-CHAPTER ONE-

Magic comes when you least expect it

It was a warm Friday morning for Cokeworth as the sky usually was grey and the colourless clouds regularly sprayed icy cold water of droplets on everyone. But today was different; the sky was a perfect blue, with the brilliantly green trees swaying with the soft gush of wind. Birds tweeted noisily and crickets creaked together as though playing a very annoying tune. Today was going to be a good one, one of the reasons Lily was in a very happy mood today was that her sisters' 12th birthday was tomorrow. Lily was an average sized girl with beautiful flaming red hair that shinned beautifully in the sun, which rarely happened since it was always cold and wet. Her eyes were gorgeous; they were dazzling green almond shaped eyes that twinkled whenever you stare at them for a while. In everyone's mind, Lily Evans was exquisite, so in other words, beautiful. But in her mind, she was nothing. She didn't think she was pretty, or even smart (which she actually was), but she saw herself as an ordinary girl. Her mum, Lyla, was a spinning image of Lily, while her big sister, Petunia, looked more like Jack; Lily's father. Petunia had a long neck and dark brown eyes that looked as though they were black. Her hair was the same colour as her eyes, dark brown and she was really tall. Her father had a long neck, black hair and dark brown eyes. Lily loved her life. She loved her sister, her mum, her dad and loved her green check conure, Paulie. Life was awesome for Lily Evans.

Things started to go wrong though, when Lily and her sister Petunia got off bus 2376 at Cokeworth State School. Lily unfortunately had a habit of getting in trouble. But it was never her fault! She was a good girl; it was just that strange things happened awfully a lot to Lily. For example, when she was nine and running away from her sister and her sister's best friend (Madison) one afternoon from teasing her about Lily's braces, Lily has suddenly landed on the roof of the year 6 classroom. It was absolutely out rages when the teacher started growling at her madly for climbing school buildings, even though all she wanted to do was hide behind the recycling bin. This had earned her a week's detention and a harsh yell from her angry parents. Lily was walking presently to her classroom and taking the warmth in from the sun at the same time, when suddenly she was tripped over by Madison. 'I'm so sorry Lily I didn't see you there' said Madison innocently, which everyone didn't fall for. Lily looked at her knee and saw a layer of scarlet blood trickling down her knee. Anger came out of Lily and she replied nastily to Madison, 'well next time watch were you're going will you?' Lily glared at Madison and at that precise moment a heavy wooden branch fell from the pretty blossom tree. Madison let out an ear piercing scream and doors banged opened everywhere. Confused teachers and frightened looking students looked around everywhere for the barer of the scream, then laid their eyes on the crying Madison under the heavy looking branch. Silence speeded around the school and all that could be heard were the cries of pain from Madison. 'Quick someone phone the ambulance" bellowed Mr Woodwood. Then an hour later all the children had to go home, so term four had finished early by six hours. She had to admit that she was looking forward to starting grade seven in high school.

It was three hours later and Lily and Petunia were swinging backwards and forwards on the hard swings in Cokeworth Park. Lily was swinging higher than her big sister and Petunias face tore into fury and jealousy. 'Lily, don't do it!" shrieked Petunia. But Lily had let go of the swing at the very height of its arc and flown into the air, quite literally flown, launched herself skywards with a great shout of laughter, and instead of crumbling on the playground asphalt, she soared, like a trapeze artist through the air, staying up far too long, landing far too lightly.

'Mummy told you not to!' Petunia stopped her swing by dragging the heels of her sandals on the ground, making a crunching, grinding sound, then leapt up, hands on hip. 'But I'm fine,' said Lily, still giggling. 'Tuney, look at this. Watch what I can do.' Petunia glanced around. The playground was deserted apart from themselves. Lily had picked up a fallen flower from the small blossom tree. Petunia advanced, evidently torn between curiosity and disapproval. Lily waited until Petunia was near enough to have a clear view, and then held out her palm. The flower sat there, opening and closing its petals, like some bizarre, many-lipped oyster. 'Stop it!' shrieked Petunia. 'It's not hurting you,' said Lily, but she closed her hand on the blossom and threw it back to the ground. 'It's not right,' said Petunia, but her eyes had followed the flowers flight to the ground and lingered upon it. 'How do you do it?' she added, and there was definite longing in her voice. 'It's obvious, isn't it?' said a voice. Petunia shrieked and ran backwards towards the swings, but Lily, though clearly startled, remained where she was. The boy had overlong black hair and his clothes were so mismatched that it looked deliberate: too-short jeans, a shabby overlarge coat that might have belonged to a grown man, an old smock like shirt. He looked no more than Lily's own age, ten or even eleven and he was sallow, small and stringy. He had mud brown eyes and greasy hair that looked like he hadn't washed his hair for a lifetime 'What's obvious?' asked Lily. The greasy haired boy had an air of nervous excitement. With a glance at the distant Petunia, now hovering besides the swing, the boy lowered his voice and said 'I know what you are'

'What do you mean?'

'You're… you're a witch,' whispered the boy. Lily felt and probably looked affronted.

'That's not a very nice thing to say to somebody!'

Lily turned, nose in the air, and marched off to her sister.

'No!' the boy shouted. Lily could just see the boy's face, it was highly coloured now, and Lily wondered why he didn't take off that ridiculous large coat, unless he didn't want to reveal the smock beneath it. He flapped after Lily and Petunia, looking ludicrously bat-like.

The sisters considered him, united in disapproval, both of them were holding on to the swing poles as though it was a safe place in tag. 'You are,' said the boy, 'You are a witch. I've been watching you for a while. But there's nothing wrong with that. My mum's one and I am a wizard'.

Petunias laugh was like cold water and make the hairs on the back of Lily's hair stand up.

'Wizard!' she shrieked, her courage returned now that she had recovered from the shock of his unexpected appearance. 'I know who you are. You're that Snape boy! They live down at Spinners End by the river,' she told Lily, and it was evident from her tone that she considered the address poor recommendation. 'Why have you been spying on us?'

'Haven't been spying,' said Snape, hot and uncomfortable and dirty haired in the sun light. 'Wouldn't be spying on you anyway' he added spitefully 'you're a muggle.' Though Petunia had no idea what a muggle was, she could not mistake the tone.

'Come on Lily, were leaving' she said shrilly. But Lily didn't move.

'It's magic I can do?' Lily asked suspiciously.

"Yes, yes, yes it is!" Snape's face split into a broad grin. Petunia had stopped walking under a tree and looked at Snape and Lilly with a mixture of scared, envy and curiosity.

'Prove it' Lily ordered. Just then there was a defining crack and a small branch had fallen on to Petunia.

'Tuney! You did that didn't you?' Lily was thriving furiously. How dare he hurt Lily's sister, her sister? Lily and Petunia ran off home as fast as they could.

'Tuney are you all right?' asked Lily nervously.

'Get away from me you FREAK' cried Petunia.

'I'm so, so, so sorry Tuney, will you forgive me?'

"NO" bellowed Petunia and then she ran into Number 7 Spinners End.