Hypocrites Always Fall in Love

Disclaimer: I don't own any of this (except most of the plot, and the characters you don't recognize). It all belongs to the amazing J.K. Rowling.

Chapter Nine – The Mysterious Staircase

The feast was fabulous, in Lily's opinion. She had never seen so much food, or tasted such delicious treats. Her only peeve was that James Potter unknowingly tried to make conversation with her while Sirius chatted with Remus Lupin. Unfortunately, she couldn't escape with Lexy's help either. She was listening to something the girl across from her, Maia Culina, was telling her about life in Italy.

"It is wonderful, and everyone is very good at art and making pizza…"

Luckily, Lily was able to engage Catalina Verde in a discussion, completely disregarding Potter, and his way about him.

"He's so annoying," Lily whispered to Catalina, pointing in the direction of James, who was currently trying to grab her attention.

"Oh, yeah," she nodded, grinning at her and spooning some mashed potatoes onto her plate, "A cute boy trying to talk to you is the most horrible thing I ever did hear."

"Hey!" Lily giggled, "Don't mock me!"

"I wasn't," Catalina replied to her companion, smiling again, "My name is Catalina Verde, just so you don't feel like you're talking to some idle stranger."

"Oh…I didn't," Lily grinned back, taking a swig from her pumpkin juice, "I'm Lily Evans."

"How nice to meet you," Catalina joked to her, mocking all formality, but meaning the gesture.

"Yeah, really," she responded, happy to find someone who was so much like her. She was sarcastic, but in a good way, and this made Lily smile.

The feast carried on from there, much with the same mood and not many changes to it. The only truly exciting thing was when one of the newly sorted Sytherins turned a fellow Gryffindor first year's pumpkin juice into dragon blood. This caused quite a commotion, as the student, Peter Pettigrew, unfortunately didn't notice this in time and had to be sent to the hospital wing.

After the feast, the Gryffindors were lead up to their tower by Molly Cartright, a seventh year prefect. The password ("Oogleberry!") was given to the Fat Lady, of whom they were told to beware of her moodiness if you happen to wake her during her "beauty rest."

Upon entering the Common Room, Lily was in awe at all the red and gold that surrounded her. Comfy, scarlet armchairs were placed close to the blazing fire going in the fire place, and around the rest of the room. The walls were full of ornate patterns, deep shades of gold and red. End tables had been intelligently positioned next to the armchairs and deep red couches; on theses tables were gold lamps with gorgeous white lamp shades over top them. Spiral staircases on either sides of the room led you to boys' dormitories or girls, depending to which you went up.

Lexy looked over at Lily with wide eyes and stated, "This place is huge!"

Lily just looked at her and grinned.

"I know!"

Regrettably, for all the Gryffindor students present in the Common Room, a little mischievous ghost poked his head out from behind a burgundy tapestry on the wall. His eyes were lit up with a certain sparkle to them as he gazed longingly upon the innocence in the room. Lily noticed that he wasn't, as a matter of fact, pearly white, like some of the other ghosts she had seen earlier at the feast. No…he was solid-looking, almost like a normal human-being. Only he could float in the air.

He chose that exact moment to swoop down on his naive, first year victims. He let out an evil grin before he attacked. Eggs went flying, as some hit the children, while others clearly missed. One of the few odd things about the eggs being flung at the kids was that some were hard-boiled while others were not, so Lily wasn't quite sure which ones to dodge. Although, she had to laugh when Lexy got a hard-boiled one pitched into her mouth.

"Hey, that's not funny." Lexy scoffed at her as she took the thing out and tossed it on the ground.

Lily ducked again as an egg was aimed at her head. While kneeling on the floor, she grabbed Lexy's egg and launched it at the flying man's head.

"Peeves!" yelled the prefect, Molly, while he was thrown backward from an egg that had gotten a little too close to his head (but going through it, of course), "Come down and leave them alone."

The ghost appeared not to hear, and went on aiming eggs.

"Peeves!" a woman called above the prefect's voice.

Peeve dropped the last of his eggs and disappeared as Professor McGonagall advanced on him. He's like the Chester cat from "Alice in Wonderland," Lily thought to herself.

As Molly addressed the Professor about what had happened with Peeves, the students looked around at each other. Almost everyone had been covered with egg. James and Sirius the most, Lily noticed as she watched them whisper to one another with that other boy, Remus Lupin.

"That ghost was sooo cool," James said to Sirius, who just grinned at him.

Lily rolled her eyes at them. Silly boys.

The prefect came back a few minutes later and McGonagall left. The older students had also dispersed to clean up and rid themselves of the horrible egg that covered their uniform.

"I suppose I should be pleased, since that's one less thing I have to show you. The ghost is, obviously, Peeves, the resident poltergeist here at Hogwarts," she pushed up the rims of her glasses on her face, "He tends to cause more havoc here than any of you can dream of creating. You might want to, you know, avoid him at all costs type of thing."

She let her words sink into the minds of the young ones for a moment.

"Now, I suggest you go to bed. You have long day ahead of you."

The first years headed up their separate staircases to their dormitories. Lily was surprised to find all her things in her room, next to one of the beds.

Lily moved quietly towards the poster bed that she claimed as hers while her roommates drank in their surroundings.

Lexy picked the bed to the left of Lily's and threw herself onto it, staring at the ceiling.

Then Catalina took the other bed next to Lily's and jumped into it happily, causing the girls to laugh at her antics. Maia just grinned, and took a pillow from the top of her trunk and placed it softly on her own bed.

Renee laughed as she began unpacking, "Strange place, it is here. Egged on the first day and everything."

"Not as strange as that one, I'm afraid," Maia giggled, gesturing to Catalina, who had flopped onto her bed, now posed like Lexy.

Catalina lifted her head in protest.

"I resent that."

"I don't," Lexy smiled, turning her head to Catalina, "You have more energy than anxious hippogriff."

The girls just giggled some more and introduced themselves to one another.

------------------------

Meanwhile, in the boys' dormitory, there was much less chatter. Rather, Remus Lupin had gone to see the headmaster to "discuss an important matter," so Sirius and James were devising a list of fun things to do and pranks to pull in the castle during this year. Peeves the poltergeist had inspired them and they weren't about to waste that energy on anything else, like going to sleep.

Their other roommate (since Peter Pettigrew was still in the hospital wing) had gone to bed and fallen asleep before he had time to inform the two boys present what his name was.

"Just conked out like that," Sirius whispered, snapping his fingers. "It amazes me."

"I think everything amazes you, Sirius," James said back, "Now, how 'bout this list?"

He pointed to the piece of parchment in his hand, indicating that he thought they needed to get back to work.

"Can we finish this later, James? I'm beginning to smell funny," Sirius said, frowning at the boy sitting across from him, "And so are you."

James just glanced down at his and Sirius clothes. The egg was starting to smell rotten and feel pretty gross. He figured they probably should shower up so they wouldn't stick to their beds or something.

"Alright," he agreed, shoving the parchment and his quill into his bedside table drawer and hopping off his bed, "I get the shower first!"

"No fair," Sirius glowered as James raced into the bathroom and started the water.

----------------------

Lily was shaken awake the next morning by Catalina, whom had deemed herself the alarm-clock. She seemed to like getting up early, as she was the first one out of bed the next morning.

"Lily..." Catalina whispered, shaking he gently and pushing her own wavy, light brown hair out of her eyes, "Time to get up, sleepyhead."

"Hurmphish." Lily replied sleepily, turning over onto her side, effectively blocking Catalina from reaching her. Unfortunately this put her face towards the rising sun that shone in the open window.

Lily blinked slightly, and slowly opened her eyes. The morning sunrise lit the cool sky brightly, nearly blinding her. She rubbed her eyes and staggered out of bed, squinted at the window, feeling the warm, summer-like air wrap around her body like a blanket.

She felt oddly refreshed, even though she'd had a bit of trouble falling asleep that last night. Lily yawned quietly, just so not to wake up the other girls sleeping soundly in the room.

Other girls?

Lily blinked again, finally remembering where she was. She was at Hogwarts. Wonderful Hogwarts. And today was the first day of classes.

Suddenly she had all the energy in the world on her side.

Lily smiled as she glanced out the window once more, trying to get herself used to the amount of light that was now seeping into her squinting eyes. She decided to cast a glance in the direction of Catalina, who was currently waking up Maia. Rather, she was trying to wake her. Maia kept swatting her away with her hand.

"Go away." Maia moaned, rolling over.

"S'long as you get up," Catalina said, shaking her again, smiling at Lily, who was currently stifling a laugh.

"I'm up. I'm up..." Maia said, dragging herself out of bed, glaring at Catalina.

"Well, she isn't a morning person," Catalina whispered to Lily, as Maia stalked off to the bathroom and a loud bang coming from the bathroom door.

"Apparently not." Lily replied, giggling, and returning from the window to her bed. She knelt down on the floor and opened her large trunk at the foot of her bed.

"Hey!" Lexy called to Maia, sitting up in her bed, "What was that for?"

Lily gathered that they obviously have two not-so-morning-people in the dormitory. She dug deeper into her trunk to find her Hogwarts robes, as Lexy found her way to the bathroom to address Maia.

"What was that?" Renee asked from her corner of the room, having been woken from the yelling.

"What we'll have to deal with every morning for the rest of the year," Catalina said, sighing quietly and seating herself on her own bed. She took a brush from her bedside table and began brushing her hair to get the bed-knots out of it.

"Oh joy, huh?" Lily said to Renee, setting off some quiet laughter.

---------------------------

Lily was feeling fairly pleasant that day, since it was time for classes. She had looked over some of her books the night before and was intrigued by the topics. It was the sort of excitement that she just could not shake off.

Breakfast had been tolerable, almost enjoyable, as she sat next to Catalina and Lexy chatting away animatedly. She even spotted Remus Lupin and James Potter sitting across from her and that didn't dampen her mood.

Of course, she never uttered so much as, "Please pass the toast," to either of them.

It was not too much later that her mood was crushed completely.

She had had the unfortunate luck of running into a certain staircase. Now, which staircase she had come to be a victim of, she wasn't sure, since they appeared to be moving at a constant rate. Lily, in any case, became a witness to this firsthand.

No sooner had she made her way up the marble staircase, on her way to Transfiguration, her first class, did they decide to switch on her.

"Bloody staircase…" Lily muttered, holding on tight to the railing, "Where to now?"

As the stairs re-connected, Lily heading up the only way she could now go. Straight.

After a few minutes of wandering quietly down the corridor, trying to find her way through the tangled mess of passages that make Hogwarts, well…Hogwarts, she sighed aimlessly. She would never find her way to her first class. She continued to roam the hallways, looking for someone to ask directions of. For heavens sake, there were thousands of kids, a slew of teachers and more ghosts than she could count. You'd think she would come across someone eventually.

Just as Lily was about to be convinced that she was going to die in this bloody corridor, her day got worse.