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Lily Evans took a wild step forward in the corridor.
What the hell!
She couldn't believe it. No, she didn't want to believe it.
Sure, she'd grumbled to Sev about how so few of the prefects were muggleborn, but it had been just a vague complaint. She knew in theory that there was a discrimination based on blood in the wizarding society, and from time to time she figured it was something that needed to be fixed, but she never really felt it keenly.
After all, her house, Gryffindor, the House of Chivalry, was supposed to be free of such discrimination.
But today...
There hasn't been a day since she entered Hogwarts that she's been more acutely aware of the place of muggleborns in the wizarding world than today, on which a boy with a crush on her sincerely praised her as a "noble lily that bloomed in poor circumstances".
So, have I been subconsciously noticing him? James Potter, a bullying prankster? Did it come out somehow, and was that why my mom and dad brought up the whole husband talk?
...
"Lily, to tell the truth, four years ago, we actually considered not sending you to that wizarding school."
On the eve of the last day of summer holiday, Lily's parents sat her down and spoke calmly. Lily's eyes widened.
"Now that you're fifteen, we think it's okay to tell you."
"What do you mean? I'm a witch, and of course I have to go to Hogwarts."
"It wasn't a must, actually."
"You weren't forced to. Certainly, you were 'strongly encouraged' to attend Hogwarts by the Magical government, with tuition paid by them, but if we were to insist, your magic could be restricted to the extent that it cannot emerge at will, and you could remain in our, normal society."
"She also said that if you wanted to get a wand, you also have the option to take crash courses from the Ministry over the summer break, take an OWL or two when you feel able to, and become a witch without having to go to a boarding school."
"Daaad!"
Her father, Harold Evans, smiled wryly.
"Lily, my clever one. You passed your Eleven Pluses with flying colors when you were eleven, and you could get into a decent grammar school. If you do well at grammar school, you can even go to college. You know, the one your mum and dad never got to go to."
"I like Hogwarts a hundred times better than any muggle school!"
"Lily, the professor at Hogwarts who first came and told you that you were a witch, I forget her name, was a Ravenclaw, and before we decided to send you to Hogwarts, your mother asked her what the wizarding world's treatment of children like you was like."
Lily frowned. "Treatment of someone like me... a muggleborn, Dad? I told you, they don't discriminate against us at all in Hogwarts."
Mrs. Evans took a deep breath.
"The professor asked us a question then; that in our muggle world... how do we treat the immigrants, or the foreign labors? What social position do they occupy in British society? She said, that position's about what you should expect in the wizarding society."
Lily was speechless. Immigrants? Me? She reflexively tried to cry nonsense, then realized what her sentiment meant and couldn't think of a response.
Harold Evans gazed calmly at his bright, beautiful daughter.
"The colonials... I suppose that term's called discriminatory nowadays? Well, anyway, as well you know, foreign labors are at the bottom of the working class, in some cases even lower than the poor and unemployed, and I must confess, I've never considered it as unfair."
This was a much heavier and harder issue to address than the question of whether or not there was discrimination amongst kids in a school. Harold Evans, while not affluent or of an upper class, was a man with a firmly established place in society who provided for his wife and two daughters with his own hands. He found it hard to accept the idea of sending his 11-year-old daughter, whom he doted on, to an unfamiliar society where she would be at the very bottom of the class.
But in the end, he caved in and sent Lily to Hogwarts because, first, she'd realized she was magical, thanks to a weird neighborhood boy whom she befriended with, and she wanted to go to that magic school as badly as to sing Hogwarts in her sleep long before the Ministry came to inform her family.
And secondly -
"If I couldn't stop you from becoming a witch, then Hogwarts was an opportunity you couldn't pass up, Lily."
"Yes, Dad, Hogwarts is the best school in Europe, teaching all kinds of magical subjects..."
"It's not about the subjects they teach."
"Yes, Lily. It's not what they teach, it's who attend the school."
The wizarding world worked pretty much the same way as its muggle counterpart, as it is run by humans, while magical. But there were several differences; and one of the major difference between the two was that its population was much smaller. As a result, muggleborn children were given the opportunity to attend the same school as the wizarding world's most elite, or most rich, students attend, like Eton or Harrow in muggle Britain. Moreover, it was a boarding school.
As people born in Britain, the Evans were well aware of the power of the elite public boarding schools. No matter how well Lily did in her Eleven Plus, the best secondary education their barely-middle-class family budget could afford for her daughter was a local grammar school near Cokeworth.
"The human connections you make as a teenager can be very, very important, Lily."
There is a qualitative difference between connections made as an adult, after interests and hierarchies have been established, and those that can be made as children, on the basis of sheer liking and long-term close contact. Be it friendship, love, or alliance.
The importance cannot be emphasized enough especially when, like their daughter, her family can't back her up in the society she lives in.
"That's why we've been making a point of it since you started school. I don't much care about your grades, so long as you make as many friends as you can, and actively seek out alliances as far and wide as you can."
"Uh...yeah..."
The girl, who had thought that the words written in every letter from Mum and Dad were parents' usual nagging to their child, shook her head in disbelief. 'Make friends,' her parents' insistence, was actually a piece of adult advice, based on careful, practical calculation.
And then there was another issue.
"I know you're going to howl at me for saying this, but you're old enough to understand."
"I don't know how differently your society works, Lily, but..."
Women, especially beautiful women like Lily, had one good way to find their place in society.
"A woman can share her husband's class. There's nothing stopping a man from doing the same... but for women it's relatively easier."
"I would be relieved if you made a connection at Hogwarts, developed feelings for a respectable wizard boy with an established position in the wizarding society who loves you, and married him."
"Muum!"
In the face of his fifteen-year-old daughter's horrified howl and grimace, Mr. Harold Evans chuckled, then turned serious again.
"But there's one sort I don't recommend. Maybe it's just a groundless worry, but my daughter is pretty."
"...What do you mean, Dad, what sort?"
Lily's voice came out unconsciously hesitantly. She couldn't quite figure out what she was worried about. Her father spoke simply.
"Sons of nobility. I'm sure there's a upper one percent of hierarchy among your people. I wish you'll be content to make modest connections with them, and not bring one of them home as your bridegroom."
"Wizarding aristocracy? Nonsense. None of the wizards are earls or barons, as far as I know."
Harold smirked.
"Every society has its posh, the old money, the ones who are born with a silver spoon in their mouths, who don't need or want to get a job when they graduate, who regard the career as a sort of hobby. They're the posh."
"Uh... Hmm. I guess there are some kids like that," Lily said slowly, remembering a few of the jerks in Slytherin house. None of them seemed to be interested in her anyway, so her dad's worries were groundless, a waste of thought.
"But why don't you recommend it?"
"Lily. I may not be rich, but I'm a man with wife and kids, and I've lived whole my life with the pride of working and providing for my family with my earning. And that's the fundamental difference in mentality between us and them, up there at the top of the rank, where they're ashamed for a married man to work for money."
Mrs. Evans nodded beside him. "I have a cousin, once removed, who was ambitious to get her daughter, a smart and pretty one, married into the upper classes. She used the family money and connections to send her to a university in London, where her daughter succeeded in dating the second son of a gentry. He was ten years older than her, once-divorced, but Cousin's ambition came to fruition, sort of, as they married eventually. But after the marriage, she doesn't even get to see her daughter once a year. She has a grandson, but he never comes to visit his grandma, only sends Christmas cards. My cousin even makes a good living, being richer than us and running a couple of shops, and look what she's gotten! Then if an aristocrat marries a girl from low working class? Ha! I shudder to even imagine!"
Mr. Evans snorted cynically.
"Suppose a posh son was lovesick for you and wanted to marry you, the first thing he'd do would be to go to his parents, perhaps even before proposing to you, and ask for their permission, for it would be his parents, not you or us, who would have the final say in the matter. And if somehow it works out, and there's a back-and-forth of courtship and marriage, they'll tell you, they're approving on your own good character alone."
Lily pursed her lips. "Isn't that a compliment? It means they're only going to regard myself, not my background."
Mrs. Evans sighed. "It means that your background is so poor that they're making a special allowance for you only because their son loves you senseless."
If their two jewels of daughter married youths from Cokeworth, the Evans would give their daughter away with a lavish reception and wedding that would never be looked down upon by her bridegroom, and would become a solid family background for their daughter even after the marriage. But that's not possible if Lily marries into the wizarding upper class. The house and family she grew up in will be dismissed as nothing, and her family becomes a past to be overcome, a shame to be erased.
"They already have money and prestige, so it doesn't matter to them what you accomplish, or how hard you study and get a good job in society. For a commoner girl who marries into the upper class, all that matters is how much she is loved by her husband and how quickly she becomes a mother by having a child, especially a son and heir."
Of course, there was a possibility that everything works out. The boy loving her with all his heart, the in-laws being so doting on their son that they have absolutely no objection to whatever he wanted, and optimally, they leaving their money to their son and dying soon after the marriage making the possibility of in-law interference null, and she getting pregnant the next year of marriage and giving birth to a son safe and sound.
And they would live happily ever after for a long, long time, and it could be a happy ending for all.
However,
"Lily, we wish you, our most beautiful, clever, magical child, to make a good life for yourself with your hard work and your talents. And we know you'll find a place for your talents in that world."
"It's important to network and make connections; that's also your accomplishment never to be ashamed of. However, my advice is not to make a relationship where your entire life depends on how much he loves you, or on your fertility."
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