CHAPTER 2

The Welcome Feast was beginning. My dormmates—Mary MacDonald and Dorcas Meadowes—and I sat with the other Gryffindor seventh years at the front of the house table, as was tradition. Gryffindor, for the past several years, had put the seventh years up front at the Welcome Feast to welcome the newly sorted first years into the house. Of course, this year, that meant that Mary, Dorcas, and I were sitting with James Potter and his three comrades: Sirius Black, Remus Lupin, and Peter Pettigrew.

Normally, I would've been irritated with the proximity to James, but as it was, I was really only irritated with the realization that I was going slightly bonkers in my attraction to James.

My lovely mates, Mary and Dorcas, had decided to sit me right next to—who else?—Potter himself. I don't think that it was truly a plot to get me stuck beside James, but rather to get Mary placed next to Sirius. She had this fascination with the rebel image he exuded with his long, shaggy black hair and his leather, muggle-styled jacket and the flying motorbike he had apparently bought a few summers previously.

When Professor Dumbledore stood and announced that the sorting was going to begin, we all swiveled around to watch Professor McGonagall leading in several eleven-year old students. She placed the Sorting Hat on the stool and began calling out names. I wistfully remembered my own sorting.

"Lily Evans!" McGonagall called. I nervously stepped forward and placed the hat atop my head. The brim fell over my eyes.

"Well, you're a sharp one, aren't you?" I heard the Hat say in it's sly and curious voice. "With this wit, we could place you easily in Ravenclaw..."

I silently begged to go to Slytherin, which Severus Snape, my neighborhood friend, had told me was the best house at Hogwarts.

"No, no... Slytherin won't do. Hufflepuff won't do, either. With a heart like this, you belong in... GRYFFINDOR!"

I shook myself out of my reverie just in time to cheer wildly with the other seventh years for the first student to be placed in Gryffindor. James, who sat directly beside me turned to grin at me madly. He turned back in time to clap the young boy on the shoulder.

"Welcome to the best house at Hogwarts, you little bugger!"

"The Most Noble House of Godric!" Sirius yelled triumphantly. "Go, go, Gryffindor!"

I smiled brightly at the boy, who looked pleased at the Sorting Hat's choice. He continued walking down to an open seat, and we turned back to the next student to be sorted.

-/-/-

On the first day of classes, as per usual, McGonagall passed out our class schedules. I groaned as I realized that NEWT level classes meant plenty of double sessions.

"Yeah, looks like hell," Dorcas commented, looking irritated with her own timetable. "We've got double everything!"

The four boys in our year came sauntering into the Great Hall. I watched as Sirius plopped himself down between my roommates, and I grinned at Remus, who sat down to my left. James slid into the open seat at my right, with Peter sitting across from him.

"What do our Gryffindor lionesses look so upset about this morning?" Peter asked, scooping up some breakfast potatoes and putting them on his plate.

"Timetables," I groaned. "They're miserable."

Just then, McGonagall appeared and handed the boys their schedules. "Do not be late to Transfiguration, Mr. Black," she said warningly. "You need not start this term off poorly."

He gave her a winning smile. "Of course, Professor. I'll be there with bells on!"

She gave him a wry look and began to make her way to a cluster of other Gryffindor students that had just approached the table.

Potter looked at his schedule and groaned. "Double Potions! Double Herbology! Double everything!"

"That's what I said," Dorcas pouted over her pumpkin juice. "This term is going to be terrible."

Remus sighed beside me. "Maybe not terrible, but it's going to take a lot more work."

"I hate work," Sirius sighed dramatically.

We all snickered and went back to our breakfasts. We ate in polite conversation for a while before James cleared his throat beside me.

"Evans," he said, running a hand through his hair as always. "Did you do something different with your hair today?"

I blushed. I had, actually. I usually wore my hair in a ponytail or a plait, but I had left it down and in its natural state of messy curls in my haste to be early to get my timetable this morning. "Um, yes."

He met my eyes and grinned when he replied, "It looks very nice."

"Thank you," I said, feeling strange. James really was getting much better at this complimenting business, and he was clearly trying to win me over with it. I wished it wasn't working so bloody well.

I made to go on with my breakfast, but I looked over the table and realized that all of our fellow Gryffindor classmates were watching us with varying expressions of confusion, amazement, and delight. I rolled my eyes and set down my fork.

"Let's just go to Transfiguration," I said, standing and feeling uncomfortable with their watchful gazes.

James jumped up. "Right you are, Evans. Lead the way."

-/-/-

When we finally got to Transfiguration, I sat in my usual seat in the front, followed by Dorcas and Mary. The boys took their usual seats in the back of the room. When we settled down, Mary leaned over and whispered, "What the bloody hell was that?"

I sighed. "What are you on about, Mary?"

She looked exasperated, and Dorcas leaned in to say, "James complimented you like a normal human being and then you said 'thank you' and didn't threaten to cut his bullocks off!"

I glared at them and pulled out my textbook. "You are supposed to say thank you when a person compliments you. I don't see what the big deal is."

Mary's jaw fell open.

Dorcas squealed and whispered—not so quietly, in my opinion, "Oh, my gillyweed, Lily, you like James!"

I rounded on her, feeling my eyes getting big. "Will you hush up your fat mouth, for Merlin's sake? And of course I don't! He's... He's... Well, he's Potter," I finished lamely and as though that solved anything.

I sat through the entire lesson of double Transfiguration with the two of them grinning wide, knowing smirks.