Lily Evans had been having a jolly good day before she saw the body. In retrospect though, she thought that the girl had looked pretty dead, what with her hair lying limp about her pale face which was bloodied and bruised to no end, and even more blood in a macabre spread around her was positively drenched in it, and had been lying still and even from afar - as Lily watched, a scream lodged in her throat - she could make out the death stiffness that characterized her limbs.

Later when she visited the girl - her hair was brown, brown curls - she would notice the telltale heaviness of dark magic around the sterile hospital room, she was positioned on the lumpy bed, covered with many, many bandages and still looking half dead. Lily looked down at her unconscious form, her brows furrowed as she took in the shaved strip of hair on the girl's head which was covered with white strips of heavy bandage, the little scar on her cheek, the otherwise unmarred face - a beautiful face, she thought immediately - and wondered.

Petunia did not like the girl, she could tell, even though she visited sometimes to get out of the house. To meet her disgusting boyfriend, Dursley, Lily sister said that the nowhere girl felt like Lily did.

The hospital girl, the nowhere girl as Lily thought of her as, was looking better as the doctors had worked on her broken ribs and leg broken bones were reset and plastered, and Lily wished she would soon turn seventeen so she could heal the nowhere girl. Her bruises were almost gone.

She had scars. The nowhere girl was scarred.

Lily hadn't noticed it at first, and thankfully the Muggle doctors hadn't either. But she had been there one afternoon, looking pensively at the boy in the picture in the girl's pocket. He had had hair like someone she had seen at school. Someone quite the disillusionment charm had worn off.

Mudblood.

That night in bed, after waking up from nightmares of mutilated arms for what felt like the millionth time, she remembered with a jolt that the girl had had a bag, and had been wearing a cloak.

She asked the nurse about the nowhere girl's belongings the very next time she visited.

"You know I can't really give them to you,do you honey?"

"I know,ma'am,"Lily replied.

A few minutes later,and she had the beaded bag in her hands, after picking a certain lock near the reception area. It had involved a fair amount of flirting with the guy that sat in charge, but her skills had been sharpened after watching the infamous Marauders for a solid six years and she had nicked the bag and the cloak.

The bag was warded, with blood wards, it seemed.

The cloak was of an ultra fine quality that was soft even after being caked with blood.

"What happened to you?"Lily asked the nowhere girl. Light brown eyes stared back at her, looking through her.

"You have beautiful eyes,"the girl whispered instead.

Flickering her gaze between both of her eyes,Lily said urgently,"I can help you, if you tell me what happened. You were in pretty bad shape, and its taken almost all of July for you to wake up - and I have questions."

"I don't doubt that. The most important one however, is this - can you handle the answers Lily Evans?"the girl asked with a look like sharp flint, all unfettered edges and unforgivable hardness.

Lily jolted at the sound of her name, and, eyes wide, opened her mouth to speak before closing it again.

"How do you know my name?''she asked,teeth gritted.

"I need to rest,"was the answer before a placating,"for now."

Lily huffed but nodded.

"You will tell me, though?"

The nowhere girl hummed.

"What's your name?"

"Hermione."