Ch

Ch.2

Good Morning - Beatles

"Elise…Elise are you awake? Elise!"

"What?"

"Are you awake?"

"Now I am; thanks for waking me up."

It was hard to fall asleep in the Gryffindor girls', first year dormitory. All the girls kept treating it like one giant slumber party. Except for Liz, (or Elise, as her room mates had insisted on calling her) that is.

As soon as she walked in the door, all she wanted to do was sleep. But the other girls had different plans. Lily Evans, who was the girl with Severus, had thought up a lot of games on the spot to help them get to know each other more. And, by the time they even thought about going to bed, they knew all about each other.

Alice Gryko was a small petite girl with long, dark brown hair coming from a pure-blood family that lived in Ireland.

Mary Macdonald was short, blond-haired, and half-blood, her family residing in Western England.

Lily Evans was Muggle-born, and lived in London. Pavia Jefferson lived a few streets away from her. She was tall and willowy, her family being from India.

Then all he girls learned about Liz. She had lived all over England, once lived in San Francisco in 1967 (Summer of Love) and her family moved quite a lot.

However, when all the girls were in their sleep wear (Lily in a long dressing gown, and the others in night-shirts and bikini bottoms), no one could seem to fall asleep. There was much too much excitement in the air.

But as three o'clock slowly came around, Liz finally managed to fall asleep…only to be awoken and hour and a half later by something heavy falling on her stomach.

"What the-" When Liz opened her eyes, however, there was nothing there, just air.

"Sh! It's me!"

"Dammit, James, get off me! You weigh a ton!" There was a rustling of fabric, and James Potter's head appeared, floating in mid-air.

He stuck his tongue out at her. "Well if you don't want to come along, fine then."

"How did you get in here?"

"I'll show you later. But were going exploring, so get some clothes on and meet us down in the common room."

"Wait! James? How are you invisible?"

James' head grinned. "Invisibility cloak my father gave me last year for Christmas. Amazing isn't it?"

And, with a swoosh of fabric, he was gone. Liz held her breath, trying to hear any sound, her eyes fixated on the door. But it didn't open.

"James?" Liz called out softly. "James, are you still here? I want to get dressed!"

There was no reply, so Liz grabbed her school uniform, left a note to her room mates saying she was down in the common room, and headed downstairs, wand in her hand.

Sirius, Remus, James, and Peter were all waiting downstairs for Liz, and Sirius was starting to get annoyed.

"Like I said before: 'women'. They take their sweet time getting ready, and they don't have a thought for anyone else. I mean, we could be waiting here forever and I'll bet she wouldn't care. And when they are ready, they have some frilly pink thing that's totally useless. And, I mean, how are we supposed to cope with that? It's like torture!"

Sirius went on and on, the others ignoring him.

"Give it a rest Sirius, she's probably real tired," Remus groaned, shoving Sirius off the couch.

"Knowing women, they probably stayed up all night working on their nails. Let's just go without her, James, she probably forgot abut us anyway." Sirius stood up from the floor he had fallen onto when Remus pushed him off, and started heading for the portrait hole.

"Oh, come on, Sirius. You may not be a morning person, but don't take it out on Liz," Peter said, taking Sirius' place on the couch. "Besides, you don't know her that well; she might not have been like that."

"All women are like that, Peter. Take my mother for example…" The others rolled their eyes as Sirius started ranting again.

Finally, Liz stumbled down the stairs, looking thoroughly worn out.

"Aha!" Sirius said loudly, pointing a finger at her. "See! She did stay up all night working on her nails! I told ya so!"

Liz, looking both tired and annoyed now, held out her hands to show plain nails. "I dunno what the hell you're talking about, Sirius, but I can tell you that I haven't painted my nails in two years."

"Then what were you doing that made you so tired?"

"Sirius…that didn't sound…right," Peter snickered, shaking his head.

"I agree, Peter, and Sirius, if you must know-"

"I must."

"-we were seeing who was the first to fall asleep."

"See! Typical women behavior!"

James, fed up, started walking out of the common room as Liz and Sirius bickered.

"It was like having a slumber party with people you don't know. Wasn't it like that for you?" Liz persisted.

"No. We just went to bed and fell asleep. We didn't talk much or anything." Sirius looked at her like she was absolutely crazy.

"Plus, it would be really weird, having a boy slumber party," Peter added, shuddering a bit comically.

Liz laughed. "Once again, I agree with you, mate."

The five walked and walked around the castle. They went in circles down the winding halls, trying to find a place they hadn't been. Soon, they found themselves on the edge of the grounds, the Forbidden forest a few yards from their feet.

"Where the bloody hell are we?" Sirius asked angrily, spinning around trying to find out where they were.

"I don't know," was James' answer.

"You brought us here! Now bring us back!" Sirius yelled.

"All right! All right!" James cried defensively. "I think it was this way. No, wait- I think that's the way we came…or was it that one over there?" James muttered to himself for a while, pointing in different directions, but then second-guessing himself.

"There's smoke up ahead," Remus pointed out. And there it was, clearly visible against the early morning sky.

"Yeah and we want to go towards it?" Sirius challenged.

"There could either be a forest fire or civilization."

"Are we willing to take that risk?" Peter asked. That got everybody thinking. James paced back in forth for a while, Sirius sat down on a log, Peter and Remus stood where they were, and Liz stared transfixed at the smoke.

"Oh I knew this was how it would all end!" James yelled dramatically, falling to his knees in fake anguish. "Me standing here with my new friends, debating whether to be burned alive or to starve to death wandering around the forest for eternity!"

"Think of it this way," Sirius said in a mockingly gentle voice, "If we go for the fire, it will all be over with quickly."

Liz snorted. "Or if we go into the woods, I'll bet we could survive off of Peter until we find our way back."

"Hey!"

"Mmmmh," Sirius muttered, "Fried, boiled, or steamed?"

"Guys totally not funny!" Peter yelled, though he was smiling himself.

"But seriously, cut the melodramatics." Remus started walking in the direction of the smoke. "You guys gonna follow?" he asked. "Or are you gonna stay here and figure out how to cook Peter?"

The others laughed and followed Remus around the outskirts of the forest, and towards the smoke. What they found surprised them.

Next to a small cottage, sitting around a fire, sat the giant who had helped them cross the lake, whittling a stick of wood with a knife. As the five first years approached, he lifted his big head to look at him. James hid behind Sirius.

"We're…" Remus tried to explain what they were doing out on the grounds so early, but he stumbled around with the words, stammering and clearing his throat several times.

"We're looking for the Transfiguration classroom," Liz finally said, Remus' relief.

"I never asked ya where ya were goin'." The giant had a point. "But I do know that firs' years like yerselves don' have Transfiguration till Thursday."

The five of them looked around blankly at each other. Then Sirius pulled James from behind his back, and dragged him along back to the castle, muttering things like "bloody giant phobia" and so forth.

When they got in the castle, they stayed silent. It was much lighter outside, and there were bound to be teachers lurking about.

"Why don't we just go back to our dormitories?" Peter asked, stretching and yawning. "We could go back to sleep…"

James stopped and stared at Peter. "Go back to our dormitories?" he asked, appalled. "Go back to our dormitories? Peter, that takes all the fun out of life! Who wants to go back to sleep when we have all this exciting stuff going on!"

James was practically yelling by this point and didn't seem to notice that they could possibly be discovered. But, sure enough, the sound of high-heels echoing on the stone floor told them that there was indeed a teacher - or something of equal status- was heading their way.

"James, where's your invisibility cloak!" Liz hissed as the sound of footfalls got even closer.

"I left it in the dormitory!"

"It's not much of a bloody use to us in there!"

"Well, sorry!"

"Guys shut it!" Sirius whispered as a figure appeared at the end of the hallway.

They all held their breath as the teacher approached. She was a tall woman, with brown hair tied up in a bun, and square specticals atop the bridge of her nose.

"Can I help you five?" she asked sternly. Peter flinched.

"We're looking for the Transfiguration classroom…?" Liz asked hopefully.

"If you could help us out, that would be great." Sirius gave her a dazzling smile. "Besides, a student like yourself wouldn't turn us in, would you?" he asked in a flattering voice.

She looked very taken aback by all of this, but tried to compose herself.

"You will return to your common room, and stay there until it is time for breakfast. I don't fancy giving a detention my first day!" With that, she turned on her heel and walked back down the hall.

"Damn…" James muttered as they walked down the hall back to the Gryffindor common room.

"I was sure that she would fall for that. All women do…" Sirius trailed off and the others groaned again. Liz didn't groan.

"Not all women are like that, Sirius! You may think so, but it's not true!" Liz said forcefully.

"I was just joking," Sirius said, backing away from her slowly, looking thoroughly scared.

"So this is all just a big joke to you?" she asked calmly.

"That's the way my father treats my mother, my cousin-in-law teats my cousin, and my grandfather treats my grandmother…" Sirius said, shrugging slightly.

"Are you seri- I mean, really?" Liz asked, trying to stay away from puns. Sirius nodded. "That's horrible! That's not the way anyone should be treated, regardless of their gender."

"Sounds like you're into this sorta stuff."

"Women's liberation, that's me!" She laughed.

They reached the portrait of a large woman in a pink dress (that most people called The Fat Lady), and said the password. But she wouldn't let them in until they told her why they woke her up that early.

"We went looking for our classes and got caught. Now can we go in?" Remus asked impatiently. She huffed, but let them in.

Liz went straight up to her dormitory, to find her classmates just waking up.

"Where were you?" Lily asked Liz, heading to the bathroom with her bag of toiletries.

"Common room. I was in the common room checking the message board," Liz said, sticking to the story she wrote on the note that they now needn't see.

"Hmm," was Lily's only reply.

One by one, the other girls woke up. Alice Gryko had quite a difficult time waking up, and had to have Pavia pinch her arm a few times to make her get out of bed.

Lily was the only one who had to have a shower that morning, and the others took turns washing their hair in the sink. Mary, however, was extremely distressed at the state of her hair until Alice pulled an ironing board, and iron out of her trunk. The ironing board was bigger than her trunk and the others stared at it as she set it up. She muttered something about enlargement spells and changed the subject hurriedly.

After all except Liz ironed their hair, they ran down to the common room, but Liz stayed up in the dormitory.

She hadn't had a chance to set up her things. Reaching into her trunk, she pulled out a couple of candles. She had been told by someone when she went to Diagon Ally that Hogwarts had no electricity, and mostly relied on natural light. Liz saw a need for candles for night time and brought a few, though some were covered in soot on the inside.

Liz had also brought her old guitar with her. She knew she probably didn't need it, but according to her parents, they were moving from their current residence, London, to Penzance, South- West of London, and she didn't want them to leave it behind accidentally.

She sat on her four-poster for a minute, staring out the window, until she heard voices coming from the opposite wall.

Pressing her ear against the wall, she managed to trace the voices to a painting of some witch she didn't care to know. Taking shallow breaths, she listened to the heated conversation.

"There should be a latch right there!"

"There isn't!"

"You're not looking in the right place!"

"And how would you know Mr. I've-Never-Been-Here-But-I-Know-What-I'm-Doing?"

"Yeah, 'cause I do!"

"Come on! It's suffocating in here!"

"Why don't you use your big head then?"

"All right, I will."

"Ow! James that was my foot!

"Sorry, Pete. See, there's the latch. Got i-"

Four boys fell from a tunnel behind the painting at Liz's feet.

"Ah, hullo Lizzy." Sirius muttered, brushing the dust from his robes.

"Uh, hi," Liz said back, looking from one face to another. Remus, James, and Peter were there as well. "So…what are you doing here?" she asked trying to act conversational.

"I told you I'd show you how I got in earlier this morning. And I'm always a man of my word," James said heroically. Peter snorted.

"Your dormitory is quite similar to ours," Remus pointed out, looking around.

"Yeah, except you're not supposed to be in it," Liz chuckled.

"Alas, we're not. But I'll warn you now, Lizzy, we'll be back." Sirius walked back to the painting and, with difficulty, clambered back in. Liz walked over to the painting where Sirius' backside was facing her.

"Don't call me Lizzy!" she yelled, and the others could clearly hear his bark like laughter from the tunnel.

Liz slipped into a seat between Sirius and Remus, almost knocking over Sirius' pumpkin juice while doing so. Sirius was talking to James about their scheduals they had just received, while Peter and Remus were reading the Daily Prophet.

"It's getting worse." Remus shook his head slowly, taking a sip of his coffee.

"Hm?" Liz asked from a mouthful of toast. She swallowed then tried again. "What's getting worse?" she asked, leaning over to try and see the newspaper. Remus handed it to her.

"The Muggle killing," he reminded her. "Three just last night. I'm afraid that it'll only continue to get worse."

"That's…" She trailed off, absorbed by the news coulomb.

A prefect placed Liz's schedule on her plate, not bothering to steer clear of her eggs, but she still didn't look up from the article.

Sirius grabbed it from her plate, wiped the egg on the corner of the parchment off on his sleeve, and proceeded to open and read her schedule.

"What's the point of having a schedule if all of us have the same thing?" he asked, throwing it back in her plate. Liz picked it up and looked at it distractedly, handing Remus his newspaper back.

The first class for that Monday morning was double Potions. Liz checked the others' schedules and saw that they, too, had double potions first…along with every other class they had.

"Anyone else wanna read it before I chuck it in the waste bin?" Remus asked, mainly towards James and Sirius, waving his newspaper around.

"I want the crossword if ya don't mind," Sirius said, grabbing the paper out of his hand and opening it to the last page, where the comics and crosswords were located.

"I meant for reading news," Remus muttered, but the other two were too busy telling everyone the "joke of the day".

"What did the sea cucumber say to the warlock, James?"

"I dunno, Sirius, what did the sea cucumber say to the warlock?"

"Nothing. Sea cucumbers can't talk! Bwahahahaha! Oh my gosh that's just too funny right guys?!" Sirius looked around at them in a slightly crazed way. They could all tell he was making a joke himself, but just stared at him in shock (except for James who was laughing so hard his face was as red as a tomato).

"That stunk, Sirius!" Peter yelled as he threw his crumpled up news paper at him.

"Thank you, thank you. I'll be here till…June, I think," was his only reply, which got James laughing again to the point where he was banging his fist on the table.

"Geez James, it wasn't that funny," Remus said, though smiling a bit himself.

"I know- it's just- so funny!" he managed to say from fits of laughter.

"Uh…no it's not James…"

Sirius belched loudly and caused James to stop breathing from laughing so hard, and several older students to look at them in confusion and annoyance.

The others now started to laugh at the look at James' face and the looks they were getting from the other students.

Finally, when James was able to control his breathing, he clutched his goblet tightly in his fist and drank some of the milk that was in it. However, as soon as the liquid was in his mouth, Sirius cracked another stupid joke, this time involving and elephant and a neon green mouse, that got James laughing again.

His red face was centimeters from the table and his glasses were sliding down the bridge of his nose. His eyes were bulging slightly from trying not to spit out his drink. Then, with a wet choking sound, white milk poured out of his nose, dripping down his chin and dribbling down to his neck.

"Aw, ew! James!" Liz half yelled half laughed as James tried to mop up the milk spilled on the table with his sleeve.

"Yeah and use a napkin," Remus said in the same manner, throwing a napkin in James' direction. Sirius and James continued to laugh hysterically.

"Ah…that was fun," Sirius said finally calming back down.

"That hurt!" James yelled, clutching his nose with the napkin Remus had given him but still grinning.

Lily passed the group by with a disgusted look on her face, on her way to her first class, no doubt. In fact, it looked like everyone was heading to classes now.

"Hey, guys, let's go. We're gonna be late," Remus muttered, standing up and heading out the Great Hall.

The five of them ran as fast as they could to Gryffindor tower to grab all of their books they would need, then set off to the dungeons for Potions. Tired and out of breath, they arrived outside the Potions classroom just as the bell for starting classes sounded.

When they walked inside the dismal dungeon classroom, however, they were surprised to find that it smelled inexplicably wonderful. Smells of their favorite things wafted through the tables and chairs set up. Following their noses, they found a table next to a cauldron filled with a golden liquid and odd spiraling smoke coming from it.

The other students were busy chattering to each other, talking about what they smelled and so on, but Liz, Remus, Peter, James, and Sirius were busy looking around.

Sirius and James were looking off in the direction of Lily's table, where she sat with Pavia, Alice, Mary, and Severus Snape, looking as though he wished to be elsewhere.

"Look at his hair," James muttered to Sirius, cringing and running a hand through his own.

"Look at his nose!" Sirius giggled.

"All right, all right. Settle down now." A man with a rather large belly came lumbering into the room. "Class has started and now so must we."

The class looked at him blankly. He tried to smile, but it turned out more like a grimace. He had a blonde head of hair and matching moustache.

"Anyways, I am Professor Slughorn, and I will be your potions teacher for this school year and hopefully many more." He walked around the classroom; several people moved their chairs closer to their table so Slughorn wouldn't accidentally run in to them.

"Now, you're probably wondering what this magnificent potion is," Slughorn said stopping next to the cauldron. "But first, would anyone care to take a stab at it?"

To everyone's surprise, Lily raised her hand tentatively. Professor Slughorn smiled and nodded in her direction.

"I believe it's Amortentia, and it's one of the most powerful love potions," she said, turning slightly red.

"It's the most powerful love potion. Very good Miss-?"

"Evans, Lily Evans," she said quickly.

"Well done Miss Evans. That'll be ten points to Gryffindor." He beamed down at them all as Lily turned pink again.

"Now, if you'd all please turn to page thirty in your textbooks, we will read about Amortentia…"

By the end of the day, James, Sirius, Remus, Peter, and Liz were all about ready to drop dead. The lessons themselves were proving to be quite a bit more challenging than they had expected, but just the size of Hogwarts had them running all over the school to get to their next classes.

"I dunno about you all, but I'm knackered!" James yawed over dinner.

"I agree," Peter muttered. "I swear I'm going to loose so much weight during the year."

Sirius played idly with his mashed potatoes. "Can you believe we got homework the first day?"

"Well, what else did you expect? After all, we have a lot to learn and not a lot of time." Remus was looking at his homework planner that was already full for the day.

"Maybe they could just give us a break on the first day though," Peter said, rubbing his eyes tiredly. "I mean, we have all that homework for Slughorn already!"

"Yeah, 'cause we have double potions. He has more time to think up assignments," Liz said, pushing her still full plate of food away from her.

James, who had somehow managed to fall asleep, slammed his head on the table with such force, it shook all of their goblets. "Gah!" he gasped, now fully awake, and holding his head where it had hit the table. The others stared at his now broken glasses.

"Aw, you're kiddin' me!" he cried, taking them off and fingering the cracks.

"Let's go to the Hospital Wing," Sirius suggested, "I'll bet they can fix your glasses." So there they went, up quite a few stair cases and through some hallways until they found themselves in front of wooden double-doors. Sirius managed to kick it open while holding the sleeve of James' robes to make sure he wouldn't blindly run into someone or something.

Sitting at a desk in the back of the wing was a young woman about the same age as the Trolley Lady, though her hair was a light brown and it hung freely down to her waist.

"We come in peace!" Sirius yelled. The young woman started and turned around so quickly, she nearly knocked over her chair.

Quickly straightening her nurses' dress, she ran up to meet them.

"Is everything alright?" she asked kindly, taking in the four boys and one girl.

Sirius held up the sleeve of James' robes. "He broke his glasses and we don't know how to fix 'em."

"Why, that's easy!" She cried. "Everyone should know how to fix things! I learned that in, what, second year?"

"We're in first year and we don't know how," James said through gritted teeth. "Can you please fix them so I can see?" he said with strained calmness.

An older woman walked out of an office quickly. She too was in a nurses' uniform. "What's going on?" James held up his broken glasses and the woman tisked. "Poppy, I'm afraid you won't make much of a nurse if you refuse to fix a simple pair of glasses!"

The young woman, Poppy, sulked. "But Mum, their first years! They should go to the library and learn how to fix it themselves." Her mother shook her head.

"It doesn't matter if they're first years or seventh years, you have a duty and you should do it. The poor boy can't even see for heaven's sakes!" Poppy went back to her desk grumbling. Her mother pointed her wand at James' glasses, muttered something, and returned back to her office.

James put his fixed glasses on, blinked heavily a few times, said "Much better. Thank you," and left.

The others followed behind him. "She was weird," Remus muttered.

"She was hot!" James and Sirius said simultaneously. Then they grinned at each other, a mischievous grin, but a grin none the less.

"I'll take the nurse, you take the trolley lady?" Sirius asked. James nodded in agreement.

After a bit of walking, they arrived at the portrait of the Fat Lady asking them for the password.

"Exciting day?" she asked them.

Remus sighed. "Like you wouldn't believe. Ginger snaps!"

"I went to Hogwarts too, you know," told them as she swung open to admit them.

Peter waited until she was out of earshot to murmur "Yeah, in the dark ages."

A little while later, James and Sirius were busy doing homework up in their dorms. James was pounding his head with his potions book in frustration, and Sirius was sending a murderous glare at the open page of his Charms text book.

"Too much bloody homework!" He roared, closing his book with unnecessary force.

"And it's only gonna get worse," James reminded him, pausing a moment from hitting his head.

"First days suck…" Sirius grumbled, opening his book again and trying to find the right page.

Remus and Peter came into the dormitory, dressed in their pajamas, and fell into their four poster. James and Sirius looked over at them jealously.

Peter smirked. "You too could have had this awesome prize," he said in a game-show host voice, "if you didn't talk back to Professor Daniels."

"It's not our fault!" James cried indignantly. "It's his fault for telling me I was holding my wand the wrong way-"

"Which you were," Remus cut in, grinning.

James glared at him, but finished his sentence, "and that Sirius stuck up for me."

"Might I take the time to point out that Sirius, too, was holding his wand the wrong way," Remus said. Sirius threw his quill at him, which Remus easily missed, but the ink splattered all over his sheets.

"Sirius!" he yelled, scrambling out of bed and looking down at his ruined sheets. "Now what am I gonna do?"

Sirius shrugged. "Cover it up with something, the house elves will take care of it later."

Peter's eyes widened. "They have house elves working here?" he asked excitedly.

"Yeah, mate. My cousins have seen one of them before during the night. O'course, she gave his a good whipping- their not supposed to be seen, apparently."

"Very violent, your family is," Remus muttered. He yawned hugely (which made Peter yawn, which made Sirius yawn, and so on and so on), and clambered back in his bed, being careful to mind the ink spot.

Meanwhile, in the girls' dormitories, Liz was too restless to go to bed. She paced around in her room for a while, picked out a few measures of a Joni Mitchell song, but still couldn't seem to calm down. But, as if her prayers had been answered, Lily opened the door noisily and walked inside, humming tunelessly to herself.

Seeing Liz sitting on her bed with nothing to do, the asked, "Do you wanna help me put up some posters I brought? I'm a Muggle-born like you so you may know some of the people."

Liz nodded eagerly, and stood up as Lily opened her trunk to reveal several Muggle posters of different bands and actors and actresses. She had posters of the Beatles (though mainly Paul McCartney, as he was her favorite), and records of Elton John, Allman Brothers, Steppen Wolf, Jackson 5, James Taylor, Simon and Garfunkel, but no Rolling Stones.

"My mother won't allow me to listen to those," she muttered, when Liz had asked.

"You know John Lennon is the brains behind The Beatles, right?" Liz asked while hanging up yet another poster of Paul McCartney.

Lily shrugged. "Paul's the cute one." Liz grinned.

When Liz and Lily had finished putting up posters, they talked a bit about their family and lives. Lily had an older sister named Petunia who was dreadfully jealous of her being a witch. The last time Lily had seen her, Petunia had called her a freak and told her that she was going to a school to keep people like her away from the 'normal' people.

"Aw geez," Liz muttered, her mouth hanging open slightly. "That's…that's really bad. No one should treat you that way. You're an awesome person, Lily; don't let anyone tell you otherwise."

Lily smiled. "Thanks Liz. You're a great friend. Though I don't understand why you hang out with Black and Potter. They're so weird!"

Liz laughed. "You get used to it."

Mary, Alice, and Pavia came into the room, interrupting their conversation as they went on about how Mark Patil, a third year, had talked to Pavia down in the common room.

Rolling her eyes at their foolish chatter, Liz climbed into her four poster and closed the hangings around her.

Author's note: I dunno about you, but I'm glad the weekend's here. I'm having a really bad week, I mean, I nearly passed out during classes on Thursday, Homecoming game was tonight, and I haven't been feeling well (hence the nearly passing out). I know this isn't as edited, but as I said before, bad week and nothing's going right!

Also, for the song/title stuff, I'm partial to the Beatles, so if you have a cool 60's /70's song u wanna hear, drop me a line and I'll see what I can do!

Thanks everyone for reviewing!

Salty