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It has often been said that a witch or wizard may not remember their first use of magic.
An unexplained circumstance that an infant wouldn’t think to question; bubbles made to float around the room, a beloved teddy propelled from its resting place, a darkened room relit after lights out.
Almost always accidental, instinctual and without thought.
The gift of magic is simply accepted when surrounded by wizarding ways a child will grow to expect, embrace, and elevate their skill.
For a child outwith a wizarding family, it’s something else entirely.
Not so inconsequential, it causes ripples, murmurs, and side-long glances, heads shake with a nervous laugh, ‘my eyes are playing tricks on me’.
One wet Saturday in October, Lily and her classmates sit cross-legged on the dusty hardwood floor of Cokeworth community halls, picking at the specks of dried mud that mark her opaque white tights, splashed with surface water on the short walk over here.
Caroline Barnes is the most popular girl in class, at nine years old she commands the attention of all, her purple party dress bought new for the occasion unlike Lily’s dress which had come from the trunk of hand-me-downs saved a few years until she fit into her sisters’ old clothes.
Dynamo Dave stands at the front of the group wearing a lime green satin cape and waving a black plastic stick with white tips, claiming to be magic. His performance is full of flare, loud and colourful, encouraging claps, laughter, and sounds of amazement.
Lily though, isn’t interested in his razzle and dazzle, ‘that’s not magic’, she whispers under her breath picking loose a thread at the hem of her dress, where the lace is gaping slightly.
This summer she has seen real magic, felt real magic.
Flowers bloom from buds in an instant, leaves floating in synchronised patterns through the air, whirlpools stirring under the surface of still water.
After each applause Dave looks over his audience, deciding who to bring forward for his next trick, keeping her head down Lily barely registers him pointing her out, “You with the red pigtails, come on up sweetheart.”
Petunia eyes burn into her from the corner of the room.
She’s sat out of the way on a brown plastic chair, ankles crossed reading a magazine from the months-old issues stuffed in the old wire rack hanging from the panelled wall.
There’s a warning in her gaze when Lily catches it, one that had been repeated several times as they walked from their home towards the old brick building, ‘don’t act like a freak’.
Dynamo Dave asks her name as she approaches the table he has set up, and compliments her on what a pretty girl she is, and Lily grits her teeth in place of response.
She does as she’s asked and picks a card, nodding in the affirmative when he calls out “Is this your card?”
There’s laughing and oohs from the crowd, she feels her face redden as Dave takes a bow, ushering her back to her seat.
There’s no thought, no plan, no piecing it together logically, one minute she’s tugging his sleeve and trying to get him to agree it isn’t really magic and the next he’s in the air. Horrified shrieks fill the air, coming from the side of the room where the mums are sitting drinking tea, in the corner Petunia stands with her hands on her hips turning a shade of purple that almost matches poor Caroline’s dress.
“He’s a liar Tuney, that’s not real magic, you know that.”
She sobs, wiping her nose on her free arm.
There’s shouting audible when they come through the rusted gate. Making their way to the front door it doesn’t stop until the door slams shut behind the sisters and Rosie Evans appears in the hall to greet them.
“Are you early? I thought Pamela said they were doing tea and not to expect you back until five.”
The carriage clock on the mantle says three fifty-two, Lily looks to her mother, rain-soaked, eyes red-rimmed, rubbing her wrist where Petunia had dragged her home at a quick march.
“You shouldn’t have let her go, she made a scene and everyone—”
A knock at the door halts Petunia’s diatribe, Lily’s father stands from his sagging recliner, ushering his family away from the door and opens it tentatively.
“Caspius Paramore, improper use of magic,” a strange looking older man in an aged bowler hat extends his hand and is met with much confusion.
Ushered inside, out of sight from twitching curtains and passing neighbours.
Lily stares resolutely at the carpet while she hears this stranger explain the circumstances of his visit, the events at the party having triggered some sort of alarm.
Her father clears his voice to speak, but when she hears no reprimand, no complaint she looks up.
Petunia sits tall, ankles crossed, a grimace etched on her face, silent, still.
Looking at each of her parents, Lily finds that they too are still, unnaturally so.
As if it’s nothing, she watches while the strange man holds a carved wooden stick to their heads, one at a time.
“It won’t hurt them, it’s better this way.”
The Evans family is obliviated.
Memories wiped clean of not just this ill-fated day, but any and every instance of unexplained curiosity their daughter may have generated.
All but Lily, who listens with voracious interest when the man informs her, he is a wizard and she, Lily Evans is a witch.
“Are there others like us?”
He taps his nose and winks, “Thousands, you’ll see in time… but for now—"
Steeped in warning, her magic must be hidden.
A burden for her to carry, a secret she must keep.
Magic had felt special, made her feel special, a warm energy building inside her, it brought hope that there was more to life than the one she’d thus far seen.
That she can’t share it with her family makes it feel wrong and shameful, the warmth turned cold and lonely.
The rest of the weekend passes without a hint of the drama, everyone appears a little quieter, a little slower or perhaps Lily is simply more assessing than usual.
On Monday everyone talks of the fun they had at Caroline’s party and ‘weren’t the balloon animals great’, the prickles of fear that someone might recall the incident keep Lily to herself, withdrawing into her library book.
At home she sits in her wardrobe, imagining the back opening into a magical realm, book in hand she wishes she were as brave and noble as Aslan. She falls asleep in there hiding from the sound of raised voices, dreaming of fierce Lions.
The chill of her self-imposed solitude lifts unexpectedly one Sunday afternoon.
His voice reaches out from behind a tree, startling her, “Where’s your sister?”
The book in Lily’s hand falls into the river with a splash. She stumbles to retrieve it, wetting her duffle coat sleeve, fingers instantly numb from the frigid waters.
He knows what she is, he says, he knows what she can do.
“You don’t know anything—” she begins to tell him he’s crazy, fearing repercussions.
But then, as if it’s nothing he takes her book and waves his hand through the air, instantly drying the pages.
Suddenly she’s less alone, someone else like her, someone to confide in, someone to guide her.
They become fast friends, meeting only at weekends and when school isn’t in session, neither ever invites the other to their home.
Severus speaks of potions, and spells and the ability to travel great distances with just sheer will.
Severus Snape makes no apology for who he is.
He has someone to learn from, his mother doesn’t have much in the way of money, but she has knowledge and understanding of the wizarding world.
Eileen Snape (nee Prince) cleans houses, both magical and non-magical, though she uses magic to do so. It doesn’t pay much, but the extra coin in both currencies is put to good use and keeps his father, Tobias, in unfiltered Woodbines and cans of Stones Bitter.
She takes the young boy out of the damp streets of Spinner’s Ends to travel through fireplaces and visit a place where flowing robes are standard and butterbeer shared with his mother is better than any can of lager his embittered father has offered him a sip of.
“Don’t tell your dad about today, be a good boy Sevvy.”
Magic is a secret that bonds them together, mother and son, hidden from his father’s disapproval.
He tells his mother when he sees the girl in the park making flowers dance, a smile shared that’s soon extinguished when she learns the girl’s heritage.
After that, he adds Lily to the stash of secrets that he keeps, and he stops mentioning Lily altogether.
Severus exists in a shaky middle ground, connected to both worlds, resentful of both worlds, frustrated at his half-life in the shadows.
When the summer of her eleventh year arrives, and with it an invitation to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, it’s his ticket to freedom. But for Lily, it’s bittersweet.
The man in the bowler hat returns, bringing with him a woman in a tartan shawl who offers a tin of homemade shortbread to the family.
Truth, she finds doesn’t soften the relations inside the Evans home.
Lily’s parents look upon her as if they’re seeing her for the first time, distrust and confusion, her mother claiming they’d have known, surely, if something were wrong with their child.
“She’s supposed to be starting the Comprehensive with Tuney, we— how could this happen?”
Petunia scowls from her seat at the table, arms folded over her chest, silent in her resentment.
While she has waited patiently for this day, they are ambushed. The news lands like a terminal diagnosis, wicked and unwelcome.
The moment Lily steps from concrete to cobblestones, from one world to another, something wakes inside her.
At a loss for words, she follows the officials who lead her from bookstore to robe shop, stopping at stores to collect potion ingredients and quills. She observes at her surroundings in perpetual awe; it’s fantastical, so like her many imaginings over the years, only better.
At their last stop, everything changes.
Willow gripped between her fingers, a sizzle, a spark.
She doesn’t question where she belongs, it feels right.
A newly filled trunk sits in her wardrobe, where she once hid from the world, a space she shares with her secret. Evidence of her new reality, she opens the heavy lid and skims her fingers over the contents, feeling a pull towards it, a want akin to no other.
Only her mother sees her to the station, gasping in abject horror when they pass through a solid brick wall.
Lily’s excitement is diminished by her mother’s look of concern, and her clear discomfort.
“I’m sorry mum.”
“I know, me too.”
They don’t linger on the apologies, they don’t specify what they’re sorry for, their farewell is solemn all the same.
Around her the bustling noises of eager schoolchildren fill the train, crowded carriages spill sounds of laughter and tales of summer past.
She opens one such carriage and is welcomed by a beaming smile, he reaches out to shake her hand, and she feels reassured for the first time in a long time.
“Hi— Hello.”
James Potter was born into magic, blessed and bright and welcome.
A precocious child, raised in a home filled with books and encouragement, to him, magic is elementary, it flows through him with confidence and grace.
James Potter makes no apology for who he is.
When their hands meet sparks fire beneath her skin, dormant embers of youthful exuberance come back to life. Light and cheer replace shadows and isolation.
Hope, amusement, embarrassment, rage, desire, pride, love.
From first touch to last, she’s never cold in his presence.
James Potter’s touch is magic.
And so is she.