Chapter Two
Platform 9 and ¾
Severus was right Lily got her letter and a strangely dressed woman came to their house and explained to her parents.
Tears slid down Lily's face as she got onto the train. She found an empty compartment and sat in a corner. A crowd of rowdy boys joined her having hardly noticed her presence. She had her face pressed against the window.
The compartment door slid open Lily turned her head far enough to see who it was and then placed her face back on the pane of glass.
"I don't want to talk to you." She whispered.
"Why not?" he asked surprised.
"Tuney h-hates me. Because we saw that letter from Dumbledore."
"So what?" he wanted to know.
She threw him a look of dislike.
"So, she's my sister." She said as if the fact were obvious.
"But we're going!" he said unable to suppress his excitement. "This is it. We're off to Hogwarts."
She nodded mopping her tears on her sleeve, smiling in spite of herself.
"You'd better be in Slytherin," he said encouraged at the slight lift in her mood.
"Slytherin?" Said a black haired boy from the compartment. He looked as if he had been well cared for unlike Severus.
"Who wants to be in Slytherin? I think I'd leave, wouldn't you?" He asked the boy sitting across from him. The boy looked up.
"My whole family have been in Slytherin." He said.
"Blimey," said the boy, "and I thought you seemed all right."
The boy grinned broadly.
"Maybe I'll break the tradition. Where are you headed if you've got the choice?" He asked.
The boy mimicked carrying a sword, "Gryffindor, were dwell the brave heart! Like my dad."
Severus sniggered.
"Got a problem with that?" The boy asked.
"No," Severus said though his sneer expressed otherwise. "If you'd rather be brawny than brainy –"
"Where're you hoping to go seeing as you're neither." Interjected the other boy.
The first boy roared with laughter. Lily sat up looking from one boy to the other a serious look of dislike on her face.
"Come on Severus," she said, "Let's go find another compartment."
"Oooooo," The boys teased.
One boy tried to trip Severus as they left.
"See ya Snivellus," he yelled as the compartment door slammed shut.
Much to their surprise they did manage to find an empty compartment. They spent the rest of the journey talking excitedly. Severus wanted to be in Slytherin desperately and Lily wasn't so sure. She didn't know where she wanted to go, Severus had spoken a lot about Slytherin but neglected to talk about the other houses. Of course he'd mentioned them in passing there was Gryffindor like those two boys had spoken about and Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw. Apparently Slytherin was bad in some people's eyes but she had absolutely no idea whether it would be good or bad for her. She spent a lot of time thinking it over and kept an open mind to what might be at the school. Severus had said something about a hat but what could that possibly mean.
After having changed into their robes the train ground to a halt.
Lily was in a daze for most of the time that they sailed across the river in their little rowing boats and as they walked up the middle of the great hall she became rather self-conscious but felt slightly more at ease with Severus by her side.
She zoned out and was snapped out of it suddenly when Professor McGonagall shouted, "Evans, Lily."
Lily climbed up the steps and sat on the little three legged stool and McGonagall placed the hat on her head, it considered putting her in Hufflepuff but finally decided on, "Gryffindor!"
"Potter, James." Professor McGonagall read from her scroll. Lily was sitting watching as James and his arrogant smirk walked up to sit on the little stool. The hat was placed on his head and the hat called, "Gryffindor," without any hesitation or second thought.
She sat while the other boys from the train were sorted into Gryffindor much to her dismay and through a dozen other students when McGonagall finally called, "Snape, Severus."
It had barely touched his head when it shouted "Slytherin."
Lily felt sad as Snape walked to the other side of the hall, a tall blonde boy wearing a prefect badge patted him on the back as he took his seat beside him. Severus didn't look very happy in spite of the fact he was sorted where he wanted to be sorted. He had wanted Lily to be in the same house as him and he was obviously disappointed that she was not only, not a Slytherin, she was the opposing house. She was a Gryffindor. Practically the sworn enemy of Slytherins.
Lily ate and drank through dinner, longing to be sitting next to her friend the only familiar face in the whole massive school. He was the only one that she properly knew and it was the first time she'd ever been away from home before and she missed her family, even Petunia in spite of the way she had acted at the train station. Her dad and her mum and her bedroom and…everything, she'd miss her friends who thought she was jetting off to some special school because she was a genius. It wasn't a good thing, they must just think that she thought she was too good for them or something, at least that's how Lily thought they would see it.
She was just sitting with some of her fellow first years; they were talking and the boy across from her was looking at her, "So, Evans," he said and she looked up,
"Are you talking to me?" She asked. He nodded with that obnoxious grin on his face.
He ate another fork full of roast dinner from his plate. "Just wondered, which classes you were looking forward to?"
Lily looked puzzled, "I don't know what is there?" They looked bemused at her,
"What do you mean? You don't know what there is?" James said chuckling. Lily looked slightly put out. She looked at them, it was just that she didn't know that there was any difference between being born to a wizarding family or being born to a muggle family. She didn't know, she was naïve about it. She didn't know the prejudice she'd face because of her birth status. James obviously put two and two together, "You're muggle born then?" He wanted to know.
Lily nodded, "Yes." She didn't elaborate. Lily ate more of her dinner and when she was finished she pushed her cutlery into the middle of the plate and drank some more pumpkin juice from her goblet. She'd never had it before but she really liked it.
"Well, I wonder when dessert gets here; I'm just desperate for some trifle." Sirius said to them and Remus and Peter laughed. Sirius looked at them, "What?"
Remus shook his head, "Nothing, just that dinner only finished five seconds ago and you ate like a pig, I'm not even sure that any normal human being would have the capacity to eat anything on top of what you've already had." Lily nodded in agreement.
"He's right." She said and James shook his head, having eaten the same amount if not more of what Sirius had and shook his head,
James patted Sirius on the arm, "I totally agree, I'm still hungry, I have no idea what they're talking about." He said and Sirius grinned,
"Ah James, this is the start of a beautiful friendship." He said as the puddings arrived on the table and ironically the trifle was right in front of Sirius. A dangerous placement they realised as Sirius took a massive spoonful of it out and put it on his empty plate and they all watched him as he gasped at the variety of stuff on the table. Lily had some chocolate ice-cream which she found out tasted much better in the Wizarding world somehow. When she'd gotten her things from Diagon Alley her mum hadn't let her stop at Florean Fortescue because Petunia was feigning an illness and wanted them all to go home and since Lily did have all of the things she needed she couldn't exactly argue that she wanted ice-cream. It would make her sound like a bit of a spoilt brat.
When they were finished, Lily made eye contact across the hall with Severus who smiled faintly back before the blonde prefect pulled him back into a conversation with a confused and suspicious look on his face as he looked over Lily and then turned back to his little friends.
Lily started to speak to the girls who sat on her other side, they were called Mary Jones and Margaret Belle, they were really nice and the three of them spoke until Professor Dumbledore, the headmaster stood up behind the podium, it looked like an owl spreading its big golden wings. The kindly man had silvery hair and a long silver beard. He was wearing Prussian blue robes decorated with little silver stars. He spoke,
"To our new first year students, welcome, to our old students, welcome back. I am Professor Dumbledore, welcome to Hogwarts. I have a few start of term notices for you. As always the forbidden forest is out of bounds, hence the name, new students keep this in mind and our older students please remember this." He said, "Please welcome our new Professor of Astronomy, Professor Aurora Sinistra." He said, the women stood up everyone gave her a round of applause she smiled and she sat down again while Professor Dumbledore continued on with his speeches start of term notices, Lily listened very closely. She always followed the rules. James did not listen, nor did Sirius, Remus did and Peter did but the terrible two were talking closely about random wizarding things that if Lily overheard she would not understand in the slightest. Professor Dumbledore smiled through his half moon spectacles, "Everyone have a good term, now off to bed with you and get ready for your first day of school tomorrow. Prefects show first years to their common rooms. Good night." With a last smile before the benches scraped the flag stone floor and everyone left the hall in a flurry of activity.
The prefects that year were a red headed boy and a blonde girl. They walked them up the changing staircases, past the portraits of people fidgeting around in their golden gilt friends. Lily stared around in wonder as the portraits smiled and waved at all of the new first years. The Gryffindor's followed them to the portrait of the fat lady who smiled, "Password?"
The blonde girl said, "Thestral." The portrait swung open to reveal a warm room with a fireplace and big cushioned arm chairs and tables and chairs and stuff. They all climbed through and listened to the red headed boy talk, "Boys dormitories upstairs and down to the left, girls the same on your right." Then the prefects walked off, and then the first years went in the direction they were told. As they passed the doors they saw that their names were on the door written on a piece of parchment. Lily walked through the door; Margaret and Mary were the names of the girls she was sharing the room with. And sure enough they showed up behind her. It was an average height girl with brown hair and a tall slim girl with pale blonde hair.
Lily walked in through the door, there were three four poster beds inside with their trunks sitting at the foot of them and crimson curtains and bed covers. There were beside tables as well and Lily was amazed that all of her stuff was already there, it was so…weird to her. I mean wizards were used to that sort of stuff happening, it happened in their backgrounds, in how they grew up. Lily smiled, "I'm Lily Evans." She said.
The blonde girl smiled, "I'm Margaret Belle, but please call me Maggie." She said.
"I'm Mary Jones." The brown haired girl said lying down on top of the covers of her bed. Lily smiled,
"Nice to meet you." She said as she opened the lid of her trunk to find her pyjamas. They were white button up pyjamas. She slid off her shoes and socks and pulled the curtains around her bed as she pulled on her pyjamas. She brushed her hair back into a ponytail and opened her curtains to go brush her teeth and wash her face. Maggie and Mary were also changing into their pyjamas. Lily came back from the first year girl's bathroom which connected all of the girl's dormitories and climbed under the covers, hyped up for her first day of school she fell asleep with great difficulty. It was eleven o'clock before she could fall asleep with her mind musing. I'm a witch she thought as she smiled because she felt like she'd found somewhere she belonged.