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SHE is foremost of those that I would hear praised.
I have gone about the house, gone up and down
As a man does who has published a new book,
Or a young girl dressed out in her new gown,
And though I have turned the talk by hook or crook
Until her praise should be the uppermost theme,
A woman spoke of some new tale she had read,
A man confusedly in a half dream
As though some other name ran in his head.

She is foremost of those that I would hear praised.
I will talk no more of books or the long war
But walk by the dry thorn until I have found
Some beggar sheltering from the wind, and there
Manage the talk until her name come round.
If there be rags enough he will know her name
And be well pleased remembering it, for in the old days,
Though she had young men's praise and old men's blame,
Among the poor both old and young gave her praise.

-- William Butler Yeats

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Lily Grace Evans
Gryffindor Sixth Year

Lily Evans was born on an uncharacteristically sunny March 23, 1960, in a small, but well furnished home in Leeds with a large garden, to Kent and Rosemary Evans. Rosemary, a gardening enthusiast who owned and ran the muggle flower shop she had inherited from her mother before her, had a passion for flowers, evident in the naming of her children. Her father, Kent, is a military analyst in Britain, whose work for the British Government in the past decade has been largely focused on the ongoing negotiations with the Provisional Irish Republican Army, but who is perhaps better known as a writer, syndicated radio personality, and syndicated columnist. Though the family originally hailed from Belfast, they felt that, with the ongoing conflict in Ireland, it would be safer to be a bit further away from the fighting, and moved to Leeds with their firstborn, Petunia Anne Evans.

Petunia was always hostile towards Lily. Lily was the baby of the family, Lily was the pretty baby who got her mother's red hair, pale freckly skin and green eyes, who had to be watched like a hawk, and this meant that Petunia was put on the back burner. Her dislike of Lily was only fueled when her sister received her Hogwarts letter at the age of 11, changing her parents’ opinions of the strange episodes that had been happening with Lily from one of concern to one of utter delight. Their daughter wasn't strange, she was special, much to Lily's excitement and Petunia's irritation.

Lily is a friendly, personable girl with thick, long, dark red hair and brilliantly green, almond shaped eyes. She's about five and a half feet tall, slender and very fair skinned. She never seems to tan, though she is often seen with a bright pink sunburn and a smattering of light freckles during the summer. She has never been the girliest of girls, and enjoys a game of quidditch, though she's never played on the house team and isn't especially skilled on a broom. She's more of a jogger, and likes to keep herself moderately fit, though she isn't one to watch what she eats, because she's stick skinny enough as it is.

She enjoys attention, but does not bask in it, and gets along well with most people inside and outside of her house, Gryffindor. The hat had more than a bit of difficulty sorting Lily into any one house, as she could have been pretty successful in most of them - with the obvious exception of Slytherin because of her blood status. But in spite of her Gryffindor status, Lily has never been one to hate people just for the hell of it, just because of their house, etc. She's had enough of the stupid discrimination that she experiences regularly simply because she's a muggleborn. She's always been relatively humble about her accomplishments in school, quick to admit to her bad grades and slow to admit to her better ones. As a young girl, she was often teased for reading more than most and making good grades, and she reasonably no longer likes to disclose that sort of information. She greatly dislikes arrogance, a perceived attribute in many of the children, who tormented her, which has always been her hang up with James Potter, a boy who has been chasing after her for years.

She is also smart and witty, a member of the infamous "slug club," quick to make a snappy comeback to defend herself or another individual who is being wrongfully bullied, as she often was by her older sister. She is very empathetic, and as such, it has been an aspiration of hers for quite some time to become a healer after graduation. Her empathy, of course, wasn't the only reason for this ambition. Lily is also particularly skilled at Potions, and she has a passion for it.

But Lily Evans is, by no means, perfect. She's a social smoker, a habit her mother would strongly disapprove of even though she herself smoked in high school, swears more than she should, and isn't opposed to having a couple of drinks with her friends. She doesn't always adhere to the rules, willing to let someone off with a warning the first time she catches them at something. However, when someone simply flouts them because they think they can get away with it, Lily is less forgiving, which contributes to her dislike of James.

She herself has more of a problem with breaking the rules, mostly out of a fear of letting people who believe in her down. A muggleborn, Lily feels an extra need to prove herself to people who think that muggleborns shouldn't be taught magic. Her natural defiance is, for her, a drive to succede where others think she can't. Though she knows, objectively, that their thoughts about her being "worse" because of her blood are stupid and childish, they sometimes do get to her, serving only to piss her off and drive her to work even harder to prove them wrong. In her youth, she would occassionally fantasize about what she might say if she ever became famous and were interviewed. The people she'd make fun of to Johnny Carson. That sort of thing, but never in any real seriousness.

A bit of a feminist at heart, Lily isn't sure that she wants the whole "housewife" thing when she gets older, even though she loves and respects her mother for her role as one. It's not that she doesn't want to get married if she finds the right person, but she doesn't want to live off of someone else, and just sit at home waiting for someone else to validate her. She wants to work, and she's not entirely sure about the whole having kids thing. Maybe one, she thinks. Maybe. It will depend. But she's not going to think about kids until she has someone she'd actually want to have them with.

Perhaps hypocritically, Lily has a fondness for old, Victorian Romantic novels. Her favorite book is Pride and Prejudice, which, oddly enough, reminds her a bit of the Wizarding world and blood relations. As silly as she feels about admitting it, she'd love to find the dashing Mr. Darcy to her Elizabeth Bennet. She also enjoys poetry, especially romantic poetry (and she likes herself some e e cummings from time to time, too) like Yeats, Keats, Shelley, Byron and Coleridge. Opium induced love poetry, it doesn't get much better than that. They girl has elaborate fantasies about sipping coffee in a big, red chair in a hole-in-the-wall coffee shop in London with a worn out copy of her favorite book, just enjoying life. Accordingly, her favorite season is fall, especially late fall/early winter, and she loves the rain.

However, her hobbies don't stop there. She has a fondness for music, and has played the piano and the cello since she was a child, and has more recently picked up the acoustic guitar in a very, very limited capacity. She also listens to a lot of music, especially Simon and Garfunkel, Bob Dylan, James Taylor, The Clash, The Doors, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Johnny Cash, the Beatles and Joni Mitchell. Her father also got her into Jazz and Big Band, especially Thelonious Monk and Glenn Miller.

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