Friendship Never Dies

The next morning, Ashleigh was the first to leave the room.

"I'll see you down at breakfast, but I told some of the Hufflepuff boys that I'd go running with them before eating," she announced.

"How do you know all these people already?" Lily asked.

"Quidditch camp," Ashleigh replied succinctly. "I should go. I have to find my way down to the entrance hall in five minutes! Catch you later!" With a wave over her shoulder, she jogged down the stairs and left.

Renny, who had been toweling her hair dry, looked at her watch and groaned. "Oh gosh, I told Julia I'd meet her before breakfast so we can track down a nice owl for her to send a letter to her brother with."

"Who's Julia?"

"Julia Kim. She's one of my friends in Ravenclaw. We know each other from family parties and that sort of thing," Renny explained distractedly. "I'm really sorry to ditch you, I thought it'd be nice if all four of us could go down to breakfast together, but seeing as Ashleigh already left and I promised Julia-"

"Oh, don't worry. It's fine. I'll wake Caroline up in ten minutes and we'll go down to breakfast together," Lily said confidently.

"Lily, thanks so much." Renny and Lily both sent nervous looks over at Caroline, who had sobbed herself to sleep last night. Everyone felt protective her.

Lily waved bye to Renny, who sprinted down the dormitory stairs.

When Caroline woke up on her own a few minutes later, Lily asked her if she was all right.

"What do you mean?" Caroline yawned.

"Well, last night..." The look on Caroline's face quite clearly that she didn't want to discuss last night, so Lily let her voice trail off. "Never mind. Sorry. Actually, we should be getting down to breakfast in twenty minutes or so. You might want to take your shower now so we can be there on time."

"I'll be quick," Caroline assured her.

When Lily and Caroline made their way into the Great Hall, they sat with the other Gryffindor first years. Actually, to be more correct, they sat with the Gryffindor first year boys. Ashleigh and Renny were no where to be seen; they had gone, presumably having already ate.

Lily reached for a jug of pumpkin juice just as a small round boy knocked it over.

"I'm sorry!" he gasped. With a napkin, he tried to soak up the entire contents of the jug from the table. Unfortunately, there was a good amount of pumpkin juice dripping down Lily's face and front. Completely shocked, she was making no move to clean herself up.

"Peter, calm down," one of his tall, good-looking companions soothed. Lily recognized him as the winner of the chicken consuming contest last night- Sirius Black.

He waved his wand at the mess and said, "Scourgify!"

Lily couldn't help it. She was impressed when the mess cleaned itself up. "Nice," she said appreciatively, with a grin.

Sirius smirked saucily at her.

Caroline smiled teasingly at Lily as she mouthed, "I think someone likes you!"

Lily flushed deep scarlet and snapped, "Don't be ridiculous."

Caroline just kept on smiling, but she turned to the four boys sitting next to her and Lily. "Hi, I'm Caroline Hess."

"Why, hello, Caroline Hess. I'm Sirius Black," the dashing Sirius Black introduced himself (needlessly) with a half bow.

"Peter Pettigrew," the boy who knocked the pumpkin juice over said.

"I'm Remus Lupin." This boy who introduced himself had sandy colored hair set over his sky blue eyes, which were tired and wary.

"Hi, I'm James. James Potter."

Lily scrutinized the four boys carefully. Sirius was obviously handsome, with his cool gray eyes and "floppy" hair. Peter, while not instantly attractive, was somewhat charming, with his round, boyish face. The tired boy, Remus, was good-looking in a kind of skinny way. James was more athletic looking than the rest and oozed charisma like Sirius.

"Hello, I'm Lily Evans." Lily gave a half wave to them all. She reached for the cereal just as Remus Lupin knocked it over.

"Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't realize you were reaching for it," Remus apologized politely.

Sirius gave a languid wave of his wand, said, "Scourgify!" and everything disappeared.

Lily blinked, and then reached for a plate of bacon, which Sirius Black tipped over as soon as her hand stretched out.

"My, I'm quite sorry. I didn't see your hand there," Sirius said smoothly. He "scourgified" the table again.

Lily, losing patience now, announced to the table at large, "I AM REACHING FOR THE PORRIDGE. DO YOU SEE ME REACHING FOR THE PORRIDGE?" She was speaking loudly, not out of anger, but to make sure everyone could hear her. Then, slowly and deliberately, she picked up the porridge tureen and ladled porridge into her bowl.

Caroline was shaking with giggles as Lily set the tureen back down. Feeling that she had humiliated herself quite enough for one day, Lily glared at Caroline, whose giggles drifted away.

Then the two of them caught each other's eyes and grinned.

Caroline and Lily were standing side by side in the entrance hall, looking at their schedules dubiously.

"Our first class is History of Magic," Caroline murmured to Lily. "Any idea where that is?"

Lily was shaking her head when Sirius Black came up behind them.

"Do you ladies need help finding History of Magic?" he called to them gallantly.

Lily abruptly went from shaking her head to nodding her head. "Help would be very much appreciated, actually," she informed Sirius.

"Ah, excellent! My first chance to guide the less enlightened." With a grin and bounce in his step, Sirius led his gang, Caroline and Lily around the castle. Within minutes, they were settled into seats in a stuffy classroom.

Lily, although she didn't want to be rude, also didn't want to be distracted by Sirius and his antics during class. He was obviously a jokester, through and through. Unfortunately, as soon as they stepped inside the classroom, Caroline plopped down behind Sirius and his friends, so Lily followed warily.

Sighing, Lily unpacked a few rolls of parchment and quills to take notes with. She was rummaging within her bag when she became aware of someone gaze fixed upon her. Looking up, she was startled to see James Potter staring at her.

"Um, hello," she said uncomfortably.

"Is your hair naturally that color?" James asked avidly.

The nature and utter randomness of his inquiry caught Lily off guard. She blinked at James for a few seconds, then remembered his question. "Oh, right. Yeah, it is," she mumbled.

Caroline was grinning slyly at Lily. She whispered teasingly in Lily's ear, "Oooh, I saw you two staring in each other's eyes! It looks like Mr. Black has competition! You have quite a following of admirers..."

Lily blushed madly and smacked Caroline on the arm; Caroline just laughed (even Lily put in a few reluctant and highly embarrassed chortles).

Unfortunately, all giddiness was forgotten as soon as Professor Binns, their History of Magic teacher, called the class to order. His dry voice droned on and on, and even Lily, who had vowed to herself to excel in every subject in order to make up for wasted years of potential magical education, found her eyelids drooping.

"I hope not all classes at Hogwarts are as boring as this," yawned Lily as she cat-stretched in the doorway when the class was filing out of the classroom.

"I hope that all classes at Hogwarts are that much fun!" Caroline exclaimed.

All the boys and Lily turned to gape at her.

"Are you serious?" James said.

"No, she's not. I am," Sirius interjected, but James ignored him.

"I was just making plans to bring a cot and pillow with me so that I could kip in there next lesson!"

"Really? I found it all enamoring! I mean, history has so much to tell about society. Wizards certainly used to be very close minded!" Caroline was in her element, going on about the different confederations and wars that Professor Binns had talked about.

When she was done, Lily turned a somewhat dazed face and said in unison with James Potter, "Sorry, I'm going to need to borrow your notes."

Caroline smirked and told them that they could share her notes.

Their next class was Transfiguration.

While Lily was quite excited to start learning how to use her wand, Caroline was having kittens and wringing her hands. Renny and Ashleigh, who had joined up with them after History of Magic, kept trying to calm Caroline down.

"Don't worry, it's really not difficult. I started using a wand when I was probably 3, and I think I've only ever knocked a house elf unconscious when I tried an Aguamenti charm. Everything else has worked fine for me!" Renny soothed.

Caroline blanched. "You don't understand! Not only am I so far behind people like you, who have been using wands forever, but I'm dead clumsy. I have no sense of aim at all. I'm fine studying out of books, but as soon as you hand me something practical to do ... well, stay far away."

"Hey, you'll be fine," Ashleigh said. "They start everyone out on the same level, so just take a deep breath and calm down."

Gulping, Caroline walked into the Transfiguration classroom as though facing the death sentence.

She calmed down considerably once she realized that the first part of the lesson would be devoted to taking notes. Her notes were neat and organized; Lily had the feeling that Caroline might be the type to alphabetize her notes by subject as well.

With around half an hour to go until the end of the lesson, Professor McGonagall ordered the class to take out their wands.

She chose Peter Pettigrew to bring a box of matches around to each student.

Her hands were trembling so much that Caroline accidentally knocked the box out of Peter's hands when it was her turn to take a match.

"S-Sorry," she stammered as she smiled at him weakly.

Not bothering to even try comforting Caroline-the-Trembling, Lily sighed and helped Peter pick up the matches.

Professor McGonagall gave them instructions to transfigure their matches into needles.

Perfect-Potter gave a lazy wave of his wand, and his match transfigured itself instantly.

Determined to prove herself, Lily gritted her teeth and tried to match Potter's lazy wave. Nothing happened.

Lily, however, was having nowhere near a bad a time as Caroline.

Caroline, whose face was streaked with agitated tears, was poking at her match furiously, until it finally ignited and blew up in her face.

"Miss Hess!" Professor McGonagall hurried to her in alarm. No student of hers had ever done quite so badly in their very first Transfiguration lesson.

Lily and Caroline slid into seats opposite Ashleigh and Renny in the Great Hall. The four dorm mates had decided to sit together during lunch, for moral support.

Lily's morning had been all around horrible. She'd spent History of Magic asleep, which actually wasn't so bad, but then she'd had to spend the rest of it attempting to comfort Caroline, who refused to be comforted, and hopelessly prodding a match. Actually, after James Potter had turned around to give some advice to her, Lily had managed to make her match turn silver and pointy, which was something.

"Hey Caroline, chin up. We've got Charms after lunch. Lexi and Kendra both loved Charms; they said it's loads of fun!" Ashleigh said encouragingly. "Kendra also said it's easy, and she's pretty horrible with magic in general."

Caroline's sniffles slowly died away as Ashleigh shared funny stories about her sisters.

"So Lexi tried to dye her hair green, to match her house colors-"

"What house was she in?" Caroline interrupted curiously.

Ashleigh's reply was nonchalant. "Slytherin. Oh come now, don't be like that. Lexi's really nice; she just happens to be ambitious."

The incredulous and doubtful looks adorning her dorm mates' faces offended Ashleigh, but she let it go. She knew that there were strong house prejudices between Gryffindor and Slytherin. It would take time to break down the barriers, but she'd be there the whole time, acting as an ambassador of peace.

Lily dug into her first Charm's task with relish- to make a feather float. She swished her wand gracefully and gave a dainty flick as she chanted clearly, "Wingardium Leviosa!"

Her feather rose higher and higher in the air, dancing in loop-the-loops. A second feather waltzed around Lily's airborne feather. She looked over to her left, to see Ashleigh directing the waltzing feather. They grinned at each other.

With a sigh, Caroline looked on jealously. "I guess you two will have to help me in Charms, too then." She looked down at her own feather, which was limp from all her prodding.

Lily imitated Caroline's sigh and replied, "Only if you help me in History of Magic."

"It's a deal."