A/N: Welcome! Thanks for clicking over! This story will follow Aquila through the events of all seven books and likely a bit after the war as well, so we're in it for the long haul. I can't promise a regulated update schedule since I'm working over the summer and I'm a student during the school year, but I will try my best. I hope y'all enjoy the story and Aquila as much as I do! Hang on tight, we're in for a wild ride! Please enjoy and let me know what you think!

"Head held high, Aquila."

The young girl standing at her father's side instinctively lifted her chin. Her eyes scanned the crowd dashing about on the platform, studying them as they hurried past. They seemed so… strange. Fascinating, but strange. There were men in crisp, proper suits like the one Father wore, women in short dresses and women in long dresses. Children whined and screamed as their parents dragged them along to their train. Somewhere far off, someone was playing music that echoed through the whole station.

Muggles. Such peculiar creatures.

The little family of four came to a stop in between platforms 9 and 10. Aquila tugged on her trolley to keep it from rolling away from her. Lynx, her cat, a present from Mother for receiving her letter, stared at her from his carrier perched atop her trunk, his bright yellow eyes shining with annoyance that he'd been awoken from his nap.

"Mother, I want to go, too. Why can't I go with Aquila?" Arcas pleaded, clinging to his mother's hand.

"You're not old enough, Arcas," Mother answered. "You will join your sister when you turn eleven."

"And you would do well to remember that Blacks do not whine," Father added a bit crossly.

Arcas stood a little taller, nodding even though Father couldn't see him.

Keeping hold of her trolley, Aquila turned to her younger brother and placed her hand on his shoulder with a small smile. "Don't worry, Arcas," she said. "You'll come to Hogwarts soon. It's only two years. You watch, I'm sure they'll pass quickly."

Arcas returned her smile.

Mother glanced at the clock sticking out from the brick wall over their heads. "Cepheus, we should get onto the platform."

"Yes, we should," Father agreed. He watched the people passing by them with disdain. "The sooner we're away from this filth, the better. I ought to have Misky wash this coat twice just to get rid of the stench. Aquila, you lead."

Aquila's heart leapt into her throat at the thought of going first, but she didn't dare to argue. She tried to remember the words of advice she'd been given by a cousin on Mother's side. Run straight at the wall, don't slow down.

"Does it hurt?" she'd asked, petrified at the thought.

"Terribly," her cousin had said with a wicked grin.

She was taking too long, Father would get cross. Aquila wheeled her trolley into place, took a deep breath, and pushed. She started at a walk, then increased her speed to a brisk jog. The closer she came the more she was sure she'd made a mistake. She was going to hit the barrier — her poor Lynx would feel such a jolt, never mind herself — she was running fast — any moment now.

The impact she'd been expecting never came. She passed right through the barrier and emerged onto another platform. A beautiful scarlet steam engine huffed and puffed hazy smoke over the heads of witches and wizards and their children getting ready to board the Hogwarts Express. Faces she thought she almost recognized bobbed here and there amongst the crowd. As Father, Mother, and Arcas came to her side from beyond the barrier, Aquila filled with relief.

Father enlisted the aid of Marcus Flint, a distant cousin through Grandfather Black, to get Aquila's trunk onto the train. Though they couldn't all fit into one compartment, a few of the friends with whom she'd grown up had already claimed one for themselves: Draco Malfoy, her favorite cousin and the only one her age; Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle, only everyone called them Crabbe and Goyle; Pansy Parkinson; and Theodore Nott. The others must have found their own compartment. Most of them had already bid farewell to their families and waited impatiently for eleven o'clock in the compartment; Aquila waved to them from the platform.

Now had come the time Aquila had been dreading. She stood with Father, Mother, and Arcas as the crowd began to thin. Parents said tearful goodbyes to their children through tight hugs and siblings mocked each other to hide the true extent of the depths to which they would miss each other.

"Aquila," said Father, and she raised her gaze to meet his stern countenance. "Remember that you are a Black. Not only that, you are also the first Black to attend Hogwarts for some time, and I expect you to behave with the dignity and respect that will entail. Am I clear?"

"Yes, Father," she said with a solemn nod.

"Don't forget to write, darling," Mother reminded her. "Draco will be with you in Slytherin and I doubt he would refuse you if you asked to use his owl."

"I won't forget, Mother," Aquila promised.

"Keep up with your studies," said Father.

"Stay out of trouble," said Mother.

"Don't forget about me," whispered Arcas when brother and sister had a moment to themselves.

Aquila pulled him into a hug. "I could never forget you, Arcas."

"Promise you'll write?" he asked as they pulled away.

"Promise," she said. "I'll write a separate letter just for you. Your eyes only. Would you like that?"

Arcas grinned, and Aquila shared it with a smile of her own. She would not admit it even to herself, but of the three family members she was leaving behind, she would miss her brother the most.

The warning whistle blew high and clear. Aquila gave Mother and Arcas a final embrace, let Father lay his hand on her shoulder by way of goodbye, and then hurried up the steps onto the train. She wanted to hang her head out the window in the corridor and wave as the train pulled out of the station, like she'd seen in a Muggle movie she'd once watched with her cousin Dorabella from Mother's side, but thought Father would reprimand her for behaving so childishly, and so didn't. She headed for the compartment instead.

Before it had been only Pansy and Crabbe and Goyle in the compartment, but when Aquila entered both Draco and Theodore had joined them. Draco had saved her the seat across from him next to the window. She picked her way over the legs blocking her path and nearly fell into place beside Pansy, who had Lynx on her lap already, running her hand over his midnight black fur. Theodore was putting away the last of his belongings onto the luggage rack above their heads. Crabbe and Goyle were listening to Draco complain, not for the first time, about the rule barring first years from bringing their own broomsticks to school.

"It's discrimination," he protested to no one in particular. "Father wouldn't even buy me a Nimbus Two Thousand for next year."

"How awful," Pansy agreed. Pansy agreed with everything Draco said.

"Perhaps he was doing you a favour," said Aquila, taking Lynx from her friend. "You know they're just going to come out with a new model by the start of term next year. Better to wait and receive a faster broomstick that would better your chances of being picked to play for Slytherin, if you ask me."

Draco raised a brow as though, in all his protestations, he had not considered this fact, and he nodded appreciatively at his cousin. Aquila might not have been allowed to play Quidditch, or indeed ride a broomstick, but she knew all about the wizarding sport and its finer points from Draco and her other cousins.

The train lurched forward and began to move. Aquila turned to look out the window. Through the glass fogged by her breaths, she could see Father, Mother, and Arcas on the platform below. Father didn't wave, but Mother did, and Arcas, too, as enthusiastically as he could without reproach from Father. Aquila waved back until they and Platform Nine and Three-Quarters had slid from view.

Aquila and her friends passed the beginning of the journey in conversation, catching up on everything they'd done over the holidays since the last they'd seen of each other. Pansy and her parents had gone to France. Theodore's father had taken him to the Quidditch match between the Wimbourne Wasps and Puddlemere United. Crabbe and Goyle offered only grunts, but Aquila figured they'd been together a majority of the time.

Draco and Aquila had, of course, spent much of their holidays together. The cousins never went long without seeing one another. They played wizard chess and Exploding Snap and explored the Malfoy and Black manors, all the while trailed after by an eager Arcas. Draco showed off his skills on his Comet Two Sixty broomstick to Aquila. Aquila would drag Draco to the library in each manor to try to find a book she'd yet to read.

"I can't wait for classes to start," she said. "Have you looked at our course books? They're all really very interesting."

"Blimey, Aquila, let us get to Hogwarts first before you start swooning over homework," said Theodore.

"Am I not allowed to be excited to learn real magic, Nott?" she asked, though her voice held a teasing note.

"I think he's trying to say don't become a teacher's pet too early," Pansy chimed in, and they laughed at the inevitability they all knew to be true.

They discussed the teachers at Hogwarts and how difficult each of their classes would be based on rumors and stories passed down from older cousins. Aquila had spent nearly all of her time over the holidays trying to learn as much as she could about the subjects which concerned her the most like Transfiguration and Herbology. The others had not been so proactive. Pansy assured her she needn't have worried so much, and Aquila agreed with her friend, but she was secretly proud of herself for being more prepared than they were.

As it always did when they spoke of Hogwarts, the conversation turned to the Hogwarts houses. By this point a trolley laden with sweets had come by, and the older woman pushing had kindly asked them if they wanted any. Everyone chipped in a galleon or two to purchase a large mountain of Pumpkin Pasties, Chocolate Frogs, Cauldron Cakes (Aquila's favorite), Bertie Bott's Every-Flavour Beans, and loads more to share.

"It's not even a question, is it?" said Draco, unwrapping a Chocolate Frog. "I know I'll be in Slytherin. Everyone in our family's been for generations. Ugh, Alberic Grunnion. Aquila, do you need him?"

"Think so, yeah, thanks," she said. She took the card from him and added it to the growing pile for her collection. "I think one of Father and Auntie Cissy's cousins was sorted into a different house, wasn't he, Draco?"

"If they're not in Slytherin, who cares?" he said, and Aquila quite agreed.

Pansy was attacking a box of Every-Flavour Beans. "Imagine being sorted into Hufflepuff. I think I'd drop dead on the spot."

"Ravenclaw might not be too terrible, but Gryffindor—" Aquila made a face of disgust. "Father says they're all stuffy do-gooders with sticks up their—" Peals of giggles from her friends drowned out the rather impolite word that finished the sentence. Reaching into the pile of sweets for a Chocolate Frog — she rolled her eyes at the Albus Dumbledore card, of which she had about a dozen already — Aquila asked, "Do you think you can really see the giant squid from the Slytherin common room? Only that's what my cousin Adrian says, because it's so far underground the lake's right up next to it."

"That would be brilliant," Theodore said. "Imagine staying up late one night and looking out the window and there's a great big squid eye staring back at you!"

Pansy shrieked with laughter. The landscape beyond the thick window of their compartment had transformed from tidy fields to verdant hills and languid rivers winding through thick forests of trees. The six of them debated how many other creatures might live in the Black Lake at Hogwarts and whether they might catch a glimpse of them in the common room. Grinning to herself as Draco told them the story of how one of Uncle Lucius's friends from school swore he'd seen a merman in the water, Aquila was glad she wouldn't have to face seven years at Hogwarts on her own, that she would have her friends at her side.

The rumors found them late in the afternoon.

Dorabella Burke, Aquila's cousin on Mother's side who was going into her fifth year at Hogwarts, and her friend Gemma Farley slid open the door to the compartment and poked their heads in. Dorabella looked around at the group of first years. "Have you heard?"

"Heard what?" Aquila asked.

"They're saying Harry Potter's on the train this year," said Dorabella.

Aquila's eyes went wide. Harry Potter on the train to Hogwarts? She'd known they were about the same age, but in all her anticipation for the start of term, that he would be going to school as well had slipped her mind.

Harry Potter. The Boy Who Lived. What child from any decent wizarding family didn't know the story? That he'd been sought out by the Dark Lord for reasons no one could quite figure out, that, according to the stories, he was the reason the Dark Lord had vanished that fateful night. That he was the only person ever known to have survived the worst of the Unforgivable Curses — Avada Kedavra.

Aquila had heard all of this from her parents and aunts and uncles. Though when they spoke of that Halloween night nearly ten years ago now, there was always a sort of contempt in their voices for Harry Potter that Aquila never quite understood, but this Dark Lord they spoke of with reverence. Whenever Aquila asked Mother or Father anything about the Dark Lord — who he was, where he had gone, why he was called such a sinister name — she was given the same trite answer:

"When you're older."

Draco gave an interested hum, ripping Aquila from her thoughts. He said, "I want to see for myself. Anyone else want to pay a visit to the famous Harry Potter and find out if the rumors are true?"

Theodore and Pansy decided to stay back; Theodore didn't much care, and Pansy was more interested in trying to make herself sick on all their sweets, or that's how it seemed to Aquila. Crabbe and Goyle made no reply, but lumbered behind Draco and Aquila down the corridor as Dorabella and Gemma returned to their own compartment.

Though she would vehemently deny Draco's teasing remarks of her fancying Harry Potter, it was no secret Aquila found him fascinating. Everyone she'd ever met knew his name. She'd often wondered what he would be like in person. A child with the power to vanquish a wizard so powerful as her parents said the Dark Lord was, he had to be someone special, someone impressive. She had to see that someone with her own eyes.

They walked the length of the train to find the right compartment. When they arrived, Aquila saw through the glass two boys who could only have been fellow first years. She knew immediately who one of them had to be. Red hair, shabby clothes — it wasn't hard to guess, and her lips curled with disdain.

But it was the other boy in whom she was much more interested. He looked small, made even smaller by the baggy shirt and too-big jeans he wore. An unruly mess of jet black hair stuck in the air at odd angles and just reached over the edges of the worn glasses perched on his nose. As Draco opened the door to the compartment, Aquila caught sight of it — the thin scar on his forehead, the infamous lightning bolt.

"So, are the rumors true?" Draco said by way of greeting. "They're saying Harry Potter has finally come to Hogwarts."

"Are you really Harry Potter?" Aquila couldn't help but ask.

"Yes," the dark-haired boy answered. He had squinted in recognition when he saw Draco (Aquila wondered if they'd somehow met before, and why Draco hadn't told her). Then his eyes slid to Crabbe and Goyle before finally coming to rest on Aquila, who stood at her cousin's side.

Draco noticed his gaze and, tossing a careless nod behind his shoulder, explained, "That's Crabbe and Goyle. And I'm Malfoy, Draco Malfoy. And this is—"

"Aquila Black," she said before he could. It was silly, but she wanted to be the one to introduce herself to Harry Potter.

The boy with red hair coughed, but Aquila could see the corners of his mouth turned up behind his fist. Draco must have seen it, too.

"What, think it's funny, do you? Don't even need your name to know you're a Weasley. Everyone knows the Weasleys have red hair, hand-me-down everything, and hardly enough gold to buy a Butterbeer." He said all of this with a sneer at the boy, whose dirt-smudged face had become so red that it matched his hair and Aquila swallowed a derisive laugh.

"You must not have realized that some wizarding families are better than others, Potter," said Draco. He put out his hand. "Stick with us so you don't get lumped in with the wrong sort."

Harry Potter stared at Draco's hand for a moment.

"I think I can tell who the wrong sort are for myself, thanks," he said finally.

Aquila looked at Draco, who, by the pink tinge in his cheeks, hid his embarrassment with a scowl. He warned, "Careful, Potter. Hanging around people like the Weasleys or that oaf Hagrid, you'll meet the same end as your parents if you don't watch your back."

"Draco!" Aquila hissed. She grabbed the sleeve of his robe and dragged him away from the compartment before he could say anything else. The door slid shut behind them. Aquila could only imagine what Harry Potter thought. "What do you think you're doing?"

"I don't know what you're talking about, Aquila — let go!" He ripped his arm from her grasp.

"You can't go talking to Harry Potter like that!" she told him. "How will he ever want to be friends with us now?"

"Why should we want him hanging around if he's keeping company like the Weasleys?" Draco shot back snidely.

Aquila couldn't come up with a proper response in time; they had reached their compartment. Pansy had fallen asleep with a half-eaten cauldron cake hanging from her hand, and Theodore was reading a book whose title was hidden by his fingers. He looked up from the pages of his book as Draco, Crabbe, and Goyle trooped into the compartment after Aquila.

"Was it true?" he asked. "Harry Potter on the train? What was he like?"

Draco scowled. "He's an idiot. Befriending someone like Weasley before we've even been sorted."

"Perhaps he'll be sorted into Slytherin with us," Aquila said. "Then he'll be away from Weasley. Father says those blood traitors all end up in Gryffindor."

"There may be hope for Potter yet," said Theodore.

"Let's just hope he doesn't get chummy with a Mudblood by the time we reach the castle," Aquila added, and the boys laughed so hard they woke Pansy.

Mountains soared and forests grew thick and dense in the slowly deepening twilight outside. One of Aquila's cousins from Mother's side came round to tell them they'd best put on their robes as the train began to slow. A voice echoed up and down the corridor not long after, announcing they'd be arriving in five minutes' time.

Though they all tried to hide it, being of a more dignified sort than Mudbloods and blood traitors like Weasley, an air of giddying excitement filled the compartment. Aquila was practically bouncing on the balls of her feet waiting for the moment they were to step off the train (though of course she was not, because bouncing on the balls of her feet was much too childish). She stuffed as much of what was left of their sweets pile as she could into her pockets for later in the dormitory. Then, with her cousin and her friends right behind her, she entered the corridor teeming with seventh years and first years and everyone in between and followed the current of students off the train and onto a small, dimly lit platform.

"Firs' years! Firs' years, over here!" called a gruff voice. A moment later, Aquila's eyes latched onto the light of a lamp shining through the darkness, carried by the most gigantic man she had ever seen. He was nearly wider than he was tall, which was a feat because he towered over even the tallest seventh year in the crowd; he was more wild, bushy dark hair than face, with a tangled beard as long as Aquila's leg. "C'mon, follow me! Any more firs' years? Mind yer step, now!"

Draco leaned over and whispered something rather impolite about him in Aquila's ear, and she snickered without taking her eyes off the giant man. Draco said his name was Hagrid; Aquila was sure she would never need to remember.

"Firs' years, follow me!"

Aquila marched along behind him with a few dozen other terrified first years. They followed a path that sloped so steeply Aquila thought it lucky none of them had lost their footing too badly yet. Shadows on either side of the path danced up ahead in the light of Hagrid's lamp.

"Yeh'll get yer firs' sight o' Hogwarts in a sec," he told them, "jus' round this bend here."

The path widened into a beach at the edge of an enormous lake, and Aquila saw the most beautiful thing she was sure she'd ever seen. She'd been raised in a manor so pristine and meticulously kept it had won awards in the wizarding newspaper the Daily Prophet, but even the Black manor could not have hoped to compare to Hogwarts castle, with its lofty turrets and magnificent spiralling towers and its yellowish light illuminating the windows and casting an eerie and yet inviting glow on the aged stone.

"No more'n four to a boat!" Hagrid instructed.

Aquila's eyes searched in the dark until they found a fleet of small wooden boats floating half in the water and half on the shore of the lake. She climbed into a boat at the far end of the group with Draco, Theodore, and Pansy. Crabbe and Goyle found another boat with Blaise Zabini and Daphne Greengrass, whom Aquila had not even noticed in all of her excitement and nerves.

Hagrid looked at them over his shoulder from the boat he took up by himself. "Everyone in? Right, then — FORWARD!"

As one, the boats pushed off the shore and cut through the smooth, glassy water toward the castle. No one spoke a word. They were all gaping up at the castle in wonder and awe, transfixed by its ancient grandeur. Aquila ripped her gaze away and looked down at the water that was as black as the night around them — and nearly fell in. A pair of inquisitive eyes had met her own. The eyes were attached to a small girl about her age staring up at her from under the surface. The girl grinned, then disappeared into the depths of the lake with a sweep of her long, scaled tail.

"Mind yer heads!"

They all ducked down as the boats approached the cliff and sailed through hanging vines of ivy, behind which lay a tunnel running under the castle. In the darkness of the passage, illuminated only in the front by Hagrid's lamp, Aquila allowed herself a moment not just to feel the fear bubbling up in her chest of what was to come, but to let it show on her face, in her hunched shoulders and trembling hands. And then, as quickly as it had emerged, in the dim light of an underground harbor it was gone.

Aquila wobbled dangerously as she tried to get out of the boat. She might have fallen onto the rocks and pebbles of the small beach and made a fool of herself if Theodore hadn't been there to help her find her balance. She shot him a grateful smile.

While the rest of the first years disembarked, Hagrid found a toad in one of the boats that belonged to a lump of a boy with a round face that shone with pathetic relief in the torchlight. Then, when at last everyone stood huddled on damp grass under the imposing shadow of the castle, Hagrid led them up a flight of stone steps, checked they were all still together, and knocked on the huge, oak door three times.

Warm light spilled out from inside, and on the threshold stood the stern witch in emerald robes Aquila knew could only be Professor McGonagall. She and Hagrid exchanged a few words Aquila couldn't hear, then Professor McGonagall opened the door open to its full breadth to let them in. The Entrance Hall was even more impressive than her cousins had described and more wonderfully splendid than Aquila could have imagined. Torches burning bright on the walls lit the vast space, from the spectacular marble staircase leading up to the other floors to a level not quite close enough to the ceiling for detail. From their right echoed the voices of the rest of the school waiting anxiously for the newest arrivals. Professor McGonagall walked them not to the hall with the rest of the school, but to an adjacent empty chamber just large enough for all of them to fit.

"Welcome to Hogwarts," she said from the front of the group. "The start-of-term banquet will begin shortly, but before you take your seats in the Great Hall, you will be sorted into your houses. The Sorting is a very important ceremony because, while you are here, your house will be something like your family within Hogwarts. You will have classes with the rest of your house, sleep in your house dormitory, and spend free time in your house common room. The four houses are called Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and Slytherin."

Despite her fear, Aquila and Draco exchanged smug smirks. There was no question to which house the cousins both belonged.

Professor McGonagall continued, "Each house has its own noble history and each has produced outstanding witches and wizards. While you are at Hogwarts, your triumphs will earn your house points, while any rule-breaking will lose house points. At the end of the year, the house with the most points is awarded the House Cup, a great honour. I hope each of you will be a credit to whichever house becomes yours."

Aquila could already picture it in her head: the green and silver badge gleaming on the front of her robes as she patrolled the corridors, followed by the Head Girl badge two years later. Yes, she thought. She would most certainly be a merit to Slytherin.

"The Sorting Ceremony will take place in a few minutes in front of the rest of the school. I suggest you all smarten yourselves up as much as you can while you are waiting. I shall return when we are ready for you. Please wait quietly."

The moment Professor McGonagall left the chamber, a low murmur of whispers broke out among the first years as girls fixed their hair and boys wiped at dirt on their faces. Aquila straightened the green ribbon holding her dark hair out of her eyes. She caught snippets of what the others thought the Sorting Ceremony might be, whether they would have to demonstrate magic in front of the whole school or if they were just assigned to a house. She tried to ignore the pounding in her chest. None of her older cousins would tell her what the Sorting actually was, only that it really was as important as Professor McGonagall said. Your house decided who your friends were. Where your loyalties lay.

Well, Aquila decided, whatever it turned out to be, she would just have to try extra hard to make everyone see that she belonged in Slytherin. She wasn't sure just yet how she would do that, but she was willing to try anything. She wasn't afraid of a challenge.

Silence fell when Professor McGonagall returned sometime later. She eyed them all with a gaze Aquila found did not help her nerves in the slightest and told them, "We're ready for you. Now, form a line and follow me."

Aquila stepped into the line between Draco and Pansy and walked on trembling legs behind Professor McGonagall as she led them out of the chamber, through the Entrance Hall, and through the heavy double doors of the Great Hall.

If the Entrance Hall had been impressive, the Great Hall nearly put it to shame. Four enormously long tables where the rest of the students sat spanned the room, headed by a fifth, equally long table for the teachers. Each table held dozens of golden plates and goblets which shone and glittered in the softly flickering light from thousands and thousands of candles floating, suspended in midair, overhead against a backdrop of the night sky and its twinkling stars. The first years gathered in a line in the space between the Head Table and the four house tables, for that was what Aquila guessed them to be. Too many pairs of eyes to count stared at the group of timid first years.

Professor McGonagall had procured from somewhere and placed in front of the first years a four-legged stool and a pointed, old wizard's hat. The edges of the brim were frayed and it had large patches in odd places and it looked so dirty Aquila was sure even Misky wouldn't have been able to wash it clean.

No one moved for a long second. No one said anything. Aquila waited for something to happen.

And then, the hat twitched. It opened its mouth — no, a rip in the fabric that looked like a mouth — and began to sing. That was far from what Aquila had been expecting, but she hung onto its every word. It seemed they had to try on the hat, and it would tell them to which house they belonged. To think her cousins had made the Sorting out to be a painful experience, Aquila thought, inwardly shaking her head. The hat sang of each of the houses in turn, but only one interested her: "Or perhaps in Slytherin, / You'll make your real friends, / Those cunning folk use any means / To achieve their ends." Well, she'd had her real friends for as long as she could remember, and she and they were all cunning as could be. Everyone had always told them so. They'd fit in Slytherin quite nicely.

As the hat's song came to a flourishing end, the Hall filled with applause. The hat gave each table a polite bow.

Professor McGonagall held in her hand a long roll of parchment. Their names, Aquila guessed.

"When I call your name," she said, "you will put on the hat and sit on the stool to be sorted."

The first person to go was "Abbot, Hannah," a girl whose straw blonde hair had been put into twin pigtails that swayed with her movement toward the stool. The hat fell right over her eyes when she put it on. A moment passed.

"HUFFLEPUFF!" the hat shouted into the silent hall.

One of the middle tables burst into a rumble of whoops and cheers and applause as Hannah slid off the stool and went to join them.

Aquila briefly wondered, being at the beginning of the alphabet, how many students would stand between Hannah and herself. But she wasn't allowed the chance to worry about this because Professor McGonagall was already calling, "Black, Aquila!"

Her heart, which had for a moment stopped beating, jumpstarted into an erratic rhythm as Aquila forced her legs to walk her forward. In her mind, she planned out the speed of her gait for when she joined the Slytherin table, so that she didn't seem too eager. She would save the seat next to her for Draco as well.

The stool was hard underneath her. A hundred faces watched her eagerly, then vanished from sight when the hat enveloped the top of her head.

"Oh, marvelous!" crooned a soft voice in her ear. "Not quite as straightforward as you seem, eh? You have a brilliant mind; that will take you far, my dear, with your talent. A nice measure of loyalty, too. And — oh, there it is. Of course. It's all inside you, waiting for the right moment to shine." Aquila squeezed her eyes shut, ready, waiting. Any second. The hat said, "No doubt, indeed. There really is nowhere better suited for you than GRYFFINDOR!"