It was the first year of Hogwarts and all the students were queuing up in the Great Hall in front of Professor McGonagal to be sorted into their houses. James stood alongside his childhood friends, laughing and joking, their excited voices the only noises in the small group.
A particular greasy haired boy with a hooked nose shot him and his friends a dirty look and he laughed, the sound cruel as opposed to joyous as it had been before. "Oh look, slimy has a girlfriend!" Sirius sneered, pointing past Severus at a redheaded girl next to him.
James' expression faltered as the girl turned around and looked him dead in the eye. His arm fell to his side and the world seemed to stop for a moment. Her look was full of disgust and disapproval, her look seemed to egg Snape on and he glared at James smugly.
James frowned as McGonagal called the first student to be sorted, his attention now focused on the students filing off to the great hat. What just happened there? He thought puzzled, he'd never felt that before looking at anyone. It was like a deep connection, something more then that? He wasn't sure.
Sirius clapped him on the back as it was his turn to go up, he must of been lost in a world of his own. He reached the stage and the hat whispered to him. "Your hearts desire." James looked up at the hat in question, his mouth opening to ask what the hat meant before it yelled. "Gryffindor!" James made his way to the table, his childhood friends cheering as the whole of Gryffindor table erupted into applause, he was the first of the students to be placed in the noble house.
"Evans, Lily" McGonagal called out in her clipped Scottish accent, the redhead wandered onto the stage. Looking up at the hat puzzled. James watched carefully, she seemed to have the same reaction he'd had. A light blush tinged her cheeks as the hat yelled out her house placement. "Gryffindor!" The hat shouted.
The girl wandered up to the table and sat opposite James. "I'm James!" He said happily introducing himself. He smiled at her warmly, it just felt like the right thing to do. For some reason he just wanted to impress her. "Lily," she said looking over at him, unsure of himself after the transgression that passed between him and her good friend Severus, "I'm Lily." James smiled and reached across the table to shake her hand.
He swore he saw a trace of magic flutter across their hands bound together. He wasn't sure if she'd seen it too.
It was going to be a good year, he thought. A good year.