A/N: Here you go, this chapter's slightly longer then the first two. Hope you like it! Don't forget to review!
Disclaimer: JK Rowling owns what she created.
Lily woke up the next morning slightly confused, but quickly oriented herself. She pulled open her curtains to find that Molly and Alice were still asleep, and the mystery girl had already left.
She rubbed her eyes wearily and stumbled out of bed, hitting her shin on her nightstand. She grabbed her leg and started hopping around the room, cursing angrily. Molly poked her head out of her curtains and blinked at Lily.
"Exercising so early in the morning? I hope this isn't a daily occurrence, or me and Alice might petition to have you assigned to a different room."
"No, I just hit my leg on something. Anyways, it's nearly 7:30. You'd better get up," Lily limped to the bathroom and shut the door.
When she came out 5 minutes later, Molly and Alice were ready and waiting for her. Lily stopped short and stared at them.
"How on earth did you get ready so quickly? Alice was still sleeping when I went into the bathroom!"
Molly shrugged, "We like to sleep as late as we can. Get ready quickly; we're hungry."
Still shaking her head in disbelief, Lily got dressed quickly, grabbed her books, and stuffed them into her bag.
"Alright, let's go eat," Molly led the way out the door and down the stairs into the common room. Lily was dismayed and secretly pleased to see James and Sirius standing around. They looked up as the girls came down the stairs, and James waved casually.
"Hey guys, what's up? We were waiting for you."
"For us?" Molly raised her eyebrows in disbelief.
"Well, for Lily, really. We wanted to apologize," James turned to Lily, "I'm really sorry if we upset you yesterday. We really are nice guys! We've been fighting with those guys since 1st year, and they really are nasty! You should see them sometimes!"
"Anyways," cut in Sirius, "We were hoping that you could give us another chance. Get to see what we're really like," he glanced at James and nodded. They both got on their knees with hands clasped and fluttered their eyelashes madly.
"Please!" they chimed in unison.
Molly burst out laughing, "You guys look ridiculous! I would love to see you do that during lunch, maybe for Snape."
James made a face, "Eww... Molly! I haven't eaten yet!"
Lily giggled, "Alright you guys. I'll be nice. Just don't get into any fights with my friends in front of me. Now let's go, I'm starving!"
Sirius made a face, "Your friends? Slimy, greasy Snape is not my idea of a good friend. But if that's all we can get, I'll guess we'll take it."
Lily glared at him and he held up his hands as if to ward of a blow.
"Oh stop it! We have to concentrate on important things. Like making sure that Lily meets everyone she needs to!" Molly grabbed Lily with one arm and Alice with another and marched out of the common room. James and Sirius followed behind.
When they got to the Great Hall, Molly turned to Lily, "Right now we're only going to go meet Gryffindors. You'll meet the rest in your classes."
She led Lily over to a group of people sitting at one end of the table, "Hey you guys! I'd like to introduce you to Lily Evans. She's just moved here from the US."
There was a general chorus of 'hi's. Lily sat down next to a thin boy with brown hair that she had seen sitting with James and Sirius earlier. He stuck out his hand.
"Hi, I'm Remus Lupin. Are you a fifth year?"
"Yeah, I'm roommates with Molly and Alice, and some other girl. Who do you room with?"
Remus grimaced slightly, "James, Sirius, and Peter. Can't get anything done in that room."
The boy sitting on the other side of Remus leaned over and said with a slightly squeaky voice, "I'm never loud, Remus. It's just James and Sirius who make all the noise. They're completely distracting."
"Peter, you know you wouldn't get anything done even if they were studious."
Peter's protests were drowned out by Bertha Jorkins leaning over the table, "I heard that James and Sirius actually do study. They just do it in the middle of the night so that no one will know."
"What would be the point of that? Why wouldn't they just study at a normal time? We all know how much they like to sleep," said the red-head sitting next to Bertha that Molly had pointed out earlier. He stuck his hand across the table at Lily, "Hi, I'm Arthur Weasley, 6th year prefect."
Lily shook his hand, "Nice to meet you, Arthur!"
Bertha poked Arthur in the arm, "Arthur, let's get back on subject! Now you know, James and Sirius didn't always study. In first and second years they goofed off. Now they have a reputation to keep up, so they have to hide their studying. You didn't think they actually got good grades without doing anything, did you?"
Alice sighed, "Bertha, you must know that James and Sirius are geniuses. If they actually studied they would academically outstrip everyone in a flash."
Bertha sniffed, "I don't think so. Some of us do have brains."
There was a sudden silence. Molly coughed slightly.
"Well, now that you're done discussing whether or not we have brains, let's talk about you, Lily!" James said brightly, "What sort of stuff did you study back where you came from?"
"Probably the same stuff as you; Charms, Potions, Herbology, Astronomy... you know, that sort of stuff."
"Have you taken any Divination?"
Lily frowned, "No, I haven't. Is it offered here?"
Sirius chuckled, "Is it ever! It will be required for you. You should check your schedule."
Lily pulled a piece of paper out of her bag and set it on the table. Molly leaned over and looked at it.
"What's this supposed to mean? 1St, 2nd, lunch? This doesn't look like a normal schedule," she pulled her schedule out of her bag, "Hey, mine looks like that too! What's going on?"
Everyone around the table began to pull out their schedules and scrutinize them.
"Hey! Mine's weird too!"
"Mine too! What's going on?"
Dumbledore stood up carefully at the head table and cleared his throat, "Ahem."
The noise in the Great Hall subsided.
"As some of you may have noticed, the scheduling this year is different."
Mummers broke out over the hall as students found their schedules and noticed the changes.
"We have decided to switch to a new, more rigorous, schedule. Classes will begin at the normal time, but will end much later. Each class will last for 1 ½ hours, and there will be 30 free minutes between each class. Time slots have been allotted for lunch, dinner, and free time. I would advise taking notes on the new time allotments. The new schedule is as follows: the first time period is from 8:00 to 9:30. The second time period is from 10:00 to 11:30. An hour is set aside for lunch, from 11:30 to 12:30. The third time period is from 12:30 to 2:00. The fourth time period is from 2:30 to 4:00. You will have 2 hours of free time form 4:00 to 6:00. This will be when Quidditch practice and club meetings will take place during the week. You are free to do whatever you wish, within the school rules. Then dinner is from 6:00 to 7:00. The fifth time period is from 7:00 to 8:30. The sixth time period is from 9:00 to 10:30. This will be the end of your school day," he paused as people began to talk loudly throughout the hall, "I know this sounds like a long time, but most of you do not have classes the entire time, and will have one or more of these time periods off, and can use it as free time. I suggest that you look over your schedules again to make sure that you understand the new system."
Lily looked down at her schedule. She had five classes a day except for Friday, when she had four. She looked over at Molly's schedule.
"Hey look! We have a lot of classes together!"
Molly chuckled, "Well, considering that we're in the same house and year... but you're taking some classes that I'm not: Astronomy and Ancient Runes. The rest are all standard. Pretty much all of the Gryffindor fifth years will have those classes with us."
"Oh," Lily frowned at her schedule. Remus laughed on her other side.
"It's not that bad; don't look so glum! Now, what do we have first? Charms, that's usually a fun class!"
"Actually," said Alice, "We should probably get going."
People all along the hall were beginning to stand up and leave for their first classes. The group at the Gryffindor table followed suit.
Lily found herself walking next to Sirius.
"We have Charms with Hufflepuff," he said leaning over her, "Some of them are a bit daft, so we can have fun and then pin it on them. Flitwick never knows the difference."
"You are so bad!" Lily said, half laughing, "Is that all you do at school? Play pranks?"
Sirius thought for a sec, "Yeah, pretty much. We have to go to class, but we don't ever pay attention."
"We? Who's 'we'?"
"We? What on earth are you talking about, Lily? Now excuse me a sec, but I have just noticed something that needs my immediate attention," he hurried over to to James as they walked into the classroom
Lily shook her head and put her books down at a table behind James and Sirius. The other Gryffindors put their stuff on the same side of the room. Another group came in, that Lily assumed were the Hufflepuffs, and sat down on the other side of the room. Lily's mouth twitched slightly. She found it amusing that the houses seemed unwilling to sit with each other.
Lily looked up to the front of the room and saw a tiny man sitting on a stack of books on his chair.
"Is that the professor?" she thought incredulously.
The little man waved his hands above his head, "Alright everyone, stop talking for a little. I have an anouncement. Dumbledore has decided that this year we will be encouraging house mixing."
There was a general moan from the class.
"If he thinks I'm going to be friends with Snivilly, he's out of his mind!" Sirius whispered to James, who snorted softly.
"Pay attention! This means that there will be assigned seats for every class! You will be paired with someone from another house, unless there is an uneven number of people in the houses. Pettigrew! Put that away and pay attention! Here are the pairings. As I say the names, I'll point to where you are going to be sitting, so please watch me. Pettigrew, Potter," he pointed to the seat directly to his right, "Bagman, Nargott. Jones, Lupin. Fenwick, Prewett. Evans, Bones. Black, Warbeck."
Lily went to her seat in the second row and watched as a skinny boy with messy blond hair sat down next to her.
"Hi, I'm Lily."
The boy nodded to his desk, "I'm Edgar Bones."
"Oh, are you Amelia's little brother?"
He nodded again.
"You must be really proud of her, being Head Girl and all1"
The boy didn't say anything, but figited with his hands under the desk.
Lily sighed deeply and settled down for a long year. She looked around at the other pairs. They were mostly talking cheerily with each other.
The small man up front cleared his throat, "Now that you've had a chance to meet your new partner, let's get to work. This year, we have a new student from the United States. Lily Evans, please come up front and introduce yourself."
Lily stood up reluctantly.
"Come, come!" the little man beckoned welcomingly.
She went to the front of the class, "Um, hi."
"Hello, hello!" the teacher smiled happily.
"Um, my name's Lily Evans, and I'm from the US. I'm a fifth year. Um, I have a sister and two parents. They sent me here."
The class chuckled.
"Alright, fine then. I'll talk. My name is Professor Flitwick, and I teach Charms. Today I will be working with you, Lily, to figure out exactly where you are on the Charms curriculum. The rest of the class,.." and here he began to speak loudly and turned towards the class, "..will be going through a review list of basic charms to revive your minds from their summer apathy. Here's the list; get to work," he turned to Lily and smiled again, "Alright then, ready to get to work? My office is right over here."
Lily followed him through the door, mentally reviewing charms in her head.