Only At Hogwarts

Chapter 1

Disclaimer: Cheers to queers and may prostitution prosper!


He looked out at the vast hall before him. Four tables. One of them was going to be his home for the next seven years, or so the middle-aged Witch with the tight bun had told them. He swallowed nervously when a short professor had toddled forward with a roll of parchment and an old hat on a stool. The professor had placed the hat and stool down in the middle of the platform on which the faculty table was sitting, and handed the roll to the witch. McGonagall, he had remembered faintly. The hall then ceased their chatter and looked up at the hat as if awaiting it to burst into flames. Suddenly, without warning, the hat had begun to sing. Ah, yes, the infamous Sorting Hat, he thought dryly when it began it's tune.

Once the hat had finally shut its trap and the applause had died down, McGonagall stepped forward.

"When I call your name," she began, "please step forward and place the Sorting Hat upon your head. Aperture, Sally!" A little girl with blonde pigtails stepped forward, placing the hat nervously on her head.

"HUFFLEPUFF!" The hat called in that voice which was soon to get on his nerves.

I wonder what would happen if I got Hufflepuff, he thought idly. It's only worse than Gryffindor. I'd kill myself if I was put into Gryffindor. Gryffindor and Hufflepuff. Houses for the sissies. Even Ravenclaw would be better than Gryffindor. God forbid.

"Baker, Andre!"

"RAVENCLAW!"

I think I'm next, oh dear. Oh dear. I've never been so nervous before in my life. Relax, you're going to be in Slytherin, just like all your family was before you. No big deal.

"Black, Sirius!"

His feet began to move robotically toward the stool. The hat loomed ominously on the horizon. It seemed to take an age to reach the stool, sit down and place the hat on his head.

Mother and Father will kill me if I'm in Gryffindor. Sirius, you git, stop worrying. You'll do fine. I will kill myself if I'm in Gryffindor. I will just die. The shame I'd bring on my family. And Bellatrix, she'd kill me. She would kill me something horrible. And I couldn't follow my father in the path of great Black Qudditch players. Not Gryffindor, please!

In retrospect, Sirius would find himself in that moment, A) very stupid, and B) not realizing that the Hat had a very poor sense of humor.


Bellatrix was gripping the hem of her skirt so tightly her knuckles were turning white.

"Bellatrix, relax," her friend whispered to her. "It's only Sirius. How much of a screw up could he be anyway?" Bellatrix couldn't find her voice to reply, and instead shot Persephone a look of poison.

If only she knew, Bellatrix thought icily. If only she knew.

Bellatrix's blue eyes instantly flew to the hat as she noticed it about to open its mouth. The moment of truth. The deep breath before the plunge.

"GRYFFINDOR!"

Bellatrix un-consciously stood up, outraged, releasing her skirt from her clasp as she did so. She felt Persephone's hands grab her waist and pull her down back to her seat as to prevent her from committing homicide right then and there. She could have killed the little bugger. She could have ripped Sirius to shreds, light them on fire and danced upon his ashes. As far as Sirius knew it, they were no longer related.


Sirius numbly walked over to the Gryffindor table, his face conveying no emotion like his parents had taught him how to do so well. Gryffindor.

Congradulations, old boy, he thought to himself. You've done it. You've gotten yourself into Gryffindor. What will mother and father think now? He shuddered to think of it as he sat down at the front of the table, ignoring the pats of his fellow house members that fell upon his back in congratulations. He didn't deserve any of it.

Sirius stared blankly at his plate, not caring when "Carmichael, Lucinda" was sorted into Ravenclaw. Now, the thought was, should he leave a note or not?


Lily Evans bit her lip in horror as the hat slid over her eyes, averting her view of the crowd that all seemed to be starring intently at her. It wasn't that she was afraid of the dark, but rather of the prospect of her entire future being decided by an inanimate object.

"I'm not inanimate," she heard a voice whisper in her ear.

Can you read my mind? Lily thought timidly.

"Only to a certain degree… And I can tell you belong in… GRYFFINDOR!"

She sighed in relief as she removed the hat from her head and made her way towards the Gryffindor table. The one that was clapping the loudest, she noted.

She sat down next to what she thought was a pretty cute dark-brown haired boy. "Hi," she said cheerfully, extending her hand. "I'm Lily Evans."

"Sirius Black," he said coolly, shaking her hand. "I've never heard of the Evans' before."

"Oh, that's no problem. My parents are that outstanding. My dad's a banker."

"Oh?" Sirius raised his eyebrow. "A Muggleborn?" He laughed slightly.

"Yes… Why? Is that a bad thing?" Lily was genuinely curious. She had only spoken with one boy on the train ride. A sweet little boy by the name of Peter who was just as nervous about starting Hogwarts as Lily was.

"Um… Let me put it this way," Sirius said slowly, "A lot of the guys here won't like you. I'm one of them." He pretended to concentrate on the Sorting Ceremony, when in reality, he was trying to plan his heroic death. Or at least planning how to prove to everyone, including his family why he didn't belong in this house.

"Well…" Lily instantly shut up and looked down at her golden plate.

In five minutes time, two boys arrived at their table; one was skinny with light brown hair and a tired look about him. He stifled a yawn and sat down next to Lily, while the other with darker hair sat next to Sirius.

"Frank Longbottom," the one next to Sirius proclaimed for all to hear.

"Lily Evans," Lily replied, shaking his hand. When Frank withdrew, Lily offered to shake the other boy's hand.

"No, thanks," he said. "But I'm Remus. Remus Lupin."

"Are you going to hate me too?" Lily asked Frank and Remus.

"No, not unless you give me a reason to. Why? Are you a banshee?" Frank asked as Remus laughed.

"Who's a banshee?" Peter, the boy from the train asked, taking a seat on the other side of Lily, his brown eyes looking out from under blonde bangs intently.

"She is," Frank said, pointing a finger at Lily.

"No," a new boy said, sitting down next to Sirius. "Aren't banshee's supposed to be ugly? I'm James Potter, by the way."

Sirius rolled his eyes. "She's a Muggle born," he explained. Obviously his house mates were idiots. His parents had always spoken ill of the Potters, claming they were brainless, muggle loving sots. Clearly, their son was no exception.

"You make it seem as if it matters," James replied. "I think it shouldn't matter wheatear someone's pure blood, half blood or Muggle born. It just matters if they're nice or not. It's like judging someone based on looks. And don't worry, I think you're gorgeous," he added to Lily, which caused her to blush.

"Do you even know who I am?" Sirius asked, raising his voice slightly. "I'm Sirius Black, of the Black family. Heard of them?"

"Of course I've heard of them," James countered. "Mum told me all about the lot of you. You're a bunch of Wizards who drabble in the Dark Arts. You'll all wind up in Askaban some day, she says."

"At least Askaban's better then living to watch the Muggleborn's take over our society!"

"Stop it," A blonde girl said, sliding in. "You two barley know each other, and it's not nice to fight."

"Thank you," Remus whispered under his breath to the girl. "And to think, I have to share a dorm with them." The girl giggled.

"I'm Alice, Alice Walker," she explained. "And those two are idiots."

"Complete idiots," Frank agreed as he watched the bickering Sirius and James continue.

"They're not taking over! They're helping our society grow! If you haven't noticed, we pure bloods are dying out! Our whole race could die out, thanks to people like you. So just shut up and let us eat," James said, finishing his argument with Sirius.

The group of first years looked on in amazement as the table soon filled itself with food of all sorts.

"You two argued right through Dumbledore's speech!" Remus mumbled towards Sirius and James.

"I liked it," Peter said, helping himself to some treacle fudge. "He spoke about all sorts of fun things. Like how a new tree was planted on the grounds for some reason. The Whomping Willow, he called it. I think he said it was a gift from a foreign wizard." Remus nodded mutely, shuffling his feet uncomfortably under the table.

"Sounds fascinating," Sirius mumbled, stabbing his fork into a piece of chicken that he had placed on his plate.

"Well, I think it does, Peter," Lily said kindly, brushing off Sirius' earlier comments. "What classes are you looking forward too?"

"Herbology," Peter said, "I always liked sitting in my mum's garden when she was gardening. And also Transfiguration. I've always wanted to be an Animagus and I think it would be just peachy to be able to transform into any animal at will! You could do almost anything you wanted."

"Animagus?" Lily asked, worried that she would sound stupid, and much like an idiot. She was obviously sitting at a table where most of them had some experience with magic in their life, she had very little.

"Someone who can transform into an animal at will," Remus explained, with what Lily identified as bitterness. "I'm looking forward to Defense Against The Dark Arts."

"Me too," James said, shooting Sirius a glance down the table. "Transfiguration as well. What about you, Lily?"

"I don't know yet. They all sound terribly fascinating."

"They are," Remus told her. "Just you wait and see."


Dinner went quickly for the Gryffindor first years. Lily met a few more girls in her year, and some older students, and had already made a friend in Peter, Remus and Alice. Soon they were being lead by the Gryffindor Prefects up many staircases, through a plethora of hallways until they reached the portrait of a rather large woman in a hideous pink dress.

"Oh, the new ones have arrived! The cream of the crop, eh?" She looked down at the first years who had been shoved to the front of the group. "Password?"

"Wangdoodle," the prefect announced and the portrait swung open, showing them a small staircase into the Gryffindor Common Room.

They walked up the five step staircase and stepped into the Common Room. It was decorated in scarlet and gold, with couches, tables, arm chairs and a large fireplace that seemed like it could swallow the whole room.

"Girls dorms are to the left, and boys dorms are to the right," the prefects told them before hurrying up their respective staircases.

"G'night," Lily said to the boys as she and Alice began walking up the spiral staircase into their dormitory.

The dormitory was relatively easy to find, as there was a plaque on it reading, First Year Girls. The five girls pushed open the door eagerly, only to be greeted with five four poster beds, each with a bedside table next to it, a smaller fireplace in the middle of the room, and a door leading off to a bathroom. In the corner, by the window was a very large cabinet with drawers, shelves and hangers to hang robes upon.

"Ooh, this is fantastic!" Mindy Clemmons, a brown haired girl squealed, claiming a bed to her. Her two friends chose the beds on either side of the Mindy, leaving Lily and Alice to take the other two on the other side of the room.

Lily drew her hangings shut and changed into her pajamas, stifling a yawn as she did so. She crawled under the down comforter and closed her eyes, falling into an easy sleep.


"Lily's pretty," Peter said, sitting on the edge of his bed, pulling off one sock at a time.

"Yeah, she is," James chorused, rummaging through his trunk that was set at the foot of his bed, trying to find his pajama shirt. Remus nodded in agreement, taking out his wand and muttering a spell to tack a calendar to the wall above his bedside table.

"What's that for?" Frank asked, looking at the calendar that had begun peeling off the wall.

"So I can know what day it is. I prefer to keep organized," Remus said, trying another spell to get it to stick.

"Oh, okay." Frank nodded and walked over to his side of the room.

Sirius was moodily laying on his bed, glaring up at the ceiling, as if yelling with only his eyes at whatever entity there was up there for placing him in a house of losers and ninny's.

"What's wrong?" Remus asked, finally happy that his calendar was sticking.

"Nothing's wrong," Sirius mumbled.

"You're un-convincing. Speak up."

"I'll tell you tomorrow. I'm going to bed."

"Good night," Remus said.

"And I thought you hated me," Sirius said after Remus turned his back.

"We don't hate you," Peter said, speaking for the whole group. "Well, 'cept maybe James."

"I just think what you said to Lily was completely out of line!" James snapped his head now halfway through his pajama shirt.

"Yeah, yeah, I'll apologize in the morning if that'll make you happy. Now, good night," Sirius said finally, pulling his curtains shut. His eyes remained open, however, looking at the dismal grey coaling, hoping a piece would fall down and crush him to death before he got the owl from his parents the next morning, asking him how he liked his fellow Slytherins.

"I hate him." Sirius heard James mumble rather distinctly.

"James, give him a chance, he's just a moody git," Remus was replying.

"I wouldn't," Frank said. "The Blacks are no good. No good at all."

"Frank, when I want your opinion, I'll ask for it. Until then, kindly shut your trap," James said irritably. "I'll give him a chance when pigs fly."

"Only in Hogwarts," Peter mumbled as he climbed into bed, pulling his curtains shut.