"Come in," she boomed. The doors were pushed open and a red-haired girl stepped inside. Lily Evans.
"Professor," she said. "You called for me."
"Yes," Minerva said with a small smile.
"Have a seat, Lily," Minerva said softly gesturing towards the chair across the table.
Lily nodded and occupied the chair in front of Minerva.
"Lily," Minerva questioned, an expression of worry on his face. "How have things been on your side? Are you feeling well?"
"Yes," Lily nodded. "All my injuries have healed. I am perfectly fine."
"Oh!" Minerva remarked. "I am aware of your physical condition. But I was not really asking about your physical injuries."
Lily went silent as she took a couple of deep breaths to calm her nerves.
"Professor," she said.
"I would not say that it is easy for me. To have your back ripped open and then to almost die is not something that happens on a daily basis," she continued with an awkward chuckle. "It is a rare event, you know."
"Even now, when I sleep, I get flashes of what happened to me. When I walk through the empty corridors of Hogwarts, I feel as though a spell might suddenly come and strike me from behind. My hands sweat, my body trembles, and my mind goes into overdrive every time I sit alone."
"But," she said, a small smile forming on her face. "I am surely getting better. I am trying to let go and forget what has happened."
"Slowly but steadily, I am overcoming my fear, nervousness, and anxiety. I am trying to focus on my studies, my upcoming graduation, and my NEWTs. My friends are helping me with this, and it will not be long before I am fully fine."
A small smile appeared on Minerva's face as her worry eased. "Good. You are going to be absolutely fine. I know you will."
"Lily," she said, her face turning a bit stiff. "There is something that I want to discuss with you. Something important. This might not be an appropriate time to bring all this given the circumstances you are in but I do not think that this can wait anymore."
Seeing the seriousness appearing on Minerva's face, Lily raised her eyebrows.
"What is it, Professor?" she questioned.
"This is something that we generally keep away from Hogwarts," Minerva answered. "Every professor here knows about it, and we also know that what we are doing is not always the right thing."
"We do it in the name of keeping students away from politics, in the name of keeping toxic poison away from the students, but as a result, we purposefully keep them ignorant. And in doing this, we do them more harm than benefit."
"And when I speak of students, I mean the Muggle born or half bloods who grow up in the Muggle world, away from Wizarding culture."
The frown on Lily's face deepened.
"Even so," the Vice Headmistress continued, "this is not something that you are completely unaware of. You might have even seen it or witnessed it firsthand, and this issue is prominent in the news these days, after all."
"What are you talking about, Professor?" Lily questioned, confused.
"The contempt the pure bloods have for the muggle borns and the half bloods," Minerva sighed.
Lily did not react much to it.
"I am aware of it," she said. "The Slytherins do it all the time. They think themselves superior because of their blood. 'Mudblood' is what they call me sometimes."
"Outside Hogwarts there is an entire movement that is hell bent on targeting us. On wiping us out."
"True," Minerva nodded. "I said you are aware, but this goes much deeper than that."
"It is portrayed as though only a certain section of people look at Muggle borns with eyes of disdain, and that from that small section, a group has emerged targeting them. You might think this is just like Hogwarts. Where there are the Slytherins targeting muggle born but they are not the mainstream and apart from the insults they can throw, they hardly have any larger impact on the school life of a child."
"This is wrong," she said. "The discrimination against Muggle borns is systematic and inherent in the culture of Wizarding Britain. This culture is mainstream and not something followed only by the fringe elements."
"Not everyone will treat you with violence, but that does not mean everyone will treat you fairly. It is hard for a Muggle born to find a job. Pure bloods only want to employ their own kind. It is even harder to secure a position at the Ministry. Everywhere you go, you will be insulted, looked down upon, and sidelined. It is systemic. A pure blood with lesser talent and qualities than you would have much better opportunities and a muggle born will almost be struggling his or her entire life."
"People who do not actually discriminate based on blood status can be counted on one's fingers," Minerva finished. "This is fringe behaviour."
Lily sat there with a stunned expression on her face. She had known that people like Rabastan Lestrange treated her kind with contempt, but she had never thought that the behavior of the Lestranges was the mainstream behavior of the entire Wizarding World.
"Professor," she mumbled, her voice almost quivering, "How? Why? Why would you do something like this to me?"
"If I am systematically hated in this place, why did you even ask me to come into this world? I would have been better off in my own world. At least there, I would have lived a life free from worrying about these things."
"For seven years I have studied at Hogwarts, and not once was I taught what to expect when I leave this place. I have built grand dreams for myself, securing a job at the Ministry or maybe even going into the field of magical research, only for you to tell me now that I will never have those opportunities."
"Why?" she almost snapped. "Why would you do this?"
"Lily," Minerva mumbled, a teardrop slipping from her eyes. "I am sorry. I really have no explanation to defend myself."
Lily took a deep breath to calm herself down.
"Ok!" she said. "Why tell now? Why did you choose to tell me now?"
"So that I could correct the mistake I have made," Minerva replied. "To protect you when you leave the school. I might have failed you once but not again."
"How?" Lily questioned. "How will you do this?"
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