Chapter 8 The Year Really Starts

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter. JK Rowling does.

Lily woke up the next morning at 7 a.m. to the ringing of her alarm clock. She sighed and rolled over tapping the clock with her wand to silence it.

Yawning deeply and stretching she dragged herself out of bed. Although during school Lily could usually be called a morning person for the first couple of days back she always thought longingly of the summer when she was able to wake up when she was ready and not when her alarm clock told her she had to do so.

By the time Lily had showered and dressed Marlene and Katie had also woken up and Lily was currently waiting for Marlene to finish her makeup and Katie to decide whether she wanted to wear her hair up or down. Finally the other two girls were ready and the three of them headed down to breakfast.

"I wonder what class I'll have first," Katie wondered aloud.

"Maybe we'll have a free period first," Marlene said hopefully. "Then we could sleep in on Mondays."

"Yeah right," replied Lily. "If this year is anything like last year we'll need that free period to get our huge mountains of homework done."

"Spoil sport," Marlene muttered. Though Lily was probably right.

The girls entered the Great Hall and sat down at the Gryffindor table. Lily, suddenly realizing how hungry she was, selected the nearest dish of scrambled eggs and began spooning some onto her plate. Just as Lily was beginning to contemplate the toast hundreds of owls came swooping in through the windows. One of them landed in front of Marlene, a copy of The Daily Prophet held firmly in his beak. Marlene took the paper and looked at the front page.

"Well looks like You-know-who is keeping quiet so far this week," she said. "Wonder how long that will last?"

Lily and Katie nodded in agreement. You-know-who, or Lord Voldemort, as most people were afraid to call him, had been rising steadily in power over the past 15 years and had recently started to show just how far he was willing to go to gain power. Unfortunately the Ministry of Magic was only now starting to acknowledge how big a threat he really was.

"Good morning ladies," Sirius said, interrupting Lily's thoughts, as he and the other Marauders arrived at the Gryffindor table. "Are we all well rested and ready for classes to begin?" Sirius asked grinning roguishly.

Katie yawned in response making the seven of them laugh.

"That's the kind of enthusiasm I like to see," Sirius said, making everyone laugh again.

Lily could hardly believe that she was laughing at something Sirius Black had said. What was going on with her? At the end of last year she would have told Sirius to shut up and go away. Although admittedly that would have mostly been because with Black came Potter and his constantly asking her out, which he had surprisingly enough refrained from so far. Admittedly they hadn't been at Hogwarts 24 hours yet, so there was still plenty of time.

The Marauders sat down with the girls and began filling their plates with food just as Professor McGonagall appeared with their timetables.

"Good morning Professor, I trust you had a delightful summer?" Sirius asked grinning charmingly.

"Good morning, Mr. Black," replied Professor McGonagall ignoring Sirius's question. "I have your timetables, I trust you're all prepared to work hard this year in preparation for your N.E.W.T.s?" she asked in that tone of hers that informed you she was not a teacher to mess with.

"We were born ready," Sirius replied cheekily, still grinning. "If they're anything like O.W.L.'s they'll be a piece of cake," Sirius informed her arrogantly.

Professor McGonagall just shook her head and handed them their timetables.

"Sirius, are you sure your mother didn't drop you on your head as a child?" Katie asked.

"I wouldn't put it past her," Sirius replied in a surprisingly bitter and angry tone.

A slightly awkward silence fell over the group, which they filled by focusing on their breakfasts.

"Alright, I'm off to Potions," Lily said about fifteen minutes later.

"Ah, good ol' Sluggy," Sirius replied with a grin. "I'm sure he's missed you terribly over the summer, Lily," Sirius laughed.

Lily rolled her eyes and headed out of the Great Hall. She had to run back to her room and get her books before heading off to the dungeons.

Lily smiled as she walked down the halls back to the Gryffindor Common Room. She really had missed Hogwarts terribly over the summer. Before she knew it she had arrived at the portrait of the Fat Lady.

"Password."

"Biting Geranium," Lily replied.

Lily climbed through the entrance on the other side of the portrait and went up to her dormitory to grab her books. When she came back down she almost ran into James who had just come out of the boy's dormitory with his things.

"How did you get here so fast?" she asked. He hadn't been behind her when she walked back, she was sure of it.

"I took a shortcut," he replied with a shrug.

"Oh."

"Do you mind if I walk to Potions with you?" he asked with a slight hint of, was that nervousness she detected? No, couldn't be.

As much to Lily's surprise as James's Lily found herself saying. "Sure."

James smiled and let her climb out of the portrait hole ahead of him.

"So, excited to be back?" he asked, trying to make conversation.

"Yeah, I love my parents, but it's not the same at home," she replied. "I miss magic. At least now that I'm seventeen I can do it at home, without getting an official warning from the Ministry, but it's still not the same."

James nodded. He couldn't imagine going home for the summer and having to live completely without magic. Even when he hadn't been old enough to perform it himself his house was still full of it.

"Without getting an official warning from the Ministry?" James asked suddenly realizing what she had just said and feeling curious.

"It was just the one time," Lily said sheepishly. "I didn't even mean to do it, but Petunia made me so mad! And it really was funny to see Petunia literally struck dumb," Lily grinned at the memory.

"Well, well," said James smiling, "Little Miss follow the rules isn't as perfect as I though."

"You are not allowed to repeat that story to anyone," Lily said suddenly slightly panicked.

"How old were you?" James asked unable to hide his curiosity.

"Fifteen," Lily replied blushing.

"Isn't fifteen a little old to be performing accidental magic, especially for someone as talented as yourself?" James asked teasingly.

"I never said I performed accidental magic," Lily said grinning.

"But you said you didn't even mean to do it,'" James said now thoroughly confused.

"Well, I didn't, but it wasn't accidental magic, I was holding my wand at the time, and it just sort of happened," Lily said blushing, but at the same time trying rather unsuccessfully to suppress a grin. "I'd never performed non-verbal magic before, I didn't think anything would actually happen. I was just trying to scare her."

James couldn't help himself, he burst out laughing. This broke Lily's resolve and she started to laugh too. James couldn't believe his luck. He was having a conversation with Lily Evans. A real conversation, in which there was no fighting. In fact he'd say they were getting along. And she seemed to be enjoying talking to him as much as he enjoyed talking to her.

"I can't believe I just told you that," said Lily still chuckling slightly. "Seriously though, you can't repeat that to anyone."

"I won't, I promise," James told her. "Though non-verbal magic at only fifteen is pretty impressive. So what happened anyway? After you silenced her I mean."

"Well, she freaked out and went running to Mum. Honestly, seventeen years old and she still goes running to Mummy to tell on me," Lily said shaking her head. "Well, needless to say, Mum wasn't too pleased with either of us. One advantage of Petunia not being able to speak was that I was at least able to explain my side without interruption. Mum wasn't too pleased with what I said Petunia said to make me do it, but she still wasn't very happy about me putting 'silencio' on my sister," Lily grinned.

"Of course she then made me take the spell off. No sooner had I done it then the inevitable Ministry letter showed up. Well, Mum wasn't too pleased and grounded me for a week. But Petunia got two weeks. She told Petunia that while I may not have made the best choice that she couldn't blame me for wanting to make my sister stop insulting me. 'We are family and family doesn't say things like that to each other,' she told Petunia," Lily explained.

"What did she say to you to make you break the Reasonable Restriction for Underage Wizardry and the International Statute of Secrecy?" James asked incredulously.

"Well, first off, as I pointed out to Madame Bones when I had to meet with her, I wasn't technically breaking the Statute of Secrecy as my sister is fully aware of the fact that I'm a witch…"

"You had to go see Madame Bones?" James asked astonished.

"Yes, since I'd performed magic on a Muggle" said Lily rolling her eyes, "Bit stupid really. Even Madame Bones agreed, although she didn't say it. I mean she just let me off with a warning."

"But seriously, what did she say?" James couldn't possibly understand what would make Lily do something that could risk her getting expelled. Mind you he had trouble envisioning Lily breaking any major rules in general, but something like that. Unfortunately they had entered the Potions corridor and other people were also making their way towards the room.

"Let's get to class," Lily said, almost evasively and led the way to class.

James sighed. He was happy to be working with Lily but it was very stressful at the same time. He was determined to show her that he was a good person this year. But he knew that meant laying off on asking her out for a while and not acting like a complete fool in front of her. This sounded easy enough in theory, but he found that being in her presence made it difficult to think straight.

He entered the classroom right behind her, resisting the urge to hold the door. Despite the fact that his father always told him it was the gentlemanly thing to do, it always seemed to bother Lily in the past, resulting in comments like, 'I can do it myself' or 'I don't need your help.' He looked around the room and was not surprised to see that Sirius hadn't arrived yet so he sat down at the table right behind Lily's and put his bag on the chair next to his to save him a seat.

Predictably Sirius rushed through the door seconds behind Professor Slughorn.

"Good morning everyone," Slughorn greet them jovially. "I trust you all had good summers and are ready to work hard this year. As you know you will be sitting your N.E.W.T.s in June and all of you will do well if you simply apply yourselves. Remember these tests are very important especially if you want to go into the Ministry or work at places like St. Mungo's. Today we will begin by brewing a lovely potion to cure more stubborn bouts of the flu. The instructions are in your books, you may begin."

There was a lot of shuffling as the students opened their books to the proper page and began gathering the ingredients they would need to brew their potions. Thankfully it was a double period because the potion they were brewing was rather finicky.

James found Potions to be rather dull despite the fact that a large portion of his families wealth came from successful potioneers, including his own father. He wouldn't have taken the class if it weren't for the fact that he simply didn't know what he wanted to do after graduation and didn't want to realize when he finally figured it out that he needed Potions to do it. Not only was Potions dull, but Potions class also contained one Severus Snape, or as James and his friends called him Snivellous or Snivelly. James was glad that this potion was so complicated as it helped him to completely ignore Snape's presence. As the end of class was approaching Slughorn began making one final lap around the room to inspect everyone's potions. He stopped at Lily's and smiled.

"Well, Miss Evans, I must say this is a fabulous looking Potion, exactly the correct shade of blue. I still say you should have been in my House," Slughorn said as if he still couldn't believe that the Sorting Hat had put her in Gryffindor instead of Slytherin.

"Well, I don't think Salazar would agree with you on that one," Lily quipped.

James still couldn't understand how Lily could joke about things like this. Of course he realized that Slughorn was completely serious about wishing Lily was in Slytherin, Slughorn was Slytherin's Head of House, but he couldn't understand how Lily could be so calm about it. She was entirely correct, Salazar Slytherin would have completely disagreed with Slughorn. The reason Salazar had left was because he didn't want Hogwarts to accept Muggle-born witches and wizards. He just didn't understand how Lily could make a joke about it in response to Slughorn's comments about wanting Lily in his house. It made sense, though, in James mind why Slughorn would want her in his house even though Salazar wouldn't have, Lily was exactly the type of person Slughorn liked to collect and it must drive him mad that she had been sorted into Gryffindor.

"Nonsense," Slughorn replied, "with talent like yours, of course he would."

At that point the bell rang signaling the end of the period.

"Please put a sample of your potions in a flask with your name on it and leave it on my desk for grading," Slughorn announced as the class hurriedly cleaned up.