A/N: Thanks so much for the reviews and support guys. Hope you enjoy this chapter!

Review Responses:

JeanAndBilius, thanks! Hope you enjoy this chapter!

ScarletAvenger, thanks so much. Glad you liked it, and Al's Sorting will definitely have an effect on his relationship with James, although hopefully it won't become too bad.

RainyDaysAndGoodBooks, thanks and glad you like the title! Hope you enjoy this chapter!

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter. If you recognize the name/can find it in the Harry Potter Wiki, it's not mine.

CHAPTER TWO

Slytherin Loyalty

The start-of-term feast had left Al content and sleepier than he had been in a long while, so when Noah Dennell led the Slytherin first-years through the dungeons and into their dormitory, Al managed to stay awake just long enough to scribble out a letter to his parents, before realizing that he had no way to send it at this time of night. He placed the letter on the nightstand beside his bed, collapsing into a pile of pillows and sheets. He fell asleep, lulled by the sound of the water sloshing against the dormitory windows, and was roused only when something dark and billowy landed on top of his head.

"Wake up, Potter," said a voice. "You're going to be late."

Al blinked sleep out of his eyes, yawning deeply as he pushed himself up in bed, looking around the dormitory. The quality of light had changed, but the room still looked like it was underwater. The light in the room was dim, and faintly blue. A glance at the window told him that he wasn't wrong. The room's glass windows seemed to be completely submerged in water, looking out at an endless blue expanse. His eyes widened, his mouth forming an 'o'.

"Are we under the lake?" he asked, his head swiveling around to face the dormitory's sole remaining occupant.

"Of course we are," Scorpius Malfoy said, giving him another disdainful glance. "Didn't you know that?" He turned away from Al, picking up a bundle of books from the trunk at the foot of his bed. Al blinked down at his sheets to see his own black robes, lying on top of the green silk bedspread. He looked up at Scorpius, who had gathered his books in his arms and was heading out the door. The rest of the first-years seemed to be gone. He glanced at the watch beside his bed, his eyes widening when he realized how late it was. Al quickly sprang out of bed, throwing on his robes and running his hands through his hair in a failed attempt to comb it as he chased Scorpius out the door.

"Thanks for waking me up, Scorpius," Al said, emerging from the hidden passage way into the cool air of the dungeons. He hurried to catch up to Scorpius, who had increased his pace, making it difficult for Al to draw up beside him. "I appreciate it."

"Don't get the wrong idea," said Scorpius, frowning at Al. "I just needed to come back for my books. Slytherin doesn't need to lose points on the first day."

He broke away from Al as they reached the Great Hall, moving towards an empty seat at the Slytherin table. Al frowned, trying not to take it personally. He moved to join Leander and Tristan, who he had spotted eating breakfast on the other side of the Slytherin table from Scorpius, but was stopped on his way past the Gryffindors by someone calling out his name. Al blinked, looking over his shoulder to see James waving him over, seated next to Rose and Molly, who was in his year.

Al looked back at the Slytherin table, but Leander and Tristan seemed not to have spotted him. He made his way over to James, slightly wary in case this was his brother's way of luring him closer to make fun of him, but James seemed strangely concerned as he looked Al up and down.

"You're alright?" James asked. "They haven't beaten you up or anything?"

"Beaten me up?" Al blinked in surprise. "Why would they beat me up?"

"Because they're Slytherins, Al," said James, saying the word like it was a curse. "They're mean and nasty, and—and dangerous!"

Al blinked in confusion, frowning at his brother. "You said you thought I'd be in Slytherin."

"I was just teasing you," said James. "I didn't actually think—."

"Alright there, Potter?" asked a voice from behind him.

Al blinked, looking up. An older boy was standing with a group of his friends. He had addressed the question towards Al, but his eyes were on James, narrowed dangerously. James went tense, and Al thought he saw him reach under the table for his wand. "Go away, Selwyn," James said. "This doesn't have anything to do with you."

"Wasn't talking to you," Selwyn said, his eyes moving back towards Al. "Asked you if you were alright."

"Uh—fine," said Al, exchanging a quick glance at James. His brother wasn't looking at him. Instead, he was eyeing Selwyn with distrust. "Just talking to my brother."

Selwyn met James's eyes for a moment longer before looking away, tilting his head towards the Slytherin table. "Should get something to eat if you haven't yet," he said. "Class'll be starting soon."

"Oh—uh, right," said Al, glancing down at his watch. "See you, James. Rose, Molly."

He said goodbye to the others quickly, setting off for the Slytherin table at a brisk walk. To his surprise, the older boy, Selwyn, waited for him to catch up before falling into step beside him. "No offense, Potter," Selwyn said, "But your brother's an arrogant git. Has been ever since getting on the Gryffindor team."

"Really?" asked Al, with a glance back at James. James had been insufferable all summer, ever since joining the Gryffindor Quidditch team as Seeker last year. The fact that Gryffindor had only lost the Quidditch Cup to Ravenclaw by the narrowest of margins had done nothing to give him a dose of humility. "I wouldn't have guessed."

Selwyn snorted softly to show that the sarcasm was appreciated. Al's face burned as he hurried towards the Slytherin table, and he felt a sudden pathological urge to defend his brother. "James isn't all that bad, though," he said. "He's just a little…loud."

The older boy shrugged in response. "He's your brother," he said, in a way that implied a touch of pity. "He just happens to be in my year." He turned towards Al, extending a hand. "Morpheus Selwyn. Call me Morph. Everyone does." Morph's glance back at the Gryffindor table seemed to imply that 'everyone' didn't include James Sirius Potter.

"Uh, Albus Potter," said Al, taking Morph's hand. "You can just call me Al."

"Good to meet you," said Morph. He looked back at the group of Slytherins behind him, two boys and a girl. "If your brother gives you any trouble about being in Slytherin, find one of us. We'll deal with him for you."

"Um, thanks," said Al. "I think."

Morph nodded at him, going off to an empty seat and leaving Al to scramble onto the bench beside Leander and Tristan. It was late enough now that most of the food was gone, and he quickly helped himself to eggs and toast, stuffing his face.

"Morning!" Leander said, as he ate. "We thought you were never going to get up. I was planning on heading back to wake you, but we saw Malfoy heading back and thought we'd ask him instead. You doing alright?"

Al nodded, coughing as he choked on toast. He took two large sips of water, looking back up at Leander. "Fine," he said. "I just had the weirdest conversation with my brother, and then some third years came by. I think they were trying to get me out of it." He told Leander about his conversation with James, and the encounter with Morph Selwyn and his friends.

Leander wasn't even surprised. He simply nodded as if he had been expecting that, and drained his glass of orange juice. "That's Slytherin loyalty for you," he said. "Once you're in, you're one of us. I'm not surprised your brother doesn't know that though. I heard the Gryffindors fight with each other all the time."

"We got our timetables, by the way, Al," said Tristan, sliding a sheet of paper across the table at him. "This one's yours."

Al frowned at it as he ate, choking down another mouthful of eggs. "We've got Transfiguration with Professor Stonecroft and then Herbology with Professor Longbottom," he read, his eyes widening in recognition. "He's one of my dad's friends!"

"I heard about him," said Leander, eyes widening. He looked around to see if anyone might overhear, then lowered his voice. "Didn't he kill You-Know-Who's snake?"

"With the Sword of Gryffindor!" said Al, nodding quickly with the excitement of being able to contribute to the conversation. "I used to hear that story all of the time." He told them about it between mouthfuls of food, trying to get as much of his breakfast down as he could before class started.

Despite both of his parents telling him that things would start out slow, Al had found himself hoping that he would spend his first day finally getting to learn magic, but as it turned out, he almost didn't need to bring his wand to the first week of class at all, let alone the first day. His first class at Hogwarts was Transfiguration with Professor Stonecroft, a tall, dark-haired man who was also Slytherin's Head of House.

Professor Stonecroft welcomed them to Slytherin House with a sort of quiet intensity, and explained to them what they would be learning in Transfiguration. After almost an hour of copying down notes about the various uses of Transfiguration and what Transfiguration was or wasn't, he finally let them go with a reading assignment and a promise that, if they got through the material quickly, they could work on turning matches into needles on their second day of class.

On their next meeting, a Double Transfiguration session with the Ravenclaws, only Scorpius Malfoy actually succeeded at turning his match into a needle, a failure of Slytherin House heightened by the fact that a full two-thirds of the Ravenclaw first-years had managed it. A request to Scorpius that he quickly transfigure all of their matches before Stonecroft could come around to check on them was summarily denied, and the remainder of the Slytherin first-years: Al, Leander, Tristan, Circe, Gisella, and a quiet girl named Rheia Carran, survived the humiliation united in defeat—and a slight feeling of frustration towards Scorpius Malfoy. Small, quiet Tristan revealed a supply of goods from Weasley's Wizard Wheezes that was almost embarrassing in their quantity and variety, and vengeance was swiftly obtained during lunch by the addition of a tasteless powder into Scorpius's drink that made his hair shift from platinum blond to a particularly virulent shade of electric blue for the remainder of the day, after which the slight was forgotten.

After Transfiguration on Mondays and three times a week, they had Herbology with Professor Longbottom, who had smiled at Al on the first day of class and, after letting them pair off and giving them something basic to work on to start, asked after his family. Al responded eagerly, and Professor Longbottom left him with a quiet word that Al could go to him if there were any problems at Hogwarts before sending him on his way.

They had Defense Against the Dark Arts with a Professor Dennis Creevey, who had spent an inordinate amount of time talking to the class about Harry Potter's achievements after reaching Albus's name on the roster, which still made Albus's face burn to think about, and they had History of Magic with Professor Binns, who was somehow even more boring than his parents, James, and all of his cousins had made him out to be. They had Potions with Professor Crowe, who, despite her small stature, seemed to exude an air that told Al she was 'not someone to be crossed'.

Charms was taught by Professor Belrose, a kind, blond man who greeted them all with cupcakes that changed their color and flavor with each bite on their first day of class, to welcome them to the school. He explained that before Headmistress McGonagall's retirement (and Headmaster Flitwick's subsequent promotion), he had been the Care of Magical Creatures professor, although he had 'a NEWT in Charms and decided he may as well make the best of it'. He didn't teach them much actual magic on the first week of class, nor did he bring any sweets after the first meeting, but Al got the impression that he was a genuinely nice man.

On Wednesdays at midnight, they made their way up to the Astronomy Tower with the Gryffindors, to learn the names of the planets and their positions in the sky from Professor Sinistra. He ran into Rose then, and as the two of them worked together to find Mars's position, she let slip that the Weasleys had a plan to break Al out of Slytherin if he needed it. Al, who was fairly certain that the Hat's decisions were final, and who wasn't having as much of a bad time of it as all of his cousins seemed to think, assured her that everything was alright, but Rose didn't look convinced.

"Are you sure?" she asked, lowering her voice to a whisper. "Blink twice if they're making you say this."

Al simply rolled his eyes and pointed out Mars to her.

All in all, though, it wasn't as bad as he had feared. True, Slytherin Dungeon looked cold and unfriendly, but he had started to appreciate the sound of the water lapping against the walls and windows, and true, some of the Slytherins looked mean, but those tended to leave him alone, even nodded once or twice as he walked past them. Out of the people in his year, Rheia Carran hardly spoke to anyone but her sister, a seventh-year Slytherin named Parthenia, but she was friendly with them when spoken to and happy to join them in things when invited. He was quickly becoming close to Leander and Tristan, and had even tried reaching out to Gisella, but Circe, who had taken it upon herself to be Gisella's staunch protector, was suspicious of him.

"Gisella doesn't want to talk to you!" Circe shrieked from the door to the girls' dormitory, her shrill voice ringing out in the echoing space of Slytherin's common room. "She doesn't want to play with you! She just wants you to leave her alone!"

"But we just want to see if she wants to learn wizard's chess," Al said, blinking at the small girl in confusion.

"Oh, really," Circe said, scowling in suspicion at Al, Tristan, and Leander. "You just want Gisella to play with you out of the goodness of your hearts? No other reason? How come you don't want me to play with you, hmm? How come you don't invite me to play?"

"Because you're part-harpy…" Leander muttered behind Al, where Circe couldn't hear him.

"Do you want to play?" Al asked, blinking at her helplessly.

"No!" said Circe sharply, drawing herself up to her full height of a head shorter than Al. She rested her hands on her hips and seemed to be drawing in breath as she met his eyes. "I'm on to you, Al Potter," she said. "I'm on to all of you. You just keep your pureblood savior complex away from Gisella! She does not need you to save her from her Muggleborn heritage, and she is not an animal to be gawked at at the zoo!"

With that, she drew back from him, slamming the door closed in his face. Al blinked as the sound of the slam reverberated through the chamber, his ears still ringing from Circe's voice. He looked over his shoulder at Leander and Tristan, who were staring at the door with identical expressions of shock.

Finally, Leander spoke first, his brow furrowing. "What's she on about?" he asked. "What 'pureblood savior complex'?"

Al shrugged. "Search me," he said. "I'm half-blood."

His overtures towards Scorpius Malfoy were also summarily rejected, as Scorpius didn't seem intent to talk with anyone, or befriend anyone. The pale-haired boy seemed content to sit in the farthest armchair with a book, or sit on his bed with the curtains half-drawn. Leander and Tristan had already lost all patience with him, but Al kept at it, continuing to invite him to do things with them or leaving a kind word before running out into the common room to join the others. He liked to think that he was getting somewhere. After all, Scorpius actually looked at him when he talked now.

On Tuesday, the second day of class, a letter arrived from his parents, bringing a tin of cookies from home and a promise that neither of them were at all upset about his Sorting. He set aside some for Rose and shared the cookies with his friends, even leaving the tin beside Scorpius's bed with a note. The note was gone when he checked later, and there was one fewer cookie inside the tin, but no one said anything about it and life resumed as normal. And on Friday, something else happened.

An owl landed in front of him at breakfast, bearing a letter.

"Did you get a letter?" Leander asked, practically shoving him to get at it. "Who's it from? Can I see?"

Al obligingly shifted over to let him see, tearing the letter open. A sheet of paper fell out, written in a large hand.

Al,

First years still get Friday afternoons off. Do you and Rose want to come over for tea?

Hagrid

"It's from Hagrid," said Al, showing the note to Leander. Leander stared at it, his eyes wide.

"I don't know anyone who's been in the gamekeeper's hut," he said, looking at Al. "D'you think me and Tris could come?"

"Um, I'll ask Rose," Al said, his eyes flicking towards the Gryffindor table. "She might not be very comfortable with it. What've we got today, anyway?"

Leander glanced at his timetable, making a face. "Double Potions with the Hufflepuffs," he said. "I'm telling you, I'm not looking forward to running into Crowe again."

Al gave him a sympathetic smile, finishing his meal.

He managed to catch Rose on the way out the door to Potions. As it turned out, Hagrid had sent her an identical note, and she had already said yes, she would love to have tea with him. The distrustful look that she had given Leander and Tristan, though, told Al that her goodwill didn't extend to all of his fellow Slytherins. He gave her a smile, promising to come alone, and followed the others down to Professor Crowe's Potions class.

Professor Crowe sat perched at the edge of her desk as the students walked in, a frown on her face as she directed them towards seats. He noticed that there were no chairs waiting for them at the front of the room today. Instead, the benches and worktables had been cleared, which suggested a practical lesson. The class was split almost exactly down the middle, Slytherins staying to one side of the room and Hufflepuffs to the other.

"We'll be working on a Sleeping Draught today," Crowe said, when the last of the Hufflepuffs had filed into the room. "You should find the instructions in your textbook—I shouldn't have to tell you where. Please remember the safety protocol we discussed in the last class. Don't lean directly over the cauldron, don't breathe in any fumes, and follow the recipe exactly and precisely. Work in pairs. There should be an even number of you in here. Begin."

The students hesitated after Crowe's pronouncement, a few of them looking around the room. Al frowned as muttering started up between the Slytherin and the Hufflepuff camps, realizing what was bothering them. There were an even number of students here, true, but an odd number of Slytherins and a corresponding odd number of Hufflepuffs. No matter which way the teams worked out, a Slytherin and a Hufflepuff would have to pair up together.

He looked back over his shoulder to see that Leander and Tristan had already paired up and claimed a workbench, the both of them offering him apologetic smiles. Al shrugged in response, not really seeing what the problem was. He made his way over to Scorpius, who was already at the Potions cabinet, dragging his cauldron out of the pile.

"No," Scorpius said, before Al could open his mouth.

Al blinked. "No what?" he asked.

"No, I don't want to partner with you, Potter," Scorpius said, picking up his cauldron with both hands and dragging it to the nearest workstation. "We aren't friends."

Al looked back over his shoulder. Circe and Gisella had paired off, Leander and Tristan were getting started, and Rheia Carran had already broken the ice and was talking in soft tones to a dark-haired Hufflepuff girl. There didn't seem to be anyone left. "There's no one left in Slytherin," he told Scorpius.

"I don't care," said Scorpius. "I'll work with a Hufflepuff."

He started angling himself towards one of the free tables, occupied by a blond boy that Al recognized as Lysander Scamander. Lysander blinked up at him with a dreamy, lost expression on his face, a sprig of valerian poking out of the corner of his mouth. Scorpius stopped walking, staring at Lysander in surprise. Lysander's eyes focused on him and a smile slowly spread its way across his face. He chewed once, contemplatively, and the sprig bobbed.

Scorpius turned around, walking right back towards the workstation nearest Al. "We still aren't friends, Potter," he said.

"Whatever you say," said Al, going to fetch the ingredients. He might have been imagining things, but he could have sworn that as he walked past Lysander again and the Hufflepuff girl that had walked up to partner with him, he saw the blond boy wink.

The rest of Potions class passed without incident, aside from one interesting moment where Lysander had decided to sample a bit of Flobberworm Mucus and had to have Professor Crowe cast a charm on him to pry his jaws apart. He and Scorpius made a passable—if a little dull—attempt at a Sleeping Draught, with only a handful of arguments about whether or not a paste was 'creamy' enough or how much Flobberworm Mucus constituted a 'blob'. After class, he ate lunch quickly and worked on a small portion of his assignment for Professor Belrose's Charms class, then headed down to the entrance hall in the afternoon to meet Rose for tea with Hagrid.

They made their way across Hogwarts grounds quietly. Rose had the pensive expression on her fact that told Al that she was trying to work through a difficult problem, so he said nothing, letting his mind drift as he looked out at the lake and wondered exactly which part of it he was seeing from his dormitory window. It was only when they were halfway to Hagrid's hut that she spoke.

"You're sure you're alright…" she asked again, "…in Slytherin House?"

Al nodded, tearing his eyes away from the lake and looking back at her. "Yeah," he said. "I'm fine. It really isn't all that bad, you know."

Rose frowned, pursing her lips together. "It's just…I've heard things."

He shrugged. "I guess we're not always the friendliest to the other Houses, but we don't really seem to pick fights among ourselves. It's kind of nice, really." He paused, looking back at Rose as he realized she was looking at him with a bewildered expression. "What?"

"You said 'we'," Rose said. "'Ours'."

"Well, I am a Slytherin," Al said, starting to feel a little annoyed.

"Yes," Rose said, seeming to realize what she had said. She shook her head, looking back at Hagrid's hut. "Yes, I—suppose you are."

Al frowned, wondering what to make of that. For some reason, Rose's words didn't seem to sit well in him, and he wasn't in the best of moods when they reached Hagrid's hut. Thankfully, Hagrid himself didn't seem to think that his Sorting was as big of a deal as Rose and the others made out to him.

"If you're in Slytherin, you're in Slytherin," Hagrid had said, ushering the two of them into his hut. "Just keep your head down and stay out of trouble, and you'll be alright."

He was still irritated at Rose, but Hagrid's acceptance of his Sorting mollified him somewhat, and as he and Rose sat down to tea and a slightly lopsided looking plate of scones, he started to tell Hagrid about the rest of his first week at Hogwarts. Hagrid snorted and laughed at all the appropriate places when he talked about the strangeness that was Circe Rosier, but frowned when he mentioned Scorpius Malfoy.

"Don't bother with 'im, Al," Hagrid said. "He's not worth it. Knew his dad and his granddad too. Let me tell you, not a good thing at Hogwarts ever came out of that family."

"He doesn't seem too bad, though," Al said, tugging his mug closer to himself. "He just seems kind of lonely."

Hagrid didn't say much on the subject after that, but Rose eventually started to open up, and by the end of the visit, they were talking and laughing about the antics of some of the older Weasleys, and even sharing a quiet grin at the idea of Victoire, Head Girl, having a very loud and very public row with her sister Dominique about Dom being caught in the corridors at night.

"She's got a boyfriend in Ravenclaw," Rose said, "Or at least, that's what Freddie thinks. But Louis thinks it might be something else." She gestured vaguely with her hand, as if indicating that they could only speculate on what that 'something else' might be. "But Dom says it doesn't matter, because Victoire spends all of her time mooning over 'Teddy Lupin'." The last few words were said in a crooning, lovesick tone, and Al could practically see Dominique's face as she complained about her sister.

He laughed, asked after James, and got treated to a very long talk about James's antics with the Marauder's Map—which he had filched from their father's closet on the way out the door to King's Cross Station—and how Molly was going to have a fit if she ever caught him and Fred and Louis with it. He also got treated to a long and healthy diatribe about how James wouldn't stop talking about Quidditch and being a Seeker, and that if he didn't stop soon, Dominique, also on the Quidditch team, was going to enlist Louis's help in stringing him up from a Quaffle hoop.

By the end of the afternoon, he felt quite thoroughly reconnected with Rose and the rest of his family again, although her earlier concerns still seemed to weigh on him. He found himself considering them as she left him at the entrance to the dungeons, and he made his way back to Slytherin Dungeon alone. He cracked open a textbook, aiming to do Transfiguration homework, but he couldn't focus, and the thoughts were still on his mind as he followed the others to the Great Hall for dinner.

He was still thinking about it that night as he closed his eyes and went to sleep, lulled by the sound of the waves against the glass.