Chapter One
"Mrs. Jacobs said that a family moved into that old house on top of the hill," Mrs. Evans told her husband over lunch. Rose, the youngest of the three at only seven years of age, glanced over at her slightly older sister, Lily. At eight and a half years of age, Lily had led the two of them on countless adventures, whether it be pretend in the backyard, or real adventures around the small neighborhood. Mrs. Evans knew that the two girls left the yard frequently, but she trusted the neighbors to keep an eye out, as she did for their children.
Lily glanced at Rose and grinned, seeing the younger girl was already anxious to go check out the new people. They both looked over at Petunia, knowing that she would likely stop them, or tag along and nag the whole time. At nearly eleven years of age, Petunia liked to act like she was in charge, and when the two younger girls did things their own way, which happened quite often, Petunia would get mad and storm home, which sometimes resulted in trouble for the younger two, depending on what they had been doing and what Petunia told their parents.
"Do they have any children?" Petunia asked, daintily picking through her plate of food. She hadn't noticed the younger two, which made both of them let out a sigh of relief at the same time.
"I'm not sure honey," Mrs. Evans said, frowning in thought.
"We can invite them over for dinner tomorrow evening," Mr. Evans said, folding up that mornings paper and setting it beside his already finished plate. "That way we can get to know them a little."
"Alright, I'll go up there in a bit then," Mrs. Evans said, then turned to frown at the girls. "You two still haven't finished cleaning your room like I told you to this morning, so you may not come along. Petunia, you may accompany me if you wish."
"No thank you," Petunia said, her nose lifted in the air. "I have to work on my summer homework."
Lily rolled her eyes. School had only let out a few days ago, Petunia would have weeks to work on homework, but she always wanted to do it as soon as possible. Lily had always done hers before the end of the summer, but she liked to have a little break from school work for a while. Rose, at six, didn't have much homework set to her over the summer, just a few easy level books to read, but she always waited until the last week of break to do so.
After the meal, Lily and Rose were sent up to the room they shared to clean it up. Really, there wasn't too much to do, just some toys and books on the floor, and a small pile of clothes to fold and put away, but both girls immediately flopped down onto the floor to continue their game from before lunch with their dolls. After half an hour of this, they watched out the window as their mother left to go talk to the new neighbors.
"Maybe if we clean up she'll let us out to play before dinner," Lily suggested, watching her mother disappear around the corner
"Okay," Rose agreed, turning to the toys on the floor. She scooped up as many as she could carry at one time, bringing them over to the trunk at the end of her bed that was specifically for toys and dumping them inside. Lily put away the clothes, clumsily but neatly enough. They both made their beds, Lily helping Rose when the small girl struggled to get the blankets to lay flat. They were finished when their mother returned home.
Both girls flew down the stairs, Lily's long red hair hitting Rose in the face as they did so. Rose's own hair, a light blonde color, only went down to her shoulders after getting tree sap stuck in it and having to get it cut out only weeks before.
"Mum, can we go to the park please?" Lily asked, slightly out of breath as she skidded to a stop in front of the woman.
"Is your room clean?" The woman asked, fighting to keep a smile off her face as she took in the solemn faces of both the girls as they nodded. "Alright, but be back for dinner."
The two girls took off out the back door, both grinning as they ran. The aforementioned park ran behind the entire row of houses on this street, and all the ones on the next street over, all the way up to the house on the top of the hill. They ran the whole way, stopping only when they reached the row of hedges blocking the view from the park to the houses. After a moments argument of whether to hide in the bushes or climb the tree, they decided on the tree. They both climbed it as high as they could, then settled in to spy on their new neighbors through the thick leaves.
It was a while before they saw any movement in the old house, and Rose had grown bored enough to start watching the bugs on the branches when Lily whispered to her.
"Look," she said, her voice quiet. Rose turned back to the house, seeing a tall, black haired man and a shorter, black haired woman on the front porch. They couldn't hear what was being said, but the two girls recognized the signs of an argument. They glanced at each other, frowning. Then, through the back door came a much smaller figure, also with dark hair. His clothing was hanging off him and even from this distance, they could tell he was small and tired looking. They couldn't tell if he was Roses age, or maybe a bit older, since he was small. The boy didn't come into the park so they couldn't talk to him, and after a while the two adults went back inside. The boy stayed outside, laying on the grass and watching the clouds after having finished exploring the back yard while the adults had been arguing.
"Let's get back," Lily said after a while. It wasn't dark out yet, but the sun was at the point that told them that dinner would be soon. The two of them made their way out of the tree, then ran home, soon forgetting the arguing neighbors in favor of dinner and bed time.
It was almost a week later when the girls had time to go back to the park. Between visits to their grandparents house and shopping trips with their mother, Lily and Rose had nearly forgotten their new neighbors. Petunia had come with them this time, but she was in a good mood and offered to push Lily on the swings. Rose, who didn't like swings, was given firm instructions to stay near the other girls. She took this to mean within view, so she wandered down the small pond in the middle of the park where tall trees grew and sometimes, if she was lucky, she could catch a frog.
Rose made it all the way down to the waters edge before she saw the boy with dark clothes under a nearby tree. A globe of water containing a small fish floated in front of him for half a second as he stared at her in surprise. She took a half step back and the globe burst, the fish falling back into the pond. Neither child spoke for a moment.
"What are you looking at?" The boy asked in a harsh, snotty voice.
"You're the boy who just moved in up the hill right?" Rose asked, ignoring his tone. His eyes narrowed.
"What's it to you?" He asked, his voice conveying his anger.
"I'm Rose," she said, taking a step closer. "What's your name?"
"Like I'd tell a stupid muggle like you," he said, spitting the word 'muggle' out like it was a spoiled food. She didn't know what it meant, but she had heard Petunia's friends use swear words before, so she figured it was another one of those.
"That thing you just did, with the water," she said, gesturing to the now smooth surface of the pond.
"What about it?" He asked, propping his hands on his hips like her mother did when she was angry.
"Well my sister can do that too," Rose said excitedly. "Not like that exactly, but one time she lifted up all the soil in mum's garden when she was mad without touching it. And sometimes she can make our toys move around too. I can't do it, but she says it's easy."
"Really?" He asked, dropping the rude act. "She's a witch?"
"That's a mean word," Rose said, her eyes narrowing at the boy.
"Who's your sister?" He asked, ignoring her.
"I'm not telling you," she said, crossing her arms.
"Fine I'll figure it out by myself," he said angrily, then turned and marched away from her. She watched him go for a minute, frowning after him, then turned to run back to her sisters.
"Are you sure it's okay that I come with you?" Rose asked, following Lily from their back yard into the park. The two girls had been allowed outside for the rest of the afternoon after showing their mother their completed homework.
"Of course it is," Lily said, pushing her hair over one shoulder. Lily had grown only a little in the last two years, and Rose, now nine years old, was the same height as her sister.
"But Severus threatened to push me into the pond if I came back," Rose said with a pout.
Despite her initial refusal to tell the strange boy who her sister was, he had figured it out anyway after less than a week. He was nice to Lily, after she showed him that she could make a flower blossom into a full bloom in her hand, but he was always rude to Rose when she came along, and he hated Petunia even though he had only met her a few times.
"That was days ago, he won't even remember," Lily said, brushing off her sisters worries.
Severus had grown to be a little less mean to Rose in the last two years that he had lived up the street from them. At first he had refused to talk to her at all, but then Lily finally got mad at him and told him that if he couldn't be nice to Rose then she would stop coming to play with him too. After than he had spoken to her on occasion, and at least not protested her presence when he and Lily talked about magical things.
"If he does push me in the water, I'm telling mum that you did it," she said, brushing a piece of blonde hair out of her blue eyes.
Their mother, after several refusals from Severus's parents for a dinner together, had forbade the girls from spending time near the house, or the boy. Lily and Rose, of course, had ignored this new rule, but they became more careful about where Petunia was when they went to the park. Sometimes Petunia wouldn't tell, but then sometimes she would threaten to tell on them if they didn't do things for her, like chores.
"Fine," Lily said, waving off the threat as she ducked between the hanging branches of a willow tree that grew on the edge of the pond.
This tree was the preferred hideout of the two girls, even when Severus couldn't join them, because it shielded them from view of the houses and, better yet, Petunia didn't know about it. The long leafy vines cut them off from the park, and the trees thick roots offered them many places to sit above the always moist ground below. The wide, sturdy branches allowed an easy climb up into the tree if they so wished.
"You brought the muggle again?" The snide voice greeted them from his place on the tree roots.
"Don't call her that," Lily said, her hands on her hips as she narrowed her green eyes at Severus, who just shrugged in return.
"It's fine, Lily," Rose said, climbing up onto her favorite branch of the tree. "I am a muggle, I don't mind."
"But you might not be," Lily said, relaxing a little as she picked her way over the roots to sit beside Severus. "You might have magic and it just hasn't shown yet."
"I think it would have by now if I had any," Rose said, leaning back against the trunk of the tree. "You could do it when you were eight."
"She's right," Severus said, picking a stone from a small pile of them he had gathered and holding it in a flat palm as he spoke. "Most magical children show signs of it early, around six."
"Well, maybe it's just late for her," Lily argued back.
Rose knew that Lily was disappointed that she couldn't do any magic. She didn't want to be the only one in the family to go off to the school Severus talked about. On one of their many late nights staying up talking about magic in their room, Lily had told Rose about how scared she was about her parents finding out, and about going away for most of the year for school. Rose wished she could go with her, she didn't want to be stuck with only Petunia in the house, but Rose had tried over and over to do the things Lily could, but none of them had worked. Severus also knew how scared Lily was about her parents finding out, and how much she wanted Rose to go along too, so he dropped the subject. Instead, he concentrated on the stone in his hand until it rose a few inches into the air and hung there. Lily picked up a stone as well, trying to copy him, but she was better with plants and some of the toys in the bedroom.
A stick cracking nearby broke Severus's concentration and the stone fell back into his palm as he looked around. Rose, who was closest to the sound was the first to see the dark haired Petunia making her way through the tree's thick branches.
"It's Tuney," Rose hissed to the others, and Severus and Lily immediately jumped up and disappeared through the branches on the other side of the tree. Moments later, Petunia was standing in front of Rose, hands on her hips as she peered around.
"Why are you down here? And where is Lily?" Petunia asked, her voice not as snobby as usual. She saved most of her dislike for Lily and Severus.
Rose knew that Petunia was jealous of the magic they had, though the girl had called them freaks when she found out. Rose had seen Petunia in the gardens many times, trying to copy Lily's magic until she was pouring sweat from the effort.
"She was on the swings a minute ago," Rose said, shrugging as she lied. "I got bored so I came down here to catch some frogs but I couldn't find any."
"Well she's not on the swings now," Petunia complained, frowning. "And you are supposed to stay with her, mum said."
"Sorry," Rose said, her voice making it plain that she wasn't sorry at all."She's probably off with that other freak, doing that freaky stuff," Petunia said, her voice growing snotty as she spoke. Rose just shrugged again, not saying anything. Petunia quickly grew bored of this and sighed. "Well if you see her, tell her mum's looking for her. She got a letter with the post."
"Sure," Rose said, not moving from her place in the tree as Petunia huffed, then stalked off back into the park."She's gone," Rose called after a few moments. The other two came back under the tree.
"I should go back to the house," Lily said, though she plopped back onto the tree roots with a sigh. "I never get post. It's probably important."
"It'll be your Hogwarts letter," Severus said smugly, smiling at her. "Mine came this morning by owl but I suppose they do it differently when you're muggle."
"Oh," Lily said, fighting between joy and worry for a moment. Joy won out in the end. "I'll go open it then. Will we see you tomorrow?"
"I expect so," he said, frowning. "Do you have to bring her?" He waved a hand at Rose and she felt a sudden force shove her off her branch. She fell to the ground with a huff, then got to her feet.
"You didn't have to use magic on me, I was going to go anyway," Rose said, wiping the dirt off her dress.
"I didn't do it on purpose," he argued back, then saw Lily's expression and put his hands up in front of him. "Honest, it was an accident."
"Then apologize," Lily said, hands on her hips.
"Don't make him do that," Rose said, chuckling as the usually rude boy coward under her sister's gaze. "It's so out of character for him I think his head would explode." Lily chuckled at that too, and the tension left them.
"See you tomorrow then," Lily said, turning to leave the cover of the tree. "Both of us will."
"Fine," Severus said, looking resigned, then he turned his back on them and left the opposite way they did.
Lily and Rose ran the distance back to the house. It was the middle of July, and it was sweltering hot out, but they both wore light cotton dresses, and Rose had her hair braided and pinned up to keep it off her neck, so she was cool enough. Lily refused to do anything more than brush out her long hair, and she would not sit still long enough for their mother to put it up, so by the time they got back to the house, her red hair was windblown and tangled.
Rose went with Lily to find their parents and open the letter because Lily begged her to, and sure enough, Severus was right.
The thick, slightly yellowed parchment, held a welcome letter and lists of books and things Lily would need for school, along with a short note saying that a professor would stop by the house that evening at six to explain more throughly.
Their parents thought at first that the letter was a joke, but Lily showed them how she could make the flowers bloom, and Rose and Petunia both said they had seen it before, though Petunia said so in a very snotty manner.
By the time six in the evening rolled around, Lily was excited, and their parents had accepted the fact that their child could do strange things.
Rose and Petunia were sent to their rooms when a knock on the door sounded right at six, and Petunia stomped up the stairs and slammed her door while Rose hid herself at the top of the stairs to listen.
The professor from the school was a tall old man with long, graying hair and an equally long, graying beard. He wore half moon shaped spectacles over sparkling blue eyes, and he was dressed very oddly in a long black cloak and matching pointed hat.
"Mr and Mrs. Evans, I presume?" He asked in a deep, very soothing voice. "My name is Albus Dumbledore, I'm the headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. May I come inside, I'm sure you have questions."
"Yes of course," Mrs. Evans said, her need to be polite overpowering any misgivings she'd had at the sight of the man. "Would you like some tea?"
"That would be lovely," he said, stepping into the house. The door closed behind him though no one had touched it. Lily grinned up the stairs when all three adults had their backs turned. She knew that Rose would be watching from around the corner. Rose grinned back.
The man spent nearly an hour answering questions for the couple and for Lily, after which he offered to take Lily and their parents shopping in Diagon Alley for her things the next day.
"Mum, can Rose come along too please?" Lily asked as the man stood to leave. Her parents, much to Lily's relief, had been excited for her instead of disgusted as Petunia had said they would be. Rose held her breath as she waited for her parents to answer.
"Well," her mother said slowly. "I suppose she will have to, if that's alright with you Mr. Dumbledore. I can't leave her here alone, and my husband will be working all day, so the girls will have to come along."
"Yes, yes, it's perfectly alright," Dumbledore said, and Rose grinned from her hiding place. She didn't like that Petunia would come along too, that would make the trip less fun, but it would be worth it to see a place like what Dumbledore had described to them.
"Thank you," Mrs. Evans said, walking with Dumbledore to the door. "We will see you tomorrow morning then."
"I look forward to it," the man said, then he left the house. Rose ran into her room to watch him leave, but she must have been too slow because by the time she got to her window, the street below was empty.
"Lily!" Rose called out through the crowded train platform as she spotted her sister bright red hair bouncing between the other muggles as she pushed her trolley. Rose jumped up and down, waving her arms over her head though she knew Lily had already seen her.
Rose was taller than her sister already, something she pointed out every Christmas and summer break. Her twelfth birthday had just passed a few weeks before, and she was pleased to see that Lily, at thirteen, was still shorter than her.
"Rose!" Lily shouted from ten feet away, drawing the gazes of several muggles to her.
Ever since the first time Rose and her mother had gone to King Cross to pick Lily up for the holidays, it had become a tradition for the two of them to greet each other loudly in an overly excited manner. Their mother let them make a scene only because she herself was also excited to see her middle child, and because she knew it hurt Lily's feelings that Petunia refused to go anywhere near the station because, as she said, it was 'full of freaks'. Lily released her trolley and jumped into Rose's open arms, vigorously hugging her sister.
Rose pretended to weep loudly in an over dramatic way, relishing the glances of passerby's. Their mother had stopped the still moving trolley with Lily's trunk on it, waiting for the two girls to pull apart with a smile on her face, then she too swept in and hugged Lily before leading the two girls out to her car. It took all three of them to lift the heavy trunk into the boot of the car.
"See you next term Evans," a boys pompous voice rang out from several car lengths away.
Rose and Lily turned to look as their mother had already gotten into the car.
The boy who had shouted had dark, messy hair and round glasses over his slightly tanned face. He grinned at Lily and gave a half wave, half salute, then turned and sauntered back to one of his friends, another boy with black hair.
Lily rolled her eyes and pulled Rose into the car.
"Who was that?" Rose whispered as their mother, in the front seat, turned on the radio.
"James Potter," Lily said, rolling her eyes. "He's a git."
"He's the one that put frog spawn in your book bag, isn't he?" Rose asked.
Lily had sent almost weekly letters to her sister throughout the last three years at school, and Rose felt as though she knew some of her sisters classmates as well as Lily herself did from her descriptions of them.
"Yes," Lily said, sniffing as she frowned. "He's so arrogant, always playing with that stupid snitch."
Rose understood what she was talking about only because Lily had left all her previous years school books in her old bedroom and Rose had read through all of them out of interest, memorizing everything. Rose treated the school books as another world almost, a fantasy world where she could escape to every time Petunia was being snotty or she had no where else to go.
During her time back, Lily and Rose would talk about all the spells Lily had learned that year, though Lily wasn't allowed to use magic outside of school. Petunia didn't ever want to hear anything about any of it.
The two girls had found out that Petunia had written to the headmaster, only days after his visit to the house. She had stolen Lily's new owl to do it, and had begged the man to let her into the school as well. He had written back that she could not attend as she did not have any magic, and Lily and Rose had found the letter in her room on one of their snooping trips. Neither girl had told Petunia that they had read it, but it was something they snickered about in private.
Lily had given up her hoping that Rose would also receive a letter last summer, when Rose's eleventh birthday came and passed without a single owl, but the girls stayed close even while Lily was away.
"How's Sev?" Rose asked, changing the subject.
The dark haired boy had warmed up to Rose only enough to be civil most of the time now. They had even hung out under the tree a couple times alone when Lily wasn't allowed out of the house during some summer days. They didn't speak, but both would sit on the tree roots and branches, sometimes silently daring each other to climb higher, sometimes just sitting in silence. Rose would often bring a book with her, and Severus would usually spend the time staring up at the clouds that were barely visible through the thick leafy branches.
"He's okay," Lily said quietly, glancing up at their mother. They still weren't technically allowed to see the strange boy who lived up the hill, but their mother was more lenient about who they spent time with now that both of them were almost teen aged. "He doesn't really talk to me much at school anymore. At least, not in front of his friends."
"Why not?" Rose asked, shocked. She had always thought that Severus had a crush on her sister.
"Well, he's in Slytherin, and I'm in Gryffindor, and our houses don't really get on," Lily said, shrugging. Rose could tell that her sister was upset about tit but she was playing it off. "And his new friends don't like muggles, or muggle-borns."
"That's stupid," Rose said, rolling her eyes. "Why does it matter who you're friends with?"
"Well, there's this wizard, he used dark magics and thinks that only pure blood witches and wizards should be allowed to use magic," Lily began, her voice low as both girls leaned in. "He's evil, and he has a lot of followers, and most of the followers were also in Slytherin house."
"Does he kill people?" Rose asked, her eyes wide and her voice equally low.
"They think so, but it's hard to know for sure because no one wants to make him mad by accusing him of it," Lily explained. "But everyone says he does."
"Does Severus follow him too?" Rose asked, frowning in concern for her sister.
"No," Lily said, brushing off the question as she straightened in her seat. "He's much too young." Her voice shook as she spoke though, and Rose understood that Lily was afraid her friend would become a follower.
"Oh, we got a dog while you were away," Rose said, changing the subject again. "His name's Philip, after the Duke of Edinburgh. Petunia named him," Rose added with an eye roll.
"What kind is he?" Lily asked excitedly. The girls had been begging their parents for a dog for years, even Petunia wanted to have one, and they had finally relented on Rose's birthday a couple weeks previously, though they specified that he was to be a family dog, not just Rose's.
"He's a black lab," Rose said, grinning. "He's still a puppy though, so he's quite small."
She didn't mention that the puppy liked to sleep on her bed the most, or how Petunia had decided, within a week of getting the dog, that she no longer wanted it because it was too messy. Rose was the one who took him to the park and walked him and fed him and cleaned up after him.
The remainder of the car ride passed quickly with Rose telling stories of what the puppy had gotten up to recently, and Lily telling stories about her time at school.
"I can't believe you are starting finishing school tomorrow," Lily said, watching Rose from across the room as she brushed out her long blonde hair and began to braid it.
Rose had protested when her mother first brought up the finishing school. She didn't want to go to the same place Petunia went, even though the older girl was already finished with school. Girls at St. Magnus's Finishing School were expected to be quiet and proper and well behaved. Rose didn't want to be any of those things, especially since Petunia had taken to giving her pointers on how to behave, continually pointing out all the things Rose did that were 'unladylike'.
Unfortunately, at fifteen, Rose didn't really have much of a choice on where to go. She could either finish secondary school this year and stay at home, or continue on to finishing school.
Petunia was engaged to be married now, but not until the next year, and Rose had decided that going away for school would be much better than sitting at home listening to Petunia go over wedding plans.
"You're one to talk," Rose said, smiling at her sisters reflection in the mirror she sat in front of. She tied off her braid and coiled it at the back of her head and began to pin it up neatly. "Tomorrow you're leaving too. It's your last year, are you excited?"
"Very," Lily said, smiling as she leaned against the wall across from the vanity to watch Rose. "Professor Slughorn thinks I have a real knack for potions. He said that he could pull some strings and get me a summer internship at St. Mungos, and then if they like me I could train to become a healer."
"Summer internship?" Rose asked, her voice carefully even, not betraying any of her emotions, but Lily could see through that.
"Oh Rose," she said, sighing as the blonde girl began to put on a light layer of makeup over her eyelids. "You know we can't live together forever. When I'm done with school I'll get a proper job and move into the wizarding world somewhere."
"I know," Rose said, looking down for a moment, then she sighed and went back to her makeup. "I just hoped you wouldn't want to move out till after I was done with school."
"I know," Lily said, moving behind her sister to tuck in a stray hair. "But you're the youngest, and mum needs you. You know how lonely she'll be when Tuney gets married and leaves, now that dad is gone."
Their father had passed away the previous summer, from a heart attack. It had been very sudden, but the doctor said that it was bound to happen sooner or later because the valves in his heart were weak. Lily had almost stayed home from school that year, but Rose, and their mother, had insisted they would be okay. Petunia had disagreed, loudly, which had resulted in a row between Lily and Petunia that Rose had feared would keep Lily away this summer as well."I'll miss you," Rose said, setting down the powder she had been brushing over her cheeks.
"I'll always be an owl away," Lily said, patting the top of Rose's head.
"You'll come back and visit though right?" Rose asked, her voice wavering a little.
"Of course I will," Lily said, grinning. "So often you'll get sick of me."
"That will take a while," Rose said, chuckling. The door burst open then, flinging against the wall with a bang, and Lily was almost knocked to the floor by the large black lab that ran into the room, tail wagging furiously as he licked Rose's face. The girls both laughed and Rose pushed the dog off her lap back to the floor.
"Girls!" Their mother called from below. "Tea is ready."
"Be right down, Mum," Lily called, laughing as Rose pushed the dog off her lap for a second time and made to stand.
"Come on Philip," Lily called to the dog, who followed the two girls out into the hallway. "After tea we can go to the park."