(A/N: There might be a few errors in this chapter regarding Lily's age and it might take me a few days to get started with the editing. So to sum this up, Lily is 5 years old in this chapter.)
To sum up Lillian Ariana Smith's life one would only need a word. That word being 'ordinary'. She, like every other five year old on her street, was getting ready for her first day of primary school. And like every other girl, she couldn't wait to start learning things outside of home.
"Good morning mum!" she greeted cheerfully as she ran down the stairs, backpack in hand as her neatly tied pigtails flew behind her shoulders.
"Woah calm down little lady or you're going to get hurt." her dad scooped her up before hoisting her in his arms. She giggled as he showered kisses all over her face, the smell of hot bacon sizzling in the kitchen entering her nose.
"Dad stop. Your beard tickles!" the ten year old shrieked, tucking her head into his neck as her father chuckled.
Only, he wasn't her father. And the woman in the kitchen wasn't her mother. And her last name wasn't really Smith. But Lily knew that. She'd known it since her fourth birthday. She didn't care that she was adopted. All she knew was that her mum and dad loved her very much and she loved them right back. And she was going to have a younger sibling to play with quite soon.
"Connor, she's done it again!" a pregnant woman called out worriedly, exiting the kitchen with her frying pan still in hand. "Honey, we talked about this." she set it aside as her husband put Lily back down. "You can't go about growing my saplings. The neighbors are already nosey as it is."
"Sorry, I'm just very very very very excited." Lily pouted.
Conner and Olivia Smith had come to terms with the fact that their daughter wasn't completely ordinary. But their love for their child overpowered everything. Even if it was the spontaneous bursting of a vase when she was angry. Thankfully, that wasn't very often.
"Aw sweetie, it's okay." her mom ran her hand around her face lovingly. "I love that you can do that, okay? But the old lady next door is growing suspicious day by day." she kissed the top of Lily's head. "Thankfully, I took the plant back inside before she could see." she laughed lightly.
"See? No harm done." her father crouched next to his pregnant wife with a bright grin on his face. "Who wants mum's bacon?"
"Me!" she cried, jumping up and down ecstatically. "I want bacon!"
"And bacon you shall receive." her mother laughed, standing back up and returning to her pan.
Lily's first day at school was just like every other thing in her life. Ordinary. Her best friend, otherwise referred to as Murphy Brown, kept her company. The teachers were kind. The children were nice, and she had fallen in love with her school.
But that was the day that Lillian Ariana Smith's ordinary life changed into a not-so-ordinary one. And she knew something was wrong just as her parents picked her up from school that day. Her mother didn't wear the bright charming smile she usually did. Her dad didn't have the same playful glint in his eyes that he always did. Sure, they asked her how her first day of school was, or which subject was her favorite, or all the things she'd learned. But the smiles on their faces were forced. And she could tell. It only worsened when they pulled into the driveway.
"Honey..." Connor Smith turned around in the car slowly. "When we go inside, you're going to meet somebody."
"Who?" she asked curiously.
"It's... well he says his name is Severus Snape." her mother smiled uneasily.
"Snape? That's a funny name." the young girl giggled. "Is he one of your friends?" she looked at her parents expectantly. The couple exchanged a look.
"Not exactly. Let's just head inside, shall we?" her mother asked. Her dad opened the door and held her hand, a little tightly, afraid that if he let go, she would just vanish in thin air.
As they entered the living room, Lily noticed a pale man sitting calmly in an armchair. He was younger than her father, and looked nothing like him. He had straight black hair a little shorter than her mother's hair length. It looked like it hadn't been washed in ages. His expression was grim, as if he could be doing anything else than sitting in that armchair. That wasn't even taking into account the clothes he was wearing. She'd never seen anyone wear something like that before. He was dressed in all black from head to toe. She personally thought he could use some colour in his wardrobe. His black eyes, which looked cold and hard when she'd first seen them, stared right back at her before they melted and the man stood up abruptly.
"Lily..." he breathed, looking into the girl's bright green eyes.
She squeaked stepping closer to her father as he calmed her down. "It's fine darling. Just, stay here, okay?" he said, softly patting her head and the girl nodded.
The man stepped closer but Olivia put her hand up for him to stop with a determined look in her eyes. "Stop right there." she said firmly.
He did.
"Lily." she said, sending a hard look at the strange all-in-black man, "Go to your room please. We'll call you down shortly."
"But-" the ginger girl tried to protest.
"Now." she added sternly.
Lily nodded and walked upstairs quietly, leaving the three adults alone.
"You've seen her. You can leave now. And please, leave us alone." Olivia said, taking a sharp breath.
"I'm not leaving without her." Severus Snape said with a cold and determined voice, and a tone quite similar to hers.
"No can do mate. We don't even know if you're her actual father." Connor stepped beside his wife. "As far as I can tell, you look nothing alike."
"That's because she looks exactly like her mother."
"And where is she?" the woman asked.
"She's dead." his voice almost broke out in a sob at that but he kept his composure in front of the muggle couple.
"I don't know how it works wherever in the name of hell you come from, but this isn't how adoption works. You don't get to give her up like that and come back five years later out of cowardly guilt!" Connor said angrily.
Olivia pursed her lips before gulping. "How did she die? Her mother?"
"Like I said, the war." he answered, his voice wavering a little.
"What war? World War II ended in 1945! There's no way Lily was even born then. There's no way any of us were born then!" Connor continued.
"Not that war..." the man sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Okay, I'm assuming you know by now that Lily can do things, am I correct?"
The fierce aura the couple was radiating died down a little.
Severus took that as an opportunity to continue. "She can spontaneously break vases, change the colors in her room if she doesn't like them, maybe even make plants and hair grow when she's overly happy..?" he asked. Connor and Olivia didn't say anything but just stared at the strange man. "Lily's a witch. And I'm her father, a wizard."
"A witch?" Olivia asked. "Connor this man must be mentally ill. We better call the police." she breathed a little quickly, trying to reach for the telephone when with a single flick of a stick of wood from his clothes, Severus Snape held the phone by the ceiling, out of anyone's reach.
"H-How are you doing that? Connor, how is he doing that?" the woman collapsed into her seat, petrified. Her husband rushed to her aid.
"It's okay Liv, everything's fine. Don't stress. It's not good for the baby, remember?" he rubbed her belly gently." as he tried to calm his hysterical wife down.
"B-but the... the phone just flew. He made it fl- fly!" she shook he head steadily and Connor glared at the man to stop doing whatever he was doing.
"I think I can help with this." Severus said with his usual demeanor of calmness. He softly placed his wand on Olivia's forehead.
"Wh-What're you doing there? Stop! You've done enough." Conner shouted, a little scared of the man in his living room.
"Obliviate."
Snape drew his hand back.
Nothing happened.
Except that Olivia calmed down a little, no longer in panic.
"L-Liv?" Connor asked. "What happened honey? Are you okay?" he searched her face worriedly. "What did you do to her?" he looked at the wizard standing behind him.
"Con." the woman smiled. "Of course I'm okay, why wouldn't I be?"
"Huh? But you just- the phone, it was floating, you panicked." the man said absentmindedly.
"The phone was floating? Yeah, right." she let out a short laugh. "Very funny Connor, I'll get you some tea and we'll discuss about Lily." she sent a sharp glare at the other man in the room. "Floating phone." she snorted to herself as she walked away.
"What did you-"
"It was a simple memory charm. She'll forget she ever saw the phone in the air. That's just one of its uses. If you don't give me my daughter back, I'll make you both forget she even existed. I can do that you know." Severus said threateningly, stepping forward.
Connor's face fell white. "You wouldn't do that. We raised her. Since the day she arrived at the orphanage, we loved her for five years. You think she'll just go along willingly with you after you've done whatever dark magic you're doing here? You think she'll ever forgive you for taking her away from her parents? She's just a child."
Severus knew the man was right. But he wasn't leaving easily. "She's my daughter too. I had no choice but to leave her there. It wasn't even my choice." he said firmly. "I was forced to."
"Oh really? By whom? Her birth mother who supposedly died in this war of yours?" he scoffed.
"By her and Albus Dumbledore." Severus Snape answered, his lips forming a straight line.
Connor Smith had no idea who this 'Albus Dumbledore' was, and neither was he curious enough to ask. "Look mate, maybe we can work something out here, but you're not doing anyone any favours if you take her from us by force. It'll scar her. She'll end up hating you for life."
"Does she know she's adopted?"
"We told her on her fourth birthday."
"I suppose that'll make it easier to explain things to her then." Severus sighed deeply just as his wife came in with a tray of tea and biscuits. "I suppose we could settle on something."
_____
"I don't want to be here." Lily whined as she looked around the dark and dingy house. It was tall and scary and dim and she hated it.
"You have no choice. Summers are to spend with your father." Severus Snape said firmly, his eyes looking down as he flipped a page of his potions textbook.
"My father, is back home in Wiltshire." the five year old said stubbornly.
Severus inhaled patiently. "We both know he's your adoptive father. We're not doing this again."
Lily huffed, before peering over his shoulder. "Who's the Half Blood Prince? And what's Sectumpsempra?" she asked curiously, reading as he flipped through the book. He snapped the book shut.
"It's me. I'm the Half Blood Prince. And Sectumpsempra is a hex you will not be uttering unless I decide to teach it to you." he said sternly.
Lily frowned. "So many restrictions. You called yourself a prince? What were you in school, a nerd?" she laughed, earning a glare from the wizard. It didn't faze her. She was used to his moods. "Sev... why can I read everyone's mind but yours?" she asked, slightly slouching.
"Because I have the powers of occlumency. It is to shield you from my thoughts because you see, just like you, I am a legilimens. We can both read minds." Snape answered.
"Oh? And what thoughts of yours are so secretive that you don't want me to know them?" Lily asked, only to receive no response. Severus Snape was like that about a lot of her questions, and she hated being ignored. Even when he glared at her, or his lips pursed into a straight line, he had some sort of reaction. But this, Lily couldn't stand. "I want to go back home. I have homework."
"And you will go back home in time to finish it. At the end of summer. We're going to revise potions now. Tell me, what's in Forgetfulness Potion?"
"Lethe River water or Valerian Sprigs." she answered with a pout.
"What does a Polyjuice Potion do?"
"It can temporarily turn the person who drinks it into someone else as long as their DNA has been put into it."
"Good, and name two ingredients of the potion."
"Fluxweed and Knotgrass." she answered before huffing and turning to the man. "I don't know why I'm learning this. It's not going to get me anywhere. I want to study geography, and math, and science, not... whether if Pufferfish eyes go into Swelling Solution or if Snake Fangs are an ingredient for Wideye potion." she said crossly before running off to the room she had been occupying there.
She hated it. She didn't want to be away from her mum and dad, she didn't want to spend a summer without her best friend, and she absolutely did not want to stay in the dark little house.
She heard the door creak open as she sobbed. For the first time, Severus Snape hugged her, and the girl could do nothing except sob harder.
"There there," he hushed, cradling the girl in his arms. "You're okay." he patted the top of her head. "I'm sorry. We can take a break if you want."
"Y-You left me there. At the orphanage" Lily said quietly.
"Is that what this is about?" he asked seriously, and the ginger could only bite her lip and look away. "You'll understand why I had to do that when the time comes. There's a lot you don't know yet."
"Who was my real mum?" her sobs died down a little.
"I-I can't tell you that."
"Why not?" she frowned.
Severus ignored the curious child's question. "But I will say that you look a lot like her. Your hair, your eyes, even your nose. You look exactly like her. You were named after her you know. Lily." he wiped the girl's tears away.
"I do? I was?"
Severus nodded with a weird smile, which was the best he could do.
"I'm not the best at showing my affection Lily, but I do care about you. You're my daughter."
"What about mum and dad?"
"You're their daughter too." he shrugged simply.
"Okay..." she nodded. "So I have three parents?"
"You have three parents." he confirmed.
"And I'm a witch?"
"You're a witch."
"Is Oliver a wizard then?" she asked, referring to her newborn brother who was back home, being nursed by their mum and dad.
"No. He isn't." Snape answered. "How about I introduce you to Wizard's Chess and exploding snap?" he smiled down at the girl who nodded with a wide smile, her tears long gone.
Word count: 2519