Chapter Two – Welcome to Hogwarts

40 wet, shivering eleven year olds shuffled into The Great Hall. As one big pack they edged towards to the staff table, in front of which a single wooden chair was lain out, on top of it sat a hat. The First Year witches and wizards looked at each other in anticipation. Some were nervous, some excited, one was staring creepily at Professor Figgins (the Muggle Studies teacher), several looked as if they were about to throw up, and several more could not have been happier.

Dumbledore stood up and announced; "Let the sorting begin!" before sitting again and gesturing to Professor McGonagall, who nodded to the hat, which opened its beady eyes and it's large mouth and began to sing;

"Centuries ago lived four,
Great Wizards of the time,
Who had one common goal:
To nurture wizard minds,
So set out the four,
Whose work is standing still ,
To set up our dear school,
As a testament to their skill,
Four they were, and four they stay,
So four houses marked, the Hogwarts seal,
From ancient times, to modern day,
Since when, Hogwarts, they did reveal,
Bold Gryffindor valued,
The daring and the brave,
To act as gentlemen,
And carry his great name
Sweet Ravenclaw was wise,
And wanted those of brains,
Whose intelligence would,
Do justice to her name,
Shrewd Slytherin had other plans,
To pick those of great ambition,
Pure blood and unmatched cunning,
Were qualities of his tradition,
Lastly, for all who toil,
Kind Hufflepuff was fair,
Who treasured most the patient,
But took all and didn't care,
So, upon your head I sit,
And pick through you mind,
You one true house and family,
I am sure to find."

One by one the students walked up and sat on the chair, to be sorted into their houses. From "Barkley, Hannah" ("GRYFFINDOR!"), to "Webster, Jack" ("HUFFLEPUFF!") and all in between, the new Hogwartians all eagerly sat down with their chosen houses and got to know their fellow house-members. When the sorting was done ('Zan, Mike' ["RAVENCLAW!"] ) Dumbledore rose once again and stepped out to where now stood a great marble and gold stand in place of the chair.

"Welcome to Hogwarts," bellowed Dumbledore. He stood before a hall of almost three hundred students who were all starving and massively anticipating the unbelievably delicious Hogwarts feast awaiting them. "I know you all must be starving, so I shall simply say: Eat." With that, plates and bowls and trays of various sizes, shapes and colours, all containing the most mouth-watering of dishes, appeared across all four long wooden tables. Lush salads, crisp chicken, sizzling pork, crackling bread, smoking turkey, melting pudding and steaming rice wafted towards the noses of drooling children.

For the next couple minutes all that could be heard was crunching, chewing and the clinking of knives on plates. After everyone had had their initial fill, it was time to settle back into the Hogwarts spirit.

"I live for this turkey!" Said Gracie, but her mouth was full of said turkey at the time so it came out more like; "iwiffohisturkeh"

Gracie was sitting opposite Alex and next to Alice, who was sitting opposite Lily, who was sitting next to Marissa, who was sitting next to her boyfriend Daniel, and the two were opposite Sirius and Remus, who were throwing sausages at Peter who was sitting back next to Alex and opposite James.

James was eyeing Lily, but Lily's eyes were focused much further down the table, so far in fact, that she was actually staring at the next table over. Sam Newton, a 7th year Hufflepuff Beater, had been the object of Lily's unrequited affection for three years now. While Lily had never even thought of trying to ask him out, she did so enjoy staring at him during dinner and class.

"Earth to Lily?" Alice called as she waved her hand in front of Lily's dreamy eyes. Lily could not see the hand in front of her face; she was too bust imagining Sam naked.

"Seriously girl? What's with you? You've haven't eaten a thing all night, you just pick up the food wave it near you mouth then put it down again." Alice continued, concerned for her friend, waving her hand again, this time more ferociously.

"Give up Alice, she's on a express train to Sam town, there's no stopping her now." Gracie said nonchalantly not even looking up but continuing to re-do her lipstick between bites.

Alice gave up and left Lily alone to stare imaginatively at Sam. She turned to the rest of her friends;

"So what classes are everyone taking this year?" She asked everyone.

"I'm taking pretty much the same as last year; History of Magic, Divination, Care of Magical Creatures, Astrology, Ancient Runes, you know; the usual" Alex responded, everyone looked at her weirdly.

"What?" She asked defensively,

"Nothing" Alice said dismissively, "I'm also taking pretty much the same thing as last year; Potions, charms, defence. Etc"

"Are you talking about school? I think I might be behind already in charms, I mean I know classes haven't started yet or anything but I didn't do any practise on the holidays and I hear it gets really hard this year, I heard from Sally that … "

"Whoa there Lily, I see we've managed to snap you out of you boy-coma state, trust the only thing more important to you than Sam is school, you need to sort of your priorities woman; life first, school later. And life is quickly passing away, while you were mentally undressing Sam before did you even bother to look at what he's doing?" Gracie lectured Lily, gesturing over to the Ravenclaw table where Sam was talking to Evy Gold. "That's a girl, and that's what you could be doing if you just manned-up and asked him out, or even talked to him."

Lily looked down at the pickled carrots in front of her; "You're right, it's just so intimidating, and I've never been very good with guys," She confessed, "I've always found charms and spells easier than asking boys out, in fact I find it a little awkward even talking to them."

"You talk to Potter all the time, and Remus and all the rest of the marauders," Alex countered, the rest agreeing immediately,

"That's more shouting than talking, and we've known them for seven years! We've practically lived with them for seven years, Sam I've only really talked to once, and that was only when he asked me if I had any spare beetle juice that one time in potions last year." She admitted, "I didn't."

"Well that's how you could start, go up to him and say something like, here the beetle juice you wanted, sorry it's over a year late, is there anything I can do to make up for late delivery?" Gracie suggested,

"Does that ever actually work?" Marissa asked disbelievingly.

"Sometimes."

"Moving on, from Gracie's unique guy catching plans, I have a real idea. We'll talk later tonight. Mean time, everyone eat up. This turkey is de-licious!" Alex cheered, "You were right Gracie, about this anyway, about the other stuff we'll have to see."

One delicious turkey later; 6 girls, 15 bags, 3 owls and a cat all burst through the door into the 7th Year Gryffindor Girls Dormitory. Greeted by 6 identical four poster beds and hangings of brilliant scarlet and gold, the girls all stumbled into the room, dragging trunks and cages of all shapes and sizes behind them.

"Ahhh, Home, Magical Home" The tallest of the girls exclaimed as she dropped her bags to the floor barley 6 ft from the entrance and then carefully placed the bird cage she was holding on a table and opening the door to let her owl fly around the room.

"Hey!" Emma exclaimed as the owl took a dive for her head, "Watch it! We've told you a million times Alice" Emma said frustratedly, "open the window first THEN the cage, so that Pouka doesn't fly all around the room."

"Right, sorry." Alice said apologetically before opening the window in front of her and letting Pouka fly out and up to the Owlery on top of the West Tower. After the third (and hopefully final) instalment of Pukini: The Magical Escape Artist Owl, the girls all began to unpack their bags and trunks for their seventh and final year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Alice went into the bathroom to unpack her toiletries, Gracie sat on her bed and took out her manicure set from her one of her seven bags (the one about the size of a small boulder and filled entirely with make-up) and began painting her fingers. Emma began methodically placing all her items in her super-organised, sub-divided, colour-coded, brightly-labelled bed-side table; and Alex, Lily and Marissa all started putting their clothes away.

"Ok everyone, I wrote up a bathroom roster over the holidays so we can avoid, awkward situations, and maximise efficiency and traffic flow" Emma instructed the other girls (once she had finished her meticulous unpacking), all deeply immersed in "unpacking" (aka, throwing everything out of their bags, hoping it'll land in the right spot). No-one paid any attention to Emma, who then proceeded to magically glue said bathroom roster to the bathroom door. Gracie had now moved onto her toes and her bags remained thoroughly un-packed while Emma's were all completely empty and perfectly miniaturised and stacked neatly at the foot of her flawless bed.

"Has anyone seen my black, lacy bra?" Marissa asked the room, her head still buried in her mountain of suitcases. A collective 'no' ensued, no-one even bothering to look up because they were all still pre-occupied with sorting out their own scattered belongings.

Alice, who had been unpacking her many toiletries in the bathroom, returned to the main room and picked up her stuff, plonking it down on a bed that, unbeknownst to Alice, had already been claimed by Alex. Alex, who was unpacking her clothes and stowing them away in the cupboard, turned around to see Alice unpacking her things in the bedside table.

"What are you doing?" Alex asked Alice,

"What do you mean?" Alice asked back,

"This is my bed." Alex explained, pointing at her already unpacked things on and around the bed.

"No it's not." Alice retorted, "It's my bed."

"Why would you think that?" Alex asked, "It's been my bed for the past six years, it would seem only logical that it remains my bed this year."

"What are you talking about? This was MY bed last year." Alice responded confidently, raising her voice.

"No it wasn't" Alex replied, raising her voice even further above Alice's.

"Yes it was."

"No it wasn't."

"Yes it was."

"No it wasn't"

This went on for about another 5 minutes before Lily decided that it wasn't just going to resolve itself and that she had better step in now or very soon they might start throwing their clothes at each other ultimately culminating in an all-out Girl War.

"Yes it …"

"GUYS!" Lily yelled over the top of her bickering friends, finally fed up with their never-ending arguments, "Seriously. It's just a bed."

"Yes and it's just MY bed." Alex added,

"No. It's mi…"

"STOP!" Lily shouted over the marched over to the bed the two girls where bickering over and started to examine it to see if there was a way to determine whose bed it actually was. After several minutes of intense staring on Alex and Alice's part, and scrupulous examination on Lily's part, a verdict was reached. Lily re-emerged from the dresser to proclaim:

"Alex, this bed is Alice's." She stated matter-of-factly, "That's your bed" she added pointed at the remaining, unclaimed bed.

"But…But I want THAT bed." Alex whined, "That's MY bed, I know it is."

It took another 28 minutes to convince Alex to relinquish her claim on the bed, when Lily and Alice finally managed to convince her Emma and Gracie had already gone to bed. Marissa was still up, but only to read her latest duelling book; 'The Do's and Don'ts of Bathroom Battles: When to Say and When to Spray'.

Lily climbed into her own, undisputed, bed, relived that all the nights Drama had finally been put to rest. Though, despite the fact that there was now, relative calm in her dormitory, Lily lay awake for several hours, staring up at the ceiling directly above her bed, where, five years ago, she had inscribed the words: "Lily Evans was here; A Mudblood, A Witch, A Freak, or Just A Girl?" when one night in second year she had run into a bunch of Slytherins in the corridor who were just returning from a lunchtime detention, that had resulted in her first hearing of the word Mudblood (which, at the time, she didn't even know the meaning of) and the first (and only time) time she was actually glad the James Potter came to save the day, before she wound up in the Hospital Wing.

I was walking to Charms class, it was after lunch and I was late to Fourth Period because I couldn't find my books, I suspect that someone had hidden them. I turned to go down the Fifth floor corridor when I (quite literally) ran into a bunch of Slytherins. They immediately stopped their conversation and turned to look down at me.

"Watch where you're going Gryffindor!" One of the larger, muscly ones said threateningly, obviously intending 'Gryffindor' as some kind of insult. I was really proud to be in Gryffindor, even if it meant I would eventually have to live everyday 20 ft from Potter (Which I was naively unaware of at the time). I recognised him as Bradley Cooper from the year above. He was a Chaser in the Slytherin Quidditch Team, as well I saw Marcus Thames, Second year Slytherin, Thomas O'Reily, also a Slytherin Chaser in Third Year, as well as two guys I didn't recognise.

"I'm Sorry" I said to them politely, but in no way indicating that I was scared and trying my hardest not to give in to their attempt at intimidation. I started to continue down the hallway but two of the Slytherin guy moved to block my way again, and instead I bumped into them again, which, of course, they interpreted as entirely my fault.

"Oi!" Thomas shouted at My head, holding onto my arm as I backed away from them again, "I thought we told you to watch where you're going, Gryffindor" The way which her said it clearly indicated that if this were to happen again the consequences would we far more severe than a simple 'roughing around'.

"Don't even bother with her O'Reilly, she just a little Mudblood."

Everyone turned to look at the speaker of these words, some with shock, some with nonchalant appreciation, myself with a mixture of hurt and confusion, as I'd never that word before, but even though I didn't know what it meant, I knew from the tone and who spoke it: Michael Conner, Fourth Year Slytherin Seeker and Quidditch Captain, school bully and constant pain-in-the-ass to all non-Slytherin teachers and frequent visitor to detention; that it was meant to be hurtful and insuting.

Thomas O'Reilly turned back to me with a look of victory in his eyes; "Well then I guess no-one will mind if she spends the night in the Hospital Wing".

"Hey! Un-hand her you great Buffoon!" Came a heroic voice from the adjacent corridor. I turned to see none other than the 'great' James Potter standing there. I had never before been so grateful to see him before, but feared he would not be able to take on all 6 of them without winding up I the hospital wing himself. I was then dropped to the ground rather forcefully by Thomas as he turned to face the new threat. The force of hitting the floor knocked me unconscious for a while so I have no idea how he did it, but all I can remember is waking up sometime later in the Hospital Wing to Madame Tootey telling me if James had not come along it would have been much worse.

Lily eventually fell asleep that night, after long pondering the events of that fateful day, but soon the memories were forgotten and far out of mind by the next morning, as Lily and everyone else in Hogwarts, became too preoccupied with the commencement of Classes the next day.