The girl with the green eyes was already at the door of the compartment before James Potter even heard her approach. "Excuse me," she said, knocking on the window pane. "Is anyone sitting with you?"

James had never been so grateful to say no to anyone.

"Good," the girl said, sliding the door half-closed behind her. "Don't talk to me."

Oh.

James followed her command without even thinking about it, staring dumbfounded as she shuffled into the seat opposite him and curled up in the corner, looking out the window at the English countryside as it flew by.

This was not the arrangement James had expected, to put it mildly. He'd known that he would probably end up sitting next to strangers on the train — most of the kids in Godric's Hollow were younger, and he wasn't friendly with any of the others, first-year or otherwise. So after he said goodbye to his mum and dad, he'd just picked a carriage at random and decided that it made the most sense to just see who showed up.

Well, this girl had showed up. But surprise: She was boring and sad. Congratulations, James, you've won the jackpot.

Except…She wasn't boring, not really. Something about her made James want to speak anyway, make her tell him why she was so upset. And that didn't really make sense to him.

Out of nowhere, she turned to look back at him, bright green eyes locked onto his own hazel ones. He'd never really noticed a girl's eyes before. They were bloodshot, crimson lines ricocheting out from the verdant irises. Yet for all that…

She looked away again.

James shifted anxiously. He was not going to last until they got to Hogwarts in silence. He was a very chatty person. He knew this about himself because he had determined that he was much more self-aware than the other 11-year-olds in Godric's Hollow. And his mother explicitly said that to him whenever he was bothering her.

A boy burst in, rude and noisy where the girl had been rude and quiet. "Hey, is it fine if I stay here a bit?"

The girl looked back out the window when he started speaking, so James took it upon himself to answer. "Sure, I guess. Sit by me though. She wants some privacy."

"Oh," the boy said, looking at her like she was a frog on display. "Alright then."

He sat down next to James, seats squeaking in complaint as he unexpectedly crashed into them. His hair was as black as James's, but cut short and close to the scalp. Significantly less messy than his own mop. He was a bit tall for his age, but slightly gangly — James suspected the boy was in the midst of quite a growth spurt.

"Nice to meet you," he said, extending his hand. "I'm Sirius. Sirius Black."

"Pleasure," James replied. "I'm James Potter. You been running around the train since we set out from King's Cross?"

"Oh, Merlin, no," Sirius said. "My mates a few compartments up are driving me mental. Figured I'd see if I could get some better company. Looks like I got it half right."

The girl didn't seem to respond to Sirius's near-insult.

"You're one of the Blacks, right?" James didn't really mean to do this — the whole bloodline measuring thing. But old habits died hard. His parents were always big talkers about Muggleborn equality around the house, but whenever they ended up at dinner parties in Godric's Hallow, it was the same names around the table. Potter. Mulciber. Rowle. Macmillan. Fudge. James felt like he actually remembered encountering a excitable middle-aged man with the surname Black at one of the Mulcibers' holiday parties — maybe the one where Seth tried to jinx his stockings?

Sirius made a face somewhere between a proud smile and a grimace. "Of course," he said. "Heir to the whole business too, unless there's some cousin somewhere we don't know about. Don't remind my cousin Narcissa if you bump into her in passing; she's terribly ill-tempered about it. Which is quite stupid since she's the youngest Black girl anyway, but what do I know?"

"I think I've got a distant cousin who's technically a Black? His name's Edwin…Edwin Potter, of course, but his mum, Dorea, was originally a Black."

"Yeah, that sounds right," Sirius said. "I've got a great-aunt named Dorea, but we've never met. They live on the Continent somewhere now."

"I hope Edwin went with," James said. "He came to Christmas one year. 10, 15 years older than me, but he was an idiot. Got in a fight with me because I wouldn't agree Royston Idlewind deserved to be sacked for his play during the World Cup. I was six."

They both chuckled a little at that. Then a hush fell over the train car, all three children wandering within their own minds.

Sirius was the first to break the silence. "So…it's okay if I say all this pureblood posturing is bollocks, right?"

James was so surprised he burst out laughing, nearly falling out of his seat. Sirius joined in a moment later, both of them heedless of the girl on the other side of the carriage.

"Merlin's beard, I'm so glad you said something," James finally wheezed. "I mean, I'm proud to be a part of my family—"

"Oh, of course," Sirius gasped, "me too."

"But I live in Godric's Hollow, and we go to these other people's homes, and there's practically shrines! To a name! We live next door to some Abbotts, and their daughter Delia — she's a second-year — she showed me this book they had, tracing their family history all the way back to practically the Stone Age. Because, you see, 'some of the Abbotts were not so particular, so it was important to know who the real pure-blood Abbotts were.'"

Sirius laughed at that too, holding his side. "If you think a book is ridiculous, you should come visit me in London sometime. My parents have a tapestry."

"They do not."

"Swear to die," Sirius replied, raising his right arm with an expression of mock severity on his face. "Full family tree, going back eight, nine generations maybe? And you haven't even heard the best part. My mother's taken to burning off the blood traitors, just to keep the tapestry pure too!"

That sent James and Sirius both into another fit of giggles. But just when James was starting to catch his breath again, a boy burst into their compartment without a word of introduction. He was already wearing his school robes, a fitting complement to his greasy and stringy black hair.

"I don't want to talk to you." The girl in their compartment had finally come out of her shell — clearly, she already knew this strange boy. Most likely, he was the cause of the tears James could now see reforming in her eyes.

James couldn't hear the boy's response though, and Sirius was talking again.

"So, what's it like out in the country? You must know more wizards who aren't related to you. My parents practically never invite anyone over."

"Yeah, I guess." James really wanted Sirius to shut up and let him listen better to the other two first-years in the compartment with them. But between the monosyllabic answers he provided to Sirius, all he could pick up was something about a letter Dumbledore sent her. Or her sister?

Sirius stopped talking for a moment, and James managed to finally pick up a full sentence. "You'd better be in Slytherin," the greasy boy said, seemingly trying to cheer his companion up.

"Slytherin?" James said, almost surprising himself by speaking up. "Who wants to be in Slytherin? I think I'd leave, wouldn't you?"

James could feel Sirius's whole body shift beside him. The boy was looking at him with the strangest stony face. "My whole family has been in Slytherin."

"Blimey," James said faintly. He hadn't known that about the Blacks, though it seemed obvious on second guess. "And I thought you seemed all right."

Something about his reply made Sirius smile. "Maybe I'll break the tradition," he said, his tone of voice suggesting such a thing was extremely unlikely. The girl and greaseball opposite them were strangely silent as James and Sirius continued to speak. "Where are you heading, if you've got the choice?"

James grinned, lifting an invisible sword. "Gryffindor, where dwell the brave at heart! Like my dad."

The greasy-haired boy gave a snort, and James whipped his head around to glare at him. "Got a problem with that?"

"No," the boy responded with a sneer, "if you'd rather be brawny than brainy."

James's face flushed. He had half a mind to prove this kid's point by beating him into a pulp — but Sirius delivered his own sort of punch first. "Where're you hoping to go," he said, contemptuously, "seeing as how you're neither?"

James practically fell off the bench, laughing uncontrollably and turning in to face the corner of the compartment slightly. He liked this Sirius Black.

The opinion was not shared by their fellow traveler in the compartment. The girl leapt to her feet, furiously squinting at both him and Sirius. "Come on, Severus, let's find another compartment."

"Ooh, yes, let's." Sirius did a surprisingly passable parody of the girl's voice, and James laughed again, though a bit more half-heartedly this time. The girl just blushed, and then scurried out of the apartment, head down, with Severus getting to his feet to follow her.

As he started to walk toward the door, a thought occurred to James. This kid was so out of it, he probably would barely notice if James slid the compartment door shut — but what he definitely wouldn't notice was if James stuck his foot out just so to trip him—

And then he thought of that girl's eyes, filled with tears.

He left his feet where they were, and Severus moved past him with an unhindered step.

"See ya, Snivellus!" Sirius shouted. He was getting up now, moving to take a seat opposite James. "See, now this is nice," he said, stretching out. "Now there's no one left to bother us in this compartment."

Sirius had spoken too soon. A scrawny boy poked his head through the door, and James recognized him instantly: Seth Mulciber, one of the boys he'd known in Godric's Hollow. Their fathers were friends of a sort — all sorts of pureblood connections, formed over years of socializing — which meant that James and Seth had been forced to play together numerous times over the years. Neither had enjoyed it.

"Thought I heard your voice, Sirius," Seth was saying. "See you found the scum of the class already."

James realized with a jolt that Seth and Sirius already seemed to know each other too — fairly well, from the sound of it.

"Hey Seth," Sirius said. He didn't sound especially happy to see the other boy, but the sneering tone he'd used to address Severus was suddenly absent. "Done testing your luck with fifth-years, I see?"

"Oh, come on, Sirius," Seth replied. "All I said was that they ought to be ashamed of themselves, having such blood traitors for parents. If they were decent, they'd have agreed with us, same as you or I would if our parents turned out to be rotten."

"Your parents are rotten, and so are you." James wasn't just going to sit here and be ignored. He got to his feet and stared down Seth, even though he could see his righthand boy Ignatius Avery — thick in both brains and brawn — lurking further down the corridor, a pair of small trunks with both their names on them at his feet. "Why don't you get back where you came from?"

"Well, admittedly, it is a bit like Sirius said," Seth said. "There are a bunch of pissed-off Muggle-lovers back at the front of the train, and we thought we might see where he wandered off to. Nice of him to find us an empty compartment for us."

"This compartment isn't empty," James replied. "I'm here."

"For now." Seth pulled his wand out from within his black robes, and James instinctively followed suit, drawing his mahogany wand and holding it warily at his side.

"Watch it, Mulciber."

"What are you going to do, Potter, sprout flowers around my feet? I can't imagine your goody-two-shoes of a father letting you learn a simple jinx, much less something that might actually hurt me."

James's knuckles tightened around his wand. True, he didn't know much, but he could do something to Seth, at least. The problem was in what Seth might do back.

"So much congestion, there's nowhere to get my trolley through!"

An elderly witch was suddenly there beside Seth, practically pushing her cart of sweets into his side. "Boys, move along, unless you're looking to buy."

"Love to," Seth said with a sneer. James noticed his wand was suddenly gone. "Come on, Potter, back out into the hall with the nice lady."

Sirius was notably silent behind him, and James decided to press his luck. "We were here first, Mulciber. Maybe Sirius and I should stick around and you should find somewhere else to go."

"I don't think we want to do that," Seth replied. "Do we, Sirius?"

"Um," Sirius stammered. "Yeah, I guess this compartment is nice. So sure, you can come in."

Oh, he was born for Slytherin alright. Blood boiling, James turned slightly to glare at Sirius before shouting at Seth again. "Look, whatever, I don't care where you all sit. But my stuff is here, and I'm not moving it."

"Come on, boys," the trolley witch interjected, a menacing tone in her voice. "I don't have all afternoon."

"Why don't you all come over here?"

A new voice entered the fight, coming from behind Seth. A shaggy-haired boy with a pale complexion was across the way, a small trunk in his hand. "My compartment's empty, aside from me. You all come over here and I'll just come across the way."

Seth nodded with approval, and Ignatius snuck past him to carry the trunks into the other chamber. "Works for me. C'mon, Sirius. Let's leave this traitor with his new friend."

Sirius moved past James without a word, and the other student crossed back into James's compartment a moment later. The trolley witch moved past all of them with a sniff and an upturned nose, and began pointedly asking the students a row ahead if they wanted snacks. Across the way, the compartment door slammed behind Sirius with a snap.

"Sorry about all that," James said, finally having the grace to become embarrassed. "You didn't have to give up your seat for me."

"Not a problem," said the other boy, inadvertently taking Sirius's seat. "I was originally with a couple of sixth-years who went to the back of the train to neck. I figured it would be nice to have company."

"What a coincidence. I was just thinking it would be nice to have some new company." James extended his hand. Third time's the charm, he supposed. "I'm James Potter."

"Hello, James," the other boy said. "I'm Remus."

James ended up chatting with Remus the entire journey to Hogwarts, the afternoon flying by. For all his protestations that he wasn't used to having friends, Remus seemed as cool as anyone else he knew in Godric's Hollow, even if he was prone to moody looks out the window when there was a momentary lull in the conversation. In some ways, he might actually have been an improvement — James often found the other boys in the village tediously snobby, especially after they'd spent a year away at Hogwarts.

A giant of a man had ordered them down a path toward a small fleet of boats, and James and Remus boarded with a pair of girls, one a black girl with a pair of silvery glasses that sparkled in the moonlight and the other decidedly Welsh, if that thick accent was any indication. As the four of them took their seats, the boat leapt forward under its own power, accompanied by the girls' giggles.

"It'll still take me a while to get used to all this," Remus said, staring around at all the other boats.

James turned to look at him oddly. "I thought you said only your mum was a Muggle."

"Oh, yeah," Remus said. "My dad's a wizard. He just…doesn't do much magic around the house. There's too many Muggles about."

There were three, four times as many Muggle families in Godric's Hollow as wizarding ones, and James's father still levitated the furniture around every three weeks to make it easier for the house elves to dust. But he didn't press it.

"Well, don't get so distracted by the boats you forget to get a good look at the castle as we come around the lake," James said. "My dad told me that's the best part of the trip."

No sooner had James said that when the cliffside ahead seemed to fall away, revealing Hogwarts itself: a massive, looming series of towers and parapets, all lit up in celebration. The girls stopped talking immediately, each gasping, and a big grin crept across Remus's face.

"I always hoped I'd see this," Remus said, seeming lost in his thoughts. "It's so beautiful."

"My older sister says there's 777 windows in Hogwarts," the Welsh girl said from behind them. "And there's a light burning in all of them on the first night of the term."

"I think there must have been only 776 originally," James said with a smile. "Back in '23 when my mum graduated, she and her friends accidentally blew out part of the wall in the Gryffindor common room celebrating and had to transfigure some broken wine bottles into a new window."

Remus and the girls looked at him oddly. "Wait, your mum graduated from Hogwarts in 1923?" Remus finally said. "Mate … why aren't you old?"

James laughed at the unexpected question; for all the complaining he did about his parents' age, he forgot about it at the strangest times. "It's my parents who are the old ones. My dad always says I ruined his retirement when he's in a lousy mood. They're both in their 60s now."

Remus whistled softly. "Well, that's certainly impressive. I'm an only child too. I think my parents wanted to have more kids later on once they were a bit more settled, but … well, it just never happened."

There was something sad in Remus's tone, and the conversation trailed off shortly after that. James found his mind drifting ahead to the feast later tonight, when they'd all be sorted. It occurred to him that some of his fellow first-years were probably a lot more nervous — the Muggle-borns, especially, but some of the half-bloods too no doubt. Having a long Gryffindor tradition in the family went a long way toward calming his nerves.

A few minutes later, the boats all docked, and the bearded giant led the whole mess of them up toward the school proper. They filed into the Entrance Hall in an erratic two-by-two formation, but to a one they scattered throughout the ornately decorated chamber as soon as they were past the first set of double doors.

"All right, everyone in," the man said as he shut the doors behind them. "Stay here and try not t' get into any trouble. Deputy headmistress'll be along presently t' collect ya." And then he slipped out through a side door — one it seemed impossible for him to fit through — and was gone, leaving the 50-odd students to mingle in the hall.

Remus and James had stuck together, staking out one edge of a stone column far away from Sirius and Seth, but both of them were too nervous to say much. Instead, James found himself absent-mindedly scanning the 11-year-old faces in the crowd around them, realizing slowly that he was looking for the crying girl from the train.

He finally found her, sitting on the marble staircase at the front of the hall, talking to her friend the greaseball. He hadn't cleaned up since James saw them last, but she had. Jumping for joy looked a stretch, but there was a smile on her face as she spoke to Severus. As James watched, the other boy muttered something inaudible, with a flick of his eyes across the crowd. She laughed in response, a distinctive, sharp sound that sliced through the noise of the room.

He wouldn't understand why the sound of that laugh seemed to echo in his heart for many years.

"Attention all students!"

The stern voice jarred him, and he spun about in sync with the half-dozen other first-years idly musing on the castle. In front of the doors to the Great Hall was a woman, black hair pulled back with a severity that marked her definitively as a professor. Not a hair was out of place, as far as James could see, and the strictness of her appearance was lessened only by the incongruity of her dress robes: green and blue tartan, a pattern that was perhaps her only concession that she was not in truth the 60-year-old woman her demeanor implied.

"That's got to be McGonagall," Remus said, whispering into James' ear. "My dad always tells me about the time she threatened to turn him into a candlestick for charming a piece of chalk to write obscenities on the blackboard."

"Can't be," James hissed back. "I know wizards age slow, but there's no way that professor is as old as she dresses."

"Oh, she wasn't his professor," Remus replied. "She was a first-year who caught him doing it while she was on her way to class. Apparently she tried to follow through but —"

"Silence!" Whatever McGonagall had done decades ago, the present-day professor would have none of it tonight. The whole group fell silent immediately, Remus and Sirius included.

McGonagall pursed her lips and surveyed the group. "Thank you. In a few moments, I will lead you into the Great Hall. From there, you will be sorted into houses. While you remain at Hogwarts, your house will become your surrogate family. Each has their own private domain within the castle, where you will sleep, study and socialize. You will eat meals with your house, attend classes with them and — depending on your actions over the course of the year — succeed or fail with them.

"There are four houses: Gryffindor, Slytherin, Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw. Do not fret too much about which you will be placed in. Talented witches and wizards have come from each. But so too have foolish and arrogant ones, who see in their selection of house more license for pride than is merited.

"Now, take a moment to make yourselves presentable. Then we'll enter the hall." McGonagall took a moment to survey the mass of children in front of her — eyeballing a few of the more disheveled a bit longer than the others — and then slipped back into the Great Hall.

"Boy, she's something else," James said to Remus. "Are all the teachers like that here?"

"I certainly hope not. Do my robes look halfway decent?"

"Yeah, they're fine. How does my hair look? I can never get it to lay down right."

Remus gave him a pitying look. He'd seen that before. Usually from his mother.

James was still feebly trying to smooth it out when McGonagall returned. "All right, students, inside now. The ceremony is about to begin."

Filing into line behind Remus, James anxiously moved forward, into the Great Hall. It was more than he'd expected. Much more. The majesty of it brushed a smile across his face, growing wider as he examined each of the gilded curlicues and sculptures upon the wall. Ahead were four long tables that stretched from one end of the hall to the other, packed with hundreds of students. A shorter table at the head, with a group of adults who must have been the professors, had an open seat just to the left of center…McGonagall's, perhaps.

All this was lit by an innumerable array of candles hovering over the room, suspended by magic. As James gaped at them, he saw a set of candles floating above one table change color from white to blue, the flame turning an unnatural silver. For the students already seated, this was a new and delightful development, especially once the others began to shift too, turning red, yellow, and green. James was already looking past the candles, into the depths of an endless ceiling of stars, with the almost-full moon obscured by clouds.

James looked ahead at Remus, who was looking up at the magical sky-roof too. His face seemed pale in the shifting light, and he muttered something James couldn't hear as he looked away hastily.

"What's wrong?" he asked, nudging Remus slightly with his knuckles.

"Nothing," Remus replied, only shifting his gaze slightly from the floor. "I hope you're in the same house as me," he said suddenly, as if it had just popped into his head.

So that was what he was upset about. "Don't worry about it. You seem cool. Of course you'll end up in Gryffindor with me."

That got Remus to turn almost all the way around, though he stumbled a bit in the process. "What do you mean? How do you know what house you're going to be in?"

"I mean, I don't technically," James said smoothly. "But it feels obvious. My family has been in Gryffindor for generations. My father thinks our family line might even go back to Godric Gryffindor himself."

That didn't seem to comfort Remus as much as James had thought it would… but they didn't have much time left to reflect on it. They had reached the end of the hall, and McGonagall had begun directing them to spread out in front of the teacher's table, turning to face the four houses. Once they were all settled, she stepped in front of them, holding a four-legged stool, and placed it squarely in front of the first-years.

"What do we do now?" Remus asked, voice wavery.

"I don't know," James admitted. "My parents wouldn't tell me anything about the Sorting. Thought it would 'ruin the surprise.'"

McGonagall withdrew her wand from within her plaid robes with a flourish, pointing it toward a cupboard across the hall. It opened with a bang, revealing a lumpy, heavily-patched hat, which floated toward the group. James expected it to land on her head, but instead she steered it right to the top of the stool.

Silence fell in the room, sustained by the anticipation of the older students and the anxiety of James and his companions. Then, a stitch on the hat split open. In an instant, James saw the contours of a face form within the folds and tears of the hat. And then it took a deep breath and began to sing.

"When I was younger,

So much younger than today,

I donned the head of Gryffindor

From dawn to dusk each day.

And so it was I witnessed

A joining oh so rare

Of wizards strong and cunning

And witches good and fair.

'Twas four of them who gathered

To formally agree

To make a school for children

Of a magic pedigree

Ravenclaw was first to speak

As first was her idea,

'We need a place for knowledge,

Where learning can be free.'

'It cannot hold just knowledge,'

Said cheery Hufflepuff

'For without moral guidance

Pure learning's not enough.'

'But who are we to say

What is just and what is vile?'

Asked Slytherin the crafty

With a hidden ounce of guile.

Their plans seem doomed to failure

'Til Gryffindor suggested,

'Why not divide our school in fourths

And each apply our method?

Fair Ravenclaw shall govern those

Who bring a gifted mind

Good Hufflepuff shall mother all

Those children just and kind

Sly Slytherin should take on those

Who share his crafty tongue

And I shall take the valiant on,

The bravest of the young.'

And so their pact was made at last,

Each getting what they'd wished,

And Hogwarts soon did come to be

And since then has flourished.

The founders now have long been dead,

But magic still lives on,

So set me down upon your head;

I'll say where you belong."

James was so stunned he could only blink, but the Great Hall erupted into applause around him, with many first-years reflexively joining in. In front of them, the Sorting Hat was bowing, soaking in the adulation.

"So we just put the hat on?" Remus asked.

"I guess so," James whispered back. A line from the song came back to him again, suddenly. "Did you hear that, about Gryffindor? The valiant!"

"Yeah, sounds great, James." Remus was staring at the hat blankly now. "But what if you're not in Gryffindor?"

James opened his mouth in confusion, ready to defend his very honor at the suggestion, but McGonagall beat him to it. "When I call your name," she said, unrolling a long sheet of parchment, "please step forward and take a seat on the stool, placing the Sorting Hat on your head as you do."

There was no time left for uncertainty, James thought. Only the moments before Gryffindor. "Here we go," he said, toes tapping eagerly inside his boots.

McGonagall scanned the list a moment, then looked up and shouted the first name: "Avery, Ignatius!"

Avery stepped forward hesitantly. It took effort for James not to scoff aloud at the moron's poor luck. Even if he hadn't been first to go, Avery was so thick he probably still wouldn't have known what to do. Slowly, he walked up to the stool and picked up the hat, sitting down and looking at it for a moment. James saw a flash of irritation on McGonagall's face, but before she could tell him, Avery put the pieces together and set it atop his head.

"SLYTHERIN!"

The shout from the hat was so quick, Avery nearly fell off his seat. The Slytherin table erupted into cheers as McGonagall took the hat from him — Avery seemed too befuddled to do it himself — and nudged him in the direction of the Slytherin table, farthest on the left.

As the clapping died down, she read another name: "Bagman, Otto!"

The boy, a pudgy youth with messy brown hair, took his seat in turn. "RAVENCLAW!" The table beside the Slytherins began to cheer now, welcoming Otto with handshakes and smiles.

"Barker, Basil!"

"RAVENCLAW!" The silver-and-blue table cheered again, beckoning Basil to join them.

"Bellicose, Beatrix!"

"GRYFFINDOR!" This was the far right table now, bursting into the loudest cheers yet.

"That's where we're going," James whispered. "The loud and the proud."

"Hopefully." James could see Remus shifting with every word the two of them exchanged. There were other students whispering too, though, so James pressed on.

"Come on, Remus," he said. "There aren't surprises here. You're a good guy; not bookish, not boring. Where else would you be but Gryffindor?"

"Black, Sirius!"

"Watch," James said, nodding at Sirius as he sat on the stool. "His whole family's been in Slytherin. Pureblood too. Going back generations."

"My dad has a saying about stuff like that." The Sorting Hat was slow on this one for some reason, so Remus had to whisper even softer as the hall waited for its obvious verdict. "'The only thing I know will happen is the thing I'm not expecting.'"

James pursed his lips at that. Not a particularly wizardly sentiment. He looked back at Sirius, who looked incredibly uncomfortable under that hat. "What's taking so long?" he said, almost forgetting to be quiet. "Is Black so Slytherin he broke the hat? You'd think that this would be an easy—"

"GRYFFINDOR!"

Applause came again from the Gryffindor table, but only from about a third of the students there. The rest, like James, were picking up their jaws. The awkward silence lasted only a moment — then their cheers were even louder than before. A pair of tall, red-haired boys even went so far as to stand up and clap, although their gesture seemed aimed more at the murderously silent Slytherin table than anything. James couldn't see a single one of them moving.

"Told you so," Remus said, somehow looking more and less worried all at once.

"Broadmour, Maggie" was already putting the Sorting Hat on her head, but James had lost all focus. He turned to look at Remus, trusting in the cheers of excited Hufflepuffs to drown out his voice. "Just because some random pureblood bucks the trend doesn't mean I'm going to."

"No, but—"

McGonagall's head shifted toward them just slightly. "Burbage. Charity."

The boys were quiet through her sorting into Ravenclaw, and the successive trip of "Campbell, Rory" into Hufflepuff. Then Remus bucked up the courage to whisper the rest of his sentence as the hat dawdled over "Catchlove, Greta," a short girl with blonde hair whose feet swung anxiously as she waited. "I'm just saying, it can't just be family that determines where you end up here. Otherwise, you and your friend Sirius would already be sitting on opposite sides of this hall, and it'd only be me and the other poor kids standing at the front of the class."

"HUFFLEPUFF!"

James pointedly looked away from Remus, hands moving automatically to clap quietly. He kept going a beat longer than everyone else, catching himself just in time to more effectively feign interest in "Chang, Mei."

But his mind was far from Hogwarts. He wasn't some pureblood radical, like Mulciber and his kind. His parents hadn't raised him to believe he was better than others, just for having a name you could find in history books. But the Potter name was important. It was important to them, and it was important to him, and one of the important things about being a Potter is that you were a Gryffindor. A Potter who wasn't in Gryffindor… What if he was the first person in generations to screw this up?

Suddenly, James realized the girl on the stool in front of him was the one from the train. Bloody hell, he had missed her name!

"Remus," he said quickly, "what was her name?"

"Didn't catch it. Why?"

"GRYFFINDOR!"

James didn't reply as the cheers welled up, drowning out anything he might have said. The girl whipped the Sorting Hat off her head with a grin and hurried down to the Gryffindor table — though James caught her looking back with a glimmer of sadness. He watched as she approached Sirius, then seemed to change her mind and sit between a pair of older girls.

Whoever she was, she was in Gryffindor now. All that was left was to wait, and hope, and pray.

Antsy, he waited through the next dozen or so students. There were no more Gryffindors for a long while, the F's, G's, J's and K's of Hogwarts divided evenly among the other three houses. James recognized only a few. The Greengrasses had been among the first investors in Sleekeazy's, and James remembered "Greengrass, Emory," a Slytherin, as a sulky, ill-tempered boy who had broken his mother's china cabinet in a fit of wizardly temper as a child. And "Gudgeon, Davy," sent to Hufflepuff, was a distant cousin from Scotland he'd visited on vacation three years ago, who'd shockingly managed to lose what looked like two stone since then.

"Lewis, Jack" finally broke the streak, going to Gryffindor, and then…

"Lupin, Remus!"

"Good luck," James whispered quickly to his new friend.

But Remus just smiled back. "With what?" Somehow more confident than James now, he strode forward, swept the hat off the stool and then, in one fluid motion, both sat down and set the hat on his head.

"GRYFFINDOR!"

The hat's reaction wasn't quite instantaneous — but certainly fast enough to take James by surprise. For all Remus's worrying, James had expected his sorting to be a long one. But there he was, waving at James and practically running down the hall to the Gryffindor table. He seamlessly blended into the ongoing celebration over Jack Lewis, and sat down next to him and across from Sirius. To James's surprise, he reached across the table right away, shaking the pureblood's hand with vigor.

Now there was nothing left but to wait for his turn. "MacDonald, Mary" joined Remus at the Gryffindor table immediately. The boy next to him, "Mirza, Nabin," would go to Gryffindor as well, and "Mulciber, Seth," was the fastest Slytherin called yet. He stalked over to the far left table, glaring at Sirius with disgust before sitting beside a visibly pleased Avery. His poor minion appeared to have developed separation anxiety over the course of the evening.

"Peasegood, Arnold" was where the worrying really started. As the hat pondered Arnold's placement — "HUFFLEPUFF!" — James realized that he didn't really know anyone else in the group. At least not anyone else whose name might be before his. So he flinched at "Pepper, Octavius." Twitched through all five and a half minutes of "Pettigrew, Peter." Full-on heart attack for "Ponter, Roddy."

"Potter, James!"

Finally. Conscious of every eye on him, he walked slowly over to the stool, gingerly took up the hat as he sat down, and placed it on his head.

And waited.

"This is all very interesting,"

The voice seemed to come from inside his head. With a shiver, James realized it was the Sorting Hat itself, talking to him. Or thinking at him?

"Both, sort of." The Hat was reading his thoughts. "You're remarkably stunned by this for someone from such a strong pureblood line. But I do remember both your parents having a mischievous bent so I suspect that explains it."

James was too stunned to even think up a retort, and the Hat thought-talked on unheedingly. "You've got a great deal of ambition, that stands out right away. And you're loyal to those you care for…to a fault, I would say. And you're smart — not just book smart, but real smart. The kind of brains that a Ravenclaw would be proud to have. You'd fit well there, or in Hufflepuff, or in Slytherin…"

But what about Gryffindor?

"Yes, what about Gryffindor?" the Hat replied immediately. "Of course you'd fit there. You've been practically bred to be there. But it's not the only path for you, despite what you're thinking. The Hogwarts houses aren't really that different. At least they're not supposed to be. What you do once you're in a house is much more important than which one we choose for you to join."

"Choose?" James muttered under his breath. The choice is mine?

"Of course. Everyone in this room chose their house, in one way or another. Most people don't realize it. But I think you need to know — so you make the right choice.

"You're the rarest of the students I sort, James. Most 11-year-olds, they're between two houses. Maybe three. But despite what you think about yourself, you'd thrive anywhere. For you, it's about what you're willing to give up.

"Go to Slytherin, and that ambition will flourish. You'll be one of the greatest wizards of your age — but never trusted and rarely loved. Ravenclaw, and your intelligence will be cultivated strategically, making you wise but unworldly. In Hufflepuff, you'll get all the friends and love you crave, but you'll always wonder whether another house might have been better for you."

"What about Gryffindor?"

"There you get the best of everything," responded the Hat. "And the worst as well. Because all of your strengths will flourish — your ambitions, your loyalty, and your mind. But it won't be easy. It's hard to be ambitious and stay loyal to your friends. And it's hard to apply the skills you'll perfect in school when you'll also know the way the world really works.

"But you're brave enough to do it, even when it hurts. Are you willing to do that, James Potter?"

James hesitated. He had the sense that the Hat somehow knew more than it was telling, that it could see something James couldn't. But its choice was no choice at all, in truth.

"I see," said the Hat, with a strange tone in its voice. If he had to guess, he would have thought it was sorry for him, somehow. "As you wish. Best of luck in…"

"GRYFFINDOR!"

The applause cascaded over James as he took the hat off, and he instinctively looked over at his new house. Remus was standing, hands cupped around his mouth. Near him were the other first-years, all of them cheering, from Sirius, the presumed-Slytherin, to the mousy boy who'd gone into Gryffindor right before him, to the girl from the train, who he could somehow hear cheering above all the others.

He took the hat off, setting it on the stool without a second glance, and hurried down to join his new friends for the first time.

With all the excitement of the feast, and the speeches, and the food (the roast beef alone!), James didn't get a chance to talk to that girl again until the end of the night. When he sat at the table next to Remus, she had been surrounded by the five other female first-years already named, and since James had turned out to be the last boy called for the house, their numbers only grew as the night went on. So he'd spent the time getting to know the rest of the guys. Sirius and Peter were quiet — a little stunned perhaps — but Jack and Nabin were chatty enough to make up for it, both Londoners dazzled by the mystique of the castle.

After the feast, one of the prefects, Frank Longbottom, had led them up a series of staircases, dizzyingly high. He'd introduced them to a painting called the Fat Lady and told them the first password of the year ("Acromantula") before letting them into the common room, a cozy, warm space draped in red and orange patterns.

James and the other first-year boys had already been beaten to the good, fireside couches by some sixth- and seventh-years, so he and Remus had gathered some cushions from across the room and started a game of exploding snap with an old deck Remus pulled out of his back pocket. Peter and Nabin flanked them on either side, both jumping and devolving into giggles every time a card sparked in the face of one or the other.

"If you think exploding snap is great," James was saying, "you're going to get blown away by wizard's chess."

"Ooh, that sounds wicked," Nabin said. "What's the twist? Dragons instead of bishops? Can the queen kill people without moving?"

"It's not that different, I hear," James said. "Pieces are the same but—"

Remus tapped the last matching pair as James spoke, and his words were cut off by the biggest flashbang yet. James coughed the soot out of his lungs, blinking furiously, until he heard that sharp laugh again. He turned to see the girl shaking her head, walking with some of her new friends toward the girls' dormitory stairs.

"Gotta pay attention," Remus said. It took James a minute to realize he was talking about the cards, not her. "Something tells me you're a bit too distractible to win a game like this."

"Totally," James said, scrabbling to his feet. "Why don't you try a game with Peter or something? I'm gonna take a walk."

He didn't wait to hear Remus's response. He only hurried across the common room, catching up with the girls just before they finished rounding the bend of the stairs.

"Excuse me!" There were four girls on the stairs total, and each seemed to swivel to glare at him in unison. So much for a sympathetic audience.

"Um, you!" He pointed at the redhead, only dimly aware of how rude he was being but pushing ahead anyway. "Can I talk t' you for a second?"

She turned, muttering something to the other girls, who looked back at him even frostier than before. The other three did turn away, though, heading up to the dorm all a-chatter. She came down slowly, stopping on the last step and crossing her arms over her stomach. "Come to apologize, did you?"

That stopped him cold. "Apologize? For what?"

"For being so mean to poor Severus on the train. He didn't do anything to you, or that other boy."

Three or four retorts popped into James' head immediately, but he bit them back.

"Err, yeah… Sorry about that," he said, unconvincingly. "I just came by to introduce myself, formally. I'm James. James Potter." He extended his hand confidently, hoping she bought his little white lie.

She stared at him again a few moments longer, and then slowly took his hand. "Nice to meet you, I guess. I'm Lily Evans."

"Lily," he said, trying the name out. "Nice to meet you. For real, this time. Glad you're in Gryffindor."

"Um…yeah, glad you're here too, I guess. I'm gonna go to bed now — but I'll see you in classes tomorrow."

"Of course," he replied, with a smile. She gave him another odd look, then turned and hurried up the steps, leaving him looking after her.

"Glad you chose to be here," James said, correcting himself under his breath. "Glad it's what we both chose."

Unbidden, a thought floated through his head — old man Ollivander, reminding him a few months prior that wands choose their wizards. Something about Lily Evans made him feel chosen in the very same way.