James and Hermione had been walking toward the Gryffindor common room to relax with Harry, when they were stopped by none other than Malfoy and his gang.

"Malfoy, back for more are you?" asked James who was puffing up his chest to look even bigger than he already was.

"You may have been able to take me down, but I wasn't prepared for it," snarled Malfoy, "plus I have these bozos as back up now."

"Hermione, the commons are behind us. I will meet you in there if you would like to leave this pointless meeting," James sighed as he turned to Hermione, "I can deal with this."

Hermione knew she would have to argue with James, so she nodded and whispered in his ear, "next time I am helping, or you won't hear from me for a week." As she left, she made sure James was watching and stomped off.

"Wow, who knew Mud-Bloods were civilized!" Malfoy shouted after Hermione.

"Not all Mud-Bloods are as civilized Malfoy," James said with a smirk as he pulled out his wand, "You're looking at a very angry Mud-Blood!"

Instead of the usual Malfoy talk, he pulled out his wand and very sloppily shot a few spells at him which were Blocked by James with a simple protego. James then shot a jelly-legs jinx at Malfoy. Seeing their friend out for the count, Crabbe and Goyle grabbed Malfoy and ran. James stood there a moment longer to make sure they didn't return to harass more Gryffindors, he then left to go back to the commons. He kept his Pear wood phoenix core 12 ½ inch wand in his right hand prepared for anything to attack him.

He reached the fat lady portrait and realized no one had told him the password, so he paced trying to come up with something to get in. about 3 minutes in it swung open and a short boy with a camera came out and saw James, having heard the story of how he dealt with Malfoy he snapped a picture of him. James didn't really appreciate it but ignored it for now. He ran into the lush room and looked around, upon seeing Hermione's back facing the doorway, he snuck up on her and wrapped his arms around her lifting her up and causing her to shriek before hitting James in the stomach with his elbow.

"James Smith!" she yelled, "I do not care what we are, do not scare me like that!"

Harry was too busy laughing to comment. James looked around and noticed everyone had gone silent due to the commotion, James and Hermione blushed and walked Quite fast towards a corner of the commons with a love seat. The two sat and Hermione immediately bombarded him with questions.

"Are you ok? What did you do to him? Did you hurt him? Did he hurt you?" she asked rapid fire questions.

"Yes, I am fine, I used the jelly legs jinx, he hit his head on the ground, so I don't really know how hurt he is, and he got like two spells off and they missed me entirely." James replied as he opened his arms for Hermione to scoot into.

"I am glad you're okay, but McGonagall won't be happy that Snape's favorite child was hurt, she will be happy when she finds out that it was due to his bullying and that he wasn't actually hurt per say." She replied as she scooted into James' lap and felt his arms wrap around her creating a warm shield.

"Hey love birds," Harry whispered from behind the two, "you do know that everyone is watching right?"

"Thank you harry but I think we're good," James replied, "Hermione what do you think?"

"Hmm?" she blinked, looking up from a book, "oh yeah I was just reading and I'm not even sure what James was doing."

"I was just sitting here, not much to do in the common room on the first day." yawned James.

"Well I guess you're right but, almost everyone is watching you two." Harry said, "James our room is on the second floor of the boys tower, I saved you the bed closest to mine."

James nodded in thanks and went back to dozing off while Hermione sat in his lap reading a book. As students headed to their rooms, they would stare at the two in either disgust or just happy for the two. The twins James had met at dinner stopped in front of them.

"hey," they said in unison, "if you two ever need a snogging place let us know, we know the whole castle." Fred, or was it George, winked and they strode off.

"Those two are Hogwarts' main pranksters, just ignore them James." Hermione said, trying to hide her blush.

"OK," James said, stirring from his comfortable position, "we should head to bed, we have classes tomorrow."

They gave each other an awkward good night kiss and went to their separate towers. James walked up the flights of stairs and tugged open the big wooden door, when he opened it he was hit with confetti! His new dorm mates had decided to welcome him by scaring the living day lights out of him, he yelped and punched in front of him, nearly hitting one of them.

"Jesus Christ! What the hell is all this?" James said, rubbing his face.

"Sorry James," Harry called out through the commotion, "the boys and I thought we would welcome you to the dorm! Introduce yourself guys!"

"Hi I'm Neville Longbottom." Said a clearly shy boy.

"I'm Seamus Finnigan!" shouted an Irish lad in a football jersey.

"And I'm Dean Thomas." Said the last.

"Well It is nice to meet you all," said James with a smile, "but I have a lot of classes tomorrow." With that he cast a spell on his curtains and changed before opening them.

"James, second years only have like three classes first day," Harry said looking quite confused, "and I'm sure with your new girlfriend you'll whiz past it!" harry finished with a chuckle

"Actually Harry," James said with a massive sigh, "I am taking some fourth-year classes."

At this his roommates were silent except for nods and murmurs. James said good night and fell fast asleep.