The playground was empty, save for two small girls that were swinging on the swings. The elder one had long, brown hair and brown eyes, and she was laughing with the other, her sister. The sister couldn't have been more then ten years old, and she had long, red hair and emerald green eyes. They were swinging quite happily, and then the younger one had an idea.

She swung higher and higher than her sister, intending to jump off at the highest she possibly could. Her sister finally realised what she was doing, as she had done it before.

"Lily, don't do it!" she shrieked, but Lily had already let go. She flew through the air, laughing her head off, and she landed on the ground with the grace of a gymnast, instead of hitting it like she was supposed to. As her older sister dug into the dirt with her heels, Lily couldn't help but laugh.

"Mummy told you not to!" the girl said, rushing over and putting her hands on her hips. "Mummy said you weren't allowed, Lily!"

Lily was still giggling as she gave her reply. "But I'm fine," Lily said, lying on the ground and clutching her sides. "Tuney, look at this. Watch what I can do!" She leapt up and ran towards the bushes where, unbeknowst to them, was a small boy of Lily's age. She picked a dead flower off of the ground and held it in her hand.

The older girl was somewhere torn between curiosity and disapproval, but she came forward anyway. Before their very eyes, the rose came to life, and it's petals started closing and opening up again. The brunette, Tuney, looked at it for a few seconds before shouting at her sister to stop doing it.

"It's not hurting you," Lily shrugged, but put the flower down anyway.

"It's not right," Tuney said, her eyes following the flowers descent onto the ground. "How do you do it?" she asked, and Lily knew that her sister wished she could do it too.

"It's obvious isn't it?" the small boy said, coming out from behind the bushes. Tuney screamed and ran back towards the swings, but Lily, although shocked, was a curious and unafraid eleven year old girl, and stayed where she was. She watched as the small boy flushed a dull red colour.

"What's obvious?" Lily said, eyeing the boy warily.

The boy smiled a little nervously, and glanced at the older sister. She shot the boy a look of disgust as he leant close to Lily and said, "I know what you are."

"What do you mean?" Lily asked.

"You're... you're a witch!" the boy whispered, laughing a bit at the end.

She dropped her mouth in horror. "That's not a very nice thing to say to somebody!" she yelled, and stalked off to join her sister.

"No!" the boy cried, and he went off after the girls. The girls looked at him judgingly, noting his overlarge coat, which, when he walked, made him look a little bit like a bat. Lily and her sister looked at each other, both holding onto a swing pole and turning their noses up at the boy.

"You are," the boy said to Lily, completely ignoring her older sister. "You are a witch. I've been watching you for a while. But there's nothing wrong with that. My mum's one, and I'm a wizard."

The brunette laughed a cold laugh, like icy water, angry at the boy for watching her little sister. "Wizard!" she shrieked. "I know who you are. You're that Snape boy!" Turning to Lily she continued, "they live down Spinner's Endby the river." Only an idiot was able to tell that she wouldn't recommend living anywhere near there. "Why have you been spying on us?" she asked Snape.

"Haven't been spying," Snape said, turning red from the sunlight. "Wouldn't spy on you anyway. You're a muggle."

Tuney had no idea what the word meant, but she really disliked the tone in which he said it. "Lily, come on, we're leaving!"

Lily followed her sister at once, both of them glaring at Snape as they passed him leaving the playground. Their house was only down the road, and once there, Lily went straight to her room to write in her diary.

Two days later, Lily was on her way to the breakfast table when she heard the mailman drop the mail through the door. Making a short detour to grab them, she continued on her way to breakfast. She gave the letters to her mother and sat down in front of her plate, waiting for her father to put some bacon and eggs on there.

"Lily, there's a letter for you here," her mother said as the bacon and eggs made their way onto her plate. She looked up, confused, and grabbed the letter from her mother. She ripped it open, and as her eyes scanned the page, they bulged until they looked they were about to fall out of her head.

"TUNEY!" Lily called, dropping the letter and running to wake up her sister.

"What do you want?" her sister moaned as Lily shook her awake.

"What that boy said the other day is true!" Lily cried. "I got a letter and it says I'm a witch."

"That's ridiculous!" Tuney said, and Lily, giving up, huffed out of the room to sit back down at the table. Her mother and father were reading the letter that Lily had dropped, and noticing Lily's reappearance back into the room, they looked up with confused looks on their faces. Then there was a knock at the door.

**

James Potter walked through the crowded station to try and find the magical barrier to Platform 9 ¾. He was with his parents, and he was looking around the station in awe at the muggle trains. He spied a girl with long red hair with her two parents and what looked like her sister. Only the red head had a Hogwarts trunk, and she looked very lost.

Her father, like her, had red hair, and he was looking around the station, between platforms nine and ten. The mother was standing there with one of her hands on the red head's back, and one of her hands on the brunette's back. The brunette was determinedly not looking at any memebers of her family, and whenever she saw somebody that was carrying a trunk like her younger sister's, she would look in a different direction.

"Mummy," James said. "Can we go help that girl? It looks like she's lost!"

"Sure darling," his mother said, and she directed his trunk towards the young family. The father of the girl looked at them and smiled.

"Hello," Mrs Potter said. "My name is Giselle Potter, this is my husband Batholemew and this is my son James. Are you by any chance looking for something?"

"Oh no," Lily said straight away. "I'm waiting for my friend Severus. We're going to catch the train to Hogwarts together!"

"Lily," her mother hissed, but Giselle Potter just laughed.

"Oh, no need to worry child," she said. "Our James is going to Hogwarts too. Are you a first year?"

Lily nodded enthusiastically, while James just stared at her. He was feeling something he'd never felt before, but he had a feeling that he knew what it was. He started turning a little bit red, and decided to look away.

"Oh, mummy!" Lily said suddenly. "Look! Sev's going onto the platform without me!"

All seven of them looked and saw a woman with her son vanishing into the barrier. The Evans' looked taken aback, apart from Lily who was amazed. "Wow!" she mouthed, aware that the boy that had just vanished told him that he would wait for her.

"Do you want us to go onto the platform with you honey?" Lily's mother asked.

"No, it's okay mummy," Lily said. "I'll see you at Christmas!"

"Okay," her father said. "Goodbye Lilyflower."

"Bye daddyflower," she said, hugging her father and her mother goodbye. Then she went to her sister. "Goodbye Tuney," she said.

"Whatever, FREAK!" her sister said. She ran off the station, causing her parents to run after her. Lily turned back to the magical barrier and, ignoring the Potter family, she walked through it.

By the time James had said goodbye to his parents, he had lost her, but he found her soon after in a compartment on the train. She was sitting with a boy with long, black hair, just like his, who was sitting there trying to find something to do. He sat down across from the girl, who James could see had been crying her eyes out. As soon as he put his trunk away and sat down, the boy that Lily had shown him, from the station, opened the compartment door and came into the small space.

"I don't want to talk to you," Lily said, barely glancing up to see who it was.

"Why not?" Snape asked, as if he hadn't noticed the sadness in her voice.

"Tuney h-hates me. Because we saw that letter... from Dumbledore!"

"So what?" he asked.

She glared at him. "So she's my sister!" Lily sobbed.

"But we're going!" Snape jumped around enthusiastically, hardly keeping the excitement from his voice. "This is it! We're off to Hogwarts!"

Lily wiped her eyes, nodding, and she let out a small smile.

"You'd better be in Slytherin," Snape smiled, sitting down across from the boy that was sitting next to her.

James hadn't really been paying attention before now, but he snapped his head up at the mention of Slytherin. He'd been raised by wizarding parents, so he knew what the houses at Hogwarts were. Slytherin, he had heard, had the worst reputation.

"Slytherin?" he asked. "Who wants to be in Slytherin? I think I'd leave, wouldn't you?" He said this to the boy sitting next to Lily.

"My whole family have been in Slytherin," he said awkwardly.

"Blimey!" James said, gawping. "And I thought you seemed alright!"

"Maybe I'll break the tradition!" he grinned. "Where are you headed, if you've got the choice?"

James smiled at this and raised his hand, as if holding a sword in his grasp. "Gryffindor, where dwell the brave at heart!" he recited. "Just like my dad."

Severus Snape made a small gagging noise at this. "Have you got a problem with that?"

"No," said Snape, although he was sneering, and obviously did. "If you'd rather be brawny than brainy -"

"Where're you hoping to go, seeing as you're neither?" the other boy interjected, sniggering. James roared with laughter, and so did the other boy, while Lily sat up, flushed, and glared at James and the other boy in dislike.

"Come on Severus, let's find another compartment," she said, ignoring the mimickings of the two boys. As Snape passed, James tried to trip him up, but it didn't work.

"Seeya Snivellus!" the other boy said.

The two boys heard the door of the compartment clicked, and their laughing subsided.

"I'm James Potter," James introduced himself.

"I'm Sirius Black," the other boy said. Then they started laughing again, remembering the look on Snape's face.

**

The first years were standing at the front of the Great Hall, ready to be sorted. Lily was sitting with Snape, and James was standing with Sirius. Although, Sirius had just been called up to get sorted. James saw some of the people sitting at the Slytherin table sit up a little bit straighter: He supposed they must have been the cousins that Sirius had been talking about.

"GRYFFINDOR!" the hat shouted, and the people at the Slytherin table slumped back in their seats, their faces no longer proud and boastful.

James smiled to himself as Lily Evans was called up and she placed the hat on her head. She too was sorted into Gryffindor. As she sat down across from Sirius, not wanting to sit next to him, she smiled a little sadly at Snape. James had to stop himself from gagging.

"Potter, James," was finally called, and James ran up towards the stool that held the hat. The hat was placed upon his head by Professor McGonagall, and the hat called out 'GRYFFINDOR'. Beaming, he took the hat off of his head and sat down next to Sirius. Across from him was Lily, and a shabby looking boy called Remus Lupin, but the two seemed to be getting along fine.

"Snape, Severus," Professor McGonagall announced, and Sirius and James tried not to laugh as the boy stumbled up to the sorting hat. He was immediately sorted into Slytherin.