Much to her dismay, Lily Evans found herself standing beside those awful boys from the train. What's worse, the two wouldn't shut up. She could hardly hear the Sorting Hat's song! They had to at least notice that. Or what if she missed her name? That would be awful. How embarrassing would that be, having to be called twice, or—did she dare think it?—several times?

"Shh!" Lily hissed to the boys.

"Sirius, can you believe the Hat didn't mention the House of Awesome?"

The boy with the neater hair smiled a crooked, mischievous grin. They could not be up to any good, none at all. "It's practically a crime!"

Biting back her curiosity, she tried again to silence the two. "I don't think you'd know what the Sorting Hat has or hasn't mentioned, as you've been talking the whole time!" she scolded, putting as much venom as she could into her words.

"D'you hear her, James? Talking during the Sorting Hat's song. How disrespectful is that?"

James looked sternly at me. "I think you ought to be quiet now. We wouldn't want to miss anything."

"Oh, shut up."

And the two continued talking, the only difference in their conversation being their raised voices speaking about the so-called House of Awesome.

Lily couldn't take it anymore. If there really was a House of Awesome, she would have to know about it. She couldn't let anyone think that Muggle-borns weren't as clever as the others! Maybe Sev had just forgotten to tell her. "If you're going to go on about it, tell me about the House of Awesome. Last I checked, there were only four Houses at Hogwarts, none if which called Awesome."

James looked over at his friend, a look of exaggerated surprise on his face. "She doesn't know?" he cried.

"Some people," agreed Sirius. "But, I suppose we ought to tell her. Can't very well leave her in the dark, can we?"

Very seriously, the boy with the messy hair nodded, and explained. "Well, you see, the House of Awesome is for anyone without a home, like your friend Snivellus." He gestured toward Sev, who was standing nervously behind a short girl with a long blonde braid running down her black.

"Shut up."

"Really, now," the boy called Sirius said. "I thought you wanted to hear about the House of Awesome."

"Well, yes," Lily amended quickly. "So tell me something about it."

James looked at his friend. "Women." he turned back to Lily. "That's what we were doing," he explained slowly, as though speaking with a much younger person.

The Sorting Hat's song had just gotten especially interesting, but it was the last thing on her mind. She was far too distracted by these two and their ridiculous story. "Something actually important," Lily clarified in the same tone. "Like the founder, perhaps. You can't be telling me the founder was called Awesome."

"Merlin, she is clueless, isn't she? It was breaking news! Front page of the Daily Prophet, wasn't it? 'The Whomping Willow, a New Addition to Hogwarts Becomes Founder of the House of Awesome!'"

"A tree? There is no way on this earth a tree—" That was absurd. She was a hippogriff the day a tree was a founder.

"Didn't you see that thing from the boats, thrashing about? It's a tree with personality," Sirius put in helpfully.

The Sorting Hat finished its song on a long, low note. Its gravelly voice carried, and as the tone rang though the Great Hall, Lily considered what she had learned. There were two possibilities. One: These two were serious, and there really was a House of Awesome. Two: These boys were even bigger prays than she had imagined, and they were just trying to get her worked up. While the second option seemed more likely, she was getting far too nervous as Abbott, Andrew was called to be Sorted to take her pride into account.

"So, if this House of Awesome really does exist—and I'm not saying it does; this is purely hypothetical—what qualities do the members of this House posses?" asked Lily.

Both pairs of eyes gleamed in a rotten sort of way as Sirius replied, "Well, seeing as there's only that one member right now, I'd say they've got loads of bark..."

James nodded. "Oh, stop joking," he said, though his voice showed every trace of his hypocrisy. "The House of Awesome accepts pretty much everyone, regardless of race, religion, and all of that. You know, sort of like Hufflepuff, but you don't have to be hard working or anything."

"Yeah," agreed Sirius. "They accept whites, blacks..." He ticked them off on his fingers as he went. "Asians, Jews. Am I forgetting someone? Oh, right. Rebel freedom fighters on horseback... It was all in the Prophet." He stopped as Avery, Damien was Sorted into Slytherin, and a dark-haired girl (Lily didn't catch her name over the obnoxious chatter) stumbled over to take his place. "Well, I'm after her, I'll bet. Hope to see you in Gryffindor, James." He turned toward Lily just as Black, Sirius was read from the long list of students. "You, not so much."

James gave one of those horrid smirks, and was, for the first time since she had met him, silent as his friend was Sorted. It was a blissful moment, thought Lily as the Hat was sitting on the boy's head. She doubted he had ever been so silent in his lifetime, or ever would be again.

The Sorting Hat finally proclaimed the boy a Gryffindor, just as he had been hoping (which, Lily thought, reflected how silly the boy was; Sev seemed not to like that House very much). James, as predicted, immediately returned to talking.

"So, basically, the House of Awesome accepts everyone, and that includes you."

"If it existed, you mean," Lily said coolly. "And it doesn't."

James merely looked at her amusedly, challenging her will. Finally, just as Evans, Lily was called to be Sorted, he said, "Have fun in the House of Awesome."

She took one last, quick look at Sev before heading on legs less stable than toothpicks to her doom.

With the Hat resting on her deep red hair for no more than a second, she didn't even have the time to ask about the House of Awesome. Lily Evans was now a Gryffindor.

This was going to be a long year...

AN: I suppose I ought to mention that I didn't come up with the House of Awesome on my own. This was inspired by "House of Awesome Theme Song" by The Whomping Willows. If that was the reason you chose to read this story, then you'd obviously know that, but I'm guessing there would be plenty of people who wouldn't know. There. Now that that's out of the way, I'd like to inform you that I had a bit of a hard time deciding who this would feature. First it was going to be James II (or one of his siblings, who had believed his story and spread it further) and some Muggle-born, but I didn't want to make an OC. I really wanted it to be next-gen, so it took me quite a while to decide that it was for the best to do this. Hopefully it was.