Lily followed Severus into the Great Hall, looking around and above her, trying to take as much of it in as she could. She heard Severus chuckle next to her, not meanly, only to show he was slightly amused at her amazement. Lily elbowed him in the side and rolled her eyes.
Lily looked up. Sitting there was a stool and a hat (which looked like it'd been through a lot), and a brown haired woman who had introduced herself as Professor McGonagall. She called children up by their last names, one by one, until she got to Evans, Lily.
Lily carefully stepped up to the stool and sat on it, watching as Professor McGonagall put the hat on over her head. It covered her eyes, so she didn't see much, other than the other student's feet and the benches accompanying the four tables.
"Better be GRYFINDOR!" She heard. The hat was lifted, and she sat in the table second from the left, and gave a thumbs-up to Severus, who smiled back at her.
The list goes on and on. Only one or two names stick in her head. Potter, James, because he made an extremely loud cheer when he was placed in Gryffindor. And Lupin, Remus, because the boy looked at least thirteen, even though Lily was sure that the boy was her age. She smiled encouragingly to Severus when he was placed in Slytherin, but he didn't completely return it. Truth was, Lily was a bit disappointed that she was in Gryffindor house all alone…
"Hello there!" A cheerful voice said. Lily didn't think anyone was specifically talking to her until a girl much shorter than her, with brown hair cut in a pixie cut sat down next to her at the table.
"I'm Alice. What's your name?"
Lily looks at the girl a moment before smiling. "I'm Lily."
"I'm James!" A black-haired boy whose hair looked very messy said. He had glasses that looked deliberately crooked, as though he bent them that way when he got them.
"Pleasure." Lily and Alice said in unison, throwing each girl into a fit of giggles.
All seemed to go well for Lily after that. Her and Alice shared a room, along with two girls names Marlene and Mary, who both seemed quite nice. The only problem that Lily thought she might have was James. In the last two hours he'd managed to annoy, offend, and infuriate Lily.
This would be a fun year.
"No, Potter. I told you, I'm saving with seat for Severus." Lily repeated. She'd told James she was keeping the seat for Severus several times, since this was one of their rare joint classes.
"Why sit with a Slytherin when you can sit with me?" James said, sitting in the chair and putting his feet on the desk. Lily pushed them off impulsively.
"Because I've been sitting with Severus all year, and every day you've made this a problem. Can you not cause trouble just once in your life?" Lily asked. James looked like he was about to say something relatively intelligent, but instead decided against it and rolled his eyes.
"You spend far too much time with that greaseball of a boy. You should spend more time with me."
Lily scoffed. "Spend more time with a big-headed, arrogant, messy boy like you? Thanks, but I'd rather spend time with people who don't put me down to make themselves feel better."
"I don't put people down to make myself better!" Said James defensively.
"Oh? Then why do you put people down?" Lily asked. James apparently couldn't find a suitable reply to that in his book of lies, and by the time Severus had walked in, Lily had promptly pushed James out of the chair and smiled at Severus.
Potions came and went, and Lily was on her way to lunch with Severus when a certain black haired boy crashed into them, making both children very angry and with many books scattered around them. Sirius ran after James, not bothering with the books, and simply kicking them.
"Just ignore them, Severus." Lily said, noticing the seething look on Severus' face as he looked at the front page of the book to make sure it was his.
After picking up all the books, the two once again set off for the Great Hall. As they reached their parting, each smiled and did what waving they could with the large stack of books in their hands, and set off for their own tables.
Lily pushed the book onto the table with relief. She was getting tired from carrying them.
Alice looked up from her romance novel at the large pile of schoolbooks in front of her. "Why didn't you drop those off in the dorm? That's what we always do!"
"No time. James crashed into us and we had to spend time picking them up."
"Us?" Alice asks, and Lily can sense the curiosity in her voice.
"Me and Severus." She explained. Alice nods slowly, taking a bite out of her sandwich.
"They always do this!" I rave. It may only be two weeks into our first year, but already James and his friends had wreaked enough havoc around Severus and Lily to last a lifetime. Just yesterday James had bewitched all of Severus and Lily's books to scream like a banshee whenever they were opened, and convinced the ghosts to glide through Severus and Lily all day long, providing shocking surprises when they walked out of their classrooms.
"Well, maybe he just wants your attention." Alice says, peering up from her romance novel barely long enough to register my reaction, at which point she seems to take refuge behind her cracked, old book.
"Ha! Please. He's just doing it to tick me off!" Lily says.
"That's exactly what she said…" Alice says.
"Who?" Lily asks, a bit cautiously.
"The woman in my book. This man always bought her flowers and gifts, and when it crossed her mind that he may really care for her, she wrote it off and said just what you said. 'He was just trying to tick me off.'" Alice replies, jerking the cover of her romance novel up for emphasis.
"Well, I'm not book character, and you can bet it's not attention James wants." Lily said, peering over a particularly tall seventh grader at James and Sirius trying to hold in their laughter as Professor McGonagall talked, rather angry-looking, at the boys. Lily had heard many rumors of the four, but one was certain.
They called themselves the Maraurders.