..

...

"Coincidence, yes. But you see, human emotions don't operate very rationally. I'll draw an analogy: in your muggle society, how would it feel to see 10,000 foreign children a year blithely coming into your country obtaining citizenship, while 10,000 of your own children, your own siblings, your own nieces and nephews are being deported because they were found to be ineligible for citizenship?"

Of course, I know there's no connection between those kids and ours, but still, if there were one less such kid from outside, by any chance, wouldn't one more child of ours have been born with magic, safe and sound? Those outside kids don't even have any idea how precious what they happened to have is, since their blood didn't have it in the first place.

Lily fell silent, and Marlene smiled weakly.

"It's best if you understand that, and move on, because actually the purebloods are jealous of you."

"...What the hell for?"

"Evans. You're not going to have any squibs as long as you marry a wizard. Muggleborns don't have squibs, however many babies they give birth to. I suppose that's how the Changeling Legend started in the first place."

Lily breathed in deeply. Marlene smiled wryly and muttered to herself.

"A muggleborn with that many children, and they all have magic. How dare her! My spouse and I, wizards for generations, gave birth to a squib, and that muggleborn bitch, who had had no magic on her parents' side, didn't spawn a single squib! So maybe she switched her baby with ours? I stupidly let her know I was expecting! Yup, there's the start of Changeling Jinx."

"..."

"...No one ever comes out and says it, but most purebloods know it. It's just that statistically and genetically, muggleborns rarely produce squibs. That's why some pragmatic pureblood families aren't overly resistant to the idea of their offspring marrying a muggleborn. Well, in the old days, muggleborns, especially muggleborn witches, were used as surrogates, concubines, mistresses... I mean, we used to do that, but... our oh-so-advanced wizarding government, in the nineteenth century, took notice of the muggle Queen known for strict morality and made a decree that wizards shall not take a muggleborn witch as a concubine. Wow, isn't that a relief?"

"Wow..."

Lily made a sound that might have been laughter or crying.

Strong, courageous Lily. Always with her head up, her back straight as an arrow.

Until last year, no, until just yesterday, her course of action would have been clear. She would have walked into the room and demanded an apology from Edna. She would have given her one chance, and if Edna had refused, she would have cut the relationship without hesitation.

Edna blamed an innocent third party, Lily, for what happened naturally. She put her ridiculous superstitions into words and insulted her by accusing her of stealing the magic of a child Lily didn't even know the face of. She had done nothing to deserve this accusation. She would have stood up for herself and refute it.

But that night, she did nothing. She didn't demand an apology, she didn't declare breaking up of relationship, she didn't say a word, she just walked in and lay in her dorm bed.

She was withdrawn. Lily Evans, a confident, unwavering girl, four years after stepping into the wizarding world, felt the weight of the world around her.

.

.

At dawn, something woke her.

"...Mmm... What... Mary?"

It was Mary Macdonald, peering through the curtains of her bed. As Lily looked up, still groggy, her muggleborn roommate closed the curtains, climbed onto the duvet, and sat down, hugging her knees. Lily sat up slowly, facing her.

"What did the sixth year prefect say, Lils?"

"...She told me to understand, and move on."

Mary snorted, "I knew it."

"Mary... have I been that oblivious?"

"Mmm..."

"..."

Looking at Lily, whose eyes were drooping, Mary blurted out.

"I don't mean you're insensitive! No way, Lily! I know, you just don't feel offence very often, and are quite good at tuning out bullshits. And you're really smart, and pretty, and nice, as well as honest, and you don't mind fighting and berating Potter and his gang when their pranks get too much. Everyone in this house likes you. It's not like they talk behind your back and you don't notice. If it were the case, you wouldn't have made prefect in the first place!"

True. It wasn't really the way of her House to gossip behind someone's back whom they do not like. They rather preferred to openly bash the head.

"...But, Lils."

"Yes, Mary."

"...The Gryffindors... they're all right, for the most part. They pride themselves on being nice to muggleborns, treating us well."

"Uh."

"Yeah, 'being nice to us'. I haven't told you this before. But... sometimes they're all condescending prats!"

"Oh... how is it so?"

"Oh, they sure do not call us mudbloods, oh no, but it's like they took in a war refugee from somewhere! You see? From Vietnam, Korea, Afghan... If kids came to Britain from one of those countries, we'd regard them with wonder and sympathy, thinking about how dangerous and poor their lives must have been before they came here, and how grateful they'd be to be here in our advanced society. And sure, we'd be nice to them, because they're just going to grow up and be lowly laborers, and they're not going to invade my place in society."

Lily's mouth dropped open in consternation at her icy cynicism. She hadn't realized that her friend Mary, so sweet and sociable, felt that way about their wizarding mates' attitude on muggleborns.

And it was in line with what her father, Harold Evans, had said about immigrants, and their place in society.

"Mary, but... magic is magic. We're not being discriminated against in our study. I mean, Hogwarts is an excellent school, and I've heard that the professors are some of the best in Europe. You get better at magic if you work at it, and... you can get good grades in OWLs and NEWTs... and get a job. I don't aspire to be upper-class. If we study hard and work hard enough, surely we can find a place here... like an ordinary witch or wizard?"

"Ordinary... But you know what, Lils? There aren't really many of socially average, ordinary witches at Hogwarts for us to take a leaf out of."

"Huh?"

Mary calmly explained to her friend. Mary's good-natured, well-socialized eyes were gleaming with sharp intelligence at this moment.

"You know Hogwarts school fee is expensive, right? I once made an estimation in pounds, and it's as expensive as any other public boarding schools in Britain. Every wizarding child in Britain and Ireland gets a Hogwarts invitation, unless they're a squib, but whether their parents can afford it is another matter. Even by wizarding standards, you'd have to be well-off to be able to send even one child here. But muggleborn students are exempt from tuition under the International Wizarding Agreement, so the majority of muggleborn children attend Hogwarts."

Lily frowned. But then she thought of Sev.

"Couldn't wizard-borns also get tuition assistance?"

Severus was poor, but he didn't worry about Hogwarts tuition, and he had confidently explained to her that wizards and witches went to Hogwarts as a matter of course. It made no difference whether they were muggle-born or magical-born. Lily Evans' view of the wizarding world stemmed from there, from the confident declarations of her ten-year-old neighborhood friend.

Mary smirked.

"Yes, it's possible. And be called the 'tuition-free poor', of course."

Lily was dazed. Her head felt like it was spinning. Mary continued relentlessly.

"Wizards are proud. I guess there are some parents really easy-going about it and say, 'who cares about pride when you can go to school for free?' But when I hear them talk, most of ordinary wizarding kids are home-schooled."

"Home-schooled? That's a nice word, but it just means your parents teach you when they have time."

"Yeah. Naturally it's not as extensive and organized as it is at Hogwarts, but since most families have a family trade and have their own specialty magic that's passed down through the ancestors, home education is rather common. Most wizarding family specializes in a particular type of magic, and passing a single OWL is enough to qualify you as an ordinary wizard, if you do not aspire to be a part of Ministry, or to get some elite jobs."

"..."

"As a result, wizard-borns attending Hogwarts means you're either at least of upper-middle class with a fairly well-to-do family, or you're from the dirt-poor class with no one in the family to teach you, or you're a social climber who gets into Hogwarts and tries to make upper-class connections."

Lily sighed heavily. She felt even more pathetic about herself.

She wasn't stupid. Though she was, admittedly, a naive dunderhead.

Listening to Mary, the social system of Hogwarts flashed through her head. Quickly, she could form a pretty specific idea of which of her classmates had paid their dues, and which of them had gotten tuition assistance, coming from the poorer wizard families.

The Hogwarts Board of Governors would probably be made up of parents and relatives of the former. And muggleborns, she supposed, or poor wizard-borns like Severus, would be seen in their eyes as nothing more than some needy kids attending Hogwarts out of their pocket.

Lily didn't burst with outrage, vowing to make social justice; she was a British, and the class was a natural part of her society, something that had existed in Britain since long before she was born. It was naïve to think that wizarding society would be any different.

"I, uh... I guess I could be a social climber if they want to categorize me that way. And I somehow had no idea who was getting financial aid, Mary. I suppose... I don't even qualify as a social climber yet."

Mary's eyes widened at the sight of the girl's green eyes drooping in genuine distress, and the next moment she burst into a fit of giggles.

"Lily, oh, Lily, you cute thing!"

"Oh, come on! I was going to work so hard at magic to get established here, and I realize I'm going to have to do some damn networking!"

Mary giggled and reached out, stroking Lily's auburn hair casually. What would she do with this fiercely intelligent, dumb friend?

"Yeah, Lils, our Miss Social-Climber. I'll give you a tip then."

"What is it?"

"You know, Slughorn, the sixth and seventh year Potions professor, you might want to get on his good side. No, Lily, you don't even have to kiss his arse, you just hang around him and be smart. I heard that he is a king of making connections."

"...Uh... isn't he the Slytherin Head of House? Don't suppose he's very approachable to a muggleborn..."

Mary rolled her eyes.

"He's more of an expert because he's a Slytherin! We Gryffindors are allergic to the idea of strategic friendships and socializing for the sake of socializing. So my advice is that you take a leaf out of them. And you don't have to worry about that professor disliking you for being a Gryffindor and muggleborn. Slughorn's a collector at heart. I know, since my uncle is a stamp collector, and he has the exact same gleam in his eyes. I know exactly what those sorts of people like best."

"What is it?"

"Unearthing a precious out of junks! And making a complete set! I bet that every year, he's got a whole list of students in his head that he wish to collect and complete a set by each house, by subject, by blood status. And when you're as pretty as you are, Lils, and so good at magic, and a muggleborn, it's... well, you're a rarest stamp!"

"...Ugh, that's too..."

Lily reflexively grimaced. Mary nodded and grinned.

"I know. But anyway, there'd be something to be gained by being close to that professor."

Lily sighed. It was depressing to realize that Mary was right. But in the end, she could see herself trying to be nice to Slughorn. To overcome her 'unfortunate' background.

Her father was right. By choosing the wizarding world, she'd given up a place in society that she'd taken for granted without realizing it. She would spend the rest of her life feeling like an immigrant from a third world when she was born in England, as a British citizen.

It was a miserable feeling, one that even her magical abilities could not give comfort.

.

[NOTE]

Yeah, I know J.R. stated there's no tuition fee for Hogwarts and the Ministry of Magic covers the entire cost of education.

But it's 1970's, before the number of Hogwarts attendees plummeted due to the First Wizards War. My hypothesis (for this fic) is that till 1970's, Hogwarts didn't need Ministry assistance for the school cost since they charged students for their tuition fee, which would be about as expensive as regular public boarding schools.

..