Illusion

'"Good morning, class. I am Professor McGonagall. This class is very difficult, and I do not expect any of you to get it on your first try. Now..." said the Professor at Lily's first ever class on magic. McGonagall kept on about the theory, and Lily decided to try it. After all, a needle to a match? How hard could that be? She waved her wand, and muttered the right words. To her great surprise, her needle WAS a match, just like that. With all the theory, Lily thought that it should have been more complicated! All of a sudden, Professor McGonagall turned around. "Somebody just tried that spell. Who was it?" she asked softly.

Slowly Lily spoke up. "Professor, I didn't try. I did it. See?" She proudly held up the matchstick. The professor's eyes widened a bit.

"Be that as it may, Ms. Evans, magic is not a toy. So don't play around with it! You could be seriously hurt!" McGonagall cried. In a more subdued tone, she continued, "All the same, I'd like for you to try something for me. Please try to turn the desk into a dustbin, the same way you did the needle to a matchstick."

Lily waved her wand and muttered the incantation for a switching spell, the desk turned in to a dustbin, albeit a rather large one.

"Amazing..." the professor murmured, staring at the dustbin. Then, as if snapping herself out of her trance, she said curtly, "Class dismissed."

Next Lily went to Herbology, which she found dreadfully boring. She decided to liven things up a bit. Pulling out her wand, she whispered, "Explodius." The puffer flower exploded, showering the students with green dye. All except for Lily, standing far enough back to avoid the blow.

"Ms. Evans! Were you in on this with the Marauders? Doubtless you were the one with the timed charm, as you are the only one far enough away to escape the explosion!" The professor was livid.

Quickly deciding not to get her friends in trouble, Lily spoke up. "Actually, Professor, I did it. The charm was in one of my uncle's books." That was the truth, the only thing she had learned from the Marauders, as they were called, was the part about the green dye.

"Well! Class dismissed, Ms. Evans, please stay behind to make arrangements for your detention!"

After the detention was arranged, Lily headed for lunch in high spirits. She would be able to see Sirius and Remus! Plus James and Peter. She hadn't seen them at breakfast because she had overslept and by the time she had reached the Great Hall for breakfast, they were already gone.

"Hi Lilyangel! How are you?" asked Sirius cheerfully, motioning for her to sit down with one hand and with the other shoving a buttered roll into his mouth.

"Hi," she said to the band of Marauders who were all currently filling their mouths with food in a fury that both amazed and scared her. "You have quite the reputation. In Herbology, I 'accidentally' said an exploding charm with my wand pointed at one of the puffer flowers. The prof thought you had given me a timed charm! And I got detention, so I'm gonna beat Sirius's detention record this year!" Lily said, sitting down.

"Wow! You know how to do exploding charms already? That's not till 2nd year!" exclaimed Peter.

"And you still can't do one, Petey!" said James with a laugh.

"Two things. One, don't call me Petey! Two, I can to do the charm!" 'Petey' said indignantly.

"Of course you can, Peter. James is just teasing," placated Remus. "What classes do you have after lunch, Lily?"

"I have Charms, then Defence against the Dark Arts. Charms sounds so fun!" Lily replied.

"Fun! Classes are never fun, Lils. You should have known that! Sirius! Didn't you teach her anything?" James asked.

"Oh, be quiet. Charms can be fun if I say it is!" Lily replied.

"Whatever you say, Lilyangel. Whatever you say," said Sirius teasingly.

"Thank you, Siri, I'll keep that in mind," Lily replied.

"Siri?" Peter hooted. "Siri?"

"Shut up, Petey," 'Siri' said huffily.

"Sirius? You have to admit that Siri is kind of funny," Remus pointed out sensibly. "And Peter, you have to realize that you both have embarrassing nicknames."

"And you, Remi, have to realize that you do as well!" said Lily. "I believe that we all have nicknames. We just have to live with them!"

"Remi!!!" whooped the other Marauders. "Now you can't talk, either, Remi!"

Bong-bong-bong. The bell sounded, cutting short the conversation on nicknames.

"We better go! See you later, Lilyflower!" yelled James, as they were running out the doors. "Can't be late for Defence!"

Lily walked quickly to Charms. I hope I'm good at Charms, it sounds so fun! she thought. Lily was so engrossed in thought that she accidentally walked right into a wall! But to her surprise, it wasn't a wall, but a secret passage way. Might as well follow it!

To Lily's ultimate surprise, the passage came out right next to what looked to be the Charms classroom. Hesitantly, Lily stepped through the doorway. "Excuse me, but is this the Charms room?" she asked of the room's only occupant, a short old man. I shouldn't call him short. After all, he's taller than I am by a good few inches, but most of his older students must be taller than him!

"Oh! Yes, it is! You must be one of my first year students! I'm Professor Flitwick. I hadn't expected anyone to be so early, what with getting lost and all figured in!" Professor Flitwick said, in a high, squeaky voice.

"I used a passage on the second floor, it led right to outside your door," Lily explained. "I'm sorry if I'm early. Maybe I should wait outside?"

"No, no. Sit down, everyone else should be arriving shortly," he said.

Sure enough, soon the rest of her year began to filter in. When everyone was there, Professor Flitwick took roll call.

"Now, this is Charms. Today, as your first lesson, you will be learning the floating charm. Please attend..."Professor Flitwick said. "Please hold your wand like so, and swish and flick! That's it, Lily, good. Now, the incantation is Wingardium Leviosa. Come up, get a feather, and try it."

Lily walked up, got a feather, and sat back down. "Wingardium Leviosa," she said, swishing and flicking her wand. Her feather rose and floated about the ceiling. Remembering a charm she had read about in her books that moved an object, she decided to try it on her feather. "Mobilius Wingardium," Lily whispered. Her feather went floating about the room wherever Lily pointed her wand.

"Look here! Ms. Evans has not only levitated her feather, she has applied the charm in her book to move the feather! Ten points to Gryffindor!"

On her way to Defence, Lily thought about her day so far. All in all, not bad. I'm keeping up in all my classes, and they are all relatively easy. I wonder how Defence will be?

Defence turned out to be just as easy as all the other classes. The teacher, Professor Guranty, was teaching the five basic Defence spells. Then he asked for a volunteer, to demonstrate the spells. Lily raised her hand. All of the spells were very easy, so she didn't have any trouble at all. The rest of the class was spent doing the spells on a mannequin.

Dinner was basically the same as lunch, but Lily was too tired to do anything but listen to the Marauders discuss the best plans for a prank on Mrs. Norris, the caretaker's new cat. There seemed to be a disagreement on purple or green fur.

Lily also caught snatches of the conversation at the teachers' table. "Albus, I've never seen anything like it!"

"I agree! Some third-years couldn't do it!"

"-Amazing, really."

"-Don't know how-"

Just then James reached over to tap Lily on the shoulder. "Pst! Lily! Don't you want desert?" Looking up, Lily was startled that the desert, peach cobbler, was already on the table.

"Of course. Pass it here, please," she responded.

***

"Okay, so we all know our places?" whispered Remus.

"Yes, now break!" Sirius whispered back.

"Wait for it...now!" whispered James. And chaos broke loose, as nineteen pixies were let into the transfiguration classroom.

"Silence!" shouted Professor McGonagall. She froze all the pixies with a freezing charm. "Potter! Black! Lupin! Pettigrew! Detention! Now, I want to introduce you to a new member of your year. She has been skipped up to your year, because it is felt that she will do better here than where she was. Please help her to feel at home. Class, this is Miss Lily Evans."

"Wahoo! Go, Lily! Come sit here, with us. Your small enough to fit," shouted Sirius.

"Yeah, come on, Lilycake. Sit with us?" Remus pleaded.

"I was planning on it before you said anything, you oafs," Lily laughed, walking over to them.

"Now that that is settled, can we move on to the lesson?" asked Professor McGonagall.

"Sure, Minnie!" replied Sirius. "Where were we?"

"Mr. Black! Now, today we'll be learning how to do these cockatoos into ants. It is very difficult, and I don't expect any of you to get it on the first try. Now, the theory..."

By the time they were actually allowed to try, Lily felt like she knew more about the theory than the witch or wizard who made up the spell! Nevertheless, she tapped the cockatoo and whispered the incantation. It didn't change. Lily frowned, and looked at the book. She tried it again, and again. She finally got it on her fourth try. Looking around, she saw that James had just gotten it also, followed closely by Remus, them Sirius. Peter was nowhere close.

"Oh my! Look here, Miss Evans and Mr.s Potter, Lupin, and Black have gotten it! Twenty-five points to Gryffindor!"

After Transfiguration, the Marauders and Lily headed to Potions.

"Watch out, we have this one with the Slytherins. Your cousin and his gang are the worst, next to Malfoy and his gang. We don't like them very much," said Sirius, as they were walking along the corridor. "This way."

Sirius seemingly disappeared into the wall, and Lily realized that it was another secret passage way. "I found one of these yesterday on my way to Charms. It led from the second floor to the wall outside the Charms room," Lily remarked. "Are there a lot of these around?"

"Tons, Lily, tons. You wouldn't believe," said James with a smirk.