A/N: Happy Monday! Here's the next chapter of the Marauders fic covering the first day of classes. As always, I appreciate feedback. Hope you have a lovely week!

Chapter 4: The First Day

"Hogwarts, Hogwarts, Hoggy Warty Hogwarts,
Teach us something please," ~Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone

From the moment Lily had been named to Gryffindor, the rest of the night moved in a blur. The line of amazing delicacies that appeared on the table before them in the blink of an eye. The ghosts who swooped through the holes, passing through people like mist and introducing themselves to all those in their old houses. The great halls of the castle as the prefects led them to their dormitories. Lily kept expecting to wake up in her bed at home and realize all of this magic was just a wonderful dream that could never be. She was even afraid to go to sleep that night for fear of losing this place.

The Gryffindor common room was guarded by a portrait the prefect called 'The Fat Lady'. Lily didn't think that was a particularly kind name but the woman in the painting didn't seem to mind. Lily still jumped a little when she spoke even though she had seen dozens of moving paintings already while walking through the castle.

Once they entered the Gryffindor common room, an inviting space with plush red couches and a roaring fire that lit up the whole area with an inviting glow, the prefects suggested they go straight to bed. On her way to the dormitories, Lily almost smacked into that wretched boy, James Potter again. He grinned at her, eyes full of mischief rather than apologies and she turned away, her nose in the air.

She barely slept that night. She was too jittery for the next day's classes. And when she woke early the next morning, she forced herself to wait for some of the other Gryffindor girls to go to breakfast before she went too. She didn't want to be alone in that huge room with only the ghosts.

She could barely eat anything at breakfast either. She only nibbled on the edges of her toast, bobbing nervously up and down in her seat. Gryffindors had potions today with Ravenclaw. Potions. She had no idea what that might entail. Was it like muggle Chemistry? How much magic did it require? What if she didn't even know the basics well enough and everyone laughed at her.

In her edginess, she barely noticed another boy sit near her but when she finally recognized the presence of someone nearby she whirled to face him, desperate to make some sort of conversation. "Nervous for today?" she squeaked.

The boy started a bit. He had unruly brown hair and looked very tired. Perhaps he hadn't slept well either.

"I… yeah, a bit," he admitted.

"So am I." Lily lowered the pitch of her voice. "I mean, I'm sure it will be fine. But I don't know much magic or spells and I've been reading and trying to learn but I am really very worried." She stopped herself, shaking her head. "I'm sorry, I'm being terribly rude. I'm Lily Evans."

"Remus Lupin," the boy replied with a small smile. "It's nice to meet you."

"Nice to meet you." Lily took a deep breath to calm down. This boy seemed nice. Not at all like those two other boys. Maybe she had a possible friend in Gryffindor now. She had been worried ever since being split up from Severus. "Do you know much about potions?"

"Some." Remus shrugged. "But you shouldn't worry, you know. Even though a lot of us grew up knowing we were witches and wizards, no one knows much yet."

"Oh, good." Lily relaxed a bit.

The two talked for the remainder of breakfast, mostly about the castle. The portraits, the moving stairs, the seemingly thousands of corridors. It was small talk but it was enough to keep Lily's mind off their nerves.

Soon it was time for their first potions class. The first years moved in a huddle toward the room where Professor Horace Slughorn waited.

He was quite a large man with chubby cheeks and an impressive mustache. He wore a funny hat, but Lily had discovered that a great many people at this school did. He gestured quickly as the students filed nervously into the room.

"Come, come. Don't be shy. We won't be doing anything too horrible yet. No need to be nervous."

Yet, thought Lily, but she didn't dare say a word. The more she listened, the more she would learn.

Slughorn began to talk at length about important tools of potions and the purpose of the fine art. He seemed like quite the friendly man and Lily relaxed a bit as he continued to speak. In fact she began to feel eager to learn more about the topics he mentioned. Cures for poisons? Draughts to increase the health or luck of the drinker? It all seemed very fascinating to her.

"Now for our first lesson, I would like you to all pair up. Go on, get into pairs. We are going to try a simple potion: one that cures boils."

Lily looked around, panicking for a moment about who she might partner with. For a moment, she accidentally caught James Potter's eye and he seemed to take a step forward. She spun and grabbed Remus' arm. "Do you want to partner up?"

Remus looked surprised but he nodded. "Er… yeah, sure."

Lily breathed a sigh of relief. She wasn't sure what made her so thoroughly annoyed with the Potter boy. It was more than his insults to Severus. It was his very demeanor. It was everything about him.

With any luck she could avoid talking to him for the remainder of the year—if not all seven of her years at Hogwarts.

It came as a surprise to James how much the Evans girl seemed to despise him. A few teasing comments to her and her friend? Surely that wasn't worth so much disdain, especially when they were in the same house.

But he wasn't one to let such things get him down. He scanned the room for another partner and noticed a nervous boy, very small for his age, twiddling his thumbs as everyone else partnered up. James shrugged and wandered over to him. "Hey there. Want to work together?"

The boy jumped. "Me?" he seemed to squeak. "Really, you want to work with me?"

"Why wouldn't I?" James sat down next to him. "You haven't given me a reason to hate you yet." He grinned just to make sure the boy knew he was joking. "What's your name?"

"Peter."

"I'm James."

Peter nodded once, smiling shyly. "Thanks I… I didn't know who else to pair with. I-I'm not always good at making friends with new people."

James had noticed. In fact he was kind of surprised Peter had ended up in Gryffindor at all. But he didn't say so. "Well, that's because Gryffindors are lions." James shrugged. "You're so ferocious you scare everyone away."

Peter giggled and James smiled as well. Good. He got the kid to loosen up a bit. A little more of this and maybe he would make a worthy Gryffindor.

Perhaps even a friend.

Someone smart, Sirius thought. I should pair with someone smart.

His own strengths never lay with reading. Or any work in particular. He had the attention span of a squirrel and couldn't be bothered to learn much from words. But if he wanted to stay at this school, he should at least appear to be doing well.

He slid over near a Ravenclaw, recognizing her as one of the girls he had met on the train. "Hey," he said. "Stella Reed, right?"

"Right," she eyed him suspiciously. "And you're Sirius Black."

"Just Sirius. Not a fan of my family name," he rubbed a hand behind his head. "So, you any good at potions?"

"Haven't tried it yet." Stella said, looking down at the cauldron. "I might be." She looked up at him. "Are you asking out of curiosity or because you want to partner with someone who knows what they're doing?"

"Let's go with both. Wanna be partners?"

Stella sighed. "Well, you're the only one I know who hasn't found a partner. So I guess."

"Excellent." Sirius sat down next to her and leaned over to read her book. "Great. Okay… where do we start?"

"You can start by getting the materials," Stella said. "Then we'll worry about the potion."

"I can get things. That is definitely something I can do." Sirius marched off, actually half glad to look productive. Besides if he didn't try to help, Stella might tell the professor he was mooching off her work. She seemed like the type to do that.

Well, he sort of was mooching, but still.

Once they had the materials out in front of them, Stella went to work. She read the instructions so quickly that Sirius thought her eyes might fall out of her head and roll across the desk. Her hands moved quickly as she grabbed the objects and quickly set to work chopping up dried nettles.

"Wow, you do get this." Sirius stared at her. "Have you… done potions work before?"

"No." Stella shook her head, never taking her eyes off her work. "Just chemistry."

"What's chemistry?"

"Its like potions. But with chemical reactions instead of magic." She held out her hand. "Mortar and pestle please."

"Which one is that?"

"The bowl with the little thing inside of it that's used for crushing." She stared at him. "You're from a wizarding family aren't you? Don't you know any of this?"

"Just because I'm a wizard doesn't mean I'm a smart one." Sirius grinned but his cheeks heated. Her stare made him feel inferior. And he was already well used to that in his family. Maybe finding a smart person wasn't the best idea.

Stella studied him for a moment before she exhaled and handed him the mortar and pestle. "Here. Use this to crush the snake fangs. It says to make them into a fine powder." She looked back to the book. "Not everything in potions takes smarts."

Her lip twitched and it took Sirius a moment to see that she meant the comment as a joke. He grinned. "I can crush things too."

By the end of the class they had created a stellar potion. Slughorn applauded them and Sirius felt a bit of pride swell up in his chest, even if he hadn't done a lot of the work. If he could keep partnering up with Stella, he could stay ahead.

She would be a handy person to make friends with at school.

The Defense against the Dark Arts professor had left the classroom for the moment. And that made Alice worried.

Alice Fortesue had a few reasons for being worried of course. For one thing it was the first class of her Hogwarts career and nervousness seemed only natural. But even worse, the had class with the Slytherins. Alice heard nothing but bad things about Slytherins. About how they were conniving and often went bad and hated muggle borns and Hufflepuffs and anyone they thought of as lesser.

Rumors weren't always true but they did seem like a rather unpleasant bunch as they filed into the room together. One of them tripped a young Hufflepuff boy and muttered something under his breath. Alice didn't hear what they said but she doubted it was kind. She bristled slightly but kept quiet for the moment.

Now the professor was out of the room. And the Slytherin first year seemed to think it was time for him to keep up his high and mighty attitude. Establish his superiority early, Alice thought. Her eyes narrowed as the boy stood.

"Hufflepuff has picked up its fair share of scum this year, haven't they?" he asked. "I mean, Hufflepuff has always taken the rejects from all the other houses. But this year? A lot of dirty blood. Are any of you actually pure bloods?"

I am, thought Alice, but she didn't speak. None of the Hufflepuffs did. No one wanted to escalate the situation.

"Don't you idiots speak? Or are you too stupid?" A Slytherin girl sneered.

"Too stupid for Ravenclaw. Not enough guts for Gryffindor." The Slytherin boy jabbed the boy he tripped earlier in the chest with his finger. He stumbled back, keeping his head down. "And not pure enough for Slytherin, am I right, mudblood?"

"Stop," the boy mumbled under his breath.

"What was that?" the boy's eyes narrowed. "Did you say something mudblood?" He pushed him again, this time hard enough to make him fall down. "Did you?"

"Yes!" a voice said. "He said stop. And if you were kind of decent human being, you would."

Everyone turned to look at Alice. And it was only then that she realized she had spoken. She had said what she had thought in her head, almost by accident. And now she had the Slytherin's attention.

"What, you have something to say too?" the boy asked. "Another lousy mudblood."

Alice's palms were sweaty as the boy took a step forward. But she clenched her jaw. If she backed down then he would just keep picking on the other Hufflepuffs. She couldn't let that happen. They were, after all, like her new family. "I'm a pureblood, just like you," she said, holding her ground. "No. Not just like you. I'm much better than someone like you. Everyone in our house is." She took a step forward. "Muggleborns and purebloods alike in Hufflepuff are better than a horrid boy like you."

The boy laughed and some of his Slytherin friends joined him. Not all of them seem keen on the situation. A boy with black hair kept tapping his fingers on the desk, looking uncomfortable and a blonde girl was looking away. Another small group of Slytherins in the back also pretended like nothing was wrong. "Oh really? You're better than us? What great thing has a Hufflepuff ever done?"

"What great thing have you ever done?" Alice retorted. "You're eleven like the rest of us."

The boy paused for a moment, looking surprised, before he continued. "I'm destined for greatness."

"You don't seem like it," Alice said flatly.

Now a few of the Hufflepuffs giggled but quietly and behind their hands.

The boy flushed and opened his mouth to say something else but Alice continued on, fueled by some unknown fire in her chest. "If you were destined for anything great, you wouldn't pick on other people to make yourself seem better. It just makes you worse. And if you keep on picking on my house, you'll regret it. I won't let you."

"You won't let me, huh?" the boy sneered. "What can you do?"

"Keep being rude and you'll find out." Alice said tightly in a much more confident voice than suited her shaking hands. Hopefully they boy couldn't see though. Hopefully he didn't call her bluff.

He might have, but the professor reentered the room at that moment. "What's all this?" he asked. He noticed the boy on the ground. "What happened here?"

"They shoved me over, sir," the Hufflepuff boy squeaked. "They called us mean names."

"Twenty points from Slytherin. There will be no fighting in this class. Not unless it's part of the curriculum," the professor demanded. "Now sit down!"

The Slytherins did but the boy eyed Alice angrily as he did. Even if standing up for the other Hufflepuffs had been noble… she had a feeling she had just gained a few enemies in Slytherin. And that couldn't end well.

A/N: Hope you enjoyed! Almost half way through year one. Just one more chapter. As always, REVIEW and tell me what you think. Have a good week!