Disclaimer: I'm hopeless at French so most phrases are Google translated. Feel free to comment and correct me if anything is off. xxx

Two people waited patiently for the baby swaddled in their arms to open its eyes. A father and a mother.

"Bonjour, my little flower." Florian smiled down fondly at his child.

With her fiery red tuft of hair, the newborn had finally opened her eyes to the world. Bright emerald ones blinked curiously as the babe surveyed her surroundings sleepily. But as if overwhelmed by the unfamiliarity, the tot's tiny face scrunched up before she let out a loud wail.

Kit Evans rocked her baby gently. "Shh. Shh. There, there."

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May 1, 1965

"Give me my pen back, Lily! Ugh, you're so ugly."

Lilliane Etoile Evans, named after Liliane Phillipe – a French ancestor of her father's and the daughter of the first Phillipe to settle in England, was a five-year-old full of life that had taken after her mother's looks and her father's penchant for trouble. It was a miracle that she had not turned out a spoiled child, what with the Evans being one of the wealthiest families in town.

Lily grimaced as a twelve-year-old Petunia Evans looked down at her with annoyance and smirked before releasing a loud wail. Petunia gasped and looked around in panic before quickly picking her up from the ground and rocking her back and forth gently, whispering sorries and pleading for her to stop crying. The little girl tightened her grasp on the yellow floral pen she had stolen from her now older sister's desk and cried louder.

It had been over five years since she awoke in the peculiar room and Lily had gathered many things. She found out that she had been thrown back into time for one. What had especially rocked her to her core was that not only was she back almost forty years into the past but she was reborn as Lily Evans, the Marauders' muse, and Madam Pomfrey's protegee.

She had no idea how or why it happened. The last thing she remembered was the white light that engulfed her vision once she and Snape finally reached the goblin statue outside of Dumbledore's office. Harry had left them almost immediately after he collected their professor's tears and Ron soon followed, worried about his best mate but only after pleading with Hermione to stay there where it was safe. She was indignant of course! She wasn't one to be protected and coddled. She was an independent woman capable of protecting herself.

Snape had coughed and blinked his eyes open then as she busied herself with his seemingly hopeless wounds and had ordered her to produce another vial in which she caught more of his tears. He had tried to tell her that it would explain everything and had repeatedly said sorry and that he regretted everything, though she wasn't sure what.

"Farewell, cousin." He had uttered before falling unconscious. She remembered feeling very confused and just excused it as him probably having hallucinations which worried her even further. He wasn't her favorite teacher as he treated her rather unkindly and unfairly favored the Slytherins. Still, he had his moments where he would give her advice on her potion work albeit disguised as disdainful judgment. So, she decided she would try her best to save the man. She had dragged him, all the way back to the castle with his robes spelled with a plethora of anti-charms.

"Tuny! Were you bothering your sister, again?"

Petunia and Lily's eyes snapped to where Florian Evans stood in all his glory, his dark blond hair tied back and a stern look on his face. The dirt smudged on his chin and the lilac apron tied around his face broke his intimidating aura, though. Lily had found it surprisingly easy to become accustomed to the man being her new father in this life.

The Welsh businessman was the opposite of the strict patriarch she had as Hermione Granger. Richard Granger, husband of Jean Granger, had been the personification of emotionally unavailable. Coming from poverty and a family of immigrants, he never knew anything other than hard work and discipline. While Jean had tried to soften his callous personality, it was for naught. They were good people but not the best parents. As dentists, they were often busy and placed many restrictions on Hermione's diet which ironically resulted in her sweets addiction once she discovered the glorious wonders of candies within the confines of Hogwarts. They were distant and rarely affectionate which only became worse once she started doing accidental magic and was named a witch by Professor McGonagall.

"Bothering her? She's the one stealing my things with her grabby little fingers." Petunia scoffed but didn't stop her gentle swaying. Hermione had been bewildered at the blonde's contradicting actions at first but Lily was used to it now. She wondered how Petunia would turn into Harry's vicious aunt in the future and she made it her goal to prevent it.

"What's wrong?" And there was Katherine "Kit" Evans nee Olive, owner of Kit's Flower and Tea Room. She was very similar to Jean Granger with her kind smile and relaxed manner. The only difference was Jean did it for personal gain while it was simply second nature for Kit.

"Ly stole my pen again." Petunia blurted, stilling her movements. Lily gasped and ceased her cries as her mother narrowed her eyes at her. She wiped her eyes and wriggled in her elder sister's grasp, forcing the preteen to put her down. She shyly approached Kit and took her bigger hand in her tiny one. It had taken her years to get used to her smaller body but she was better now at five years old.

"I'm sorry, mummy." She pouted and looked up with the large emerald eyes she inherited from Florian. Another thing Hermione discovered was that Lily's mother had the temper of a firecracker. It was why Florian was such a good fit for her. He grounded her and was the calm to her storm. "I was only joking."

She heard Petunia laugh but she kept her innocent face. Didn't she know how dangerous it was to anger their mother?! She would ban her from going to the park and she wouldn't be able to go to her tree in the park!

Kit sighed and squeezed her hand before a smile finally emerged once again. "Alright. Stop teasing your sister next time."

"Just don't do it again, little flower. Now run along and play outside." Florian spoke in French and winked.

"Je vous remercie, papa!" She grinned happily and hugged his leg tightly before skipping out the bedroom door and hopping down the stairs. She walked through the long corridor past the countless portraits of all sizes of her father's ancestors, stopping briefly like she always did in front of the frame containing her family's.

She was still astonished every time she saw the picture perched on the wall near the entrance. In a gold frame was their recent family picture, taken on Petunia's twelfth birthday inside their drawing room wearing their more formal clothes. Kit was sitting on a chair wearing a cream paisley evening gown with emerald-colored lace, white gloves reaching past her elbows, and a barely seen smile on her face. Petunia was standing to the left in a similarly colored dress though off-shoulder with her chin up in the air, curly blonde hair pinned up into her dark eyes as bright as her mother's, and a bouquet of light blue petunias in her hands. Hermione had told her she didn't know how one could manage to still look so cocksure in a picture. Florian was wearing a light grey 3 piece suit with a blue tie, his usual ruffled blond locks combed neatly that reminded her so much of the younger Draco Malfoy's over-gelled hair. He kept a neutral face although his bright green eyes gleamed with amusement. They had to take several takes because he couldn't stop laughing.

Finally, there she was. Perched on Florian's arm was little Lilliane Evans. Despite how Hermione Granger was almost a distant memory to Lily, she still remembered some of her past self's features and couldn't help but compare them. Hermione commented that she hadn't been ugly but she wasn't a great beauty either and was quite plain with her frizzy dark brown curls and thin build. She did have honey eyes, which people often complimented her on but that's about it. Hermione prided more on her intelligence and resourcefulness than her looks.

She stared at the little girl in the picture. Now familiar viridescent eyes were looking curiously. Her wavy red hair which was streaked with blond identical to her father's was pulled away from her face with a blushed lace that matched the puffy dress she was wearing. In her small gloved hands was a single blue lily.

"So pretty." She whispered. She knew it was conceited of her but she had yet to truly get used to her new looks. She supposed it was quite ironic how Harry would tease her by calling her 'mum' whenever she was coddling him and now she was quite literally his mum. Even if she wasn't sure everything would still happen now that she was here. Her mere existence has probably already changed a lot of things and it had been the most difficult thing to accept that Harry probably wouldn't exist in this lifetime. She was Lilliane - Lily, not Lily - Lily.

Sighing, she moved her little feet and padded down the hallway once again. She passed the foyer and skipped to the kitchen toward the back door which led to the mansion's field where the park was just down the hill. She giggled as she ran outside in her bare feet, the summer breeze hitting her face. She picked up a book titled The Book of Three which was published a year ago from the book basket Mrs. Pommel, the lady who drops by every few days to help her mother clean the large mansion, would leave in the empty dog house near the edge of the Phillipe land. Hermione - now Lily - had been shocked at the extent of the Evans' wealth since the Dursleys had a rather modest home in Little Whinging. She wondered what happened to the Phillipe Mansion, that Florian had inherited, after the original Lily's death. She didn't think it went to Petunia since they were in Privet Drive.

She ran down the small hill her home sat atop and went to the park near the village. Cokeworth was drafty unlike up the hill where the upper class tended to buy their land but it wasn't too bad like what Harry had told her. She reckoned it was cleaner in the sixties and the trash accumulated over the years. It was probably more run down in the nineties.

"LILY!"

She whipped around at the call of her name and grinned widely at Severus who was running towards her with great passion, his dark hair flapping wildly against the wind.

"Sev! I brought the book!" She waved the cover and he smiled, eyes creasing with excitement.

Another shocking thing Hermione had found out a year ago was that her old professor had lived near the Evans down at Spinner's end. He had been sitting under her tree being picked on by the bigger kids, calling him a drunk man's son. Lily had been a little on the fence about the boy but she quickly realized that this Snape was not yet the scarred professor in her old life. Severus' ebony eyes had been filled with so much hope when she asked him to be friends that she and Hermione both felt ashamed for not saving him from the other children sooner. They hated bullies.

Severus sat down next to her under their tree and grabbed the book from her grasp. "Did you read it yet?" He panted, not taking his eyes off the hardcover.

"Yes." She scoffed. As if she wouldn't.

He raised a brow at her and rolled his eyes, scanning through the pages. After a while, he lay down and Lily followed, looking at the clear blue sky.

"Your feet will get dirty. You should really be wearing your shoes, you know?" He grunted, shooting her an exasperated look once he noticed her bare feet. Lily didn't know why she did it but she guessed it was her way of expressing freedom she didn't experience as Hermione Granger. Her parents then would have grounded her and ignored her for a week if she acted like how she was acting now.

"Just read your book, Snape."