Ding dong the sound of the doorbell reached Lily as she lay reading in her bedroom, she waited, listening, willing her sister, who was watching television in the sitting room below, to go answer the door. Alas, no.
"Lily, will you answer that" Petunias voice drifted up the stairs as Lily slid off the bed and stomped across the landing, hoping that Petunia would hear her displeasure, not that it would make a difference, she thought grumpily, just like Petunia to drag her sister out of her room when she was in fact only meters away from the door herself.
Lily descended the stairs, wondering who could be at the door, secretly hoping it was Sev but knowing it would be a while until he forgave her. Humph, him forgive me, who was it that almost killed Petunia with that branch? she grumbled internally.
Nevertheless, Lily fixed a smile on her face as she opened the door, a smile that soon turned to an O of surprise as she saw the stranger standing on her doorstep. It wasn't that he was odd looking particularly, he would have been entirely normal with his smiling face and mop of blonde hair if it weren't for the bird perched on his shoulder, a large owl with never blinking amber eyes and a letter clutched in her beak.
"May I come in?" he asked.
"Er… yes of course" Lily replied, stepping aside to let him through and wondering whether this was the kind of occurrence that someone not wishing to become a modern Little Red Riding Hood should avoid, her parents were not at home and this man being absolute stranger.
"Now then" he said in a brisk, business-like tone "you must be Miss Lily Evans".
"Yes" Lily replied, now more than a little creeped out.
"This is for you, it should explain everything" the man handed over the letter. The envelope was thick and heavy, made of a yellowish parchment, and the address was written in emerald-green ink. There was no stamp. Turning the envelope over, Lily saw a purple wax seal bearina a coat of arms; a lion, an eagle, a badger and a snake surrounding a large letter 'H'. Lily took a large breath in, she knew where the letter was from, until that moment she didn't dare believe what she now knew to be true. Severus hadn't been lying. Lily was a witch.