1

It was almost seven in the morning when Lily had waltzed onto the owlery with her heart throbbing anxiously in her chest while she held onto the letter that she had spent all night writing to Petunia tightly in her hands; though she worried if she tried to hold onto it any tighter, it may end up wrinkling and getting ruined, and then she would have to go back to her dorm and write another one.

All night, she had worried over which words were most appropriate to write down and which ones were best to avoid (her sister nitpicked over every word in those letters she wrote, and it always caused her a huge amount of a stress while trying to write a single letter to her own sister), lest she write something that would make Tunia even angrier than she usually was to her, worrying and aching needlessly to the point that the next thing she knew, Lily had woken up laying on top of the small desk in her dorm room with the finished letter scrambled to the side. Hopefully, it would be enough to convince her sister to finally write back to her in the return, for it had been such a long time since she'd talked to her sister, and she found that she missed her desperately, though undoubtedly, Tunia would scoff very loudly at the idea.

Last time they had spoken, in the time where Lily was no longer certain if it was the future or the past (but then again, Lily wasn't certain of many things as of lately, not just the time and place), she had gotten in a god awful row with her sister during their mother's funeral, and they hadn't spoken ever since. Lily did not remember much of what they argued about in the first place (though surely it must not have been something that important), only that they both had said some very awful things to each other, more awful than their usual stuff, things that they could not take back however much she wanted to, and in the following months that followed, Lily had tried writing letters and calling her in the regret of what she had said and how things had ended up between the two of them in the end, but Tunia never answered regardless of how many times she had tried to make amends.

And though Lily didn't quite know what she had done to end up here in this time and place, if there was anything that Lily knew about time travel from the various novels that she had read, it was that going back in the time usually meant the reversal of the mistakes that she had made, including the ones she had made with her sister.

Lily didn't want to lose Tunia again to all the pettiness and regrets that lived within them both (just because Tunia was unreasonable most of the time did not meant she wasn't without a fault too), for in several years from now on, their mother would be long gone and they would only have each other for the support, and they couldn't be fighting all the time like they used to when they were children (and still did, even when they reunited as adults on her wedding day), before her sister moved out for college the year she turned sixteen.

It was a very scary world they lived in, filled with darkness and death beyond any imagination, and if they refused to support each other in such times, who would?

They only had each other, after all, nobody else. Merlin knew what their father was up to instead of doing fatherly things.

Lily slowly walked up the stairs of the owlery, releasing the owl onto the air and it went flying, clutching her letter in its legs.

Lily watched the owl fly for a minute with a faint smile until it disappeared from her view, and with one last glance where the owl had been a minute ago, turned on her heel and walked away.

2

"— if you even try to touch my hair one more time, Mar, I swear to Merlin that I will rip you apart into shreds, you incompetent little —,"

"How was I supposed to know the spell was going to go awry?" Marlene protested ingenuously, "I am not a bloody seer, you bitchy little —,"

"I don't know, maybe the fact you've never done the spell before?" Dorcas was screaming, her dark hair hanging loosely over her head like a massive curly ball, like some crazy scientist's failed experiment. "You would think that would have told you that you really should not mess with my hair —,"

"We are going to be late." Mary noted, looking at her watch that hang a little loosely over her waist, looking positively regretful at the prospect.

Lily shrugged, not really caring whether they would be late to the house party or not. She'd only agreed to go because they asked her to, after all.

She had no particular interest in the parties held by the same people who only liked her when she was dating their favorite golden boy, and would try to push her onto dating him when she was not, or worse, tried to bully her because she dared to find fault in their favorite.

It got tiring after a little while, to try to fit onto that group that by the time she turned twelve, she just stopped trying to please them. She'd always gotten along better with people from other houses anyway, with a few exceptions.

"I really wanted a free food."

Lily rolled her eyes at the brunette, "You get a free food all the time, Mary."

"There is never too much free food." She said in such a Mary fashion that Lily couldn't help but laugh at that.

"Aren't you going to wear a dress?"

Mary looked down. She was wearing hoodies along with jeans. "I don't see anything wrong with what I am wearing. If anything, you all are crazy by deciding to dress up for a single night in middle of a bloody winter."

Not that weather mattered much when there were warming charms casted all around the place.

Lily shrugged again. "I like dressing up." She simply said, "And it's only fair I would get to dress up if I am going to have to suffer through those bastards."

Mary laughed. "Your hatred against Gryffindors would always be hilarious, Lils, considering that you are one yourself."

"I do not loathe them in general, just a huge amount of people that our house is filled with," The type of people who thought they could get away with anything just because they have rich and wealthy parents, who think they are better and above the school rules just because the stupid school system excused everything they did and on rare occasions when they did not, they barely got any punishment deserving of the actions while the other party was supposed to suffer in a silence.

Everyone wanted to be a Gryffindor because it was a house that people favored the most. Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs were barely recognized by the others, and Slytherins were always under a constant suspicion for the smallest of things, considered to be evil from the age eleven like it was some fact that they would all turn out to be bad just because a select few did.

It was a fucked up system, that was what it was, one that was always in favor of a single house.

("Are you quite certain, little one?" The hat asked, "In Slytherin, you will find allies and friends like no other." Little Lily Evans nodded her head, because despite how hopefully her childhood friend looked at her, Slytherin wasn't a choice she could make, not with her blood status.)

Lily fell against the bed that she was sitting on with a deep, tired sigh, unable to stop the heavy feeling in her chest, the feeling that told her an oncoming storm was coming (though she knew for a fact that it was indeed coming, and she wasn't looking forward to them one bit).

Any day now, the newspapers would be filled with the unfortunate death of that Weasley — Richard Weasley, a trained auror, found dead on streets; possible suspect, Bellatrix Lestrange, and then the school would be once again filled with fear and suspicion that she came to associate with the war those past few years. Of course they were all fully aware the war was still going on and that people were still being murdered on the streets, but when you were under false impression of a safety that the castle walls provided, it was such an easy thing to forget, but Lily never could even if she tried.

Not when she'd lived through nearly four years of a nightmare, forced to have to trust Dumbledore that he knew what to do better than any of them, that all those sacrifices in the name of the greater good were worth it. She remembered holding Fabian Prewett's hand when he died along with his twin brother, and trying to believe Professor Dumbledore when he told her that it was all worth the sacrifice.

Was it, though? No, not at all. No human life would ever be worth the sacrifice. That was just a delusion.

Whatever vision Dumbledore had, Lily realized that day, she didn't want to be part of it.

So, where would her loyalties lay if not with Dumbledore? Lily did not know.

3

If anybody asked Severus Snape, he didn't really know what he was doing here. All he knew was that Evan had asked him to come along and he did, because Evan was one of the few friends he still had left and he didn't want to lose that friendship too, especially since Lily refused to talk to him (though those last days, he was starting to have a hope that she may forgive him, after all, but that was a thought to be had later on when he wasn't surrounded by bunch of older wizards who may not think too highly of him if they were to find out that he still held hope he would be forgiven by his muggle-born childhood friend).

"Welcome, Severus," said Rodolphus Lestrange, sitting at the top of the table. "We've been told that you were coming." He looked positively cheerful, which was quite rare for him, considering the fact that he always looked like he was having a very bad day, though he supposed that if he was married to Bellatrix Lestrange, he would too.

Lucius Malfoy sat on his left, and he refused to meet his eye. Pity, he would've liked to talk to him again. The conversations they had were always entertaining, as few they may be those last few years ever since the older wizard got married.

Evan Rosier, the blonde that Severus had befriended a few years ago, motioned him to sit down next to him with a reassuring smile.

Begrudgingly, he obliged. "Shall we begin then?"

He had a very bad feeling about this.