Lily Evans had never been on a train before. Well, that's what she was planning to tell her new friends at this "Hogwarts" school, at least.
The last time she was on one, she remembered, embarrassingly enough, holding tightly on to her mother's ungloved hands on a strange slab of concrete and yielding to the bustling crowd of workers. She had remembered feeling nervous. No familiar faces loomed in the corners of the crushing swarm; no friendly souls lurked in the shadows. And she had made sure she looked for anyone she might have known, too, since the flat stares of armies of working men carrying briefcases flowing ceaselessly by in torrents of suits and patent leather shoes had frightened her as much as the alien environment had, she remembered looking for comfort. Holding tight to her mothers ungloved hands... A strange instance in itself, since while they were certainly weren't well off, her mother had always liked to keep appearances that she was. A lady always wore gloves in public, she would say... even if her mother was the type of woman who would never be described as 'a lady' by other people. She might be called a prostitute, a whore or 'kept woman', or a 'home wrecker', maybe, but she had never been described as 'a lady'.
Mutely, patiently waiting for the salary men pass by on their way to work, her mother snug in her rich ruby fabrics and winking rhinestones, Lily had watched her mother's face as they pushed on further, deeper into the mess of working bourgeoisie on the train platform.
Lily's own clothing had betrayed her mother's carefully woven illusion of wealth, as did the paper bags that carried their (minimal) belongings did. A piece of twine was attached to the bags handles that then connected to their wrists to discourage the bags from "up and leaven'" as her mother had put it, or to keep away 'pickpockets' and 'common thieves' as anyone else would have put it, that was the last time she had been on a train platform. It was also the last time she had seen her mother.
Thinking back to that, she found her mother's term for keeping thieves away from their luggage rather funny given her study of magic. Later on, where she had seen some wizarding families traveling on a train during her first year at Hogwarts, she had seen that they had kept a tight rein on their luggage, which actually was trying to "up and leave" as her mother had put it so long ago, the hat boxes and bags trying to get away by scuttling off on clawed feet when their owners weren't looking.
But those wizarding families had looked quite affluent, given the huge clothing chests they packed along with the fancy clutches and other luggage paraphernalia they had brought with them, all of their packages bearing the families' crest. As if such a huge mess of matched luggage could belong to anyone else.
She remembered wincing at her own luggage of choice at the time; her family couldn't afford the chest that the Hogwarts supply list demanded, so her parents had had to 'fake it' (as usual) to get her into that damn school. What they finally came up with was far better than what she was used to, especially if it's purpose was just to be able to hold her rubbish while traveling.
So when she hit the train's platform on the way to school, she had not been expected to carry a brown paper bag with all her clothes crammed in it and her books breaking out of the sides and still manage to be proud, for once of her life.
But her family had arranged a rare surprise for her this year, as it was very important to give the 'right impression' of who she was or was supposed to be at her first year at that school. Instead of using the before-mentioned paper bags with string, she had been offered the chance to use her fathers old trunk, which was dusty and more than a bit worn at the edges from his days in the military. The other wizarding students waiting on the platform 9 and 3/4 to Hogwarts (dumb purebloods, of course) seemed to think of her old chest was sort of neat and exotic looking, when in reality all it was was an army green chest with stickers slapped onto it from all of the countries her father had visited while in the navy. The pureblood students (which were the clear majority of the students at Hogwarts these days, as there were only a few muggle born students here and there throughout the school) couldn't figure out what the duck tape on her school chest was. Thus, they supposed it was some sort of 'fashionable new look' for luggage, and thank god for that and their stupid, friendly ignorance.
Standing there in her homemade robes that her mother had cleverly put together to look just like the Hogwarts School uniform, she felt oddly at ease. It was a strange sensation, and a real break from her usually troubled, nervous self indeed.
Perhaps it was because she was starting in a new school at the start of a new year.... and was actually looking like she did actually attended the school now that she had a uniform. Her mother had made her a "home made" version of the standard Hogwarts robes from a bunch of dyed black material (worn socks, old sheets, parts of her cousins trousers, thread bare work shirts and washing rags) and had then carefully fitted them to Lily's measurements to look just like the school robes that they couldn't afford.
To the casual observer, she looked nice, pretty even, in her new robes, with her warm brown tan and rich, carrot red hair. No one had to know that her 'exotic' looking luggage was in the process of falling apart and was barely being held together from the inside by an amass of duck tape that was slowly coming apart from the strain of using the old thing.
Now all she had to do, she had thought to herself, was to somehow keep all the other muggle – born students arriving on the platform from seeing her luggage. Surely they would know the 'distinctive' combo-lock lock she kept on the front of her school chest was really just an old gym locker lock that she had ripped from the local YMCA. Her favorite tombs of math and science were barely holding together and her schoolbooks were the cheapest she could find (which she later dressed-up to look passable) and her luggage of choice was a shoddy old military trunk. All that it really was was a desperate attempt by her parents to get Lily accepted into that school. Really, it was her family's only chance at having a witch in the family, and pride be damned if they missed the shot.
Her foster mother had already warned her to avoid using the public showers and to use the W. C. instead, so that no one would have the chance to see her scars. She also wore her father's old combat boots from the war, which had been completely remade by a shoe repairman who had owed her father a favor for the numbers he played. She kept them flawlessly polished, to keep the illusion they were still new (if a bit worn), though they were really far older than she was. But glancing down at them again as the train platform filled with more and more people, she realized that they didn't look that old…. They were just leather boots, and were even acceptable for the Hotwarts school uniform. It was a practical miricle in itself.
She was not sure how she would ever keep her classmates from stumbling upon her horrendous secret; her poverty. She was worried enough that the way she talked would alert everyone of who she really was. Of what kind of person she was, and how she grew up.... She was worried sick over the prospect that the other kids in this school that were all supposed to be 'of her type' would begin to think of her as the rest of her old classmates did; as a freak.
Perhaps she had done all of these adjustments to her appearance out of nervous energy. Perhaps it was all just out of fear of being 'found out'. The carefully woven persona she had chosen to present to the classmates of her new school shouted that she was friendly and witty, a proud muggle-born witch, and a consciencous student and perhaps even…. A good friend.
This was all true, but she had decided that she wouldn't include any more of herself in her new personality than the above. Her past was one that didn't really contain the notion of "a happy childhood" as more 'normal' children seemed to experience, but instead was a life of growing up grounded in the grim reality of the world around her. That she was a freak, an outcast. A witch.
While she was more skittish and shy then the rest of her boisterous classmates, making her alone and frightened in a crowd of playing children. But no one at her new school had to know that she had never had a friend before because she was strange, or had to know that while her new parents were proud as punch about her going off to school to learn magic, they were more than a bit frightened of her accidental magic that they had carefully chose to ignore.....
Standing alone on the crowded train platform, she worked her tongue around in her mouth, trying a last-minute attempt to say the "correct" things that would somehow hide the fact that she was terminally shy and woefully inadequate in social situations. Glancing around at the other Hogwarts students that were gathering on the around her on the train platform, she wondered what they were like; what their interests and hobbies were, what they liked to talk about. Meanwhile, she was fighting a losing battle to keep back the waves of her anxiety. She was hoping against hope that she wouldn't say or do something stupid that would botch the whole thing up.
She did not know how the school year at this place would go... and the most unreassuring prospect of it all was that time would only tell. She hated not having any idea of what was going to happen to her once she was inside this "school of magic". But she hoped that this 'Pig Pimple' place would prove to be better than the old school and world she had left behind.