After a gigantic meal of everything my heart could desire, we adjourned to following the Gryffindor prefect to the Common Room. We climbed flight after flight of stairs, some moving before we could go any farther. Finally the boy stopped in front of a portrait of a rather large woman he addressed as the "Fat Lady". He muttered the password ("Expecto Patronum"), just loud enough for us to hear, and then stepped aside to let the portrait swing forward. He led us into the Common room, adorned with red and gold fabrics and wallpapers, and up to the dormitory stairs. "Girls on the left, boys on the right" was all I heard before the mass of students began climbing the stairs to the comfortable beds that were waiting for them. I changed into my pajamas and slipped under the covers of my four-poster, falling asleep a split-second after my head hit the pillow.
I awoke with a start the next morning. I reached for my muggle watch on the nightstand to check the time. Stunned, I tapped the face of the watch to make sure it was telling the correct time. 9:07! I was late! The first day at Hogwarts and I had already slept in past nine!
I was in the middle of slipping into my blue jeans when the girl in the four-poster next to mine stirred. I was startled that another girl in my dorm had slept in as late as I had. To my even greater surprise, the girl poked her head out of the curtains and gave me a funny look.
"What?" I asked her as I pulled my new 'Weird Sisters' crimson shirt over my head. She tucked a lock of her fiery red hair behind her ear and sighed.
"Why you would want to get up this early on a Saturday is beyond me." she pulled her head back behind her curtains. A second later, the girl stepped out from her bed. Her nightgown trailed as she stepped over to her trunk. "But I'll join you." She added, pulling her clothes out of her trunk.
I smacked myself in the forehead. Duh, it was Saturday. No wonder no one was up. I smacked my forehead again. Gawd, I was so stupid. When I looked up, the read-haired girl was dressing in neat school clothes and her robes.
I turned to look in the body-length mirror between Jay's and my bed. I knew she was still sleeping, as I could hear snoring coming from behind the curtains. Acting on an impulse, I tore back the curtains and yelled at the top of my lungs.
"JAY! WAKE UP! IT'S SATURDAY!" I screamed. She and the two other girls in the dorm sat up with a start. When she realized who had woken her up, she reached to strangle me, but got caught up in her blankets and landed face first on the floor. Both the read-haired girl and I laughed loudly as Jay untangled herself from her sheets. She left to wash her face in the bathroom while my companion and I continued laughing.
As soon as we caught out breath, we both went to make up our beds and grab our wands. By that time, Jay had returned grinning. She dressed and the three of us headed down to the Gryffindor Common Room, chatting all the while. Jay and I learned that the other first-year girl's name was Lily Evans, and that she was muggle-born like Jay. We reached the common room laughing at one of Jay's jokes.
We sat down on the couch next to Remus who was starting into the fire. He greeted us with a smile, although he didn't take his eyes off the flickering flames. When Lily and Jay continued with their conversations of how they thought magic worked, I stood up and moved so I was sitting on the other side of Remus. He leaned back with his hands in his lap and his eyes closed and sighed as if he had remembered something very sad. I was going to ask him what was wrong, but at that instant, a door slammed from somewhere upstairs and two male voices came drifting down into the common room. James and Sirius were conversing as they walked down from their dormitory as I had done with Jay and Lily.
They took one look at the four of us sitting there, particularly Jay, Lily and me, looked at each other and then burst out laughing.
"What's so funny?" spoke Lily and I in unison. They were laughing so hard that they couldn't answer, so Jay turned to Remus, who was smiling too. She looked very puzzled as she asked. "What's with them? Ana doesn't look that funny."
I stared open mouthed at her, but I couldn't help but have the slightest bit of a smile playing on my lips. We deserved to be each other's best friend. By this time, James was clutching to the back of Lily's chair for support and Sirius had collapsed in the armchair opposite me, still laughing.
"They stayed up all night talking. I only heard bits and pieces of it, so I don't know what they are laughing about." He said innocently. "At least I got some sleep." He added as Sirius and James struggled to catch their breaths.
I looked over at Lily to catch her rolling her eyes. James was grinning at her, still containing his laughter. Sirius was still smiling, but he had stopped laughing.
"Wouldn't you like to know what we were talking about, Perth." he said, running a hand through his long black hair and sitting up a little straighter. Lily took her eyes off of James and, still with a disgusted look on her face, looked up at Sirius.
"Actually, Black, that is exactly what we'd like to know." She said, standing up and walking to the opposite side of the room from James. One could tell James wasn't too excited about that, but he didn't make it too obvious. He took Lily's seat and turned to the rest of the group.
"Eh, we were just talking about stuff." He said, as innocently as Remus, only no one believed he was really that innocent.
"Enough with the talking. I'm hungry." Sirius spoke up. "Why don't we converse over our first Hogwarts breakfast?"
The rest of us murmured an "Alright" and a "Yeah, sure" as they stood up. We left the common room in pairs, continuing to talk about random things, such as Nearly-headless Nick, whom we passed as we walked. I walked with Sirius and Jay with Remus. They seemed to be having a spirited discussion about magical beasts and such. A disgruntled Lily was walking with James and she looked none too pleased about it. He smiled at her every chance he got, but she only rolled her eyes as she ran to catch up with Sirius and me.
"He is so annoying" Lily whispered as she walked beside me. I looked over my shoulder at the black haired boy she was talking about. He had joined Remus and Jay in the conversation about Nearly-headless Nick. I turned back to Lily and rolled my eyes. She opened her mouth to say something, but then thought better of it. Instead, she looked straight ahead at the door to the Great Hall, which was quickly approaching. Remus stepped in to open the door for the six of us, and we took a seat at the table we had sat at only hours ago. This morning, the table was set with every kind of breakfast food imaginable. Included in this were Belgian waffles, sausages, fruit, and eggs, or at least that's all that I piled onto my plate. One of the boys down the table from us had something that looked like vanilla pudding on his.
There was an awkward silence as everyone dug into their breakfasts except Remus. He just pushed his eggs from one side of the plate to the other. I guessed he wasn't feeling his best. Maybe he had eaten something last night; he had looked a bit peaky.
The morning went by quickly, and sooner than I expected, I found myself sitting under a beech tree on the grounds. All of my fellow classmates were examining their schedules, each with a different emotion displaying on their faces. Remus looked quite happy, as did I, but James had a look of pure disgust.
"We have classes with the Slytherins Monday, Thursday, and Friday! Potions, Transfiguration, and more Potions!" he groaned. Closing his eyes, he leaned back against the tree and groaned again.
"Ah, come on James!" Jay spoke up. "I mean, Slytherins can't be that bad! Besides, one of those classes is with Professor McGonagall, so they can't do anything there." I knew she was trying to brighten the mood, but she was thinking about the grease-haired boy and how she would have to see him three days a week.
During all of this, Remus and Sirius hadn't said a word. Most of us knew why Sirius was quiet. His mum had sent him a Howler during breakfast. I doubted that he wasn't thinking about her screaming voice saying "DISGRACEFUL!" and "TALK TO THE SLYTHERIN HEAD OF HOUSE FOR A TRANSFER!" Sirius had moved to the other side of the beech tree and was staring out at the lake.
The others seemed involved in their discussion, so I silently moved next to where he was sitting.
"What's on your mind?" I asked. I smiled as he looked up at me slightly startled.
"Just…stuff" he replied, turning back. We watched as the Giant Squid stuck a tentacle out of the water and brought it down on the surface, splashing a passing third-year.
"You know," Sirius said after a moment's silence. "I'm glad I was put into Gryffindor. I'm glad I didn't follow in my family's footsteps." Smiling for the first time since breakfast, he punched me in the arm. "I wouldn't be friends with you…or James, Jay, Lily, Remus…" he added. He stood up and offered me a hand to help me up. I grinned and led the way back to our cluster of friends.