Their first day passed without much incident. Every student received his/her timetable, to which there were several groans and cheers. The first lesson, Potions, was shared with the Slytherins, and as such was held by the Gryffindor Head of House. She was a pretty young woman, about 28 years of age. She gave a kindly aura but didn't hesitate in taking 5 points from Gryffindor when Sirius felt it necessary to charm the board to write its own messages. Trying to erase it before their professor saw it, Alex sent her own spell at the board, resulting in more explicit messages being written.

Lily, however, replaced these and added a further 5 points for displaying an outstanding knowledge of different plants in Herbology. Sirius seemed to learn from his mistake and kept his wand waving restricted to that required in lessons, for that day at least. Between them, Lily and Alex gained another 25b points that day. Each day seemed to pass like this. One of them; that is James, Sirius, Remus or Peter, lost points whilst Lily and Alex gained them. They were complete opposites but somehow the six of them fit together.

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As her mother predicted, Lily fit in perfectly with the people in her school. With in a week she had befriended almost everyone, and she didn't hesitate in telling her mother so. In her first letter she also wrote:

"There's just a small group of girls who ignore me completely. They're in Slytherin though, so it's to be expected. Slytherin are hated by all, their founder was a supposedly evil wizard, and he thought only pure blood wizards deserved to come to Hogwarts. His house is pretty much the same."

She had written this as part of her informing her mother of the things she had done and the people she had met so far. She had spoken highly of her five new friends, Alex and James in particular.

After a month at Hogwarts they were beginning to settle in and get used to the routine. James and Sirius often groaned that they were given too much homework while Lily and Remus were quite happy to get on with it. Peter struggled through with it and Alex did it under great protest and an intense hate towards such work. "What do we need to do this for anyway?" She had complained one day. "It's kind of obvious we can do it, or they wouldn't have let us out of the room would they?" Lily had just laughed at her.

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October 6th brought a big change in Lily's life. She was sat in the Gryffindor Common Room, discussing the possibility of getting extra tuition for Transfiguration off James when it began. She didn't particularly need it, it was just an excuse for her to get him on his own for a bit, without the distractions of his friends. So there they were, sharing a couch and a packet of Bertie Botts Every Flavour Beans beside the fire when Sirius and Alex entered the room, both shouting at the top of there lungs.

"No big deal?" Alex spat at him. "You were snogging some other girl, and you have the cheek to tell me it was 'no big deal'? Why you…"

Sirius looked at her. "What about you? You were flirting with some guy just yesterday."

"That was different," she declared wilfully.

"How?"

"Well for a start, I wasn't cheating on you. And I was trying to get him to give me the answers to the Herbology homework. For both of us." Tears were starting to form in her eyes but she blinked them back furiously, refusing to let him see her cry.

"Yeah, and how far would it have gone if I hadn't caught the two of you?"

She slapped him, a red handprint appearing on his face almost immediately. His face contorted in pain, a quiet growl growing in his throat. "Well maybe we shouldn't be together anymore," he roared.

The growing crowd of onlookers gasped at this decision, their eyes trained on Alex to gauge her reaction.

"Fine," her voice was starting to waver as her eyes watered dangerously. "That's the best decision you've made yet." With that she ran up the stairs to the girls' dormitory, slipping through the crowd with little trouble. Sirius, too made a move to the stairs, this time for the boys' dormitory. He, however, was less graceful and simply pushed through the crowd, sending several sprawling.

Lily looked apologetically at James, "I'll have to…" She gestured above them.

"Yeah, me too."

They both stood, Lily walking away first. Upstairs she found Alex face down on her bed. Her head wad buried in her pillows to muffle her cries, though the erratic shaking gave it away. She sat beside her, putting a comforting hand on her shoulder. She shooed all the other girls away before speaking.

"Alex…Als, sweetie. Are you OK?"

"Prrfc," she heard the voice reply. Even though the word was muffled Lily could tell she was being sarcastic.

"I know it was a stupid question," Lily said patiently. "But I didn't really hear your answer. Pillows kind of make it difficult to hear a person, you know? So, come on. You don't have to talk, just come out from the pillows…Before you suffocate."

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James made an attempt towards the dormitory after he watched Lily go. Just a few metres away his clear path became obstructed. In front of him stood a tall, slim girl with blonde hair and icy eyes. Her nose looked slightly upturned and suggested there was something unpleasant beneath it. Even her smile failed to improve this look. Despite the fact that this was his best-friends cousin and he should therefore be nice to her, James sighed.

"What do you want, Narcissa?" he asked impatiently, his eyes drifting to the staircase behind her.

"I need your help," she explained, not seeming to take the hint.

"What, none of the other girls can help you?"

She shook her head, tears looking as though they wanted to spill. "I got kicked out the minute I set foot in our dormitory." A few drops were slowly making there way down her face now.

James frowned. "Well, come here then." He led her to the couch on which he and Lily had been sat on previously. "What's the problem?" He asked in a caring manner, though he didn't really want to be there.

He listened to her relay her fears of being alone and not having made a friend yet.

He looked at her, "Sure you have. You've got me and Sirius and Remus and…Well what about that group of Ravenclaws you were talking to the other day?"

She wrinkled her nose, "They didn't like my advice about their hairstyles. Not to mention they aren't in Gryffindor. No, I want to make friends here, with the girls, not just the guys."

James rolled his eyes mentally, trying not to let his disgust at her Gryffindor-only attitude show. 'So like a Slytherin' he thought bitterly, though he didn't voice this opinion. Instead, he said, "Tell you what. I'll talk to Lily and Alex. In the meantime why don't you be the charmer we both know you can be?"

Narcissa's smile shone through her tear-stained face. "Thanks," she said, leaning forward, her arms wrapping around him in a friendly hug.

Uncomfortably he tried to untangle himself. In doing so his face passed hers but got no further. Her lips pressed to his and he had no way of resisting.

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"I want to die," Alex wailed, finally removing her head from her pillow.

"I think that's a bit extreme," Lily told her, trying not to laugh. "I mean, you were only going out with him for a few weeks."

"Six weeks and three days," she corrected matter-of-factly. "And he made them so much better. With out him I may as well just shrivel up and die."

Lily couldn't help but grin, though she continued to suppress laughter.

"It's not funny," Alex cried. "He was the love of my life."

Lily rolled her eyes. "Alexandra," she said using her full name to make sure she had her attention. "You are eleven years old. Do you not think you're being just a little dramatic?"

Alex glowered at her, "No! We were meant to be together."

"Then you will stay end up together won't you?" Lily asked patiently, but in a way that implied she were talking to a small child.

Glowering at her still, Alex spoke. "How would you feel, if you found the guy you loved kissing some other girl?"

Lily couldn't help but giggle at this statement. "Love, is a very strong reaction for someone who wasn't even sure if they liked the idea of being in a relationship with her friend a few years ago." As she said this, she walked towards the dormitory entrance.

"You," Alex commented, throwing a pillow at Lily. "Are supposed to be trying to cheer me up."

Lily ignored her comment, stepping through the door, laughing as the pillow hit the wall.

With every intention of visiting the boys' dormitory to find the best place for sweets and other such unhealthy foods, Lily made her way down the stairs and towards the common room. All of these thoughts disappeared, though, as her eyes moved around the room, locking on a sight which shook her to the core. Her eyes had drifted to the display that was James and Narcissa kissing. Her vision was not broken until a dot the horizon in front of her got bigger and closer until it entered the window. Tooting, it flew through the gap between Narcissa and James' heads, prising them apart and scratching Narcissa's head as it went. It flew directly into Lily's now outstretched arms her eyes having been forcedly trained on its flight path.

"Come along, Nut," she spoke softly to the owl, keeping any traces of emotion out of her voice. With that she walked back to her dormitory, unaware of James' horrified reaction to Narcissa as they broke apart.

"Hey," she said sadly as she entered the room.

Taking the letter from a now impatient Nut, who hooted gratefully before flying away, Lily sat on Alex's bed.

"I don't know about cheering you up, but how about some company to be miserable with?" She asked, hugging her friend.

That night they both cried themselves to sleep; Alex for her separation with Sirius. Lily for the termination of her none-existent relationship with James.

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On the other side of the Gryffindor tower, Sirius was beating himself up over Alex.

"Why did I do it, mate?" he asked James bitterly.

By now the whole of Gryffindor knew about Sirius and Alex's split and so all the first year boys were giving Sirius some space in the dormitory. All, that is, except James who was keeping him company.

"I don't know, Sir." James was thinking about his kiss with Narcissa and asking himself the same question. "I guess, because you were weak. The opportunity came and you were too weak to pass it up."

He didn't know that Lily had seen him, didn't see the look on her face. No, instead, he was feeling bad about taking advantage of Narcissa while she was upset, and wondering why he hadn't been able to stop himself and fight back. The answer?

"We were both just too weak."