The first year

Disclaimer: Most of the characters in this story don’t belong to me, they belong to JK Rowling and she did a brilliant job at making them like she did. Oh and most of the places are all JK Rowling’s and most of the story probably…

Differences

The red headed girl boarded the train excitedly. She had always dreamt of becoming some one different and now here she was boarding the Hogwarts express and beginning her learning at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. She glanced into the compartments with her big, green almond shaped eyes and patiently searched for an empty compartment or one that had people her own age inside. Once she had passed the first section of the train, however, she noticed that there were more and more empty seats. It was, after all, only 10.30 and most of the students were still on their way to King’s Cross station.

Lily found an empty compartment around the middle of the majestic steam train and sat down happily. She left the door open to show that she didn’t mind people joining her. As she gazed out of her window she noticed her thin, lanky, mousy brown haired sister, Petunia looking around at the crowd as though they were unidentified creatures. Then she spotted her sobbing mum leaning on her dad’s shoulder. Lily made her best effort to wave to her dad. He spotted her and waved back. Her mother gave a feeble attempt at a smile and an air-kiss and Petunia raised her bony hand in acknowledgment that Lily was there.

A couple of minutes later more students started to flood on to the train. As a few tall, bulky seventh years walked past Lily decided that she should close the door. She watched as more people crowded on to the platform.

As she always did when she was nervous, Lily took out Hogwarts: A History and began to read where she left off. There were interesting facts in that book that Lily wanted to know because she was muggleborn and didn’t know what to expect.

Lily was so engrossed in her book that she hardly noticed the door slide open until she caught sight of two small, shiny, black, school shoes standing on the floor beside the door. She looked up.

“Hi, I’m Alice can I sit here?” the girl had short, curly, blonde hair and big round blue eyes. She had a heart shaped head and heart shaped lips too. The girl already had her uniform on but she didn’t seem bothered that she was the only one. Lily nodded shyly. “What’s your name? My full name’s Alice Brown and I’m a first year, what about you?”
Lily smiled and blushed slightly at her timidity. “My name is Lily Evans and I am a first year too. I’m excited are you?” Alice’s smile flashed from a smile to a frown and then back to a smile again so that Lily wasn’t quite sure whether Alice had frowned at all.

“Well, I’m a bit nervous because I only just found out that I could do magic when I got my letter and everyone else I’ve met either come from pureblood families or know some magic already. What about you?” she asked. She had that look on her face which meant ‘don’t say you can do magic.’ But Lily ignored it and smiled sympathetically.

“I can do a few minor spells; I would teach them to you if one of the rules wasn’t that you can’t perform magic unless you’re in class.” Lily explained apologetically. “You’ll get the hang of it as though you were a new born fish learning to swim; it’ll come naturally.” Alice cocked her head to one side.

“You’re the nicest person I’ve met so far.” Alice smiled. Lily blushed and began to read again although still listening to Alice quietly. She was going on and on about her pushy mother and what happened when Alice finally performed magic (by accident); she turned her mother blue after she shouted at her for not being a good witch. Lily laughed hard at Alice and Alice was enjoying all the attention she was getting from her new friend. It was the start of a great friendship.

Later on, Alice and Lily were discussing how you get sorted and Lily was just reading a paragraph explaining it to Alice when a small boy slid the door open and stepped inside. He sat down without being welcomed in by the girls.

“Who are you?” Alice asked rudely. Lily looked at the boy and frowned as though she had seen his face before. He looked ill and he had a small scratch on his cheek that looked extremely deep. Lily clenched her stomach; she hated blood.

“Sorry, I’m Remus Lupin, and who are you?” the boy sounded out of breath but neither of the girls asked what was wrong. He looked like he had been running to keep up with the train.

“I’m Lily Evans and this is Alice Brown. Where have you been; it’s been two hours since we left…?” the boy checked his watch nervously, it was pointing to a couple of minutes past one in the afternoon. He shrugged.

“I was in the teacher’s compartment because they were… doing a study on new students.” Lily wasn’t convinced but she let it pass. Then she rested her eyes on the scratch again. “That looks painful.” The boy touched it sadly.
“Yeah, I had an accident on my bike during the summer.” Lily took out her wand a then, deciding that ‘Reparo’ wouldn’t work on flesh she put it away again. She suggested putting a large plaster over it because it might become infected but Remus explained that he didn’t want to look like an idiot on his sorting ceremony so Lily let it pass.

“I hope I’m in Gryffindor. It sounds so good and noble that it just tempts me into it. I wouldn’t mind Hufflepuff either though.” Alice stated later on during the train journey. “I’m starving.”

“I like the sound of Ravenclaw or Hufflepuff; Gryffindor sounds too heroic and Slytherin sounds too sly for my taste.” Lily added politely but firmly putting her opinions across. Remus smiled.

“I think you’d pass for either of them Lily, I like Ravenclaw really; like you said it’s not attention-seeking like Gryffindor.” Alice kept quiet until finally she had to say something.

“It’s not attention-seeking or heroic it’s a loyal, noble, brave house, braver than any other house.” Lily and Remus looked at each other.

“Yes but sometimes it’s better to know what you’re doing before jumping straight in and…” Lily stopped as two more boys crammed themselves in through the door. Alice was watching the taller one closely and Lily just watched in amusement as they flung themselves down on to the floor. Remus smiled.

“Hi, James, Sirius, where did you go?” Remus had obviously been introduced to the childish boys before. “This is Lily Evans and Alice Brown by the way, girls this is James Potter and Sirius Black.” Alice frowned and then giggled. Lily stared at her.

“A Black and a Potter, that’s unheard of, oh well.” Sirius, the taller one with longish black hair and grey eyes faced Alice straight on.

“I’m not like my family.” He stated simply. Alice blushed and looked at Remus. “Oh, we were annoying my older cousin Bellatrix; she’s in her third year. I don’t like her she’s really evil and she’s expecting me to get into Slytherin and be the greatest wizard ever.” He sighed.

“Oh, well it’ll be a nasty shock for them when they find you’re in Gryffindor with me.” James laughed. James had messy jet black hair, hazel eyes and round glasses. Sirius barked out a laugh feebly. James’ eyes suddenly widened behind his glasses. “Food!” he squeaked as though he had never seen the substance that people tend to eat before. Outside there was a trolley piled to the top with icky sticky sweets that Lily tried to stay away from when she could. Alice, James, Sirius and Remus, however, were out of the door before you could say Merlin!

When James and Sirius came back in their pockets were loaded with the sugary food and there hands too. They were sharing it all between each other. Remus had bought all the chocolate products and Alice had bought two handfuls. She offered a few to Lily and the only reason she tried some was to save her from starving.

Much later on a thunder storm rolled across the sky and Lily grew more nervous at every rumble. The heavy rain was making her stomach lurch and the lightning kept making her jump. None of them spoke for ages.

“Um, shouldn’t you be putting your robes on now?” Alice asked watching some second years run past with their casual clothing draped over their arms and wearing long black robes. Lily looked up from her book and nodded. Then Lily and Alice went to find a compartment with only girls in it.

When they came back they knocked on the door and slid it open with their eyes shut cautiously. The boys welcomed the girls back in and they began to talk about where, exactly, they were going. There were rumours that they were heading for Scotland and some people had even told the boys that the train flies to the North Pole! They decided that they were going to Scotland and fell silent again until…

“It’s been four hours on here! I hope we get to eat when we get there my stomach’s starting to think that my throat’s been cut.” Sirius moaned rubbing his aching belly. James stared down at his own stomach. The rain outside was growing heavier with each mile and the sky was turning greyer. As Lily examined the weather she spotted a dark shape in the distance.

“Hogwarts!” she exclaimed moving further towards the window for a better view. Everyone else looked out too. They stayed there until they could pick out a few towers and even some turrets. When they began to see trees and other small aspects of the land they decided to start smartening their uniform. Well, Lily, Alice and Remus smartened their uniform but Sirius and James started jumping around singing a song.

“Hogwarts, Hogwarts, hoggy warty Hogwarts! Teach us something please…” they sang the song at least five times before giving up. The train started to slow down and students in the compartment opposite started filing down the aisle quickly. They weren’t carrying their belongings so the group of first years left their luggage behind too.

Outside the train the rain was pouring down. Lily took out an umbrella that she had taken out of her bag and set it up over Alice’s and Lily’s heads. Together they walked behind a tall, fat, dark figure which they couldn’t make out because of the fog. They watched as the small floating lantern swayed away and followed it quickly. The first years were running to keep up with whoever was holding the lantern.

It led them to a huge black lake. The surface looked untouched but more than ten boats had just slid across it by themselves. Away from the fog of the train the tall, fat, dark figure took the shape of a large man with a thick, shaggy beard to match his hair and small beetle eyes. Lily didn’t gas because she had read about half breeds. The man was obviously half-giant. Alice stared open-mouthed at him for a while before turning to Lily once they were safely in the boats.

“Is he a… a giant?” Lily shook her head and explained that giants were about three times larger. Alice was so stunned that when the boat rocked in the wind she nearly fell in over the side. Remus was sat at the front of the boat, a small, blonde haired, freckly boy was sat behind them and Lily and Alice were seated in the middle. It took a few minutes for Lily to grasp the idea of sleeping in a castle inhabited by ghosts and poltergeists and other magical things but she got used to it soon enough.

This chapter was sooooo boring to write… what did you think?

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The sorting and the first night

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The doors to the castle were twice the size of the half-giant and Lily was beginning to think whether everyone inside would be huge too. The doors opened and the huddle of wet, cold first years shuffled into the entrance hall shivering as one. Lily spotted James and Sirius drawing on a portrait with their wands. She rolled her eyes at them. Alice was looking around interestedly.

“So this is where we’ll spend most of the next seven years! I can’t believe I’m actually here! There’s just one question left and we’ll be in, nothing can stop us now.” Lily grinned and the girls cuddled excitedly. There was a lot of noise booming through double doors to the left. “I bet the rest of the school are already here.” Lily nodded and looked around for Remus. He had joined Sirius and James and they were all pushing through the crowd towards the double doors.

“Ahem, ahem, first years, settle down!” Lily looked over the shoulders of the people in front of her. A tall woman dressed in long velvet red robes with her hair in a tight bun was stood in front of the doors sternly. “When you walk through these doors the sorting hat will sort you into one of the four houses, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, Gryffindor and Slytherin. Please wait a moment for the sorting hat to prepare for it’s song and for the ghosts to proceed into the great hall.”

It happened so fast that Lily didn’t know what she was looking at. Four pearly white figures floated through (literally) the crowd and one which looked like a more grey ghost than white swept through her. She cried out as the freezing cold spirit made her insides shiver and then she regained the warmth of the entrance hall. Alice was giggling at Lily but Lily ignored her.

“In we go.” Ordered the teacher. She made the first years get into pairs and walk down an aisle that was in the middle of two tables. One had a yellow and black banner flying above it and the other had a red and gold one. Alice was pulling Lily’s robes and was looking at the ceiling.

“It’s bewitched to mirror the sky outside.” Lily explained. Alice smiled after being told that there was no way the thick rain would fall any lower than half way down the room. They all reached the bottom end of the hall were a hat on a stool sat. It had many rips and holes. One of the holes started to flap and the hat began to sing.

“What on earth is it going on about?” Alice asked unconvinced. Lily shushed her and listened to the end of the song politely. When it had finished everyone clapped.

“Anders, Robert!” the professor called.

“Ravenclaw!” Lily’s insides twisted, wriggled, swirled and settled as the hat began to sort and Alice had gone a lovely shade of pale green when she realised that it was her turn next.

“Black, Sirius!”

“GRYFFINDOR!” a few of the girls that had already been sorted moaned and the whole hall rang with the name Sirius Black and Gryffindor.

“Hmmm, interesting, kind, generous, loyal, patient, brave, hard working, not too bright, I can see a hint of chivalry… GRYFFINDOR!” Alice skipped to her house table merrily. Lily clapped even though her hands had gone numb. There were a few more names. Lily sat down on the stool and gripped the stool nervously.

“Very bright, brave, loyal, very kind, sacrificial… no doubt whatsoever! GRYFFINDOR!” the table applauded wildly and Lily sat down facing Sirius and next to Alice happily. At the end of the long ceremony James Potter and Remus Lupin were sorted into Gryffindor, a greasy boy was sorted into Slytherin and a small chubby boy into Gryffindor.

“I have three words to say to you now: ENJOY THE FEAST!” the headmaster had apparently given his speech which Lily had thought would be long and knowledgeable. She watched him sit down gracefully. In her heart she had a lot of respect for the headmaster. She looked across at Sirius who was stuffing his face with turkey legs. She looked down at her plate. It was filled with her favourite meal; roast chicken, roast potatoes, carrots, gravy, broccoli and Yorkshire pudding. She began to eat hungrily. When she looked into her goblet it was filled to the brim with pumpkin juice. She slurped it down and continued eating.

“Now that you have eaten you will probably be more interested in my long and winding road of a speech.” Lily looked up importantly. “This year the forbidden forest is out of bounds once again. Mr Filch our caretaker has a list of joke products that he does not wish to see pinned on his door. Detention will be held in the dungeons. All teachers who have given a detention will be there and you must check your name off the list when you arrive. You may have noticed that there is one more addition to the grounds this year. Yes, it is a moving tree, Miss Black.” Sirius whispered that Miss Black was his cousin in third year. “It is called the Whomping willow, I thought Professor Sprout would like it and so it is her present from me.” Remus had turned pink but no one noticed. “The curfew is 8.00pm that is when you must be in your dormitory or common room. Breakfast on weekdays starts at 7.00am and finishes at 9.00am, lunch is 12.00pm to 1.00pm and from 4.00pm to 8.00pm is the time you are given to eat your dinner. The prefects will show the younger students to their common rooms and the head boy and girl this year are Miss Black and Mr Patil.” Dumbledore sat down and the students cheered loudly. Then they filed out slowly.

“I thought the head prefects are meant to be in seventh year.” Lily commented to Sirius as though she wasn’t sure. Sirius looked at her happily.

“I’ve got three cousins; Narcissa Black, she’s in second year, Bellatrix Black, in third year, and my favourite, Andromeda, she’s in seventh year, she’s head girl and she’s in Hufflepuff instead of Slytherin.” Lily smiled. She wished her sister had already started school here and she had some one to look up to like Sirius.

Alice pulled Lily’s sleeve and dragged her up the stairs to the dormitories. Alice was knocking on all the doors only to find that they were already inhabited by other people.

Finally, they found a room. It was round with five four poster beds. Lily worried that no one else would share the room with them. The view was amazing. It looked out on to the big black lake and straight up ahead was the tall rocky mountains. Down below she saw the Whomping willow thrashing around like a maniac; she would try to avoid that if possible. There was a small cabin with smoke rising from the chimney and a few greenhouses next to that.

A few moments later a girl with extremely long mousy brown hair entered and sat down on a bed. Her name was Claire Gate. Then a few more minutes and a tall, dark haired, blue eyed girl claimed the bed next to Claire’s introducing herself as Zoe Manley. There was just one more bed left.

Finally it was taken by a small, skinny, blonde haired, brown eyed girl named Kat Bones. The girls stayed up for ages talking about their journey, the lake, the view, Gryffindor, Quidditch, boys, parents, lessons, books, magic, ghosts, spooky stories and spells. It was the most amazing feeling for Lily; to be surrounded by girls her own age that were just like herself. She had never had real friends before…

It got a bit sloppy but oh well… here’s the feedback link: http://www.cosforums.com/showthread.php?t=90030

Just to let you know that there will be no more chapters unless some one gives me some feedback... you can be as positively criticising as you want... Go on you know you want to...

http://www.cosforums.com/showthread.php?t=90030

Please... I need feedback. even if it is rubbish i would love it if some one gave me something to improve on...

Introductions

The morning after the sorting ceremony brought Lily a stomach ache and a big flowery bunch of nerves. She stared at the curtains that were hanging around her bed and she sighed; they didn’t go with her bed covers. She pulled them open sharply and glanced at the other beds. There was no apparent movement from behind the curtains.

She grabbed her uniform and shyly and shakily she pulled it on and neatened it up behind the heavy curtains so that if some one did wake up they wouldn’t see her. She pulled the curtains back again and took out her school bag from underneath her chosen bed. Then she grabbed her wand from the drawer next to her bed. Straightening the picture of her family admiringly she thought. ‘What if they realise that I don’t know enough magic and kick me out or worse what if I accidentally jinx the teacher and get expelled!’

“Lily, its only half past seven go back to sleep.” Lily giggled as Alice turned around in her bed. She grabbed the curtains and opened them wide so that the sun got to her then she carefully held on to the top of the duvet and pulled sharply making Alice jump and shiver. “What was that for?!”

“Breakfast time, come on let’s get up and go!” the other girls started moving around too because of their disturbance but none of them got up. Alice, however, stretched and got dressed without complaint. She looked utterly terrified. Lily stopped giggling and turned very serious. “Come on.” She grabbed Alice’s collar and dragged her down the stairs back into the common room. It was deserted apart from one girl who looked like she had had a party the night before and hadn’t moved since. They headed down, down, down, through doors, past ghosts, through more doors, and finally through the big double doors that led into the Great hall.

To Lily’s surprise James, Sirius and Remus were already sat at the end of the Gryffindor table sleepily. Remus was stirring his cereal tiredly and absent-mindedly, James was resting his head on his arms and Sirius kept yawning loudly. Professor McGonagall walked over.

“Well, soon as you’ve got nothing better to do boys you can read your timetables.” She said sternly. Remus looked up and immediately began to read it obediently. James and Sirius took theirs and grinned.

“Hi Lily, sit here, guess what!” James exclaimed as though something really good had happened. She signalled for him to carry on. “We got our first detention today! And we’ve got flying lessons later.” Lily looked at each of them crossly. Remus looked a bit nervous at Lily’s reaction, Sirius didn’t look bothered but James looked completely guilty and sorry. Lily sighed.

“It was James’ fault, he wanted us to go to that Whomping willow and he said he had an invisibility but when we got to the tree this other boy that’s sharing our room called Peter Pettigrew got hit by one of the branches and we couldn’t just leave him so we took him up to the hospital wing where we received detention from Dumbledore.” Sirius explained quickly. Lily rolled her eyes and grabbed a small piece of toast because she still felt stuffed from last night. Alice was stuffing herself with cheese on toast.

“We’ve got Transfiguration first, the Charms…”

“I’ll be good at that lesson; I can be extremely charming when I want to be.” James interrupted grinning mischievously at Lily.

”Then we’ve got Herbology, then Defence against the Dark Arts, then potions and we’ve got flying last.” Sirius and James seemed to be quite excited about the last lesson but Lily felt sick and scared witless. Alice was beaming when Lily read out Herbology but she hid it quickly with a sniff.

The Great Hall was filling up fast and the four heads of houses were now using magic to transport the timetables to the rightful owners. The one standing at the front of the Slytherin table had a huge belly that hung over his trousers. The one in front of the Hufflepuff had short greying, curly hair and she was wearing robes that had been snagged and frayed many times. The one at the Ravenclaw could not be seen from the Gryffindor table so Lily didn’t get a good look.

“Are you coming ladies?” Sirius asked indicating the way out of the hall and holding his arm out to be linked. Lily stood up and waited for Alice. Alice stood up and linked Sirius’ arm happily; she was linking the best looking boy in her year. As she went past the Hufflepuff table a few girls moaned. She pulled her tongue out at them and carried on walking. Lily was walking in between Remus and James. James kept ruffling his hair nervously and Lily was fiddling with the bottom of her tie. James’ eyes widened at the sight of a small, chubby, blonde haired boy at the doors.

“Peter, how did you get out that quickly? You broke your arm didn’t you?” Peter shrugged and explained how miraculous the medicine he had been given had been. “Oh yeah, this is the lovely Lily Evans and the one and only Alice Brown.” James introduced. Lily wasn’t sure whether she liked James’ other friend but she smiled anyway. The boy was unnaturally clingy to Sirius and also finding it hard to keep up with the group.

They reached a large classroom one the first floor where Sirius had accidentally led the boys last night before James leading them to the tree. Sirius and James smirked and Lily gazed at them curiously. They were both s******ing cheekily now and Alice had noticed too.

“What’s all this about then?” she asked Sirius who was still linking her.

“Oh, you’ll find out soon enough.” Sirius winked. Lily gave him an evil stare and he turned away from her guiltily. The room opened and everyone walked in anxiously. The class they were with were the Hufflepuffs including the girls that had been jealous of Alice earlier. They all huddled into a corner and waited for their teacher to show themselves.

Suddenly the tabby cat sat on one of the small desks jumped off it and half way through falling transformed into the Gryffindor head of house, Professor McGonagall. The class gasped and applauded.

“I will now seat you, please be patient.” The seating arrangement was Gryffindors on the left and Hufflepuffs on the right. The four boys sat on the back table leaving Alice and Lily with the table before that and two other girls named, Clarissa Bowtruckle and Melissa Bennet. They were eerily alike; the rhyming of their names, the way they spoke, the way they wrote and all the rest.

“I’m Clarissa.”
“And I’m Melissa.”
“Who are you then?”
“Lily and Alice.”
“That’s nice.” They never spoke for the rest of the lesson and Alice and Lily stifled desperate giggles. Their first lesson was spent copying rules and turning a matchstick into a needle.

“Well that was boring…” Alice yawned. Lily nodded; she knew better spells already. The boys, however, were unusually excited. Their second lesson was Charms and the boys got more excited at every step.


Feedback link: http://www.cosforums.com/showthread.php?t=90030

Sorry but I won't be able to write on here for a week cos I'm going on my holidays :( so I'll write the next chapter on paper and type it up when I get back hehe see you then...

The first Prank

Outside the Charms classroom was a long line of shivering Slytherins. It looked like they had been at the Herbology greenhouses. The lanky, greasy boy had started to smell quite a bit.

Sirius was shifting around from one place to another with excitement etched into his playful face. Lily eyed the group of boys suspiciously until the small door opened and a tiny man greeted them.

“I am Professor Flitwick and I am your charms teacher. You may choose your own seats.” His voice was extremely squeaky and high, Alice giggled. The class edged into the classroom and sunk into their seats noisily. “Today we will be learning how to make a feather fly. Take out your wands please and repeat this motion.”

Sirius and James were now sliding around their seats with anxiousness and Lily was starting to worry about their sanity. Flitwick circled his hand around and then flicked his wand. The wand turned into a joke shop firework and sped out of his hand towards the back wall. To the class’ horror they found that the firework was speeding towards a box which was looking extremely suspicious now. The box was hit and at the same moment the Slytherins were covered in a thick smelly grey fog.

“Sirius, James, do have something to do with this?!” cried Alice through the noise towards the boys. They grinned and watched as the smoke faded. The Slytherins were black from head to toe and the Gryffindors laughed triumphantly. Lily sighed and rolled her eyes.

A note flew towards her from the table behind. She unfolded it and read silently. Don’t worry they will get better, James. She scribbled down a few words and handed it to Alice to pass to the boys. It said there’d better not be or I will report you, Lily. James was looking at the note with a confused face. But didn’t you find that funny? He wrote. No, and I will never find them funny, they’re mean and there’s a word for what you just did, it’s called prejudice. She wrote angrily. James didn’t write back he simply threw the note away and fell silent.

“Who was responsible for this?! Own up now!” Flitwick squeaked but you could see that he found it funny too. James raised his hand and Lily looked over frowning. Sirius frowned too in shock.

“It was me, I’m sorry, that was really… prejudice of me…” he smiled at Lily. So James hadn’t owned up respectfully but just to be cheeky towards Lily. She turned away and started practising the wand movement carefully.

“Well that’s five points from Gryffindor, although the spell you performed for making the firework fly in that direction was perfect could you show us?” James looked at Sirius who had obviously done the spell. “It will save you from detention, Mr Potter.”

James shrugged. “I read it out of a book and I’ve forgotten how to say the word.” Flitwick frowned but quickly turned to the rest of the class to continue the lesson.
James threw another note over to Lily, Actually, miss smarty-pants, it’s called fun, we’re eleven, act your age. Lily held a tear back. Why did everyone find her too serious? Well maybe you should act your age and not your shoe size. James frowned. I have small feet; I’m size thirteen. He grinned at Lily cockily and read what she wrote back. You think you’re clever, you think you’re cool, you think you’re the best but really you haven’t got any brains, no one apart from a few first years knows you and no one has the right to be the best. Now she was really getting angry.

The bell sounded and everyone left the classroom either extremely happy or extremely miserable. Lily searched her pockets for her snack for break that she had saved from breakfast; a yoghurt. She found a small folded piece of paper with her name on it. You’ll see how good I can be, Evans. She stared at the note for a while and then ripped it up and threw it on the floor.

So there you go, Lily and James’ first argument, even if it wasn’t face to face. Hope you all liked it. It was a bit short but I tried to make it a bit more to the point because that’s what the feedback told me to do, hehe.

I'm in a writing mood today so that will hopefully explin all the posts, lol.

Proof

Later on that day James and Sirius were, yet again, excited and giddy. Lily could still feel the burning pain she had felt when she had read the last note. She felt really mean for arguing with him; it was a bit over the top. But she pretended she was fine and ignored James.

“I am Madam Freckles and I am going to teach you firsties how to fly on a broomstick!” Madam Freckles was a bit too much encouraging and sounded like she was talking to a bunch of babies. She had a short blue bob hair cut and tiny brown eyes covered by a mass of eyebrow and eyelashes. “Put your right hand over your broom or left if you’re left handed, and say ‘up!’” Everyone did as they were told. The broomstick that Freckles had shot up to her hand and made her stumble backwards.

“UP!” Lily shouted angrily. James tugged on her robes and pointed to himself.

“Up.” He said simply but firmly. The broom attached itself to James like a limpet. Lily repeated his example and it whizzed into her hand gracefully. Most of the others were finding it difficult but a few purebloods had already mastered it.

“Great, wasn’t that fun?!” Alice snorted at Freckles’ comment. “Now let’s mount our brooms. Swing your leg over but don’t take a seat just yet!” the class mounted and Freckles, as though waiting for some one to go wrong on that, over did it, making her leg click. They all laughed but she continued to force a smile. “Now, get yourselves into groups of four and wait until I tell you that it’s your turn to take off!” they sorted themselves and waited.

“This group first, let’s see now, you’re sat on the broom wrong…”
“What is with this woman? Has she swapped her brain for a broom or something?” Alice hissed at Lily. Lily giggled but Melissa and Clarissa had joined them again.

“Hello!” Melissa exclaimed.
“Hello!” Clarissa chimed.
“Isn’t this fun!?”
“Why yes, it is!” Alice and Lily watched them as they flew up into the air.

“That’s wonderful girls and boys! You look like naturals!” The group blushed and landed again still grinning. “Now let’s see this group!” Lily and Alice sighed as they kicked off. Freckles’ face beamed. “Aha! What a wonderful performance, this is the best group so far, maybe we have places for you in the Quidditch team?!” Alice looked overjoyed but Lily landed again grumpily; she didn’t like the sound of Quidditch.

“Madam Freckles, watch this!” James shouted. He kicked off and made the broom hover around before touching back down.

“Now that is skill! Everyone give a round of applause to this young, talented, boy!” everyone gave applause apart from Lily. James noticed. “You, my friend, will be a substitute chaser in case anything goes wrong for the next match, will you be at training? Yes, of course!” James’ eyes had lit up.

*

“History of Magic, well this will be interesting!” Sirius exclaimed sarcastically. Lily smiled.

“You never know you might learn something.” Lily soon knew she was wrong; it was half way through the lesson and it felt like they’d been there for ten days. Half the class was asleep or daydreaming and the rest were either doodling or writing notes.

So, Lily, have I proved that I can be the best at something? He wrote. Lily hesitated. Yes, but you still haven’t proved that you have brains or that you’re cool. James smiled. That can be arranged.

“Professor Binns, may I ask you something intellectual?” Binns nodded. “Well, didn’t the goblin revolution take place in 1269, not 1296? If so, you can’t have been there, can you? And also the goblins that were fighting to make the town into a flat space of land were marauders not environmentalists; they were planning to use the land as a hiding space for their stolen goods. And if they were environmentalists they wouldn’t have had all that fun whilst fighting for the land… so I don’t think you were really there otherwise you would have known the facts instead of reading History of Magic: True or false facts, which as you know includes a lot of misleading information.” The class applauded and James sat down to receive a note from the table behind.

He tossed it to Lily triumphantly. Do you think I’m ‘cool’? That was the title. The whole class had written down why they thought James was cool. Not one person had written that he wasn’t cool. Lily looked up and saw James stood right in front of her. Lily boiled over.

“The goblins were environmentalists as well as marauders because if you read History of Magic: Goblins, chapter 12 you will find that it clearly states that the goblins fought bravely for their land, as they knew that what the other side were doing was invading the power of animals and they knew it was wrong. So they wanted that land for two reasons, Potter.” Binns clapped and the class followed.

“Aaah yes, but did you read the following chapter which will show that those marauders enjoyed that land as much as they enjoyed gambling and thieving? Well, it says there that they lost the battle because of a law issue, would an environmentalist lose a battle of law? No, because they almost own a law don’t they, Evans?”

“Yes, they do nowadays, but in those days the Ten Commandments were the most laws they had and a few more, not many people realised what they were doing to the land and so not many were environmentalists. So, Potter all your facts have been put down, and I know there’s no more.”

“But you’re wrong, Evans, the marauders were more than just pirates, they were caring, loving and they had rules of their own, their codes were brilliant and they were intelligent as we all know, they knew were to bury treasure, they could make riddles, they even had wives and families, don’t you understand that?”

“Potter, that has nothing to do with anything we’re arguing about!”

“Yes it does! Think of the notes, Evans, think of my carefully chosen words; the marauders liked fun, they never took much seriously but there were a few things that they did. They never went too far. I love having fun and messing around but…” James held his tongue for a moment, (was he actually about to say ‘you’re the most serious thing in my life and I’ll never let you go.’? To the girl who got on his nerves so much that if she was a boy she would have been hit by nasty spells by now?) “There are serious things in my life that you’re missing…” Binns coughed. Lily choked and sat down. James sat down too after realising that the class were watching.

“Fun, is an emotion, Potter, not anything important like love, those goblins loved the land but I’m afraid they were far too big-headed and prejudice for the other goblin’s likings and they lost to a fair battle!” The bell rang and the class ran out in a panic. Binns made for Lily and James but they had already left and were out the door before he reached the desk.

Woah, is it me or was that a lot of babble? If you thought so you can tell me but what James was trying to say was that he wasn’t a prejudice, big-headed boy all the time and that even though people have fun they still have things that they take seriously. And what Lily was saying was that James had lost the argument because he was mischievous and people like that usually don’t win things because they’re wrong and she was trying to say that fun isn’t important, I think, hehe, but James hasn’t realised that he likes Lily and won’t admit it or realise it until he’s older because they are only eleven, after all. And he doesn’t like her much at the moment anyway…

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I'm sorry for not writing for ages I really am but I need ideas on what can happen next. Any ides?