"Are you ok, Mads?" Sirius asked me, putting out an arm and pulling me up to a standing position.
"'Mads?'" I asked him, giving him a look of contempt.
"Are you ok?" Remus asked me again, looking worried he had lost my trust.
"Yeah, thank you Remus, I'm fine." I smiled. He chuckled and shook his head. The sliver of a moon was rising outside. We all turned and walked towards the common room for Gryffindor.
"So, Maddie, do you play Quidditch?" James asked me, arm around Lily's shoulders again.
"Quidditch?" I asked him. Everyone stopped dead in their tracks.
"You don't know what Quidditch is?" Peter asked, giggling.
"Are you serious?" James asked, mouth agape.
"What! I just don't know what it is! Is that so bad?" I defended msyelf, feeling silly.
"Well, you'll find out when James and I take you out tomorrow. We're all going out to practice after classes. You too, Evans." Sirius announced to us all.
"Never in a million years, Black." I hissed.
"Aw, come on, I'm really not that bad when you get to know me. And trust me, you will get to know me." Sirius said, wiggling his eyebrows. "Ugh, so gross." I protested. Just then, as we got close to the staircase to the common room, we heard four voices taunting each other. We rounded the corner and collided with a group of boys. I recognized Severus and smiled at him. He smiled at me and then his expression turned cold when he saw James and Sirius. And maybe even Remus, who was walking beside me.

"Evening, Gentlemen." Remus smiled calmly. I was amazed he could keep such a calm temper with someone he didn't like.
"Evans. Brady." Severus acknowledged the girls, nodding.
"Severus." Lily replied coldly. Severus kept his gaze on me. Sirius, Remus, and James noticed this.
"Is there something we can do for you?" Sirius asked, stepping forward and in front of me, very lightly and casually so no one would notice his protective stance. I shrank back. Everyone was drawing their wands. Lily took hold of my hand we started to walk around the groups. But two of the bigger boys from Severus's group stood in our way. I moaned in a low toan. I didn't like fighting. They just smiled and folded their arms across their chests.
"Mulciber. Avery. Let Brady and Evans get through." Sirius barked at them. They didn't move.
"TODAY." Remus said, less calmly.
"Expelliarmus!" Severus spoke, flicking his wand at Sirius. The hex missed him by inches.
"Stupify!" Remus said, shooting a hex at one of the boys guarding our way. He fell like a large rock. I tried to get through, still holding Lily's hand, but the other boy stood in the way.
"Locomotor Mortis!" Severus yelled at Peter. Peter went down, his legs locked.
"Flipendo!" Sirius yelled at Severus. Severus was too late to miss the spell and was knocked backwards.
"Stupefy!" The fourth boy yelled from behind Severus. It hit James square in the chest, and he fell very hard against the ground, hitting his head on the floor. Blood started to ooze slowly from his head, but no one noticed, they were still dueling. Lily gasped and ran toward him. I could only stare at her as she started to cry over James, whispering spell after spell to make his head close up. Suddenly, James sat up straight, looking at Lily's sad eyes. I missed what happened then, because I was protecting myself fromt he duel. I didn't like fighting and I never would. It scared me to be in the middle of it all.
"Petrificus Totalus!" Severus screamed, not looking at where he was aiming his curse. It shattered part of the stone wall above my head.
"Stupefy!" Sirius yelled at Severus. Again, Severus was too slow to get out of the way. Severus was stunned and became completely still as he crumpled on the ground. The duel was obviously done. But then Sirius walked over to him and yelled at him,"DON'T EVER HEX A GIRL YOU FILTHY..." He was upset that Severus was trying to hex a girl? I couldn't believe it. And he couldn't even finish the sentence, instead he just spat on the floor close to Severus's head.
"Finite Incantatum." I said loudly. Everyone was back to life and normal again. Peter was trying to get up with his knees back to normal, and Severus was up and back on his feet along with his big buddy. "How did you know that spell?" Lily asked me quietly.
"I study." I shrugged. Severus sneered at us all and walked on down the hall with his friends.

"You can't tell me what to do, Black!" Severus taunted from down the hall.
"Piss off, Snape!" Sirius yelled back. "Are you alright?" He asked me.
"Fine." I whispered. "I don't like fighting." "I'm sorry you had to see that then." Remus murmured.
"Do you see what I mean now? He always starts it!" James whined. It sounded like a five year old. We all laughed. Then we got to the top of another staircase, and everyone stopped. I didn't understand why were stopping; we were staring straight at a portrait of a fairly large woman.
"Password?" She asked suddenly, causing me to squeal in fright. "Oh right!" Remus said, turning to me, seeing my suprised expression. "Being the new girl takes its toll, doesn't it?" I started to realize that I was the new girl and that I had a lot to learn. Like where the classes were, or who to be friends with. I was suprised that I had made myself acquainted with the people I had. Everyone always referred to me as the girl who studied a lot, had nice friends, and never got in trouble.
"Well..." I hesitated.
"We'll teach you everything you'll need to know. Tonight, if you want." Remus offered kindly. I smiled a him. He returned it.
"Now," James said, rubbing his hands together fast, "where shall we teach the young one? She clearly doesn't know how to behave in a duel, I'm thinking that she's the studius type-" Here James exchanged a look at Sirius and made fake barfing noises, "So we may as well teach her before we incounter the crazy train again." That made Sirius and Remus laugh, Peter just looked around lazily.
"Well, I think we need to ask newbie girl here." Sirius suggested, jerking a thumb in my direction.

So, at this point, I guess I could call Remus my friend. And James was OK, once you got past the fact that he was a major flirt and Sirius Black's best friend. Speaking of Sirius, I didn't call us friends at this point. He was arrogant, rude, and frankly, he fought too much. He goofed off and hexed people because he could. I didn't want to call myself his friend.

"Well, I suppose...if it wouldn't be a problem for you." I said hurriedly, shooting a glance at Remus. He smiled and just laughed.
"Where do you want to learn?" Sirius asked me, waiting for my answer before we went into the common room.
"Inside. I don't care, wherever is best." Remus and Sirius exchanged a a glance. "The portrait?" James asked them. Lily and I stared at each other, not understanding.
"That's what we were thinking," Remus explained to him.
"But it's kind of risky, we're already out late anyway." Peter cut it nervously.
"Yeah, but we can use the back way to get in..." James thought.
"I think this is brilliant, besides, James could bring Lily. She doesn't know about it anyway, we might as well tell her." Sirius pointed out.
"But it's a risk!" Peter squealed.
"Then don't come, Wormtail!" Sirius said in an exagerated voice. "Frothpot." Peter told the waiting portrait. And thenit did the most amazing thing, it opened. It swung open, like a door. And through it I could see many kids our age, some older, some younger, all messing around in a large room with chairs and tables and snacks. And it looked better than what we were going to do, even thought I didn't know what we even were doing. Peter climbed through and the portrait swung closed behind him. Then we were standing in the dim light of the torches on the walls.

"So are we going?" James asked impatiently.
"Yeah. Sure. Maddie, you want to?" Remus asked me happily.
"Sure, why not?" I asked.
"Lily?" Remus asked her.
"Oh, I don't know, Remus..." Lily told him.
"Please?" Remus said, something in his voice that plead with her. "Oh, all right." Lily gave in, rolling her eyes. Then james took her hand and started leading her down the hall. Sirius and Remus stood on either side of me, looking around uneasily. James and Lily were talking in low tones a few paces ahead of us. Sirius glanced at me from out the corner of his eye and smiled. He chuckled a little bit.
"Odd, isn't it?" Remus said. I couldn't tell who it was directed to.
"Yep, Moony, old pal, I think we've found a new member to our little foursome...maybe we'll kick Wormtail out!" Sirius replied, a smile lighting up his face.
"Or maybe not...besides, she doesn't know." Remus pointed out.
"I don't know what?" I asked them.
"Ah..." Remus hesitated.
"Everything, darling." Sirius informed me.
"Oh really, Mr. Bigshot? And you do?" I asked, offended.
"Well, you don't know many things. You may never know them, either!" Sirius explained, laughing.
"At least I know spells that most people don't, and I pay attention in class, and I don't duel just to hurt people that are in my way! At least Remus tried to talk instead of fight!" I said hotly.
"And at least I've got girls swarming all over me!" Sirius joked.
"Why did I come, again?" I asked them, stopping.
"Because we're here."James called back at me. He pulled out his wand and pointed it at a portrait of four men sitting at a table, playing cards. The four men moved and one man rejoiced silently for his apparent win. James muttered something and the portrait swung open, revealing a room with a table and four comfortable chairs. The was a light coming from somewhere unknown. The room looked warm and open. Remus walked me up to the wall and helped me climb over the high threshold.

"What is this place?" I asked. It was beautiful in a deserted way. There was writing on the walls, spells and hexes and a moon chart on the wall. There were now five chairs; Remus had conjured one from out of the air. And now on the small table, there were five tall glasses full to the brim with a light golden liquid.
"It's our little getaway." Remus smiled, suddenly next to me.
"Our little Room of Requirement, if you will." James cut in, flopping into a chair. I sat down Lily sat next to him. I sat next her, and Sirius ran for the chair next to me just to annoy me, which he did a good job of. But Remus, who was closer to me, sat down first, leaving the last chair to Sirius, between himself and James. "The room of what?" I asked them.
"See, this is why we're having this conversation." Sirius sniffed.
"This is a room no one but us know of. Us five, plus Peter know about this place. We made it and do a lot in here. And if Severus Snape EVER finds of it's here, I have the feeling Sirius will curse you to kingdom come." Remus explained to us.
"Ok, let's start with why you hate him. He seemed slightly alright with Lily, but not with you three." I questioned them. Lily got stiff.
"What?" I asked her.
"Severus and Lily...don't have...the best of...well...let's just say they used to be friends and now..." Remus started, not being able to find the words.
"Snivellus and Evans were best friends until last year because we got into a row and Lily got involved and he called her a you-know-what." Sirius explained to me.
"Thanks, but I wasn't asking you." I sneered. "Besides, what's a you-know-what?" I felt clueless and a little behind. Lily and Severus?
"A mudblood." Lily sighed unhappily. "He called me a mudblood."
"Oh." I said sadly. I wasn't a mudblood, but I had friends at my old school who had been. And I remembered how they had been taunted about it. But I couldn't believe it, Severus would call her something like that? WHen I voiced these thoughts, Sirius and Remus both chuckled.
"Are you kidding me!?" James shouted.
"What?" I asked, startled.
"He's a prick! Just because we were beating on him doesn't make him the good guy!" Sirius laughed.
"It doesn't mean you are either." I said angrily.
"Ok, ok. We're here to learn." Lily reminded us.
"Right. Now, young Maddie, we're going to teach you about every teacher, every secret passage, everything you need to know." Remus smiled happily.
"Well, almost everything." James mumbled. Remus and Sirius laughed heartily. I don't think I need to tell you everything they told me that night, they just explained that most teachers loved Remus and hated the other three. I could see why; Remus was kind to me the whole night, trying to become my friend. He did a good job of it, too. He was sweet and really a not so bad guy, unlike Sirius. The boys told Lily and me about secret ways to Hogsmeade, the town that everyone in their third year and over could visit, they told me about everything. And finally, when the clock struck eleven, we decided to go back. We almost got caught by one of the ghosts patroling the halls, but we ducked into a deserted classroom. They had explained about the ghosts, too. They were harmless, but a few were always trouble. Like Peeves, the annoying ghost who dropped dungbombs and set off fireworks in the halls.
"Well, thank you." I told them when we went into the common room. It was beautiful, pictures and pieces of memories stucks on the walls, the fire was crackling low and the red and gold tables and chairs and couches glowed fiery red. Books were scattered on tables and bags were hanging form the back of chairs. Lily led me to the winding staircase up to the dorm room. We were sharing one with no one else, which would probably work to our advantage of staying out late. I yawned a wide one and smiled sheepishly at Lily.

"That was a great first day back." Lily told me.
"Yeah, first day." I smiled in spite of myself.
"Give me your schedule!" Lily asked of me suddenly. I handed her my piece of paper that had my classes on it. I hadn't even looked at it yet, I had folded it up in my pocket. She unfloded it and examind mine. She smiled and it only grew wider as her eyes scanned the rest of the little slip of paper. Then she held mine and hers up next together for me to examine. I stared for a long moment and then broke in a giggle. "We have the same thing!" I squealed.
"And so do Remus and James!" Lily said happliy. We laughed together for awhile.
"What about the other boys? Sirius?" I asked, hoping he didn't have the same as me.
"Well...I know us four have transfiguration together. And maybe a few other things. But James and Sirius are really tight, so they were sad to see they weren't in a lot of their classes together. But sometimes Remus and Sirius are more tight than James and him. It's so hard to keep up with these boys." Lily sighed, smiling and shaking her head.
"Tell me about Severus." I said softly. "What happened? What's he like?" "Don't trust him." Lily advised me. "He'll make you think something, and then he'll just...he'll hurt you. Please, Maddie, don't try to find the good in him. He's what you see, nothing more. There's nothing beneth the surface and nothing that he can ever say that will make me forgive him."
"Is that what you did?" I asked her. "Try to find the good in him?"
"Yeah. And you can see how well that worked out for me." Lily smiled sadly. I could see that she was broken. He had done something that had hurt her so much that she was never going to be the same Lily as I could have known.
"Well, if it makes you feel any better, Remus, Sirius, James, and Peter were beating on him before we got here." I smiled.
"Yeah, they do that." She said, laughing, an edge in her laugh.
"Well, we'd better get to bed."

The next day, I woke to a scream coming from my bed-side.
"Lily! Lily! What's wrong?" I asked her, quickly tearing off my sheets and running to her bed. Lily was breathing heavily, sweating and looking confused. "What's wrong?"
"I don't know...I had a dream..." She trailed off, shaking her head.
"What happened?" I asked her.
"I don't remember...there was a boy...he looked familiar, but I don't know him. And he had this thing on his forehead. Like a...a...a scar. A jagged scar...but...I can't remember. It was probably nothing." Lily said, shaking her head. I looked at the clock. It read 6:00 AM.
"Well, this is what time I was going to wake up anyway." I sighed.
"I'm sorry." She whimpered.
"Not a problem!" I said, shaking it off with a dismissive flick of my hand.
"Waking up now its a good idea, though."

"At 6?"
"Yeah, but we have classes. At Eight. But I always get up early to get my stuff together. Last year I got up at seven and almost always came in right as the class started. Plus, we have to eat and get our books packed and get to class."
"You'll help me, won't you?" I asked her, standing up and walking to my closet. I tripped on the edge of the rug and went running into the wardrobe. "Ow..." I said, rubbing my head, which had gone into it first.
"Are you ok?" Lily said worriedly, walking toward me, clearly trying to surpress a laugh. "Fine." I muttered, looking at the carpet. "It just popped out of nowhere." That made Lily laugh, and she let it all out. She was pretty, with light red hair and bright green eyes. She had a wide, white smile and a kind look to her. I had white-blonde, with brown eyes. I had had brown hair, but then I dyed it when I was 14. "Well, we'd better get going. Don't want to be late." Lily reminded me. I reached into my wardrobe and pulled out a pair of black skinny jeans and a neon blue shirt that read "Your Brown Eyed Girl." I pulled them on quickly and then reached for my robes. They were billowing and black, long and annoying. I pulled them on next and flipped my hair back over my shoulder. I grabbed my brush and pulled it through my layered hair. I scanned my bed-side table to try to find my necklace. It was a small crystal boroque necklace with a real diamond in the middle.

"Pretty." Lily said, eyeing the necklace. I couldn't get it to latch on the end.
"Thanks...could you help me?" I asked her, pulling my hair over shoulders and waited as Lily got the clasp to hook.
"Where's it from?" She asked me.

"My sister." I said. I heard a bitter sadness in my voice.
"What's her name?"
"Er...Sophie."

"Well, when do I get to meet her?"
"Sometime." I fake promised.
"Well, we should go." Lily said, sighing and smiling at me. I smiled back.
"There's probably no way the boys are up yet?" I joked.
"Yeah, they're usually a few minutes late or right on time." She laughed. There was a wooshing sound outside our window. I almost didn't want to know what it was, but then it came again and again. Lily and I exchanged a worried look and went cautiously to our window. Just as we got there, another woosh went by, a blur of black past our curtains. I held onto Lily's forearm as we started to get closer. Then, when we were there, Lily ripped the curtains away fromt he window to reaveal....nothing. I leaned my head out the window to look for the source of the noise. "Look out!" Someone yelled. I pulled my head back inside as someone raced against the wall. Which I didn't understand, because they were zooming along, but we were on the seventh floor. Something told me I wasn't going to like what was out there. Then Lily looked at my confused face and laughed.

"Oh, James..." Lily sighed.
"Huh?" I asked her. She shook her head and pushed her head out the window.
"JAMES POTTER!" She called.
"What?" Said a voice. James was sitting next to the window a second later, smiling wide despite his messy hair. He took his hands off of the broomstick he was perched on and adjusted his glasses. "James!" I said, clutching my heart. He had scared me. "What are you doing?"
"Practicing." He smiled widely.
"More like trying to wake everyone up!" Lily scolded.
"Hey, we have to practice sometime!" Another too-familiar voice reminded. Sirius Black zoomed up next to his friend. This was an act that looked ridiculous; riding on broomsticks? What was this, a joke?
"Practice for what? The dork finals?" I yawned. "No, quidditch!" James smiled. It was obvious that he was very happy about this fact.
"At 6:00? I didn't know you guys had that much energy to wake up this early!" Lily laughed. I did too. After being awake until 11:00 last night, teaching me about the do's and don'ts of Hogwarts, I would think they would be exhausted.
"Yeah! Then we go back to bed and skip classes!" Sirius joked.
"Well, we have to go. Don't be late to classes, James. Mcgonagall hasn't forgptten about last time, I'll bet." Lily scolded him.
"Yes, ma'am!" James saluted us. We returned our curtains to normal and grabbed our bags of books. We checked the clock, which now read 6:45. We hurried down, making sure we had all of our books and our schedules. When we got into the common there were six people already, reading or getting ready to leave. We took off through the portrait hole and down the stairs. We reached the great hall in record time, panting slightly. We steadied ourselves and stood up straight and entered the great hall. Food was already in the large dishes. A few people were in the hall already, a few Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff. Severus and his group were at the Slytherin table, laughing loudly and joking. He saw me from afar and smiled and nodded. I ignored him; I was staring at one person. Remus was sitting at the Gryffindor table. He was the only one there.

"Remus!" I called. He was buried in a book, not eating. He looked up when he heard someone call his name. He looked around and found us running for him. He dog-eared his book and stood up to greet us. He was wearing a wide smile and his grey eyes danced when we got to him. I gave him a hug, and he returned it. Lily did the same and then we sat down, talking and laughing almost as much as the Slytherins were. "So, did you know that James and Sirius were flying outside our window this morning?" Lily asked Remus. We sat on either side of him, so he had to turn his head to talk to her and then back to me, and so on.
"Actually, yes. I told them not to be late again. I bet Mcgonagall hasn't forgotten about last year." Remus laughed.
"What happened?" I asked them.
"Well, see, Sirius and James thought practicing for the Quidditch final was more important than classes, so they skipped their first one that day and came into their second late, which was Transfiguration. So they walked in and were exhausted, and weren't watching where they were going and walked right into a cabinet next to the door the Mcgonagall had moved overnight. They fell over, everybody was laughing, and then one of the dungbombs Sirius had in his pocket exploded, causing the whole room to smell bad for the rest of the day. Then James pulled Sirius up so he could stand, he turned and ran headfirst into Mcgonagall and made her fall over. Not the best day for those two." Remus laughed as he told the story. Lily laughed remembering and I laughed as I hear it. "Of course, they got double detention. For weeks..." Lily said happily.
"I bet they did." I laughed. We all ate then, piling food on our plates and getting full as everyone came in. It was 7:45. I guessed we had to leave soon and I was right.
"We need to get started soon." Remus said, putting his book in his bag. "Yeah, let's get there. Maybe there's candy for the first three there!" Lily joked.
"You're STILL hungry?" I asked her, shocked.
"No, but I love candy!" She laughed. Remus chuckled and we all grabbed our bags. I slung my light brown leather bag over my shoulder as we left. We hadn't seen James or Sirius in the hall, and as much as I hated Sirius, I worried for them as we took off for class.