A/N. Wow, we've finally made it!

I hope this is as exciting for you to read as it is for me to write, and as always, your feedback and encouragement is very much appreciated!

Thank your for reading, and if you take the time to review or suggest this story to a community, an extra thanks to you.

Chapter 38

The Sorting Ceremony

September 1st (Still)

Arya's first view of Hogwarts castle was everything she had dreamed it would be, glowing on the side of the mountain as they rounded the cliffs in their small boats. Ron, Neville and her new friend Hermione were sharing a boat with her, Hagrid leading the way toward the harbor. Arya knew from the Marauders map that the harbor opened up in a passage under the castle; one of Sirius's stories involved stealing the boats for a midnight sailing session, but that story had devolved into skinny-dipping with the giant squid, and Arya had stopped listening.

She was glad that animals and luggage were brought up separately, because the walk up the steep passage that opened up in the shadow of the castle after they had disembarked was hard enough without hauling everything up with them. Arya gave a mental thanks to Tonks for making her take up running, because everyone else was panting a lot harder than she was. She imagined the hundred and something stairways would also be quite demanding.

Hagrid gave them a look over when they were on the steps, probably taking a head count, gave her a reassuring smile, and knocked on the giant oak front doors. They opened to reveal a stern faced witch wearing emerald green robes, who Hermione whispered was Professor McGonagall, the transfiguration professor. Hagrid confirmed that when he greeted her by name, and the nervous bunch of students followed her into the entrance hall, and then into a side chamber to await sorting. Hermione was talking fast and loud about the history of Hogwarts, which seemed to annoy Ron a bit; Arya had noticed that Hermione tended to lecture when nervous. She did have an amazing memory though; Arya recognized some of what she was saying as text taken directly out of Hogwarts, A History.

Her rambling was interrupted by the Hogwarts ghosts making an appearance, and Professor McGonagall returned to fetch them shortly after. Arya felt her excitement growing as they entered the Great Hall, thousands of candles floating above the long tables of students. The enchanted ceiling was lit with stars, and Arya could see Dumbledore smiling at them from the staff table. She gave him a wave, which he delicately returned, and then she turned to the hat that had been brought out and placed on a stool in front of them. She stared at it, holding her breath in anticipation, and sure enough, a rip along the brim opened wide and the hat burst into song.

Arya cheered and clapped with the rest of the school when it finished, and McGonagall unfurled a length of parchment and began to call students forward to put on the hat and be sorted. Some students took hardly any time to be sorted, but for others it took its time; Neville and Hermione both had the hat on for more than a minute, before the hat decided on Gryffindor for both of them. Draco Malfoy, on the other hand, barely had it on for a second before it shouted 'Slytherin' to the hall.

As she waited for her turn she had a fleeting thought that perhaps she should be thinking about how her parents had been sorted years before, of how Dumbledore and a boy named Tom Riddle had gone through the same ceremony as she was taking part in now. Unfortunately, her thought process had pretty much dissolved into a constant stream of cool cool cool cool cool in her excitement.

Finally, Professor McGonagall called "Potter-Black, Arya" and she darted to the stool as whispers spread like a grass fire through the hall. The hat fell gently down over her eyes, and Arya waited in tense silence for her fate to be decided, hands holding on to the edges of the stool in a white knuckled grip.

The silence dragged on, and Arya had a moment of absolute panic; was there something wrong with her? Would Professor McGonagall yank the hat off her head and send her home if the hat refused to sort her? What was going on?

And then she remembered.

Oh, for Merlin's sake, she thought, and dropped her occlemency shields.

Ah, there you are! A voice sounded in her head. Hmm, interesting, very interesting. What have you done here?

Arya could feel the presence of the hat in her mind, going through her head incredibly quickly, picking and pulling at her memories and feelings; it lingered on her Liars Palace for a moment, seemingly intrigued, and then moved on.

Good sense of loyalty and justice, but you just don't have the patience that Hufflepuf requires, no. Mind like yours, Rowena would've eaten her hat to get you, but no, not quite a good fit for Ravenclaw either.

Let's see, what a thirst for success! And the cunning to get it, yes, Slytherin would do well for you, help you along the path to greatness, no doubt about that. Not lacking in bravery either, my goodness, no. Good amount of Chivalry, it's all here in your head, so which will it be?

Slytherin would be hard, she thought to the hat, full of the families of my parent's enemies. I could manage though, if it's the best fit.

Hmm, yes, that's very brave of you, isn't it? Better be - "GRYFFINDOR!"

Arya felt a bit relieved as she took off the hat and made her way to the Gryffindor table, hardly noticing that she the crowd of students was roaring its approval. Fred and George calmed down enough to clap her on the back, and Percy shook her hand pompously as she took a seat next to Hermione and across from Neville. Poor Ron was looking exceptionally green in the face, waiting for almost all the other students to be sorted before him.

He needn't have worried; the hat was on his head for only a few seconds before it shouted Gryffindor to the hall, and Ron walked shakily toward them to join his friends and brothers. Arya grinned and gave him a one armed hug around the shoulders as he sat next to her at the table.

Dumbledore didn't make them wait long after the last student was sorted to eat, and soon the golden platters where filled with more food than even Arya and Ron could eat. Arya filled her plate with everything within reach, feeling as if her stomach had become a bottomless pit sometime during the long train ride. Hermione looked slightly aghast at the amount she and Ron were stuffing their faces with, but Neville was used to them.

"The hat almost did put me in Hufflepuff, so I was kind of right to worry!" He told Arya, gesturing across the table with a chicken leg.

"Hufflepuff would've been fine!" Arya insisted after she'd swallowed her bite of steak. "I almost ended up in Slytherin! Slughorn says their dormitories are underground, can you imagine?"

Arya hated closed in spaces; windowless rooms made her feel a bit panicky; she suspected that being trapped in a cupboard as a small child had left her with a residual fear of being closed in.

"The hat really considered Ravenclaw for me." Hermione said, and looked at Ron, who shrugged, his mouth still stuffed with food, to indicate that the hat hadn't deliberated with him. "This could have easily ended with all of us in four separate houses."

They were all distracted when the resident Gryffindor ghost pulled his head half off, apparently in response to something a boy who had been sorted with them had asked. Arya gagged on her bite of chicken, not accustomed to seeing the after effects of a botched beheading while she was eating.

The conversation turned to bloodlines, and Arya studied the other first years that had been sorted into the house as she ate. There were three other girls besides her and Hermione who she thought were named Lavender, Parvati, and Dorcas, and Ron and Neville would share their dorm with a boy named Dean and a sandy haired boy named Seamus. Arya regaled everyone with a few horror stories of the Dursleys when they asked about them, but made it clear that muggles in general were the same as wizards; good and bad people weren't specific to either group, she'd just had the rotten luck to end up with some of the bad ones.

The food disappeared and was replaced with desserts of every kind, and Arya turned her attention to the staff table as Seamus entertained them with how his muggle father had reacted to finding out his wife and children were magical.

Hagrid took up a large portion of the staff table, and Dumbledore was easy to spot with his long silver beard glowing as bright as the ghosts in the hall. She thought she could put some names to the others from all the stories she'd heard over the last few years. Flitwik must be the one whose head barely crested the table, and she was sure the black haired man with the hooked nose who was talking to the ever-nervous professor Quirrell was professor Snape, whom Sirius seemed to have a nasty history with.

Snape looked up as she studied the pair of them, meeting her eyes across the length of the hall, and Arya felt two things happen simultaneously. First, she felt something within her own mind pulse with a sharp pain that made her gasp out loud, her scar searing with the unexpected pain. Second, she felt a presence press hard against her mental shields, questing for breaks and cracks in her defenses with a hundred probing tendrils. She slammed everything she had against the invading presence out of fear driven instinct, the pain from her scar not letting her think clearly, and the probing withdrew immediately. Professor Snape broke eye contact, turning back to his conversation with Quirrell, who was sporting an absurd looking purple turban.

Arya turned away as well, rubbing a hand across her scar, the pain fading as quickly as it had come. Had she imagined professor Snape flinching as she'd lashed out? Either she was very much mistaken, or he had attempted to use legilemency on her. Should she have let him through to her liar's palace instead of pushing him out of her mind? And had his attempt been what caused the pain in her scar? She felt very confused; the two things had happened at almost the exact same time, but the attempt to penetrate her defenses had failed, she was sure of it. The pain had definitely come from inside her layers of shields.

She was diverted from her troubled thoughts when Ron nudged her to pay attention; the desserts had disappeared from the plates, and Dumbledore was rising to speak to the gathered students. The start of term notices were about what she'd expected, a warning to stay out of the forbidden forest which she fully intended to ignore, a reminder not to do magic in the corridors which she also planned to ignore, instructions on quidditch tryouts which didn't really apply to first years, and lastly a warning to avoid the third floor corridor unless one wanted to die in a painful manner.

That last one brought her up short; she knew Dumbledore well enough to know he was quite serious, but she didn't understand. Why would anything kept within a school cause a painful death to its students? Sirius's warning from that morning to keep her nose out of Dumbledore's mad plots came to mind, - he'd said that right after she'd asked about the package from Gringotts.

It seemed as if she now knew where it was, if not what it was. She wondered why Dumbledore hadn't just sealed off the section of castle and kept shut about it, if he wanted it hidden and protected so bad. She looked at him shrewdly as everyone began to sing the school song; something else was going on there, she was sure. There was some deeper plan that she just wasn't privy to, which irked her a bit. What was the point of mastering occlemency if no one told her anything anyway?

Fred and George finished the school song, and then everyone was rising from their seats and beginning to exit the Great Hall. Percy, as prefect, was calling for the first years to follow him up to the dormitories, and Arya fell into line with the others, feeling a bit sleepy and full of food.

She'd studied the Marauders map so many times that she might have been able to find Gryffindor tower herself, but it was nice to mindlessly follow Percy through the many staircases and passages, admiring the moving portraits and beautiful castle architecture. Hermione was apparently too tired and out of breath from the climbing to spout anymore passages from Hogwarts, a History, and the only thing that disturbed their progress was Peeves, the resident poltergeist. Arya managed to save Neville from getting an armful of walking sticks dumped on his head, but didn't have the chance to try any of the handy spells Remus had taught her to fend off the pesky spirit.

Percy gave the password to a very large portrait of a very large woman, and Arya gaped with the other first years at the beautiful room beyond. It was large with walls that were gently rounded because it was a tower room, filled with cozy looking couches, armchairs, and fire places flickering along the walls. There was a section full of tables, desks, and chairs for studying, and an empty section to the far right that looked like it might be meant for spell practice.

Percy directed the boys through to their dorms, and Arya waved goodnight to Neville and Ron, promising to meet them in the common room before breakfast, and then followed the other girls up the spiraling staircase to their dorm room. There were five four-poster beds along the walls of the circular room, the feet of the beds pointing toward the center and the canopies draped with Gryffindor colors; a wardrobe, cabinet, and a small desk with a chair and ornate mirror attached accompanied each bed. Arya's trunk and book bag were on the bed between Lavender's and Hermione's, and Ceridwen was in her cage atop the desk beside it.

Arya opened the cage and offered her arm to Ceridwen, who somehow managed to look graceful clambering out of the cage and up Arya's arm to her shoulder. Hermione was looking so curiously over at her that she introduced them, and Ceridwen let Hermione stroke her feathers softly for a moment, and Lavender cooed over how beautiful she was, which made her preen her feathers in with haughty pleasure.

Arya sat at her desk after fetching things to write with, and scratched off a quick letter to Ginny.

Dear Ginny, told you I'd write you soon! Made it into Gryffindor, though it was a close thing. Ron was practically green for the whole sorting, but he's in Gryffindor too. Miss you like a bowtruckle misses grubs; write you more later this week! Love, - your Arya P.

Ceridwen was happy to have a letter to carry, and swept out of the large window by the desk with a whoosh.

She fished her pajamas out of her trunk, brushed her teeth in the bathroom that was through a door to the right of her bed, and wished Hermione goodnight. Her bushy haired friend smiled in a way that made her less stern than normal, and Arya pulled the curtains closed around her bed. Wand in hand, she performed the series of silencing charms that Tonks had taught her, effectively making her bed curtains and surrounding area sound proof. It was a technique that Aurors used while on stake-out missions, and it had taken Arya two weeks before she had gotten it right, but it was worth the effort.

She pulled the mirror that Sirius had given her out of her pocket, lit her wand tip to illuminate the area, and a said "Sirius" while holding the mirror in front of her. She thought for a moment that nothing had happened, and then the mirror flickered, and instead of her own face it showed her Sirius's beaming face, with both Remus and Tonks peering over his shoulders. Sirius saw the Gryffindor hangings behind her and let out a loud whoop in celebration. Remus and Tonks chimed in with congratulations, and Arya grinned broadly at them, before giving into a huge yawn.

She managed to get out that Ron and Neville had made it in to Gryffindor as well between yawns, told them all she missed them, and then it was time for sleep. Tonks, who had just become a full Auror the month before, warned her to take plenty of time in the morning for her run, because the path around the grounds was a bit rough; Arya nodded in sleepy agreement, and the mirror faded as her head hit the pillow. She was asleep within seconds, dreaming for some strange reason that professor Quirrell's turban was telling her to transfer to Slytherin immediately.

Many stories below, Severus Snape was not even close to being able to sleep. He was instead sitting at his office desk perusing a stack of letters that had built up over the last few years, not sure what clue he hoped to find in them.

He dreaded the beginning of term each year, and this one had been anticipated with even more trepidation than normal. It was bad enough to catch fleeting glimpses of Black when the school governors met for conferences, without having James's brat to torment him as well.

He'd steadfastly refused to think of hers as Lily's child; in his head she was always James's.

That illusion had been shattered the moment she'd entered the hall, shining red hair the exact shade her mother's had been, almond shaped green eyes brightened by excitement and nerves. Snape's experience as a Death Eater and then spy for the Order had saved him from making any outward sign of shock, but inside he'd been reeling. He'd never seen her, never asked about her, never let himself picture her as anything but a little replica of her father; even when Dumbledore had tasked him with keeping her safe while she was at Hogwarts, he'd never asked for a description.

For a moment he'd felt as if the last two decades had never happened, and he'd been back at his own sorting, watching his best and only friend be sorted into a different house than himself.

He'd watched the girl on and off throughout the feast, unable to pay full attention to what Quirrell was talking about. He had searched for differences in appearance, and found them; she was taller than Lily had been at her age, that was clear even from a distance. She had more freckles than Lily, covering almost every visible inch of skin; her movements were quicker, more erratic than Lily's had ever been, and she ate far more food with far worse manners than her mother ever had.

He had almost convinced himself that they were really not so alike after all when he had turned to study her again and met Lily's eyes across the hall. He'd delved her mind out of instinct, a mad urge to prove to himself that the young girl sitting at the Gryffindor table was a different person than the girl who had sat there twenty years before. Her mind, he told himself, must be more like Potter and Black than Lily, more insolent and idle than brave and kind.

He hadn't found out, because he'd hit a monstrously strong mental barrier, and had then been swiftly smashed away by the equivalent of a mental club. He might have been able to fend her off and break through, given time and opportunity, but he hadn't stuck around to find out, and the sharp rebuff had left him with a headache that was lingering still.

Finding an adult that had mastered occlemency was rare, and finding that amount of controlled skill in a child was almost unheard of.

In fact, the only one he knew of was the distant pupil of Dumbledore's that he'd been tutoring through letters for the last two years.

He'd wanted to find the mind of the Potter girl to be idle, unmotivated, and ill mannered; all the traits he'd detested in her father. The letters he was now convinced were written by her painted a different picture entirely; vibrant, energetic, keenly intelligent, good hearted to the point of naivety, stubborn, and yes, a bit impertinent.

Snape felt his heart constrict with the same dull pains of guilt, anger, and grief that he'd carried with him for the last decade, sharpened now to a keen edge by proximity to someone so close in both looks and character to the friend he had betrayed.

It would have been so much easier to hate her.

A/N. I know everyone had different expectations regarding the sorting, but my vision for this story has been set from the very beginning. I've always felt that people were sorted not on their traits per-say, but on which qualities they valued the most. It explains how so varied a group of people could end up all together in a house.

"It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities."