CHAPTER TWO

The next morning, Jane awoke before the rest of the girls and started to get ready for the day. She admired the gold and red of her Gryffindor tie as she knotted it and put it around her neck. She ran down to the common room and waited a bit to see if James, Sirius, Remus and Peter were going to be down soon. After a waiting a while, Lily came down from the dorm.

"You coming to breakfast?" she asked.

"Yeah," Jane said, "I'll meet you down there, okay?"

Jane waited a few more minutes before thinking that maybe she'd missed the boy. So, she trailed behind a few fourth years until she got to the Great Hall. Almost as soon as she walked into the hall, Professor McGonagall handed Jane her class schedule. Jane looked down at the paper curious about what her first day of classes would entail. Before she knew it, someone had run into her, and she almost fell over.

"Well, what's this?" came a jeering voice.

Jane turned to see a few Slytherin first year boys, one of them being Lily's friend, Severus.

"What? Muggles don't know that you aren't supposed to stand in doorways?" the boy that had run into Jane said.

Jane thought it best not to engage and shook her head as she turned to sit at the Gryffindor table, but the boy snatched her schedule away from her. He made a disparaging noise upon reading it.

"I can't believe we have to have classes with filth like her," he said.

"Give it back," Jane demanded, reaching for it.

"Oh, you want it back?" he teased, pulling it away from her reach. Jane glared at him. He smirked and ripped the paper in half before letting it fall to the ground.

"Leave her alone, Avery."

Jane picked her torn schedule up from the floor and looked up to see who had come to her rescue.

"What's it to you, Potter? Why should you care for this filthy Mudbl—"

"Finish that sentence, and I'll hex you; I swear," Sirius said, wand in hand.

Avery didn't seem to like the idea of fighting with Sirius as though he already knew that he wasn't to be trifled with, and he and his group walked to the Slytherin table grumbling the entire way. Jane thought she heard the words "blood traitor," but she made no mention of it to her friends.

"Are you all right?" Remus asked.

Jane nodded.

"I can't, however, say the same for my timetable," she said, holding up the two pieces.

"Lemme see it," Sirius said.

Jane watched curiously as he tapped the paper with his wand and muttered "Reparo." The two halves mended themselves back together before Jane's eyes and she was amazed.

"Here ya go," Sirius said, handing Jane's schedule back to her.

"Thanks, guys," Jane said as she sat down with them at the table.

"No problem," James said as he loaded his plate with food. "Nobody messes with our friends."

Jane smiled at the use of the word, and she started to grab a piece of toast off a tray and look for some jam.

"Sucks that our first class is with Slytherin," Sirius said.

"Yeah," James said, his mouth full of food, "I mean, ever'one knows Gryffin'or an' Slyt'erin 'ate each ot'er." He swallowed. "Whose bright idea was it to put us in classes together?"

"Maybe they're trying to establish peace," Remus said rationally. "You know, trying to get us to like one another?"

"Well, I'd like the Slytherins a whole lot more if I never had to see or hear from them," James said, and Peter nodded his head in agreement.

"Is that all you're eating?" Sirius asked as he looked down at Jane's toast and jam. Jane looked down at it and back up at him. This was what she normally ate for breakfast.

"Yes."

"No wonder your skin and bones," he jested. "You need to put some meat on your bones if you wanna play Quidditch for Gryffindor next year."

Jane looked up at him, puzzled.

"Oh, I-I'm not playing Quidditch. Who told you that?"

"Well, you said it sounded like fun and that you'd like to try it sometime," Sirius stated.

"Yeah, but I'm not trying out for the team!"

James perked up at this.

"Why not?"

"Well, I-I don't even know how to fly yet. I'm probably dreadful at it," Jane said.

"Well, you'll have me to teach you," James said arrogantly, "so you'll be just fine by the time try-outs come around for next year."

"We'll see," she said, biting into her toast.

After breakfast, they went back up to the common room to get their books, and they set off to Potions.

"I hear Professor Slughorn's class is really tough," Peter piped up.

Jane looked at him and then to James with a worried look on her face. James chuckled.

"Nah, you'll do fine. Just stick with me; I know what I'm doing," he said assuredly as they walked into the classroom.

"Jane!" someone called as she walked through the doorway.

Jane turned to see Marlene waving to her. She pointed to the chair beside her. Jane watched as James and Sirius and Remus and Peter paired off together and decided that she could be Marlene's partner.

"Thank Merlin," Marlene said. "Mary and Alice are partners, and I didn't know anybody else."

Jane's brow furrowed as she set her books down.

"Where's Lily?"

"Oh," Marlene said. Then, she brought her voice down to a whisper as though divulging some great secret. "She's partners with that Slytherin boy over there."

Marlene pointed behind Jane. Jane looked over her shoulder to see Lily and Severus talking over their cauldrons at a few stations behind her.

"I can't believe she's friends with him," said Marlene in a rather pompous voice.

Jane shrugged. She didn't know what Lily saw in him either, but if he was nice to her, then who was to say the two couldn't be friends?