Chapter 5

Lily awoke the next day with great excitement. She nearly toppled out of her bed trying to get up and woke her whole dorm up in the process. A girl with short dark hair sat up sleepily. That was Anneliese thought Lily. She had a slightly squashed nose and a fairly stocky build.

"Just feed it large BromBeatles and …"

She had been mumbling in a dream like state until the sight of Lily woke her up. (Presumably the flash of red had brought her to her senses) Her blue eyes blinked in Surprise. Just then Dorcas jumped out of her bed as Lily had, but much more gracefully. "oooh. I forgot, it's our first day."

They rushed around getting their things together and eventually the commotion awoke the last sleeping girl; a medium sized girl with particularly long arms and legs. Her fingers could each hold 10 rings at least thought Lily. She was quiet, but polite and walked with a large curtain of chestnut hair sweeping behind her. Her dark brown eyes sat like drops of dark chocolate behind droopy lids. She reminded Lily of one of those dopy blood hounds, but she moved with the agility of Lily's owl. Last night at the feast she had mentioned her mom was from Africa whereas her dad had lived in London all his life with a full wizarding family. She had brought posters of her favorite foot ball team, Arsenal, and plastered them all over the back of her bed side the first chance she got. Finally, one by one the girls left the dorm.

Lily was last out, due to missing socks, but she found Dorcas waiting right outside for her. They headed towards their first class, charms, and only got lost twice. Peeves, unfortunately had spotted them in a rush and attempted to throw books at them, but this actually made them run faster and they arrived on time. Professor Flitwick began class like any other teacher Lily ever had. He called role and then asked them to copy the board. Afterwards he only gave a brief lecture on rules and then sent them to their next class. The next class happened to be Potions, followed by Transfiguration.

At the end, Lily found the day quite uneventful, and found her hand dreadfully cramped. Over the next couple of days things got more interesting.

In her transfiguration class they began changing matches into needles and to Lily's delight she found hers had turned silver on the first day. However, she was quite annoyed at the boys behind her. She felt if they had not been making so much noise she would have been able to concentrate better and perhaps even make the full change to her match. Her frustration grew as one of the boys transfigured it perfectly on the second day and the others were also nearly there, except the blond boy with watery eyes. What was his name Parker… Pe Peter! That was it. Peter waved his wand a few times at the match before turning back to the other three and applauding them. Next to Lily, Dorcas tried very hard to get her match the right material. It somehow had changed to a very soft gold that was threatening to fall out of the needle shape she had finally created. The Gryffindors shared Tranfiguration with the Hufflepuffs. On the whole the Hufflepuffs were very friendly and they paid very good attention in class. Lily thought some to be quite pompous, but then again as she compared them to the Gryffindor boys behind her, they were very modest indeed. She turned around in time to see the boy with wire-rimmed glasses waving his wand at another Gryffindor boy, Edric, apparently attempting to turn his hair into needles. It worked halfway and ended up turning his hair silver. Lily frowned as was about to say something when,

"Potter!"

Turning in her chair, Lily saw a very angry Professor McGonagall striding to the back row where he sat.

"What is the meaning of this?"

The boy who sat beside him, Lily knew as Sirius, looked grinning up at the stern professor and said,

"Why what are you on about, Professor. We were just giving our friend here a new look."

Edric, who realized what was going on when he caught sight of his hair that fell into his eyes on a regular basis, said,

"It's all right. I like it."

McGonagall did not seem to care and Lily new that he was unhappy with this new shade. Who wouldn't be if they had hair like his. It had once been strawberry blond hair, thick and soft. Now it was strangely pointy and grey.

"Nonsense. You can't keep it like that. Your mother would have my head."

With a wave his hair was the way it had once been. McGonagall turned and walked back to her desk, but not before saying,

"Potter, Black, Detention"

The boys did not seem disturbed by this in the slightest. They went back to turning matches into needles, occasionally poking each other and laughing at other people's failed attempts at Tranfiguration. Lily and Dorcas mastered the skill quite quickly and soon began the next stage. Lily enjoyed all her classes, but always looked forward to Charms the most. Dorcas always teased her that the reason was the constant praise she received, but Lily just thought Charms was the most interesting. Instead of just turning one thing into another, she learned about cheering charms and making things fly. She thought this would be way more useful as she thought of her sister. Potions was an interesting class.

Though it was taught by the Slytherin head, the walrus man, and Gryffindor was paired with the Slytherins themselves, the class really wasn't so bad. Professor Slughorn, was unlike any other teacher. Instead of spending the first day talking about the class, he talked mainly about himself ansd the many successful students he'd had through out the years. He listed people of in a proud manner and occasionally interjected that he had helped him get that job or he always new he had it in him. After making them copy notes for the first two days he actually began with some interesting lessons; The first of which contained 4 potions he asked them to name. Lily's hand shot up at once.

"Amnesia drought" She pointed at a silvery thick potion.

"Friend Solution" She said as she peered into a very small cauldron.

"Corrosion Potion" She exclaimed as she backed away from a glowing green cauldron.

At this Slughorn asked, "And what is that?"

Lily answered automatically, "A very difficult potion that can eat away every substance except dragon hide and Phoenix feathers. It was used in cases of skin coming into contact with poisons."

"Very good and the last…"

Professor Slughorn gestured eagerly at the last with a smile that Lily thought meant he was enjoying a very private joke. Lily peered over the last cauldron and saw a watery green substance and was stumped. She had never read about this sort of consistency in anything other than Veritaserum. Suddenly, she noticed the steam was still clear as if it really were just water…

Then,

"Green dye?"

The class was quiet, but Professor Slughorn was positively beaming.

"Yes, yes. That's right, first time today, are you muggle born. Just using it to dye back this old cloak. It won't be affected by magic see."

He waved his wand and muttered a spell. It shot out and appeared to be absorbed by the yellow material.

"Gift from an old friend. Won't filter out the full blast of the bigger curses though."

He looked thoughtful for a moment and then shouted jovially,

"5 points to Gryffindor"

Lily found brewing potions extremely easy. She assumed it took the same talents as cooking, because she had a knack for that too. Her potions seemed to turn out the right color every time. When she was partnered with Dorcas she found it slightly more difficult because Dorcas did not like to rely on Lily's "instincts". She found that Potions soon became her favorite subject and she soon became Slughorn's favorite student (in her year). This was not only because of her potions skills, however. She soon became annoyed as the mean boy from Diagon Alley, Severus Snape, appeared to share her wonderful ability in Potions. He actually seemed to surpass her in some ways, usually just a tiny step further. However, just as unpopular he was with the students, he was with the teachers and Slughorn, who arrived last to his cauldron, gave him a smile, compliment and an O, but usually no more. He did seem pleased to have a good potions master, but Slughorn usually was more interested in the popular kids, certain hand picked students with connections.

During November Slughorn called her back at the of class to hand her a letter. It was invitation to the "Slug Club". She knew what the "Slug club" was. Everyone talked about the parties that only they and a guest were invited to dating back 20 years. It was said that loads of famous people made appearances there and people with all sorts of connections were sure to be there. Lily was honored, but a little embarrassed. Suddenly, she heard an explosion. A couple of Slytherins had also hung behind class and had been standing nest to a large cauldron when it exploded. Lily ducked as thick goop flew passed her head. When she looked up again she was horrified. Two Slytherins, Snape and Bathurst,(last names duh ) were drenched in it and had half their body growing rapidly. The parts that were covered grew very unproportional until the two were quite mutated. Lily felt a very uncomfortable sensation in her left hand a saw it too was swelling. Slughorn looked shocked, angry, then suspicious. He swished his wand saying "scourgify" then a stifled snigger echoed from the hall. Slughorn's eyes darted to the door, ordered the students to go to Madam Promfrey immediately and strode out the door as fast as his stubby legs could carry him.

Lily would have laughed if her hand hadn't really started hurting. She looked pitifully at the Slytherins who were disappearing out of the door too, limping in a strange way. She followed them and saw that Slughorn had finally caught the mischief makers. It was the four Gryffindor boys again. Three had suppressed laughs frozen on their faces as Slughorn raged. He did not like them much. They never paid much attention in his class and were always set on disrupting other people's work. Lily noticed curiosly that Remus Lupin, looked even paler than before and was not at all pleased at getting this sort of attention. At the mention of Slughorn telling the headmaster his eyes widened so much Lily thought it must be painful. She turned the corner to see the Slytherins once again making slow progress, but had to follow them as she had no clue where the Hospital Wing was. Snape was scowling and appeared to be livid. Agatha Bathurst had an expression of hatred on her face, but her eyes were thoughtful and scheming.

"Prince," she said.

Snape flinched, but turned around muttering "stop that"

She just smiled and after glancing quickly at Lily whispered something in his ear. He only paused briefly to hear what she had to say and then began limping faster to the hospital wing. His ear and forehead, now had grown so large they had apparently stretched to the full potential of the potion and stopped growing right when they reached a large door. Inside, It looked like any other hospital Lily had ever been to, except for some strange potions and books where normally the medications and bandages would have sat. A young woman appeared and squeaked in surprise. She lost no time though. Before Lily knew it she had shoved them all into beds and applied a dab of potion on the enlarged spots. Lily noticed her eying Snape's nose, but then deciding that if it had been enlarged he'd comment on it, she went back to fussing over his badly sprayed leg.