Remus was surprised to find that he was the first on in his dormitory to wake up. Normally around this time of month he would be sleeping rather late to catch up on what he had been and would be missing... but then again, he normally wouldn't be at school.

Still, what with six room-mates, the silence was a bit eerie, especially given the commotion that they had been making last night. It would take some getting used to, being around so many people he didn't know.

The tawny-haired boy studied the sleeping faces around him. In the bed to his right rested the boy with whom he had spent much of the previous evening: Severus Snape. The other boy had seemed rather unsure of himself last night, and Remus vaguely wondered what had caused this before moving on to the next boy. Of the three Quidditch lovers, his had been the only name Remus had caught—Frank Longbottom. The group seemed to have high hopes for the next year, and the waking boy envied them their confidence.

Hardly had he set eyes on the two remaining first year boys than an alarm sounded from someone's bedside table. Remus jumped, then hurried to get his things together before the others became fully awake. He needed a shower, and had no desire for any of the others to see that state of his body on the first day of classes.

He was in luck though; by the time he stopped by the dorm to pick up his books, few of his fellows were fully dressed, and just one of them—Severus—looked ready to head to breakfast. In fact, two boys, James and Sirius, had hardly moved from the position that they had been in when the alarm clock had sounded. Remus smiled knowingly, and on his way out he paused between the two beds.

"I don't blame you for wanting to sleep more," he told them quietly, "but if you don't hurry you'll miss breakfast."

James sat bolt upright. "Did somebody say breakfast?" he inquired, looking much more awake already. Remus's smile widened ever so slightly.

"Of course he did," Sirius informed him, stretching languidly as he spoke. "Thanks to your little plot, we've nearly slept through it."

"You're the one who insisted on waiting," the messy-haired boy protested before turning to Remus. "Thanks, mate. We shall forever be grateful for your selfless act of kindness."

Mumbling something along the lines of "you're welcome," the young scholar continued on his way to the Great Hall. This would have proved difficult had he and his fellow bookworm not been ready in time to follow a group of upperclassmen to their meal, but luckily they were. In fact, they were the only first-years present for ten minutes or so.

"It appears out classmates have gotten lost," Severus had commented when Remus noticed this fact aloud. James and Sirius, unsurprisingly, were the last ones to the table, but more than made up for this by digging in with a vengeance.

When the post came, Remus hardly expected to get any mail himself. Much to his delight, though, a letter rich with the latest from the twins and much concern from his parents (but mostly his mother) was dropped in front of him. After skimming its contents, he set it aside and found himself being studied by a pair of dark eyes.

"Are you alright?" he asked, noting Severus's odd expression.

"Why wouldn't I be?" was the somewhat sharp response. The tawny-haired boy decided to drop the subject, if there really was one, and continued picking at his food.

The remainder of breakfast he spent listening to conversations about the day's classes and what to expect, occasionally putting forth questions of his own. From what he gathered, most of the teachers were strict taskmasters (although Professor Binns was just plain boring) and would accept no excuses for misbehavior or late assignments. The more he heard, the tighter the knot of tension in his gut grew. Would they treat him differently? Would they think him a monster? Questions pounded through his brain until he began to feel queasy, and the sight of so much food did not help matters in the slightest. By the time students began leaving the table, however, he had reached one strong resolution: he would give them no reason whatsoever not to treat him like an average student, absences or not.

Their first class that morning was Transfiguration. Miraculously, no one got too terribly lost, so most, in fact, were on time. This lesson went more or less without incident, although Remus disliked the way Professor McGonagall hesitated at his name while taking roll.

The students' task that morning was to transfigure a piece of straw into a needle. The moment that the class was told to try the spell independently, Remus set to work, following all of the instructions to the letter. The straw on his desk remained unchanged for the most part. He furrowed his eyebrows and began the process again, searching for some step or syllable he had missed.

A ruckus in another part of the room distracted the studious boy's attention from his work. He looked up as the professor made her way in that direction.

"Very good Potter. Five points to Gryffindor." The middle-aged woman was interrupted by an indignant noise from Sirius, who was sitting in a desk next to James. "Yours could use work, Black. Note that the needle is blunt and still hollow."

Remus glanced at the desks around him. Most of his peers had only managed small changes in their straws, and several had turned theirs to a silvery color, but James appeared to be the only one to completely transfigure his piece. With this new motivation, the quieter boy once more tried the spell, this time resulting in a flawlessly formed steel needle.

No one noticed his victory.

He left Transfiguration satisfied that at the very least he had performed the spell accurately on the second try. Still, he was looking forward to History of Magic, despite the thrill of getting spells right. This, after all, was one of the very few subjects he could (and had) study on his own, and James's accomplishment had left him wishing slightly to show off just a bit.

Alas, this was not to be. Remus's hopes were dashed the moment the extremely elderly Professor Binns started his lecture. This professor had a terribly dull voice, and went about teaching as though he didn't care whether or not the speech was being listened to. The very determined young wizard tried to take notes at first, then realized that almost everything Binns was saying was from the textbook, and he knew most of it by heart besides. Why should he waste time with notes when he could just read the book?

That lesson set the tradition for just about all of the History of Magic lessons to come. Most of the students tried desperately to stay awake, but dozed off anyway. Some decided to follow different agendas and ended up passing notes or doodling. But all agreed that no class yet to come could possibly be as boring as the last one as they left the classroom.

Remus went to lunch wondering if the rest of their classes would be like the first two. Because if they were, life at Hogwarts would be much easier than he had expected.

- - -

Lily's amazement with the wizarding world was beginning to wear off slightly by the time that lunch began. Students still grumbled about their teachers, fell asleep in class, and formed alliances that would doubtless be broken before the end of another two or three terms. And Professor Binns rambled endlessly on just like a teacher that Lily remembered having a few years ago.

Little things continued to surprise her, though, like the way the portraits hung (or, she rather thought, strewn) haphazardly about the castle moved and chatted easily with passers-by, or the way upperclassmen in the common room the night before would, when in need of more light, simply say something to their wands, which would then light up, rather than adjusting a lamp or sitting closer to one. And the way the food had simply appeared on the tables for the last three meals still managed to surprise her every time.

Lily took her seat on the nearest of the Gryffindor benches after the most recent such appearance and began to fill her plate. Wizarding food seemed to taste so much better than anything Lily had eaten at home, although a rational part of her mind told her that this was simply due to the novelty of it. The meal was interrupted, however, (at least for those who, like Lily, were seated near the doors), by the arrival of a noisy conversation being held by three or four of the Slytherin boys entering the hall.

"Pettigrew, you leech, get away from me! Who gave you permission to follow me?" A boy with an impeccably smooth blond pony-tail drawled disdainfully. The boy following him, a short, plump, rat-like boy, looked utterly crushed.

"B-b-but Lucius," he—Pettigrew, Lily supposed—whimpered. Lucius gave a deep, frustrated sigh, stopped, and turned around to fact the other boy.

"Look, Pettigrew," the boy began. Lily lost track of their conversation as they were swept away towards the Slytherin table by a herd of first years, who had finally made their way to the Great Hall. Lily supposed that this Pettigrew person must really be troublesome to have been shunned by two groups within one day of their arrival at Hogwarts. She rather felt sorry for the boy, but shrugged it off. He would find his place sooner or later, doubtless.

Lily turned back to her lunch with a sigh. At least here, she was finally free of the burdensome Petunia...And with that content thought she began to eat her lunch.

- - -

'The first day, and already I'm wondering how much longer until classes end,' thought Sirius. 'Now, that can't be a good sign...' He couldn't help the sigh that that thought brought with it as he approached the lower levels of the castle for the afternoon's lesson in Potions. Perhaps, miracle of miracles, this class would actually be interesting. Unlike History of Magic. Sirius shuddered even to remember that one, and chose not to dwell on such unpleasant memories. Or on the fact that he could look forward to 7 years of such lessons.

When he finally reached the right classroom (or rather, dungeon), Sirius took a seat next to James, who had arrived early and taken advantage of the extra time to sneak in a bit of a nap. Sirius noticed distastefully that there was a trail of drool on the other boy's sleeve where his head was resting. Seeking a more pleasant location to focus his attention, his eyes swept across the room, taking inventory of his classmates. A few girls, clumped around a cauldron and glancing nervously about between giggles. Some boys heatedly discussing a recent Quidditch match and its possible effects on the outcome of an upcoming one. And there was that boy from the ice cream shop... Sirius couldn't have thought of the boy's name to save his life, but he seemed to be discussing something that he found fascinating with the boy next to him, the one who had been so kind as to awaken Sirius and James that morning.

Sirius was thinking of going to see what their conversation was about when the Potions professor entered the room. She was a short little witch with a stern face and hip-length auburn hair, and she introduced herself as Professor Licandro. It soon became apparent that this abrupt witch would tolerate no nonsense anywhere near her class, which made Sirius and the now-awake James glance at one another in disgust. It looked as though they were doomed to another class full of notes and (the dreaded L-word) learning. Then James winked. They would find a way to liven up the course hours soon enough.

After 2 hours of strenuous note-taking, the class finally ended. Sirius and James both shot up out of their seats the moment they were dismissed as if they had springs under their behinds, and fairly raced out into the hallway.

"Cripes, it was cold as anything in there!" James complained loudly. Sirius nodded his agreement while rubbing his arms to get rid of the copious goose bumps that had appeared on them.

"I'm all for going outside and exploring a bit," Sirius suggested. "After all, it's another few hours at least until dinner." James quickly agreed to this plan, all for enjoying the last of the early fall's warm air. Besides, this would help the pair to get an idea of the possible shape that their future pranks could take.

The pair of tricksters wandered the grounds, pointing out items of the landscape that might come in handy: a particularly large boulder, an unexpected bend in the castle's wall. They were intrigued by the Forbidden Forest, and dared one another to go in, but neither went further than a few trees in. They both wondered about the dangers that could quite easily be lurking just out of sight, and so did not venture further than their pride deemed necessary.

The boys soon tired of their game of dares, and so they decided to continue their explorations.

"Look at that." Sirius pointed an incredibly large tree out to his companion. "I wonder why there are no other trees nearby?"

"It looks like it hasn't been there that long," James observed. "See? The dirt around its base is still bare. No fallen leaves or stuff like that."

"I wonder why it has all those gouges out of its bark," Sirius pondered.

"That's the Whomping Willow," A gentle voice (which nonetheless almost made the boys jump out of their pants) behind them remarked. Sirius and James turned to see who had managed to sneak up on them, the kings of surprises.

"Remus Lupin," the golden-haired boy informed them. He seemed to be smirking happily a little at the trick he'd managed to play on the two of them, although it quickly changed to a pleased-to-meet-you smile as he extended his hand first to Sirius, then James, who introduced themselves in turn.

"I have to say, I didn't think anybody could sneak up on me like that," James told Lupin, looking more than a little impressed. Lupin shrugged, and then glanced at the sky, looking as though he were trying to figure something out.

"Almost time for supper," he commented mildly after a few moments. "Maybe we should go inside."

"An excellent plan," Sirius agreed, then glanced about, looking a little lost. "Now, who knows how to get to the Great Hall from here?

- - -

Pyxis: I apologize a hundred thousand times for taking so long to get this chapter done. Thanks for those of you who have waited for it.

Sidra: It was all her fault, you know. I had nothing to do with it.

Pyxis: Yes. Now don't rub it in, Siddie.

Sidra: in sing-song voice It's all your fault, it's all your fault...

Pyxis: Don't make me come over there and beat you!

Sidra: It would take you 3 hours to get here. I have time to run.

Pyxis: You suck, you know that, don't you?

Sidra: No, you suck!

Pyxis: Yep. I suck juice boxes!

Sidra: And now back to the regularly scheduled end of your chapter...