First day of Classes
The next morning was the first day of classes, James was up by 6 am, while the rest of the dorm still peacefully slept. He got ready as quietly as he could, and went down to the great hall.
It took him a while to find it, so he asked some of the portraits that seemed to be awake and soon enough he was there.
It was only around 6:45 so there were only a small number of students.
He sat in the same seat that he had last evening, and got his toys out the pocket of his robe. He poured juice into a cup and filled his plate with fruit, egg, and granola.
More and more students came in but it was still early.
He finished his breakfast, and started playing with the toys. He opened the space fidgit and pressed and tilted it, it changed colours and he found it amazing. He tested it out for a while, moving around, pressing it in different places. A few minutes later, Sirius and Peter sat by him.
"What's that?" Sirius asked, curious.
Peter looked over, "It's a space fidgit. They're pretty popular right now."
"It's so cool, how does it change colour?", James asked.
Peter shrugged in reply but caught sight of the slinky, "you have a slinky too? I love those."
"I don't get how it works", James replied.
Peter smiled, "I'll show you later. It'll be so fun to use it on the staircases."
Mcgonagall soon came round and passed out everyone's timetables.
Lily looked at hers for a few seconds then smiled and ran out the hall.
"What was that about?" James asked.
Sirius shrugged, "probably wanting to see what classes she shares with that slimy kid."
Peter grinned, "that prank you did on him was really funny, I thought Snivellus was going to faint."
James and Sirius laughed.
"Did you just say, Snivellus?" James asked.
"It suits him so well." Sirius laughed.
Peter frowned, "that's his name, isn't it?"
James shook his head, "no but I'm calling him that now."
"It's perfect. You're a genius, Peter." Sirius patted the boys back.
"We've got transfiguration soon. Yes! It's with Minnie, can you guys come with me to the dorms to get her present?" James asked, as he looked over his timetable.
Both of them agreed, and they all set off back to the dorms.
"Who's Minnie?" Peter mouthed to Sirius.
Sirius shrugged, "one of the teachers I guess."
As they got to the dorm, James picked up the small, wrapped present still in his bag.
"May I just ask, why do you have a present for our teacher?" Sirius raised his eyebrow.
James led them back out the dorm, "It's from my parents, they're friends with her."
As they walked to their class, and ended up back at the Gryffindor common room, Peter groaned.
"How are we meant to get to classes, this place is too big."
James bounced on his toes as he got an idea, he ran to the nearest painting.
"Sometimes the paintings can help. Hey, by any chance, do you know where Professor McGonagall's classroom is?"
The lady in the portrait nodded, "come with me, I'll take you there."
The lady disappeared out of her frame and appeared in the one next to it. The lady showed them a hidden shortcut to get there quicker, and the three kids went down it in excitement.
They soon got to the class; only two other Gryffindor's, Lily and Remus, were already there.
The three boys entered the classroom, and saw a cat on the teacher's desk.
"Ugh, I hate cats", Sirius mumbled.
"Same", Peter agreed.
James laughed, sharing a smile with the cat.
The cat transformed into Professor McGonagall, and Peter quickly said "I like cats."
Sirius smirked, "I still don't."
Mcgonagall raised her eyebrow, "please take a seat, Mr Black, Mr Pettigrew."
The two laughed with each other as they sat in the back row.
"Minnie, mum and dad said to give you this." James passed the present to her and she gratefully took it.
Mcgonagall placed the present on her desk, "I wouldn't deem it appropriate to open a present during class, but relay my thanks to your parents."
"I will", James grinned, heading to the back row with his friends.
"And Mr. Potter, call me Professor during term times."
James walked over and lent on McGonagall's desk, "but you're my godmother, it's weird."
Sirius gaped, "She's your godmother?"
"Please sit down, Mr Potter. Any misbehaviour and I'll owl your parents."
James frowned but sat down next to Sirius at the back.
The room filled up as it got closer to half 9, and Sirius found himself staring at Remus Lupin.
He nudged James' shoulder, who had been playing some sort of game with Peter.
"Don't you think he ought to sit with us? He is our roommate." Sirius asked.
James looked over to where Sirius had been staring, "I don't know… he seems friends with Evans. He probably likes Snivellus."
"Oh", he frowned, and continued staring.
James nudged him, "come on. Peter was showing me this cool game."
Marlene came in just as the lesson started, her arm intertwined with Mary Macdonald.
The two sat in front of Peter, James, and Sirius.
"I have a new best friend, James. You're unwanted." Marlene said, gesturing to Mary sitting next to her.
James grinned, "I have two!"
"So two of them are worth one of me? good to know." Marlene winked.
"I'm worth more than any of you. I'm the heir to the house of Black after all." Sirius said, smug.
Marlene laughed, "you shoved peas up your nose yesterday."
"You purposely fell into the lake." James added.
Peter added as well, "You slid down the bannister."
James turned to Sirius, "how are you a Black?"
Sirius stuck his tongue out.
"Miss Mckinnon, Miss Macdonald. Please turn to the front. And if you would all concentrate on the lesson, thank you."
Lily turned around as Professor McGonagall told off the noisy group of students.
"Potter and Black are the worst", Lily said to the boy she sat next to.
She turned to him, "do you have a rubber? I think I spelt something wrong."
He didn't reply or look at her but passed his rubber to her.
"Thanks. So, we've got half an hour of free time after this, I wanted to go to the library if you wanted to come with me?"
Remus contemplated the offer. He had been wanting to look for the library, but wasn't certain he'd have much success in looking for it. But then they might become friends, and she'd figure out his secrets and then he'd be outed. However, he thought, just because he spends time with her doesn't mean they'll become friends.
He nodded, keeping his eyes on the board and his paper.
Lily smiled, "great."
Once the class finished, Remus and Lily walked to the library together. Lily talked while Remus looked at the ground and sometimes nodded to show he was listening to her.
As she finished up a story about her and her sister, they had found the library. Lily walked over to a fiction section, the two started pulling books off the shelf.
Lily sighed, "My friend, Sev, said Hogwarts had a huge library so I didn't bother bringing many books with me. But I didn't think they wouldn't have muggle books here."
Remus nodded, although he had thought about that, he had over half of his books in the dorms upstairs.
"Have you read the pigman?" Lily asked, "my parents didn't want me to read it so I was hoping I'd be able to find it here."
He realised he had that book, he was given it by his parents for his birthday last year, and he had brought it with him to Hogwarts.
"I can't believe they don't have a single muggle book here. I guess libraries don't really have wizard books do they? But muggles don't know about wizards, whereas wizards know about muggles so surely they should have at least a couple of books by them." Lily ranted as she gazed round the bookshelves.
Remus nodded, thinking about whether he should mention he has the book she wanted.
"This is the biggest library I've ever been in and yet they don't have a single book I want."
Remus looked at her, "I have it."
She turned to him in confusion, "you have what?"
"I have the book. The pigman. I brought it with me, it's in my dorm."
Lily smiled, "Can I borrow it?"
He nodded.
"You're a saviour, Remus."
The two left the library and walked to the common room.
Remus went up to the dorms to get the book for her, and ran into his roommates.
"Hiya Lupin." James said, from where the three were all sat on his bed.
Remus nodded his head in greeting and went over to his own bed to grab the book.
"Are you friends with Snivellus?" Sirius asked, his eyebrows raised.
Remus frowned, he hadn't the slightest idea who that was.
"Severus Snape", Sirius added as he noticed the boy's confusion.
Remus recognised the name as Lily's friend, but he hadn't met the bloke so he shook his head and left the room.
Sirius turned to James, "I told you they weren't friends, Snivellus is too… slimy to hang out with someone like that."
James raised his hands in defense.
Peter flopped onto the bed as he caught sight of the clock on the wall.
"We've only got five minutes till the next class", he sighed.
Sirius whined, "they're killing us with all this work."
James laughed and stood up, "We've only had one lesson so far. Come on, we'll be late."
Peter closed his eyes and laid his head on James' pillow, "it's only potions, who needs to learn all that."
James took the pillow and hit him in the head with it, "me. I'm a Potter, remember."
Sirius smirked, "ah, I forgot your dad invented sleekeazy's. Your hair should really look a lot better, you know."
James hit him with the pillow too, "I have the same hair as my dad. Probably why he made sleekeazy's in the first place."
"A million pound company: invented because a guy had messy hair." Sirius laughed.
James hit him with the pillow again and pulled his friends up so they wouldn't be late for potions.
They arrived a couple of minutes late, but the professor didn't seem to mind.
"Oh. Mr Potter and Mr Black. How lovely to meet you, of course I was hoping to have you in my house Mr Black but alas. Come take a seat, boys."
Slughorn ushered the boys into his classroom and only then noticed Peter.
"Oh you too, of course", he said to Peter, not knowing his name.
"As it's your first day, I was thinking we could do something fun. So we're going to make the cure for boils. Then next lesson, we'll get to actually studying the potion and why different ingredients are needed."
James frowned as he looked round the room, "We share potions with Slytherin, I hope he lets us choose partners."
Slughorn showed everyone where to get the ingredients and equipment from before letting them go off into their own pairs, with the instructions on a board.
"Mr. Lupin, is your father Lyall Lupin by any chance? I met him once, an extremely intelligent chap. His knowledge on dark creatures is incredible."
Remus nodded, looking a little pale.
Slughorn carried on, "Now, I'm afraid you're meant to be in pairs for this. You'll need to ask one of your housemates over there to be your partner since they're in a group of three."
Slughorn left, and Remus turned to look at them but made no move to go over.
The trio had heard the conversation, Slughorn being a rather loud speaker.
"I'll partner with him", James offered, "It's only for an hour."
Sirius and Peter shrugged, and started playing some sort of game to decide who'd have to get the ingredients.
"Hi. I'm James Potter, pleasure to meet you." James grinned at Remus, taking the seat next to him.
Remus nodded in response, as his eyes flicked between the board and the paper he was writing on.
James peered over his shoulder.
"Oh that's smart", he said as he saw the list of ingredients Remus was copying out, "so you can get everything at once."
Remus didn't reply but passed the piece of paper to James, who smiled and got up to fetch the ingredients.
He came back a minute later with everything needed, "alright, let's do this."
As they got to work, they realised how terrible they both were at this. Both of them had shaky hands and always accidentally overpoured ingredients, and neither could work out what 'folding it in' meant in the slightest so they skipped that instruction.
And then, they had tried to pour some of the cure into a vial to show Slughorn but kept dropping the vials. They turned it into a game, taking it in turns to see how far they could get without dropping it.
"Excellent work Mr Snape, Miss Evans. I look forward to teaching you." Slughorn said as they presented their vial.
"Mr Potter, Mr Lupin, are you not finished yet?" He asked, the two being the only one's who hadn't handed in a vial.
James laughed and Remus bit back a smile.
"We're having a bit of trouble with not dropping it, maybe you could just look at it in the cauldron?" James asked.
Slughorn nodded and came over, "ah. I think you boys may have made a few mistakes here, but no trouble. It's only the first lesson after all."
He scooped a long metal ladle through the potion and grimaced.
"Great lesson today, students. Remember to study up on the cure for boils for the next lesson."
The students left and Sirius and Peter crowded around James.
"That was hilarious, how did you mess up that bad?" Peter laughed, as James grinned and put his arms around their shoulders.
"Potions are so hard. It's like cooking. I don't cook, how am I meant to know how to do all that?" James argued.
Sirius snorted, "I've never cooked, and me and Peter managed a 'passable' potion."
James grumbled and changed the subject, "so, How do you play with the slinky?"
James said as he got it out of his pocket.
The group ran to the top of one of the staircases, and crouched at the top.
"Okay so you just put it on the edge and flick it and it bounces down the stairs." Peter said, taking the slinky to place it down.
James flicked it, and the slinky slunk down the stairs, the boys chasing after it to catch it.
"You can also just use it kinda like a bouncy ball."
Peter picked up the slinky and bounced it from the floor and his hand.
"And you can also just invent loads of different tricks with it yourself."
The school week went on, James, Sirius and Peter grew closer. They had attempted conversation with their other roommate, Remus Lupin, but had failed as the boy seemed to withdraw further away from them the more they tried to become friends with him.