Lily Luna Potter sat on the Hogwarts Express with her brothers and cousins, all of whom were packed tightly into one compartment. Lily was seated next to Hugo, who was chatting animatedly with his family about the excitement ahead of him, and his fear of being sorted outside of Gryffindor. Lily sat next to him, uncharacteristically quiet. The young girl twirled a lock of auburn hair (supposedly much like her grandmother's) and thought of the events of her morning.

She was woken at an ungodly hour by her brothers who would usually not hesitate to sleep late into the afternoon, only excited because they would be escorting their sister to her first year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Lily groggily clambered down the stairs and slumped down at the breakfast table, still half asleep. She was sure she was quite a sight at the moment, with her eyes barely open and her hair askew, wearing an old shirt and owl pajama pants, but that was the least of her worries. Yes, Lily was excited to finally be attending Hogwarts, but there was only so much excitement she could show any time before 9:00am. If there was one thing this family was sure about, it was that Lily Luna Potter was in no way a morning person. However, the arrival of her mother with a large stack of chocolate chip pancakes could always brighten her mood. Her father soon joined them, kissing Ginny on the cheek before taking a seat at the table and wishing his children a good morning. He could normally be found reclined in his chair comfortably while reading the Daily Prophet with his breakfast and morning tea, but the first of September was not a normal day. This morning all eyes turned to Lily, which was something she normally loved, as it was sometimes quite difficult to get attention with so many older siblings and cousins to live up to in the family. However, Lily was repeatedly being reminded, it was not a normal morning.

"Are you excited for your first year, Lils?" Harry asked his youngest. Lily wasn't a fan of his nickname for her, but it was used by the whole family and had been in use for as long as she could remember. It wasn't worth protesting. She had also become quite accustomed to it, but there was no way any new friend she made at Hogwarts would be allowed to use that name.

"Yeah, I can't wait to see the castle and meet new people and learn magic and..." Lily yawned, still tired. Her father chuckled, and for once Lily was glad when James turned the attention to Albus and himself.

"It's a shame Lily can't join the Quidditch team this year, we need better players. I can't believe we lost to Slytherin last year. A bunch of people are graduating within the next two years though, so maybe we'll eventually get a good team."

"Yeah," Albus joined in, "at least we have Wood for a few more years though. I don't know what we'll do without her. She's one of the best keepers I've seen."

Cora Wood was practically a Hogwarts legend when it came to Quidditch. She was the best keeper at the school, and getting anything past her was difficult.

"I don't know how we'll ever replace her. But what's an even bigger embarrassment than our Quidditch last year was the house cup. How did Hufflepuff win? Do they even do anything?" James squealed.

Albus lowered his voice a bit before saying, "Actually it's because they didn't do anything..."

Apparently the Gryffindors had wanted to prank the Slytherins for beating them for the Quidditch cup. They managed to get Ravenclaw involved only because of a recent injury to one of their best players by a Slytherin chaser who had "accidently" thrown the quaffle straight into the back of the Ravenclaw seeker's head, and he threw it hard. The seeker sustained minor injuries, but without a seeker on Ravenclaw, Slytherin easily caught the snitch and won the game. Lily thought that it was actually a good plan, but it was unfortunate that someone had to get hurt for it to work.

The night of the prank, the Slytherins managed to find out about the plan and were ready. It turned into a giant three house duel between the three Quidditch teams. All got a ton of house points deducted, and Hufflepuff won the house cup by default.

The morning carried on in this manner, with the well wishings and the questions for Lily and Hugo and with all the mother's fussing over their children at King's Cross Station until they finally reached the point that lead to Lily being seated in the tightly compact, hot compartment.

"I don't think being sorted into a different house would be a terrible thing," said Lily when she finally spoke. "Not that it wouldn't be nice to be with all of you guys, but the world wouldn't end. You would make new friends and have some different experiences than the rest of the family. It could actually be really exciting."

Lily's comment received some nods of recognition, but her statement was generally received with the mindset of "yes I suppose that's possible but you really want to be in Gryffindor."

When Lily couldn't take being packed in that small compartment any longer she decided to go find the trolley and purchase a few chocolate frogs for her and her cousins, who were all big on collecting the cards. It was always strange when they received a card with their parents. James had looked horror stricken on the day that he managed to get three "Harry Potter" cards in the course of one afternoon.

Lily practically skipped down the aisle of the train, glad to be free of her family for a bit. She loved them dearly, but she was sick of being around them all the time. It was even worse when she was always being compared them, especially her brothers and the older girls in the family. Victoire and Dominique were beautiful, Rose was extremely intelligent, Roxanne was a fun loving prankster and a great beater, Fred was much the same for that matter, and then James and Albus were impossible. James was the boy everybody loved, and Albus was growing out of that shy state and was bound to be a prefect, maybe even Head Boy. Lily had so much to live up to now, and all anyone ever thought of her as was "Harry Potter's daughter" or "James' and Albus' little sister." She wasn't sure she wanted to be in Gryffindor. It would just be a house full of people who knew her family and would see her and only think of them. She just wanted a fresh start.

Lily also had a really bad habit that she needed to break: dazing off into thought while doing something. In this case, walking.

Lily ran straight into a boy coming out of one of the compartments.

"I'm so sorry!" she apologized, her small clutch that contained her money spilling open onto the ground.

"No, it's my fault, here let me help." The boy and Lily both scrambled to collect the Knuts, Sickles, and Galleons. It was a fairly quick clean up.

"Thank you," Lily said, looking up at the boy for the first time. He had white blonde hair and stormy, grey eyes. His face was angular, but not hard. He wore the first year uniform, with a black tie.

"It was no problem. What's your name, might I ask?" the boy inquired.

"Lily," she answered automatically. Deciding that she should give her last name, she regretfully added, "Lily Potter."

"Pleased to meet you, Lily, I'm Scorpius Malfoy," he introduced, extending a hand. Lily shook it. They made idle conversation, as both were on the way to the trolley. Lily was perplexed. Scorpius Malfoy seemed sure he would be placed in Slytherin like the rest of his family, he talked of what he knew of Hogwarts from his parents, and Lily added what she knew. This boy was a Malfoy. She had been warned about them. Her brothers had already gotten in quite a few arguments with him at the various ministry family gatherings that they were forced to attend. The girls usually kept to themselves, and Scorpius had been pointed out to her at a distance by her brothers and had been told to stay away. She had heard the stories from the war, she knew about what his family had done, but Scorpius seemed kind. Despite the warnings, this boy was chatting happily with her, and her with him. They purchased their candy and each opened their chocolate frogs.

"Severus Snape," Lily stated showing Scorpius her card. She already had a Snape, but she always kept the cards. You could always find someone to trade with.

"Salazar Slytherin," Scorpius stated. "Do you have Slytherin?"

"No, do you have Snape?"

"I don't. Trade?"

"Sure," Lily looked at the new card. Salazar Slytherin was one of the two founders she didn't have. Now she just needed Helga Hufflepuff and she would have all four.

James stuck his head out into the aisle in search of his sister and noticed her company. He glared and called, "Oi! Lily! Come here!"

"I should go," Lily said, turning to Scorpius. "I'll see you around?" It really was a question. She had no idea if she would see him around or not.

"Anytime. See you later," Scorpius waved and walked off back to his compartment, where he was seated with some other boys.

"What were you doing with Malfoy?" James asked. Now the whole compartment was looking at her. On the one day Lily didn't want the attention.

"We were talking. I wasn't paying attention to where I was going and I bumped into him. I went to go get you all candy so I suggest you accept that I was having a polite conversation and take your chocolate frog."

James seemed pleased enough with this response. "Just don't go and associate with the Malfoys anymore. They're bad news. Death Eaters, all of them. That's not the kind of company you want to keep."

It was a long train ride to Hogwarts, but it was worth it. The school was beautiful. Hugo and Lily took the boats to the lake together, along with two other girls that Lily didn't know. They were told about Hogwarts and its founders in the Entrance Hall before being ushered into the Great Hall for the sorting ceremony.

Lily watched students were sorted and nervously awaited her turn. An "Ackerley, Jared" was sorted into Ravenclaw. This was received with loud applause from the Ravenclaw table. He was the first, and this continued for a long time.

"Cade, Melissa."

"Gryffindor!"

"Catterick, Dominic."

"Hufflepuff!"

"Farley, Jenna."

"Slytherin!"

"Malfoy, Scorpius."

"Slytherin!"

So Scorpius had been right. Lily now thought she would definitely be in Gryffindor. And when she realized that, she realized she might not want to be.

Finally the sorting got close. A "Nott, Timothy" was placed into Slytherin, and after a few more students it was finally time.

"Potter, Lily."

The Entire Hall stared at her as she made her way up. The Gryffindor table was ready to applaud the second the hat was placed on her head, but the hat took its time.

"Another Potter, another Gryffindor, then...but wait. There's something else here. You remind me of your father a bit. But there's something different. That thirst to prove yourself that he had...but it is so much stronger. You're also very bright. Ravenclaw? No. That's not a good fit. You are brave, but only when you have to be. You are quite clever, girl, and even a bit manipulative! Hush now girl I heard that (Lily had mentally protested the statement about being manipulative, that was only used when necessary, like when she wanted a cat instead of an owl). But where to put you? But that thirst is back. You want to be different. You want to be seen as more than your name. And there is only one place that can help you with that, Miss Potter. I know just the place for you."

"SLYTHERIN!" the hat finally called.

There was a silence in the Great Hall that hadn't been heard for a long time. And then Lily did something nobody expected her to do. She smiled.

The Slytherin table burst into applause and cheers of, "We got Potter!" as she took her seat next to Scorpius Malfoy. Her brothers looked saddened, but not angry. This would be a long year.