Chapter Five: The Marauders
The next week passed quickly, and Lily found herself happier than she had ever been. Hogwarts was an unusual castle, from its stairs to its doors, portraits, and armor. Everything was hard to find as everything moved.
Argus Filch, the new caretaker, owned a cat called Mrs. Norris, a scrawny, dust-colored creature with bulging lamp like eyes that matched Filch’s. Mrs. Norris patrolled the corridors alone, and if a student broke a rule in front of her, Mr. Filch would appear two seconds later. Filch was probably the only person in the castle who knew all the secret passageways.
And the classes themselves were absolutely amazing, Lily decided. She had always loved learning, and now she was learning about amazing things that were illogical and unexplainable. She had grown up in a home where her father had talked constantly about logic and reasoning.
The most boring class was History of Magic, taught by the only ghost teacher Professor Binns. Lily had thought that a ghost teacher would have been interesting, but Binns had a monotonous voice that guaranteed to put even the best of students asleep. He droned on and on while only a few students bothered to take notes. Basically Lily and Remus.
One of Lily’s favorite classes, Charms, was taught by Professor Flitwick, a tiny wizard who had to stand on a pile of books to see over his desk. .
Lily’s second favorite class was Potions taught by Professor Slughorn who reminded her of a walrus. After she had found that she had an aptitude for his subject, she had become one of his favorites and he had quickly invited her to join the stupid “Slug Club”.
Defense against the Dark Arts was taught by Professor Parker. He was all right, Lily thought, but a bit paranoid.
And then there was Transfiguration, Lily’s worst class. Professor McGonagall was the teacher and she was extremely strict. Potter and Black had already managed to get on her bad side…or good side, depending on how you looked at it.
Lily remembered the first class. Lily, Christina, Emma, and Rachel had sat in the second row near some Ravenclaws as McGonagall began teaching. Lily glanced back to see where Potter and Black were to discover that they hadn’t made it to class yet. (She didn’t know why she even bothered to pay attention.) Neither had Remus or Peter, which wasn’t a surprise considering they had already started to become close friends with Potter and Black.
Lily hadn’t expected that to happen either. Remus was so different from them, but Black and Potter had immediately become best of friends with him. Lily and Rachel still talked to Remus sometimes, whenever he wasn’t with Black and Potter.
“Transfiguration is some of the most complex and dangerous…” McGonagall began, but then she paused as a voice interrupted her.
“Professor! So sorry we’re late!” It was Potter’s voice. Lily turned as Potter took a seat in the very back followed by Black, Remus, and Peter.
“And why are you late?” McGonagall asked through thin lips.
“Lost,” Sirius said, but his tone of voice belied what he said. Christina snorted, glancing at Rachel who couldn’t help but laugh also.
“As I was saying, anyone messing around in my class will be asked to leave and not come back,” She looked directly at the four boys who all tried to have the most innocent looks possible on their faces. Truth was, McGonagall couldn’t tell them to never come back because this was a required course at least until sixth year. After she said that, she changed the desk into a pig and back.
Lily found herself looking forward to being able to do Transfiguration. To her disappointment, she was absolutely terrible at it. It easily became her worst class. And, to her annoyance, it became Potter and Black’s best class. Of course. She had no idea why they bothered her so much other than the fact that they still called her ‘Lily Flower’ or Evans. They loved to annoy her, but they also loved to annoy Rachel, Christina, and Emma.
The one thing that Lily hated about the Wizarding World was the prejudices that came with it. Severus Snape called her a Mudblood more times than she could possibly count. Lily responded by being kind. When his bag split in the middle of the hall, she bent down and helped him pick up his books. Lily had a pretty good idea that someone had split his bag for him. Like Potter and Black. When Potter and Black picked on him, Lily was one of the few who didn’t laugh, although sometimes she really wanted to.
She didn’t understand what the big deal was about Muggle-borns and Purebloods, but she didn’t let it get to her. Rachel found it hilarious that she didn’t mind being called a Mudblood, but the name “Lily Flower” caused her to turn red in the face and start screaming. Lily didn’t understand it either, but that was how it was.
To be truthful, she could kind of understand it. She had a crush on James Potter. There. She had admitted it. She didn’t know why. Well, he was very cute (for an eleven-year-old, at least) and funny. But she wished he would stop picking on the other kids and stop teasing her.
~*~*~
James Potter sat down next to Sirius at the lunch table after Transfiguration and automatically started piling food on his plate until Sirius was the only one who had more food. Remus watched them in amusement as they both shoved it down as if they hadn’t eaten in months.
“You’re going to get sick, eating like that.” Remus said logically, holding up his Charms book and laughing. Peter watched, wondering why he was the fat one. He didn’t eat nearly as much as James and Sirius. He shrugged, finding he didn’t care much. He could easily be jealous of his best friends, but he chose not to be.
“Course not,” Sirius said in-between bites. Sirius found it annoying, but he had been brought up with manners as he was from one of the wealthiest wizarding families.
“We’re very talented,” James nodded, slowing down only slightly so that they could talk.
“Sure,” Remus said with a tone that said clearly that he didn’t believe him. James looked up just as Lily came in with Rachel, Christina, and Emma.
“What is it with her? Did you see the way she helped Snivellus with his things? And he calls her Mudblood,” James said, annoyed.
“That’s how Evans is,” Sirius said. “She only hates us for some odd reason.”
“Actually, I doubt she hates anyone,” Remus spoke up. He was the only one who was on friendly speaking terms with Lily. James shrugged. It was only two weeks into the term, and Lily had already become known as one of the nicest girls in school (except when it came to James or Sirius), even among the seventh years that rarely paid attention to first years. James and Sirius had also become well known as the world’s biggest troublemakers, even if they were only first years.
They had spent their first two weeks at school pranking people. Especially Slytherins, much to Lily Evans’ annoyance. They had already died Snape’s hair purple, causing it to last for a day. They had also managed to rip Snape’s bag using a second year spell and poured black ink over his books using levitating charms (which they hadn’t been taught yet).They had caused many disruptions in McGonagall’s class and had not been kicked out as she had promised during first class, and Sirius and James had their snoring routine in Binn’s class down also.
“We should do a prank tomorrow,” James decided, but Remus shook his head.
“I have to go for a couple of days. My mum’s taken ill,” Remus said, looking down at his plate. “I’m leaving tonight.”
“And you’re just telling us now? How sick is she?” James asked.
“She’ll be fine,” Remus said and shrugged. “I have to head to the library. See you.” Remus stood up and left.
“Do you have a feeling he’s not telling us everything?” James asked, staring at the back of one of his best friends.
“Yeah,” Sirius said. “We’ll find out later. Don’t worry, James.” Then he grinned. “What do you say we prank the Gryffindor ladies?” He was only referring to the first year girls and James grinned.
“All right. What should we do?”
Sirius looked down, thoughtfully. “Hmm…”
~*~*~
“Lily Flower!” James called the next afternoon as three of the four Gryffindor first years ran up to the girls. Remus had left the night before (or so they thought). In truth he had been taken under the Whomping Willow for the night which led to the Shrieking Shack in Hogsmeade. Now, he was hiding in the Hospital Wing until he was better from the painful transformation. But they wouldn’t know that for about another year. “Lily Flower!”
Lily sighed as James came up from behind her. He stood directly behind her, reaching for his wand, when she whirled around. He took that same hand and ran it through his hair trying to hide the movement.
“What do you want, Potter?” she asked. Rachel turned around also and grinned as her eyes moved from one of them to the other.
“We decided to run something by you,” Sirius said, quickly. James glanced over, trying to figure out what he was talking about. “We came up with a nickname for ourselves and wanted to find out what the four of you charming ladies thought.”
Rachel rolled her eyes and ignored him. Lily started to follow suit, so James reached for his wand again and froze as Lily turned back again.
“Why don’t you leave us alone?” she asked. James moved his hand into his pocket and sent her a teasing grin.
“How could we leave our darling little flower alone?” he asked.
“And to the name!” Sirius said. “We are now officially…we as in James, Remus, Peter, and I…the Marauders.”
James glanced at him, noticing that he was pretending to check out a certain Ravenclaw first year while slowing down so he was directly behind James. James realized what he was doing and carefully ran a hand through his hair. He managed to distract Lily with the movement that annoyed her so much long enough for Sirius to hex two of the four girls. The two they had wanted to hex.
“Well, you see...” James began.
“That’s a stupid name!” Lily said. “And why do you always do that to your hair? It’s already messy enough…” her voice trailed off as the boys started running.
“Bye, girls!” James yelled.
“I thought it was a good name…” Sirius said as they ran, knowing in a second the girls would be furious. They had been hit with a tripping hex. Sure enough, they soon heard Lily’s rather shrill voice. “Potter!” she yelled.
James laughed as they slowed. “You know what? I think the Marauders is the perfect name for us.”