Chapter 5:

"Oh shit!" James yelled as looked at the clock.

"What?" asked Sirius, clearly startled.

"It's 9:15!" James said pulling his pants on inside out. "We're hell a late!"

"Damn it, and on our first day too. Why didn't Remus wake us?" He asked, outraged.

"Dunno, we'll get him back for it though. But for right now lets worry about getting to our first class on time. What time does it start again?"

"How the hell am I supposed to know? We were supposed to get our schedules at breakfast." Sirius said.

"Okay, let's go down to the Great Hall then." James said.

"Why were gonna be late either way, why don't we just go to class?" Sirius asked.

"Because we don't know what class we have moron." James said.

"True…" Sirius said. "Let's go faster, we don't want to be too late."

"Too late for that. But let's run faster anyways! Race ya!" James said, sprinting off towards the Great Hall.

"Okay then, but you'll be sorry!" Sirius yelled, sprinting off after him.

The boys sprinted off towards the Great Hall, James still in the lead but Sirius not far behind. James was about to enter the Great Hall when he looked back at Sirius and smirked. He was going to win, or at least he thought he was until he ran right into Professor McGonagall, and Sirius entered the Great Hall in front of him.

"Sorry Professor!" he exclaimed, apologetically.

"That's quite alright Mr. Potter," Professor McGonagall said, turning and walking away.

"That was bloody close!" James said. "Thank God she didn't ask us why we weren't in class!"

"Yeah," Sirius agreed. "Now all we have to do is find some schedu… …bloody hell!" Sirius said, looking towards the doors of the Great Hall.

"What?" James asked, turning around to see Professor McGonagall walking through the doors with a stern look on her face. "Oh…"

"What," Professor McGonagall started, steam seeming to come out through her nostrils, "May I ask are you boys doing skipping class, ON YOUR FIRST DAY!"

"Slept in…" Sirius said looking up at her innocently.

"We need our schedules, we accidentally slept through breakfast." James said. "It WON'T happen again" he added quickly.

"No that it won't, Mr. Potter" Professor McGonagall thought for a second. "Yes. You along with Mr. Black will receive a detention along with your schedule. Now, I believe you have a double block of charms first. Now hurry along to it before you're later than you already are. You will receive your schedules along with your detentions at lunch today."

Sirius and James didn't reply, they just left the Great Hall and headed towards the charms classroom. They found a 5th year prefect and asked for directions. James did all the talking while Sirius just stood their staring at her. When they came to a fork they stopped. "Which way's west?" James asked.

"Dunno, why?" Sirius asked.

"Because the prefect said that the charms classroom was on the 13th floor, in the west wing!" James said indignantly.

"Oh…" Sirius said, a look of comprehension dawning on his face. "I thought she said if you were 13 we could have a fling…"

"C'mon! She's 15 and she's gorgeous. She could have any 7th year she wanted. Why would she like you?" James asked

"Cause I'm hot…" Sirius said, still in his own world.

"Someone's cocky," James said. "Now c'mon, we gotta get to class before we miss it entirely."

"Doesn't sound half bad, actually." Sirius said.

"Damn it" James said, getting annoyed. "I just need to know which ways west!"

"I already told you, I don't know!"

"How are we supposed to get to class then?"

"Hell if I know! Let's just sit here."

"C'mon, don't ya wanna give Remus a good kick in the ass for not waking us up when we get there?"

"Let's go then!" Sirius said, taking the left path.

"Wait! How do you know that that goes west?" James asked.

"Because on maps, west is always to the left." Sirius said simply.

"That's assuming that that way is north!" James said, pointing out the window to their right.

"Oh…" Sirius said. "But does it really matter? I don't know which way's west, you don't know which way's west, and by just sitting there, we're never gonna figure it out. Best we can do is guess!"

"You're right…" James said, "and a genius!" He said looking at a door on his left.

"A classroom!" Sirius said. He went over and opened the door. However, by the look of things, it wasn't the charms classroom. In fact, he didn't know what class it was for, because at the precise moment he opened the door, a dragon came protruding out of the closet. Both boys stood there looking at it for a second before the teacher walked around the students and closed the door.

"There you guys are!" said a tan, short girl with a high-pitched voice and a pretty face. "I've been wondering where you were all morning."

"You were?" Sirius asked as James ran his hands through his hair.

"Yeah, well. Evans has been showing off all morning. Been hoping somebody would hex her." The girl said. "I'm Marlene McKinnon, by the way."

"Sirius Black"

"James Potter"

"I know." Marlene said. "You guys better get to class."

"Where is it?" James asked.

"Go down this hall for a while, it'll be the third classroom on the right!"

"Thanks." Sirius muttered. "HA! Told you this way was west!" He said to James.

"You didn't know! Now get your sorry ass to Charms." James said.

"You not coming?" Sirius asked.

"No, I think I'm just gonna sit here and stare at my hands." James said sarcastically. "Of course I'm coming!"

With that they walked through the doors and into the Charms classroom.

So far Lily's day had gone pretty well. She liked all of her classes except for History of Magic where she could barely stay awake. She listened to Professor Binns drown on and on for the entire hour and a half of class. He was going to die soon, she knew it. She had History of Magic with Emmie, so they made a deal, she would take half of the notes and Emmie would take half of the notes.

She could barely stay awake enough to finish them. But she persisted for Emmie's sake, and did not close her eyes once. It seemed to help Lily that she was taking the notes for someone else rather than just herself. She wasn't only jeopardizing her grades, but she was jeopardizing Emmie's as well. She would feel horrible if Emmie failed because of her.

Throughout the entire first half of class, all Professor Binns talked about was how Hogwarts started. He spent forty-five minutes telling a story that could have been told in ten. This was not only a waste of time, but made it incredibly boring for the students. He described every detail of everything, including the earrings that Rowena Ravenclaw was wearing on the first day that Hogwarts opened.

"How would you know?" James Potter asked when Professor Binns made this comment. "Where you there?"

"Old enough to be." Sirius said. The two boys laughed along with the rest of the class and gave each other high fives.

Lily was surprised that they were even paying attention. For not five minutes ago she had looked over at there desk and they had seemed to be sound asleep. 'Oh well…' she thought, and she continued on with her notes.

Defense Against the Dark Arts was better, although still not that fun. Professor Agrippa spent the entire class period going over the syllabus and trying to learn their names, with no help from Black and Potter. At the beginning of class she told the class that she was no good at names.

When she said this, Lily looked over to see the two troublemakers exchange smirks. The first time that she asked for their names Black called himself James and Potter called himself Sirius. However, went she went back and tried to remember their names, Potter and Black both kept their names. Their plan worked, Professor Agrippa was so confused that the only person's name she could remember was Marlene McKinnon's. Although Lily didn't care much for the two troublemakers, she had to admit that they were funny.

Lily enjoyed Transfiguration, but not as much as she would've if Potter wasn't in the classroom. Although she would never admit it, Lily liked to be the best at things, and it annoyed her that Potter, who seemed to never study, was able to transfigure his match into a very sharp needle on the first try. Lily, however, didn't get he needle transfigured into a needle until her 3rd try, and, even then, her needle wasn't as sharp as Potter's first one.

Charms, however, was Lily's favorite class. In that she was better than Potter and everyone else. She was the first one to master the levitating charm, and was able to smirk at Marlene and Kaitlyn. Also, she didn't have to worry about Potter and Black, for the first half of the class at least. Then came running in late half way through the class. Although they said that they had already been punished by McGonagall, Flitwick decided to take five points away from each of them

The boys didn't seem embarrassed in the slightest, at getting points taken away from them. Lily was angry about this. They had just lost the points she had won for being the first in the class to perform the "wingardeoum leviosa" charm correctly. She hated arrogant little boys who cared for no one but themselves. They thought they were above classes, that's why they didn't bother waking up for class this morning.

"What do we have next?" James asked.

"Dinner!" Sirius exclaimed happily.

"Funny. Every other time James asked that question you didn't know what the next class was." Remus said.

"Yeah well, I only remember the important ones." Sirius said. "I'm starving!"

"You're still hungry after eating a whole chicken and half a pie at lunch?" Remus asked, astonished.

"That was six hours ago!" Sirius said, indignantly.

"And my mother thinks I eat a lot. When you come over this summer, we're really gonna stock up our refrige…" James started.

"…What's that?" Remus interrupted, pointing to a single golden feather sitting in the corner of the room with a note.

"Let's go read it!" James said, motioning for Remus and Sirius to follow him.

The three boys walked to the corner of the room, but were soon cut off by Professor McGonagall. "Excuse me." She said curtly as she bent down and picked up the paper. Sirius, James and Remus stared at her as she read the letter, her look of concern strengthening as she read on.

"What was that about, professor?" James asked when she finished.

"I think that that is none of your business, that you boys have gotten yourselves in enough trouble for one day, and that you should head off to dinner." Professor McGonagall said curtly, before walking off and entering a door about ten paces to their right.

"What are we waiting for?" Sirius asked before heading towards the door.

"Wait!" Remus said grabbing his shoulder and bringing him back. "Do you really think we should be doing this?" he asked.

"Why not?" Sirius asked. "I wanna see what's got McGonagall so down."

"What about dinner?" Remus asked. "I thought you were starving!"

"This is more important." Sirius said before turning in the opposite direction and heading towards the door.

"Wow! He must find this really important, if he's willing to give up dinner for it!" James whispered to Remus, and they both burst out laughing before following Sirius to the door.

"Damn it! It's locked." He said when they got there.

"Stand back," James said to Sirius, annoyed. "Aloha Mora!" James said, pointed his wand at the door. He tried to open the door, but it still didn't work.

"Get back, the both of you!" Remus said exasperatedly. "Aloha Mora!" He said flicking his wand at the door. The door then magically opened for them.

"How come it worked for you but not for me?" James asked.

"Swish and flick!" Remus said, showing him with his hands. When James still looked confused he said, "I'll show you later" before sprinting down the hall after Sirius.

Sirius stopped behind the picture of a lion with the head of a woman that was blocking them from going any further. "I bet McGonagall told this sphinx thing a password and entered a room from behind it. Sort of like the fat lady." Sirius stated.

"No, really?" James asked sarcastically.

Sirius sneered at James before turning back to the sphinx and asking "How can we get past you?"

"You must first answer a riddle." The sphinx said simply. "If you answer correctly, you may pass. If you don't, you will disappear from the face of this earth completely."

"Okay then, let's hear it." Sirius said, as James and Remus exchanged uneasy glances.

"This riddle I made especially for you,

For this riddle I'll give you three clues:

One that…"

With that sphinx was cut off as the portrait was swung open. The boys were faced by none other than the headmaster himself. Professor Dumbledore looked around at the three boys. "Whatever are you boys doing down here?" he asked. "How did you get in?" Although his voice sounded strict and worried, there was a twinkle in his eyes which gave him an amused look.

"The door was opened and so we wanted to see what was in here. Sirius came up and questioned the sphinx and she told him that he could get by if answered a riddle. He decided that there was no harm in trying, so he tried." James lied quickly.

"The door was open? I could've sworn that Minerva said that she had shut and locked it." Dumbledore eyed James questioningly.

"Well it was open when we came through." James said defiantly.

"I believe you Mr. Potter. But I suggest that you go of to dinner and not come down this hallway again." Dumbledore said.

"Yes, professor." James agreed before heading off to dinner with Remus and Sirius not far behind him.

"Have you had Transfiguration yet today?" Lily asked Emmie as they sat down for dinner.

"Yeah, had a double block, first." Emmie said.

"Ooo, double McGonagall, that's gotta suck" Lily said sympathetically.

"Don't feel too badly, you'll have it later this week."

"Anyways have you perfected transfiguring your match into a needle yet?"

"No mine's still made out of wood. What about you?"

"My looks like a needle, but you couldn't sew it through anything, it's too dull."

"Don't worry; I don't think anyone's was perfect."

"James Potter's was." Lily said huffily. "And he's so lazy, he'd probably never practiced it before."

"I hate people who are like that. They always do really well, but they never do any work." Emmie said. "Its annoying for all of us who actually have to study to get good grades."

"Yeah. It's not only that though, he's so annoying that he…" Lily started when she saw Potter and his friends walking through the door. "Speak of the devil."

James, Remus and Sirius sat down and started talking in hushed voices.

"I wonder what that was about," James said. "I've never seen Dumbledore so serious before."

"He didn't look serious." Sirius said, referring to the twinkle in his eyes.

"Yeah but he sure sounded it." Remus said. "Listen you guys, I think that we should stay away from that passageway from now on."

"And not figure out what's going on?" James asked indignantly. "No way."

"But seriously…" Remus began.

Sirius then interrupted him. "Listen Remus, if you're too scared to go back there, that's fine, but as for James and me, we're going back."

"But Black, Remus is right, someone could get hurt." Emmie said, interrupting Remus who was about to speak.

"Who are you?" Sirius asked.

"Emmeline Vance, I'm a 1st year Ravenclaw and a friend of Lily's." Emmie said.

"Evans, take your Ravenclaw friend back to her own table. And on the way discuss with her the importance of minding your own business." Sirius said.

"I will do no such thing, Black." Lily began. "I invited her here and she wasn't eavesdropping, she just accidentally overheard, as did anyone else sitting within a mile of you guys."

"Firstly, Vance, I say you're uninvited. Does anyone second that?" Sirius asked. James raised his hand and Lily glared at him. "Secondly, Remus, why does your voice have to be so damn loud?"

Black you think that you're so popular that you can control anyone you feel like bossing around." Lily started. "Well, guess what? Here's one person you can't boss around! And if the rest of you," she said gesturing towards the rest of the table, "have half a brain, you wouldn't listen to him either." Lily knew that she was drawing attention to herself, but she didn't care. At that moment, Lily wanted everyone to notice her and to know that she wouldn't let Sirius Black boss her around.

A/N: Yeah this chapter's a little longer…I just felt like writing and writing! How did you like that? Lily finally stood up for herself! Also Sirius, Remus and James found their first clue…God! I've said too much already!  Please Review. I have the next chapter done, what I won't update until I have at least a couple more reviews! Thanks!

Sorry it's been so long, I was sorta hoping to get a couple more reviews but…I really hope that you review this next chapter. If you've written any fics before, you'll know how much. Could you please review? Whether you want to tell me how crappy my book is, that's fine. Or even if you don't have anything to say at all, I love everything you guys write! If you have any questions or comments, I will definitely answer them (as long as they don't give too much away!) So PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE review!

Ycantibreathe: Thank you for being my one and only reviewer. Yea, sorry it was a little shorter…I didn't really realize how long I was making it—I tried to make this one a little longer for you! I'm glad that you liked the part at the end—I had a lot of fun writing it and I'm glad to see that the readers enjoyed it. Yeah, I felt that I needed to give Lily some friends. I decided that she should be friends with Remus for two reasons. 1) Because I needed there to be a link between Lily and James throughout the first book. 2) Because I was reading an idea for a fic, and it said to have a Lily/James story where there was a friendship between Lily and Remus. At that point I was already brainstorming ideas for this story. I thought that would be a good way to do it. I didn't want to write a story about two people that went to the same school that had nothing to do with each other throughout the entire first book—even though they would end up marrying each other later on in life!  Thanks again for your review!