A/N: Hello, all! And welcome to Lily's Story, the newest companion to my ongoing James Potter series. Unlike the other companions (Moony's, Padfoot's, and Wormtail's Stories), this collection can be read more or less on its own for the time being. Eventually, you will want to have read the main story, but for now you can get by without doing so, as Lily avoids James Potter, as a rule, for the first several years of their Hogwarts career.

Takes place during/immediately after chapter 2 of James Potter and the Immortal Icon.

Unfamiliar Territory

"Are you really a talking hat? I mean, that song you sang, it wasn't some sort of a trick, was it? It's not like someone used a spell so it just looked like you could sing when it was really someone else? And can you really read my mind? Goodness— can all hats read minds in the wizarding world? Is—?"

"Yes, no, no, in a sense, and no. But enough questions! I'm trying to Sort you here."

"Oh, I'm sorry… Er, what exactly happens now?"

"Now, Miss Evans, we find out where you belong."

"Oh, alright. But, um… Mr. Sorting Hat, sir?"

"You know, if you keep asking questions, you're going to be a Hatstall, and I haven't had one of those in thirty years! Let's not break that streak today, eh?"

"A Hatstall? What's—? Oh, drat. I'm sorry. There I go asking questions again!"

"That's not necessarily a bad thing. With that curiosity of yours, my dear, you'd do very well in Ravenclaw."

"You think so? No, wait. I wanted to ask… That is, I was wondering whether you could… Well…"

"Put you in Slytherin? Hm, I was afraid you were going to ask that."

"So you can read my mind! But… you don't mean to say that I can't be in Slytherin?"

"That's precisely what I mean to say. You haven't the guile to be in that House. Haven't you heard the stories about the Slytherins?"

"You mean that they're all evil little berks? That can't be true."

"Can't it? Awfully loyal to your friend, aren't you…?"

"It's not just about Sev, though. I mean, it's true that he's not a bad person even though he wants to be in Slytherin, but I'm sure the rest of them aren't all bad, either. That's ridiculous! All of them? Just because they were Sorted into the wrong house? That's like saying… like saying…"

"Like saying that all young witches and wizards are freaks, just because they can do magic?"

"…Well, yes… Although you don't have to be so cruel about it."

"It's all there in your head, my dear. The things your sister said to you—"

"I don't want to talk about her."

"And that, I'm afraid, is why you'd never make it in Slytherin. They may not all be bad, but there are those who would look down on you for being a muggle-born, as your sister looks down on you for being a witch. Muggle-born Slytherins are a rare breed, and I'm afraid they often have a rough time of it."

"I… I don't care. They can call me whatever names they like."

"Hm… Now there's a thought…"

"What?"

"Courage, Miss Evans. I see you've got quite a lot of it. Courage to be yourself, to – if I may borrow the muggle saying – to stick to your guns, never mind what others think."

"…What are you saying?"

"Whichever House I place you in, Miss Evans, you will face adversity. In Slytherin for your parentage; in the others for your choice in friends. If I may be frank, you are too honest and pure for Slytherin, and though your loyalty is admirable, you aspire to grander things than you would find in Hufflepuff. You have the makings of a spectacular Ravenclaw, but I don't believe Ravenclaw would truly help you achieve your highest potential."

"But that only leaves…"

"Yes, indeed. With a stubborn heart like yours, my decision will be of little consequence in the short run, but I've got to think about your future, as well. And believe me when I say that one day, Lily Evans, you will thank me for putting you in… GRYFFINDOR!"

-.-.-

Gryffindor.

Lily scowled as she took a seat at her table; as the snobbish boy from the train, Sirius Black, pretended to sick up into his goblet; as Black's friend, James Potter, snickered from the front of the Hall, where he still awaited his turn under the Hat. Surely she couldn't really be a Gryffindor. Not if Black and Potter were to be her housemates. They were such pillocks! Lily didn't think she would be able to stomach seven years in the same house as those two; not if they proved to be as irritating as they'd seemed on the train.

She ought to have taken Ravenclaw when the Sorting Hat suggested it.

Propping her cheek on her hand, Lily stared down at the gold place setting before her, ignoring the rest of the Sorting Ceremony.

"So, Housemates, eh?"

Lily looked up, startled, at the rosy-cheeked brunette who had, evidently, just been Sorted. The girl straddled the bench beside Lily, studying her with cheery brown eyes as Jessica Jamison joined the Hufflepuffs.

"Er," said Lily dumbly. "Yes, I… I suppose."

"Alice," the girl said, extending one calloused hand for Lily to shake. "Alice Howard… It's Lily, right?"

Smiling faintly, Lily shook Alice's hand and nodded.

"Everything alright?"

"Fine," said Lily. "I just… thought I'd be in a different House is all."

Alice gave her a sympathetic smile. "Oh? Where were you hoping to be?"

For a moment, Lily hesitated, remembering Potter's reaction on the train, when Severus had mentioned Slytherin. Would Alice be the same? Lily decided she didn't care. "Slytherin."

A slight widening of her eyes was the only sign Alice gave that this declaration had startled her. Her gaze drifted up the table to where Black sat, making faces at Potter and surreptitiously flashing rude gestures toward the Slytherin table. Prat, Lily thought venomously, glaring at Black, who remained oblivious of her irritation.

"Is it a family thing?" Alice asked neutrally. "You know, like with Sirius?"

"Ugh! Don't compare me to that git." Lily paused, then shook her head. "And anyway, I'm a muggleborn."

Confusion flitted across Alice's face. "Wait, so how'd you know what House you wanted?"

"Sev told me."

"Sev?"

Lily's eyes drifted up to the dwindling line of students at the front of the room. Professor McGonagall had just called for Tracy Lewis, a pretty blonde girl with a slightly vapid smile and a pair of spectacles perched on her button nose. Severus stood hunched near the far end of the line, frowning deeply and doggedly avoiding Lily's gaze.

With a pained smile, Lily turned her attention back to her cutlery. "Severus was the one who told me I was a witch," she said fondly. "He lives just down the street from me, and he saw me doing magic one day. He's told me all about Slytherin— that's where his mum was, and he said that it's the best House."

"Oh." Alice gave her an odd look. "Did he say anything about the other Houses?"

"Well, no… Not really."

"Then how do you know which House is best for you?"

Lily felt herself blushing even as she shrugged. When Alice put it like that, it sounded silly to have asked the Sorting Hat to put her in Slytherin just because that was where Severus hoped to go. She only really knew that Slytherins had "opportunities" no one else had, that Ravenclaws were considered especially smart, and that Potter and Black were idiots.

"Alright, then," Lily said cautiously as a thin, pale boy with dusty brown hair slid into the empty space across the table from her. "What are all the Houses about?"

"Well, you know about Slytherin already." Alice paused to think. "Ravenclaws are all about knowledge and learning, but most of them don't like much in the way of practical application. They're perfectly happy to stick to their books and exams and what-have-you.

"Hufflepuffs," she went on, "don't go on about themselves like the rest of the Houses tend to do, so a lot of people think they're duffers, but that's not true. My mum was a Hufflepuff, you know, and she's as good a witch as you'll ever meet. Says that just because something doesn't come naturally, that's no reason to give up, and that the point of the Sorting is so that everyone finds someone they can study and practice with. Mum always says as long as you've got friends you can count on and try your hardest, you've got the makings of a good life."

A loud burst of laughter drew Lily's attention up the table to Black and Potter – now reunited and shoving each other back and forth on the bench. Lily's scowl only deepened as Potter caught sight of her and elbowed Black, who leered back at her.

Alice nudged her a moment later as Severus' name was called, and the boy shuffled forward to the stool. Lily felt her heartbeat quicken as she craned her neck to get a better glimpse of her friend, but a moment later, the Sorting Hat called out, "SLYTHERIN!" and Severus sauntered to the Slytherin table without even glancing Lily's way.

"Close call," said an irritatingly self-important voice from a few feet away. Lily turned to find Potter smirking at her. "I was starting to think he would be in Gryffindor."

"Stop it," Lily snapped.

James just shrugged. "What? He got what he wanted, didn't he?"

Lily scowled as a dozen retorts rose in her head. I wish he had been in Gryffindor. And that you had never come to Hogwarts at all! she thought viciously. Potter and Black had never even given Severus a chance; they'd hated him from the moment they'd realized they weren't alone in the train compartment. And so what if Lily wanted to be in the same House as her best friend? Potter and Black hadn't exactly been subtle about congratulating each other on their Sortings!

Tears burned in Lily's eyes, though, and she didn't trust herself to speak. As Potter's smirk broadened, she crossed her arms and turned back to Alice, scowling, and blinked her eyes furiously. A moment later, she took a deep breath, shoved thoughts of Potter and Black aside, and plastered a smile on her face. "Sorry, you were saying?"

"What?" Alice asked, brow furrowed.

"The Houses. You hadn't told me about Gryffindor yet."

"Oh! Er…" Alice floundered for a moment, casting around for whatever it was she had been planning to say. "Right. Well," she said slowly, settling into her rhythm. "So there's Slytherin and Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff and Gryffindor. Gryffindor—" Here Alice puffed up ever-so-slightly— "is all about courage and honor and stuff like that. I mean, sure, I guess that includes boys who like to show off…" She glanced toward Black, who was now attempting to balance a goblet full of water on his head, Potter egging him on. "But my dad always told me that Gryffindor is about helping people who can't defend themselves, doing the right thing when no one else wants to, doing something worthwhile with all the spells the professors cram into us." She grinned. "A lot of Gryffindors go on to be aurors, after all."

Lily frowned. "Aurors?"

"You know, dark wizard hunters. The people who fight to keep the rest of us safe." Tucking a lock of hair behind her ear, Alice gave an odd little laugh and bit her lip. "I'd like to be an auror, I think. Don't know if I'll make it— you've got to be top-notch, after all— but I can't imagine just doing paperwork for the rest of my life, or… I dunno, working on cauldron regulations or something. If people are getting hurt, I want to be out there protecting them."

Protecting people? Lily thought. That doesn't sound so bad.

She let her eyes drift around the Great Hall as the last few students stepped forward to be Sorted. Hufflepuff sounded alright, she thought, but she decided that the Sorting Hat had her pegged in that regard: she didn't think she would have been terribly happy there. Perhaps if she had been raised in the magical world, but there was just so much to learn, so much to experience! Magic was so exciting, new and mysterious as it was, and Lily thought her life could stand a bit of adventure every now and then.

It was the same with Ravenclaw. Lily loved learning new things, of course, and she was sure she would be spending much of the coming years in the library, but if Ravenclaws skimmed over the practical side of magic… Well, surely magic couldn't all be learned from books and a few simple spells cast during lessons!

And then there was Slytherin. Watching the faces of the straight-backed students who surrounded Severus at the far table, Lily couldn't help but think that the Slytherins looked like a rather depressing bunch. Where the Gryffindor table was filled with raucous laughter and boisterous conversation, the Hufflepuff with amiable grins and the occasional one-armed hug, and the Ravenclaw with looks of keen interest and good-natured smiles, the Slytherins were comparatively subdued. Many scowled, or else seemed absorbed in their own thoughts, and those who spoke did so in hushed tones as they shot furtive glances around the room.

So maybe Gryffindor was the best House for her. Black and Potter – now sword fighting with their butter knives to the amusement of the surrounding Gryffindors – were idiots, but Alice wasn't so bad. Neither, it turned out, were most of the other Gryffindors. After the Headmaster gave a short welcoming speech and invited them all to eat (the food appearing quite suddenly at his words), Alice launched into a conversation with some older girls sitting nearby, and Lily turned her attention to a pair of her fellow first years across the table – Remus Lupin and Peter Pettigrew.

Both boys were quite shy, but refreshingly well-mannered. In fact, Lily doubted it would have been possible to find two boys as unlike Potter and Black. She spent the next hour happily asking all sorts of questions about the wizarding world. Peter, who was a pureblood like Alice, and Remus, a halfblood like Severus, were more than happy to tell her all they could, and she in turn told them about muggle life. Remus seemed fascinated by record players, which he had seen once in the muggle town where he lived, and was eager to know how they put the music inside the records without magic. Not knowing much about record players herself, Lily stumbled through an answer and promised Remus she would ask her parents when she wrote home.

Eventually, the conversation turned to the classes, a subject on which all the first years were equally ignorant. The older students around them obligingly told them all about the professors and the lessons and what they should expect in their first few weeks.

By the end of the feast, Lily was feeling relatively satisfied with her Sorting, Potter and Black notwithstanding, and she and Alice walked side-by-side when the prefects led them up seven flights of stairs to their common room.

-.-.-

Some time later, Lily found herself sitting cross-legged at the end of her exquisite four-poster, a soft red pillow in her lap. Alice lay sprawled beside her, grinning through a yawn as the five first year girls got to know each other.

Greta Catchlove and Tracy Lewis had become fast friends and sat together on the floor, trunks open and belongings strewn about them, comparing jewelry and shoes and the like. Both girls were blonde and excitable, with nearly identical high-pitched giggles that made Alice bury her head under her pillow each time the other girls got giddy over something or other that Lily didn't care to listen to. If not for Greta's rather heavier frame and Tracy's large, thick spectacles, the two could have passed for twins.

Mary Macdonald, on the other hand, was a quiet girl with mousy brown hair pulled up into two pigtails, a toothy smile, and a habit of hiding her face in her hands every time she started to blush. Like Lily, Mary was a muggle-born, and like Lily, she seemed in awe of everything around her, from the chocolate frogs that hopped and croaked like real animals to the Fat Lady, a talking portrait who guarded the entrance to Gryffindor Tower.

For the last several minutes, while Tracy and Greta made a mess of their corner of the dorm, Lily and Mary had taken it in turns to grill Alice about all things magical. Magic, it turned out, was not so simple a subject as muggle storybooks made it out to be.

Quite aside from the different disciplines they would study at Hogwarts (from charms to potions to divination), there were whole other classes of magic that humans couldn't even use. The house elves who did the cooking and cleaning at Hogwarts (and in many wizarding homes); the goblins who ran the wizarding bank Lily and her family had visited with Professor McGonagall to exchange their muggle currency for sickles and galleons; the centaurs Alice claimed lived in the Forbidden Forest on Hogwarts grounds— all of them had their own magic and their own set of rules about what was and wasn't possible.

"There's just so much to learn!" Lily exclaimed when Alice revealed that dragons were very real and that, in fact, there were a number of different breeds. "How can they possibly teach us everything in seven years?"

"Well they don't," Alice said with a chuckle. "Not really. I mean, up till fifth year, when we take our OWLs— Sorry, Ordinary Wizarding Levels; important exams, you see. Up until then, we're only getting a kind of… overview. The stuff they reckon everyone ought to know. We get a bit more after that, but Hogwarts is only just the beginning."

Mary had gone wide-eyed. "Only the beginning? Then what?"

Shrugging, Alice scrunched up her face in thought. "I suppose it depends. Aurors have to do three years of training before they're qualified."

"What sort of training?" Lily asked.

"You know… dueling and stealth and such. Things you need to know to fight dark wizards." Alice picked at a thread on the sleeve of her white pajama shirt. "No point in an herbologist knowing how to curse-break, is there? Why, what do muggles do?"

"Well…" Lily thought for a bit. "I guess secondary school is a bit like Hogwarts. And then after that you've got college."

Mary cocked her head to the side. "Aren't there any magical colleges?"

"Oh, you mean like the University?" Alice asked.

Eyebrows shooting up, Lily leaned forward in anticipation. "The University? What's that?"

"It's where witches and wizards go to learn more about magical theory." Alice shook her head. "I don't really know much about it. I mean, not many people want to go there, and even fewer get accepted."

"How few?" asked Lily.

Alice thought about it. "I think they only accept one or two new members each year. And they hardly ever talk to anyone outside the University about what they do, seeing as it's completely over everyone's head. I mean, lots of people learn about magical theory – cursebreakers, and people who work in Experimental Charms – but that's regular magical theory, and they say at the University you learn about old magic, deep magic. Professor Dumbledore's supposed to have spent a few years there, and he understands magic better than anyone."

Lily peppered Alice with questions for a few more minutes, but it was late, and Mary was nodding off, and even Tracy and Greta had piled their things back into their trunks and climbed into bed. Reluctantly, Lily bid her new dormmates goodnight and drew her curtains around her bed. It was a long while after that when she finally drifted off, her mind churning with all the new things she had seen and learned today, a smile on her face as she dreamed about dragons and potions and the University and all that the future had in store.