A/N: Okay I am so incredibly sorry that I haven't updated in so long! I've gotten really caught up in my other fic 'In my father's shadow.' I'll try and update soon, but with HBP coming out on Saturday I'm not making any promises. Don't worry, I'll have it read in three days at the longest so I'll update as soon as I get some inspiration cough reviews cough. Please let me know what you think!

Disclaimer: I don't own HP

Chapter 7

'… a great honour to attend. St Martha's College is a prestigious school which upholds its traditions and values…' Sirius rolled his eyes and glanced around at his friends, finding them a lot more interesting than the old bat who was lecturing them. His friends seemed to be just as bored as he was. Erin was fiddling with the collar on her stiff uniform dress, Lily was gazing off into space, Christine was playing with a lock of her hair, Remus was staring at the ground, clearly fascinated, James was attempting to ruffle his hair even though he was still wearing the hat and Peter was shuffling nervously, sending a worried glance towards the assistant-principal standing out the front. Miss Stevens was one of those teachers who seemed to truly believe in old fashioned values and beliefs. As soon as they had introduced themselves at reception, she had immediately started lecturing them about what an honour it was to attend her school.

'…and before I present you with your timetables, I will be performing the routine inspection of new students. Stand in a straight line please.' Sirius rolled his eyes again as he moved to stand in a straight line in between Christine and James. Inspections…someone had a wand up their arse…

Miss Stevens started her inspection with Peter. She looked him up and down, but was unable to find anything wrong with his appearance, so she moved on to Remus. Again, she was unable to find anything wrong with the way he looked. Seeming very displeased, she moved on to James. Sirius could have sworn he saw a malicious smile on her face as she took in James' appearance. His previously neat uniform was dusty, crumpled and ripped in some places from the fight with the two football players. He had a smear of dirt across one cheek and his hair was as messy as ever.

'Well, well, well… been fighting have we… I'll have to give you a detention for that. Report to this office at lunchtime today.' James glared at her, but she pretended not to notice and moved on to Sirius. Another triumphant grin on her behalf told Sirius he probably looked much the same as James.

'You can join your friend for detention. You children will have to learn that fighting is not permitted in my school. And what's this… long hair. That simply will not do. Before classes tomorrow you will have to have it cut short. All male students must have their hair cut to above their collarbone.' Sirius glared at her. Detention he could live with but NO ONE touched his hair. Miss Stevens smirked at him, before moving on to Christine. She quickly looked her over, and was about to move on to Erin when she stopped and looked particularly hard at Christine's head.

'Hair streaks!' she shrieked triumphantly, 'They will have to be removed before school tomorrow.' Christine fixed her with a glare very similar to the one Sirius had given her.

'I'm sorry, my hair streaks are permanent. They cannot be removed.' Stevens seemed to smile even wider.

'Then we will have to cut them off, won't we. I have some scissors behind the desk here, if you will just follow me.' Christine didn't move.

'No offence, miss,' she choked out the last word as if it was dirty and polluted, 'but I would rather let Sirius attempt to cut my hair with a chainsaw than let you near it.' Miss Stevens looked quite taken aback, but then she regained her composure and glared coldly at Christine.

'You can join the two gentlemen in detention.'

She quickly inspected Erin and Lily, but could find nothing wrong with the way they looked. She passed out their timetables asnd shooed them out of the office.

Once outside, the seven marauders collapsed onto a bench to examine their timetables.

'So… first we have science…' murmured Lily, glancing over her timetable.

'What?' asked Remus, who had been busy pouring over his, 'Mine says that we have French!'

'Let me see that!' Lily snatched his timetable out of his hands and glanced over it.

'They've put us in different classes!' she gasped, 'Everyone check their timetables. See what you have first.'

'I have science.' Said James.

'So do I.' said Sirius.

'I have French! But I don't know any French!' squeaked Peter.

'Don't worry Wormtail; I'm in French as well and my parents made sure I spoke it fluently before my sixth birthday. I'll help you.' Said Erin.

'Chris! What are you in? French or science?' asked Lily, craning her neck to see Christine's timetable. Christine was glaring at her timetable as though trying to set fire to it with her eyes.

'Neither.' She said flatly, 'I have maths. That demon of a woman put me in a separate class.' Sirius gave out a triumphant shriek.

'I knew it! She's trying to make us miserable! She's a death eater! She'll go to Azkaban! She'll-'

'Shut up!' six voices hissed at him. Sirius felt himself being forcibly pulled back to a sitting position.

'You can't just go screaming about death-eaters and Azkaban! This is a muggle school!' Lily hissed at him.

'Yeah, as much as I'd like to through that woman to the dementors, we can't.' Christine said, looking sorely disappointed.

'Oh give it a rest! She's not that bad.' Remus said, but he didn't look thoroughly convinced.

'I'm with Padfoot.' Said James bitterly, 'That woman's twisted.' Erin had been silently watching the exchange, but she spoke up.

'Come on. We better go find out where our classrooms are or we'll-' she was cut off by a bell ringing through the dull monotone of chatter in the schoolyard.

'-be late.' She finished dejectedly.

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Christine strode into her classroom ten minutes late. First she had to try and find the book room to get her books, and then she'd had to find her classroom without the help of any of her friends. She thought she'd done pretty well time-wise considering what she'd had to do, but that didn't change the fact that she was ten minutes late. The teacher looked up at her as she entered the room. She was fairly young looking with straight brown hair and glasses. She seemed nice enough. Christine approached her desk.

'Hi, Uhh… Sorry I'm late. I got lost. I'm Christine Marsden, the British exchange student.' She told the teacher. The teacher smiled at her.

'Hi Christine. I'm Miss Peyton, your maths teacher.' She said, 'Why don't you tell us a bit about yourself?'

Christine shrugged, 'Sure, why not.' Peyton turned to address the rest of her students.

'Class, this is Christine Marsden. She's an exchange student from England. She's just going to tell us a bit about herself before we continue our work on Pythagoras's theorem.' Christine glanced around the room and saw Robbins and Musgrave and Robbins sitting in the back row, sniggering. She glared at them before smiling sweetly around at the rest of the class and beginning her 'speech.'

'Uh… Hi, I'm Christine Marsden. I'm an exchange student from England and I'm seventeen years old. I've attended a boarding school near London since I was eleven, umm… I'm on this trip with my friends Erin, Lily, Sirius, Remus, James and Peter. We're just here for this week.' Miss Peyton smiled warmly at her.

'Excellent. Now why don't you go and sit over there between Sean and Michaela.' She gestured towards a seat between. Sean and a girl with straight, dark-blonde hair. Christine glared at Sean and tried to make herself look as intimidating as possible as she stalked towards her seat. She moved her chair as far away from him as possible before sitting down.

'Hi,' whispered the girl beside her, 'I'm Mickey. What have you got against Sean?'

'Me and my friends got into a… slight disagreement with him earlier.' Christine whispered back, trying to find a more dignified way to describe the fist fight James and Sirius had gotten into. Mickey just rolled her eyes.

'Don't worry. He picks on all the new kids. He'll forgive you.' Christine stared incredulously at the girl.

'Him, forgive me? He started it! He'll be lucky if I forgive him!' She hissed back.

'But… he's like the most popular guy in school! You can't get on his bad side!' Mickey was looking at Christine like she was crazy. Christine just rolled her eyes.

'Popularity isn't everything.'

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Peter was not having a good day. First there were those thugs who tried to beat up James and Sirius. Then there was that horrible assistant principal, and now his entire class thought he was stupid. As soon as he'd stepped into his classroom with Erin and Remus, the teacher, a youngish football crazed Canadian, had started attacking them with questions. The problem was, the questions were in French. Erin and Remus had both received lessons when they were younger. Erin was fluent and Remus could hold his own, but Peter didn't know anything past 'bonjour.' As soon as Erin and Remus started hissing translations in his ear, the entire class had started sniggering at poor Peter.

Once the teacher had allowed them to take their seats and started rambling about the importance of congregating verbs, Peter had tuned out. He glanced behind him and noticed a rather pretty girl staring dreamily at Remus. How come girls never looked at him like that? He was just as good as James, Sirius and Remus…wasn't he. No, Peter wasn't having a good day.

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Lily glanced distractedly to the seat beside her, where Sirius was shamelessly flirting with some random girl. They were supposed to be answering some questions on the volcanic eruptions of Krakatoa, but since James and Sirius were both purebloods and had no idea what Krakatoa was, they had decided that for the good of wizard kind, Lily should do their work for them. Lily glared at the back of Sirius' head. At least James was doing something constructive with his time. He was busy pouring over his Social Studies textbook trying to gain himself some knowledge on muggles so he didn't seem like a complete idiot. But Sirius of course had chosen girls. Lily rolled her eyes. Some things never change.