Dinner was good. Turkey and gravy, mashed potatoes, cranberries. I joked with Peter that it was an early Thanksgiving. He reminded me that Thanksgiving was an American holiday. Oh yeah.

Sirius showed up right when the food appeared on the golden platters. I should have known.

In the middle of the meal, James remembered my thing about the other first year girls.

We stood up (his arm around my shoulders) and went over to where the girls were. I recognized the cool girl right away: she looked way out of place with her brown hair in just a ponytail. She looked up at me and James with a confused look on her face. Hoping she knew about me and Peter, I mouthed 'just play along.'

I wondered if she had second thoughts as she said, "James!" and stood up.

"K8E!" (cool name, I thought then. I didn't learn how to spell it until later.) "How ya holdin up, K? Met my girl, Lil?" He tightened his grip on me and I smiled.

I reminded myself to slap James when we got back to the common room.

"Not yet. Yer the one who cut this morn, right?"

"That's me. Class wuz too borin for me tuh come." I hoped she understood what I said, it was in an all-American accent.

"Hmm. Too true, girl. Well, these are the preps." The other girls looked up and smiled at me. They thought 'preps' was a compliment? What world were they from? "Alani, Tanya, Becki." They gave me a small wave as their name was mentioned.

"Your boyfriend is really cute, Lily." I thought Becki said that, and I wasn't sure who she was talking about.

I noticed their hair was done like really preppy, too. All up and stuff with tons of hair spray and mousse or whatever they use.

I asked K8E if she wanted to sit with me and James and Peter.

"Your boyfriend." The preps had started to talk about cute guys again. I heard Peter and James mentioned and watched James blush profusely.

"Yeah, not this freak here, cute as he tries to be." I patted his cheek and rolled my eyes.

We walked over to where we had been before. K8E sat in the empty space next to Sirius and across from me. James finally let go of me when I sat down. "Take some acting lessons, honey," I told him as I moved closer to Peter and asked K8E how she decided how to spell her name.

"I'm a tomboy, I admit it!" We all laughed. "I like to annoy my teachers," she explained.

A while later, K8E and I stopped mid-conversation and looked up. The silence told us that Dumbledore was going to give a speech.