Authors Note: Well, after what appears to have been a particularly long hiatus, I'm back, and raring to go. Of course, I'll now probably get this chapter done and not write another till Christmas, and it'd be none of my fault. I get busier by the minute these days. AP classes don't help either. Still, you all love me so much you'd be willing to wait, wouldn't you (Wouldn't you?!?!)? Also, any grammatical or spelling errors you should happen to notice are intentional. That's right, I never make mistakes.
Disclaimer: Everything that didn't come straight out of my head belongs to Joanne Rowling, and you'd all do good to remember that. However, characters I've created are mine, and unless you have permission from me (and I'd guess them as well; they aren't slaves for me to sell and loan about) they shouldn't be showing up anywhere else, because that would be plagiarism, which is illegal, as well as bad form.
Chapter Two
Friends And Neighbors
Lily slid open the compartment door and sat the blonde boy down on a seat. She handed his owl back to him, which he promptly set down on the floor and forgot about. He stared at Lily with a look no short of awe.
"You hit Avery," he said in quiet reverence.
"Yes," she said.
"And he didn't hit you back."
Lily smiled good naturedly, knowing it would be best to humor someone who had recently had a near death experience. "Well, I shouldn't think he would. Just imagine the trouble he'd be in if he was caught beating up defenseless little girls." She gave him a little grin, which he didn't see or notice either one.
"I guess that wouldn't have been a smart thing for him to do." He nodded to himself, sat back in his seat, and proceeded to stare off into the air directly in front of him.
Lily peered at him inquiringly. "Mind if I ask you who those two were?"
"The boys next door," he said, almost like he was telling himself, too. Lily wasn't sure what this meant, or what to say to it, so she (quite sagely) didn't say a thing. However, before Lily could decide what to do next, the sound of the door sliding back on its tracks announced the arrival of someone else in the compartment. She craned her head around and saw the two boys who had been standing in the corridor watching the little incident enter. They looked nearly as stunned as the boy.
"Um, are you... uh... okay?" asked one of them, looking at Lily in a flabbergasted sort of way. He had fairly neat black hair that fell to the top of his ears, and was clearly trying to be as gentlemanly as possible, given the fact she had just beat in the nose of a person twice the size of either of them.
"Oh yes, I'm fine," she said pertly, "but maybe you should be asking... er, excuse me, but what was your name?" She turned to the blonde boy, still speaking as gently as possible.
"Peter," he replied, showing no sign of ending his staring match with the wall. "Peter Pettigrew."
"Yes, maybe you should be asking Peter here that question though." Lily cocked her head and glared accusingly at the two of them. "You were both standing there; why didn't you help him, huh? What, did you think it was funny, watching someone get scared out of their wits?"
"Hey now, see here," said the second boy. He had black hair too, but it was shorter. Or maybe it just seemed that way, since it stood up in every direction. "I was just about to say something when you came along, and I never got a chance. I was trying to think of a way to get him out of the situation without getting anyone hurt, come to mention it." He gave her a glare quite equally accusing.
Lily started to say something rather rude, but was fortunately interrupted by the door opening yet again. A boy with light brown hair and a slightly gaunt face looked in on them.
"Um," he said, "I'm sorry if I'm interrupting anything, but I was just walking to the lavatory and I noticed that it looks like someone's been murdered in front of your-"
"Lavatory!" Lily gasped, smacking herself in the head with the heel of her hand. She spun around as if she couldn't decide which direction the door was in and finally sprinted out down the corridor.
They all watched her run and turn a corner out of sight, presumably into the bathroom.
"Wow," said the newcomer, "she certainly was in a hurry."
When she returned a few minutes later, all the boys were talking animatedly. They quieted down as she shut the door.
"So, have fun did you?" asked the rude boy with messy hair.
"For your information," she said, keeping her voice as calm as possible for someone considerably annoyed by many things at once, "I left my trunk in the bathroom and had to go get it." As if to punctuate the sentence, she set the trunk on the floor, probably a little harder than necessary.
"Well excuse me then," he replied (probably a little more sarcastic than necessary), "but why didn't you just leave it in the storage compartment to begin with?"
"Because," fumed Lily, "I didn't want anything to happen to Lechuza." She began to hastily undo the clasps on her trunk.
"You named you trunk Lechuza?" asked the brown haired boy, who was completely bewildered by the hostility that had flared up so suddenly. Hadn't he just been having a pleasant conversation?
"Oh of course not," she exasperatedly. "I named Lechuza Lechuza." She undid the last clasp and threw back the lid of Pandora's Box.
An owl erupted out of the trunk in a flurry of brown and white feathers, tearing around the compartment and abruptly taking everyone's attentions for itself. Probably an accident, but whether it was a conscious decision on Lily's part or not, it did prevent her from smacking the new boy a good one. It was two or three minutes, 10 or 11 flesh wounds, and a hundred or so curse words before anyone was settled again.
"Okay," said the boy with longer hair when Lily had finally managed to get a hold of the owl and sit down. "Obviously things have gotten off on... well, on some sort of foot. Maybe I should introduce everyone. You already met Peter, as we know all to well." He smirked a little and pointed to Peter as he said it. "Over here, who came just before you left, is Remus Lupin, as he told us already." He did a little hand motion as he spoke that seemed to perfectly (and politely) convey, 'Us meaning everyone but you'.
"This is my 'comrade-at-arms' James Potter." He nodded to the boy with messy hair. He tried his best to look amiable, which was encouraging, she supposed.
"And I'm Sirius Black." He smiled at her.
It dawned on Lily that something kind of... important was happening, though she didn't know why.
"I'm Lily," she said, glancing around at them all. None of them seemed too dangerous, she thought. "Lily Evans."
***
"Geeze this is heavy," panted Sirius. "What d'you think she's got in here?"
"Rocks probably. She seemed loopy enough for it to me."
James and Sirius were walking along the train platform of Hogsmeade Station, trying to find the storage compartment of the train. Sirius had kindly volunteered to take Lily's trunk (including Lechuza) and Peter's owl off so they could be taken up to the castle with everything else. The fact that it had rained and the cement platform was slippery made it all the more precarious balancing two cages with three occupants on the trunk between them.
"She's not loopy; you're just saying that 'cause she got all snappy at you and implied that you purposely didn't help that Peter kid." Sirius rolled his eyes.
"Hey, I told you I was thinking of a plan!"
"Yeah, I know. Still doesn't change the fact that she said it. She took a swing at that big bloke's nose and your pride, saying you were less honorable than you think you are. Plus, you were afraid she'd take one of her non-metaphorical swings at you if you got her mad enough. That's why you're helping now; pride and fear. Though you shouldn't be too worried about it. Most people run on those two things alone most of the time, and they get along just fine." Sirius gave him knowing sort of look.
James muttered something indiscriminate about psychology books that Sirius couldn't catch, but didn't say anything more on the subject. Instead, he decided to focus on carrying the trunk. It was hard enough to hold on to it without conversations. After a bit though, he spoke again:
"Hey Siri, what do you reckon the sorting'll be? I mean, what will we have to do?" James had been wondering about this since they'd gotten on the train. He knew he'd heard people talk about some kind of ceremony, but he'd never heard exactly what it involved.
"Oh, I don't know," said Sirius. "They'll probably just ask us a load of questions and tabulate scores or something."
"Tabulate scores?" James looked up at Sirius incredulously. "Okay then, if you say so. I guess I'd just expected something a little more, well, magical."
"Hey, I don't know. Nobody ever told me." He jerked his head towards the end of the train. "Look, here's the luggage car."
They handed over the cages and the trunk to a man who was unloading the other baggage. As they headed back to the front of the train they heard someone calling out over the crowd:
"Firs' years! This way, all yeh firs' years!" A man taller (and wilder looking) than anyone James had ever seen was motioning for them to follow him. They obeyed, of course, but followed a few good paces back. His enormous boots looked quite capable of accidentally mangaling the uncareful bystanders foot . No harm in being careful.
When the group of first years had been adequately assembled, they followed him away from the station through a stand of trees and soon came to the edges of a lake. Across it, the school was clearly visible against the night sky. The lights from the windows shone out of the darkness, their shimmering effect enhanced by the water in the air. High turrets pierced the dark clouds, glistening in the light from the waxing moon. The slightly moving lakewater reflected the scene. All in all it was quite a magnificent first sight of Hogwarts, as far as first sights of Hogwarts go.
James stared, as awestruck as anyone else.
After a few seconds of silence, Sirius finally found a few appropriate words:
"Well would you look at the size of that?" He gave a sort of reverse whistle. "I reckon Dumbledore himself hasn't seen half the rooms in there."
"I bet there's no one alive whose seen a quarter of them," said James, regaining himself.
"Well then," said Sirius, lowering his voice, "I guess we'll just have to do something about that, won't we?" He gave James a devilish grin.
Silent pacts were made.
"Alright yeh all, listen up for a moment please!" the large man addressed them. "My name's Rubeus Hagrid, and I'm the Keeper of The Grounds and Keys at Hogwarts." (He seemed quite proud of the title; you could hear the capitol letters when he said it). "In a minute we're gonna sail over the lake, and so that you know right away, don't lean over the edge. Some things in there tain't as friendly as the giant squid, if yeh know what I mean." He laughed to himself.
They didn't, of course, know what he ment. It didn't really matter though; the general message was understood.
Peter and Remus managed to claim an empty boat, and Sirius hopped in after them. James was just about to pile in too when Mr. Hagrid called out:
"Oh, and please, only three to a boat. They'll capsize if you put more'n that in one of em."
James shrugged at the other three and walked off to find another boat. The only one that wasn't full contained, of course, Lily Evans.
"Well well well," she said, clucking her tongue.
"Oh, give it a rest." He didn't look at her as he got in.
"Fine, fine," she said silkily, and turned silently to stare out at the lake as the boats pushed off. She seemed happy enough just to look at the water as they glided along.
James stared off defiantly in the opposite direction. He wasn't going to play up nice to her if she clearly disliked him so much...
However, if she didn't like him, this did leave an interesting option open, the only option left for her the way James saw things. It was time to mess with her fragile little psyche. How was the question.
He reckoned she must be muggle born, as she had asked Sirius a few questions during the ride about magic and the school and stuff like that. Taking this into account, she probably didn't know much about Hogwarts. And if she didn't know much about Hogwarts, there would be no way she'd know what the sorting was...
"So Lily," he said, in a voice controlled to suggest only mild interest and slight inquisitiveness (a talent Nan said he'd inherited from her), "are you nervous about the sorting?"
She turned around, a bit startled to see he was talking to her again so suddenly. "Maybe," she said. "Why?"
"Oh, it's nothing. I just heard it can be challenging if you don't know any magic."
"Well, of course. That's what I heard too," she said, nodding along in agreement. "In fact, after I heard it I researched some of the books at a store in Diagon Alley. I've got the spells I need now, so I think I'll do alright."
"I... me too!" James stuttered. This wasn't happening right. "Well, see, actually, since... since I've been around wizards so long, I didn't need to learn anything."
"Yeah," said Lily eagerly, "you wouldn't need any help at all. Hey, maybe you could even give me a few pointers!" She smiled at him; a shark smile.
"Oh God," he thought, "I've been had." James looked wildly around, trying to find some way out of his own ruse. He sighted Sirius's boat across the water about 5 yards away.
"Look," he yelled, "there's Sirius! See him, over there." He pointed at the boat. "Oi, Siri! Over here!"
They could vaguely see Sirius in the boat. He looked confused.
"What James?" he asked.
This was not the response James had hoped for. He reached blindly for something to say, anything.
"Uh... well... do you have any gum?!?" he yelled.
Sirius looked genuinely concerned for James's mental health. "No! What are you talking abou-"
The boats bumped ashore, cutting him off. James scrambled out and made his way over to Sirius at a sort of half-walk, half-run that gave the impression that he had been stung by a bee, but was also weighted down with two tons of cement. Sirius ogled at him.
"What in hell were you on about?" he asked. "You know I don't like gum."
James suddenly felt very embarrassed. He looked down at his feet.
"Let's just say that Miss Evans is much too clever for her own good."
Sirius almost collapsed with laughter. In between fits of giggles he managed to get out a statement. "Oh, is she! I... don't even...(snort), want to... ask what she... (gasp), did!" He wiped tears of mirth from his eyes.
"Good," said James, "because it's not worth relating. I'll tell you one thing though, Sirius. This isn't the end of this." He stared at Lily, who was talking animatedly to another girl a few feet away.
"Oh, I have no doubt James," replied Sirius, following James's gaze. "I have no doubt."
***
"Um, excuse me..."
Lily turned around. A girl getting out of one of the last boats waved to her. She had long dark hair that went down to the middle of her back in two thick plaits and skin that looked like coffee with a little bit of creamer in it. Her braids swung back and forth behind her as she jogged toward Lily.
"Yes?" she said.
"You wouldn't happen to have a handkerchief, would you?" the girl asked. "I sort of got to... um, shake hands with that squid thing and I think I have slime on my hand now." She held up her hand for Lily to see.
Lily fumbled through her pockets and produced a handkerchief out of one. "Here," she said. "Why exactly were you shaking hands with it?"
"Well," said the girl, taking the handkerchief, "I didn't really mean to or anything. I was trailing my hand in the water and I swear I felt a tentacle slide over it. Slimy as all get out. Not exactly pleasant." She made a face. "Oh no," she said, staring down at the handkerchief, now smeared with slime the color of mud and purple paint. "I'm so sorry. I ruined it."
Lily smiled at her. "That's okay. My mum made me pack about five hundred in the first place. You can have that one, and I'll give you 50 others to boot if you like." They both laughed a little.
The girl smiled and stuck out her non-slimy hand. "I'm Rajni," she said.
Lily shook it. "I'm Lily. It's nice to finally meet a girl around here." She told her all about the day, about getting left at the station and hitting Avery in the nose, about riding with the boys in the train, and about James trying to trick her in the boat. They slowly made their way towards the school behind everyone else as she talked. Rajni was a good listener, gasping and laughing in all the right places. She was especially impressed by the fact that Lily had made James nearly jump ship.
"How did you know he was trying to trick you?" she asked.
"Oh, that was sort of just a logical thing," Lily told her. "He was mad at me before, right? So when he just out of the blue started trying to make pleasant conversation, things seemed kind of out of place. But you know what," she looked at Rajni. "I still don't know what the sorting is. Do you?"
"No," said Rajni, "but I guess we're going to find out soon enough."
"So, when I call your name, please come an sit on the stool. You will then try on the hat, and it will say where you go. Once you have been sorted you are to sit at the appropriate table. And please, the rest of you, hold your applause till the end, alright?" The witch, who appeared to be in her mid-twenties and wore small square spectacles, finished her speech and turned to retrieve a scroll from the table behind her.
James's jaw practically hit the floor. "A hat?" he asked Sirius "A singing hat?!? That couldn't be it."
"But that's what it looks like," Sirius whispered back. "Well, at least we don't have to do anything hard."
James glared at him.
Sirius hid a smile and looked straight at him. "You really thought she knew what it was, didn't you? Oh look, there's no use in getting all worked up about it now. We still have a task to do." They both looked up to the front of the hall.
"Adamson, Jacob."
A boy with flyaway blonde hair stumbled up to the front. He sat down on the stool.
There was an audible pause as all talking, whispers, and giggles in the hall abruptly ceased. The air filled with more than a little nervous tension, provided mostly by the new first years.
Quite suddenly, a slit directly above the brim opened, and in its slightly rusty voice, the hat said:
"Hufflepuff!"
Cheers from what James thought must be the Hufflepuff table rent the air. The witch who had told them all not to clap seemed very annoyed, but she never did anything more than look fiercely at the Hufflepuffs.
The sorting went on in this way for the next twenty minutes or so. Sirius was called next, and the hat waited only a fraction of a second before declaring him a Gryffindor. James cheered for him along with the older house members. Next came "Borsten, Jane", then "Caldwell, Randall" (both of Ravenclaw), then "Dursten, Maxwell" (Slytherin), and so on and so forth. Hard as James prayed when she stepped up, Lily was soundly declared a Gryffindor by the hat. Then Farnsworth, Fawcett, Hillman, Iglesias, etc, etc. Remus soon came up, and walked off a Gryffindor too. James thought he looked a little shaken. McCauley, Mitcham, and Noonan (Gryffindor, Slytherin, Hufflepuff) all came and went. James cursed a little under his breath when the girl he'd seen Evans walking with, "Mittal, Rajni" became a Gryffindor. He wasn't really looking forward to having to deal with someone who was completely on her side. He hoped she was the quiet, reserved type; someone who didn't like confrontations. Not that he had the slightest doubt she wasn't, but hope's a nice thing to have.
"Oppenheimer, Daniel", "Oppenheimer, Nancy", "Pal, Joshua".
"Pettigrew, Peter." Around four seconds of a pause, then:
"Gryffindor!"
For some reason, James was a little suprised. He'd thought Peter was more of a... well, not a Gryffindor in any case. "Oh well," he thought, "maybe he has some qualities we don't know about."
"Potter, James."
His name. James felt his heart drop into his stomach. Up until now, he hadn't had a doubt he'd be a Gryffindor. Now he wasn't as sure. All of the people he'd sat with on the train, as well as a few others, had turned out to be Gryffindors. What if there was some sort of limit? Would they just stick him in Hufflepuff because his name was at the end of the alphabet? That didn't seem fair. He walked slowly to the stool and sat down.
The hat plopped down on his head, squishing his ears a bit. The material was heavy, like wool, but not as scratchy. And the second it touched him, it felt like there was someone else in his head.
"Oh my, now isn't it just another Gruffydd?" the voice said. "Not as many as there used to be. Well, don't suppose we could put you anywhere else but Gryffindor!
The last word rang in his ears. He felt the hat lifted off his head. Across the hall he saw the Gryffindor table clapping and hooting. He walked over and sat down next to Sirius. "What an ordeal," he thought. "Being read from the inside. I shouldn't like to do it again any time soon. Still, kind of interesting." He settled himself down on the bench and turned around so he could watch the next person go under the hat.
***
"Ugh, soo full." Lily watched as the remaining food in the serving dishes disappeared as if by magic. "By magic," she thought. Getting used to this was going to take a while.
"Me too," said Rajni, laying her hands on her stomach. "I never saw so much food in one place in my life."
"I'd hope not," said Lily. "You'd be as big as a house if you saw it too often."
All around them people started to stand up and head out of the room. Lily and Rajni got up and walked into the entrance hall. They found a group of Gryffindors following a prefect up the stairs and trailed behind, trying to remember the way up as they went. Finally, they came to a hallway with a large group of people milling around.
"Hey Paul, did anyone tell you the password?" someone called to their leader from the end of the hall. "I never got it." Even as the speaker stepped out of the crowd Lily could tell who she was. Rajni's yell only served to confirm.
"Sandya!" Rajni called out. She ran forward and hugged the older girl fiercely around the waist. "I never saw you at the feast! Where were you?"
Sandya Mittal smiled and pried her sister off. "I had to run to town and get some things for Professor Flitwick. I only got back 10 minutes ago, so I just ate in the kitchen real quick and came up here. "
Lily was quite amazed by the two of them. They looked like identical twins born 5 years apart. However, where Rajni's hair was braided tightly down her back, Sandya's was loose and floated in a soft black sheet enclosing her shoulders.
"Isn't she great?" whispered Rajni as Sandya went to talk to the prefect who'd led them up the stairs. "She's a fifth year and a prefect. I haven't seen all summer 'cause she's been here working at the school on all kinds of stuff."
"Edelweiss, I think," they heard the prefect Paul say behind them. Sandya maneuvered her way back through the crowd to a portrait of a very fat woman in a pink dress hanging on the wall. She looked square at the painting and said the password.
To Lily's suprise, the woman in the painting looked right back at her, winked, and said, "That's the one dear." The painting swung out to reveal a little hole in the wall.
The older students were far from amazed though, and began systematically filing inside. Lily and Rajni climbed through and emerged in a large round room. There were overstuffed chairs and wooden tables everywhere, and a fire was lit in the big hearth on the wall. Sandya saw them staring around and came back over to them.
"Like the common room, eh?" she asked. "It's pretty nice. Really warm in the winter. The girls' dormitories are up there." She pointed to some stairs opposite them. "I'd go get some sleep if I were you two. Tomorrow's going to be another big day." She smiled a last time at them and went off to a group of chairs by the fire to sit with some of her friends.
The two of them started off across the room. As they mounted the stairs, Lily took one last look around the common room, and at Sandya, Rajni's own big sister, sitting by the fire. "Yeah Rajni," she said, "I bet she is pretty great."
There you have it. Chapter 2 is done. It certainly took long enough. Oh well, it was a long chapter. I hope it wasn't so long that everyone stopped reading in the middle. Hopefully things will go a little faster now, since we've got a lot of mandatory stuff out of the way. I've got some great ideas for all these people I've created. Also, thanks loads to the two people who reviewed the first chapter, Revti and PepsiAngel. I hope there are more reviews for this one, but the two I got were both wonderful and I wouldn't trade that for a hundred mediocre ones. See you guys later,
Adrian
P.S.- And remember, every time you don't review, I go one step closer to writing nothing but crappy slash the rest of my FFN days.
Disclaimer: Everything that didn't come straight out of my head belongs to Joanne Rowling, and you'd all do good to remember that. However, characters I've created are mine, and unless you have permission from me (and I'd guess them as well; they aren't slaves for me to sell and loan about) they shouldn't be showing up anywhere else, because that would be plagiarism, which is illegal, as well as bad form.
Lily slid open the compartment door and sat the blonde boy down on a seat. She handed his owl back to him, which he promptly set down on the floor and forgot about. He stared at Lily with a look no short of awe.
"You hit Avery," he said in quiet reverence.
"Yes," she said.
"And he didn't hit you back."
Lily smiled good naturedly, knowing it would be best to humor someone who had recently had a near death experience. "Well, I shouldn't think he would. Just imagine the trouble he'd be in if he was caught beating up defenseless little girls." She gave him a little grin, which he didn't see or notice either one.
"I guess that wouldn't have been a smart thing for him to do." He nodded to himself, sat back in his seat, and proceeded to stare off into the air directly in front of him.
Lily peered at him inquiringly. "Mind if I ask you who those two were?"
"The boys next door," he said, almost like he was telling himself, too. Lily wasn't sure what this meant, or what to say to it, so she (quite sagely) didn't say a thing. However, before Lily could decide what to do next, the sound of the door sliding back on its tracks announced the arrival of someone else in the compartment. She craned her head around and saw the two boys who had been standing in the corridor watching the little incident enter. They looked nearly as stunned as the boy.
"Um, are you... uh... okay?" asked one of them, looking at Lily in a flabbergasted sort of way. He had fairly neat black hair that fell to the top of his ears, and was clearly trying to be as gentlemanly as possible, given the fact she had just beat in the nose of a person twice the size of either of them.
"Oh yes, I'm fine," she said pertly, "but maybe you should be asking... er, excuse me, but what was your name?" She turned to the blonde boy, still speaking as gently as possible.
"Peter," he replied, showing no sign of ending his staring match with the wall. "Peter Pettigrew."
"Yes, maybe you should be asking Peter here that question though." Lily cocked her head and glared accusingly at the two of them. "You were both standing there; why didn't you help him, huh? What, did you think it was funny, watching someone get scared out of their wits?"
"Hey now, see here," said the second boy. He had black hair too, but it was shorter. Or maybe it just seemed that way, since it stood up in every direction. "I was just about to say something when you came along, and I never got a chance. I was trying to think of a way to get him out of the situation without getting anyone hurt, come to mention it." He gave her a glare quite equally accusing.
Lily started to say something rather rude, but was fortunately interrupted by the door opening yet again. A boy with light brown hair and a slightly gaunt face looked in on them.
"Um," he said, "I'm sorry if I'm interrupting anything, but I was just walking to the lavatory and I noticed that it looks like someone's been murdered in front of your-"
"Lavatory!" Lily gasped, smacking herself in the head with the heel of her hand. She spun around as if she couldn't decide which direction the door was in and finally sprinted out down the corridor.
They all watched her run and turn a corner out of sight, presumably into the bathroom.
"Wow," said the newcomer, "she certainly was in a hurry."
When she returned a few minutes later, all the boys were talking animatedly. They quieted down as she shut the door.
"So, have fun did you?" asked the rude boy with messy hair.
"For your information," she said, keeping her voice as calm as possible for someone considerably annoyed by many things at once, "I left my trunk in the bathroom and had to go get it." As if to punctuate the sentence, she set the trunk on the floor, probably a little harder than necessary.
"Well excuse me then," he replied (probably a little more sarcastic than necessary), "but why didn't you just leave it in the storage compartment to begin with?"
"Because," fumed Lily, "I didn't want anything to happen to Lechuza." She began to hastily undo the clasps on her trunk.
"You named you trunk Lechuza?" asked the brown haired boy, who was completely bewildered by the hostility that had flared up so suddenly. Hadn't he just been having a pleasant conversation?
"Oh of course not," she exasperatedly. "I named Lechuza Lechuza." She undid the last clasp and threw back the lid of Pandora's Box.
An owl erupted out of the trunk in a flurry of brown and white feathers, tearing around the compartment and abruptly taking everyone's attentions for itself. Probably an accident, but whether it was a conscious decision on Lily's part or not, it did prevent her from smacking the new boy a good one. It was two or three minutes, 10 or 11 flesh wounds, and a hundred or so curse words before anyone was settled again.
"Okay," said the boy with longer hair when Lily had finally managed to get a hold of the owl and sit down. "Obviously things have gotten off on... well, on some sort of foot. Maybe I should introduce everyone. You already met Peter, as we know all to well." He smirked a little and pointed to Peter as he said it. "Over here, who came just before you left, is Remus Lupin, as he told us already." He did a little hand motion as he spoke that seemed to perfectly (and politely) convey, 'Us meaning everyone but you'.
"This is my 'comrade-at-arms' James Potter." He nodded to the boy with messy hair. He tried his best to look amiable, which was encouraging, she supposed.
"And I'm Sirius Black." He smiled at her.
It dawned on Lily that something kind of... important was happening, though she didn't know why.
"I'm Lily," she said, glancing around at them all. None of them seemed too dangerous, she thought. "Lily Evans."
"Geeze this is heavy," panted Sirius. "What d'you think she's got in here?"
"Rocks probably. She seemed loopy enough for it to me."
James and Sirius were walking along the train platform of Hogsmeade Station, trying to find the storage compartment of the train. Sirius had kindly volunteered to take Lily's trunk (including Lechuza) and Peter's owl off so they could be taken up to the castle with everything else. The fact that it had rained and the cement platform was slippery made it all the more precarious balancing two cages with three occupants on the trunk between them.
"She's not loopy; you're just saying that 'cause she got all snappy at you and implied that you purposely didn't help that Peter kid." Sirius rolled his eyes.
"Hey, I told you I was thinking of a plan!"
"Yeah, I know. Still doesn't change the fact that she said it. She took a swing at that big bloke's nose and your pride, saying you were less honorable than you think you are. Plus, you were afraid she'd take one of her non-metaphorical swings at you if you got her mad enough. That's why you're helping now; pride and fear. Though you shouldn't be too worried about it. Most people run on those two things alone most of the time, and they get along just fine." Sirius gave him knowing sort of look.
James muttered something indiscriminate about psychology books that Sirius couldn't catch, but didn't say anything more on the subject. Instead, he decided to focus on carrying the trunk. It was hard enough to hold on to it without conversations. After a bit though, he spoke again:
"Hey Siri, what do you reckon the sorting'll be? I mean, what will we have to do?" James had been wondering about this since they'd gotten on the train. He knew he'd heard people talk about some kind of ceremony, but he'd never heard exactly what it involved.
"Oh, I don't know," said Sirius. "They'll probably just ask us a load of questions and tabulate scores or something."
"Tabulate scores?" James looked up at Sirius incredulously. "Okay then, if you say so. I guess I'd just expected something a little more, well, magical."
"Hey, I don't know. Nobody ever told me." He jerked his head towards the end of the train. "Look, here's the luggage car."
They handed over the cages and the trunk to a man who was unloading the other baggage. As they headed back to the front of the train they heard someone calling out over the crowd:
"Firs' years! This way, all yeh firs' years!" A man taller (and wilder looking) than anyone James had ever seen was motioning for them to follow him. They obeyed, of course, but followed a few good paces back. His enormous boots looked quite capable of accidentally mangaling the uncareful bystanders foot . No harm in being careful.
When the group of first years had been adequately assembled, they followed him away from the station through a stand of trees and soon came to the edges of a lake. Across it, the school was clearly visible against the night sky. The lights from the windows shone out of the darkness, their shimmering effect enhanced by the water in the air. High turrets pierced the dark clouds, glistening in the light from the waxing moon. The slightly moving lakewater reflected the scene. All in all it was quite a magnificent first sight of Hogwarts, as far as first sights of Hogwarts go.
James stared, as awestruck as anyone else.
After a few seconds of silence, Sirius finally found a few appropriate words:
"Well would you look at the size of that?" He gave a sort of reverse whistle. "I reckon Dumbledore himself hasn't seen half the rooms in there."
"I bet there's no one alive whose seen a quarter of them," said James, regaining himself.
"Well then," said Sirius, lowering his voice, "I guess we'll just have to do something about that, won't we?" He gave James a devilish grin.
Silent pacts were made.
"Alright yeh all, listen up for a moment please!" the large man addressed them. "My name's Rubeus Hagrid, and I'm the Keeper of The Grounds and Keys at Hogwarts." (He seemed quite proud of the title; you could hear the capitol letters when he said it). "In a minute we're gonna sail over the lake, and so that you know right away, don't lean over the edge. Some things in there tain't as friendly as the giant squid, if yeh know what I mean." He laughed to himself.
They didn't, of course, know what he ment. It didn't really matter though; the general message was understood.
Peter and Remus managed to claim an empty boat, and Sirius hopped in after them. James was just about to pile in too when Mr. Hagrid called out:
"Oh, and please, only three to a boat. They'll capsize if you put more'n that in one of em."
James shrugged at the other three and walked off to find another boat. The only one that wasn't full contained, of course, Lily Evans.
"Well well well," she said, clucking her tongue.
"Oh, give it a rest." He didn't look at her as he got in.
"Fine, fine," she said silkily, and turned silently to stare out at the lake as the boats pushed off. She seemed happy enough just to look at the water as they glided along.
James stared off defiantly in the opposite direction. He wasn't going to play up nice to her if she clearly disliked him so much...
However, if she didn't like him, this did leave an interesting option open, the only option left for her the way James saw things. It was time to mess with her fragile little psyche. How was the question.
He reckoned she must be muggle born, as she had asked Sirius a few questions during the ride about magic and the school and stuff like that. Taking this into account, she probably didn't know much about Hogwarts. And if she didn't know much about Hogwarts, there would be no way she'd know what the sorting was...
"So Lily," he said, in a voice controlled to suggest only mild interest and slight inquisitiveness (a talent Nan said he'd inherited from her), "are you nervous about the sorting?"
She turned around, a bit startled to see he was talking to her again so suddenly. "Maybe," she said. "Why?"
"Oh, it's nothing. I just heard it can be challenging if you don't know any magic."
"Well, of course. That's what I heard too," she said, nodding along in agreement. "In fact, after I heard it I researched some of the books at a store in Diagon Alley. I've got the spells I need now, so I think I'll do alright."
"I... me too!" James stuttered. This wasn't happening right. "Well, see, actually, since... since I've been around wizards so long, I didn't need to learn anything."
"Yeah," said Lily eagerly, "you wouldn't need any help at all. Hey, maybe you could even give me a few pointers!" She smiled at him; a shark smile.
"Oh God," he thought, "I've been had." James looked wildly around, trying to find some way out of his own ruse. He sighted Sirius's boat across the water about 5 yards away.
"Look," he yelled, "there's Sirius! See him, over there." He pointed at the boat. "Oi, Siri! Over here!"
They could vaguely see Sirius in the boat. He looked confused.
"What James?" he asked.
This was not the response James had hoped for. He reached blindly for something to say, anything.
"Uh... well... do you have any gum?!?" he yelled.
Sirius looked genuinely concerned for James's mental health. "No! What are you talking abou-"
The boats bumped ashore, cutting him off. James scrambled out and made his way over to Sirius at a sort of half-walk, half-run that gave the impression that he had been stung by a bee, but was also weighted down with two tons of cement. Sirius ogled at him.
"What in hell were you on about?" he asked. "You know I don't like gum."
James suddenly felt very embarrassed. He looked down at his feet.
"Let's just say that Miss Evans is much too clever for her own good."
Sirius almost collapsed with laughter. In between fits of giggles he managed to get out a statement. "Oh, is she! I... don't even...(snort), want to... ask what she... (gasp), did!" He wiped tears of mirth from his eyes.
"Good," said James, "because it's not worth relating. I'll tell you one thing though, Sirius. This isn't the end of this." He stared at Lily, who was talking animatedly to another girl a few feet away.
"Oh, I have no doubt James," replied Sirius, following James's gaze. "I have no doubt."
"Um, excuse me..."
Lily turned around. A girl getting out of one of the last boats waved to her. She had long dark hair that went down to the middle of her back in two thick plaits and skin that looked like coffee with a little bit of creamer in it. Her braids swung back and forth behind her as she jogged toward Lily.
"Yes?" she said.
"You wouldn't happen to have a handkerchief, would you?" the girl asked. "I sort of got to... um, shake hands with that squid thing and I think I have slime on my hand now." She held up her hand for Lily to see.
Lily fumbled through her pockets and produced a handkerchief out of one. "Here," she said. "Why exactly were you shaking hands with it?"
"Well," said the girl, taking the handkerchief, "I didn't really mean to or anything. I was trailing my hand in the water and I swear I felt a tentacle slide over it. Slimy as all get out. Not exactly pleasant." She made a face. "Oh no," she said, staring down at the handkerchief, now smeared with slime the color of mud and purple paint. "I'm so sorry. I ruined it."
Lily smiled at her. "That's okay. My mum made me pack about five hundred in the first place. You can have that one, and I'll give you 50 others to boot if you like." They both laughed a little.
The girl smiled and stuck out her non-slimy hand. "I'm Rajni," she said.
Lily shook it. "I'm Lily. It's nice to finally meet a girl around here." She told her all about the day, about getting left at the station and hitting Avery in the nose, about riding with the boys in the train, and about James trying to trick her in the boat. They slowly made their way towards the school behind everyone else as she talked. Rajni was a good listener, gasping and laughing in all the right places. She was especially impressed by the fact that Lily had made James nearly jump ship.
"How did you know he was trying to trick you?" she asked.
"Oh, that was sort of just a logical thing," Lily told her. "He was mad at me before, right? So when he just out of the blue started trying to make pleasant conversation, things seemed kind of out of place. But you know what," she looked at Rajni. "I still don't know what the sorting is. Do you?"
"No," said Rajni, "but I guess we're going to find out soon enough."
"So, when I call your name, please come an sit on the stool. You will then try on the hat, and it will say where you go. Once you have been sorted you are to sit at the appropriate table. And please, the rest of you, hold your applause till the end, alright?" The witch, who appeared to be in her mid-twenties and wore small square spectacles, finished her speech and turned to retrieve a scroll from the table behind her.
James's jaw practically hit the floor. "A hat?" he asked Sirius "A singing hat?!? That couldn't be it."
"But that's what it looks like," Sirius whispered back. "Well, at least we don't have to do anything hard."
James glared at him.
Sirius hid a smile and looked straight at him. "You really thought she knew what it was, didn't you? Oh look, there's no use in getting all worked up about it now. We still have a task to do." They both looked up to the front of the hall.
"Adamson, Jacob."
A boy with flyaway blonde hair stumbled up to the front. He sat down on the stool.
There was an audible pause as all talking, whispers, and giggles in the hall abruptly ceased. The air filled with more than a little nervous tension, provided mostly by the new first years.
Quite suddenly, a slit directly above the brim opened, and in its slightly rusty voice, the hat said:
"Hufflepuff!"
Cheers from what James thought must be the Hufflepuff table rent the air. The witch who had told them all not to clap seemed very annoyed, but she never did anything more than look fiercely at the Hufflepuffs.
The sorting went on in this way for the next twenty minutes or so. Sirius was called next, and the hat waited only a fraction of a second before declaring him a Gryffindor. James cheered for him along with the older house members. Next came "Borsten, Jane", then "Caldwell, Randall" (both of Ravenclaw), then "Dursten, Maxwell" (Slytherin), and so on and so forth. Hard as James prayed when she stepped up, Lily was soundly declared a Gryffindor by the hat. Then Farnsworth, Fawcett, Hillman, Iglesias, etc, etc. Remus soon came up, and walked off a Gryffindor too. James thought he looked a little shaken. McCauley, Mitcham, and Noonan (Gryffindor, Slytherin, Hufflepuff) all came and went. James cursed a little under his breath when the girl he'd seen Evans walking with, "Mittal, Rajni" became a Gryffindor. He wasn't really looking forward to having to deal with someone who was completely on her side. He hoped she was the quiet, reserved type; someone who didn't like confrontations. Not that he had the slightest doubt she wasn't, but hope's a nice thing to have.
"Oppenheimer, Daniel", "Oppenheimer, Nancy", "Pal, Joshua".
"Pettigrew, Peter." Around four seconds of a pause, then:
"Gryffindor!"
For some reason, James was a little suprised. He'd thought Peter was more of a... well, not a Gryffindor in any case. "Oh well," he thought, "maybe he has some qualities we don't know about."
"Potter, James."
His name. James felt his heart drop into his stomach. Up until now, he hadn't had a doubt he'd be a Gryffindor. Now he wasn't as sure. All of the people he'd sat with on the train, as well as a few others, had turned out to be Gryffindors. What if there was some sort of limit? Would they just stick him in Hufflepuff because his name was at the end of the alphabet? That didn't seem fair. He walked slowly to the stool and sat down.
The hat plopped down on his head, squishing his ears a bit. The material was heavy, like wool, but not as scratchy. And the second it touched him, it felt like there was someone else in his head.
"Oh my, now isn't it just another Gruffydd?" the voice said. "Not as many as there used to be. Well, don't suppose we could put you anywhere else but Gryffindor!
The last word rang in his ears. He felt the hat lifted off his head. Across the hall he saw the Gryffindor table clapping and hooting. He walked over and sat down next to Sirius. "What an ordeal," he thought. "Being read from the inside. I shouldn't like to do it again any time soon. Still, kind of interesting." He settled himself down on the bench and turned around so he could watch the next person go under the hat.
"Ugh, soo full." Lily watched as the remaining food in the serving dishes disappeared as if by magic. "By magic," she thought. Getting used to this was going to take a while.
"Me too," said Rajni, laying her hands on her stomach. "I never saw so much food in one place in my life."
"I'd hope not," said Lily. "You'd be as big as a house if you saw it too often."
All around them people started to stand up and head out of the room. Lily and Rajni got up and walked into the entrance hall. They found a group of Gryffindors following a prefect up the stairs and trailed behind, trying to remember the way up as they went. Finally, they came to a hallway with a large group of people milling around.
"Hey Paul, did anyone tell you the password?" someone called to their leader from the end of the hall. "I never got it." Even as the speaker stepped out of the crowd Lily could tell who she was. Rajni's yell only served to confirm.
"Sandya!" Rajni called out. She ran forward and hugged the older girl fiercely around the waist. "I never saw you at the feast! Where were you?"
Sandya Mittal smiled and pried her sister off. "I had to run to town and get some things for Professor Flitwick. I only got back 10 minutes ago, so I just ate in the kitchen real quick and came up here. "
Lily was quite amazed by the two of them. They looked like identical twins born 5 years apart. However, where Rajni's hair was braided tightly down her back, Sandya's was loose and floated in a soft black sheet enclosing her shoulders.
"Isn't she great?" whispered Rajni as Sandya went to talk to the prefect who'd led them up the stairs. "She's a fifth year and a prefect. I haven't seen all summer 'cause she's been here working at the school on all kinds of stuff."
"Edelweiss, I think," they heard the prefect Paul say behind them. Sandya maneuvered her way back through the crowd to a portrait of a very fat woman in a pink dress hanging on the wall. She looked square at the painting and said the password.
To Lily's suprise, the woman in the painting looked right back at her, winked, and said, "That's the one dear." The painting swung out to reveal a little hole in the wall.
The older students were far from amazed though, and began systematically filing inside. Lily and Rajni climbed through and emerged in a large round room. There were overstuffed chairs and wooden tables everywhere, and a fire was lit in the big hearth on the wall. Sandya saw them staring around and came back over to them.
"Like the common room, eh?" she asked. "It's pretty nice. Really warm in the winter. The girls' dormitories are up there." She pointed to some stairs opposite them. "I'd go get some sleep if I were you two. Tomorrow's going to be another big day." She smiled a last time at them and went off to a group of chairs by the fire to sit with some of her friends.
The two of them started off across the room. As they mounted the stairs, Lily took one last look around the common room, and at Sandya, Rajni's own big sister, sitting by the fire. "Yeah Rajni," she said, "I bet she is pretty great."
There you have it. Chapter 2 is done. It certainly took long enough. Oh well, it was a long chapter. I hope it wasn't so long that everyone stopped reading in the middle. Hopefully things will go a little faster now, since we've got a lot of mandatory stuff out of the way. I've got some great ideas for all these people I've created. Also, thanks loads to the two people who reviewed the first chapter, Revti and PepsiAngel. I hope there are more reviews for this one, but the two I got were both wonderful and I wouldn't trade that for a hundred mediocre ones. See you guys later,
Adrian
P.S.- And remember, every time you don't review, I go one step closer to writing nothing but crappy slash the rest of my FFN days.