Lily peeked in at the door. Mummy and her sisters were in there, along with another person that Lily had never seen before. She didn't know that anyone have been visiting, as she had been out in the backyard alone, but she had gone inside to go to the bathroom and heard voices in the parlour, which they only used when Great-aunt Marie visited.
"So, Mrs Evans, I know this may have come as a shock, but it may also have cleared up some unexplained circumstances. Usually children's magic does tend to burst out, on occasion, especially at times of great emotion."
Lily shook her head. Did that woman say magic?
Cool.
She leaned in closer.
"Over the next few months, I will be introducing you to our world through our Muggleborn program. This isn't just for your daughter, but for your family as well, so you can understand our community and culture more."
Lily scrunched up her nose in thought. What was a muggleborn? It was like a made-up word, in her opinion. Lily liked making up words, though Petunia didn't appreciate it.
Leaning closer to the gap she tripped over her foot and fell, bashing into the door to fall into the room. She immediately turned bright red, clashing with her hair, and tried to shrink in a little. Mummy didn't like it when she eavesdropped. And the new woman would think her rude.
Mummy's admonishing voice rang through the Room. "Lily, I thought you knew better. Were you eavesdropping again?"
Lily nodded her head, ashamed, and uttered a woeful, "Yes, Mummy." She could feel Tuney's smirk, and turned to glare at her sister. Tuney thought she was so superior because she was nine, now, and Lily only seven. But she couldn't help her age, could she?
"Oh, well, it isn't as if your youngest wouldn't have found out anyway." The woman sounded vaguely Scottish to Lily.
Mummy's voice was still stern as she said, "Lily, this is Professor McGonagall. She is here to talk to us about Azalea going to a special school."
Intrigued, Lily forgot to be ashamed and turned to the newcomer. "What kind of school? Azzy's good at maths. Is it for maths? Or is it cause she can whistle? She can do all kinds of songs, and I only do this sort of squeaky noise."
Bemused, the woman turned to her eldest sister, raising an eyebrow. Azalea nodded in confirmation, grinning at Lily's enthusiasm.
"Well, Lily, is it? Your sister isn't going to our school for her maths or her whistling talent, admirable though it may be. Azalea, my dear, has magic."
Lily's eyes grew round.
"Indeed, you yourself may have some, or Petunia, too. If you do, when you turn eleven you can come to Hogwarts, which is a school of witchcraft and wizardry…"
Later that day, all Lily could think of was her sister, going away to a place with magic and a wand and unicorns and other cool things…
Lily swung idly, dragging her feet along the ground. She was bored. Zalea was away at Hogwarts, in her third year now, and Petunia was sulking again. Ever since the revelation that she did not have magic, Tuney had turned her back on her sisters, deciding that magic was only for babies, anyway. She hadn't wanted to play with Lily, and now she was all alone, waiting for something to happen.
Jumping off the swing, Lily made her way over to a patch of daisies in the sun. She could make a chain out of them, or something, perhaps. But none of them had opened fully, yet. She picked one anyway, angrily staring at it, willing it to open. She was so bored, and a daisy-chain would be pretty.
The daisy unfurled its petals, the morning sunlight shining on it.
Lily stared. Then she turned to another one, wanting it open as well.
It opened.
Of all the things!
It was magic. Pure, very cool magic.
She collected five more, and as they bloomed before her eyes she felt like she could sing. She didn't, mindful of the voice that Petunia said sounded like a frog, but she did hum underneath her breath as she strung them together.
A week later, all the daisies were gone. She sat idly in the swing again. What could she do now? She had played with the flowers, opening and closing them, until it felt like the simplest thing in the world, and now she had none left.
The swing creaked.
A wren flew overhead.
Lily's heart leaped. Could she fly? Her sister had written home, about broomsticks and how they could use them to fly, but it had always seemed a bit strange to Lily. Mostly because it would be very uncomfortable. Couldn't they grow their own wings?
Lily swung higher and higher. She wanted to fly like a bird, not clinging to a flimsy piece of wood.
When the swing reached its zenith, she jumped.
She was flying. It was, for a suspended moment, brilliantly pure. She was part of the sky, bright blue and sunshiny. It was fantastic.
Landing lightly on the ground, Lily's smile was sunshine incarnate.
Lily would have to write about it to Azalea about this, then show her when she came home next.
Lily sat in the shade of the willow, focussing on the flower in her hand. It was white, with faint tinges of purple. Concentrating hard, the colour began to intensify.
There was a rustle in the bushes behind her, and she guiltily dropped her hand to the ground, hiding the now -bright purple petals. Lily knew that she ought to be careful with her magic, but it was so hard not to do it.
A figure was emerging now, a boy. It looked to be someone about her age, but he was dressed in the most awful clothes. Lily wrinkled her nose for a second, then remembered Petunia's dislike of anything out of the ordinary and decided to be as unlike Petunia as she could manage.
"Hello. I'm Lily. It's nice to meet you." She refrained from mentioning that he had been hiding.
He was staring at her, now. His cheeks had a faint tinge of pink to them.
"And you are…"
Drawing himself up, he said, "I'm Severus", with a slight air of pride. Then, in a rush, as though it fell out of his mouth, "Do you know that you're doing magic? I can do it too, my mother's a witch as well but my father isn't."
Lily couldn't help a little smile. He was the strangest mix of both restraint and unbridled enthusiasm.
"Yes, I knew. I can do the flowers, and the swing is really fun. My sister Azalea is at Hogwarts now, in her third year. D'you know about it?"
He nodded quickly. "Yes, I'm gonna go there when I'm eleven."
"Zalea says that there are ghosts there, but she hasn't seen any unicorns yet."
Severus seemed relieved at her easy acceptance of him.
"Yes, Mam told me about the ghosts, but unicorns are rare, and they only like girls, really, so I probably won't see them even if there are some there…"
Azalea thumped the lid of her trunk closed once again, trying to close it properly without having to take anything out. Hogwarts, while being one of the best schools for magic, was, in Azalea's opinion, highly lacking in the literature department. She had hoped, going into third year, that there might be an elective focusing on language rather than magic, but had been disappointed. Now, going into her sixth year, she was even more so. Her friends at the local muggle comprehensive had been talking about how they had more options now for subjects, becoming a senior, but once again there hadn't been any option at all for what she wanted to study. She liked magic, yes, but it didn't feel quite enough for her.
Sadly resigning herself to asking her mother to owl her the two books that she had to take out, Azalea placed them on her bed and heaved her trunk down the stairs to set near the front door.
Behind her, she could hear Lily thumping down the stairs. Lily seemed to be inordinately excited at starting her second year, despite her frequent complaints about the "horrible stupid show-off James Potter".
"Hurry up, Zalea! We need to pick up Severus, remember, so we need lots of time."
Azalea was amused at exactly how much time her sister felt was needed, as it definitely did not take five hours to get to Kings Cross Station. But she didn't mind, not really. Petunia would take forever to get moving, anyway, with her complaints about the pointlessness of the journey. She could read a little, and talk to Lily and Severus, who were intelligent for soon-to-be second years. She had grown to appreciate the boy after she had introduced him to fantasy. Fancy someone not knowing who Bilbo Baggins was!
"Look, Lily, I know that it'll probably be a while until I see you again. But you won't be alone, remember, you've got Severus, and Tuney, even though she's a bit of a bitch sometimes. She's still your sister, you know. I need to go to Australia, and I'm not going to change my plans now. I've already applied and been accepted. It's too late."
A sixteen-year-old Lily scowled magnificently at Azalea, who wasn't fazed at all.
"I don't care about Petunia, I care about you! You can't just leave us! Petunia is horrible, and Severus- Sev just isn't the same anymore. "
Azalea shrugged, knowing that she was hurting her sister, but also that there was nothing Lily could do to change her choice.
"Lily, I know that it's far away, but you're away for most of the year anyway. I'll use muggle post to get my letters to Mum and Dad, then they can send them to you. It won't be any different. Now, what do you mean about Severus?"
The redhead glowered at her elder sister. "Severus's hanging out with all the Slytherin boys, and they're all real creeps. He called me a mudblood, too, just a few weeks back, at the end of our OWLs. I told him that if that was how he felt, I wouldn't be around him anymore."
Azalea tried to fit her head around this development. She had always thought that Severus was quite mature for a boy of his age, and nice enough not to be as unthinking as most teenage boys were. It was probably more that he was being influenced by peer pressure than that he had actually meant what he said. At least that was what she hoped.
She decided to drop the topic for the time being.
"Lily, I really want to go. It's such a fantastic chance, what with the literature study combined with the study of plants, potions and spells specific to the Australasian region. The integration of more muggle courses at University of Magical Sydney is so much better than what is available here. Yes, it's a long time away, but I might be able to visit in the holidays…"