Written for:

Hogwarts School of Witchcraft & Wizardry (Challenges & Assignments)

Ghost Hunting / Task #2 - A ghost does have the ability to manipulate objects: Write about a manipulative character.

The Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition

[Season Eight] Game Day: Round One / Chaser 3: The Explorer - Goal: freedom OR Fear: entrapment

Prompts: (color) gold, (word) glitter, (word) blaze

Word Count: 1,670 words

Lillian Rose Evans is seven years old when she reads The Hobbit for the first time. Quickly, she finds herself charmed by the awkward Bilbo Baggins, the gruff Thorin Oakenshield, and the peculiar Gandalf, and for two weeks straight, she devours the book, sometimes confused by its wordy nature, but always eager to read more.

It isn't the funny dwarves, the beautiful elves, or the quirky hobbits, however, that draw Lily in. It's the world, it's the magic, and it's the fact that it's completely different from Cokeworth.

Cokeworth, with its identical, bricked buildings; Cokeworth, with the abandoned, drafty mill; Cokeworth, filled with miners and factory workers, all drawn in, weary, fallen faces. Everything in the municipality is grey, drab, and dusky. The atmosphere is smoggy but cold, and no one ever leaves their house but to go to work or school. As anyone who has read George Orwell's 1984 can say, the town is something straight out of that book.

As far as people go, everyone looks the same. Lily, with her fire-engine red hair, is a complete contrast to the mousy brown or wheaty blonde that most have, and her eyes, as emerald as the jewel, look nothing like the watery blue of her sister Petunia or even the dull brown of her father or the tired grey of her mother. She, in a sense, is a complete mystery, and no one can seem to figure her out. Lily has certainly never seen anyone who looks like her, and appearance-wise, she might as well be a stranger in the town of Cokeworth.

One day at school, sitting in class with all the kids she's barely ever gotten to know, the teacher asks everyone what they want to be in the future. The answers are things like "miner" and "mill worker", and the most ambitious one turns out to be "factory manager".

At that moment, on that day, sitting amongst kids who would never be anything more than small-town workers, Lily knows that she has to hightail it out of there, ASAP.

Three years later, she meets Severus Snape, and it's not in the typical "shake-your-hand, nice-to-meet-you" kind of way.

Lily is hunched over in the dirt, shoving branches and leaves away as she searches for her gold butterfly clip, a small thing she inherited from a long-departed grandma she never met. It's gold, though, genuine gold, and a trinket like that isn't something that can regularly be found in Cokeworth, so Lily is angrily, desperately trying to find it.

Someone taps her shoulder then, and as the redheaded girl spins around, startled, he extends his palm and shows her the intricately made butterfly, only slightly covered in dirt.

Thanking him profusely, Lily takes the clip and begins to brush it clean using her shirt, and as she does, the boy begins talking about her abilities, how he's always known she's special, that she has magic just like he does.

When he says that, the younger Evans girl pauses and stares at him, really looking at him for the first time. The boy is dirty and unkempt, she observes, greasy hair falling in clumps around his shoulders. Even as Cokeworth is experiencing a heatwave, he wears a heavy black jacket over a threadbare button-up shirt, and maybe it's to cover his malnourished body or he's just embarrassed at the state of his clothes, but she pities him.

That, and she realizes he knows more about her talents than she does. He may just be the ticket she needs to ride out of the dilapidated town she lives in.

So Lily flashes him a sweet smile, and as her captivating emerald eyes glitter in the late afternoon sun, she knows she has him hooked.

In the next few weeks, as Lily spends more and more time with Severus, he tells her all about the wizarding world: how his mother had gone to the premier school for wizardry in Europe, how he would follow in her footsteps, and how Slytherin was the best of four houses at that very same institution.

But he hesitates, he holds back; Lily can tell.

Severus speaks about classes with gusto, even manages to sneak over some of his mother's old school textbooks with him one day, but he falters whenever she so much as mentions anything to do with wizarding society. He blinks, coughs, looks away, does pretty much anything to avoid elaborating on the topic, and it makes her suspicious.

Four days later, on the two month anniversary of their meeting, Lily invites him to the park near her house, which is much nicer than the one close to his. She beams at him, greets him with a wide hug, and a batch of her mother's homemade blueberry muffins that she knows he loves.

"I'm so happy I met you, Severus," she gushes, holding tightly on to his left hand. "Nobody's ever understood me as much as you do."

Pink dusts his cheeks, but he clenches on to her hand just as tightly.

Then he tells her all about purebloods, half-bloods, and muggleborns, the latter of which she was. He talks about discrimination, how some would consider her to be a lesser person than they are just because her parents don't have magic. He hugs her afterward and fiercely whispers that she deserves so much better, that he won't ever let them talk down to her.

Leaning her head on Severus' shoulder, and thinking about the recent revelations, Lily frowns and her eyebrows crease.

That won't do, she muses. No, that won't do at all.

Around four months after she meets Severus, Lily receives her Hogwarts letter, at the tail end of June.

She shoves a battered copy of Libatius Borage's Advanced Potion-Making underneath her bed, one she's recently pilfered from Severus' mother's collection, and runs toward the living room, where her confused parents are sitting face-to-face with an emerald-robed witch.

The professor - McGonagall, from what Severus has her believing - is handing them pamphlets and books with moving pictures, carefully explaining to the elder Evans' that their daughter has magic, that she's a witch.

From her spot on top of the staircase, Lily sees her sister smiling smugly, looking like she owns the world, and for a moment, that confuses her. But then, the red-head quickly realizes that the professor hasn't mentioned which "Miss. Evans" is the witch, and she thinks that Petunia is, in fact, Lily.

Four months of being in anticipation of freedom from the dull life in Cokeworth makes Lily want to run down and immediately correct the mistake, but she grabs the rails and steadies herself. She can't falter now, not when an opportunity to knock her arrogant older sister down a peg has so clearly presented itself.

Taking a deep breath, the youngest Evans confidently saunters down the stairs and heads toward the only empty seat in the room: the one next to Petunia. Before she sits down, she stops in front of the professor and feigns surprise.

"I didn't know we had a guest," she smiles sweetly at the older women and extends a hand. "It's nice to meet you, ma'am."

Looking charmed, the professor shakes her hand. "And the same to you as well, Miss. Evans."

Lily hides a smile as she sits down, taking note of Petunia's worried scowl.

McGonagall returns to talking about whatever she'd been addressing before (something about the wizarding bank), and Lily listens intently, even though Severus had already told her everything important. She fiddles with her gold butterfly clip in her hands, forgoing putting it in her hair as she'd been about to before the professor arrived.

" . . . now, do you have any questions, Lily?"

The redheaded girl looks up, pretending to be confused. "Ma'am?"

The witch stares at her, then she looks at Petunia. She opens her mouth to say something before her eyes zero on the hair clip in Lily's hands. Shock, confusion, and grief all cross McGonagall's face, and she looks at Lily in a new, considering sort of way. Then, she abruptly clears her throat and looks between the two Evans girls.

"Which one of you is Lily?"

The aforementioned girl raises her hand and wiggles her fingers slightly. "That'd be me, ma'am."

Petunia gasps, looking affronted. "You've been looking for her this whole time?"

McGonagall coughs, suddenly embarrassed. "I do apologize, I should've clarified that I was looking for Miss. Lily Evans."

"So Lily is a witch, not Petunia?" Henry Evans - their father - clarifies.

McGonagall nods. "Yes, Mr. Evans. I wasn't aware you had another daughter, and so didn't think to elaborate beforehand. You have my apologies."

Petunia turns to Lily, and her eyes blaze with anger and fury.

"You have to ruin everything, don't you, you freak?!" She shrieks angrily, before getting up and storming off.

Mrs. Evans sighs tiredly and stands up, following her older daughter to her room.

An awkward silence settles between Lily, her father, and her soon-to-be professor.

The red-head suddenly gets up and smiles. "Tea?"

A/N: I've just come off a writer's block and this is my first story in a long, long time, so I'd appreciate any feedback you could spare. Tell me if it's any good and I might just continue it ;)