Strange boy looked in my direction. I smiled, awkwardly. He shrugged in return.

I looked at this solitary boy, I mean, really looked. I could see he was oddly out of place for his age, for this time period. The boy was all angles, bones jutting out in all directions. He had an un-cared for look about him. I could see why others had thought this boy strange. Concealing half of his face was strikingly dark unbrushed hair, tangles quite visible, and I hardly doubted he had lice. A long, crooked nose jutted out of his black tangles, but the thing that most unsettled me about this boy was the look of pain in his eyes. The effect worsened by dark bags under his eyes, so very rare to see on a boy of just nine or ten years old.

I moved my eyes, momentarily from this bizarre stranger, and my eyes wandered back to where he had stood. He was gone. It was strange how his absence had affected me quite so completely. I bit my lip and wondered if I would ever see my lonely boy again.

The next day, it was warm, so my sister, petunia and I went to the park. I walked over to the set of swings, and sat on one. 'Come on' I urged my sister. I just wanted to play. After about two minutes of swinging I became bored and sat down on the grass instead and began making a daisy chain. I picked up a daisy and the petals began opening and closing on my palm. I became scared, so I showed petunia. 'Freak.' She called when she saw what I was doing 'I'm going to tell mummy, you're a freak, Lily'

A familiar figure stepped out from behind the tree, and gave me a smile. My sister ran off. I wondered if that was the effect he had on people. He picked up one of those weird plant things that looked like wings and made it fly through the air. Actually fly. His face was expressionless; like he was doing something so ordinary it was almost boring to him. I caught the flying plant in my hands. And smiled back. His eyes warmed up, suddenly, the strange, lonely boy looked friendlier.

We went to sit by the river, in the shade away from the burning sunlight. 'I'm Severus' the boy told me, taking off his coat, and placing it so that we could sit on it. 'I'm lily' I replied plainly.

'And I'm a wizard' he said, impressively 'and you're a witch. I've been watching you, you have loads of magic.'
'It's real, isn't it?' I asked, disbelieving, almost inquisitively. 'It's real for us, but not her. His tone of voice changed on the last word, disapproving. 'She's my sister.' It told him, meaning 'play nice' I continued 'I don't know why she's so mean to me. She keeps calling me names.' The word echoed around my head. 'Freak!' her voice taunting me 'who'd want to have a freak for a sister?'

'She's just jealous.' Severus interrupted ' She's ordinary and you're special.'

'That's mean, Severus.' I scolded, but not too harshly. From what I could see, it seemed true.

Severus spent the next half an hour teaching me about the magic school, Hogwarts, and magic prison, if you use your magic outside of school. Then he started explaining muggles.

'Does it make any difference?' I queried, worried. 'Being muggle born?' I looked over at Severus; he had a distinct air of confidence about him that I'd just begin to understand.

'No.' he reassured me 'It doesn't make any difference.'

We were alone in the park, so Severus magically made the blossoms from the tree fly across the water. It was beautiful. I grabbed Severus's hand from next to mine, and he gripped mine back, and smiled.

And I was almost positive that I had fallen in love with my strange, lonely, mysterious stranger named Severus Snape