AN: Hey, it's me Aly! Wow, I cannot believe how long it's been since I've updated, but I've actually been better about it lately! I've updated Never Alone a few times, and the most recent chapter of Kiss Me in the Rain is very nearly done. I'm gonna do better this time, I promise you guys! Cuz I love you guys, my faithful readers and reviewers! I love you with lots of chocolate hugs and kisses! Mchuah! (That's a big kiss from me to you, lol)

I sat through my first class feeling like a bug under a microscope. Biology, they called it. Ridiculous subject. Fairly useless. But whatever.

Anyway, the whole class was staring at me. They kept turning to look at me and then whisper to each other. I couldn't hear anything, but I did wonder if it was good or bad.

After class, I was just going out into the hall, when I was surrounded. Okay, not really, but two identical boys, both a foot taller than me with messy black hair and blue eyes, stood on either side of me.

"I'm Andrew," one said. "And this is my brother Matthew."

"Uh, I'm Lily Luna," I told them. It had become second nature to me to say my middle name. half the people I met already knew my name, and the other half would say, "You're not Lily Potter! She died decades ago!" so I usually found it better to clarify that I was the daughter of Harry Potter, and not his mother.

"Well, Lils, today is your lucky day," Matthew said. His eyes were farther apart than Andrew's.

"Or unlucky, depending on how you look at it," replied Andrew. His nose was slightly bigger than Matthew's.

And with that, without saying anything else, or warning me at all, they lifted me up onto their shoulders and carried me to my next class.

No joke.

I shrieked in surprise, and got several concerned stares, but once they saw who was carrying me, they turned to sympathetic smiles. Apparently this was usual behavior for Andrew and Matthew.

And suddenly, I was thinking of Uncle Fred and Uncle George. Strange, as I had never even met Uncle Fred, but I guess the whole twin thing reminded me of them.

And I felt homesick. The feeling surprised me so much that I didn't even have time to protest being carried until they dropped me at the door of my next class.

"We have Intro to Film with you!" Andrew said cheerfully.

"Won't it be fun?" Matthew added. And I laughed. It was a strange sound.

It was real.

How often did I really laugh? I laughed at funny movies all the time. But that was a humor laugh. I laughed at things my brothers did, and things my family said, but that was a forced laugh. I had to make myself enjoy those things.

This was real. I had real friends. I'd never had real friends who weren't in my family, except for maybe Liza Longbottom, but she was pretty much my cousin.

So Matthew and Andrew carried me on their shoulders into the most amazing classroom I've ever been in.

It had camera equipment and computers and TV screens and a huge corner with tape all over, presumably for filming. The walls were covered with movie posters, and the ceiling had pictures of Hollywood stars all over it.

Dear Lord, I've died and gone to New York.

"Announcing one Miss Lily Luna Potter!" Matthew announced to the class of…well, only about eight students.

And guess what. No one cared! No one even turned around! It was amazing. I feel so at home here.

"Ah, Miss Potter!" a short, brown-haired man said, walking out of an office connected to the large room. "You're here! Andrew, Matthew, put the poor girl down." They did so, then the short man introduced himself as Mr. Rhine.

"Actually, Lily," he said to me in an overly enthusiastic voice. "You've come at a great time! We're just about to start our final project! Sit down and I'll explain!"

Apparently one doesn't just "sit" in the film studio. As far as I could tell, the only chairs were the ones at some type of equipment. The computer chairs, the one next to the tripod, one or two here and there. Andrew grabbed three chairs and Matthew sat me down in between them. The other seven or so students gathered their chairs in the center of the room, and Mr. Rhine stood at the front.

"Alright class!" he said, but he needn't have bothered. All eyes and ears had automatically turned toward him at the words "final project". "As most of you know, once a year all the art departments have a final project. Band and choir have concerts, art and photography have a showcase, theatre puts on a play, and we have a film festival.

"Now, you know I don't approve of the feud between the theatre and film classes, or the secret ballad that goes around 'under the table' after the film festival and theatre, but I will say this: certain sources have informed me that, for four years running now, we have lost. Now, remember, I don't approve of this, but if we were to stoop to their level, well, it would be a shame not to win, wouldn't it?"

I didn't understand half of what he was saying, but he made it quite clear that he wholeheartedly approved of partaking in and winning this 'under the table' contest.

"So anyway, most of you know how it goes. Each of you will randomly select a genre, and you will make a ten to twenty minute movie of that genre. The best will be showed at our film festival. Remember to make it school appropriate, yadda yadda yadda. And have fun with it."

I had never heard a teacher sound so lighthearted about an assignment, nor tell us to "have fun with it".

And with that Mr. Rhine grabbed an oversized top hat off his desk. "Alright, pick your genres!"

Matthew and Andrew reached in in turn, then a couple other people. I reached in, my fingers closing around the first paper they touched.

"No looking!" Mr. Rhine reminded us. "I don't want you trading!"

Once everyone had pulled out a paper, he got a clipboard and said, "Alright…look!"

And with that, the ten people in the room hungrily opened up their folded papers. Including me.

Documentary

I was disappointed for a half second before I realized the possibilities this opened up. I could have my film on anything!

"Romance," Andrew said, as if it were a dirty word.

There was a harsh laugh from his left, and I turned, startled, to see a short girl with long, wavy black hair and bright green eyes grinning at us. Although, truth be told, her laugh was a little creepy.

"Ah, Lily, this is Jenna, my girlfriend," Matthew put his arm around Jenna. She looked at him, not saying anything, but apparently there was something in her stony expression that told him to remove his arm, because he let go of her as though she'd burned him.

"Right," Andrew said, grinning at me. "Where are you staying?"

"In a dorm at NYU," I told them.

"Well then, it's settled," Matthew informed me, as if they'd all had a conversation that I'd somehow missed.

"What's settled?" I asked tentatively.

"That we're going to help you decorate your room after school of course!" Andrew told me, as if it were obvious.

"Oh," I said, still confused. I thought for a moment. We were having a DADA (Defense against the darks arts, duh) class tonight but not until six. School gets out at three, so that's three hours. YES!

"Alright," I told them.

Jenna raised her eyebrows. "I don't think they were exactly giving you a choice.

I laughed. "No," I agreed, "but if you'd met some of the people I have, you'd be used to it."

I said it so quickly, so easily, I didn't have time to think about it. I didn't know this girl, hadn't had time to find out about her personality, didn't even know her last name, and I was joking around as if we were old friends. I mentally slapped myself for a half second before realizing she was smirking. Not in a mean way, but in an I-like-this-girl kind of way.