Welcome to my first multichapter fic - Hogwarts Academy. If you have any good name suggestions, I'd love to hear them, because this just seems so cliché. Many thanks to my beta, BookWorm77071. And now, proceed to enjoy!
Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter.
As Lily Evans walked into the area of Hogwarts Academy, she couldn't help but feel a little apprehensive. Who wouldn't, if they just started out at a new school? But this wasn't exactly a new experience to Lily. As it was, this was her... what, thirteenth school? Yeah, thirteenth is right. Ever since her mum died, her dad could never stay in the same place for a long time and Lily and her sister Petunia were both victims to his travelling fever. This year was Lily's senior year and she couldn't wait to go to uni and find actual friends she wouldn't have to abandon after six months. Of course, the first few times she moved she wanted to find a few friends, but after a couple of times it was just too heartbreaking and then she always tried to stay out of the social circles.
In the spirit of "first things first", Lily made her way through the half empty halls – it was still fairly early - to the secretary's office to sort out the technical stuff. Once that was out of the way, she went outside again to get a feel of sun and wind on her skin while she still could. She settled herself on a bench close to the entrance and pulled out her sketchbook. Lily liked to draw, but she hadn't discovered that until her sixth year, when she signed up for art class just for the kicks but found out she really enjoyed it. Since then she always signed up for random classes and extra-curricular activities and so far had tried being pretty much everything: artist, computer geek, journalist, eco-freak, marching band player, actress, singer, nerd, chess player, cheerleader, football, and basketball player... hell, she was even a troublemaker. She has always liked the philosophy of Renaissance; that one should be well versed all around.
As Lily was drawing, she heard a loud cough and her eyes snapped up. A handsome boy with shoulder long black hair and grey eyes was standing in front of her and smirking. Being subjected to bullies before, she guessed she had "invaded his property" and mentally braced herself for the slew of insults that would inevitably fly her way. What she heard was not at all what she expected.
"Would you mind terribly putting those oh-so-fabulous legs of yours off that bench, sweetheart?"
Lily blinked. To say she resented flirts would be an understatement of the century. "As a matter of fact, yes I would. It's rather comfortable like this," she said.
He didn't seem to be put off by her statement, on the contrary. "Come on, now, Red, you've got to know you're violating school rules doing that. Just trying to save your pretty face from detention, that's all."
She scowled. Honestly, a minute with this guy and she was ready to chuck him off a cliff. "Don't call me Red. How d'you like if I called you Black, hm?"
He chuckled. "Well, considering it's my surname, I'd say I'd be perfectly fine with it. But I'd rather you called me Sirius. I want to be on first-name basis with all the people in this wonderful place, you know?" he said.
Lily rolled her eyes. "Nah, I think I'm fine with Black."
Sirius Black gasped dramatically and held his heart. "No! Don't do this to me, my fair lady! I shall never recover from this ordeal! Oh, whatever can I do to change your mind?"
She let out her own chuckle. What a drama queen. "Well, you can promise not to call me Red," Lily suggested.
He curtsied. "Your wish is my command. However, I do not know how to address to you now. Somehow I think you wouldn't appreciate me calling you hot stuff," Sirius said.
Lily smiled. Perhaps he wasn't just a brainless flirting machine… "I'm Lily Evans. Nice to make your acquaintance, Sirius Black."She accentuated Black but threw a grin his way to let him know she was just teasing.
He tsked, but his eyes were smiling. "And here I thought we would become best of friends at this point, Evans. Never mind that. I shall try and I shall succeed. How 'bout we start by showing you around the place, eh?"
When Lily looked at her watch, she saw the class would start soon. "We've got ten minutes left. We should go, just in case."
Sirius raised an eyebrow and said, "No offence, but you don't seem to be the meticulous sort."
Lily could see where he was coming from. After all, she did refuse to put her legs off the bench and was cheeky with him. In fact, she was meticulous to a T, but then her pride decided to make an appearance. "Nah, I just wanna lure people into false sense of security and then strike."
He smiled mischievously. "I like the way you think, Evans. If you would follow me."
As they went, Sirius told her about various do's and don'ts about the school he thought she should know. "If you can't open your locker, just beat the bugger until it succumbs. And do not, under any circumstances, order beef soup at lunch." Lily looked at him questioningly, but Sirius just shook his head. "Don't ask. It's for better if you don't know." Lily opened her mouth to argue, but then shut it. They didn't call the weekly Monday special at her previous school The Scavenger Hunt for nothing…
As they reached the classroom, Sirius opened the door for her. Rolling her eyes, Lily figured it was pointless to argue with him and entered the classroom. Tapping to her knowledge of being a new kid, she continued to walk forward. If she stopped in the doorway, students would know someone new was there, so she tried to blend with the crowd. Sirius, however, would have none of that. "Lilyflower, you're going in the wrong direction, darling!" He grabbed her wrist and started dragging her towards the windows, where a group of guys and girls was sitting and talking. When they heard Sirius' voice, they all looked in their direction and immediately started looking at her with interest. When they reached their destination, Lily tore her hand out of Sirius' grasp and glared at him. "Why'd you think calling me Lilyflower was a good idea, I'll never know." Sirius grinned at her. "Well, since you don't want me to call you Red, I had to make up another nickname, hadn't I?" Lily just stared at him.
One of the girls, a curly-haired blonde with big blue eyes shook her head. "Don´t bother with him, he's not completely all right in the head. He calls me M&M for example." She smiled at Lily. "Hi, I'm Marlene McKinnon, nice to meet you."
Lily smiled back. "Lily Evans; likewise." She shook hands with Marlene as she introduced her to the rest of the gang. "This is Alice Fortescue." A sweet looking girl with round face, shoulder long light brown hair and brown eyes waved and smiled shyly at her. "Karen Hooch." A muscular, tanned girl with short dark brown hair and blue-almost-grey eyes nodded at her. "Emmeline Vance." Girl with straight blond hair, pale skin and freckles that contrasted with her surprisingly dark eyes wiggled her fingers. "Hey." Marlene continued with Remus Lupin, who had neatly trimmed and combed his light brown hair and had this 'excellent student' vibe. Next was Peter Pettigrew, who blushed when introduced, with blond hair and watery blue eyes. "And James Potter." He had very messy jet black hair, hazel eyes with rectangular glasses. There was something about him she couldn't quite put her finger on, but she didn't think much of it. He looked at her for a few seconds, offered her a lopsided grin and ruffled his hair (which made him look like he'd been spit out of a tornado). "So, Lily Evans, was it?"
"Yep."
"So, how do you like Hogwarts so far?"
Lily looked around; taking in the class and people she had been introduced to. "So far, so good, I guess. The residents can sometimes be less than pleasant, though," she said whilst nudging Sirius.
Marlene smiled widely. "I think this will be a start of a beautiful friendship."
Sirius huffed. "Congratulations, Skittles, you just sentenced yourself to a day without my stellar sense of humour. No dirty jokes for you today."
"What a pity," Marlene drawled sarcastically. However, James and Karen did not appear to share the sentiment. "McKinnon, apologize," they commanded at once.
She snorted. "Yeah, right, that'll happen." She then turned to Lily. "Well, don't just stand there, sit down!" That left Lily confused. She looked around and saw most of the seats were already taken. "Uh, where exactly?"
Marlene patted the top of her desk. "Here, of course! There's no extra seat here, so you'll have to wait until McGonagall comes and then ask her to go to basement for an extra one."
"Alright then." Lily hopped on Marlene's desk and said, "Well, continue with whatever you have been doing before, I guess. I'll catch up sooner or later."
Unfortunately for Lily, Emmeline had other ideas. "I don't think so. We have way more important things to talk about now. So, where are you from and why did you move here?" she started to interrogate Lily.
She scratched her had. She was not giving them her entire history since quite a lot of people were listening, so she decided to give them a censored version. "I came from Westonville, and I moved here because my father wanted to open a smoothie and ice cream parlour here in Hogsmeade," Lily said.
Alice's eyes shined in that moment. "Oh, yes, I know. This old shack close to my place has been reconstructed recently. It has a huge ice cream on top. Maple Street 5129, am I right?" she said.
Lily shrugged her shoulders. "I've no idea, honestly. Haven't been there yet."
Remus frowned. "Don't you wanna know how will your dad's new restaurant look like?" he said.
Oh, if they had any idea. "I've seen it, only in pictures, though, but still. And it's a long way from my house, so… " Okay, that was a lie. But she wouldn't spill her guts about that, not yet. Luckily, most of the crew seemed satisfied with her response.
Lily decided she should steer the conversation out of dangerous waters. "Okay, my turn. So, what are the teachers around here like?"
James and Sirius grinned at each other. "Oh, they love us all," they said in unison. The rest laughed sardonically.
"If by love, you mean totally hate you and will throw a rave the day you graduate, then sure, they love you," Marlene quipped and everyone else was nodding their heads and murmuring agreements.
Sirius butted in. "When you go and say hi to good ol' Minnie, do tell her she looks especially fetching today, will you?"
Lily raised her eyebrows. "But what if she won't look fetching?" she said.
Sirius vehemently shook his head. "She always looks fetching. Minnie doesn't follow trends, she sets them," he said.
"What on earth does that mean?"
James threw her a cheeky grin. "Wait and see. We don't want to spoil the surprise, after all."
Lily gave up trying to understand what the hell was going on at that point. She soon understood, as shortly after Professor McGonagall walked into a classroom wearing… a hideous old-fashioned red tartan jacket and ankle long black dress. Oh.
While the students were scrambling to their seats, Lily could swear she heard a whisper of, "Ten quid she'll chicken out." They thought she would chicken out, didn't they? Oh, this was going to be fun.
Going over to McGonagall's - or Minnie's, as boys had named her – table, she handed her the papers McGonagall – oh, screw it, Minnie was way shorter anyway – was supposed to sign, she smiled nicely and introduced herself. "Hello, my name is Lily Evans."
Minnie looked at her over the rims of her glasses as she sized her up, and finally smiled. "Hello, Miss Evans, I'm Professor Minerva McGonagall and I'll be teaching you Maths this term." Lily took the paper, smiled back and dropped the bomb. "Oh, and Sirius Black sends his regards and says you look smokin' hot today," she said trying to keep a straight face.
The class burst in laughter, as Sirius tried to defend himself. "Hey, I didn't say that! I said you look especially fetching!"
Lily waved her hand in the air dismissively. "Semantics."
This caused the class to laugh even harder, if possible. McGonagall pinched the bridge of her nose. "Very well, then, Miss Evans, why don't you go to storage for a desk, since we don't have a place to sit you?" she said.
"I'll go with her!" James offered his help enthusiastically, a bit too much. When he realised that, he added, "You, know, so she won't get lost or anything…" he added sheepishly as girls exchanged knowing looks.
Lily smiled. Good, she made a nice first impression, if James' reaction was anything to go by.
James, just like Sirius before, opened the door for her. She flashed him a smile and went out. Once she was out, he shut the door and looked at her with intense expression. "That," he pointed at the door, "Was the most amazing thing I've seen in a very long time."
She smirked. "To be honest, I mostly did it because I heard someone say I wouldn't do it."
He grinned back at her. "Yeah, that was Sirius. He thinks good looking girls don't have it in them to be troublemakers." He motioned her to follow him.
"In that case, I shouldn't tell him how I got six weeks of detention in one day, should I?" Maybe Lily should've expected that dropped jaw.
"Six… weeks? Six weeks? Damn! That beats our record by two weeks! What on earth did you do?" James said, gobsmacked.
Lily snorted. "Yeah, and you'll faint. Sorry, not risking that."
James glared at her, and Lily just raised her eyebrow. After a few seconds, he sighed. "Guess you're right."
After a few seconds of silence, he tried his luck again. "The least significant offence?"
"Not happening!" Lily said in a sing-song voice.
The answer had not satisfied James at all. "Just you wait; I'll get it out of you," he told her.
"A girl can't spill all her secrets at once, now, can she?" This was fun; it was long since she bantered with someone like this.
"I have always been known as a very persuasive person." James shot right back.
"Even if you are, your powers will never measure up to the ones of Lily Evans, the Locked Book of Secrets."
They continued like this all the way to the storage back to class and even then they still had things to talk about. Granted, most of that time was spent bickering about superpowers, but it was incredibly entertaining all the same. They were sending notes to each other back and forth and Lily couldn't help but think how this was a terrible mistake.
AN: Please review, it'd be great to have some feedback!