Aberforth Dumbledore was furious; he had just been appointed Minister of Magic and found out his brother was allowing that deatheater, Severus, to teach at Hogwarts. He was headed to Hogwarts to have it out with his brother and take care of Severus once and for all. This was the year that the boy-who-lived would be attending Hogwarts and he refused to let a deatheater act as a teacher for him.
Harry walked calmly between platforms nine and ten to find himself staring right at platform 9¾. The platform was covered with witches and wizards alike that thankfully hadn't noticed him; he took a deep breath before walking to the train and climbing on. It didn't take long for him to find a compartment that was towards the back of the train, but situated so that he could watch the activity on the platform. He quickly took his trunk out of his pocket and sat it on the above rack before tapping it with his wand causing it to enlarge. Inside, were he to have opened it, there were nine compartments that varied greatly in size.
The biggest of the nine held a personal quarters for him that could comfortably allow him to take up to three other people with him. The others housed things like a small library (small being the operative word because it held around 1,000 books in all that had been shrunk to fit), a potions cabinet that held many healing potions just in case, and a small closet that held armor for around twenty-five people. Before the train got too crowded and he ended up with other people in his compartment he fished a book out he had started around a month ago. Though he was a fast reader, he had only made it to the third chapter in the book; in total there were fifteen chapters that detailed the histories of several old families and gave a list for families were magic had become dormant.
Peering out the window he noticed the Malfoys off beside the Crabbe and Goyle families. The heirs of all three families would be attending their first year as well and appeared to have already formed an alliance. While alliances were fine, Harry rather preferred friendships and brotherhoods that would withstand a lifetime. However, as he'd been told a thousand times, with people that there was hardly any chance of friendship or brotherhood it was more preferable to have alliances rather than adversaries. He made a mental note to at least form an alliance with the Malfoy heir which would help to protect him from some of the darker families of Slytherin that would cause him harm.
While Lucius Malfoy had been a deatheater what hardly anyone knew was that he had been forced into service and had simply used his wit to survive. In fact that was the case of a lot of deatheaters that were the same age as the patriarch of the Malfoy family and younger. Harry hoped to ease the tensions between the houses and make friends from not only his own house, but from the other three as well. His family had been taking bets on where he'd end up and as it stood Hufflepuff was the most likely followed by Ravenclaw, Slytherin, and the least likely Gryffindor. While both of his parents had been in Gryffindor, and had been amazing Gryffindors at that, his Mum had also written in one of her diaries that she had the option of also going to Ravenclaw. His Dad, while most didn't know it, had been given the chance to go to Slytherin, but had been mortified at the thought of that at the tender age of eleven and refused to go anywhere but Gryffindor. Though both the Ravenclaw and Slytherin qualities had helped to secure that if his parents didn't make it through the war with Riddle that he would end up where they intended. Just then the whistle blew knocking Harry out of his remembrances.
Albus, unaware that Aberforth had just became minister, was sitting in the Great Hall talking with both Minerva and Severus. Severus was worried because Harry would be coming this year and no one knew what his life had been like thus far. It had been almost ten years since that awful night when Lily and James had sadly been taken from Harry and Harry had been dropped off at the Dursleys. Minerva had been mortified at the thought of leaving little Harry there, in truth so had Severus, but there was nothing that could be done about it. At the time Severus had been in Azkaban awaiting a trial before the Wizengamot that thankfully had proven him innocent of truly following Riddle.
At the young age of eleven the dark mark had been forced onto him because of his "uncle" on his "dad's" side. When his Mum had married Tobias Snape she had assumed that he was a muggle, but he turned out to be a wizard that was posing as a muggle so as to secure an heir with a witch. Now why some people might find that odd Tobias's family was actually very much considered a dark family throughout Britain; Tobias was a Black and he knew that his Mum would never have looked at him twice otherwise. So was he technically a Snape? No he was a Black and that had been revealed at his sorting. He had actually made friends with James and Sirius on the train, but had refused to tell them his last name for fear of making an enemy of Sirius. When it had been announced at the sorting both Sirius and James had stared in complete shock as he climbed onto the stairs. He looked out over the Great Hall though before he allowed the hat to be placed on his head and Sirius caught his eye. When Sirius realized he had had his attention he mouthed for Severus to 'go to Gryffindor' and so he had.
After the sorting was over that night Sirius, James, and Remus had shared a dorm leaving Pettigrew with other Gryffindors as dorm mates. He had shown them the dark mark while tears, to his horror and then embarrassment, had cascaded down his face. Sirius and James had vowed to help him and keep him away from Tobias as long as possible. Though his sharing his secret had another consequence that shocked them all even more; Remus had shared with them that he was a werewolf. They had all assured Remus that it didn't matter and thus began one of the best friendships/brotherhoods in Hogwarts history. It had shocked them when Pettigrew ended up being a deatheater as well and although it was dangerous Severus went into work for Riddle in hopes to help them all. Tobias was in Azkaban at the time making it easier for him to pretend that he had simply been afraid of Tobias instead of joining the deatheaters; he also told Riddle he had let himself be sorted into Gryffindor in order to get into Albus's good graces...and Riddle had believed him. While he wasn't one of Riddle's most trusted he did find out when Pettigrew brought juicy information concerning the prophecy and bought Lily and James some time.
Thankfully though, even though two of his best friends were gone, he still had the other two with him. He looked up as Sirius entered the Great Hall followed by his wife, Kiera Black nee Longbottom.