Trains

Sirius and James finished breakfast, grabbed their stuff from Sarah, and after a hurried goodbye between Sirius and Sarah that nevertheless stretched on for several minutes, they apparated to King's Cross.

The pair apparated behind a newspaper stand, right into a mass of people. An old muggle woman screamed in fright, surprised at the sudden appearance of two young men in her path. James and Sirius laughed and crossed the street, into the station. When they reached platform 9 ¾, James and Sirius were greeted with the roar of noise that always seemed to accompany the wizarding community.

"I'll go find us a compartment," said Sirius slyly, looking at a pretty girl, waving from the train's window. Sirius took off at high speed, presumably to find a compartment, a nice private compartment in which to snog that girl senseless.

"Right, compartment," replied James.

"James!" called a voice from the crowd.

"Remus," greeted James, smiling at the slightly shabby looking wizard running towards him.

"Hey," said Remus, "don't feel bad about getting head boy over me or anything, I talked to Dumbledore about it."

"Why did I get it?" asked James.

"Well, the problem is that I have led a pretty quiet life up until now, haven't attracted too much undue attention."

"Are you kidding? You hang out with me and Sirius, everyone knows you, even if you do try to hide your face in a book."

"That's not the issue. The problem is that The Prophet always does a little expose on the Head Boy and Girl. It tends to just be a mention, you know, unless they turn up anything interesting."

"And you do have that furry little problem," said James, catching on.

"Yeah," said Remus, "so no worries, Dumbledore said that he would give me a letter of recommendation for anything if I needed it, and in all honesty I'm happier."

"Why?" laughed James, "Don't you want the glory."

"Sure," said Remus, "but that doesn't mean that I want to do the work. Anyway, don't you have to go to the head's compartment or something?"

"I have no clue; I've never really been a prefect or anything."

"It should have told you what to do in your letter," said Remus.

"Right," replied James. James took out his letter and pulled out a second piece of parchment that read,

Potter Proof Instructions

Wear the badge.

Go to the Head's compartment when you get to the train.

Yes, right when you get to the train, not an hour into the journey.

Yes, you have to go on the train ,no apparating like last year

Or brooms like the year before that

Please keep flirting with the prefects to a minimum, at least during meetings.

For the love of Merlin, do not snog people in meetings

don't be too unfair towards the Slytherins, I understand that it is you, but there is a limit

Sincerely,

Albus Dumbledore

"Well," laughed Remus, "he certainly knows who he's dealing with. Now go off to your compartment, and take care not to; what was it?" he glanced down at the letter, "snog too many people in meetings."

"Yeah huh," replied James sullenly, "Talk to you later Moony."

"See you Prongs."

James walked over to the train and ascended the steps with a sense of forboding. For years, James had railed against the system, he had fought against "The Wizard." There would be a lot of people who would never allow James to live it down that he had become another cog and the magical industrial complex. "Oh well," sighed James to himself, "it's not as if I can help anything."

James strolled along the train, passing compartments that were full of laughing students, happy to see their friends again. He turned into a door labeled, "Heads," to see, "Lily!" called James.

"Potter," replied Lily sharply, "what are you doing in here?"

"Oh, right," said James sheepishly. He fished around in his pocket to retrieve the Head Boy badge and pinned it to his shirt.

"What!" exclaimed Lily. "Your head? What about Remus?"

"Long story," said James. He starred at her, the girl of his dreams. Long red hair flowed down her back and over her shoulders; framing her face and making her look precisely angelic. Absolutely startling green eyes starred back at him, and a slightly amused smile that drew her absolutely luscious lips back across gorgeous, white teeth. The only thing that James could find fault in was her attire. Even the billowy school robes didn't completely hide her gorgeous form, but they weren't exactly ideal. "Oh, I'm supposed to be in my uniform by now aren't I?"

"Yup."

"Fine," said James, a slightly amused smile on his face. He flicked his wand his trunk appeared in the middle of the compartment. He then stripped off his shirt and his pants and threw on the school robes. Then, with another flick of his wand the trunk disappeared again.

"Potter!" cried Lily.

"James," he corrected.

"Fine, James, didn't you realize that I was here?"

"Oh, come off it, It's not like I was naked or anything."

"Close to it," replied Lily.

"Oh, you noticed that too," said James with a smirk.

Lily wasn't really complaining all too much, its not that he was unattractive or anything. In fact, he was actually fairly handsome, but it was the principle of the matter. The boy ought to have a little more decorum. However, that didn't stop a little voice in the back of her head form applauding. "So," began James, breaking into Lily's thoughts, "what exactly are we supposed to be doing?"

"We're waiting for everyone to get onto the train, once that happens then the prefects will assemble in their compartment, and we can go to greet them. We will have a prefect meeting, and then we will have some time to ourselves. Of course, we will have to patrol the train, but don't worry about it too much."

"Sounds good, what do we do up until then?"

"It doesn't really matter, talk I guess."

"Well then, talk away."

Lily rolled her eyes at him and then stared at him for a moment, as if sizing him up. "Do you think that you can handle it? The responsibility I mean. You can't go and do any of your pranks now that you are head boy."

"Me, I have never done any pranks."

"Psh, you and those friends of yours…" Lily began, but James cut her off.

"I am afraid that I can not substantiate any of the rumors that have arisen throughout my time at Hogwarts. Filch may say that me and several of my fellow classmates were involved in a series of what could be called, "pranks."

"Say?"

"I have been falsely accused but not convicted of anything."

"Are you kidding? You have been convicted of more things than anyone could remember. You must have served months in detention of the years. It seems that you are always either on the Quidditch pitch or in Filth's office."

"It may be true that I've been in detention, but it has always been for trivial things."

"Like what?"

"Like being out of bed," James casually replied.

"Doing what?"

"Filling the Slytherin hourglass in the great hall with Cockroach Cluster…allegedly," said James with a grin.

Lily just rolled her eyes at him. "We're getting away from my question, are you going to act a little more mature this year?"

"Yes," said James.

"How so?" asked Lily.

"Not sure yet," said James. Lily rolled her eyes once again and James laughed at her expression. Just then a young prefect knocked on the door. "Come in," called James.

"We're ready," said the young boy.

"Brilliant," said Lily, "We'll be there in a minute."

"Okay," said the Ravenclaw.

James and Lily made sure that their robes were in order and that their badges were straight, and walked into the prefect's compartment. It was a pretty small room for the number of people who were meeting in it as most of the other prefects were stationed in other compartments, but it would have to do. "So, for those of you that do not know me I am James Potter and this," he said, pointing to Lily, "I the beautiful, vivacious, lovely, and extremely sexy Lily Evans." Lily hit him on the arm and James laughed, "Well, it's possible that she may not be that forgiving, but the rest still stands."

"As prefects you will be expected to hold yourself to a higher standard," said Lily. "You may not have the time to socialize as you once did and you may have to exert a little more effort to keep up with your studies on top of your prefect's duties. However, you are all up to the task. Now, we will go over your duties at the castle at a different time, but rest assured that you will be fully informed, as to the train, do not worry too much. You must patrol the train at regular intervals to make sure that there is nothing going on that would be too dangerous. However, you are really only there so that people think that you are a presence. Do not worry about what you will do if you find someone breaking a rule, they won't. You can let little things slide but if you DO catch someone breaking a large rule, come and tell either me or James."

"Don't worry about it," said James. "The fact is that few people will break a rule on the train. The first years won't do anything at all as they are still too nervous about actually going to school. The Second and Third years are still too worries about getting caught and reprimanded by a Prefect. As for the rest of them, most of them are too lazy to make too much trouble on the train; they're saving it for school."

"Okay, said Lily, "That is pretty much everything for now. I look forward to working with you all throughout the school year. If you have any questions feel free to find me or James."

Throughout Lily's speech James didn't listen to a word that she said. Which was too bad, because he probably could have used a review of the rules, but how was he supposed to concentrate with her in the room? She was just too pretty to allow for cognizant thought. James followed Lily back into their own compartment where they sat talking for the rest of the journey about everything and anything.

James starred out the window as the train rattled on, this was going to be a better year.