Disclaimer: I know nothing… it's all the lovely lady Rowling's
In a meadow in the English countryside, a woman and her four-year-old daughter were playing hide and seek. The mother pushed her hair out of her eyes and looked wildly around for her little girl.
"Lily, darling, I'm going to find you!" When her daughter didn't reappear, she grew slightly worried. "Lily, love?"
She heard a giggle from a patch of wildflowers a few yards behind her and turned around, relieved. "Dearest, don't worry Mummy like that!"
Lily blew a raspberry at her mother and turned to run again. She spotted a butterfly making its lazy way from flower to flower and squealed. "Mummy, Mummy, look!"
"Yes, that's a flutterby, dear... I mean, no, it's a flutterfly... Goodness, a butterfly!" Lily's mother said, exasperated. She sat down on a patch of grass and watched her daughter chase the butterfly around, yelling happily.
A few minutes later, Lily ran back to her mother. "Mummy, the flutterby won't play with me!" She pouted.
"Butterflies don't like being caught, Lily," her mother said, pulling the girl into her lap. "It's part of their magic."
"I want it to play with me!" Lily's face was growing more and more red as she watched the butterfly fly away from her.
Lily's mother sighed.
"I -" Lily banged her fist on her mother's knee "want -" She kicked her feet hard on the ground "that flutterby to play with me!"
At these words, the butterfly halted in midair and zoomed straight into Lily's outstretched hand. The girl chuckled and began to pull on the butterfly's antennae.
Her mother gaped at her. "You - that - what?"
Lily gave her mother a smug smile. "See, Mummy?" She giggled. "The flutterby used magic to get away from me, so I used magic to get it back!"
Her mother frowned, puzzled. "Darling, let's get back to the house... I'm sure your little friend Jane must have arrived for that playdate by now." She said, standing up and pulling her daughter with her.
"But Mummy - " Lily whined.
"We mustn't keep them waiting, dear, so come along."
But Lily's strange talents kept cropping up. When she was seven, she got into a fight at school. She brought home a report from the teacher saying she had broken the other boy's arm and sustained a black eye herself.
"Lily Ella Evans, what were you doing getting into a fight in school?" Her mother scolded that night.
"Well done, my girl, well done!" Her father said, patting her on the back. "A good healthy fight never hurt anyone! At least you got him good before he could do too much - "
"Henry!" Her mother snapped. "Don't encourage her!"
"All right, Mary darling, all right. Where is this report, by the way? I want to see exactly how my Lily bloodied up that boy." Mr. Evans winked at his daughter.
"Oh, you... it's on the sitting room table, but don't go get it, we're about to eat supper." Mrs. Evans put a kettle on the stove to boil. "It just said a load of bullocks about how Lily broke the boy's arm and we have to pay fifty pounds for the cast, but he blacked Lily's eye, so - " She shrieked. "Lily! Your eye!
Both Lily and her father looked alarmed.
"What about my eye, Mum?" Lily asked.
"It's... it's... not black!"
"No, they're a wonderful shade of green, which I take credit for!" Mr. Evans said, beaming proudly at Lily.
"No, dear, what I meant was - darling, what happened to your injury?"
Lily shrugged. "Oh, that. I was in the loo before art class today. I was looking in the mirror and I was really upset about the stupid black eye because it made me look ugly and my friend Eliza was trying to make me feel better and then poof!"
"Poof?" Mr. and Mrs. Evans asked together, confused.
"There was a strange noise, yes, like a poof, and the black eye just disappeared!" Lily began to set the table. "I was really surprised, but Eliza wasn't."
"It just disappeared?" Mrs. Evans looked as if she was about to have a fit.
"Yes, Mum," Lily told her calmly, "but don't worry, Eliza says things like that happen all the time."
Suspicious things like the butterfly and black eye incidents began to happen more often to Lily Evans. When she was eight and a half, her older sister Petunia came back from boarding school. It was a very expensive and prestigious all-girls school, and Petunia had gotten in because the Evanses were one of the richest and best-known families in their part of England. This had caused Petunia to develop a rather big head, and at times she was quite unbearable.
"Did I tell you that we have outings with the boys from St. Watford's every other week?" She told Lily excitedly one night as they were getting ready for bed. "There's this one boy named William Sparrow, and he's the dearest thing! I dropped my bag in the mud one day, and he just - oh, Lily, I simply must tell you about the dormitories! See, they - "
"Time for bed, girls," called their mother from downstairs, and Petunia reluctantly bade her sister goodnight and went to her own bedroom.
A few minutes later she was back with tales of her mathematics class. "My teacher even lets us go up to the board in class to write down the problems ourselves! Why, just last week when I got a problem right, she gave me a sweet from the jar on her desk! Isn't that just - "
"Petunia, just go to bed." Lily said, glaring at her sister. "I'm tired and I don't particularly like hearing about your fabulous bloody school when I have to go to primary school right here in town!"
Petunia gasped. "Lily, don't say that word!"
"I'll say the bloody word if I want to say the bloody word! Bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody!" Lily shouted.
Suddenly Petunia shrieked and covered her face. Blood had begun spurting out of her nose and staining her pretty blue nightdress.
Later that night, when Petunia was blood-free and safely in bed, Lily sat in her desk chair thinking. When I said bloody, her nose started to bleed. That doesn't normally happen, I don't think. She took a sip of water. Maybe I'll ask that girl Eliza Becketts in my drawing class about it. She always has an answer for weird things.
As their daughter grew up, Mr. and Mrs. Evans got used to the strange things that happened around Lily. They came to believe that Lily would always be slightly different from all the other children. Lily herself expected the weird things to happen and was disappointed whenever they didn't. Their lives went on - Petunia came back from boarding school and was immediately sent to finishing school by Lily's condescending maternal grandmother, Lily continued with her drawing classes and placed first in her school in their annual art competition, and she began listening to the Beatles (much to the dismay of the grandmother).
One day in the middle of the summer, Lily was sitting high in the branches of the oldest oak tree on their property. The sweltering August heat, normally bearable, had been driving her around the twist. The dense leaves shaded her from the sun, enabling her to read her new book in peace.
She immersed herself in the pages of One Hundred Medieval Painters and Their Inspirations for a few minutes when a wind ruffled the pages and made her lose her place. She looked up, annoyed. Just the wind, then, Lily, she thought, and began reading again. A few minutes later the same thing happened, but this time she lost her hold on the book and it thumped from branch to branch until she heard it hit the grass below.
"Oh, bugger," Lily muttered. There was no use staying in the tree if she had no book to read. She climbed carefully to the lowest branch and took a large jump onto the lawn.
She stopped dead. Standing before her was an old man, who was holding in one hand the book she had dropped.
"E-Excuse me, sir, but may I have my book back?" She stammered.
The old man smiled and his blue eyes twinkled merrily at her. "Certainly, Lily." He held it out.
Lily gaped at him like a fish. "Er, how do you - "
"Know your name?" The old man was wearing a rather funny assortment of clothes. He was wearing a suit and tie, both in violent shades of orange, and a black bowler hat. He noticed her looking at his clothes and said, "So sorry about the apparel, my dear - I have just come from a Cannons match."
"I beg your pardon?" Lily had never heard of a sports team called the Cannons.
The man sighed. "Shall we go in to see your parents? I'm afraid I have some rather shocking news for you all."
"Er... yes, of course. Right this way, through the back door. Myrtle's cleaning the floors at the moment and I 'spect she won't appreciate it if we dirty them right away."
"I quite understand," said the old man solemnly.
Lily led the man through the door into the sitting room where her parents were sitting listening to a record.
When they walked in, Mrs. Evans quickly shut off the record player. "Lily, darling, what - oh, hello, sir. Er..." She took in her guest's eccentric appearance. "I'll, er, put the kettle on for tea, then? Earl Grey, Mister-?"
"Dumbledore. Albus Dumbledore. And yes, please," the old man said, smiling at her. He settled himself in a chintz armchair next to Mr. Evans, who was looking quite astonished as Dumbledore began to examine his record player.
"Excuse me, I've never quite understood how these work, could you - ?" Dumbledore smiled politely at Mr. Evans, who jumped in surprise.
"Oh, yes, it's all quite simple, really. You see, there's a needle here..."
A few minutes later, Lily's mother came back in with a pot of tea and some biscuits. She set them on the low table and looked at Dumbledore. "Now, Mr. Dumbdoor - that is your name, isn't it?"
"Dumbledore, my dear madam," said the old man pleasantly.
"Oh!" Mrs. Evans blushed as she handed him a cup of tea. "Yes. I'm so sorry. Well, er... would you mind me asking -"
"Why I am here?"
She turned, if possible, even more red. "Erm. Yes, that was what I was going to -"
"May I, Mr. and Mrs. Evans, ask you a question?" Dumbledore took a sip of his tea.
Lily grinned. "You just asked them a question!"
"Lily, be polite!" Her mother admonished her, giving an apologetic look to Dumbledore. "Yes, of course, Mr. Dumbledore."
"Please, call me Albus. Now - have you ever noticed anything... strange happen around your daughter?" Dumbledore asked them, reaching for a biscuit.
Mrs. Evans looked shocked. She opened and closed her mouth, utterly speechless, until her husband said impatiently, "Well, Mary, tell the man! Of course strange things happen around Lily, they always have!"
She glared at him. "Shut up, Henry." She covered her mouth and glanced at Dumbledore when she realized what she'd said. "Oh, my, I beg your pardon."
"Everyone feels the need to say that from time to time. Why, I was just thinking that to myself the other day." Dumbledore winked at Mrs. Evans before continuing. "I am here - that is to say, I was sent - to tell you why these strange things happen."
Mrs. Evans looked as if she wasn't entirely comfortable receiving this information from a man in a bright orange suit, whose sanity she clearly doubted.
"Well, Dumbydlore, get on with it!" Mr. Evans leaned forward in his seat excitedly.
"Your daughter is a witch."
If the Evanses had been expecting anything, it wasn't that. Mrs. Evans shrieked and dropped her teacup, Mr. Evans jumped back, and Lily just sat there with her mouth open.
"E-Excuse me, but... what did you just call my daughter?" Mrs. Evans asked very faintly.
"A witch."
These words resulted in the same reaction as before. After a moment, Lily said, "Please, sir, but I don't believe witches exist."
"There is no reason why you should – yet." Dumbledore's eyes twinkled at her. "But perhaps a demonstration...?"
"You mean... you're a witch?" Lily asked, astounded.
"A wizard, my dear child, a wizard." He rolled up his sleeves, pulled a long stick of wood out of his pocket, and promptly set Mrs. Evans's sitting room curtains aflame.
Lily's mother leapt up, exclaiming in surprise and anger, but gasped a moment later when the flames suddenly went out and the curtains were left undamaged and as pristine as ever.
"W-what... I mean... oh!"
Mr. Evans, who had been watching the whole thing with a rather interested look on his face, broke in. "Well, Mr. Dumblydroo, I think I see what's going on."
"Oh yes, sir, and what is that?"
"That's some type of... firearm, if you will, that bit of wood!" Mr. Evans pointed at the long, thin piece of wood sticking out of Dumbledore's suit pocket. "Thought you'd have a bit of a laugh, eh?"
"No, no, my dear man," said Dumbledore, chuckling, "for if it were a firearm, how would the curtains be returned to their previous immaculate state?"
Mr. Evans bit his lip. "I say, you've got me stumped."
"If I may return to what I was saying?" Dumbledore beckoned to Lily and she came to stand next to his armchair. "Have you ever made anything happen? Anything... abnormal? When you were feeling particularly cross or upset?"
Lily looked, eyes wide, from her mother to her father and back again. "Why... yes. Yes, sir."
Dumbledore tapped her on the nose with his stick of wood. "That, my dear, is the mark of a true witch." Her nose began to grow at an alarming rate. When it had reached the wall, it shrank quickly back to its normal size.
She burst out in laughter. "Mum, Dad, did you see that? Mr. Dumbledore, can I do that? And where can I get one of those? That's a wand, isn't it?"
"Yes, darling, we saw," said Mrs. Evans disbelievingly, clutching her husband's shoulder tightly.
"My dear, you could do that with practice." Dumbledore pocketed his wand. "Which leads me to my next question. Lily, you have always wanted to go to boarding school, yes?"
Lily's eyes shone. "Oh, yes! Petunia's gone since she was my age and I've never been allowed!"
"I thought as much," remarked Dumbledore. "Mr. and Mrs. Evans, I am the Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry."
Looking at him incredulously, Lily giggled. "Hogwarts? What a funny name, I think!" Her mouth dropped open. "Are you... are you saying I can go to that school? Hogwarts?"
"Mrs. Evans, is this moving too quickly for you?" Dumbledore said kindly. When she nodded, he pulled a small bottle from his suit pocket and handed it to her. "This is a Calming Draught. I always bring it along when I go to tell Muggles their child is accepted at Hogwarts. Don't worry," he added, misinterpreting the confused look on Mr. Evans's face, "it is perfectly safe, I assure you."
"No," Mr. Evans said, "it's just... did you say Muggles?"
"Muggles are non-magic peoples," said Dumbledore matter-of-factly. "At Hogwarts, Lily will be known as a Muggle-born, which is a witch or wizard with non-magic parents. That is, if you allow her to go."
"Oh, Mum, Dad, please?" Lily was looking desperately at her mother. "It sounds absolutely perfect!"
Mrs. Evans had been very quiet since she had taken the Calming Draught. Now she spoke, and she sounded much less distressed than she had. "I think... I think Lily should go," she said, smiling at her daughter. "It does sound rather lovely to have a witch in the family. Are there spells to... well, help around the house?"
Dumbledore pulled his wand out of his pocket and pointed it at Mrs. Evans's smashed teacup. "Reparo!" he exclaimed, and the pieces flew back together until the cup was standing on its saucer, good as new.
"I say!" remarked Mr. Evans. "That is extraordinary! Lily, darling, full speed ahead, I think! This school sounds fantastic! But Dumblydoe, are there regular classes? Maths, languages and all that?"
"There is an Arithmancy class, which I suppose is as close to mathematics as can be, and our Ancient Runes class teaches students the art of deciphering ancient figures." Dumbledore refilled his teacup. "However, these classes are not available until students enter third year," he added.
"Third year?" Mrs. Evans asked. "How many years are there?"
"Wizarding youths come of age when they are seventeen. Lily is eleven and would be a first year at Hogwarts; when she is twelve she will be a second year; and so on." Dumbledore said. "There are seven years of study at Hogwarts.
"Now if you'll excuse me – when I left the Cannons game, they were losing 150 to 60. The Wimbourne Chasers really are something marvelous! I must be getting back. Ah, those Cannons," he sighed, "we must just cross our fingers and hope for the best!" He turned to the Evanses, who were all looking rather puzzled again. "Quidditch, of course. I will owl you about Hogwarts, my dear," he told Lily, and with a loud crack! he was gone.
No one spoke for a minute. Then Lily said, "Mum?"
"Yes, darling?"
"I'm afraid I have no idea what he just said."
Well, that's it then, innit? Just click the little periwinkle blue button down and a bit to the left…
