Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters created by JK Rowling. But, anything you don't recognize is mine.

I wanna say thank you to my fist reviewer EVER, Toria. Thanks a bunch for that review (luckily it was positive) and I have been inspired to write a WHOLE NEW CHAPTER…within a week. Thank you!! A special thanks to Shree. You have given me some great tips. Thanks!

I don't have much to say, but here's chapter two…………

~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*

That Thing You Do

Chapter 2

          The day finally came for Lily to go to Hogwarts. She had been vigorously studying her books for the past two weeks in hopes that she wouldn't be too much further behind the other students. Little did she know that she was further along than most of the students of her year, and a few of the next.

          Sooner than she expected, Lily was standing alone between platforms 9 and 10, a perplexed expression on her face. She had said goodbye to her family earlier because Petunia needed to go to a recital at 11 o'clock and now she wasn't exactly sure how to get to platform 9 ¾. She was positive the entrance was somehow hidden from the Muggles at the station and was wondering where it could be when she saw a tall, thin girl with blonde hair and blue eyes pushing a cart with a trunk and owl's cage similar to hers. The girl was walking towards the barrier dividing platforms 9 and 10. Lily was about to tell the girl to look out for the barrier when she disappeared into the wall. A woman who appeared to be her mother soon followed the girl.

          Lily was unsure of what to do next. She stood, staring at the barrier for ten minutes until she realized the train would be departing in half an hour. She would surely miss it if she didn't do anything soon. Lily decided her only choice was to go through the barrier.

          Looking around to make sure not too many people were there to witness her disappear into the barrier, or make a fool of herself if she were to fail, Lily began to push her cart towards the sturdy brick wall. She closed her eyes when she was about to meet the wall only to open them and see the scarlet Hogwarts Express smoking in front of her. She'd done it.

          Relieved, Lily started to make her way towards the train when she heard a familiar voice, "Lily! Over here!" Lily looked in the direction from which the voice came to find James and Sirius waving wildly at her. She grinned as they walked over, excited to have found her friends.

          Soon, there was another boy who joined them: Remus Lupin a young boy, pale but handsome with his light brown hair and his wisdom-filled honey eyes. Remus said hello to James and Sirius and introduced himself to Lily. The three boys then helped Lily get her luggage onto the train and searched for an empty compartment. They quickly found one at the end of the train and were seated as the Hogwarts Express pulled out of the station.

~~~***~~~

As Lily sat, looking out the window, she began to hear muffled sniggers coming from the boys. She tried to ignore them, but they just kept getting louder. She had almost succeeded in blocking them out when Sirius let out a huge cackle and Lily whipped her head around.

          "What are you laughing at?"

          "Nothing," Sirius said innocently, too innocently.

          "I DEMAND to know WHAT IT IS!" Lily yelled getting frustrated.

          "James turned your hair blue," a short, chubby boy stated matter-of-factly. He had just entered the compartment.

          "And how do you know it was him?" Lily asked, eyes widening as she saw her electric blue hair.

          "He did the same thing to me a few hours ago."

          "PETER!" James yelled.

          "Oh, sorry." Peter said, feeling slightly guilty as he plopped himself down in an empty seat next to Remus.

          "Oh, how nice of you to apologize," Lily sarcastically commented, "but HOW do you change my hair back?"

          "Err…" James thought.

          "Great!" Lily screamed hysterically. She turned to Peter, "How did you change your hair back?"

          "M-my m-mom was here. Sh-she changed it back," Peter sputtered out.

          "Oh no!" Lily moaned into her hands.

          "Nice one James. Maybe next time you change somebody's hair, you should know how to change it back," Remus logically stated.

          "Well, I think I could help," a small voice said. "My brother did that to me when he came back for Christmas during his first year. I memorized the counter-charm" (A/N- is there such thing?? As I've said, I'm new to this…) the voice belonged to the girl Lily saw go through the barrier. After she had turned Lily's hair back to red, she introduced herself as Arabella Figg. It turned out she was also a first year and had been searching for an empty seat. The group welcomed her and Lily and Arabella instantly became friends. It's something about changing one's hair back to its natural color that brings two people together. Plus, they were the only girls in the crowd and Lily needed a new friend since she wasn't talking to the boys. However, that didn't stop Arabella and Lily from talking about them. (A/N- I know, they're eleven. But I remember when I was that age I did that stuff…)

"So," Arabella whispered to Lily, "Which one of the boys do you think's the cutest?"

"Try none," Lily lied. She personally thought they all were cute in their own way, excluding Peter. However, she was mad at James for turning her hair blue and the others for not telling her so she'd never admit to it, well, at least not at the moment.

Arabella on the other hand was not as close-minded on the matter. She didn't hesitate to tell Lily her personal analysis of all the boys.

"Ok, well, since you don't fancy any of them, I guess I can tell you my views of them all!" Arabella whispered, beaming. She led Lily out of the compartment so as not to be heard. Returning to her normal voice level, Arabella explained her observations.  "Okay, they will be announced in order from cute to GORGEOUS, got it? Good. Starting off will be Peter. At a first glance, all you see is a stuttering pig. However, at a second glance, you will find…a stuttering pig with completely adorable little pudgy cheeks!!! Don't you find that just sweet?" Arabella observed the blank look on Lily's face and took it as a 'no.' "Alright, alright, I get the picture… BUT…next up will be Reeeeeeemusssss LUPIN!"

"Shhh!" Lily scowled. "They'll hear you!"

"So? It's not like they'll care. Can I continue?" She waited for Lily to nod before she started up again. "Okay, Remus Lupin. He's rather mature looking for his age. I like. I mean, his eyes, they're just filled with so much…wisdom! You gotta love it, huh? Yeah, I totally agree." Arabella agreed without receiving any response from Lily, who was still wearing a blank expression.

"Next up, JAMES!!!!!" Arabella practically screamed!

'Oh, my, God,' Lily thought disbelievingly. 'Could she possibly be any louder…do I really wanna know?"

"There's something about his hair that is totally groovy!" Arabella smiled at the thought. " And his eyes are so…dreamy. Those icy mixtures of blues and grays" Arabella stared into space for a few seconds.

'She does have a point there,' Lily thought but did not hesitate to mentally correct herself, ' BUT he still was completely wrong to have changed my hair…' Lily silently laughed at the prank, 'Now that I think about it, it was sorta funny.' The smile must have spread to her face because within a second of the thought Arabella had practically pounced on her.

"OH MY GOSH!!! YOU LIKE JAMES! YOU LIKE JAMES! YOU LIKE JAMES!" Arabella sang along gleefully. " I was positive that there was at least one of them you liked. I'm just happy it wasn't Sirius!"

"I don't like James!" Lily contradicted.

"Which reminds me," Arabella continued, ignoring Lily, "I haven't told you about Sirius yet! Welllll, he is TOTALLY handsome…ugh…he takes my breath away. I mean, have you seen his hair! Oh, its so…LONG!! I totally dig it! And his eyes, ohh, those beautiful eyes, I LOVE brown eyes. They're just so warm, and welcoming, and ohhh… Have I mentioned his hair? It's so…LONG!" Arabella's swooning would've gone on for ages unless she hadn't heard herself being imitated on the other side of the compartment door.

"Oh, Sirius. You're just so…HANDSOMMMMME…and so…AHHHHHHHHHH… and your hair is just so LONNNNNNNNNNNNNGGGGGGGG!" James mimicked, clearly over exaggerating.

Arabella's lovesick grin soon changed into a vicious scowl. She quickly opened the door and blushed slightly at the picture in front of her. Three boys were lying on the floor, clutching their stomachs and cackling like hyenas. The fourth boy, Sirius, was blushing slightly with a lopsided grin on his face.

          'Oh, I'm such an idiot!' Arabella thought to herself.

          'Oh she's such an idiot' Lily agreed, without realizing her friend's thoughts.

          'Does she really like me? A girl? Already?' Sirius thought to himself. 'Man, I'm good!'

          Finally finding her voice, Arabella shouted, "HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN LISTENING?!"

          "Ever since we heard you tell the whole bus how much Lily adores James," Peter said, secretly enjoying the feeling of taunting the innocent. Lily was about to get in an, 'I told you you were loud' when she realized what Peter had just said.

          "She doesn't like me!"

          "I don't like him!" Lily and James shouted at the same time.

          Remus, being the logical one, decided he should end the conversation to prevent making enemies before school had even started. "Okay guys. Until we have actual hard evidence, NOBODY likes ANYBODY, okay? Good. Now, let's settle down. The food trolley's here."

~*~

          Lily was in awe as she saw the food trolley coming into view. She had never seen real wizard's candy before. She had been expecting the usual Muggle sweets, but was amazed at the chocolate frogs that actually moved and the Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans that were literally every flavor imaginable. Of course, Arabella and the boys had neglected to inform her of this fact until she found herself spitting out a disgustingly familiar flavor she couldn't quite and didn't want to recognize.

          The only true benefit of sharing a compartment with the boys was that between the four of them, they practically cleared the trolley of all its contents. Lily had the chance to overindulge in Pumpkin Pasties, Drooble's Best Blowing Gum, Cauldron Cakes, and Licorice Wands.

          As the boys greedily stuffed their faces like the gluttons they were, Lily turned to Arabella and whispered something into her ear with a mischievous grin on her face. Arabella turned to Lily, winked and nodded as they planned sweet revenge on the boy who dared turn Lily's hair sapphire! Though Lily was completely fascinated with the wizarding world, she wanted to prank James the Muggle way: simple, but wicked. Therefore, she chose the prank she always played on the boys at her old Muggle school, itching powder in the pants, or robes in this case.

          Arabella's job in the prank was to be the decoy. Lily knew she could count on her friend to somehow keep the boys' attention as she stole James's robes. After all, she had occupied Lily for quite a while with her boy talk. Lily was sure keeping the boys' attention would be as easy as pie for her blue-eyed friend.

~*~

          At Lily's signal (an obvious cough) Arabella nearly killed all the boys as she leapt from her chair, an enthusiastic expression on her face.

          'You gotta love her,' Lily thought as she saw the perfect opportunity to snatch James's robes while the boys made sure all their limbs were still working and picked their food up off the floor.

          "Oh-mi-gosh!!! Do you guys wanna see the pictures of my cats?" Arabella questioned eagerly.

          "Uh…err…SURE!" Sirius said, obviously not interested at all in looking at cats.

          "Siri-Why not!" James quickly corrected after Sirius glared at him.

          "Sure…," the other boys reluctantly agreed, as happy as their other two peers about the 5 minutes they would have to stop eating. These boys sure underestimated Arabella's passion for cats, because 15 minutes later Arabella wasn't even half way through her stack. It was around this time Lily opened the door, snuck James's robes back to where she found them, and slid into a seat, unnoticed by all the boys who were using all of their energy to stay awake.

          Once Arabella had gotten started on her cats, she didn't want to finish talking about them. The moving photos of Arabella's cats had fascinated Lily since Muggle pictures didn't move--that is, for the first five minutes. Even she found herself bored after getting over how the fuzzy furballs in the photo weren't standing still. Eventually, Lily shut Arabella up by telling her the train would be pulling into the school in half an hour and that they'd better change into their robes. Having said that, the boys perked up and ordered the girls to leave the compartment as they changed.

Lily nudged Arabella as they came back into the compartment. She saw that James was looking rather uncomfortable, but didn't bother do mention the matter. She'd let James find out in his own time. Meanwhile, she and Arabella had to change into their own robes. The tables were turned as the boys found themselves standing in the hall.

Remus was the first to notice James squirming. "You all right James?"

"Yeah, Remus…just got a little itch," James understated.

"Okay," Remus replied, unconvinced. However, he didn't feel like talking to James about his itching problems at the moment. Right now he was worried about the sorting ceremony. After they were welcomed back into the compartment Remus opened the topic of the sorting to the others.

"So guys, what do you think's gonna happen with the sorting?"

"Well, my brother says that you have to go through a really really hard test and they make you do spells. I think you have to turn a button into a mouse! And, and if you don't do it…they send you back on the train to go home!"

"Guys, li-," Lily started, soon to be interrupted by another of her friends.

"Oh no!" James said squirming in his seat, trying to scratch his back. "I can't do any magic like this!"

"Like what, Jamsie dear?" Lily sweetly asked. "Feeling a little…itchy?"

Immediately James yelled, "UNDO IT!!!"

"Huh?" Lily asked, sincerely confused.

"UNDO THE ITCHING SPELL…I KNOW WHAT YOU'VE DONE!"

"Really James, I didn't put any itching spell on you!"

"Right…Like I'm supposed to believe that!"

"You should! I didn't use any magic to make you itch."

"Then what DID you use?" James asked as if magic were the only obvious answer.

"Itching powder. 100% Muggle." Lily stated, proud to have out-smarted James the Muggle way.

"Oh…" James said, embarrassed as everyone burst out laughing. "But, how do you make it stop?"

"Well, the only way is by washing it off, which means…a shower would be the most logical answer."

"But, the SORTING CEREMONY. I don't have a shower until I have a house! How am I supposed to be sorted?"

"Well, it's not too difficult anyways. I was trying to tell you before. I read earlier in Hogwarts a History-great book, you know-sorting is done by a hat. All we have to do is sit in a chair, place the hat on our head, and it chooses whether we'll be in Gryffindor, Slytherin, Hufflepuff, or Ravenclaw. I suspect this is done in front of the school. So the most you'll have to do is sit still for a few seconds."

"Okay," James said, relieved, "and Lily?"

"Yeah James?"

"Do you have any more of that itching powder? It would be great to use on we Wizards. We would never realize a shower would cure us! Great things you Muggles do without magic!"

Smiling, Lily replied, "Why, of course James. Truce?"

"Truce," James stated, glad to have escaped the fiery wrath of Lily.

~*~

 The Hogwart's Express came to a slow halt as it pulled into the station. The group nervously got off the train, leaving their luggage as they'd been instructed. Somewhere out of the darkness came a gruff voice, "Firs' years! This way!" A lamp was lighted and a giant of a man appeared from the black surrounding him. "Follow me. This way firs' years. Is that all of yeh? Any other firs' years out there need teh follow me. This way. C'mon."

James leading the way, the six friends followed the huge man down a steep, slender path. Then, suddenly, they all let out amazed sighs as they saw Hogwarts for the first time, perched on the top of a high mountain. They were standing at the edge of an immense black lake with several small boats lining the shore.

"On'y four to a boat!" Hagrid called. The four boys of course chose their own boat, leaving the girls to share their boat with two strangers. Luck must not have been on their side because onto their boat stepped none other than Severus Snape, a tall thin boy with extremely greasy black hair along with another boy who looked to be the "Slytherin type". He took one look at the two girls, shook his head, and smirked; sure they were the type to end up in Hufflepuff. He soon attempted to amuse himself by getting the girls to believe they'd have to do magic in order to be sorted, but much to his disappointment, the girls already knew the true method.

The boats abruptly took off and started the journey across the lake. Severus took this as a great time to frighten the girls with the legend of the giant squid that he knew was obviously not true. That is, until the squid happened to lift one of its tentacles out of the water. Severus's eyes widened as he saw the squid. But as the girls turned around, the squid's tentacle vanished. By now, the girls thought Severus was just pulling their legs (which wasn't too far from the truth) and took to disliking him from that moment on.

"Heads down!" Hagrid called as the boats approached the cliff on which Hogwarts was perched.

All heads went down as the boats passed through the screen of ivy hiding a huge hole in the cliff's wall. They went through a dim passageway until they reached an underground port, where they climbed out of their boats, about to enter their home for the next seven years of their lives.

~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*

Okay, soo…how was it? I think this chapter was much better than the first one, but towards the end I think it got bad. My mood wasn't that terrific towards the end of the chapter, so I'm sorry if it got a little dry. Well, next chappie, HOGWARTS! Tell me what you think of it so far, and thanks to those who have reviewed (oh, and thanks Jen and Teeny for reading it…hehe. Oh, and Teeny, I got you hooked on fanfics, didn't I?) Well guys, don't be afraid to review! All you have to do is click on the button down there… OH! And just so you know, I think I'm gonna have the next chapter up within the next week, I hope. After all, I got this one up in about 5 days. Maybe your reviews will push me along ((wink wink, nudge nudge)). Well…TTFN!! ***smooches***

DanniBannani