Lily Jane Evans: Fall 1970

The grass in their backyard was always the perfect level of softness, which Lily didn’t mind one bit.  Her favorite pastime was to lay flat on her back and squint up at the clouds.  Sometimes, she would sneak into the field nearby and roll in the flowers, which is how she came across a boy she quickly deemed her best friend in the world.  

“Severus stop! What on earth are you doing?” Lily giggles as Severus skips across the brook on a narrow tree trunk.  Once he crosses successfully he looks back at Lily with a triumphant grin on his face. 

“Skipping is more fun than walking, Lily.  Come on, try it!” 

So that’s how she ends up trudging back up to her house that evening barefoot, with water dripping all over the place.  Nothing could wipe the smile from her face, though.  It was the last day of summer, and her and Severus had made the absolute most of it. I can’t wait until I am an adult and can do whatever I want with my life, she thought to herself.  She was just stepping over the threshold, and bracing herself for a scolding from the dripping water when she realized that, somewhere between arriving in the backyard and getting to the backdoor Lily had completely dried off.  She shrugged it off as a strange coincidence and the warmth of the weather. 

But little things like that kept happening. She would dawdle in the bath, but the bath would never get uncomfortably cold.  Her soup was always the perfect temperature, and her clothes never stained; even when she spilled paint on a shirt at school it would wipe right off without smearing or leaving any pigment behind. 

Then, one day, someone started making fun of her friend for her funny talking voice.  Lily was having none of it, and immediately jumped between Janet and the bully to defend her friend. 

The kid looked at Lily and his eyes widened as she crossed her arms and spoke. “Jeremy, that is not a nice thing to say to Janet.  Say you are sorry right now.” She shoots him what she hopes is a terrifying glare. 

“No. I’m not gonna say sorry for something that’s true. She DOES talk funny.” 

“That’s because she is from a different country, doofus.” 

“Doesn’t change the fact she talks weird. Why can’t she say her Ls? It makes her sound stupid.” 

Lily continues to stare menacingly at the boy, hoping he chokes on a frog, and he shoots vicious looks her way before reeling back in pain.  He hunches over in a violent coughing fit and… 

Spits out a tiny frog? 

What?

The teacher, having been on the far end of the playground during all this, finally notices and sets a brisk pace to reach the boy who was in the process of spitting yet another little frog out. 

“What on earth is happening over here?” She demanded. Lily and Janet were staring in horror at Jeremy. 

Lily had no idea what had happened, and she went home and fell asleep wondering if maybe magic was real, after all.  There was no possible other explanation for that. Wait, did that mean she was magic? Because it was her who had wanted Jeremy to choke on a toad, and next thing she knew, he was coughing up a frog. Her dreams that night were full of mysterious castles and brick walls that dissolved to reveal a magical alleyway just for wizards. And she got to choose a wand and look at all the fancy magic quills.

The next day was, thankfully, a Saturday and Lily woke with the sun and after scarfing down some eggs, ran to her and Severus’ spot so she could tell her friend about the odd happenings. It took him a bit longer than usual to get there, but just as she was about to go looking for him, his silhouette appeared in the opening of the branches. 

“Sev!! There you are! I’ve been waiting for ages.” She said as he approached, before noticing the blotchy red face her friend wore. “Sev, are you okay? Did your dad yell again?” 

He nodded and collapsed next to Lily on the soft ground. They didn’t say much for a while, and Lily decided to break the silence by telling him what happened at school the day before. She hoped it would cheer him up, and it worked, drawing a small smile out of him. 

Finally, after she told him about her wild dreams last night, he spoke up. “My mum says magic is real, and that I have some. My dad doesn’t like it when she fills my head up with hogwash like that though, which is why he was angry this morning; I brought up how I had practically floated down onto the ground after falling from a tree and he was furious. Kept going on about how ‘I need to stop with those ridiculous stories before I start to sound too much like my mother’” Sev scoffed and tossed a pebble off the ledge. 

“Your father seems very angry about lots of things. You should come stay at my house, my mum and dad are lovely and don't yell at me for telling my stories.” 

“Lily, we're wizards. That's what mum told me. My mum is a witch, did you know that? Yeah, and she explained to me this morning before pa started yelling his head off that I was starting to perform something called accidental magic. It sounds like that's what's happening with you, too.” 

Lily sat up, eyes wide. “wait. So magic is real. Could I make that little flower bloom if I look at it hard enough?”

“I dunno” he said with a shrug “but it can't hurt to try” 

They spent the rest of the morning seeing who could do the most magic. Lily couldn't believe her dreams were maybe real. She only felt a little bad about Jeremy’s frog situation from the day before, but that's because he had been a bully so she didn't feel super bad. 

Severus and Lily ate lunch at her house. Her friend was still shy about being around her parents, even though they were super nice to him, especially her da, Sev was uncharacteristically quiet. She hoped he would warm up to them eventually but for now she enjoyed her tuna sandwich. 

Sadly, the next day was Sunday and that meant she couldn’t go to play with Severus in their spot. With being forced to sit on an uncomfortable pew for the better part of two hours, she could dream of different uses for her new magic. She still couldn’t do much with it but let her imagination run wild with possibilities. God would be fine if she wasn’t paying attention in church just this once, right? No lightning came to strike her so obviously he wasn’t that mad, anyway it was fun trying to think the bibles into fluttering their pages in tune to the pitchy singing. 

Sundays were so dull for Lily. After they got home from mass, all she wanted to do was go play with Janet or Severus. She was itching to tell her friend about what happened with the frog, that she had magic. 

Those hopes were dashed almost immediately when she saw a letter sitting on her windowsill; she didn’t recognize the handwriting, but it was addressed to her so she opened it. It was from Mrs. Snape, telling her something about a statue of secrecy and she couldn’t tell anyone who isn’t her family. So much for showing off to Janet. She didn’t want to break any of the fancy wizard rules before she even got to see it!