Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter.
Author's Note: This is going to be a collection of oneshots focusing on the life of Lily Luna Potter. They will all be connected and they will be in order, but this isn't a typical multi-chapter fic. Written for Long Jump in the 2012 Hogwarts Games on the HPFC forum.
Lily Luna Potter didn't have a whole lot of secrets. After all, in such a big family, it was difficult to keep things private from everyone else. But she had one major secret that she didn't dare tell anybody. She didn't want anybody to know this secret, this desire that she kept hidden from everybody. She hid it from her parents, her brothers, her cousins, her aunts, her uncles, and her grandparents. Nobody knew.
Nobody knew that Lily wanted to be in Slytherin.
She figured that she'd get in. She was sneaky, cunning, ambitious, and proud, and her blood was pure enough to allow entry. She knew these things about herself, and she knew that those were Slytherin traits. But it wasn't just that she wanted to be in Slytherin because she thought it was the house that best fit her personality.
No, she wanted to shock everyone. She wanted to see her family's reactions. Sure, her father tried to tell the others that Slytherin wasn't so bad - after all, Snape had been on their side all along, and he was a Slytherin. After all, Slughorn had fought in the Final Battle on their side, and he was a Slytherin. But not too many members of the family, except for perhaps Aunt Hermione and Aunt Fleur (the latter, who hadn't been taught at Hogwarts, had no House prejudices to begin with) really paid attention to what he said.
Lily wanted to keep this secret until her Sorting. No one would know. She would play down her Slytherin traits until that point, make everyone believe that she would of course be in one of the 'acceptable' Houses. Even that act alone was so Slytherin - she was being sly enough to conceal what she was truly like and where she wanted to be placed.
It would be an act of beautiful defiance, when the Sorting Hat called out "Slytherin!" and she happily went over to the house of serpents. She could picture James, Roxanne, and Fred practically starting a riot.
She eagerly anticipated the day that she would finally reveal her Slytherin nature. It was a secret for now. But eventually, it wouldn't be.