Hogwarts, at last! Finally we get to see the castle. Snape's chapter is next, I think it's absolutely gorgeous and is one of my favorite parts. I hope you like it. :)
Lily found herself standing in front of a very large portrait later that evening. She was still angry with the four boys she had met in the train earlier that day, one of which, the boy with messy black hair, kept turning around and looking at her. She was standing with her fellow Gryffindor first-years just outside what, one of the prefects had said, was the entrance to Gryffindor tower.
"What are we waiting for?" Lily whispered, leaning over to the girl who stood net to her. She had short, blonde hair and a round, cheerful face, and Lily had taken to her immediately.
"The password, I think," the blonde girl, whose name was Alice, said. Lily studied the painting for a while. A very short, very fat (Lily hated using that word, it was so discouraging, but there was no other word to describe the painting) lady in a pink dress was smiling at the lot of them.
"This is the entrance to Gryffindor tower," said the boy prefect who was tall and very professional looking. Lily sighed. It was the third time he had said that. The prefect nodded to the girl prefect, who said loudly and clearly to the Fat Lady, "Draco Dormiens Nunquam Titillandus." The painting of the Fat Lady swung open to reveal a very large hole, perfect for climbing through.
"What?" Lily asked confusedly as the prefects began to herd the children through the portrait hole.
"It's the Hogwarts motto," Alice explained, and the two girls were pushed forward by the prefects. Lily found herself standing right behind the boy she had met on the train. "'Never Tickle A Sleeping Dragon.'"
"That's the motto?" Lily asked, giggling in spite of herself. Alice laughed, too, and nodded. Alice climbed into the portrait hole and Lily was ready to follow, except for the fact that a certain messy-haired boy was standing in her way, not moving.
"Excuse me," she said in an exasperated voice, not unlike the one Severus had used on the very same boy while they were in Diagon Alley.
The boy whipped around, half-surprised and half grinning. Lily scowled. His was a stupid smile, like the ones boys at her old Muggle school used to wear right before the teacher sat on the whoopee cushion. "I'm sorry?" he asked.
Lily heard some groans behind her and a distant voice say, "What's the hold up?" The two prefects were already inside and there was no one out there to help the flow of traffic. "Please move," she told the messy-haired boy.
He laughed, and held out a hand. "I'm James."
"Please move," Lily repeated. How she could have seen anything but arrogance in this idiotic boy who held up the entire long line of Gryffindor first years, she didn't know. She should never have listened to her mother when she had told Lily to "never judge a book by its cover." But the boy—James, as he said he was called—didn't move. "Move, please!" Lily said, and finally elbowed him out of the way and climbed into the hole.
James just stood there, watching her with a smile.
Lily sighed as she climbed out of the portrait hole and into the common room, but her breath was caught as she saw the grandeur of the room. The large, roaring fireplace looked anything but indifferent to Lily, who was cold after her trip across the lake. The large, squashy armchairs looked perfect for studying or falling asleep in. All the tapestries were red and gold and everything looked so beautiful—
But Lily frowned. If she had gotten her way, Severus would be looking at all this too. Lily wondered what Sev was doing, where his common room was. He was her only friend so far, and he was God knows where in who knows what section of the giant castle.
The prefects took to the front of the room after all the first years had gotten inside. The tall, boy prefect said in a pompous sort of voice that Lily didn't really care for, "This is the Gryffindor common room. No one else is allowed in here except for us Gryffindors. Students of all ages meet here to study and have a nice time." Lily, however, was very doubtful as to whether this boy even knew how to have a good time. "Boys' dormitories are up the stairs to the left of the room, and girls' are to the right." And with those words, the girl prefect, who looked a great deal nicer than the boy, rounded up all the first year girls and took them up the stairs.
Lily was halfway up the stairs when the portrait hole burst open and she heard two loud shrieks. A girl and a boy, both very freckled and very redheaded, ran inside the common room, laughing. The boy ran after the girl, calling, "Molly! Molly, come on!"
Molly, a short, cute little thing who was several years older than Lily, cried out, still laughing, "Oh, leave me alone, Arthur!" She dashed up the staircase Lily was still climbing, looking over her shoulder at the boy.
The boy, however, was still following Molly. He leaped the staircase, taking two steps at a time, and the minute his foot hit the sixth staircase, Lily, and all the other girls on the staircase, let out a shriek. The boy cursed, and Lily felt herself sliding down the suddenly smooth surface of the staircase. She tried to grab onto the railing, but it slipped through her fingers and she went tumbling down the staircase, her head slamming into Arthur's stomach.
She felt a strange breeze around her crotch area, and when she sat up, she found she couldn't see anything because her skirt had flipped over her head. Lily turned bright red all the way to the roots of her hair, and pulled down her skirt hastily, amidst snickers from the older (and younger) students of Gryffindor.
She felt tears prickle her eyes and saw Alice's hand reached down to pull her up. Lily stood up, still red, and saw Alice at the top of the stairs. But how could Alice be holding my hand at the same time? she wondered. When she looked up at the face of whose hand she was holding, she blushed with anger instead of embarrassment.
That James boy, who had been so nasty to Sev, was still holding her hand. She yanked it out of his grasp, scowling at him. James's smile faltered, and his hand hung in midair. Lily whipped around, her hair smacking James in the face, and ran up the staircase, which had now morphed back into its original state.
Tears began to sting her eyes once again, and Alice wrapped an arm around Lily's shoulder and held out a handkerchief embroidered with a scarlet "A". Alice led Lily into the first year dormitory, and shut the door quietly. Lily fell onto a bed, not caring whose it was, and began to sob. Hogwarts was not turning out how she thought it would be.
"Shh, shh," Alice said, and Lily felt her reassuring pat on her back. "Don't cry, Lily."
But Lily continued to sob, and was finally able to sit up, a few minutes later. There was a dark spot on the red bedcovers where Lily's tears had cleaned it. She wiped at her nose with Alice's handkerchief, and nodded at Alice's inquiring look.
Mary McDonald, another Gryffindor first year, came over to sit next to Lily. "Don't be embarrassed, it probably has happened to a lot of people."
"But—but—" protested Lily, and felt another wave of tears trying to burst their way through her eyelids. "Not on their first day!"
But Mary only smiled and took Lily's hand. "Even on their first day." And Alice nodded and took a seat on the bed next to Lily as well. Lily looked up to the doorway, a rustling sound catching her ears, and saw the girl prefect standing there, looking a little uncomfortable. If anyone should come and comfort her, make her feel more welcome on her first day of school, it would be a prefect. And yet it looked as if she was trying to sidle her way out of the room without being noticed.
The door clicked shut and the girls sat in silence for a moment. Then both Mary and Alice burst out laughing. Lily, watching her friends' bellies heave with giggles, caught the contagion and began to laugh, too.