A Place to Call Home
Book One: The Snake's Lair
Chapter Two: Testing the Waters
King's Cross Station was full of activity. People going to work, parents making sure their children didn't get lost, and a suspicious amount of people with trunks that somehow didn't end up at any of the platforms. But then again, people did have better things to do than worry about what the rest did, and in the case they were truly inquisitive, the muggle-repelling ward would do the rest. And so, one Lily Hyde passed unnoticed through the barrier separating platforms nine and ten. Her first view of the Hogwarts Express amazed her. She had seen trains before, but never a locomotive, much less a bright red one. Clearly the wizards had never heard about contamination.
A commotion caught her attention and she saw a big group getting swarmed by the rest of the people in the platform. There was a huge family of redheads, the ones she had seen on Flourish & Blott's, and next to them a small family of a child and his two parents, which were the one who actually had the attention of the people. A quick look revealed the kid to be Harry Potter. His father looked exactly like him, except for the green eyes. Those were unmistakable, even from a distance. A quick look to the redheaded woman next to them solved the riddle of who he had gotten them from. Potter's mother had the same bright green eyes as Harry, and strangely enough, herself. That reminded her of tuning down her eye colour to a pale green, those eyes had to have a special significance, they were just different. They had oftentimes unnerved the adults of the orphanage, and she was sure it was one of the reasons none of her interviews with prospective foster parents had paid off. 'As if there was a whole lot of them in the first place' she snorted as she observed the family for a while.
The first thing that one could tell about the Potters is that they looked happy. They were smiling and shaking hands all around. The boy was laughing with one of the redheaded kids, and his father was excitedly telling something to the older redhead wizard. As the train gave out the warning whistle reminding everyone that it parted in ten minutes, the kids said their goodbyes to their parents. Potter's mother wrapped his son in a hug, while his father put a hand on his shoulder and looked at him with undisguised pride. The scene brought long buried feelings back to the surface of Lily's mind. Memories of talking to prospective parents, a wide hopeful smile on her face, only to later see another kid getting hugged, another one going to a loving family while she stood in that place, alone, unwanted. She clamped down her Occlumency on those feelings of sadness and worthlessness like a snake on a mouse, dragging them into their subconscious. However, as the sadness receded, anger and hatred flooded her mind. Anger at the parents that would not love her. Hate at the children of the orphanage that kept reminding her that she never would have someone hold her. Self-loathing at feeling weak once again when she had long convinced herself that she had no need for such things. She was not far along enough on her Occlumency yet to be able to suppress them completely.
She dragged herself away from the Potters lest someone noticed the look of pure loathing on her face. Making her way across the train, she quickly found an empty compartment and set her trunk on the overhead compartment after unshrinking it. Jormy was still in his own room inside of the trunk, she had to keep him a secret lest they made her get rid of him, but his presence would be a powerful deterrent if someone messed with her. Jormy didn't object much, he had enough room in his habitat, and he didn't like people besides Lily anyway. Picking out Hogwarts: A History out of her school bag she set to reading.
Soon enough, the train started to pick up speed and set out for Hogwarts. It was a four hour ride according to Hogwarts: A History, and she was quite nervous. What would she do if someone entered the compartment? She wasn't used to talking to people except for ordering them around. The only friend she had was Jormy, and he was a snake, so that didn't really count as experience. Her worries were quickly squashed when the door opened, and a couple of girls stood on the entryway.
"Hi, can we sit here?" Said one of them, who she recognized as the girl from the red headed family. Her friend had wispy blonde hair, extremely bright blue eyes and an air of aloofness around her.
"Sure." She said, and they sat. She offered them her hand. "I'm Lily Hyde."
"Ginny Weasley." Said the redheaded one.
"Luna Lovegood." Said her friend.
"Oh, I remember now, you're the one from the bookstore!" Started Ginny. "It was awesome how you dealt with that ponce Malfoy, I hadn't laughed that hard in a long time. Oh and sorry about that, really, our families have some bad blood between them."
Lily merely nodded, while Luna took out a magazine called The Quibbler and starter reading it upside-down, to which she made no comment.
"You two are first years too, then?" She asked.
"Yeah, I'm so excited to go to Hogwarts. I've got six brothers who have all gone there, and they've told me lots of stories about it."
'A seventh child? According to one of my books, the number seven is the most powerful magic number, she must be powerful due to that. It might be wise to get acquainted with her.'
"And the Boy-Who-Lived is there too! He's been at my house a couple times, but he's always hanging out with my brother Ron, so I've never really talked to him. Don't you think he's so dreamy? I hope I'm in Gryffindor with him." She continued, almost squealing.
'Then again, maybe she's not that useful'
"Really? You know the Boy-Who-Lived? What's he like?"
"Well, he's got wild black hair, and a mischievous smirk that makes you melt, and he's tall, and he's got these beautiful green eyes that…" She went on for like a minute before she finally finished.
"Yeah, but what's he like, you know? Besides his looks, I mean."
"Well, he's brave, and chivalrous, and noble, and-"
"Kind of a dick." Interrupted Luna from behind her magazine.
"Luna! Language! And Harry is a perfect gentleman."
"You're the one always complaining that he and Ron won't let you play Quidditch because you're a girl." She pointed out.
Ginny merely pouted and shut up.
"It's not his fault, not completely. He grew up hearing that he was the second coming of Merlin, so naturally he has developed an infestation of Withering Humdingers the likes of which haven't been seen since Leopold the Bold." Luna nodded to herself. Lily was surprised with this girl, she was equally parts insightful and nonsensical. She would make an interesting acquaintance.
"And what about the Potters, do you know them? I saw them in the platform." Lily asked.
"Oh, Lady Potter is such a nice Lady, always proper but very warm and caring. She always asks about me when she comes around." Ginny beamed. "And Lord Potter is so funny, he's always doing pranks, Fred and George, my brothers, love him."
"I agree with Ginny." Luna said. "Lord Potter is one of our most important political figures and yet he behaves like a twelve year old child, while Lady Potter is very self-righteous and loves the adoration of those she considers 'the right kind'" Luna nodded fervently, either not noticing or not minding the looks Ginny was giving her. She was liking this girl more by the minute. "At least in public, anyways. Lady Potter has a mask thicker than a gromblethorn's horn. The other two are too dumb to pretend."
"I see." Lily said between chuckles. She was enjoying Luna's bashing of the Potters quite a lot, but Ginny seemed ready to bust a vein. "Anyways, what do you think about Hogwarts? What subjects are you looking forward the most?"
"Oh, I want to reach third year fast to get Care of Magical Creatures, it's one of the electives. I love animals." Luna said happily. "But meanwhile I'll settle for Astronomy. I love the stars."
Lily smiled, she liked the stars too, they were quite intertwined with mythology, and that was always a point in favour.
"What about you, Ginny?" She asked, looking at the little redhead, who perked up at the attention.
"Uh, I was looking forward to Charms since Lady Potter teaches it, but that was before I knew Lockhart was teaching DADA. He's so handsome." She swooned.
"Lady Potter teaches Charms?" She asked.
"Yes, she's assistant professor, she teaches fourth years and below, while Professor Flitwick teaches the upper years." Luna explained. "She's actually quite talented at Charms, I hear she got her Mastery under Professor Flitwick." Lily nodded. Her current dislike of the Potters didn't mean that they were not powerful or knowledgeable.
"Anyways, Ginny, if you're looking forward to doing something in DADA besides ogling Lockhart you're going to be disappointed. I heard that all DADA teachers have been terrible for decades, something about a curse?" She said.
"Nonsense," interceded Ginny, "I'm sure Lockhart is a great teacher, otherwise Dumbledore wouldn't have picked him."
"Maybe he was the only one who applied for the post? It is a dangerous job, after all." Said Luna with a dreamy look on her face that made Lily chuckle, she was probably picturing Lockhart dying in several different ways.
"Sorry to break it to you, Ginny, but the man is a fraud. Just read his books, not only are they badly written novels with a few tips here and there, but I found four contradictions in just the ten minutes I spent skimming over them at the bookstore. It's obvious that he either made it up or took the credit from other people." Lily said with finality.
"You're just jealous." Ginny huffed.
"Yeah, I'm completely jealous of a guy whose greatest achievement is his smile. I'll have to give him credit where it's due, though. The man is a great publicist, he's managed to convince most housewives that he's some hotshot. And he did manage to get the near three hundred children that go to Hogwarts to buy his complete collection. He's probably made much more money just by taking the job than his actual wages. Not that I spent a single knut on his books, but I'm probably one of very few" She shrugged, while Luna just chuckled and Ginny looked horrified.
"You didn't buy the books?!" She shrieked, horrified.
"I'm an orphan. I value money quite a bit, and I'm not about to spend it on useless crap. I bought a couple of defence texts for less than even one of Lockhart's books costs, and each of them was more informative than all of those seven books together." She shrugged.
"Oh, I didn't notice you were muggleborn." Said Luna. "You seem to know quite a bit about the Wizarding World."
"I like to be prepared. What makes you think I'm muggleborn, though?"
"There are no orphanages in the magical world. All orphans are either given to wizarding relatives or in case there is none, to a suitable wizarding family." Luna explained.
"Oh, I didn't know that." Lily answered. She guessed that law didn't apply to her. "But yes, I grew up in a muggle orphanage."
"For the record, I didn't buy Lockhart's books either." Luna said happily.
"But Luna, why would you do that?" Ginny pleaded.
"I didn't have place for them in my trunk, Daddy gave me a huge tome on crumple-horned snorkacks for my birthday." She explained.
"Anyways, which House do you think you will go to?" Lily asked.
"Ravenclaw for me." Said Luna with determination.
"All Weasleys have gone to Gryffindor for over five generations." Ginny said proudly.
"That makes no sense." Lily interjected. "You're telling me that, for five generations, all Weasley children shared exactly the same traits and had the same personality? Your family must be pretty boring if that's true, no offense. On the other hand, you guys must get along incredibly well." She nodded to herself.
"You don't understand, it's tradition. You go where your family goes, to honour them." Ginny said.
"No offense, but that's pretty stupid." She deadpanned, and Luna snickered. "Well, I don't have that problem as I never knew my parents , but it doesn't matter, I'm pretty sure I'm going to Slytherin."
"Slytherin?! But why?! You're a muggleborn, and the slimy snakes hate muggleborns, they're a bunch of Death Eaters in training." Ginny said with incredulity.
"There's so much wrong with that statement that I don't even know where to begin." Lily said shaking her head.
"I think you'd do great in Slytherin Lily." Luna said.
"Thank you, Luna." Lily answered. "And Ginny. I'm not going to let anyone tell me what I can or cannot do, not you, not the 'slimy snakes' as you put it, which by the way makes no sense at all, since snakes are desert creatures. Toads are slimy, snakes are dry outside of aquatic species…" She rambled until she saw Luna trying to hold down her laugh. "...But I digress , and certainly not the Ministry either, they seem like a bunch of morons." She said, resuming her ranting. "And I refuse to believe that an eleven year old can be a 'Death Eater in training' as you put it."
"Suit yourself, but don't cry later." Ginny said with an uppity voice.
"I don't plan to. If the Slytherins mess with me, they'll learn soon enough not to do it. I'm not afraid of them."
"Just be careful." Chided in Luna, to which Lily smiled.
The rest of the journey went much the same way. Lily still didn't figure out if Luna was extremely passive-aggressive or if she truly didn't realize how her words sounded to others, but she loved it anyway. Ginny on the other hand got more irritable by the moment, and Lily enjoyed pushing her buttons. Sometime during the journey Barbie Jr. made an appearance, and Lily enjoyed very much to close the door in his face. Who barged into a compartment unannounced anyways, he didn't have much manners for a pureblood heir.
The first years followed a huge man named Hagrid in boats through the lake. Her first sight of the castle left her speechless; it truly was an impressive building. It looked right out of the pages of a fantasy book, and she was sure that some of the highest towers were sustained purely by magic.
Soon enough it was time to be sorted, and as she entered she took the view around her. The Great Hall was magnificent. It was quite big, divided in one table per House, plus one of the staff. She was impressed by the enchantment in the ceiling, which showed the night sky. A sweep of the room showed her that Potter was a Gryffindor, as she expected, but surprisingly Barbie Jr. was a Slytherin, which she thought quite strange as he was incredibly obnoxious. Probably another "all my family went there" thing, like the Weasleys. She saw Dumbledore at the Head Table, but didn't even look at him because the Mind Arts book had warned her that most powerful wizards knew some Legilimency, which sounded suspiciously like mind-reading, and apparently they could do that just with mere eye contact. She was not going to look the bastard in the eye until she had mastered Occlumency; no one was going to look around in her head, it was the greatest invasion of privacy she could imagine.
After listening to the hat song, the Sorting started. She made note of her future housemates, but the only ones who caught her attention were the girls: Flora and Hestia Carrow, twins, and Astoria Greengrass, who was hugged by a second-year student in her house, probably a sister or a cousin. Finally, her name was called.
"Hyde, Lily." Called Professor McGonagall.
She made her way towards the stool, lifted the Sorting Hat and sat down. She didn't even have time to put the Hat on her head before the thing shouted "SLYTHERIN!" for all the Great Hall to hear. Shrugging, she put the Hat down on the stool and walked happily towards her House Table, whose inhabitants were looking at her with either shock or disgust. She smirked and sat down in front of Astoria as the Sorting was resumed.
"Hi, I'm Lily." She offered her hand.
"Astoria." She took her hand with a look of suspicion.
After introducing herself to the Carrow Twins, she was asked the question of the million pounds.
"So," started Astoria. "Hyde is not a Wizarding name. Are you a halfblood then?"
"You know, I don't really know. Lily Hyde is not my birth name. You see, I grew up in a Muggle orphanage, which from what I now know, means that either I'm muggleborn or I'm a pureblood that was mistaken for a squib. Not that I care much either way." Lily said confidently, ignoring the looks of horror and disgust spreading around the table.
Lily smirked at the sight, they probably didn't know if they should hate her for being a muggleborn, a near-squib, or for not caring about blood. Not even a minute and she had already managed to infuriate the whole House. This was going to be fun.
"I… see." Said Astoria, who quickly turned around to chat with her other year mates.
The Sorting ended –Ginny went to Gryffindor and Luna to Ravenclaw, as expected – and, after the Headmaster presented Lockhart as the DADA Professor, the feast started. Lily ate in silence and tried to identify who wielded power in the House of the Snake. She quickly noticed someone named Flint, who was the Quidditch Captain. Barbie Jr. seemed to have a posse amongst the lower years. However, that these two were the most noticeable ones meant that they held no real power, they were puppets for someone who moved in the shadows, a true Slytherin. She'd have to investigate a while longer.
Dinner ended and Lily was quite satisfied, the food was delicious compared to what she normally had in the orphanage. She followed the first years towards the dungeons, where the entrance to the Common Room was. They were told the password, 'Salazar', and entered the room.
"All right firsties, listen up." Barked the fifth year Prefect, whose name Lily hadn't bothered finding out. "Slytherin House has several rules, but the most important is this one: Slytherins stand together. The other three houses detest us, especially Gryffindor, so under no circumstances are you to argue or fight between each other outside the Common Room. If you have any problem," He said, looking quite obviously at Lily, "you solve it here. Outside we've got a common enemy. Now, our Head of House, Professor Snape has some words."
A shadow that had been standing by the corner stepped into the light. He had greasy, limp black hair, a big crooked nose and dressed all in black. However his expression and his eyes betrayed that this was not a man to cross.
"Very good, Rosier. I'm Professor Severus Snape, Potion Master and Head of Slytherin. You are now part of the Noble House of Slytherin, the most prestigious of the four. We accept nothing but excellence in all areas, and thus, I expect you all to achieve suitable grades in all your subjects. We are to represent the best of wizarding society, so I also expect you to behave with decorum and politeness on all situations. Lastly, we are the House of Cunning. If you break any of these rules, don't get caught. That is the number one rule. If any of you is found sullying the image of Slytherin House, you will be punished most severely. Due to the prejudice of the other Houses against us, I will compensate by favouring you and not taking points from you, but if you get caught, I will assign detentions, and trust me, you won't like them. I expect you all to abide by these rules and, like Mr. Rosier said before, to stand united as one outside of these doors. Do not disappoint me." He finished, walking out of the Common Room.
'So, he just gave them a free pass to beat the crap out of me, as long as they keep it outside of prying eyes. Nice guy, I should buy him a gift for Christmas.'
"Very well, now the boys' dormitories are on the right, the girls on the left. Search for your room and make yourselves comfortable. Tomorrow, be here at seven sharp, we shall show you the way to the Great Hall."
Lily was delighted to find she had a room for herself. She had shared rooms before on the orphanage and it had not ended well for her roomie, she rather valued her privacy. She would not let herself think of how safe she felt with a stranger in her room. After warding and cursing the entrance with a few spells she had found in the book on the Dark Arts she had gotten from Knockturn –it took her more than a few tries since it was the first time she used her new wand, but she managed it- she made her way to her trunk which was already on the room, and went to visit Jormy, who was glad to know that he could roam around her room. After telling everything that had happened to Jormy, she fell asleep exhausted.
Lily woke up feeling refreshed; she hadn't had such a good night's rest in a long time. Having a nice dinner, a nice bed, and an ambient saturated with magic made for a great sleep.
Coming out of her room to have a shower she smirked, noticing that the wards on her door had triggered three different times. Once ready, she picked up her book bag and made her way to the Common Room. Ignoring the glares of her housemates she waited for the rest of the first years to come, and then was led to the Great Hall. The rest of the House gave her wide berth, for which she was grateful as it allowed her to eat in peace, planning her next moves. She was excited for classes, she had already learnt most of the first year curriculum but there were a few things that she had not been able to practice, such as potions and astronomy. And then there was the library, which according to Hogwarts: A History was a treasure trove.
The morning went by without a hitch, she had Charms and Herbology, sitting with Luna and gaining some points in the first and getting extremely bored in the second –seriously, ok, the plants were magical. But what was magical about potting them? Any muggle could do it – and finally, after lunch, she had DADA with the Gryffindors. As she entered the classroom she had to stifle a laugh, Ginny was glaring at her almost as much as some of the Slytherins.
"Meet your new Defence Against the Dark Arts professor…. Me! Gilderoy Lockhart, Order of Merlin, Third Class, Honorary Member of the Dark Force Defence League, and five-time winner of Witch Weekly's Most-Charming-Smile Award." The teacher started.
Lily could already see that the class was going to be a joke, not that she had expected anything else. Not only was the classroom filled with portraits and photographs of Lockhart, but the man was already prancing around like a drunken peacock, not even a minute into the lecture. All the Gryffindor girls were swooning at the idiot, and surprisingly, Astoria Greengrass did so too. The Carrow twins on the other hand seemed to have a head on their shoulders.
"Well, children, you're very fortunate of starting your education on defence with such a talented wizard, but first, we must check what you already know. For that, I have prepared these tests. You have thirty minutes to complete them!" He proceeded to hand out the tests and made his way back to his desk. "Start!"
Ginny smirked at Lily and started to furiously write her answers. Lily rolled her eyes and took a look at the test. She had to hold back her urges to break Lockhart's teeth. All the questions were about his favourite colour and such other nonsense. The man was playing with the education of children, especially with such an important subject. She wondered how long it would take for an OWL or NEWT student to kill the ponce.
She decided to have some fun and set to answering the questions. The bell rang and Lockhart collected the tests. A quick switching charm and Lily made sure that her sheet was on top of the pile. She thought she was going to find the use of a wand cumbersome, but her magic responded more smoothly to her when using the focus, she was starting to like it.
"Allright students, let's check the answers together. I'll use the first test, which is from… Ms. Ginny Weasley." Ginny beamed at the attention and Lockhart proceeded to read.
"Let's see, first question. What is Gilderoy Lockhart's favourite colour? And Ms. Weasley answered: Puke Green. Why, no, Ms. Weasley, it is actually lilac, those of you who read Break with a Banshee should have gotten it right! No matter, no matter, I'm sure you'll have some others correct." Ginny was looking very confused, and Lily had to make use of her Occlumency to keep her face straight.
"What is Gilderoy's Lockhart secret ambition? To share love and compassion," Lockhart smiled, "by kissing a dementor." His face fell. The class started to snicker while Ginny looked pale. "Well, dementors are not very nice and you should never kiss one, Ms. Weasley, but don't worry, we'll learn that in class."
"What, in your opinion, is Gilderoy Lockhart's greatest achievement to date?" He asked. "Ty.. Tying his shoes." He read incredulously. His face took a delightful shade of Puke Green, which made the laughter set free.
"Yes, yes, very funny. I'm sure it was just a mistake on Ms. Weasley's part, don't worry about it. Let's continue, shall we?"
Lily didn't want the fun to stop so she used a mild confundus charm on Lockhart to keep reading answers.
"In his book Break with a Banshee, how did Gilderoy Lockhart bravely banish the Bandon Banshee?," was answered with "By crying so hard she took pity and left."
"Which is Gilderoy Lockhart's best side for photographs? The one covered with the most clothes, especially in total darkness."
"When is Gilderoy Lockhart's birthday and what would his ideal gift be? Who cares, and shoelaces."
By the time the test finished Ginny was crying, the rest of the class was rolling in laughter, and when the confundus finally wore off, Lockhart was livid.
"Ms. Weasley, twenty points from Gryffindor and a detention, for your cheek. Now let's start the lesson." He finally said, trying to calm the class down. He walked towards a covered cage which started to rattle. "Now, here are some of the most dangerous creatures that you'll ever find, I warn you not to scream, the might startle them…" Swiping the cloth over the cage in a dramatic way, Cornish Pixies were revealed, which once again set the classroom in laughter.
"Oh, you laugh now. Let's see how you do against them!" And he set them free.
Five minutes later, Lockhart had lost his wand and taken refuge behind his desk, half of the students had fled, Ginny was hanging off the ceiling, and Lily was giving the pixies pages ripped off of Ginny's book for them to make paper balls to throw at the students. After the Slytherins managed to contain the pixies again, Lockhart looked harshly at Lily.
"Miss…"
"Hyde, Professor." She answered with an innocent tone.
"Ms. Hyde, mind explaining why you were destroying one of my books and helping the pixies?"
"Well you see, Professor, I'm muggle-raised, so I don't know any magic yet, and the pixies were really scary, so I just tried to follow their lead to avoid any trouble since I'm not able to defend myself yet. You did say they were very dangerous, so I didn't want to risk it. I'm sorry I wasn't braver, Professor, after all, I'm not a Gryffindor" She said with her perfect innocent smile.
"Well, of course, Ms. Hyde. That… was a very appropriate reaction. Ten points to Slytherin for knowing your limits."
As she left the classroom the Carrow Twins approached her.
"That was brilliant." One of them said, she had yet to learn how to distinguish them.
"Yeah, what did Weasley do to you?" The other one added.
"I met her in the train and she has been glaring at me ever since." Lily shrugged.
"You just made her idol hate her and give her detention while ingratiating yourself with him. You humiliated both Weasley and Lockhart and destroyed his book, which coincidentally was Weasley's, and got praised in the process." Started twin number one.
"Just, because she glared at you a couple times." The other one continued.
"Remind me not to mess with you." The first one finished.
"I never said I was a good person." Lily shrugged. "Besides, you didn't have to hear her sing the praises of Lockhart, Dumbles and the Potters. She took a bloody hour until she got the message."
The Carrows merely smirked and said their goodbyes, making her way towards the dormitories. Lily made liberal use of the notice-me-not charm, another one of her "Essential spells to know if you're a Slytherin" - a list she had compiled over the summer with the most useful spells on all her books- and made her way to the library, morphing her appearance just in case. After all, if she got hexed someone was liable to have all the bones in their body broken. 'Which reminds me, I have to look up the bone-breaking curse.'
The first week had gone by without any problems, she kept sabotaging Lockhart, though she kept it subtler than the last one. The classes were fine, but she wasn't learning anything new in most of them. Potions was a favourite of hers, as the Professor always gave revised instructions, and she was very interested in the reason for the changes. She liked to try and figure it out by herself. However, as expected, having the top place on her classes did not sit well with her housemates. While the girls in her year had left her alone –the Carrows knew better, and Astoria seemed to be a meek kid – the older kids tried to catch her in the corridors, and they were getting restless after a week of being eluded. There were two main groups, the second years led by Barbie Jr. and the sixth years led by Warrington, one of the Chasers of the Quidditch team. The fifth and seventh years had more pressing matters to attend to with their exams around, especially after three of them got sent to the infirmary due to severe burns on their first night, the cause of which they didn't care to share, as most wouldn't admit that a first year muggleborn's wards had fend them off.
Jormy was disappointed with her for avoiding her would-be-bullies instead of beating the shit out of them, but he conceded that maybe it was too soon to establish dominance. Lily, however, felt that any confrontation was a bad idea before she had learnt enough battle spells, such as the bone-shattering curse, ossfringo, that she had read up on her first day in the library. However, in order to avoid trouble, the first thing that she needed was to know the terrain, and so she spent quite some time exploring the castle and reading up on the library anything she could find on passageways and secret rooms.
This is how Lily found her favourite piece of Hogwarts' History, the Legend of the Chamber of Secrets. According to the tale, it was a secret room on the school built by Salazar Slytherin that only one of his heirs would be able to access, and it housed a monster which would do the heir's bidding. While the book said it was probably a legend since it never had been found, Lily knew that it probably was true, since all that she had read up on his ancestor said he was more than vain enough to do such thing.
After getting over the hype of having a secret room in an ancient castle all by herself she started to think about it. If it could only be opened by his heir, then the heir must have something unique to the family to open it, which most likely meant parseltongue. And a monster of Slytherin that the heir could command had to be a snake. Lily hoped it was a Basilisk. One of the first books Lily had bought in Diagon Alley had been one in magical snakes. After finding about the Basilisk she knew she needed to see one. If Salazar had a familiar, it would have been a snake, and a Basilisk would have been the ultimate display of power of the House of the Snake.
And so, she spent her time wondering the castle with a different face, hissing at anything that remotely resembled a snake when people weren't looking.
Time went by and Lily was getting restless. Between the idiots of her House, the idiots of the staff, and the idiots of the other Houses, she was nearing her limits. It seemed that Potter had learnt that there was a muggleborn on Slytherin and he had made her his pet project. He had approached her one day on the library and the result had been embarrassing.
"Excuse me, Lily is it?" Lily lifted her sight out of her books to see who it was that was disturbing her study time. She had finally managed to have one of her study periods coincide with Luna's and she was ready to rain death on whoever bothered her, especially after seeing how the idiots in Ravenclaw hadn't stopped to bother Luna even after they had an accident and fell down the stairs. For the House of the Wise they were pretty daft. And so, when she saw Potter's smirk between Weasley –the male, even stupider one- and Granger –the girl with such low self-esteem that she was willing to do all of Potter's and Weasley's work just to have someone call her friend- she was ready to blow a fuse.
"Lily Hyde, yes, what do you want, Potter?" She asked.
"No need to be on edge, Lily, we're Gryffindors, we're here to help." He said, to which Lily snorted and Luna had to hide behind her books to hold her laughter. "I know you've had problems, I guess no one explained to you how Slytherin House is and you got sorted there. It's a nest of bigots and Death-Eaters in training, so obviously they're going to take offense to a muggleborn being sorted there. But you don't have to worry, we can protect you from them, they know better than to mess with me." He said proudly.
Lily had to take a deep breath before answering.
"Potter. I know you're trying to help, or more likely you're trying to look good by helping, but truly, it is not needed. The standards of Slytherin House have clearly gone down over the centuries, because as much as my housemates are trying, so far this conversation has bothered my studies more than anything those idiots have tried. Most are too stupid to get me, and the rest know better than to try." She said, going back to her books.
"But you're just a first year, how do you expect to be able to hold back the older Slytherins?" Granger interceded.
"Yeah, they must have gone easy on you, but they will get nastier, the slimy snakes will get you eventually." Weasley said with hatred in his face.
"For the last time, snakes are not slimy, frogs are. And if they get rowdier I'll just break a few legs, no need to worry about anything, my room is warded anyways." She said with finality.
"Warded? I thought you were muggleborn" Said Granger.
"What makes you think that?" Intervened Luna from behind her book.
"Didn't you grow up in the muggle world?" Asked Potter.
"Yes, which means that I'm either muggleborn or I come from a wizarding family which mistook me for a Squib." Lily said with venom.
"But Hyde is not a pureblood name." Said Weasley.
"She never said the family had to be pureblood, though they are more prone to abandoning squibs." Said Luna.
"And Lily Hyde is not my real name, is the name the people of the orphanage gave me." Lily offered, shrugging.
"So how come you know so much magic already?" Asked Granger with suspicion.
"I learn fast. The Hat wouldn't have put me in Slytherin if I didn't know how to handle myself." Lily answered. "Do you have anything else to say to me or…?"
"Let's go guys, it's obvious she doesn't want our help. She will come back begging sooner or later." Potter said turning back, to which Luna laughed out loud, earning a sush from Madam Pince.
"I told you it was a waste of time. The Hat screamed Slytherin in under a second, I still say she's the bastard child of a Death Eater." The voice of Weasley was heard at a distance. "No wonder Ginny hates her."
The encounter with Potter had been irritating, as word had somehow reached her House, and Draco Malfoy, better known to her as Barbie Jr., had confronted her, taunting her for "mingling with people of her station, mudbloods and blood traitors". Apparently Malfoy didn't believe her when she called Potter a self-important ass, or maybe he took affront to her saying he was more of the same. Anyways, it ended with Malfoy and his goons staking the Common Room's entrance waiting for her. As always, her metamorphmagus abilities came in handy, and she was very amused when Malfoy gave up and entered the Common Room, only to find her sitting in a chair. He lost it when she winked and drew his wand, but a quick wandless tripping charm fixed it; Malfoy lost his footing and hit his head with the corner of a table, hard enough to draw blood, and his wand went rolling across the ground. A notice-me-not charm over it and the refusal of any older student to summon it after he made an ass out of himself ensured that he spent the rest of the evening looking for it. The next day's breakfast was quite amusing, every time she winked at Malfoy he seemed about to have an aneurysm out of pure rage.
Now that she had had some time to settle in she had started to pay more attention to the people of the castle. Her status as a "muggleborn" Slytherin made her invisible to the other students, except for the occasional Slytherin who tried to curse her, but she could deal with them easily enough. Her metamorphmagus powers were quite useful, she just turned into an average-looking girl and most everyone ignored her. This made listening in and observing people so much easier.
She had readily identified the top Slytherin as Anabelle Urquhart, a sixth year witch which was the hand behind Marcus Flint. She had yet to identify who was pulling Malfoy strings, but she had her suspicions it was a second year by the name Blaise Zabini. He seemed too unsuspicious not to have some dirt.
Observing the professors had yielded a curious result. It appeared that Lily Potter was not part of the perfect family she had readily shown in public. She was harsh, ironic and very bitter. Lily had even caught the professor smoking on the Astronomy tower, with a sneer on her face that would make Snape proud. They were actually quite similar in several aspects.
It seemed not all that glitters is gold, but Lily could hardly blame her Charms Professor. If Potter Sr. was anything like his son in attitude her life must be continuous pain. The prat had taken her refusal of him "saving her from the slimy Slytherins" as a personal insult, and had jumped in Weasley's bandwagon of considering her a "Death Eater in training. Because, of course, who wouldn't want to worship the Boy-Who-Lived that wasn't a Dark and Evil wizard.
What was even more intriguing was the strange tension that seemed to be between Mrs. Potter and the rest of the members of the staff. She only got along with Flitwick, and she was her usual rude self to the rest, except for Dumbledore and Snape. She seemed to despise Dumbledore, which was surprising since as far as Lily knew the Potters were some of Dumbledore's fiercest supporters, the icon of the "light" families. Her relationship with Snape was far more intriguing. She hadn't seen them say a word to each other, not even look at each other. They seemed to be happy ignoring each other's existence, but as to why, she could only guess.
At first she had attributed this tension to Snape's animosity towards Potter Jr. He seemed to really have it out for the kid, and from what she had heard of the confrontations, it was quite obvious that Snape had serious beef with Potter Sr. and was taking it out on the boy. Quite petty, she thought, but that's life. However, this strange situation between the two professors didn't seem to have anything to do with Potter Jr. These two probably had their own history, but that would have to wait. She had more important things to do.
