Disclaimer: I own nothing except my own plot. Oh, how original.

And without further ado, I give you…

Chapter Six: Muffins and Matchsticks

The next morning, Lily was woken up rather early by Nellie, who was bouncing up and down on her bed.

"First –" Bounce.

"Nellie, what –"

"– day –" Bounce.

"Gerroff!"

"– of –" Bounce.

"Nellie!"

"– classes! –" Nellie finished, falling onto her back and breathing heavily. "Aren't you excited?"

"Whuh time zit?"

"Half past six, why?" Nellie looked genuinely puzzled.

Lily rolled right over and went to sleep again.

"Well, really," the other girl huffed, getting off the bed.

A couple of hours later, Nellie had succeeded in rousing Lily and the two were dressed and on their way through the portrait hole to breakfast. They were joined in the common room by two other girls in their year named Violet Zeller and Darcy Doyle.

"And I didn't even bring any books with me because I didn't know what classes we have today!" Lily was saying anxiously. "What am I going to do?"

"Well," said Nellie, "if you don't know what classes we have today, then I reckon nobody else does, either. If you haven't noticed, none of us brought books."

Lily sighed with relief.

"So what d'you think is a good look for the first day?" Nellie asked.

"A good look?" said Darcy curiously.

"Yeah. To morph, you know."

"Ooh, you're a Metamorphmagus?" said Violet keenly. "They're really rare!"

"I know they are," said Nellie irritably. "I'm not an idi –"

Lily elbowed her.

"Well, anyway. I reckon I should go dark, like so –" she screwed up her face and her hair immediately changed from light brown to black "–shoulder length? No, a pixie cut, with blue eyes – I love yours, Lily, but they just don't suit me – and a nose like… this. No, this. And maybe the eyes should be – ooh, I've always wanted to try purple –"

The other girls watched her fluctuating appearance with open mouths. Lily in particular, being Muggle-born, had never seen such a performance. In the end, Nellie settled on short blonde hair with blue eyes and a cute button nose. The girls made it down to breakfast in about fifteen minutes, having taken only four wrong turns and gone down one misleading staircase.

Settling down to a big plate of scrambled eggs and sausages, Lily said, "When do we get our timetables, though? I hope we have Charms first, I'm really looking forward to trying out some of those Levitation ones the book talked about – how great would it be to make something fly?"

"It'd be nice, I suppose," conceded Nellie. She upended a nearly-empty bottle of ketchup over her plate and shook it experimentally. "Damn, none left. I really want to go to Astronomy."

"I wonder how they're going to do that class," Lily wondered.

"They do it at midnight on some day of the week," said Violet, glancing over. "My brother told me. Seventh-years get it on Saturdays. Lucky buggers – They're not all tired for classes the next day."

"Has anyone seen the muffins?" Nellie asked, peering up and down the table. She spotted them next to Remus's elbow down at the other end of the table. "Oh, bugger. He's sitting with that prat Sam. Lord, I really don't want to talk to him… Lily, will you go with me to get them?"

"What, and be your muffin escort?" Lily giggled but got up anyway and the two girls walked over to where Remus was sitting on the left of James Potter and across the table from Sam. Sam was staring bleary-eyed into his bowl of porridge and James was fast asleep, his head resting on his arm, which was half submerged in his plate of eggs.

"Not morning people, eh?" Nellie whispered to Lily, who only nodded. She was staring enviously at James, who had just let out a little snore. Wish I was still asleep…

"Morning!" said Nellie loudly, sticking her head between James and Sam. James gave a start and jerked his head off his arm.

"Whaazat?" His glasses were hanging lopsidedly off the end of his nose and one sleeve of his robes was covered in yellow goop from his eggs. Lily giggled and he stared at her bemusedly.

"Who are you?" Sam snapped at Nellie, and it took Lily a moment to realize that Nellie looked completely different than she had the previous night.

"Never you mind. Remus, may I have the muffin basket, please?"

Handing her the muffin basket, Remus looked questioningly at Lily. She shook her head at the boys amusedly and followed Nellie back to where the other girls were sitting.

They were almost done with breakfast when Lily chanced to look a few seats down and saw Sirius Black sitting there, looking very unhappy and stabbing at his breakfast venomously. She felt a stab of pity for the boy and looked through the door into the Entrance Hall at the big clock there. There were still fifteen minutes left of breakfast.

"Wait for me to go back to the dormitory, yeah?" she told Nellie, and walked hesitantly around the end of the table to sit next to Sirius Black.

"I'm sorry I meddled last night," she said quickly.

He turned his head slowly to look at her and Lily felt her cheeks redden just as they had the night before. He was definitely very handsome…

"Why'd you do it?" he said abruptly.

"What?" Lily was startled. "Oh, step in front…? It didn't seem right, I suppose."

"That they were taking the mickey out of me?"

"Erm… that they were bullying you, yes."

Sirius laughed shortly. "You're obviously Muggle-born."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"You don't know the way things are around here," he said simply.

"I know a lot more than you give me credit for." Lily narrowed her eyes. "I'm not some mindless idiot who just happened to stumble in here. I can listen, you know. I know that witches and wizards from your family don't get Sorted into Gryffindor. Your cousin is in Slytherin and she's a nasty piece of work. People in Gryffindor don't really like your family; they call them filthy. The Blacks apparently have some prejudice against Muggle-borns like me and Nellie Tonks. I gather that your family… that people in your family aren't really the best sort of people," she finished in a rush.

He laughed again, but it sounded more like a bark to Lily. "Really know your history, don't you? Just like reading out of a textbook."

"Why are you in Gryffindor?" she asked him. He looked surprised at the question and began to fiddle with his spoon. Behind them, James Potter had been walking out of the Hall with Sam and Remus but stopped abruptly upon hearing the question. Sam scoffed and kept walking, but Remus hesitated, waiting for James.

"Nosy bird, aren't you?" Sirius muttered finally. "I really don't know why I'm in Gryffindor. S'pose I'm a bit different from them. I never really got on with my cousins, if you know what I mean." He saw James and Remus reflected in the back of his spoon and turned around sharply.

"Oi! Keep moving!" he barked at them. Remus jumped and fairly scampered out of the Great Hall, but Lily saw James give Sirius a fleeting look of something like respect before following the other boy.

She could see Sirius was uncomfortable now and said, "Well, you really don't seem bad to me. Maybe it's because I'm Muggle-born. We're not as smart as wizards, and all that…" She waited for his reaction.

"No, no, that's not it," mumbled Sirius immediately. He caught her satisfied smile and glared. "You're just too interested in other people's business, that's all."

"Have a good day, then," said Lily coolly, but she had a small smile on her face as she met up with Nellie near the doors.

The other girl handed her a piece of paper. "When you were with that Black boy being Little Miss Friendly, Professor McGonagall came around with the timetables," she informed her. "I got yours for you."

"Ooh, thanks." Lily examined her schedule. "Potions first thing today? It could be worse, I suppose. It's good that we don't have it right before lunch, I'd lose my appetite, wouldn't you?"

"Are you kidding?" said Nellie, half laughing, "Rat spleens and porcupine quills? Those don't make you hungry?"

"No, I can't say they do," said Lily, smiling, as they started up the marble staircase.

"Right, I'll give you five Knuts if you can lead us to the common room with no wrong turns."

"What about staircases and trick walls and such?"

"Those are hard to avoid. Tell you what; I'll subtract one Knut for every one of those."

"Deal."

In the end, Lily and Nellie made it back to the common room having run into only one dead end as the result of being led astray by a mischievous poltergeist named Peeves.

"Pay up!" declared Lily once they were back in the dormitory.

"I don't think so!" said Nellie. "I said only if there were no wrong turns!"

"But that was Peeves's fault!"

"We still made the wrong turns!"

"But – but I got rid of Peeves!" Lily said proudly.

Nellie rolled her eyes. "That wasn't you, that was Remus Lupin. He's the one that said the spell that made Peeves go all funny."

"But I told Remus what spell to use! I would have done it, I just didn't have my wand –"

The two continued to argue as they got the books they would need for their classes before lunch and went down the dormitory stairs into the common room.

"Wait up, you two!"

They were joined a few moments later by Violet and Darcy, who were now accompanied by the two other Gryffindor girls in their year. Lily rather thought the blonde one's name was Fiona and the one with the brown braids was called Electra… or was her name Fiona and the other one Electra…?

"You two know Electra and Fiona, I reckon," said Violet, smiling and pointing at the other two girls. Lily rolled her eyes. That didn't help me at all…

"We'd better head to Potions," said the one with braids – Fiona? – as she looked anxiously at the grandfather clock in the corner. "We can't be late on the first day!"

"Oh, calm down, Fiona –" Aha! "– we still have about fifteen minutes," said the blonde girl. "Still, not as if there's anything else to do here, is there?" She looked disparagingly around the common room. "Let's go."

She and the other girls led the way out of the portrait hole, Lily and Nellie bringing up the rear. The latter was inclined to stay behind in the common room and play Exploding Snap, and Lily was trying to talk her out of it.

"You can't skive off the first lesson!"

"Like the professor'll be doing anything but telling us what the ingredients are!" Nellie snorted. "I think Potions will be a breeze."

"Well, you can't know until you try it, right? Come on." She dragged the other girl down the corridor until they had caught up with the rest of the girls.

"So… anyone seen any cute boys yet?" said Darcy, giggling.

"Well, obviously, Sirius Black is extremely good-looking," said Electra, turning around and squinting critically at the boy himself, who was walking a little behind them in the corridor. "Dobbs, in Hufflepuff, he's not bad either… it's hard to tell, see, because they're all so short at this age." She sighed dramatically and Nellie hastily turned her giggle into a cough. "It's very tough to tell, especially with that boy Sam. I'm not sure what he'll turn out to –"

"Well…" began Fiona slowly. "I think Sam's not bad-looking…"

"Hmph!" Nellie snorted. "You can do better than that little toerag."

Fiona looked slightly hurt and Lily was relieved when Darcy changed the subject.

Due to the guidance of Electra, who turned out to have a very keen sense of direction, they arrived at the door to the dungeon where the Potions lessons were held ten minutes later, having taken no wrong turns at all. The girls were the first ones there and formed a queue outside the door. A minute later, more students began to trickle down the staircase, and by the time the lesson was due to start about twenty-five people were lined up behind them. Lily noticed a few green-and-silver ties and sighed. Apparently, they would be having these lessons with the Slytherins.

The door to the dungeon banged open and a cloud of steam billowed out. A few seconds later, Professor Slughorn emerged out of the smoke. He was coughing, but beamed around at them all. Lily couldn't help feeling that there was something calculating about his gaze.

"Ah, my first batch of first-years!" Professor Slughorn boomed, wiping his eyes. "Sorry about the smoke; one of my potions has rather nasty effects if more than a dash of leech juice is added – but no matter. Come in, come in!" He waved them through the door.

"'One of my potions has rather nasty effects'…Pah!" Nellie whispered as they filed in after Fiona. "I'll bet that was his idea of a grand entrance."

There was a sudden commotion near the door. Sam, apparently still half-asleep, had stumbled and crashed into a large shelf next to Slughorn's desk. A few potion bottles had smashed on the floor and a large ornamental vase was teetering on the edge of the shelf.

Professor Slughorn quickly pulled his wand out of his dark green robes and directed it at the fallen bottles. "Reparo. These potions do unsavory things when not used in the proper ways," he explained to the surrounding watchers as the shards flew back together. "Scourgify." The rapidly congealing puddle of potion vanished immediately.

After making sure the vase was secure on its perch, Slughorn turned to Sam, who was sitting on the floor rubbing his head.

"Not hurt, I hope?" he asked kindly, holding out a hand to help the boy to his feet.

"N-no, sir," said Sam, looking faintly embarrassed.

"There, there, it's quite all right, no harm done. Those potions weren't all that hard to brew, anyway," Slughorn reassured him, though there was a faint line of worry on his forehead as he glanced at the now-empty bottles.

"I'm very sorry, sir," said Sam, remembering his manners.

"Really, it's fine – er, I didn't catch your name, m'boy?"

"Sam, sir. Er – Samuel Golpalott-Jones."

Lily heard Nellie let out a very un-ladylike snort next to her.

"Golpalott-Jones?" Professor Slughorn exclaimed. "Why, you're Linnea's son!"

"Yes, sir, that's my mother," agreed Sam, blushing.

"Well, now!" Slughorn beamed, if possible, even more widely and gestured at the rest of the class. "I had the immense pleasure of instructing Samuel's mother, Linnea, in Potions years ago! Merlin, that was many years ago. And what a dab hand at Potions she was, eh?" He gave Sam's shoulder a little shake. "Golpalott's Laws ring a bell?"

"Yes, sir, they ring a bell," Sam mumbled, and Lily saw him roll his eyes.

"The very foundation of society's knowledge of antidotal functions!" said Slughorn impressively. "Yes, the Third Law in particular has really – but Golpalott-Jones, you say? Which of the Joneses did she marry?"

"Antiochus Jones, sir."

"Oh, dear." Professor Slughorn's face grew a bit paler. "Antiochus? What a – a charming boy, I'm sure."

"You knew my father, too?" Sam's expression brightened a little.

"Yes, yes, oh, yes, I knew your father," said Slughorn worriedly. "Nice boy, he was, but there never was one for destroying cauldrons like young Antiochus. Still, I'm sure your mother has straightened him out." He patted Sam on the shoulder and waddled off to the other side of the dungeon.

"See? My mother's got antidotial – antidomal – antitotal – well, she's got really big laws named after her!" bragged Sam, grinning at the girls.

"Won't stop you taking after your father," said Nellie dismissively, pushing past him to get to a table near the back.

"Who is that?" Lily heard Sam whisper to a pudgy boy near him, and she giggled and followed Nellie.

On the whole, Lily reflected as she cleared up her cauldron at the end of the period, it had been a very nice class. Potions was just the sort of thing she was good at. There wasn't any real skill involved, you just had to have the right meticulous sort of character that read all the directions and measured out precisely the right amount of ingredients. And that's definitely me, she mused, washing her hands at the stone sink at the back of the dungeon.

"I'll be coming around to check your potions in a minute!" Slughorn called from his desk. "And then we'll see…" He turned back to his papers and did not complete the sentence.

They had prepared Strengthening Solutions, which were very simple and didn't require much careful thought. It had clearly been Slughorn's thinking that it was an ideal easy potion for a first-year class with no experience at Potions to prepare. However, not every one of the first-year Gryffindors and Slytherins had Lily's apparent knack for Potions.

Nellie in particular was not having an easy time of it. She had forgotten to add the crucial ingredient at the correct stage, no matter how many times Lily had reminded her to do so, and was now fanning her cauldron as rotten-smelling fumes issued from it.

Just then, there was a loud bang and Lily whipped around quickly. Then she laughed. "I told you so… that fire was way too hot for that stage of the potion!"

"Shut up!" Sam's shaggy hair was sticking straight up in the air and his pale face had been blacked with soot from the explosion of his cauldron. Nellie, who had apparently lost all hope of fixing her potion and already cleared up, walked past him and sneered.

"Destroying cauldrons, eh? Sounds… familiar."

"Miss … Evans, is it?" Professor Slughorn questioned as he stopped next to her cauldron.

"Yes, sir. We, er…"

"Oh, yes! We met on the train!" Slughorn smiled. "You're great friends with Miss Becketts, is that right?"

"Yes, sir. We went to the same –"

"And this is your potion? Marvelous, my dear, simply marvelous! Just the shade of green it's supposed to be!" Professor Slughorn drew a ladle out of a pocket of his robes and dipped it into the cauldron. He took a small, careful sip before setting the ladle down on a nearby table.

"Yes, with the distinctly minty taste… very good!" He squatted down, grasped the leg of his desk with one meaty hand, and very suddenly lifted the desk off the ground. The class gasped.

"Ah! Excellent! Very strong effects!" said Slughorn, putting the desk back on the floor rather hastily. "Well, Miss Evans, it's very clear that Potions just might be your forte!" He patted her genially on the back and crossed to the other side of the room to continue with his evaluations.

"Just might be your fooooorte…" mimicked Nellie. She sighed bitterly. "I wish I'd made one that good."

"Cheer up, there's still time," Lily said soothingly. "At least you didn't skive off."

"Yeah, but now I wish I had," Nellie said. "What do we have now?"

"Transfiguration," Lily said without looking at her schedule.

"You memorized it? You have got to be kidding me…"

"Shut up!"

"Priss."

"Nellie…"

"Priss."

"I swear, if you don't –"

"Priss."

It took them a surprisingly short amount of time to reach the Transfiguration classroom a few floors above. However, they had been following the other students in their year, all of whom had been following Electra, so that was understandable.

The girls walked into the room and Lily immediately spotted Eliza standing at a table near the window. She hurried across the room and tapped her friend happily on the shoulder.

"Hello!" she said excitedly.

"Lily!" Eliza grinned at her. "How're you? How was your first night? Did you sleep well? Me, I thought my bed was a tad uncomfortable, but that might've been because it was near the window and the window was open an inch all night… bit stupid, really, not to have shut it. I can't believe we weren't sorted into the same House, can you? Of course we should have been, we were always on the same sports teams in primary school and –"

"Miss Becketts."

Eliza swallowed and looked to the front of the room. Professor McGonagall was standing between her desk and the blackboard looking at them pointedly. The rest of the class was already in their seats with their parchment and quills out. Lily saw Nellie sitting next to Sam, glaring at her, and winced apologetically.

"Are you quite finished or is there something you wish to share with the class?"

"No, Professor. We'll be quiet now," said Lily when Eliza looked too embarrassed to answer.

"I was of the opinion I directed the question to the young lady sitting next to you," retorted Professor McGonagall, "or is your name Miss Becketts as well?"

"N-no, Professor, it isn't."

"Would you do me the service of telling me your name?"

"Lily Evans, Professor."

"Miss Becketts, are you finished with your conversation or would you like to continue it?" Professor McGonagall turned to Eliza. "I would be perfectly happy for you to choose the latter. Simply give the word and the two of you may leave the class and go to an empty classroom so that you will not be distracted by my teaching."

Gulping, Eliza managed to stutter out, "S-Sorry, Professor McGonagall."

"I thought so. Take your seats, Becketts, Evans."

The two girls sat down, their cheeks red. Neither of them spoke for about twenty minutes while Professor McGonagall gave the class instructions on how to turn a matchstick into a needle. Simple, isn't it, Lily thought, just wave your wand and say the incantation?

But it turned out to be much more than that. There had to be sufficient determination in the mind of the spell caster that that matchstick absolutely had to be turned into a needle. It was very hard work. At one point, about fifteen minutes after they had started working, Eliza became very excited and showed Lily how her matchstick had gone all pointy at the end. Lily pointed out that it was sharp because her friend had been whacking it so hard on the edge of the desk that the tip had broken off.

"So how's Hufflepuff?" said Lily after a while. This Transfiguration business was getting extremely boring and she hadn't talked to her friend since yesterday.

"Oh, it's all right," Eliza answered, "I ate supper with Benjy and his friends yesterday, but I met some absolutely lovely girls in my dormitory – I'll have to introduce you to them soon! I ate breakfast with them." She fell silent, biting her lip as she focused on Transfiguring her matchstick, and Lily was left to look elsewhere for a distraction.

One desk over, Nellie was sitting next to Sam. It appeared that someone (Lily suspected one of the girls from their dormitory) had told him that she was a Metamorphmagus and that he now knew who she was.

"Keep your elbow off my side of the desk!"

"It's a free country, innit? And I'm bigger than you, I need more room!"

"Everything in equal share!"

"Everything in proportion!"

"Professor McGonagall!"

Two desks behind them, James Potter was sitting next to Sirius Black. The two weren't talking at all, but they glanced at each other every other moment and every so often they glanced up at the same time. It looked like they were in a race to Transfigure their matchstick before the other.

"Time's up!" called Professor McGonagall from the front of the room. "Put your matchstick – or needle, hopefully – down in front of you and wait for me to come around."

Lily looked down at her matchstick. It was, undeniably, a matchstick. There was nothing needle-like about it whatsoever.

She wasn't worried, however, because it seemed like no one in the class had managed to make any difference to their matchstick except Eliza, who of course had broken hers, and Sirius Black. His was unmistakably pointier at the ends and had a grayish tinge to it. He looked very proud when Professor McGonagall showed it to the rest of the class. James Potter was looking at him enviously, but there was another emotion mixed in with the jealousy, just as there had been that morning in the Great Hall.

Then it was time to go to lunch, and Lily hurried to catch up with Nellie outside the classroom.

AND THERE WE HAVE IT!

Hope you all liked THAT chapter… it was the second longest yet.

I would like to invite you to read "In A Nutshell", by Jewels5, because it is an exceedingly clever parody of a stereotypical LJ fanfic. It's amazing, seriously.

I had to cut the chapter off here because it was being simply annoying. I don't pretend to be proud of the ending, for it's complete rubbish, but I'll give you another first year chapter to make up for it.

So, uh – REVIEW, please! Thank you for breaking the record with 15 reviews last chapter!

Lots of love and FOUR AND A HALF DAYS TO DEATHLY HALLOWS,

Messyblackhair66