Chapter 1: Summer 1974

A summer wind breezed through the open window of the front bedroom in the smallest house on Forge Place Road, Hookwood, Surrey. The breeze gently lifted the corners of a messy pile of papers strewn around the rickety green bedside table situated next to an equally battered bed. Visible at the top of the pile laid a thin piece of parchment covered with long green writing.

Dear Miss Evans

Please note that the new school year will begin on September the first. The Hogwarts Express will leave from King's Cross Station, platform nine and three-quarters, at eleven o'clock.

We are also pleased to inform you that you have been selected as prefect for Gryffindor house. The role of a prefect is a great honour to achieve, only those who have shown exceptional responsibility, hard work and determination are chosen to represent their houses, therefore you should be very proud of yourself. You will be expected to join the head boy and girl in the prefects carriage of the Hogwarts Express on September the first at one o'clock to discuss your role for the next two years.

A list of books for next year is enclosed.

Yours sincerely,
Professor M. McGonagall
Deputy Headmistress

Peeking out underneath the parchment lay another, only this was covered in a black ink of an untidy scrawl.

Dear Lily

I've missed you too this last week. This summer has been thoroughly drawn out without you around, though I have found a new personal research project to take up (I will tell you all about it on the train) which has somewhat filled up my time this week.

Don't worry I have still been keeping up with potions, and you were right, crushing a sopophorous bean with the flat side of the knife releases the juices much better than cutting. Though I must admit I did try with my fist first which was rather painful and now with hindsight rather moronic. My hand swelled up twice the size and I had to go to him in the end to deflate it.

I know you want me to tell you about home but there is little to say, all that's been…

The rest was obstructed but a half visible copy of a hot pink magazine titled WITCH WEEKLY. The majority of the front page was covered by a large moving portrait of an old woman with close cropped greying mousey hair to her small, pointed face. Her light eyes peered out of the black and white photograph as she turned her head about, as though trying to figure out what had caused the jostle of her pages. A glittering gold subheading lined the bottom of the picture, Bathilda Bagshot Releases Second Edition of A History of Magic. This was accompanied by a small text underneath.

'Bagshot, or should we say NotaBadShot's newest edition of A History of Magic has bounced her up the charts of the Daily Prophet's bestselling author list. With her outselling all male counterparts (Except for Merlin). We have the exclusive interview of how Bathilda really feels about being the first witch to outsell Kennilworthy Whisp, her new hair care routine for those with greying highlights, and her opinions on critics who claim the success is only down to Hogwarts making the books compulsory. 'I think those critics can shove their bigoted ideas..'

The rest of page was half covered with a large silver alarm clock, which prevented the pages being swept by the breeze onto the dark wooden floorboards.

The minute hand ticked over to the eight and a sudden deafening shrill was let out as the clock bounced up and down with the excruciating racket it was releasing. The sleeping Lily Evans sat straight up in shock from the noise, turned over to smack the clock, missed and in her enthusiasm, lunged out of bed, smacking her head on the knobbly corner of the table, ending up with a loud thump on the hard floorboards. Slowly the stack of papers, unbalanced by the scuffle, lead by Witch Weekly leaned over the far corner of the table, along with the alarm clock fell on top of the red head, surrounding her with a mess of parchment, a flower patterned duvet as well as the still screaming alarm clock. Half dazed, half-asleep Lily peered blearily around seeking out the silver noise bomb. Reaching out a pale freckled hand up she scrambled out of the pile to end the racket. Just as she managed to hit the blasted thing on the floor to stifle the noise, her door banged open.

A tall, skinny blonde girl with a longish face glared at her from across the room.

'What the hell are you playing at?' she hissed through her rather large teeth 'It's 8 am on a Sunday morning and your stomping around like a hooligan, what will the neighbours think!?'

Lily rolled her eyes as she got up of the floor 'I wasn't doing it on purpose, the alarm just surprised me."

'And why should I care about that' Petunia snapped 'just shut up and be mindful of other people for once in your life'

'And what is that supposed to mean?'

'You know exactly what I mean, now have respect in the morning, your disrupting everyone here on your stay'

Lily glowered at her as Petunia turned on her heels slamming the door, equally as loud as her alarm clock had been thought Lily. Petunia had the knack of always making her feel like crap. 'here on your stay' and 'being mindful' were just her ways of telling Lily that she wasn't welcome. That she didn't belong in the house. She was there for a temporary visit not a resident. Lily knew she should try to not take it to heart, and normally she could push down that sinking feeling of sadness and desperation she always felt towards Petunia but still being in the first five minutes of the morning it was particularly difficult to blink away the stinging of tears.

She scowled to herself as she walked downstairs, as she cursed herself for letting it get to her. The whole summer had been a particularly rough one. Her parents had insisted on alternate stays for each sister at their grandparents house after a particularly nasty blow out argument that had happened between her and Petunia only three days after arriving back from school. In this Petunia had screamed that she was an only child, and that Lily was dead to her. This would have been the usual insults if not accompanied by the devastating confession that every letter Lily had ever painstakingly written to her had been thrown in the fire at every opportunity. Lily had written to her every week ever since shed gone to school at eleven years old.

This had flared Lilys red hot temper to boiling point. Her last bit of hope that any connection stayed between the two had died and left an ash of resentment and hurt. Her insults back had felt weak and stupid in comparison to Petunia's bombshell. Once Petunia had started attempting to rip Lily's school books (this hadn't worked as Lily had placed a certain protection charm on them in second year after she arrived at Hogwarts and discovered every page completely destroyed with scratchy biro by Petunia as a leaving gift) their parents had stepped in and insisted on the separation.

This situation had worked out, as Lily could still see her home friends (well just Severus) every other week, until Petunia started a summer job with her friends working in the local poky café and "had to be at home for shifts". Lily therefore had spent most of the holidays staying in a cottage in the middle of the lake district, starved of magic and company. Although she had written to Severus, Marlene, Mary and occasionally Remus, replies had seemed too far and few between. In fact, Remus hadn't replied at all. But this hadn't surprised her as he was so ill. She'd had to send them all through Severus, getting him to send the rest on as her grandparents didn't know about her magic and she didn't want to scare them by having 4 different owls arriving all at once.

As she came into the kitchen Lily saw her mum leaning on the wooden surface, cup of coffee in hand, chatting to Petunia who was making animated gestures with her back to Lily. No doubt telling their mother a completely trumped-up version of the encounter this morning. As soon as Petunia noticed Lily she stormed out of the kitchen.

'Bye Mum, Ill see you at 6, shift finishes at 4 but me and Sarah are going bowling with some of the boys' Petunia called from the hallway.

'alright, have a good time sweetie, stay safe'

Lily was starting to doubt if there were all these shifts, Petunia had never been much of a hard worker. Her dream career seemed to be a housewife.

'Petunia just said about your noise this morning, I must say even I did think the ceiling was coming down' her mum said slightly sternly, she couldn't help it. She was a teacher.

'Mum you can't be serious, I literally just fell out of bed, I didn't sleep very well last night and the alarm shocked me earlier than I would have liked.'

'I know, look I'm sure it was an accident, but you know tuney gets all worked up about noise in the weekend mornings with the neighbours being so close by'

'She cares more about the neighbours opinions than anyone else's by the sounds of it' Lily grumbled as she poured herself a bowl of cereal.

'well doesn't matter now does it, just try to be diplomatic when you come back at Christmas hmm?' Lily nodded vaguely, knowing that an asteroid would have to fall from the sky and crush Hogwarts to the ground before she returned home for Christmas with Petunia.

'Right are you all packed?'

That snapped Lily into organisation mode as she recited off the list of items she'd already packed and the to do list to be done by 8:30. She loved lists.

At exactly 8:35 she was sat in the back of her dad's blue Ford Pinto with her mum is the passengers seat and her cat black Miges sat in her cage by her side, half asleep. As they drove down the road she thought she caught a glimpse of Severus peeking out from his living room curtains and waved. She and Sev had tried to coordinate lifts together to Kings Cross in second year but after his dad had threated to curse her father into oblivion for even suggesting driving to London, they had decided best not to try that again. Instead, she had Miges accompany her, her congratulations present from her parents for her prefect position. The badge itself was already safely pinned on the robes she would change into on the train.