Chapter Text
Prologue
When Lily Evans was 9 years old, her entire world fell apart. They were driving home from a scholarship interview with a prestigious girls school that her teacher had recommended her for. Her parents were so proud when she received the letter inviting her to the interview, so proud of their clever Lils. They were almost home, a left off the main road, a right, another right and then left into their driveway.
The crash came out of nowhere. One minute they were stopped at the traffic lights, the next, they were being shunted backwards, sideways, pushed by the force of the oncoming car. Rose Evans was screaming. David Evans was silent. Lily was sobbing. As suddenly as it started the movement of the car stopped. Rose was still screaming, only this time she was screaming her husbands name, over and over again. David wasn’t responding, his head was slumped forward onto his chest. People were surrounding the car, hands grabbed at Lily, dragged her from the backseat. She was still sobbing, calling for her mother and father. She heard the vague sound of sirens in the distance, getting closer and closer. A young woman in a paramedic uniform sitting beside her, checking her over, treating her injuries. Other paramedics surrounded the car, firefighters were cutting the car apart, desperately trying to free her parents from the wreckage.
Lily doesn’t remember much after that. She remembers being driven in the back of an ambulance. Waking in a hospital bed, a plaster cast heavy on her left arm, various bandaged swathing other body parts. Screaming for her mum, for her dad, her sister. She remembered the funeral. Someone dressing her into a new dress and stiff shoes. She remembered the bitter loneliness, the intense pain of wanting her parents, but not being able to hold them. Her sister, Tuney, leaving a room with a snear on her face any time Lily entered it.
The day after the funeral is her clearest memory of that time. A team of social workers picking her and Petunia up from their temporary foster care placement and taking them back to the house to pack up their things. The house, she was told, would be left as it was until her uncle Michael, who wasn’t actually her uncle at all, but her fathers best friend, was able to take care of everything. Lily and Petunia would be going to separate foster homes, unfortunately there was no placement that could take them both at the present moment. At 15, Petunia was being taken to a residential care facility, whilst Lily was going to stay with a family named the Snape’s who had a son around her own age. Lily cried when they told her that she wasn’t going to be with Tuney, whilst Petunia spat that she was glad she wouldn’t have to live another minute with the little freak who had killed their parents. Lily cried harder as she was helped into the backseat of the social workers car, calling out for Petunia, yelling that she was sorry she killed her parents, and that she wasn’t a freak, and please, please Tuney, I’m sorry, don’t leave me Tuney, please.