Lily was working on Slughorn's latest essay, when something strange happened. A piece of parchment she pulled out, whatever she wrote on it disappeared. Was this a hex? She wouldn't be surprised if one of the elitists hexed her parchments due to her being muggle-born.

Then, something stranger happened. The parchment wrote on it's own!

Hello. The parchment wrote. Lily had just enough time to read it before it disappeared. Had she been paying attention, she would've recognized the handwriting as belonging to an ex-friend.

Baffled, yet curious, Lily grabbed her quill and wrote a reply.

Hello. The words disappeared within half a minute of being written. Even after all these years, magic still fascinated her.

I am the Half-Blood Prince. The parchment wrote, Who are you?

Lily thought about it, whoever was writing to her obviously wanted to go by a pseudonym. Deciding that it would be for the best to honor the person's wish and being drawn by the thrill of having an anonymous pen pal (Or "Pen Friend" as I believe the British would say), she decided to come up with her own pseudonym.

I am the Silver Doe.

Hello Silver Doe. Sorry if I made you upset with the parchment. One of my friends had taught me a new Note Passing charm, and I must've left the parchment in one of my classes.

Note Passing charms, or Chat Room Charms as they would later be known, were ways that students could communicate with each other while making it look as if they were simply taking notes like good students. However, the most popular ones made the messages appear on all writing surfaces involved in a particular charm for minutes at a time, and could easily be joined by anyone who was older than 2nd year. That meant that if a professor thought you were using the charm, you and your accomplices could easily be caught. Indeed, the Marauders had had several detentions over that.

That's ok. Things happen. Would you like it back?

There was a delay before the Half-Blood Prince replied, Thank you, but you can keep it. I've always been fascinated with having a Pen Friend.

So have I, and thank you. This could be the start of a beautiful friendship.

Indeed.

The two chatted for a while, balancing each other and their homework. It was fun.

Meanwhile, from behind a carefully placed book, Severus Snape sat not too far from Lily Evans. He was deeply sorry for calling her a "Mudblood", he was just angry that he couldn't stop James Potter and Sirius Black to latest bullying attack. He was grateful to her, but his anger clouded his judgement. Not that Lily didn't have a point that he used the derogatory term on all the other muggle-borns. True it was mostly when he was with the Slytherin gangs, but he still used it when they weren't around.

After months of failing to get Lily from accepting his apology, and realizing that impressing her in potions would earn him nothing but polite praise, Snape decided to use a charm Lucius had taught him. After all, if Lily didn't know who she was talking to, then there was a chance he would get his friend back. And maybe, just maybe, he could will the courage to admit his love for her.

But for now, he was content watching her happily chatting away with whom she thought was a brand-new friend.