Lily's Hogwarts Journey: Year I

Chapter One

An Ordinary Witch

She strides out onto the Quidditch field followed by her six fellow teammates, a burning adrenaline already pumping through her veins. The girl, young and strong, mounts her Firebolt broomstick and rises into the sky. The fourteen players surround the referee, the cheers of the crowd ringing in the girl's ears, screaming her name in quicker and quicker repetition: "Lily, Lily, Lily!" The referee lets the Quaffle into the air, and the game begins.

Lily is the first in possession of the Quaffle, speeding past the others of her team, all of them multicolored blurs. She speeds toward the opposing team's three goalposts, the red leather ball under her arm as she reaches to toss the Quaffle through the hoops and earn her team ten points. Nearly got it...almost there...

"Lily, you're having one of those dreams again aren't you?"

Lily Peters' forest green eyes slowly opened to find her best friend Sasha Kinterluv standing over her bed, her hands on her hips and her silver hair braided into a plait. Her eyes were ice blue, and she looked put out.

"Get up and get dressed, please Lily?" Sasha begged as Lily sat up, still excited from the memories of her dream. Lily's appearance was unique for a girl of eleven years: long, waist-length red hair, forest green eyes, and a light tan skin complexion just bordering on creamy porcelain.

"Sorry," Lily muttered, trying to erase the memories of yet another vivid Quidditch dream with a rub of her eyes. "If you had waited just a minute longer, my team would've won!"

"Yeah, well, tough luck," said Sasha with a shake of her head at her Quidditch-obsessed friend. "It was just a dream."

"Just a dream..." Lily repeated to herself vaguely, watching the witches that formed the Holyhead Harpies zoom around in the poster she had put up above her bed. She idolized the Harpies team, hoping to one day earn herself a place on a national Quidditch team as a Chaser, her most skilled and favorite position.

"Come on," Sasha said as Lily stepped over to the small, cramped closet shared by the other girls in the orphanage, dressing in a royal blue tank top and faded, patched jeans, an outfit that matched the sapphire necklace at her throat. Lily had been at The Merlin House Orphanage since infancy, the healers said, and yet she still didn't understand how or why she'd come to be there.

Now it was summer 2000, and Sasha had awakened Lily to go out and practice a bit of Quidditch in the paddock beyond the orphanage. Leaning against the wall was Lily's prized Firebolt broomstick, a gift from the healers from her last birthday when she turned ten on July 23 the previous year. Today was the first of August, the sky a pewter gray outside the orphanage window. With any luck the two girls could get at least get a small game in before the rain began to fall. Lily laced up her boots and headed for the door, grabbing her Firebolt as she went.

The two friends hurried downstairs, through the parlor, and out the back door. A cool breeze was blowing when they arrived at the paddock with their broomsticks over their shoulders, bringing with it the taste of rain. This was perfect Quidditch conditions to Lily, who loved gray skies and thunderstorms rather than blue sky and sunshine.

As it was a summer afternoon, the healers had turned the whole orphanage loose for the day, and all of the orphaned charges ranging in age from just past infancy to sixteen years old were spread about on blankets to watch the "twin Chasers," as Lily and Sasha were known throughout the neighborhood. Most of the boys stood on the sidelines gazing blankly at Sasha's beauty, equally balanced with Lily's superb Chaser skills.

"Let's get the show started then," Lily grinned at Sasha as they dropped their broomsticks on the grass and whispered, "Up." Lily's ever faithful Firebolt flew into her hand at once and the girls mounted. With a cloud of dirt from Lily's boots, the girls soared into the air, audible gasps of delight escaping from the crowd below.

"Someone toss me a Quaffle," Sasha exclaimed, and the spectators obliged by tossing the large red ball up towards the two girls in the air. What followed was a spectacle worthy of a national Quidditch team as Sasha and Lily passed the Quaffle from one to the other, calumniating in a Hawkshed Attack Formation.

As Lily circled the paddock in a victory flight, she had to admit it was like she was in her dream again, never wanting to stop flying on her Firebolt against the wind unless eternity prevented it.

Later, after being thumped on the back by both boys and girls alike, Lily climbed the stairs back to her room and sat on the edge of her bed, an unopened bottle of butterbeer clutched between her knees. Unscrewing the cap, she took a sip and replaced the bottle cap before putting it on the nightstand. Fingering the necklace around her neck, Lily's thoughts drifted back to her family history. Who had her parents been? Why was she abandoned?

A creak at the door pulled Lily from her thoughts as Sasha slipped into the room. "Lily, are you okay?" she asked, staring at her friend's dreamy expression. Sasha recalled that Lily was neither in reality or fantasy when she was lost in thought, like now. She was staring out the window at the sky, but seemed to come back to reality fairly quickly.

"Yeah, Sasha, I'm all right...thinking about my past," Lily said, turning to face her friend, the dreamy mask lost. "Why did my parents abandon me like this?" she asked to no one in particular. Sasha eased her way over and the two girls sat together staring out the window. Finally Sasha's gray eyes met Lily's. "Have you asked any of the healers about your history?"

"No, but I'm going to ask Sister Kitty about it today. I've been here eleven years, Sasha; it's time I got some answers." Lily got off the edge of the bed, leaving a contemplative Sasha behind her.

The orphanage was unusually quiet today, save for the pounding rain that lashed against the windows of the old mansion, as Lily left Sasha to her thoughts. She walked down the hallway towards Sister Kitty's office, growing more determined with each step. As Lily stood before the mahogany door that led into her mentor's office, she rapped on the door and waited.

"Enter," came the voice of the woman who had been her personal counselor for the past eleven years. Sister Kitty's office furniture and paneling were mahogany, much like the door, while the wallpaper and carpeting were a dark burgundy, giving the room a romanticized feel. Two bay windows stood on the opposite wall, revealing the gray just outside the window. Sitting behind the desk was Sister Kitty herself, reading a letter brought by a tawny owl that took flight a second after Lily opened the door. However, she looked up as soon as she saw Lily at the door.

"What brings you here, Lily?" Sister Kitty asked as she brought a high-backed chair closer to her desk. "Is something troubling you?"

Lily stared at her boots, not daring to look at her mentor. "Yes, Sister Kitty, there is...I want to know how I came to be here."

Sister Kitty leaned back against the chair, her wrinkled face looking far older than sixty years. "Yes, every child here usually asks this question," she said with a sigh. "Your story, Lily, is the most painful to tell, as it happened during the peak of the worst decade in history. The years You-Know-Who terrorized the wizarding world."

Lily fell silent, remembering the many books she had read about the late 1970s and all through the 1980s, a fearful, tense time in wizarding Britain, even across the ocean in America. Sister Kitty paused with the weight of the memories, but began the tale of Lily's history anyway.

"The year was 1989, a time of great unrest in wizarding Britain and America, as I'm sure you've read about in our history books, Lily. Death Eaters, followers of You-Know-Who, more commonly known as..." Sister Kitty paused, looked around the office as if an invisible being where hanging on her every word, then whispered, "Lord Voldemort, tortured innocent families because he saw them as a threat to his supreme power."

Lily fell silent once more, picturing screaming, tortured people falling to their knees in unimaginable torture. She knew of Lord Voldemort and his group of Death Eaters, but she had no idea she had been born during their terrible reign. She looked at her sapphire necklace, her eyes gleaming back at her from the reflection, and finally spoke.

"What does this have to do with my history?"

"I'm getting there, child, be patient," Sister Kitty scolded gently. "Anyway, on July 31, 1989, eight days after your birthday, I was sitting in the front parlor reading after all the orphans had been put to bed when I happened to look up from my book and see a couple standing on the street just outside the orphanage. They both looked in distress, so I decided to go see what I could do.

"The father, I can remember, was tired and worn, although he was only in his twenties at the time, and very handsome. He explained that he and his wife had just crossed the Atlantic via broomsticks because they were giving their infant to us. The man told me his name, Robert, and that he was a former American Death Eater on the run because the Death Eaters were out to kill him. He had deserted You-Know-Who, so he was forced to retreat into hiding. It was so sad for me, having to watch this poor young couple suffer so," Sister Kitty sniffed, dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief. "They told me to take care of the child, and I did, raising the baby girl as an orphan off the street. I did notice as I took her inside, however, that a blue, heart-shaped sapphire necklace gleamed at the girl's throat. For the past eleven years, she has never removed it from her neck," Sister Kitty finished solemnly.

Lily's eyes flickered to the blue sapphire necklace around her neck and it was then she understood. Looking back at Sister Kitty, she clutched a hand to her mouth, her green eyes wide. "So you mean...?" she whispered.

"Yes, Lily, that baby was you."