From The Beginning Till The End

"James, if you are not going to hurry up, your broom will be confiscated," Remus, pretending in his deepest and most manly voice, instructed James as he carried his trunk up the train. Remus's voice had shown the first sign of breaking while James and Sirius retained their rather normal pitch.

"Nnnooooooo! Daddy!" Sirius, pretending to sound like a girlie James, in his highest possible pitch, responded to Remus.

The five of them burst into laughter again. They are not going to let me leave that down, James thought as he felt his cheeks reddening. They had been joking about that the entire ride from home to King's Cross. This was the third time they had made that joke in the last hour.

The boys unwillingly helped the girls to lift their trunks up the train and all of them made their way towards the last compartment quickly. Then they all waved goodbye from the window to Fion who was standing at the platform and soon, the train was on its way to Hogsmeade station.

"Get off now," Lily, being the smallest and skinniest at a height of nearly five foot tall, said as she tried to crawl out from the pile of people who climbed behind her to wave.

James, Sirius and Remus got down and gathered together in the corner of the compartment, discussing some highly secretive stuff and had totally excluded the girls, who were now sitting at the opposite end of the compartment.

"Help!!!" A short boy dashed into the compartment, startling all of them.

"What's going on?" James asked the boy.

"A group of boys... attacked me... wands... spells," the fair and rather plump looking boy said, in between pants. He quickly ran towards the back of the compartment and tried to hide himself.

Just at that point of time, the door banged opened. Four guys with unfriendly looking faces stood there.

"Oh wow!!! Here's the Potty gang!!!" Lucius Malfoy sneered. Vaness Crabbe and Gordon Goyle laughed at Malfoy's insulting greeting.

"Hand him over." Severus Snape demanded in a cold voice.

"Why should we?!" Sirius roared in defiant voice.

At the same time, someone in the compartment shouted, "Petrificus totalus!"

Malfoy and his gang dropped onto the ground instantly in a full body-bind.

"Lily, you should have left that to us. Now we don't have any toys to play with." Sirius pouted as he wiped off a pretended tear.

"Well, we still got the feast to deal with," Arabella said with a glint in her purple eyes.

Once again, the three guys headed back to their corner and took a bag of stuff each. They went out of the compartment after that. The boy who had rushed in earlier murmured grateful thanks and left.

"I bet you three Galleons that the stuff in those bags are Dungbombs." Stefanie smirked.

"No bet, we all know what it is. Can't they come out with a better trick this year? And they still call themselves the school pranksters." Lily snorted, rolling her eyes and the three girls went back to their seats and continued their game of Exploding Snap, with the four Slytherins stacked in the corner.

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James winked conspiratorially at his cohorts as they watched Hagrid lead the first years to the lake for the traditional first-years journey.

"All righ', you six?" Hagrid yelled over the heads of the crowded platform. They answered his question in thumbs-up signs since there was no way they could reply him in the noisy platform where all the students were much taller and bigger sized than them.

The sextet, who had no idea how to go to Hogwarts, had no choice but to follow the older crowd to a rough mud track. The girls boarded one stagecoach while the guys boarded another. Once the carriage door was shut, the coach set off all by itself, bumping and swaying towards Hogwarts.

The carriages swayed to a halt and a mass of students alighted. The guys happened to meet up with the girls along the way and walked up the stone steps into the castle together.

They passed through the giant oak front doors, into the cavernous Entrance Hall that was lit with flaming torches. The girls climbed up the magnificent marble staircase and strolled into the Great Hall.

"Where are the guys? I thought they were directly behind us?" Lily asked when she realized the trio was missing as they settled themselves at one end of the Gryffindor table.

Arabella saw Malfoy and his gang walking into the Great Hall and whispered quickly to Lily and Stefanie. The three girls exchanged a dark look before staring at the four Slytherins.

"We shouldn't have release them. Just leave them in the train and no one will notice that they're missing," Arabella muttered under her breath as she glared at the boys.

"We needed to. If not, there will be evidence that we had body-bound them on the train. Now, they had no proof that we did that. Furthermore, Malfoy is the son of the famous millionaire wizard, Baxton Malfoy. Do you expect anyone not to notice if he went missing for a day?" Lily remarked in an undertone while keeping a lookout for James, Sirius and Remus.

Finally, the missing trio walked in and Lily waved to get their attention. James and Remus sat down next to Lily while Sirius sat in between Arabella and Stefanie. The three guys were grinning from ear to ear as they settled down.

"So you guys had been pranking around again." It was not a question but a statement. She checked out the first-years who were about to enter for the sorting.

Just then, there were screams coming from the Entrance Hall. Everyone in the Great Hall turned, faces expressing their curiosity. A group of young looking first-years walked into the hall, looking absolutely drenched.

"Why are they all wet?" Stefanie questioned Sirius with a knowing tone.

The hysterical laughter that had bubbled out of the three boys answered all their unspoken questions.

"Potter, Black and Lupin! Detention for you tomorrow!" Came a fierce

"My first detention of the year. This is worth the prank." Sirius grinned.

"I'm all ready for my one hundred and sixth detention," James said proudly.

"Can't you guys come up with something better than pranking the poor first years?" Lily asked in an aggravated tone as she looked at the dripping wet first-years sympathetically. Some of them looked like they were on the verge of tears.

When everyone had entered, the student body listened to the singing of the sorting hat and watched the first-years being sorted to their respective houses. Then there was the usual Headmaster's speech, which was thankfully short because everyone was starving. Followed up was the feast. Everyone helped themselves with multiple servings of pastas.

Lily, for once, had three servings for dinner because the food tasted so wonderful and it had reminded her of her mother's cooking. After all, they were growing children reaching puberty at twelve. After the opening feast, the Headmaster made the usual announcements such as head boy and head girl and about the Forbidden Forest being forbidden and the Whomping Willow and some Halloween ball that had nothing to do with them.

Finally, the Gryffindors followed their prefects to the tower, with the password being 'All-Flavored Beans'. The second-years and above went straight to their dormitories while the first-years were left with the house prefects for some announcements.

Lily, Arabella and Stefanie had just finished washing up and were all ready for bed. Samantha Phillips and Joey Johnson, their two other roommates since first-year followed to use the bathroom. Samantha and Joey were not particularly close to Lily and her friends, nevertheless, they made great dorm mates. They were too goodie-two-shoes in Lily, Arabella and Stefanie's opinion. Sometimes, when there was an all girls' chat session, the quintet would share their crushes and gossips with one another.

"I can't believe one year had just past!" Arabella exclaimed as she jumped onto Lily's bed.

"It was too fast," Lily agreed. "Well, perhaps because it was wonderful." She sighed happily.

"For once, I had a great time with the guys during the summer holidays," Stefanie said brightly and hopped onto Lily's bed.

"I can't wait for the holidays already," Lily added and she started shooing Arabella and Stefanie to their own beds.

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"What's the prank for breakfast tomorrow?" Sirius asked with the sudden recognition that they had not planned anything in advance.

"Not on the girls for sure." Remus shuddered at the thought of what the girls did for revenge. The girls had done research for a week on their revenge after their first day. The girls had made their clothes invisible permanently except for their boxers. Then the girls had fed them with a

"How about we transfigure some toothpicks to hopping rabbits in the Great Hall tomorrow?" James suggested, yawning. He had not even sleep enough for the day when Fion so rudely waked him in the morning.

"Good idea!" Sirius nodded his head enthusiastically. "Let's sleep then. We've got a hall of rabbits to deal with tomorrow morning." Sirius grinned and they all went to bed. The guys dozed off within minutes.

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