A/N: Just a note that there is an unpleasant scene with Snape and his dad towards the end of this story. Please don't read if this might be upsetting to you.

...

Lily Evans had always rather hero worshiped Petunia growing up.

Her sister was a couple of years older than her and so usually did things first - riding a bike, starting new subjects and taking school tests.

Lily delighted when Petunia would let her play with her and her friends when they came over, even if she did need to bring them drinks and snacks as a payment for their generosity.

Petunia had a small group of friends at their local primary school. They were all girls (Petunia hated boys), and they would sit in a circle in Petunia's pink bedroom, writing little messages about other girls in their year in pink notebooks with scented pens.

"That's not very nice." Lily had said, reading what her sister had written about a girl called Doreen Fletcher.

Lily knew Doreen. She was always late to morning assembly and would spend the break times sitting alone on the school yard bench. "It's not her fault she's overweight." She added in the girl's defence.

"Yes it is." Petunia's friend Melissa said, her small eyes narrowed malevolently. "If she didn't pig out on so many salt and vinegar crisps she wouldn't be so fat, would she?"

The other girls laughed uproariously and Lily, still frowning, left the room.

Lily wasn't exactly unpopular at school, but she still didn't understand why girls got so much pleasure out of making fun of each other like this.

There was a group like that in her year too. They'd pass little notes to each other when the teacher wasn't looking and say unkind things in the playground. Lily had got in trouble for slapping one of them for calling her a 'ginger minger' recently.

"They were probably just jealous." Her mother, Rose, told her after she'd calmed down.

She'd been called in to speak to the headmistress again about it. It wasn't the first time Lily had got in trouble at school. But usually it was for things she couldn't help, like finding herself on the roof of the school building when she and her friend Sarah had been doing gymnastics in the playground.

"You're clever, you're pretty and you're kind." Rose said, pouring her another glass of lemonade at the kitchen table. And then she looked suddenly stern. "But next time I'm called into your school about something you'll be in big trouble."

Lily nodded meekly. She certainly knew what that meant in the Evans household.

She helped her mother make dinner and then she and Petunia asked their parents if they could go out.

They had a rule in their household that as long as the girls were home by nightfall, their parents didn't mind too much what they did.

Cokeworth wasn't a big town and generally they met a few other children they knew in the playground.

A few years ago Lily had discovered something rather amazing about the swingset. She could go all the way around the top and not even fall off!

She was the only child who seemed able to do this, and if she was honest, she had to fight very hard with herself not to keep doing it just to show off.

She contented herself instead by sitting on the grass making daisy chains while Petunia chatted to a few other girls in her year.

She had the odd sensation that she was being watched as she did this, but every time she glanced over at the little thicket of trees she was sure she'd heard movement from, there was no one there.

It wasn't until she was nine years old that Severus Snape finally plucked up the courage to introduce himself.

At first she'd been a little startled. He did look odd in his over-large shirt and baggy trousers, and he'd alarmed her even more when he told her she was a witch.

She hadn't wanted to believe it at first, even less so as it clearly upset Tuney.

"Don't worry." She promised her sister again that night in her pink bedroom. She'd snuck in after their parents had bade them goodnight and sat on Petunia's bed with a torch between them so their parents wouldn't see the light from under the door. "I won't see that Snape boy again if it bothers you."

She wasn't sure what it was about Severus' appearance that had upset her sister so much. Was it his odd clothes, peculiar name, or was it all the talk of magic?

But Lily had to admit she was intrigued by him. And try as she might, she couldn't avoid the strange new boy.

He was always there when she went to the park now, sitting on the bench, smiling at her.

Petunia told him to do something very rude once when she saw him there. "Petunia!" Lily said, half amused, half shocked.

"Well I'm sorry, but why is he just sitting there like some kind of freak?" Petunia said, lacing a hand over the climbing frame and hoisting herself up onto it. "I reckon he fancies you."

Lily pulled a face. "Don't be gross." She said. "I don't like him at all."

Unfortunately for Petunia, this turned out to be quite untrue.

One day, Severus wasn't at the park when Lily went there after school. She frowned over at the bench he normally sat on. Had he got bored of watching her? Or had something happened to him?

The next day, to her surprised relief, he was back again.

"I didn't see you yesterday." Lily said, wandering over to him. Petunia wasn't with her today, so she felt it safe to speak to the strange boy just for a bit.

She wasn't sure but she thought she saw a shadow cross the boy's sallow face. "I was… at home." He said shortly.

"You don't seem to be there very often." Lily said, smiling. "Spinner's End, my sister said you lived. What's that like?"

There was that odd look in the boy's eyes again at her words. "It's fine." He said.

Lily frowned. She knew a lot of people said 'it's fine' about things that really weren't fine at all. She wondered if this was one of those cases.

"Do you want to have a go on the swings?" She said instead. "It's much more fun than just sitting down, you know."

Severus looked at her and his whole face lit up. "Alright." He said, grinning broadly, and got to his feet.

Lily's friendship with Severus developed from there really. She couldn't help liking him. He was so different to the boys at her school. All they wanted to do was kick a muddy football around a field. They'd always try and aim it at the girls too, yelling 'score!' whenever they hit one of them.

But Severus was different. He was gentle, and he was interested in her.

"You're going to be brilliant at Hogwarts." He told her. "I just know it. You've got loads of magic."

"Does it make a difference, being muggle-born?" She asked him one day as they lay in the shade of a thicket of trees.

He faltered for a moment but then his smile was back in place again. The smile he always wore when he looked at her. "No." He said. "It doesn't matter at all."

Unfortunately, this conversation had been interrupted by Petunia, who had been watching them from behind a tree.

Lily had been delighted to see her, but Petunia, hurt and upset, had shouted at her that she and Severus were 'freaks'.

"I'm not a freak." She said crossly. What's more, it was rich of Petunia to say that when she'd gone and written to the headmaster to beg her to accept her to Hogwarts too.

It hadn't been long ago that Dumbledore had arrived at their little house now. He'd explained to Lily's parents what their daughter was and how there was a special school, a school of magic, where she could go and be trained up as a proper witch.

Her mum and dad had been delighted. "Oh my goodness!" Rose had gushed. "Our Lily? A witch?" And they'd beamed proudly at her.

She hadn't thought Petunia really cared that much. She was at the local secondary school now, where she'd already established a new group of mean girls to be friends with. She'd changed her mind towards boys now and would regularly tell anyone who'd listen about Scott Davidson, a year nine boy who wore drainpipe jeans and was apparently 'to die for'.

But she must have cared really about the world Lily and Sev were going to join, as Lily found a letter from Dumbledore that was a response to one she must have written to the headmaster asking to be allowed to go too.

Lily felt a sick sort of longing when she realised it. Petunia did want to be a witch. She was only pretending she didn't care because she was jealous.

Lily had half a mind to write to Dumbledore too. Maybe if she promised to help Petunia with the spells over the holidays she would be allowed to come. If she couldn't do magic couldn't she just sit and listen anyway?

But in the months that led up to Lily's departure to Hogwarts, she found herself drifting further and further away from her sister.

There were little things. Petunia would stop asking Lily to join her in town at the weekends. She wouldn't come and sit on Lily's bed with her at night anymore and when Lily tried to do the same, her sister would pretend to be asleep.

"Don't worry." Lily's mum said as she shared her concerns with her. "She'll come around."

But Petunia didn't come around.

"Must I go too?" She asked boredly on 1st September as their parents prepared to travel down to King's Cross.

The Evans' lived almost three hours north of London so it was a long trip. Her dad had organised parking in advance. "I know what London's like!" And had acquired a new jar of cherry flavoured car sweets for the drive.

"Yes, Petunia." He said a little crossly as he helped Lily carry her trunk out to the family's Vauxhall Viva.

After lifting it into the boot of the car, he turned to his daughter, taking advantage of the time the two of them had alone to tell her again how proud he was of her.

"I know it's not the education your mum or I had." He said in his northern lilt, which though Lily and Petunia often teased him for, she adored nonetheless. "But I've always known there was something magical about you, Lily. And here we have it, proof at last, eh?" He gave her a rather watery smile.

"I'll miss you, dad." She said, wrapping her arms around the man's waist.

He kissed the top of her head. "Just promise you'll write, sweetheart. Did mum give you some stamps?"

Lily shook her head. "I think we use owl post at Hogwarts."

Her dad laughed. "Owl post…" he said, shaking his head. "Blimey Lils, you're really something special, aren't you?" He hugged her again and then looked up as something caught his eye. "Oh, hello Tuney!" He said. "Have you picked out a cassette to play in the car yet?"

Lily looked up at her sister too and smiled, but Petunia gave her a withering look. Lily felt herself flush a little. She hadn't asked for her dad's attention. She'd much rather he praised Petunia for being special if it meant her happiness.

"Why don't you let Lily choose. She can't do any wrong, can she?" Petunia said frostily.

Their father frowned at her. "Don't be like that, Tuney. Your sister's got a fantastic opportunity ahead of her. We all should be very pleased."

Petunia Evans was not pleased for her sister. She wrinkled her nose as they arrived at platform nine and three quarters, eyeing the students carrying owls, toads, rats and broomsticks with distaste.

"Ooh! Rose! I think I just saw that woman there do some magic!" Lily's dad cried excitedly, pointing at a tall dark haired woman who'd just tucked her wand back in her robes. "Blimey, is that what they wear in the… wizarding world?" He said, looking at her long robes in amazement.

Lily wasn't interested in the woman though. Her eyes were scanning the platform looking for Sev.

She smiled as she saw him standing a few feet away with his mother. She'd met Eileen Prince several times now. The woman was very quiet but seemed nice enough, even if she did give them food that had passed its sell by date.

She wasn't surprised to see his father wasn't there. From what Sev had told her, Tobias Snape hated magic. He certainly was mean. Lily had arrived once at Sev's front door to hear the sound of him shouting from inside the house.

She'd been about to turn around and run, when the door had opened. "Who the * are you?" The enormous man had said, glaring down at her and making her wish she'd ran when she had the chance.

"I'm… I'm… Lily." She'd stammered out.

"Boy!" The man shouted and Lily had winced at the loudness and cruelty of his voice.

Severus appeared in the hallway, looking anxiously between his father and Lily. "This is Lily, dad." He said, not looking at the man. "She's a friend."

The man snorted. "Well, at least you're not a * faggot on top of everything else."

Lily felt her heart race. He hadn't really just said that had he? He'd sworn twice now. She'd only really heard the F-word used properly from men in the street before. Her parents would have murdered her or Petunia if they'd said it in the house and though some of the boys liked to say it sometimes in the playground, it was really just to be daring. They hadn't shouted it, like this man had. She wasn't sure what the other word he used was but it certainly didn't sound like he meant anything good by it.

Severus ignored the remark and walked past his father. The man grabbed his arm as he went. "Where's your mother?" He growled.

Severus shrugged. "Went out."

The man pushed him away from him. "Go on. Get out too then. Run after her! Maybe your little girlfriend will find you more tolerable than I do. Have a jolly nice time, won't you?" He said sarcastically and then, as Severus scarpered outside, he slammed the door in their face.

Lily was very glad he hadn't come to the platform today. She never wanted to see him again in her life and hated that Sev would have to again at Christmas.

But they were going to Hogwarts now. No one would be cruel or unkind to him there. She'd make sure of it.

"Tuney…" She said, approaching her sister. "Please talk to me."

Petunia was still looking around the platform with an odd expression on her thin face.

Though she pretended she didn't care, Lily knew she did really. "Maybe once I'm there I can ask Dumbledore again for you?" She said quietly.

But Petunia had rounded on her. "What makes you think I want to go?!" She snapped. "It's a freak school you're going to. It's a good thing they keep you away from everyone else. It's for our protection.

Lily frowned at her. "You didn't think it was such a freak school when you begged Dumbledore to take you."

"I didn't beg!"

"I read his reply. It was very kind."

"How did you…"

She glanced over at Severus again.

"You and that boy!" She said, following Lily's gaze and connecting the dots. "You've been going through my things!"

Though Lily tried to explain, Petunia didn't want to listen.

And Lily felt a sudden wave of guilt. She and Sev shouldn't have been in her bedroom. Sev didn't think much of Petunia because she was 'only a muggle'. That was a horrible way to look at someone. She wasn't just a muggle, she was her sister.

Hot tears filled Lily's eyes. She longed so much for Petunia to look at her, to talk to her.

"B-bye, Tuney." She said, trying not to cry as she turned to her sister as the whistle for the train sounded.

Petunia gave her a cold look. She didn't hug her. She didn't tell her she'd miss her. She didn't ask her to promise to write and tell her everything.

"Goodbye." Was all she said.