Chapter 2: Education

Although Lily never saw the need to hide her friendship with Sev, she tried to keep their association concealed like he wanted.

Still, she made mistakes.

She smiled at Sev when their potion turned out perfectly. She laughed when he glared at another student for saying something ridiculous. She gave James and Sirius the stink-eye when they called Sev by their awful nickname for him.

Sev scolded her less and less for her slip-ups as the years passed. They never discussed why. Perhaps he was tired of nagging her.

By Lily and Sev's fourth year, it was an open secret that the pair were friends.

Lily was sure that Professor Slughorn knew, but he never praised them as a power duo. Lily took that as a sign of respect for their difficult social position.

Sev also suspected that Slughorn was doing them a favor, but he still made snotty comments. Lily was clearly Slughorn's favorite.

Sev told Lily after class one day, "It's not even about the work — my work is just as good! He just likes you because you smile at him. And, you're much cuter."

Lily smirked. "Careful. Talk like that where people can hear you, and people will think you have a crush on me."

"Let them. We know that it's not like that."

Lily looked at her friend shrewdly. "You really prefer it because you feel safer quietly lusting after your real crushes."

Lily knew her guess was dead-on when Sev dramatically sighed. "What can I say? I'm a romantic beneath my snake-scale armor."

"Well, I can't say that I'm a romantic. There aren't many students here worth crushing on."

"Just the one." Sev stared at Lily intently.

Lily said flatly, "If you name names, I will too. It could get ugly."

Sev face split into huge, sappy grin, but he stayed silent.

Lily thought she might be the only one to know how mushy her best friend could be. He hides some parts of himself so well.

Those thoughts made her sad, but she let her friend keep his secrets. He did the same for her, though she herself really only had two secrets: she was fundamentally cynical and mean, even though she had to pretend not to be. And, she had a slowly-intensifying crush on James Potter.

Of course, Sev and Lily together had many more secrets.

While Lily and Sev had gotten a bit sloppy in concealing their friendship, they were much better at concealing their burgeoning political aspirations. The stakes were much higher: their ideas went all the way to the top of their magical government.

They envisioned themselves as Ministers for Magic, the Supreme Mugwumps of the Wizenagmont, and the heads of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement.

Eventually, their conversations escalated to ideas of a totally new system of government.

Lily argued for emulating the American magical system of government here. Sev argued that the general priniciples of British magical government were fine, but the particular politicians they had should get the boot.

The pair's political philosophies weren't especially coherent, especially when considered simultaneously. Lily's policy ideas were pro-muggleborn and supported international cooperation. Sev's policy ideas were anti-establishment, anti-corruption, and for improved bureaucratic efficiency.

Lily and Sev had different goals and ideas. In another universe, that might have made them enemies. Here, Lily simply said, "If we're in power together, we can lead different factions. We'll be far more popular if our policies don't represent a single platform."

"Two leaders, coming together." Sev whispered so softly that Lily almost didn't hear. "Maybe I could be a leader, for you. With you."

Lily knew that Sev was afraid of being in charge, being known. But, that was the most obvious way to do what they wanted. Lily reassured him, "We'll be great, together. But we haven't actually done anything yet. What should our first step be?"

Slowly, Sev said, "We need to be the sort of people that others want to follow. The possibilities are somewhat limited as fourth year Hogwarts students… so, I propose that we focus on our marks and improving our image with the professors and other students."

"Ha ha," Lily laughed drily. "You've been trying to get me to join you at the top of our year since we got here. This is just your latest excuse."

Sev didn't deny that truth. Instead, he said calmly, "Of course, you can continue to be Miss Evans-Exceeds-Expectations."

Lily shoved her friend off his stool and onto the dusty classroom floor.

Despite her immediate reaction, Lily finally heeded her best friend's advice. Starting partway through fourth year, she revised more and tried to excel in the ways that her professors would reward.

Lily's fourth year marks were all Outstandings thanks to Sev's push. Lily decided that she liked how that sort of success felt, so she and Sev spent much of their time together working hard on the actual, age-appropriate curriculum.

This meant that they spent less time working through ideas for their future status as dark lords. Of course, they wouldn't be evil. Their (somewhat poorly articulated) goals were benevolent, for the good of all magical beings. Lily and Sev would merely be more powerful than the current magical government allowed a single person to be.

(Years later, Lily would think back on these plans as childish and naieve. If they had gone through with any number of their plans, she would have regretted it to the end of her days.)

Once they put a label on their dreams ("dark lords"), they promptly stopped speaking that label lest it give the wrong idea. If they needed to allude to the concept, they'd use "DL" as an abbreviation for dark lord.

They were especially careful because the pair thought that Headmaster Dumbledore seemed awfully omniscient when it came to troublemakers in his school. Lily's fellow Gryffindors were flabbergasted that the headmaster had known precisely the way that James and his friends had damaged some toilets. Lily and Sev suspected that he simply had used extrasensory charms, especially ones that pick up when people use particular phrases.

Of course, the Marauders (as they called themselves) spoke with all of the subtlety of a brick hurled through a window. Lily agreed with Sev — Headmaster Dumbledore almost certainly knew everything they got up to, and he only involved himself when they went too far.

"It's favoritism, that's what it is," Sev spat, echoing a familiar complaint.

"I agree."

"But you still like J-A-M-E-S." He spelled out the name in an accusing tone.

"Yes." Lily studied Sev's face before saying. "You'll always be my best friend, though. He could never replace you."

"I don't understand what you even see in him."

"His sharp edges make him a bully, I know. Yet… I like that he's not nice all of the time. He's like us."

Sev protested. "He's not like us. He's spoiled. His followers and the professors' favoritism make it impossible for anyone to knock him down a peg."

"Aren't those the same benefits we're trying to obtain with… our aspirations? Are we not trying to gain our own followings?"

Sev only grunted in response.

Lily smiled openly. A non-response from Sev meant that she had won.

Lily and Sev's friendship faced its greatest challenge yet early in their fifth year at Hogwarts.

Lily told Sev, "You spend time with some real creeps. Mulciber and Avery are not popular around Gryffindor House, I can assure you."

"They are strategic, unfortunately. There's talk of a new… political player." He stared at her with intensity, as though willing her to understand more than his words.

"A… DL?" A dark lord?

Sev nodded gravely. "It certainly looks that way. Disappearances and suspicious resignations dominate the newspaper."

Lily winced. For all their plotting, Lily still didn't want to think about people being hurt or killed. She pushed those bad feelings down to say what she needed to. "We're going to have to cut ties with each other if this gets much worse." At Sev's carefully blank face, Lily added, "Obviously, we'll still be best friends in secret."

Sev nodded.

Lily knew that he would be sad to take their friendship back underground, even though he didn't say it.

Instead, Sev talked about how splitting in public could fit into their plans: "If we aren't seen to associate with each other anymore, we can better target the groups that best align with our own political ideas."

Lily completed his thought: "Then, when we combine forces later, it will seem like a fair compromise."

"Precisely."

Sev and Lily exchanged small, hopeful looks.

Sev said, "I'll focus on the Slytherins, of course. You'll have better luck with the students of the other three houses."

"Okay. We can do that, if and when we need to."

Later in their fifth year, there were several nasty incidents involving members of Slytherin house. There was also the Shrieking Shack fiasco with Sev, James, and James' friends.

Those were the final straw. The pair decided to make a decisive, public split.

Unfortunately, they chose to use several real frustrations when planning their fight.

"Come on Sev, you can't bring up that Remus is a werewolf. He's not a part of this."

Sev grimaced in what was obviously fear. "But he's dangerous."

"Maybe, but all wizards are. Also, falling for Sirius's trap was your own damn fault. Don't forget to use your big brain, Snape."

"Fine. What do you suggest?"

Lily said, "What about the next time James and his friends pick on you, I come to your defense?"

Sev admitted, "I do hate when you do that." Sev would rather be mean right back as an outlet for his own issues. Actually, Sev, James, Sirius, Peter, and Remus all seemed to enjoy it on some level.

Lily loathed their arguments. They really knew how to draw blood.

Sev asked, "Can I call you the… m word? That would really help me."

Lily smacked her lips in distaste. "I'd rather you didn't. But I suppose that it would sell this."

The fight went off as planned, and it hurt like hell.

Lily knew that her real emotions — fear, anger, and uneasiness — almost certainly lent credibility to her performance. She was truly appalled by Mulciber's actions against her dormmate Mary. Furthermore, the anti-muggleborn sentiment that Sev tapped into for their fight was part of an alarming trend.

It stung so much that Sev and Lily actually took a short break. It was easy to lay her bad feelings at her best friend's feet and stay away for a time.

During their break, Sev invented a new privacy spell. Lily was hurt that she found out about her friend's accomplishment from James instead of Severus.

She channeled that feeling into her own project: getting closer to her fellow Gryffindors as a means to her and Sev's long-term political ends.

While it would be a few years until the average witch or wizard could put the name "Voldemort" on the current happenings, many Hogwarts students were concerned about the chilling political climate.

Lily capitalized on that sentiment to improve her own standing.

She consoled students crying over letters from home. Targeted attacks were on the rise.

She taught her fellow students a few useful offensive and defensive spells so they wouldn't get caught out in the corridors, which were as hostile as ever.

When students tried to minimize what was happening, Lily quickly put them in their place with a long list of recent, grim events.

Lily was under no delusions about how nice or good she truly was. She was an opportunist.

Some of what she did was almost certainly good, but some of what she did served herself more, particularly by honing her acting skills.

Lily watched students' reactions to her for subtle signals of respect or distaste. She could then tailor her comfort, arguments, or deflections accordingly.

Through teaching, she also got lots of practice dueling. She used a wide range of flashy spells that kept her informal pupils and would-be attackers in line. She was a force.

And, she'd earned the admiration of James' friends. Sirius, Remus, and Peter liked that Lily had shown herself to be on "their side" instead of Severus' and Slytherins'.

The Gryffindors (as well as some Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws) who respected Lily by the end of her fifth year confirmed what Lily had already suspected: she could be powerful.

Lily obviously couldn't sit with Sev in Potions after their public split, but they did take notes to share during their increasingly clandestine meetups throughout their sixth year of Hogwarts.

Their friendship wasn't as easy as it had been, but they still made time for each other at least once per week.

Because they were well-practiced at secrecy and the stakes were higher, they made it a full year before anyone at all discovered their continuing association.

The summer between their sixth and seventh year, Sev secretly lived in Lily's bedroom at the Evans' family home.

When her friend had snuck through her bedroom window looking wretched, Lily didn't ask any follow-up questions. She had made sure he had what he needed and rearranged her room so that his little nook wasn't visible from the bedroom door.

Obviously, a nosy older sister would notice that something was up. "Your towel's not wet, yet the shower was recently used. What gives?"

An excuse rolled easily off Lily's tongue. "Oh, I just needed to rinse off my feet. I let them air dry."

Lily had no problem blatantly lying to her sister. They both already knew that Lily wasn't a good person. Even their parents knew. Yes, they were amazed by Lily's magic, but they still took their older daughter's side over Lily's. They had told told Lily that she was a "bad sister" and "not nice" when the sisters faught over clothes, the bathroom mirror, and Lily's magic. Years later, Lily would understand that her family's opinions were a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Predictably, Petunia's eyes narrowed. "Bull. I know that boy is in your room. Mum and dad wouldn't approve. I thought you were dating that Potter boy, anyway."

"I am."

Lily then extracted a promise from Petunia to keep quiet about Sev. She mostly used guilt over sending him back to his awful father.

She also may have made some vague sorts of sisterly threats, but Lily didn't remember the particulars as soon as she left the room. The conversation didn't bear thinking about as long as Petunia kept her mouth shut.

Lily dating James was quite recent, and actually Sev's doing. He had used polyjuice and a strand of her hair to hide out from his fellow Slytherins in the Gryffindor common room. When James gave him his puppy dog eyes, Sev-as-Lily asked him out on a date.

Later, Sev justified his actions to her as "I thought that you liked him."

Lily did, but she was worried that the more he got to know her, the less he would like her back.

She had gone on the date with James despite her reservations, and she had a lovely time.

Lily never thanked Sev for his role, nor did she scold him for using her appearance without her permission.

While Lily had worked hard for her top-of-their-year marks and her improved social standing, she still doubted whether she deserved to be Head Girl.

The Head Girl should be nice and good. Lily knew that she wasn't, much as she pretended.

Her friend Mary disagreed. She wrote her an extremely heartfelt letter of congratulations that Lily kept for years. Mary was only the second person that Lily had bestowed the title of friend to within her own mind.

James' status as Head Boy was both more and less surprising than Lily's status as Head Girl.

On one hand, James was incredibly smart and good with the younger students. However, he spent a lot of time messing around with his troublemaking friends and using a handsome smile to evade consequences.

Ultimately, Lily thought Dumbledore's choice of Head Boy was driven by the rising tensions in Magical England. The man self-styled as Lord Voldemort seemed to be whipping up an ideological frenzy that could bubble over any day.

James was clearly a reassuring figure for the uneasy students. Lily had tried to be as well, but James just was. Being a warm leader came naturally to him, and Lily loved him for it.

Yes, Lily loved James.

She loved his quick wit, his generosity, and his smile. He was incredibly sweet, but with an edge that made Lily comfortable with him.

By this time, Lily felt the need to perform in front of everyone. But with James, she could be a little more herself.

Additionally, Lily felt like his brand of mischief fit together with her longer-term interest in raising a family more than the dark lordiness she plotted with Sev.

The longer she thought about it, even being a less-powerful but still manipulative political figure no longer sounded like something she actually wanted. She could act, put on a front for everyone else to achieve something big. But at the end of the day, she wanted to go home and be a version of herself that didn't take so much effort. It was hard to be kind (or cutthroat, even) all of the time.

Lily and James continued to date after they graduated Hogwarts.

When James proposed, Lily accepted.