A/N: Dear readers! Welcome to my humble story! I hope you'll like it enough to read it till the end. A couple of things before you start reading: first of all, I'm not actually a native English speaker, so you will certainly find a couple of mistakes and things that sound almost right but not quite. Please don't hold it against me! If anyone is willing to beta the rest of the story (it's four chapters long), do get in touch!
The second thing I wanted to say is that I've taken a couple of liberties and made a couple of minor changes (the 5th year prefects for example…). So yeah, just so you know, these little differences are intentional.
That being said, enjoy reading!
Chapter One: Crazy Little Thing Called Hope.
One warm and sunny summer day, in a tiny little garden at the back of a tiny little house near London, sat Lily Evans. She was sitting in the shade of her neighbour's big magnolia tree, reading a book. Having just come back from her boarding school the day before, she enjoyed being able to do whatever she wanted, although it was a feeling that always left her lost and confused at first. But once she had decided to start reading Pride and Prejudice – for the fourth time – she felt a lot better. All was quiet around her apart from the occasional sound of a passing car. It was the last day of school for most kids in the neighbourhood and soon, she knew, the quietness would be filled with cries and laughter as soon as they got back home. But for the moment, she felt like she was the only living being in the area. And she quite liked the feeling, especially because she knew it was not going to last too long.
The next day, her sister would come back from London, where she was studying. It is not that the two sisters did not get along, but they were so different that they often found it difficult to understand each other. For a start, Lily was a witch and had always been one, though she had only found out about it four years ago. Her sister on the other hand was not, and it probably explains why she was slightly apprehensive of it. A multitude of details coming, perhaps, from their fundamental divergence made their differences stand out more and more.
But Lily was not thinking about that for the moment, captivated as she was by her reading. In fact, she took no notice of anything that was not her book until an owl flew up to her and dropped a heavy letter on her lap. She looked up with a start. Once she had got over the initial shock of being thrown out of the fictional universe of Jane Austen, she picked up the envelope and unfolded the sheets of thick parchment she found inside of it.
"Dear Miss Evans (she read)
I have the pleasure to inform you have been chosen to become the 5th year prefect of the Gryffindor House. We, the board of the school and I, think that, regarding your scores at the end of the year examinations and your past behaviour, you are fully capable of managing the demanding task of being a prefect.
Your charge this year comprises, on top of all the habitual responsibilities of prefects (see p. 2), helping with the organisation of a Christmas Ball that will be held to celebrate the school's 800th anniversary. You and the other 5th year prefect of Gryffindor, Sirius Black, ("Waaaait a minute!" she thought. But still, she read on.) are responsible for putting together a menu for the dinner that is to precede the Bal (see p. 3).
You will find, enclosed, your prefect badge that you are required to wear at all times with your uniform.
I hope you will find your new status to be, not just as a challenge, but also as a reward and an opportunity to weave closer links with people from your own, or from a different house.
Sincerely,
Albus Dumbledore."
"You bet" Lily could not help but think. She knew perfectly well why the Headmaster had written that very last line. It probably had not escaped his attention that she was somewhat set aside, even in her own house. She was very capable of making friends, that was not the problem. In fact, until her 3rd year, she had had two good friends, Camilla and Anna. But then the two of them started seeing more and more of the two other Gryffindor girls in their year, Mylena and Clarissa, and Lily had become quite jealous, though she never got the chance to tell them that. In fact, before she did, Mylena had forced her friends to make a choice: either they were to remain friends with her and Clarissa and stop talking to Lily all together, or they could not be friends with them anymore. This situation had gone on for days and days until, in the end, Camilla and Anna chose the two other girls over Lily.
Now what seemed nothing more than a children's argument soon came to take a different turn. In these days, the political situation was quickly changing – and not for the better – with the rise of a dark wizard who called himself Lord Voldemort. Lily being a muggleborn had not mattered at all when she first set foot in Hogwarts, the school of witchcraft and wizardry. Only a few of the most conservative "pure blood" families would have been offended to know that she was the first witch in her family. But now, things were different. Voldemort hated muggles and muggleborns. He hated anyone who was not pureblood. And he hated mugglelovers. In a few years of bloody attacks, he had managed to create such a sphere of fear and distrust that there only very few people bold enough to stand against his will. He had spies everywhere. The number of his loyal supporters was growing every day – by fear or magic, no one was able to tell for sure. He knew everything and never forgave people for disobeying his orders. And his orders were that all mixed blood wizards should be eliminated from their community and that he should rule the world.
The consequence this had for Lily was that, her friends' parents fearing for their children, they had told them not to get too close to her. And Lily, who had not quite managed to free herself from a shyness she had had since her childhood, had been left alone and unable to find new, bolder friends.
Not everybody was on the side of Voldemort, or too scared of him to take any clear position against him. Dumbledore belonged to these braver people, and that explains why, even in this critical situation, Lily was allowed to remain at Hogwarts. A group of boys in her year, who were the Marauders, were like that as well. She talked to them sometimes. But, as she was quite a discreet person, especially now that she felt somewhat unwanted in the school, she often kept to herself, in the library or in other quiet places of the castle. To most people, it looked like she preferred to be left alone, so they did not bother to try and make closer acquaintance with her.
This had been going on for about a year and a half now, and it was one of the reasons why Lily was more than ever glad to be back at home. Here, at least, she had a real friend, who did not care whether she had magic powers or not and who her parents were. She and her neighbour Clare had been friends for as far back as she could remember. She was the only muggle outside of her family to know about Lily being a witch. Instead of growing apart over the years, as childhood friends often do, they grew closer as time passed, probably partly because Lily had no real friends at school. To Lily, it felt almost like she had another sister that was nothing like Petunia but more like what she had expected sisters to be, sisters you only found in books – or at least, so it seemed to her.
She had reached this point of her thoughts when the first car full of children stopped in a driveway, a couple of houses away from hers. And soon, like she had pictured it, the quietness was filled with cries and laughter. She picked up her book and letter and headed for the house.
A/N: Well that's it so far. You liked the story? Or not? Why? Please, let me know! (Me loves feedback!)