12th September 1972
After class, Lily gathered her books and stepped into the corridor, where Severus was already waiting for her. His dark eyes lit up as she approached, but before she could greet him, she noticed Marlene McKinnon and Mary Macdonald exchanging pointed glances. Without a word, they turned on their heels and walked away, leaving Lily standing awkwardly with Severus.
"What's their problem?" he muttered.
Lily frowned, unwilling to voice her growing concerns. "I don't know."
She did know, of course. Or at least, she had a sinking suspicion. The divide between Gryffindors and Slytherins had always been there, and it was only getting worse.
By lunchtime, Lily decided to approach the Gryffindor girls at their usual table. As she stepped toward them, Marlene looked up, her expression unreadable before turning ice cold.
"Why don't you sit with your Slytherin friend?" she said coolly.
Lily's cheeks flushed. The words stung more than she wanted to admit. She glanced toward the Slytherin table, half-considering it, but Severus was laughing with Mulciber and Avery. A knot formed in her stomach. She turned away, gripping her tray tighter, and settled into a far corner of the Great Hall, alone.
She picked at her food in silence, willing herself not to care. The hall buzzed around her, students chatting and laughing, but she felt entirely separate from them. The Gryffindor table had always felt like home before, but now she felt like an outsider, drifting between two worlds that didn't want her.
"Mind if I sit here?"
Lily looked up to see Remus Lupin standing beside her, tray in hand. Behind him, James, Sirius, and Peter were watching with curiosity.
She hesitated.
"Thanks, but I'm fine," she said quickly, shaking her head.
Remus nodded slowly, looking as if he wanted to say more, but he didn't push. With a small sigh, he turned back to his friends and left Lily to her solitude.
James lingered for a moment longer, his usual smirk absent. "You don't have to sit alone, you know."
Lily met his gaze, torn between gratitude and annoyance. "I'm fine, Potter."
He studied her for a second, then shrugged, shoving his hands into his pockets. "Suit yourself."
She watched as he walked away, feeling more alone than ever.
As she made her way through the castle, an older Slytherin sneered at her in the corridor. "Fat Mudblood," he spat, his voice dripping with contempt. The words hit her like a slap, ringing in her ears long after he had passed. Lily's breath hitched, and without thinking, she turned sharply on her heel, heading straight for the second-floor girls' bathroom.
She pushed open the heavy wooden door and collapsed against the cold stone wall, her shoulders shaking. The dim candlelight flickered as she buried her face in her hands, letting the tears fall freely. Moaning Myrtle's ghost drifted out from her usual stall, her large, watery eyes widening at the sight of Lily.
"Oh dear," Myrtle cooed, floating closer. "Another poor, miserable soul? What happened this time?"
Lily sniffled, shaking her head. "Nothing," she mumbled, wiping at her face furiously.
Myrtle let out a dramatic sigh, swirling above her. "People are awful, aren't they? Always laughing, always whispering. They don't understand what it's like to be different."
Lily swallowed hard, nodding slightly. She hated that she could relate.
She stayed there until her breathing steadied, then splashed cold water on her face before forcing herself to leave. She wouldn't give them the satisfaction of seeing her break.
That night, as she lay in bed, the dormitory was quiet—except for the whispering.
"She's practically a house traitor," Mary's hushed voice carried through the room.
"If she likes Slytherins so much, maybe she should just transfer," Marlene replied.
Lily squeezed her eyes shut, willing herself not to cry. But in the darkness, silent tears slipped down her cheeks.
She had never felt more alone.
The words played over and over in her head. House traitor. The idea of switching houses was ridiculous, but it still hurt to know they thought of her that way. She wished she could tell them that she was still the same Lily, that being friends with Severus didn't change who she was. But deep down, she wasn't sure they would listen.
Curling up under her blanket, she took a deep breath and told herself that tomorrow would be better.
Even though she wasn't sure she believed it.
…
A few days later, a letter arrived from Petunia, bearing the familiar scent of her perfume and the neat, precise handwriting that Lily had always envied. As she unfolded the parchment, a wave of longing washed over her, a bittersweet ache for the familiar comforts of her muggle life, a life that now seemed distant and unattainable.
Petunia's letter was filled with the mundane details of her everyday life, the kind of news that Lily had once taken for granted, but now cherished as a reminder of a world she had left behind. Petunia wrote about her new job at the local bakery, her burgeoning friendship with a girl named Yvonne, and her plans to attend a dance with a boy named Richard. She described the new dress she had bought for the occasion, the latest gossip about their neighbours, and the upcoming village fete, its promise of cotton candy and Ferris wheels a nostalgic echo of Lily's childhood.
But amidst the cheerful news and the casual gossip, a subtle undertone of resentment lingered, a hint of the forced obligation that had prompted Petunia to write the letter in the first place. Lily knew that her sister had never fully accepted her magical abilities, that she saw them as a freakish anomaly, a betrayal of their shared normalcy. And she knew that Petunia's letters were not entirely voluntary, that they were a dutiful concession to their mother's insistence on maintaining a semblance of sisterly connection.
"You should write to your sister, Petunia," her mother would say, her voice laced with a gentle reproach. "She misses you, you know. It's not easy for her, being away from home, surrounded by all those strange people."
Petunia would sigh, her lips pursing in a familiar expression of disapproval. "She's not a child anymore, Mum," she would retort, her voice tinged with a hint of bitterness. "She's made her choice, and she has to live with it."
But despite her protests, Petunia would dutifully pen a letter to Lily, her words a carefully constructed facade of normalcy, her true feelings masked by a veneer of forced affection. Lily knew that her sister's letters were not entirely genuine, but she cherished them nonetheless, clinging to the fragments of connection they offered, the echoes of a life she had left behind.
As she read Petunia's latest letter, a knot of envy tightened in her stomach, a bitter taste of exclusion tainting her longing for her old life. Petunia's world was so simple, so normal, so... ordinary. It was a world where magic didn't exist, where blood status didn't matter, where she could be just another girl, her differences unnoticed, her uniqueness unremarkable.
But Lily wasn't ordinary. She was a witch, a mudblood, a girl who didn't belong in either world. She had magic, yes, but it came at a cost, the cost of isolation, of exclusion, of being different. She had friends at Hogwarts, but they were witches and wizards, their lives intertwined with the magical world, their experiences shaped by a shared history and tradition that Lily could never fully grasp. And even within her own house, she felt a growing distance, a subtle shift in her friends' behaviour that made her question her place among them.
She longed for the simplicity of Petunia's life, the comfort of belonging, the ease of fitting in. But she also knew that there was no going back, that her path lay in the magical world, a world that both beckoned and threatened her, a world where she would always be an outsider, an anomaly, a girl who didn't quite belong.