Magic or chakra

Walking up to the tree was easy. He did it as he did it before and like never stopped doing so. It felt almost the same. Almost. This strange elusive feeling of difference was still unaddressed. Was it due to different blood-limit? He could not possibly has the same uchiha genetic build. It is different world, realty or what ever it is. Is it possible that what ever they believed as blood-limit, was not strictly a blood related? He doesn't know that. If Orochimaru-San would be here instead, he was sure that he would be more close to answer that question. Probably, he would not be able to answer that question until if or when he awoke a sharingan.

He is not sure that he want to awake that. He remember a pressure on his sanity from mangekyou. Before he was proud of it. It was direct measure of his achievements and measure of power and he remember how he wanted it. Now , when he able to compare mental pressure with and without it, he was not sure anymore that it's something that he want to have. But there were a sings that a possibility is here. His mind was sharp, his ability to remember and notice small details was no less than when he had a sharingan. He dreaded a day, when something happen to wake it up.

Back to practice. Next he need to try to jump with chakra help. He double checked that there are nobody around, and jumped on low branch on the tree. It was smooth and no problem. He jumped down and focused chakra to absorb landing energy. No problem with that. He mentally checked his body and chakra state and found no issues so far. Next hour he spent just jumping up and down, to see when a chakra fatigue will catches up. It was mundane and boring so he opted to do some running between trees mixed with jumps.

——

It's only few hours latter when he got closer to playground that he noticed voices, so he slowed down and hide behind bushes.

There were two civilians girls on a swing. It's only then memories from dream girl catches up with him that he did not attend any school and stayed mostly home, learning everything from mom. And that was one of the topic to argue between his mother and Tobias.

It's then he saw that ginger girl jumped from a swing and with a laugh slowed down her descend.

"You cannot do it here, Lily! Parents forbid doing it in public! What if somebody see you doing this freakish things!"

"Relax Tunie! There is nobody! Here, look!"

With morbid fascination he saw ginger girl extended her hand and a simple flower of chamomile blossomed out on it. His adrenaline picked up and everything froze up in slow motion. Mokuton?! Senju?! It's only when he started to see a flow of chakra his mind regain an ability to snap out. Fuck. He awoke sharingan. With long unused practice he cut out a flow of chakra from eyes and turned it down, and everything pickup a speed back.

"You are a freak!" Screamed other girl.

Ginger girl, Lily if he heard right, turned to his direction and run away from screaming girl.

"Come back! I will tell parents everything about it!"

And now both girls were running in his direction. He had options to hide away, but stress from sharingan awakening and some hope to find out something, even if it's senju, hold him in place. He has to be just careful. If she is the same , he doesn't need to trigger a mortal fight here.

Girls stopped abruptly when they saw me standing behind bushes.

"Hi"

"Hi" automatically responded ginger girl.

"Lily I told you there can be somebody! You never listen! And you! What are you doing there in bushes! Are you spying on us?!"

"Um, training actually and if you keep screaming like that, I am sure we will attract everyone around in no time"

"You are lying! What can you train in bushes!"

Oh gosh this girl is really annoying one.

"Magic" and with that I picked up a leaf and with push of chakra sent it flying to ginger girl.

"Freaks!!" She screaming out and run away.

"Um, is she always like that?" He had to ask.

"She has her days. I am Lily Evans and that was my sister Petunia, but I call her Tunie"

"Severine Snape, nice to meet you Lily"

"Nice to meet you to Severine. I have to go after my sister before she lost it. Let's meet here tomorrow and you tell me how you made a leaf to fly?"

"Sure, see you here around eleven then?"

"Sure! Bye now!"

"Bye"

What a bizarre encounter.

——

Next day at eleven he was sitting on a swings waiting for Lily to show up. While he pretty much freaked out yesterday, he found that one tomoe sharingan is not having any pressure on his mind at all. Maybe it's due to latter awakening age or his more developed mind, he doesn't know. But sharingan abilities to memorize and even put someone into genjutsu is a sharp edge ability that might come handy.

"Hi Severine!"

He definitely in need to work on area awareness.

"Hi Lily, Petunia."

"Hi" said Petunia with twisted face.

"So.. do you exercise every day? You are in sport clothes again"

"Um, yeah. I have very strict exercise routine. Do you do any training?"

"No, it's boring. What do you play? I mean sport. What are you training for?"

"No sport. I do it to be in shape."

"Ah."

"I did not see you in school. Are you new in area?" suddenly asked Petunia.

"I am home schooled. I don't go to school but next year I will go to boarding school. Lily how old are you?"

"Ten, I will be eleven in January. Petunia is twelve and she is going to be thirteen in September. How about you?"

"Hn. It's ten and January as well"

"Wow"

"You will go to the same boarding school too."

"Why that?"

"Because you can do magic."

"How do you know that?"

"I saw your chamomile flower"

"No, I mean school. How do you know about that?"

"My mom went to that school too. It calls Hogwarts"

"Wow, so your mom can do it too?"

"Hn"

"So, your mom is freak too?"

"Tunie you are mean!"

"What? If you are freak then they are freaks too!"

He was sitting here and watching how they argue and found completely tired about all this kiddish nonsense.

After back and forth arguments Petunia jumped and run away a again. Bizarre.

"I am sorry. I don't know why she act like that! It's so unfair! She shouldn't said that! It's mean to say that!"

"Hn."

"Can you tell me more about school, please?"

——

In next days and weeks it became a routine to meet with Lily in park for a hour or so. Thankfully she did not bring her sister since then. We spoke about school and everything around magic. She was natural with it and it completely puzzled me. It takes focus and control for me to do anything outside of my body, but Lily can do many things just on pure desire and will. Like chamomile flower blossoms. I limit information to what I read in the book "Hogwarts the history" and that was mostly enough.

Latter, when school year started, we meet mostly on weekdays and she chatted my years out with whatever happen in school. She invited me to visit her home few times, but so far I refused. There so much time I can share on it. My training progressed forward and I started to practice basic jutsu on genin level: kawarimi, clone and henge.

While my mind is developed beyond my age and it affect the level of control and yin chakra, my body is only started to catching up with level of yang chakra. Everyday exercise with chakra and doing basic ninjutsu helped to speed up chakra channels development. Chakra channels strength is a major factor why we were starting with E-rank ninjitsu and tree and water walking. You cannot just learn A or S rank ninjutsu and became deadly shinobi. It takes years of mundane training to flex and build up your chakra channels to be able to execute and hold high level techniques.

Awoken sharingan helped me greatly with my training. Ability to see chakra flow in channels helped me to limit training to healthy limit. I definitely did not want to damage my chakra channels and screw up my development.

Since that incident, home situation improved greatly. I still confused what exactly affected Tobias that day, but he stopped to drink and became more subdued. Over month since then, we maybe shared top ten sentences all way together. If he speak with mom, it does not happen around me. Just recently he finished to restore a car, and what a bizarre thing it is, and found a new job somewhere else. He has to drive to and from work an hour away from home, so he wakes up early and when I come down for breakfast, he is already left and he comes back around eight pm, when I back to my room working on mom assignments for homeschool work.

She shifted focus on etiquette, dancing and wizard customs and government structure. I had to memorize many major families names, their area of influence and relationships between them. I feel like she is up to something and I am some hidden heir of some major family but she did not breach that topic yet.

Some of this lessons I passed to Lily. It will not hurt her to know basic rules for social interaction.

I eventually told mother about Lily and I got few lessons about muggleborn, squibs, half blood and were they stands in society and what kind future awaits for them. It was interesting to see a similarities between Kanoha policies and recent developments and current state in magical society.

If anything, similarities were so striking, that I caught myself about projecting to future. In Kanoha, we had two strong clans - uchiha and senju. Uzumaki were outside clan, that had a tight relationship with Senju and they were wiped out first. Then Senju has been cut down to a single survived heiress - Tsunade. Not so long after, uchiha massacre followed with last surviving member - Sasuke. I did not count. I was dumb to be influenced by Danso and Hokage and became their weapon to just do that.

So, if anything, any time soon some war is going to happen that will cut most families to a single or none surviving members. We even have a figure similar to Hokage - Dumbledore.

So, if I am hidden family heiress - it make sense then. To survive, we had to go below notice level and marrying muggle is quite efficient way to avoid being pulled into another war.

——

It was October when mother at the breakfast asked me a question

"Darling, did you tell Lily about Samhain?"

"Yes, but just in general terms, when we talked about differences between wizard and muggle holidays"

"Do you want to invite her for Samhain celebration?"

"Hn."

"Make sure to explain to her what expected from her and she understood it"

——

"Sev, that's so awesome! Of course I would like to come!"

"It will be a sleepover then. You need to ask your parents."

"Yes, yes. I am sure they will be okay. They understand the need to fit in. I will need to know all about it. It is so stupid that they limit knowledge to muggle-born like me."

"Hn"

"Yes I know. It's bloody politics, you explained it already"

"Hm"

"I know, I know. Do not bring attention until you ready to handle it."

"Hnm"

——

Time speed up somehow. Since then we had Samhain and Yule together. Not long it came to my birthday and I found myself in woman only company at our home. Tobias was working, as usual. Since summer I pretty much did not see him a lot. At least he was not drowning in alcohol and any arguing at home stopped to happen.

Mother did not miss an opportunity to hold a tea party and teach us how to be a proper lady. If not my experience as a shinobi , uchiha heir training and actual mental age, I would probably loose it. I still have to forcefully stop to think about all gender issue.

It's only few hours later, when we finished all talks about latest fashion, school news and neighbourhood gossips and I walked Lily back to home, she stated more than asked question:

"You like her"

"Hn"

"Did I tell you that same sex couples are more acceptable in magic society?"

"Hm?"

"Of course it's noticeable. You have been behaving like a male since you started to walk, if not earlier"

"We are to young"

"Yes that's you are. And she is muggle-born to see a benefits of early prearranged betrothed contract."

"Hn"

"Tomorrow we will go for your wand. And I will start your training on Occlumency."

"Hn?"

"It's obscure practice to protect your mind from intruders"

"M?"

"It's called Legilimency. There are rumours that Dumbledore is quite efficient in it"

"Lily?"

"It's illegal to teach it."

"But not illegal to learn?"

"Quite right my Princess"

——

"So, you got your wand"

"Hn"

"It's so unfair that I have to wait until summer and letter to buy mine!"

"Hm. I have other bad news. Close your eyes. Good. " I stood behind and put my hands to cover her eyes and whispered in her left ear. "There are obscure magic that allow you to see and browser memory images of another person and magic that protect your mind from that to happen. "

"What!?"

"Stay still"

"Sorry, sorry. How is keeping eyes closed helps?"

"Visual memories are more vivid and has more reference points to link a search"

"Can you teach me how to protect my mind from that?"

"It's illegal"

"But not to learn, right?"

"Hn"

——

The wand is bizarre thing all over the aboard. It pulls yin and yang chakra simultaneously and then you do some movements and words to produce result. The differences in wands helps to properly address a chakra compatibility in user. It's chakra converter and concentrator. Bizarre. The effect is so strong they even if you have it in your pocket, it still affect chakra channel flow. I had to keep it away to practice ninjutsu.

With Occlumency I got a quick progress due to yin chakra manipulation. The way how Legilimency affect brain is quite similar to genjutsu, and usual chakra flush or enforced chakra flow quite effective against it. I still practice by book, and build on that, but for emergencies I am quite protected.

In last tree month since my eleven birthday I safely proceeded to D-rank ninjutsu. Shisue favourite shunshin no jutsu - is my top training technique at this point. Shunshin combined with kawarimi and level changing jumps, tree and water runs for intense one hour routine provide quite intense load on body and chakra channels. Thanks to nutrition and healing potions, I keep on constantly increasing schedule of development.

——

"Mom, I need a pair of daggers."

"Sure darling"

Sometimes I wonder if she is going to ask question about my trainings at all….

——

It was a time for Beltane celebration and Lily came for another sleepover. Something I think that it's blessing in disguise's that I have a female body. I can imagine how much a trouble it could be if I would be male in a body. Definitely no for sleepovers or all day visits on weekend. Basically Lily became extra member of our family and companion on many lessons. Notes on Occlumency obscure magic has been left on book shelf, with no name on it. Obviously nobody commented when she found them and started to read them. Nobody breaking a law here, of course.

Mom started to teach us to be on look out for possible food or drink poisoning. Since Yule it became a common hair colour change accidents as a mark for missing poison. Sometimes I miss it on purpose, just to do not stand out and keep Lily a bit happy in her competition against me.

"Why do you do so much training almost every day?"

"Hn"

"No, seriously. I feel like I am missing here something important"

"Strong and healthy body helps with magic"

"Is there a book about that? I did not see anything like that"

"No book"

She learned in last half a year that if I don't answer, there is nothing she can do to change that. So she adapted to use other way of getting something out of it.

"Can I join you on your trainings?"

That made me think. Obviously I am not going to share with her any ninjutsu at this point, but basic taijutsu with General physical training is something that can be done.

"I will make a training calendar for you. If you quit, we are never talk about it again."

She jumped to hug me with happy scream to my ears "You are the best Sev!"

"Hn"

——

"I hate you!"

"Hn"

"I cannot breathe and I am going to pass out!"

"Hm"

"I can pass out while I am talking!"

"Hmpf"

——

"You just wanna to hug me! That a whole reason why you tricked me to practice this grappling!"

"Hn"

"If you says so"

"Hmpf"

——

"What do you mean I can jump on tree. I am scared to fall down!"

"Hmpf"

"What if I forget how to slow down again?"

"Hn"

"Of course you do. I don't doubt you will catch me, I doubt to catch myself!"

——

It was end of July when Lily finally got her letter, and of course she had to announce it at the top of her longs:

"SEV YEEEEEEE, I HAVE IT! YEEEEEEE"

Of course it has been followed by bone crashing hug.

——

It has been decided sometime ago, that we are not going to make a big secret out of our childhood friendship and if asked, we had "accidental" magic together and that was a reason why my mom explained to her parents about Statute of Secrecy and all other important things.

So, when Professor from Hogwarts came to educate them about that, they thanked for introduction, asked some mundane question and declined politely the offer to go to Diagonal Alley. Saying that they have family friend, who can take care about that for them and they are not going to impose on Professor time in summer break.

Also they asked for school payment credentials and required amount to do so.

That question cut meeting short.

Usually muggle-born became aware about educational contract only when they finish fifth year and if they cannot pay it out, contract got sold to higher bidder. There is always a need for a cheap working hands.

——

During the summer we focused on doing training routine with wands on body. I had to learn to compensate for influence from it. I could not say that it went smooth at all. It required even more chakra control that I needed for C-rank jutsu. It was annoying and exhausting and sometimes I felt like a kid all over again, when I just started to learn basic tree walking. Lily joined me on this adventure, after she got her wand, because she got so badly affected by her wand that almost all progress with wand-less or "accidental" magic has been ruined for her. At least we had some good laughs after failing from tree walking or going into knee deep water on a small creek.

——

Just before end of August, when we were few days away to go to Hogwarts, Lily surprised us:

"I want to give a wand Vow of silence about everything that I learned from both of you"

"Hn?"

"This way I can be sure that I would not fall to some scheme that will affect trust between us"

"Hm"

"You made me proud Lily, I see that my lessons gave first shoots. Now let's see if you can make a vow text properly" responded my mom. I think she can make lesson out of anything this days and she definitely enjoys that.

——