She wanted, in those final moments, to pretend to herself that she had always known there was something off about him, but this would be a lie. The honest truth was that he had always been somewhat of an afterthought to her. As soon as James had yelled for her to "Take Harry and go!" she had known what must have happened. She rocked her son and told him that she and James loved him, and the tears that traced their way down her cheeks in that moment tracked memories that she wished were different…
She was eleven years old, pulling her trunk behind her, eager to begin her adventures at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, and smiling as she saw Severus on the platform. "Sev!" she called, waving to her best friend, a slightly tall, very pale, boy with black hair that had the unfortunate appearance of always being unwashed. As usual, Sev was scowling until he saw her. Then, for the briefest of seconds, a smile would light up his face. Lily Evans was feeling rather out of place at the moment, having been surprised by the need to run through the wall to reach the train and seeing Severus Snape calmed some of her anxiety, bringing a feeling of calm and home to this altogether foreign environment. It all looked, smelled, and sounded very English, but nonetheless, Lily felt she did not quite fit in, at least not yet. She looked over her shoulder to see her parents and motion for them to join her with Sev. As she hurried over to her friend, a boy her age, with mousy hair brushed pass so quickly as to almost knock her over.
"How rude!" she exclaimed to the boy's retreating form. He had joined two other boys who looked to be about her age and they had begun chatting excitedly. Sighing, she continued on her way to find Severus. Together, the two made their way onto the train and began to search for an empty compartment, while Severus struggled to keep up with the almost constant stream of questions Lily was firing at him.
"Can you remind me about the houses, Sev? Is there a way to make sure we're in the same one?" she asked, more than a little anxious about the thought of being stuck with no friends on the first night.
"There's four houses, y'remember. Ravenclaw is for the brainy and Gryffindor, for the brawny…" Severus began, only to be rudely interrupted by one of the boys in the compartment they had just walked up to.
"And where are you hoping to land, seeing as you're neither?" the boy drawled, in a voice that was at once haughty, over sure of himself, and clearly masking a bit of nerves. "Certainly not Slytherin," the boy she now recognized from the huddle with the mousey haired boy continued, "Honestly, I think I'd leave, wouldn't you?" he asked, directing the question to the other child in the compartment.
The boy in question, whose hair was the same shade as Severus' but laid much flatter than the first boy's seemed capable of doing, frowned. "My whole family's been in Slytherin," he replied.
"Blimey!" the first boy shouted. "And I thought you seemed alright."
"Well, I'm kind of hoping I won't follow them, to be straight withya," the second boy responded.
"You shouldn't discount the house so quickly," Severus interjected, "It has quite a noble history! Lils, I hope you…" he was cut off again, by the second boy this time.
"A noble history of turning out some of the absolute worst wizards and witches ever!"
The conversation halted there, as suddenly the mousey hair boy made his presence known again, by simultaneously dumping water all over Severus and pulling the hood of his robes down over his face. Both of the boys in the compartment laughed rather cruelly at the state of affairs Severus found himself in and high fived the third boy.
"Nice one, Peter!" the first boy said.
Lily turned her attention to her best friend, helping him to get untangled from his robes and seeing in his face a look of humiliation that she would become all too familiar with over the next five years, usually due to the presence of the boys behind her.
"Why are you so, so, so rude?" Lily demanded of the boy she now knew was called Peter, her green eyes flashing.
Peter shrugged, "Dunno, but anyone who praises Slytherin kind of deserves what they get," he responded before turning back to the boys.
"C'mon, Sev, let's go find our own compartment," she said loudly, glaring at each boy in turn before turning on her heel and marching into the hall without looking back. If she had, she would have noticed the first boy look just a tad bit guilty for a half of a second as he reached his hand up to ruffle his already messy hair. She would have also seen the second boy shake hands with Peter and introduce himself as "Black, Sirius Black."
Later that evening, she had the very unfortunate experience of being seated in between the three boys after the Sorting Ceremony. Despite Severus' hopes, she had not been sorted into Slytherin, although the Hat would eventually send him there with in almost an instant of touching his head. She, however, had been sent to Gryffindor after just an instance longer consideration. She had intentionally sat at the further end of the bench from the second boy from the compartment, who had been the first new Gryffindor, but as a certain Jones, Gwyendon, Lupin, Remus, MacDonald, Mary McKinnon, Marlene, and joined the table, the room between them filled quickly. This, unfortunately, meant that by the time Pettigrew, Peter and Potter, James, were made Gryffindors, Lily Evans found herself shaking hands with Potter and deciding on the spot to hate him for what had happened on the train. The same, obviously, held true for Pettigrew. Prewett, Alice and Wood, Richard became the final two Gryffindors in her year and suddenly the plates in front of her filled with the most delicious food she could imagine. She caught Sev's eye and shrugged sadly, only to see him turn away with a scowl to his own table. With a sigh, she dug into the food and hoped that this would not be what most days at Hogwarts would be like.
The next morning, she woke up and rushed to the Great Hall to get her schedule, hoping against hope that she and Sev would have some classes together. All in all, the evening had gotten better after they went back to the Gryffindor Tower. The other girls in her year, Gwen, Marlene, Mary, and Alice seemed wonderful and she hoped they would all five of them would be friends, along with Sev and whoever he had met in the Slytherin House. The boys, on the other hand, had only grown in their annoyance levels, from Lily's perspective. She had a small inkling that she was the only one who really found them annoying, but she was determined to hold the Train Incident against them.
Upon receiving her schedule, Lily was disappointed to see that she had only one class with the Slytherins and therefore Sev. First she would have Transfiguration, Charms, Potions, and History of Magic. Then, after lunch, the Gryffindors would make their way to the greenhouses for something called Herbology. The last class of the first day was Defense Against the Dark Arts, which simultaneously thrilled and scared her. Every third evening, she would have Astronomy and on Thursday, she would have her first flying lesson.
Transfiguration made her head spin. Charms fascinated her. Potions was where the trouble began. Horace Slughorn, her professor, had decided to pair them off randomly rather than alphabetically, as Professor McGonagall and Professor Flitwick had done. Because they were paired with the Hufflepuffs for both of those classes, she had worked with a boy named Benjamin Fenwick, who was very friendly and more than willing to help her fill in the blanks that her muggle background left. She knew, walking into Potions, that they wouldn't be partnered together for the simple reason that this class was with the Ravenclaws. She did not anticipate that she would end up partnered with Peter Pettigrew.
She wanted to like Potions. For the first time, this made class was making sense in her understanding of school. It reminded her of her old science classes with experiments. They started with a very simple potion, called a Shrinking Solution. Lily knew it was simple because Professor Slughorn had said so a number of times in the introductory part of the lesson. Unfortunately, apparently Peter Pettigrew could not handle simple potions. Within only three minutes of beginning their potion, her new cauldron had been melted into a twisted pile and leaking wet cement type solution. All of this because Peter had put in spider legs when the potion called for lacewings. Professor Slughorn hurried over and vanished their mess, and lectured them both sternly about the importance following the directions:
"Exactly as I tell you! Otherwise who knows the damage that could result! Just sit out the rest of class, reading chapter one. I want an essay on the difference between spider properties and lacewings by next class. You may begin now"
Peter Pettigrew would remain on her bad list.