I was sitting at Aunt Hermione's house watching her muggle television. James, Roxy, and a few of the others all had their eyes glued to it as though it were a gift sent from Merlin himself. I think the show was called Modern Family.

One of the daughters was writing her essay for college, and the question was "What is the greatest obstacle you have overcome?"

I sat quietly in the background, contently listening to the chatter of my extended family.

What was the greatest obstacle I've ever overcome? I don't think a physical strain would really let me answer this truthfully to myself.

Ah, myself. But who am I? My mum and dad decided to name me Lily, my friends call me Lils, but who am I really?

What am I for? What am I against? What do I dream about? Who do I turn to? Where do I go to escape...

I truly have a wonderful life, it would seem. I have a big, supportive family and nearly everything I might need to live comfortably. But I'm not sure what my purpose here is supposed to be.

The world tells you to be this and that but you absolutely cannot do these things, I find it all to be rather confusing.

I just don't know my identity.

But as I reflect on this, trying to think of something to answer myself, to further understand myself, I can't think of a single thing.

And so it goes for the next few weeks. I would get up, dress myself in a different sort of style each day, and walk around muggle London. I find muggle London to be so fascinating with all the different people, doing all sorts of things. I don't feel as the wizard world is exposed to nearly as much culture, at least not here in England.

I thought, considering the many different ways of life that come to the surface by just taking a moment to look around, that I might find myself. I might find where I belong and how to get there.

For nearly a month of my summer holidays, I barely saw any of my family. I had just a few relatively close friends, but I wasn't particularly social, at least not compared to the rest of my cousins. This meant that we might visit for a day or two a few times during the holidays, and wait until we were back at school to really hang about together.

So if any of my friends sent a letter, which they did a few times, I responded with a nice reply, but it was not very long. Just a quick reply to any questions, a short hullo to their family, and my lovely tawny owl Paris was off to deliver.

One day, in early July, I was sitting on a park bench just listening, looking, and allowing my mind to wander a bit. Abruptly, I came to a realization. Completely out of the blue, I had found the answer to the question I'd been pondering day and night.

My answer was that I had no answer.

And I was entirely fine with that answer.

I had been people watching for ages, wearing tons of different styles of clothes, trying new makeup and hair style techniques, and I found that it taught me absolutely nothing.

People of all ages everywhere are out in the world, looking and wondering the exact same thing I am. We don't have an answer, but we have the rest of our lives to figure it out as we go along.

Content with my epiphany, I decided to head back home and get some lunch at a café on the way.

Once up in my room with my mocha and biscuits, I found that Paris had come back with letters from a few of my closer friends. Looking at the letters, they updated me on the latest in their lives and asked me what was new. They didn't need to know about my realization though, that would be my little secret. After all, it's not really a secret once you tell someone. Smiling, really smiling, for the first time in weeks, I wrote them all back with decent sized letters again.

It's good to feel like me again. Whoever that is.

So what did you think? Origianlly this was posted on DA (deviantart), and then HPFF (HarryPotterFanFiction) a couple years back, so why not let it join my group! Reviews would be much appreciated! :D