A/N: Thanks to all who have reviewed, and seeing as how I promised, I guess I'd better thank you all

A/N: Unfortunately my betas are out of town, (or were when I wrote this, but then ff.net went down the day I was going to post!) so my brother proofed this not them.  So, thank you brother.  J  And he also gave me a few pointers in this chapter, so thanx again to him.  And of course, thank you all of you who have reviewed.

New York Times:  As requested, I'm thanking you first.  You'd better be happy.  I hope that you keep reading, because I really enjoy your reviews. Jinskid3:  I'm glad that you like.  I'll try.  *Chocolate Frogs*:  I love long chapters; I'm glad that you do too. I'm glad you like Stallion; I like him too.  And now you've gone and given it away about Aeris.  Jeez!  Super saya-Jin Goten:  Wow, I like the song.  No one's ever sung to me in a review before.  I kinda like it.  I'm delighted that you like it so much.  Just a guess, but you like DBZ, huh?  Luna*Star:  Thanx.  Sakura:  Sorry, maybe I should have continued with the conversation, since that was everybody's fav part.  But it had to end sometime.  I'm glad you like it too.   Flamin Phoenix: Thanx.  I'll try and post seven pretty soon.  Sorry that six took so long, stupid ff.net!  Jeff:  Thanks a lot. See if I come to your birthday party.  Nah I'm just kidding.  Rons_Mine:  Biscuits?  Oh, you're talking about the crackers, right?  Sorry, I'm American so I really don't know all the British words.  Everybody loves the conversation with the can, including me!  Fairlight:  Thanks.  Rain93:  Thanx.  I will.  Milkyweed:  Thank you.  I will.  Sailor Galaxie:  I will, I'm glad.  Thanks.  I know, the hat's great.  The best thing in my fic, I'm sure.  James and Sirius:  I'm a little disappointed with you.  That was pretty much an email!  You didn't say a thing about my fic.  How sad.  But still, thanx for the thought, I guess.

Disclaimer:  Really and truly I'm tired of these things.  I think this will be my last one! (Yeah, right)  Anywho, nothing from the Harry Potter books is mine and some of the names don't belong to me either.

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Chapter Six – Chocolate and Strawberries

As soon as "Zrelly, Vapory" was made a Gryffindor, McGonagall rolled up her scroll and took Stallion and the stool away.  She had grabbed Stallion a little forcefully, and James was once again sorry for his hat of a friend.

Looking at the empty golden plate in front of him and forgetting all about Stallion, James' stomach rumbled softly, and reminded him that he hadn't eaten since the pretzel hours ago.  He was starving.  Why hadn't he made Lily share all the things she bought off the cart? She had gotten ten chocolate frogs, and she had eaten them all herself, not sharing even when Sirius asked her.  Or why hadn't he at least bought something for himself?  What was he, stupid or something?  Wait, don't answer that, he told his self-conscience.

Dumbledore stood and began speaking, "I have a little speech that I give every year," his blue eyes twitched in the direction of James and Sirius.  Sirius' stomach growled loudly causing all of the Gryffindor and half the Ravenclaw students to look at him; many smiled and some voiced their agreement with his stomach.  Dumbledore smiled and continued, "But I can see the hunger in your eyes and hear your stomachs protesting, so I will give it after you have all been fed and watered." Dumbledore waved his hand and the empty plated became full of wonderful foods.

James started stuffing himself immediately.  He soon had four plates worth of food stacked on his one plate so it was a tower of pork chops, potatoes, steak, roast beef, Yorkshire pudding and every other imaginable food desirable, and even some not desirable.  Unfortunately, he had been foolish enough to but his jello by his ribs, and now they looked uneatable.  James stuffed them in his mouth anyway.  Not too bad really.  James had been really looking forward to dining like this three times a day.  His mom hated cooking and usually just let them feed themselves with stuff around the house, but this food was wonderful.

As they were eating, Sirius started a conversation with Aeris.  "So, who are you?" he asked spraying her with mashed potatoes.

"Aeris Lorie," she said wiping the gravy off her forehead where Sirius had hit her.

"Well, we heard that much," Sirius told her.

"Oh," she said blushing.  "What else do you want to know?"

"Where ya from and stuff like that?"

"I'm from London, England."

"Oh.  We know what country London is in; we are British you know.  Well, how many people do you have in your family and such?"

"I have a mother and a father," she began.

"Oh that's good.  Because if you had two of one and none of the other, we would start to worry," Sirius stated.  Aeris started giggling hysterically, and everyone looked at her as if she had grown two heads and her hair had turned purple.

"It wasn't that funny," James stated.

Aeris looked as if she were trying to calm down, and failing terribly.  She just couldn't stop smiling.  Lily looked at her new friend and started patting her on the back, and whispering in her ear.

"Girls," muttered James, rolling his eyes.

Once Aeris was breathing normal again, Sirius said, "Continue."  He sounded so business-like that it almost caused her to burst into laugher all over again.  She was obviously a very happy person.

"Well, I have two older brothers.  One already graduated from Hogwarts, last year.  He is working for the ministry now."  Seeing the confused look on Lily's face she added, "The Ministry of Magic," Lily nodded, as if she had known all along.  "He is engaged to be married, and will be on July 19, next year.  He's going to marry Malaya Jones.  She is the same age as him.  My next brother is Aken.  He's in his third year this year.  He's on the Hufflepuff Quidditch team and he's the Keeper.   I have one little sister who is three years younger than I am.  Her name is Julian, well she's…"

"Okay, more about your family than I wanted to know. I was only asking a polite question, to start a conversation with a cute girl.  If I had wanted you to write me a book, I would have asked!" Sirius said holding his hand over her lips to stop her from going on.

Aeris blushed a deep red and muttered touching her lips were he had, "Oh, sorry."

"Don't apologize to him!  He's the one who should be apologizing to you!  He's the one being a prat here," Lily said, enraged. 

"It's not that big of a deal," Aeris mumbled.

"Yes it is." Lily said, standing up.  "He gets enough attention as it is!"

"Lily," James said. "By yelling at him, you're only drawing more attention to him."  James waved his hand at the rest of the Gryffindor table, most of which were watching either Sirius or Lily.

"Oh," Lily said softly, sitting back down in her seat.  She didn't say anything again until the meal disappeared and the deserts replaced them.

"Ooh!  Chocolate-dipped strawberries.  My favorite!" Lily exclaimed, scaring everyone since they were used to her silence.

"Gross.  I hate those things.  My mum made 'em when I was three, and hasn't made 'em since because I hated 'em so much.  Well, then again, they just might have been disgusting because my mum's not much of a cook, but I like to think that they are always nasty, not just when my mum makes them," James said, stuffing his face with some of the chocolate éclairs.

"Well I like them," Lily stated.

"I never said you didn't." James was still eating deserts as if his life depended on it.

"But you called them gross."

"Yup.  I admit it.  I did.  And I only speak the truth."

"You're such a pig!" Lily told James who had food all over his face.

"Ha!  Pig!  That reminds me.  Did any of you know that the Sorting Hat has a name?  Its name is Stallion."

"And pig reminded you of that, how?" questioned Aeris.

"To make a long story short; his Beauxbatons and Durmstrang hat buddies, named him that.  Drum (Durmstrang) came up with it.  I can't remember it exactly, but it was something like, Hogwarts to Hog; hog to pig; pig to swine; and then swine somehow went to Clyde, and that to Clydesdale.  I don't know how, but now his name is Stallion."

"That doesn't even make any sense." Aeris said with a silly shake of the head. "They should have named him Belgian. Yeeaahh!"

"But that still doesn't make any sense." Said James with an exasperated look on his face.

"What. It makes perfect sense. Belgian? BELGIAN?? Don't you get it? When you shorten Belgian what do you get?"

James gave her a questioning look…"I dunno. What?"

Everyone stared at Aeris, Waiting…Waiting…

"Urg… Don't ya get it?  I don't believe this!!!" she then slammed her head against the table right into her pudding. 

"Uh, Urg lives very far from here." Said Remus with an all-knowing look.

"Yeah, and that still didn't make any sense," added James.  Aeris glared at James, the chocolate pudding dripping from her bangs (A/N: fringe) into her blue eyes, and then turned to talk to Sirius instead.  He might only talk to her because she was pretty, but at least he didn't insult her… very often.

They continued to eat in almost silence (as close as you can get with three crazy boys and two…normal girls) for the next minute or two, and then Lily spoke.

"James?  So you don't like strawberries and chocolate?"

"Nope.  Not together anyway."

"Then take this!" and with that, she flipped her spoon at him, which contained two strawberries dipped in steaming hot chocolate.

The furious James (with burning chocolate dripping off his nose, and one strawberry down the front of his robes) scooped up several rock hard peppermint cakes and flung them at Lily.  Only two of the seven hit her, the others hit five unsuspecting people.

The first one hit a very tall Ravenclaw head girl in the forehead, leaving a red welt.  The second one hit Chez Dagget square in the middle of the back.  The third and fourth stray peppermint cakes hit two older Gryffindors that James didn't know.

Ah but the fifth one, the fifth one was the grand finale.  The fifth one hit Severus Snape right on his large, sloping nose, causing it to start bleeding immediately. Severus yelled out in pain.

James and Sirius of course started to laugh at the sight of the git holding his huge nose, and having blood oozing from in-between his fingers.  In fact, they were laughing so hard, that James continued to laugh even after Chez dumped a bowl of ice-cream down the back of his robes. 

James was still laughing (and laughed harder) when Seifer (with what looked like caramel dripping from his dreadlocks) stood on the table and yelled, "Food Fight!" as he flung some cheesecake at Kaki Pun, who was sitting across from him.  Kaki screamed and threw the remainder of her banana pudding at Seifer, missing completely and hitting Remus – who was seven people away from Seifer, in the face.

Remus shrugged and stood on the table holding a plate filled with gooey dessert in each hand.  "Food Fight!" he repeated.  Remus chucked the plates across the room, most of the treats hitting some screaming Hufflepuff girls.  One of the plates hit Snape's already blood gushing nose (James and Sirius by this time were rolling on the floor about to pee their pants) and the other hit some Slytherin third year, whose hair was so blonde it was almost white, in the stomach.

And so the food fight raged on.  James soon recovered and joined in, but the first cream custard he threw hit Snape and so Sirius -who then began laughing all over again- was therefore unable to join in until it was too late.  Just when he had returned to his normal, messed up self, and was about to throw the remains of his chocolate cake, when Professor McGonagall put a hand on his shoulder and said, "I wouldn't do that.  You're in enough trouble as it is."

Sirius threw the cake anyway, but McGonagall didn't even notice.  She had advanced on James.

"James Potter!  Detention!  Tomorrow!  At nine, with Professor Ethan!" James smiled and turned to face McGonagall.  He turned fast enough that some of the food that was sticking to his body was flung off of him and hit McGonagall in the face.  He started to laugh, but stopped at the look she gave him.  She was boiling mad.  "POTTER!  You will have another detention right after the first one is finished, with me!"

"Yes ma'am," James said saluting her as if he were in the army spraying her with more food.

"Dang," Sirius muttered under his breath.  "Sirius one.  James two."

Dumbledore stood up and cleared his throat.  The hall became practically silent almost immediately.  That was fairly simple seeing as how the loudest in the hall (Sirius and James-who else?) had already been silenced.  Dumbledore cleared his throat softly again, and the hall was completely hushed.

"I can see that most of you want to get to your dormitories and get all cleaned up, however, I do still have a few things to say.

"The Forbidden Forest is to live up to its name, and be forbidden to all students. Should I repeat that, or did everyone hear me.  The Forbidden Forest is forbidden."

"Can't come up with very original names here at Hogwarts, can they?" whispered Sirius to James, who smiled but stopped himself from laughing. "They should have named it, 'The Forest of Death.'"

"Maybe that's not very original either because the reason it is forbidden is because there are deadly things in there."

"Still, if they aren't going to come up with an original name, they might as well use a good not very original name."

McGonagall looked at them sternly but said nothing.  Dumbledore continued after he had finished eyeing the Gryffindor table, looking at a distinctive fifth year in particular.  "Quidditch trails will be held in two weeks.  If there are any second years or above interested in playing for their house team, they should contact Madam Hooch."

"I wish first years could join.  I'd be the first on the list," James muttered to Sirius.  Sirius nodded, but didn't mention that he wasn't very good at Quidditch.  That didn't stop him from playing it and loving it; he just didn't think that he would be able to make the team, especially without making a fool of himself and falling off his broom several times.

"And finally, I must tell you all that a Whomping Willow has been planted on the grounds, and I warn you all to stay away from it.  Those of you who studied them in Herbology last year know what they can do to you, and the rest of you; just trust the others and don't go near it.

"Usually we would sing the school song right now, but I can see few of you are feeling up to that.  Now, go clean up and go to bed."

James turned to look at all his friends.  He could hardly see Remus' face, but from what he could see, he looked absolutely sick. "Remus, you alright?"

"Yes, I'm fine.  I just had a bad experience with a Whomping Willow that's all." His face turning a bright red, he ran and caught up with the prefect who was leading them to the Gryffindor common room.

"Wonder what's up with him?" asked Sirius as they filed out of the Great Hall.

"Me too."