid of the dark.
Because of this she never slept without a night-light.
Eventually Lily outgrew her fear of the dark. The light in her room was, she insisted, for reading, and in case she ever had to get up and leave quickly. This way she wouldn't have to fumble in the dark.
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Lily Evans (which was her maiden name) was terrified on her first night in Hogwarts. She was afraid of not fitting in, she was afraid of the people who already seemed to hate her for being muggleborn, she was afraid that she would get lost in the huge castle, and she was afraid of being alone.
Because of these fears, Lily, like many other students, didn't get much sleep on her first night at her new school.
Lily soon found that she had many friends, so she stopped worrying about being alone. She found that insults and hexes, though painful, were rarely permanent, still it was frightening. She also discovered that within a month she had learned her way around the castle, and no longer got lost. Although she realized that she would never be as good at it as the Gryffindor boys in her year, she was pretty good at getting to wherever she wanted to without being seen.
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When she got to know Hogwarts better, and got to be more comfortable there, Lily was afraid of not getting good grades and of the Slytherins.
Because of this she worked harder than almost anyone else in her year, with the possible exceptions of a few Ravenclaws, and Remus Lupin, who seemed to think that he had something to prove. Her answer to the second problem was simply avoiding Slytherins whenever she could.
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In her fifth year Lily Evans became afraid of James Potter. She was afraid of how he often asked her to go out with him, in a million embarrassing ways. She was afraid that other girls, ones who, unlike her, did like James would hate her. She was afraid that at any moment he might start treating her the same way that he did her friend, Severus.
To combat this fear Lily hexed James whenever he annoyed her, or else yelled at him in the hope that he would get the idea and leave her alone. She also spent a lot of time trying to stop him from torturing Severus.
Eventually Lily stopped liking Severus, and her efforts to help him stopped. The other problem was solved in a way that will be disclosed shortly.
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After her O.W.L.s Lily started being afraid of Severus Snape, the boy who had once been her friend. Now that she had told him that she no longer wanted anything to do with him, she figured it was only a matter of time before he started treating her the way he did other muggleborns. She did not fear his words, but he was good at hexes and potions.
She started never going anywhere alone, and was always watchful, even putting intruder-detecting charms around her bed.
Lily never knew just how safe she was from him. She never knew that he could not hurt her, because she was the girl he loved.
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In sixth year Lily started to fear the strange wizard who called himself Lord Voldemort. She was afraid that he would kill her and her friends.
She doubled the protections on her bed and expanded them to cover the other girls in her dorm.
After leaving school Lily joined the Order of the Phoenix, fighting Voldemort as best she could. It was the only thing that she could think to do.
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In seventh year Lily Evans became afraid of James Potter in a whole new way. She became afraid, because all of a sudden she started wanting to agree to his date proposals. Lily was falling in love with James Potter. The only problem was that she hated him.
She dealt with this fear by trying to avoid him, although it was difficult, as he was Head Boy and she was Head Girl.
The ultimate solution that Lily found to this problem was to become Lily Potter.
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A year or two after leaving Hogwarts Lily became afraid for her family. She was afraid that Voldemort would kill them.
Lily worked harder at her work for the Order, trying to stop Voldemort.
Eventually, many years after her death, members of the same organization that she had once been such a brave member of took Lily's last remaining relatives, Vernon, Petunia, and Dudley Dursley into hiding.
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As Voldemort gained power Lily started to fear that he would take over the world.
Once again she increased her work with the Order.
She didn't know that, although Voldemort would gain a great deal of power, her own son would be the one to understand the way to stop him. Even after hearing the prophecy that time seemed far distant, especially in light of the dangers of the here and now.
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As she and her new husband, James, got deeper and deeper into the anti-Voldemort movement she became afraid for him. She wondered what she would do if she was dead, whether she would be able to keep living without her other half.
She started refusing to let him go on missions if she wasn't there too.
Her fears were not unfounded, and even though she was there, one night things did not go as planned.
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After hearing the prophecy about her son Lily was terrified. She had the same instinct as any mother that she must protect her child, but, unlike others, she knew that she had something to fear. She knew that an evil and powerful wizard wanted to kill her baby.
Lily went to Dumbledore and she and James devised a plan, one that would make it impossible to find them. Sirius would be a decoy secret-keeper, and no one would ever suspect that Peter was the real one.
Lily put her trust in the wrong person, and suddenly her biggest fears were coming true. James was dead, and it seemed as though soon she and Harry would join him. Suddenly she thought of the one thing she could do to save her son. As Voldemort told her to step aside she realized that all she had to do was refuse, and her son would survive. That was the only important thing now. Everything else was gone.
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Lily Potter died on Halloween of 1981, but her son lives on, a living reminder of all the obstacles that a young muggleborn girl named Lily Evans faced.
Author's note: This is part of a series called Reflections. There are two more, one about Luna, called Luna's Wishes, and one about Snape entitled Snape's Dreams. I am asking for suggestions of characters whose reflections you want to see. I will dedicate the story to you if you suggest a character, as well as sending you a message when I put the story up. Please be nice and give me suggestions. I promise to respond to every review.