The Marauders: Year One

Prolouge

Lily Evans was a happy girl. She was outgoing, pretty and fun to be around. She had long vibrant red hair which she let cascade past her shoulders and onto her back, and clear, fair skin. At her school, she was popular and well-known, but despite her many friends she considered her older sister, Petunia, to be her best friend. They were inseparable and told each other everything, which was why Lily intended to show Petunia something particularly amazing that she had discovered she could do a couple of days ago.

"What is it you're showing me, Lils?" Petunia asked for the seventh time as they walked to the park.

"Wait till we get there, Tuny," Lily sang back as she skipped ahead. Petunia sighed, but followed curiously.

When Petunia reached the park, Lily was already sat on the grass waiting for her.

"Watch this, Tuny," she said excitedly. Petunia watched her sister as she lifted her hand to reveal a perfect daisy in it. The daisy began to open and close like somebody was playing and rewinding a time lapse. Petunia looked at it in horror.

"That's not right, Lily."

Lily pulled her hand away.

"I think it's pretty." she told Petunia.

"It's not. It's wrong. How are you doing it? What are you doing!?" Petunias voice got less Petunia-ish and more scared and nasty.

Lily dropped the daisy. This was not the reaction she was expecting.

"I don't know, Tuny. I can just... make it happen," she explained with a smile. "Why don't you try?"

Petunia looked at Lily and raised an eyebrow, then snatched a daisy off the floor and held it in her palm. She concentrated on it, then threw it aside furiously.

"You're maybe just being too angry with it?" Lily suggested tentatively, but Petunia had stood up and turned to leave.

"I don't want it to work for me! I don't want to be a... a freak like you!" Petunia said back to Lily nastily, then ran off back home.

Lily watched her go and felt a tear slide down her cheek. She hated fighting, and her and Petunia hadn't had arguments like this before. She looked back at the ground and saw all the daisies, then slammed her hand into them in quiet frustration.

"You're not a freak." said a voice behind her. She gasped and turned around. The park was empty when she'd come in. A boy, about the same age as her, was stood leaning against the slide. He had shoulder length greasy black hair and mis-matched ill-fitting clothes. The boy waited for her to say something, but continued when she didn't.

"I'm Severus, Severus Snape. I know what you're doing, and I can do it too. Look," the boy picked up a nearby daisy and made it open and close like Lily had done. Lily watched him curiously.

"Then how come we can do it and Tuny can't?" She asked as she walked over to him.

"Because we're magic." Severus smiled, "I'm a wizard and you're a witch, next year we'll both go to Hogwarts, which is a special school to learn magic at."

"But not Tuny?" Lily asked sadly, but interested. Severus shook his head.

"She's not the same. She's a muggle." he said the word 'muggle' as if it was something dirty, beneath him. For a moment Lily was offended on behalf of her sister, but that was quickly forgotten because she was so intrigued about what Severus was telling her.

"Tell me more about Hogwarts." she requested friendlily. The two children sat and talked for a while, and, over time, became friends. While Lily and Severus grew closer together, however, Lily and Petunia grew further apart. Lily missed her sister, but it seemed that nothing she said would rekindle their once close friendship.

When Lily finally received her Hogwarts letter, that was it for Petunia. Now that everything Severus had said was proved, and she knew her sister was a freak, she was no longer interested in being Lily's sister, never mind her friend, and she didn't so much as look at Lily for all of the summer leading up to Lily leaving.