That night James had a dream that he was in the great hall staring at the thousands of candles suspended in midair, illuminating the area. Suddenly the candles started to float in a ring above him. Then they sprouted wings and transformed into a type of waxy birds, darting strait toward James, the flame as their beaks. He tried to jump out of the way, to run, but his feet were stuck to the floor; he couldn't move them, as if gravity was heavily holding them to the stone ground.
James awoke with a start, or at least he thought he did, but his feet still couldn't move. He looked down to see Sirius curled up in a ball on his legs. Perplexed, James tried to nudge him off, but Sirius just stretched and resumed position.
"Sirius." James groaned. "Get off."
But he slept on. Finally, James had to throw his pillow at him, being too tired to sit up at the moment anyway. Sirius was hit in the face and woke blurry eyes and dazed.
"What are you trying to do?" asked Sirius sleepily and with his hair in his eyes, throwing the pillow back.
"Why are you on my feet?" asked James. Sirius looked down at what he was laying on.
"Oops, sorry mate." and he sitting up.
"Your bed is right there." said James pointing at a bed across from his own.
"Oh, see, by the time I got out of the bathroom, you all had the lights out and I couldn't find my bed. Well I thought I had but ended up laying on something squashy, I think it was a face, I hope it was Remus, it would've been awkward otherwise. Anyway, I found your glasses on the floor, well actually I stepped on them, they might have broken, sorry. I realized that this was your bed and just climbed on."
"That was a long story." said Remus sitting up from bed. "And that face wasn't mine."
About half an hour later the boys were dressed showered, and heading down the boy's staircase. The Gryffindor common room was very warm looking, though the weather was hot and sunny outside, there was a fire blazing in the grate. There were cushy armchairs by the fire and couches and small tables all around the room. Sun was shining in through the windows making the room look warm and inviting.
The boys had forgotten how to get to the great hall and ended up spending nearly an hour running around the castle. Twice they walked in on older students snogging in abandoned classrooms. They figured that since the Gryffindor common room was in a tower, and since the great hall was on the level ground, if they just kept taking stairs that went down, they would find themselves on the right floor. But this was made difficult because not only did the many staircases change directions often, but they also often decided to lead upward instead of down, this meant that the boys had to take the same staircase three times. By the time they looked up, they realized that they had gone too far. The dungeons were not where they'd find a nice hot breakfast.
James was getting angry and all of their stomachs were. "Crying with hunger." as Sirius put it. Remus looked at his watch to find that they had six minutes till they had to go to class, but the issue was, not only did they not make it to the great hall to eat, but they also missed getting their time tables that Professor McGonagall was supposed to hand out during breakfast, so they didn't know what class they had.
"If we had just asked directions." said a grumpy Remus as they dashed, now, upstairs.
"I didn't need directions." James replied.
"Obviously you did or we'd be well fed and sitting in class with a time table in our bags." said Remus.
"Will you two stop fighting." Sirius interjected. "Your voices are making my head hurt."
They crashed into a rather fat, balding man with a walrus mustache, coming down the stone steps into the dungeons.
"Oh!" said the man in surprise as Sirius fell backward onto the floor. "I was just heading to teach potions, what are you three doing?"
"We were lost!" rushed Remus. "We don't know which class we're supposed to be at."
"Well I saw a good few first years heading toward the charms class." said the man.
"Where is that?"
"Your charms class will be in room 99 in the South tower." he replied.
"Okay." said Remus pausing. ". . . Where is that?"
The man chuckled and pulled from his pocket, a roll of parchment. "Here." he said. "I always keep a couple maps on me, for situations like this one, also, between you and I, I sometimes need one." he handed Remus the map with a wink and walked on. Remus unrolled it, and dashed forward.
It wasn't long until they were sprinting down the corridor toward room 99.
They paused before entering to catch their breath.
"We're three minutes late." gasped Remus. And Sirius peaked through the key hole. "They've started." he said. "Oh! Oh wait! The Professor just toppled off his chair. Go, go, go!" and the boys quietly rushed into the room to take empty seats near the back. A few students turned to see them sneak in and the red head girl, Evans, was staring at them disapproving. James caught her eye and winked, she rolled her eyes and turned back around.
The Professor clambered back up onto his chair red faced. He was a tiny man not four feet tall and had to stand on a stack of books to see over his desk.
"Sorry class, sorry." he was saying. "I was just looking for. . . where is it? Aw!" and he pulled a scroll from under a stack of books. "Have to make sure you are all here."
James, Sirius, and Remus looked at each other and Sirius pretended to wipe sweat from his brow.
"Alright, Gryffindors first, when you hear your name, please raise your hand." said the Professor and he began to read off the long list,
"Atkins, Terra,
Black, Sirius,
Dalbert, Ezekiel,
Evens, Lily.
Illins, Jack,
Joel, Paxton,
Kinley, Skipper,
Lumeir, Quazzy,
Lupin, Remus,
Mac, Uphraties,
McClan, Kennedy,
Nown, Benjamin,
Ozwald, Juliet,
Paldmorr, Pilgrim,
Pettigew, Peter,
Potter, James,
Quinn, Haily,
Quin, Admon,
Raxxon, Chrysanthemum,
Sapple, Chandler,
Ulivia, Bolivia,
Xylem, Obadiah,
Young, Malachi
Vizzini, Zachary."
"Good, now the Ravenclaws." and he read all of their names out too.
"I must say, good number this year, quite a few more students than normal. Now as I was saying before the call, I am Professor Flitwick."
He talked for a short time about how important charms is, about what it is used for, where the art originated, and what they will be learning over the year. He gave each of the students a pencil with the task of turning it blue. At the end of the class, only Remus, Evans, Obadiah, and a few Ravenclaws had been able to successfully do the spell. James, Sirius and a hand full of other students had managed to make patches, spots, or give the pencil a blue tint.
James kept his half blue pencil behind his ear and swore to never throw it away, this was the first bit of magic he had ever done at Hogwarts.
"Hey!" called James catching up to the Peter boy from their dormitory.
"Can we look at your time table?" he asked.
The boy looked as if this was an honor and scrambled to get it. "Of course!" he said in a voice that was slightly higher than a boy his age should have.
"Okay." said James looking at it. "We have Herbology, lunch, transfiguration, and Defense Against the Dark Arts. We can remember that."
With the map in their hands, finding their way out of the castle and to greenhouse one, was easy. Peter followed closely behind them with his time table clutched in his hands as if hoping that they would need it again.
Herbology was an interesting affair. They had to string Epthan pods. It was kind of like when you string a honey suckle, except the string was an inch in diameter and would writhe around whenever you managed to pluck it from the weed. Professor Sprout, a squat, plump, and earthy witch, had apparently forgotten to tell the class that the Ethpan Pod juice was a nasty yellowish, fowl smelling liquid that would splatter on you when you strung it. And the worst of it was, you had to reach inside of the pod and collect the liquid in a vile. This was made difficult because the plant would try to eat your arm while it was in its mouth. Of course the plant had no teeth so it would just suck on your arm making it all sticky, and it tickled.
James had become so uncomfortable with the feeling of the plant on his arm that he accidentally jerked his arm while collecting the juice which poked a hole through its delicate leafy side and caused the liquid to spill out onto the table.
"Careful Potter, careful!" cried Professor Sprout, sliding a bowl across the table to catch the leaking juice.
"Professor?" asked James. "If the juice will just spill out by punching a hole in the side, why don't we all do that? Wouldn't it make this all faster?"
A couple students were looking as if this was a very reasonable suggestion.
Professor Sprout opened her mouth to answer, but stopped when she saw Evans' hand fly into the air.
"Yes miss. Evans?"
"The Ethpan pod reproduces its juice and regrows its string so that it can be used again. So I would be correct in thinking that to stab a hole in the side of the plant would be quite foolish because it will not be able to produce correctly and will die." she finished.
"Quite right." said Sprout. "Five points to Gryffindor."
James tapped his head then gave her a thumbs up. Lily looked back down at her Ethpan Pod and began working.
"Now," said Professor Sprout. "can any of you tell me what the juice of the Ethpan Pod is used for?"
"Evans can." said James.
Professor Sprout looked at her and Lily looked a bit awkward.
"No, I can't." she said quietly then scowled at James who shrugged. He didn't know why, but he found it to be quite enjoyable to pick on her. She was of course very pretty, and when he talked to her, she would look at him which oddly gave him a weird feeling in his chest, and the more he would do this, the more time he had to figure out what that feeling was?
"The juice is used for headaches." said the Professor. "Or to help someone who has had a concussion heal faster. Many different types of muggle medicines have this ingredient in them, though the muggles have been led to believe that it comes from the base of volcanoes in Iceland."
They were all given a syrup to clean the sticky area that the plant had been sucking off because according to Professor Sprout, if the sap is left on the skin for over an hour, your skin will turn green. The syrup was also used to clean the yellowish liquid off of their robes. But the syrup had such a strong scent of female perfume that Sirius refused to wear it. He poked fun at James and Remus the whole way back up to the castle for smelling like girls, until they got to the great hall where James and Remus were laughing at Sirius because his entire arm, all the way down to his fingers was turning green.
They had pasta for lunch and sat beside Ezekiel Dalbert.
"Whoa man, what happened to your arm." Ezzy asked when Sirius reached for the cheese powder. "Looking a bit like Godzilla under there."
"Who's Godzilla?" Sirius asked.
"Who's Godz- you know, they giant lizard from that movie. . ." Ezzy replied looking startled.
They guys shook their heads.
"He's like, half dinosaur, half lizard, he came out of the water and destroyed a city. . ."
"Nope. . ." said Remus.
"You've never seen that movie?"
"I don't even know what a movie is." said Sirius.
Ezzy grabbed his heart and inhaled sharply.
"What kind of people are you?" he asked. "I knew many wizards weren't familiar with muggle culture but I never imagined."
"Are you muggle born?" asked James.
"No, I'm a halfblood, my dad's a wizard, mom's a muggle. But my dad quit magic to move to Spain with my mom, and we all live as muggles. . . with a television."
"Okay, I have never heard of a wizard giving up magic to be a muggle before." said James.
"Well you have now. It's not bad. But my dad sometimes takes his wand out and entertains us with a few tricks when nobody else is around. He doesn't do it too often because magic interferes with technology. I expect that's why Hogwarts doesn't use it. See, my mom's family is Jewish and we all live together. If they found out that my dad and I were wizards, they'd shun us out with holy water or something. It's been a nightmare trying to make excuses to all the little magic things I've been doing over the years. My parents were hesitant about letting me come to Hogwarts when I got my letter. But I convinced them and here I am. The rest of my family thinks that I'm studying in America to become a doctor."
"Wow. . ." said Sirius staring at him. "So how are you going to do the holiday work you're given?"
"There's this old shed in the woods, I'll have to set up shop there." Ezzy replied.
They were almost late for Transfiguration but made it in time. The teacher was Professor McGonagall, the woman who had done the sorting. She was indeed stern and had told the class right from the start that she was not afraid of taking points away, not even from her own house.
This subject was very difficult and complex. After taking two pages worth of notes, they were finally all giving a piece of straw with the task of turning it into a needle.
Students were half way laying on their desks lazily flicking their wands about and mumbling an incantation to the straw that wasn't doing anything. James had his head propped up on his elbow and was halfheartedly trying to make the straw change, when he saw something that made him sit up right. Gryffindor's were doing transfiguration with the Slytherins and Evans was sitting beside Snivellus, the greasy haired boy from the train, a few rows up from him. Lily Evans was bending low over her desk and Snivellus genitally moved her hair from her face. James found himself becoming angry and he wasn't sure why.
"Sev! Your straw is turning silver!" she cried delightedly.
James focused all of his attention on his piece of straw and tried with all his might saying the incantation repeatedly, again and again tried and tried and tried with a mad glint in his eye until,
"I DID IT!" he shouted standing up with a perfect silver needle in his hand.
Every head turned to him and Professor McGonagall walked over to his desk to examine it.
"Hmm, good job Mr. Potter." she said giving it back to him. "In all this time of teaching I have never seen a student do it that quickly. Fifteen points to Gryffindor." and she smiled at him.
James smirked pompously at Snivellus. Who glared back and began swatting at his silver straw.
Not a minute later the boy stood up and said. "Professor!"
Professor McGonagall walked to his desk and looked at the silver needle that he was holding up for her to see. "Excellent work Mr. Snape. Fifteen points to Slytherin."
Evans hugged Snape and said, "Good job, Sev!"
Snivellus stuck his tongue out at James over Lily's shoulder.
James scowled more deeply.
The students left the class a little while later and James swung his bag over his shoulder madly and hit Sirius in the stomach.
"What's got you in such a foul mood?" he asked.
"I'm not upset." James replied unconvincingly.
"You're a terrible liar." said Remus. "You don't have to tell us, but you can at least let us help."
James stopped outside the transfiguration classroom with an idea. He glanced back in the doorway, then swung back around with the look of malice on his face.
"Yeah, I know how you can help. Just wait there." and he leaned against the wall beside the door, pretending to be looking casually at his nails. A moment later Snivellus emerged with Lily. James stuck his foot out and this time managed to trip him. Snape fell flat on his stomach while James and Sirius laughed and began to walk away.
"Potter you- Sev!" Lily started.
James felt something hard hit him in the back of the head. Throbbing, he turned and found that apparently Snape had thrown a potions book at him.
"Oi!" shouted Sirius grabbing the book and throwing in back at Snivellus who had gotten to his feet, hitting him in the face.
"Guys this is too-hmph!" Remus had walked forward but was hit in the stomach by Snape's book bag which he had swung at him.
"Hey!" James and Sirius shouted, glaring from Remus, crumpled on the floor couching, to Snape to looked triumphant for hitting Remus who hadn't even done anything. The two boys attacked Snivellus like dogs.
"Will you boys stop it!" shouted Lily trying and failing to pull them apart. "Get off him!"
"What is Going on here?!" said a familiar and unpleasant voice. The brawl froze where it was, Snape holding Sirius' hair, James gripping Snape's tie, Sirius with an arm around Snape's neck, and Lily, clinging to James' back and a foot on Sirius' chest, Remus on the ground holding his stomach and the entire rest of the class gathered around, some with their fists in the air.
McGonagall's mouth became the thinnest of thin lines and her eyes were wide and horrified.
"Get off!" she shouted. "Get off at once! I've never! You!" she pointed at a random Gryffindor in the crowd. "Explain."
Obadiah Xylem looked startled. "Honestly Professor," he said. "I saw the whole thing and still have no idea what happened. Potter and that black haired Slytherin started it though, I think."
"Snape! Potter!" McGonagall cried. "You have both lost the fifteen points you had originally earned. Evens! Black! You have lost twenty points for Gryffindor. And you all receive detention!"
Lily opened her mouth pointing at James.
"I don't want to hear it Evans."
"But Professor! Evans didn't-"
"Not another word Potter!" she interrupted.
Sirius and Snape both sat up trying to argue.
"What will it take to make you four understand I don't want to hear it!" she called then looked down at Remus.
"Did he have anything to do with it?" she asked.
James went to answer but McGonagall put her finger up then pointed at Obadiah.
"No Professor." he said. "He just got hit."
"Are you alright Lupin?" she asked.
Remus looked up and tried to answer but started to cough when he inhaled.
"You should go to the hospital wing." she said.
"No. I'm fine-" But his pale face didn't convince her.
"Xylem, take Mr. Lupin to the hospital wing. The rest of you off to class now!"
The crowd dispersed, Gryffindor and Slytherin took to the opposite direction. Which was good because Snape, Sirius, and James were staring at each other with fire in their eyes.
Lily strode angrily past James holding her books tight to her chest, her knuckles white.
"Hey Evans!" James called hurrying up to her.
"James, I would just leave this one-" Sirius called after him but James had already caught up to her.
"I don't know what's the matter with you." she said not looking at him. "You just pick on him for no good reason, what has he done to you?"
"Would the fact that he threw a book at my head suffice." he replied.
"No."
"Of course it wouldn't." he said.
"You made the first move Potter. This whole thing was your fault." James opened his mouth to argue, but she continued. "Sure, Severus could have retaliated more maturely, but you had no right to trip him in the first place."
"Look, if I could go back I would have-"
"Ran faster after tripping him?" she interrupted. He didn't deny it, Lily rolled her eyes and with an, "Augh, boys." she walked quicker ahead.
James was left standing there. "Ah, who needs her approval." said Sirius grabbing James' arm and steering him onward. "I still think you're right for tripping him. The strong man throws the first punch James." and he tapped James on the back.
They made it into their Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom and took seats in the very front. Lily was sitting on the opposite side of the room. The Professor was sitting on top of his desk and waiting for the entire class to have their seats before they began. There was a small, 'ding' whenever someone sat down. Nobody came in for a little while but there was this constant, 'ding, ding, ding, ding' noise persisting. The Professor frowned looking around the room. He strode to the door and saw no one coming. Every head in the room was spinning around to see what the noise was until the Professor's eyes fixed on Peter who was bobbing up and down buoyantly in his chair. The Professor grabbed Peter's shoulder and the dinging stopped, there was a couple giggles from around the room as Peter's face turned red. The man then strode back over to his desk silently and James and Sirius turned back to the front smiling.
"We're missing two." said the Professor.
James raised his hand.
"It's Remus Lupin sir." he said. "He's been sent to the hospital wing, and Obadiah what's his face escorted him."
"The hospital wing? On the first day, my. He's alright though? Nothing serious?"
"He'll survive Professor." said James.
"Alright well, my name is Professor Sunny." he said. "And I am very pleased to be your Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher."
Professor Sunny was a rather thin, middle aged wizard who was balding. The class rather liked him, he seemed very enthusiastic about his subject and would leap across the room demonstrating different tactics for different situations. They went through the first chapter in their books, and discussed its points, then they all took their wands out to practice the proper way to say the spell, then the proper way to move the wand.
"Now can anyone tell me why I'm teaching you the blocking spell first?" he asked.
Lily raised her hand. "Because the only thing we need to do with magic outside of class is block an unfriendly curse from someone stupid enough to use it on you. Also, so that we're not the stupid people to use unfriendly curses on others." she looked at James.
"Not my first choice of words but still, correct. Ten points to Gryffindor."
By the end of class, Lily had managed to earn back the twenty points that her and Sirius had lost, and an additional ten. James, Sirius, and Berry Bymond were the only ones to perfectly produce the spells that they were given.
They left the class feeling pleased with themselves. Both James, Sirius, and Berry had earned fifteen points for Gryffindor.
"It's a shame that Remus had to miss the first D. A. D. A class." said Sirius. "We're checking on him right?"
"We wouldn't be heading toward the fourth floor if we weren't."
The door the hospital wing wasn't locked, so they pushed it open. Remus was laying on one of the white beds reading a book.
"Remus." said Sirius plopping himself on the bottom of the bed. "What's got you in here so long?"
"Fractured rib." said Remus causally.
"A what?" James said in disbelief.
"Yeah, Madam Pomfrey was able to mend it fine but she suggests I stay here until my rib strengthens again."
"B-But it was just a bag! Just a school bag!" sputtered Sirius.
"Yeah, a school back full of heavy books. I must give it to Snape, he's got quite an arm."
"I'm gonna kill him for you Remus." said James furiously. "I'm gonna break one of his ribs you just wait here!"
"James, No!" called Remus flinging himself forward to grab James' arm. "Augh!" he leaned back holding his chest. "Don't make me do that again it still hurts. And don't be stupid, you being sent home for violence won't be doing me any favors."
"He almost broke your bone and you weren't even a part of it!" James half shouted.
"Look," said Remus sticking his feet back under the covers. "I'm not happy, in fact I'm furious. But you can't just go punch him in the nose."
"Why not? The strong man throws the first punch." James said.
"No." Remus replied Seriously. "The weak man throws the first punch because he can't control his temper. The strong man turns the other cheek. . . until he sees a good opportunity to put Ethpan pod juice into his enemy's stew."
James laughed. "I prefer hitting." said Sirius. "Strong man or no."
"Don' worry." said Remus. "We'll find the perfect opportunity to poison Snape."
"Snivellus." corrected James.
"Besides, if you broke one of Snivellus' ribs, I don't think that would bode well with Evans."
"Why do you think I would care about what Evans thinks?" asked James defensively, his face going red.
"Don't be daft James. It's only been a day and it's so obvious that you like her." Replied Remus.
"It's not!" cried James.
"So you admit it!?" laughed Remus.
"No! No I never said that I liked her! She's arrogant, a know-it-all and she hates me!"
"Oh my God! You have a crush on her!"
"I don't!"
"He so does!" joined Sirius.
"Shut up Sirius, I thought you were on my side!" James fought.
"Ah this is great!"
"You can stop shaking your head James, I already told you that you were a horrible liar."
"I'm not lying!"
"Your face is scarlet!" laughed Sirius.
…. . .
"Okay. . . I'm not saying I do. . . but there's a small-" mumbled James.
Remus roared with laughter and Sirius hit James with Remus' pillow knocking him off the end of the bed. Sirius bent over the bed and said,
"You couldn't have given it one week? Not a bad choice mate, though I'm still voting for you and the trolley lady."
James hit Sirius in the face with the pillow, and the rest of the day was spent in the hospital wing laughing and chatting.