Chapter FOURTEEN

Sakura hesitates at the edge of the Slytherin table and is grateful when Draco gestures her over. She sits down beside him and casually notes how the eyes of the people watching her curiously shift the moment Draco grins at her.

It appears the young Malfoy already holds power over this house. "Glad you could join us," the blond says. Sakura can hear the hint of superiority in his tone and decides that the boy himself knows this.

Sakura smiles back. "I'm glad I'm with people I know," she replies.

"Do you think your friends will be joining us?" Blaise asks, and Sakura glances over towards the front, where Sasuke has just pulled himself up onto the seat.

"I can't be sure," she says carefully. "We were hoping we could...experience different aspects of the different houses." Now that she is in Slytherin, she is sure her teammates will be careful so that they are placed elsewhere. She is proven true moments later when Sasuke ends up in Gryffindor and Naruto in Hufflepuff.

Her new housemates do not look impressed with their sorting, though, and Sakura inwardly rolls her eyes. Draco shuffles nervously and she remembers that the boy is aware of their plan to separate, and wonders why the boy appears so uncomfortable with them. Was he scared?

She glances down at her tie, which has changed color. "I swear this green clashes with my hair," she exclaims.

"I'm sure your hair clashes with everything here," Theodore says in amusement and Sakura sighs.

"I know," she says. "It's impossible to hide."

"Is it natural?" Pansy asks curiously. "You aren't a metamorphmagus?"

Sakura shakes her head, having searched up the term once Draco had brought it up before. "Nope, it's natural."

"That's cool," Blaise says, and Sakura tosses her hair over her shoulder.

The people around her begin to relax the more she interacts with them, and once they are all focused on something else, she glances over her shoulder to look over at her male teammates. Naruto she is sure will be fine, but Sasuke...Sasuke had 'can not make friends' written in his resume.

Sasuke can already feel eyes on him as he approaches the red table and he ignores the several girls who move aside and try to gesture for him to sit next to them. Soon, he comes across a nervous looking boy and glares at him until he gets the message and shuffles to make him space.

"Hn," he says, then realizes that neither of his teammates are here to soothe him over for him. "Thank you," he tries again.

The boy nods rather quickly and turns away. Sasuke glances around to see that many people are looking at him, and that includes Harry and his friends, who are glancing over with clear distrust in their eyes. None of them call him out for it, though, and Sasuke watches Naruto be sorted. Someone taps his shoulder and she turns around to see a redhead leaning in towards him. "Hello, transfer."

Sasuke sees the kid's identical twin step up beside him, and he nods once. "Hello."

"You're from Japan?" One asks. "I'm Fred, by the way, Fred Weasley. This is George, my brother."

He nods, then remembers last minute that surnames came second here. "Sasuke Uchiha," he says.

"Nice to meet you, Sasuke."

Sasuke recalls seeing these two with the rest of the Weasleys during the Quidditch event and decides that he actually has to put an effort into getting closer to Potter and his posse. "Likewise," he says.

He feels a slap on his shoulder and scowls up towards Naruto, who is grinning down at him. It appears the Hufflepuff table is next to the Gryffindor one. "What do you want?"

Naruto raises his hands. "I was just making sure you weren't being mean to anyone," he says, then turns towards the twins. "This guy's an asshole," he chirps. "Back at home, he made little kids cry." He then pointed towards the Slytherin table at the far end. "You see our friend there? If he's too mean, you can go tell her and she'll punch him till he's a little nicer."

As if on cue, the pinkette looks up and glares over at them. 'BEHAVE' she mouths, before she turns back to smiling at whatever the kid next to her had said.

The twin laugh at this and Naruto's smug grin widens. "Yeah, bastard, behave."

Sasuke scoffs. "I haven't done anything, idiot," he replies. "Now go sit down."

Naruto mock salutes him before he skips over to his table.

Sasuke turns back to his housemates to see that most of them are now smiling more openly at him. If there is one thing Naruto is more skilled at than him, it is making friends, and he reminds himself to somehow thank the blond as the rest of his awkward at best conversations with the people around him go more smoothly.

Naruto sits down in the space some kids had made for him and immediately turns to the kid on his left. "Hi, I'm Naruto Uzumaki."

The kid grins back. "Ernest Macmillan," he replies. "And my friends, Hannah Abbot and Justin Finch-Fletchley."

Naruto smiles at the other two. "Nice to meet you," he says.

"Nice to meet you too," Justin replies, and he leans in eagerly. "So you come from the Magical School in Japan?" He asks.

Naruto nods. "My friends and I are over here for some intercultural experience. Our families had friends over here and they were nice enough to help us with the process."

"What's it like there?" Hannah asks.

Naruto laughs. "Less dramatic, I guess," he says. "I can't say about the classes, cause I haven't taken any here yet, but our school was definitely not a castle." They had decided to base their story about the team system in Konoha so that they would all have experience to fall back to as they weave their fake backstory.

"Cool," Ernest says. "Are you and the other two close?"

Naruto nods. "We were in the same class," he says. "We've been together since forever."

Justin suddenly looks a little uncomfortable. "Slytherin is mostly for Dark Wizards," he says quietly. "The girl-"

"Sakura is definitely evil," Naruto says with a blank face. "She rules over us with an iron fist." The three share uncertain looks and he grins. "Nah, she's nice, I swear. You'll like her. Everyone likes her. If anyone's evil, it's the bastard." He gestures over his shoulder at the Uchiha.

"You call him a-a bastard?" Hannah asks, eyes wide.

Naruto shrugs. "He is one, so why not?" He rolls his eyes. "He wanted to be a blue snake."

The three once again share looks of confusion but Naruto merely grins and turns back to the front, because the headmaster, Albus Dumbledore, says a few words and like magic, the food appears in front of them.

Update, my friends~

Darque: In our non-serious stories, Sasuke is just the dude who's picked on.

Raven: I realized.

Darque: I don't know why.

Raven: Haha.

Darque: I'm excited for how this goes. We have most of it planned out, and all we really need to do is write it all down.

Raven: And putting it to words is the hard part.

Darque: Right. Send us cookies and we'll work faster.

Read and Review~