Title comesfrom the quote, "'If grass can grow through cement, then love can find you at any time in your life." I thought that quote fitted this story pretty darn well.

Disclaimer: Okay, people, now really, if I owned HP, or if I owned anything besides what I buy at the dollar store, would I REALLY be sitting here at this cheap-o computer writing fanfiction? I mean really... (I own nothing and am making no profit from this.)

Prologue

When I was little I used to daydream. I would sit in fourth period math and stare out the window at the sixth graders running around and laughing on the playground, and I could let my mind wander. The glass blocked the noise, but if I concentrated hard enough I could hear it. If I blocked out Sister Walter's lecture on long multiplication long enough, I could feel the wind whipping my hair, the beads of sweat glistening on my forehead after a heavy game of capture-the-flag, and the way I would tie my jacket around my waist, ignoring the way the knot kept bumping into my bellybutton. That's what I would daydream about—me being somewhere else.

I squirmed in my seat. I hated that damn uniform so much. I went to a private Catholic school. We had it all—the uniforms, the strict rules, the nuns armed with rulers, ready to crack it on someone's knuckles like a whip if they weren't paying attention. The school board told them to stop doing that, but they wouldn't listen. They never listen. When someone says the word "nun" you automatically think of a sweet, old lady with big, wrinkly hands and a golden cross gleaming against her black gown. If that's what a nun is supposed to be like, then these are the exact opposite. I call my math teacher Sister Death.

"... if 192 is the product of 64 and 3, then what is the overall price for Robert to purchase twelve gallons of gasoline," Sister Death droned. By God, was she still on this one? I'm not really supposed to say God's name like that—I'd probably get cracked with Death's pet ruler—but I can't help it. We private school goers tend to be like that. We like to revolt. I think it's because everyone expects up to be perfect, and we crack under the pressure. I was only in fifth grade and already one of my friends was smoking. She could inhale and everything, then let the smoke out the side of her mouth, like Frenchy did in Grease. I told her I thought it was absurd. Not the smoking part—at least half of my school did that—but the age thing. I always thought like an adult. "We're too young for that!" and "What will you're mother say!" I lived on those statements. I also told her I thought she was too young to smoke. I immediately launched into a speech about lung cancer, and heart disease, and—

"OW!"

Caught in the act. Sister Death caught me and gave me a good dent in one of my fingers with that damn ruler. I glared at her under my bangs. I could see out and she couldn't see in. I watched her smirk, tap the ruler to the palm of her hand, curl her fingers around it, then walk back to the front of the class. She usually didn't catch me daydreaming, but I leaned to never once doubt near-sightedness. She whipped around to face the class and opened her mouth to reveal a set of pointy, yellow teeth, all lined up in a grimy yellow line. Did I mention she was a vampire?

"Lillian," she growled, as most underwater beasts do, "why don't you tell us the answer to number six."

I glanced down at my paper. She was still on six? I finished all twenty-five in under five minutes. It took my eyes a few seconds to locate that problem, and when I did I cleared my throat slightly. "Uh, forty-six?" I fake-guessed. Even when you know the answer, pretend that you're sort of unsure about it, so kids don't get jealous. They've introduced that wonderful fact to me countless of times, after school behind the dumpsters.

She dimpled a wonderfully fake smile. "Excellent, Lillian," she praised. And yet it still sounded like she really wouldn't mind dropping me off in the middle of the forest mapless, hanging upside down over a snake pit in Peru. Yep, that's Sister Death for ya.

Before she could go on to the next problem, God crackled over the intercom. "Sister Walter," she croaked, since in this school, God is an overweight woman with a tiny desk streaked with coffee stains, or the principal, as she is more commonly known, "would you please send Lillian Evans to the office for an early dismissal. Her mother is here to pick her up."

I closed my eyes. I could see Tasha and Amanda, the Queen Bees of the school, look at each other and unleash perfect snorts, then cover their mouths with perfect, dainty hands. That was the whole classes permission slip to lean over in their seats and snicker. With my eyes still closed, I gathered my books and darted out of that prison chamber. "Run home to Mommy," I heard someone hiss at me as I reached for the door. Now that I think about it, they couldn't have said a more immature and non-offensive thing, and yet my face burned up like a pit of hot coals. I stalked to the office and dragged my mother out of there, shooting her continuous glares, like it was her fault that I hated my school so much. No, that would be my dad's fault. Apparently, private schools give a better education than a public school would, according to him. I've only leaned two things at that school. One, eating the gum you find under your desk is NOT a good thing, and two, it's every man/woman/being for him/her/its self.

Once we reached the parking lot I let go of my mother's hand and allowed her to walk by herself, and not at eighty miles per hour, like she was a minute ago. I was about to tell her off about not waiting for me in the car, but once I took a look at her face I stopped in my tracks. That's the thing about my mom—she understands the power of silence. Her face held a deep frown and her bright blue eyes were incredibly dark. You could always tell her emotion by her eyes. They were normally a beautiful, deep blue that brightened when she was happy and darkened when she wasn't. Her long black hair hung limply at her shoulders—she forgot to brush it again today. My mother lives on impulses. She's a free spirit, exactly the opposite of me. She's a writer, and once she gets a creative burst, everything else she had planned for the day doesn't exist. She writes teen books, about popular girls who learn life lessons and abandon their cluster of bimbos for a life with a geek who always has a great personality. Even she doesn't understand how ironic her career is.

"Mum?" I asked. Of course, she didn't hear me. She's probably launching into her next twelve book series right now, about an abandoned child who's abused by her boyfriend. My mom clings to drama.

"MUM."

Her eyes unclouded and focused on me. Then her eyebrows rose in remembrance and she rushed me to the car, very similar to the way I rushed her out of my school. She shoved the keys into the ignition and floored it.

"Mum!" I yelled over the sound of wind rushing into the wide-open windows. "Mum, what's going on?"

"You will never believe it, Lily," she said to me in a low voice once she closed the car windows. "There is a bird in my kitchen."

"Mum, it's probably just a pigeon," I tried to explain. But she just shook her head stubbornly in disagreement, like she always did.

"I know a pigeon when I see one," she said. "And this is no pigeon."

"Maybe it's a baby pigeon," I joked. My mom gently glared at me and took the right-hand turn onto out street.

"Believe me, once you see this, you'll be as confused about it as me."

I was shocked. My mom was really serious, and she's never serious. About anything. You know that one friend's mom who's really really cool and hip and never yells? That's my mom.

She practically leapt out of the car once we pulled into our gravel driveway and opened my door as she passed it. I grabbed my bag and slung it over my shoulder, closing the door with a slam as I followed my mother into our house. We crossed through our tidy living room and into our even tidier kitchen. I'm a neat freak. But my mom never minded, and I always loved her for that.

"Mum, what's going o—oh my word." Sitting—no perched on our kitchen chair, my kitchen chair, was an owl. A large, brown owl with a note tied to its foot. A freaking carrier owl was SITTING ON MY KITCHEN CHAIR!

"That's an owl," I dumbly announced. Man, was I the smartest kid you've ever seen or what.

"You can say that again," my mom mumbled.

I was about to, but I noticed my name scrawled on the envelope in perfect, pretty writing. My mom sighed; I felt her body rise and fall next to mine. "I tried to see what it said," she explained in a faraway voice. "Wouldn't let me."

I glanced at the envelope again, then in one quick moment, I snatched the envelope from the loosely tied string around the owl's ankle, if you can call it that. I hesitated, almost expecting it to flash a set of twenty-inch fangs at me and spout fire. When it didn't, I ripped the letter from its package and read it. I reached the bottom, then started again. I reread that damn letter at least ten times, and I couldn't focus on one word it said. My mother grew impatient and ripped it from my hands, skimming it for herself. Her mouth dropped and her blue eyes bulged, which was a much better response than anything I could have mustered.

She looked up at the owl again, but by that time it had already flown away. She looked at the letter instead. "Hogwarts?" she read aloud. Only when she said it it sounded like Hongclortz. She had the deepest English-Irish accent I've ever heard.

"What is it?" I asked as I sank down into the closest seat, making sure it wasn't the one the owl was only moments before seated on.

My mother read it again and muttered, "It's a school. For wizards?"

"And witches."

She snorted lightly and tossed the letter up in the air, then threw an arm over the back of the chair she was sitting in. I caught the letter right before it touched the table, and noticed there was a second paper. "School supplies," I murmured curiously under my breath. "Cauldrons, wands, robes..."

My mother snorted again. "This is insane," she stated as she furiously massaged her closed eyelids.

"But real," I added. "At least I think it is." I looked up at her with my eyebrow crawling down my nose. No one would go through all that trouble, sending a bird and writing a letter and whatnot, if it was just ajoke. "What do you think?"

She swung her head in my direction and blinked hard. "Um..." she faltered.

I set the letter down on the table. "So it's a boarding school, right? I mean, I'd stay there for the whole year, right?"

"Magic," my mother whispered under her breath as if it was the most magnificent word she had ever heard.

"Yes Mum, I'd be learning magic. But for a whole year? How many grades are there? I won't have to go to St. Mary's anymore, will I?"

She grinned. "That's a plus." She hated that school as much as I did. She just put up with it because my dad wouldn't send her an extra three hundred dollars with my child support, and she needed that for her book collection. She had about three hundred books already, and would just die if she didn't reach five hundred.

"So, mum?" I asked excitedly. Once the fact that I would go away to learn magic sunk in, I was happier then a greedy little kid at Christmas.

Her eyes rolled in my direction, and after a moment's pause, she nodded.

"YES!" I screeched. I jumped up and pounced on my mother, giving her bear hug after bear hug, then a shower of Eskimo kisses.

My mom laughed and hugged be back, shoving her face in my hair like she always did. "We'll go to Whatever-It's-Called Ally tomorrow, just to see if it's really there."

"It'll be there," I said into my mom's neck. "I know it." And I can still feel that confident gut feeling, no matter how hard I try to forget about it. And believe me, if I had known what I would be going through during my stays at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, I definitely would have thought twice.

A/N: I was on the bus today and this just popped into my head. Please review, it means the world to me. :)