Chapter Three

Panting slightly, Lily slid into her seat in Transfiguration with five seconds to spare. She noted with more than a little amusement that James and Sirius arrived five seconds too late.

"I will not tolerate tardiness in my class, boys," said Professor McGonagall severely, looking down at them from behind the glasses perched on the bridge of her nose. "Detention to both of you tonight, in my classroom. Take your seat next to Peter."

"Aw, professor," Sirius whined. "Detention on the first day of class?"

"Yes, it is possible. Now go take your seat. Now!"

Sirius and James took their seats, grumbling. When James caught Lily staring, he smirked and Lily frowned.

"Now, class, I want you to pay attention closely. Transfiguration is one of the most difficult and dangerous subjects you'll learn while you're in Hogwarts, so I will not stand for any horse playing in my class. Transfiguration is not to be abused. If I ever get one more report about another student being turned into a watermelon---PEEVES!!"

Peeves was floating above a Hufflepuff girl's head and pantomiming dropping a real watermelon. The girl shrieked and Peeves almost dropped the watermelon, but one look from McGonagall and he zipped out, cackling, juggling the watermelon above his head. The girl, apparently a muggle-born and not used to great displays of magic, had to be taken up to the hospital wing in hysterics.

After the class settled down again McGonagall turned to the board and resumed the class. Lily was quite unsettled and kept checking the space above her head as if Peeves would come back any time soon.

"Miss Evans, I recommend you keep your eyes on your match instead of the ceiling. Staring at the ceiling will not increase your Transfiguration skills any."

"Sorry," Lily muttered, flushing deeply as James sniggered, his match already a perfect needle.

They had Potions with Slytherins next. Only one student was able to make his weeping potion correctly---Severus Snape. He had greasy, stringy hair, pale skin, and a nasty look about him as if he were plotting which curses to lay on anyone who dared speak to him save for the instructor, who was quite impressed by Severus Snape's potion. The instructor, Professor Renaldo, took a swig from Snape's potion and was bawling his eyes out so much he dismissed the class half an hour early.

"Go!" he sobbed as the unnerved class slipped out of the room, casting furtive glances about them, "Just go!" He took out a lace-edged hankie, wiped his face, hiccupped, and then burst into a fresh wave of tears and wailing.

"What a waste of space," Lily heard Severus mutter as he loped out of the classroom as Professor Renaldo sobbed out,

"T-ten points to S-slytherin for this wonderful c-concoction!"

Lily's favorite class was Charms, with tiny Professor Flitwick. He was extremely impressed with her skill at Charms and gave five points to Gryffindor when Lily was the only student able to make her feather fly across the room and hit the bulls-eye on the dartboard hung up by Professor Flitwick's desk, and twirl in time to a few of Professor Flitwick's favorite songs to boot.

Herbology was all right, except for when half an hour into the class, Lily confused a few plants and accidentally fed her cannibulb a poisonous mushroom and it died promptly.

Lily took two rolls of parchments' worth of notes in History of Magic before realizing it was hopeless and fell asleep, like the rest of the class.

In Defense Against the Dark Arts Lily had to take more notes, but managed not to fall asleep. Professor Newton did not hesitate to rap the back of a sleeping student's head with his knuckles and seeing the reactions of the rudely awoken sleeping students, Professor Newton was a pretty spry man for his age (99, which he revealed to the class right off the bat to fend off any questions).

All in all Lily felt she wasn't doing too badly, despite the fact that it was hard to get used to this new system. She wasn't sure she liked boarding school, since she was lonely a lot, and had nothing to do to fill up her spare time. She did join the Chess Club, but lost interest in it rapidly after observing a game of wizard's chess. She sucked royally at normal chess, so how was she to do anything when chess pieces yelled at her?

She finally took to wandering about the castle, asking the portraits for directions back to Gryffindor tower whenever she wanted to return. Most of the time the pictures were helpful (sometimes overly so), so she had no problem.

One day she found an especially intriguing room.

The room was very large, with a dance floor and orchestra pit, and several large pianos. Upon closer inspection Lily saw that some of the pianos were actually virginals, clavichords, harpsichords, celestas, and other piano- like instruments.

One of the walls was a large mirror extending from the ceiling to the floor. A long bar ran the length of wall, the exact height used for ballet. Lily excitedly walked over and did some ballet exercises. She was sad to find that months of no practice left her extremely handicapped.

Exploring a bit more, she found a large canvas and a large tray of paints, of all things.

"Hello!" a cheerful lady with bouncy ringlets popped onto the canvas. "Going to draw something?"

"Er, I guess so," said Lily uncertainly, picking up one of the many brushes lined up next to the canvas. "Any suggestions?"

"Anything is fine. It's been so dull here, without anything new. It takes too much effort to leave this room, doesn't it Edith?"

"Sure does Edna," said an identical face popping onto the canvas. Edith and Edna looked exactly alike, even down to the number of ringlets and freckles. The only difference was Edith's right eyebrow, which had a scar on it.

"Well.." Lily dipped her brush into some brown paint and drew a stick about three inches long. "How about that?"

"What kind of an artist are you?" Edith snorted, poking at the stick. "Can't you draw something more interesting?"

Lily shrugged and drew a random shape attached to the end of the stick.

"Hey look Edith, it's a hand bell!" Edna exclaimed, taking the "bell" and ringing it.

To Lily's surprise a clear, high note clanged out. Edith and Edna were delighted, and begged for more.

Soon they were playing "Hot Cross Buns" and "Mary Had a Little Lamb". They got other pictures to join in and soon they had their own little bell choir going.

"I wish I had some real music for you guys to play," said Lily wistfully and a stack of music popped onto a chair next to her.

Lily set up the music so the bell choir could see (everyone miraculously fit onto the canvas, for it had stretched to amazing proportions to accommodate everyone). To her dismay, it was a complete mess because none of the pictures, save for Edith, Edna, and a few others, even knew how to read music.

"I see this will need work," Lily sighed, then checked her watch. "Oh my, I have to go to sleep! I've got a Transfiguration exam tomorrow, so I need my rest. Sir Kingsley, will you kindly give me directions to this room tomorrow? Meet me outside Gryffindor tower in the Fat Lady's portrait, if you will."

"Certainly, good lady," said Sir Kingsley, sweeping an excellent bow.

As Lily climbed into bed, she couldn't image why such a room existed at Hogwarts, yet no one mentioned it. True, it was a large school, but if there was such a large room entirely devoted to the arts, why didn't Hogwarts show any other signs of acknowledging the arts?

Lily's roommates were still up, chatting excitedly about a chance encounter one of them had with a boy one of the girls (or all of them) apparently had a crush on.

"Like, I bumped into him as he was coming out of the bathroom!" Heather, a ditzy blond with blue eyes, clasped her hands and sighed dreamily.

"That boy is conceited. He knows he's popular, especially with the girls, and uses it to his advantage," said Trudy, a slightly nerdy looking girl who was also at times a mild cynic.

"You're just jealous because James can wear glasses and look cool while you look like a dork," said Myra, a twiggy girl with long black lashes.

"Why're you guys all mooning over James? Sirius is way nicer looking. Did you see the way he flipped his hair in the common room today? SO ADORABLE!" Celina hugged her pillow tightly.

"I think James ought to be warned he is being stalked," said Rena unconcernedly, painting her nails and blowing them dry. "And Sirius too, when it comes down to that. By the way, did you see their friend Remus? Now he is handsome. James and Sirius are nothing."

"They're all nutters," Lily muttered, pulling her curtains shut and burrowing deeper into her bed. "Boy crazy at 11 years. My goodness I'm surrounded by Petunias."