A/N: Sorry this took me so long to get out, but I was going through an extremely severe case of writer's block in which I was all depressed and disgruntled. And I know Hagrid wasn't the gamekeeper!! At the time, I simply forgot. So, how about we just forget he exists now? Hagrid no longer exists in this story. Check. And I'm using Dumbledore again because he just makes the story so much cooler :) Right then. On with the chapter.
***
Lily picked a spot on the long, shiny oak beach and arranged her robes around her. She then folded her hands patiently on the table and waited, though for what she could not say.
The four boys she had sat with on the train seated themselves several seats away from her, across from the table. Lily sniffed and turned her nose up. Stupid gits.
Eventually (by some bizarre twist of fate, right about when the noise level reached its climax) an old man with a long silver beard and half-moon spectacles stepped out onto the stage-like area at the front of the . . . what was it the students had called it? – the Great Hall. He was carrying in his hand an extremely old, grizzled-looking hat that was in such bad shape Lily thought it had been passed through a shredder. The silver-haired wizard placed the hat on a four-legged stool and stepped back.
Lily tried her hardest to keep her cool, dignified expression, but it was rather difficult when she had butterflies the size of foxes fluttering in her stomach. That hat looked ominous, suddenly.
Abruptly, a rather large rip by the brim of the thing opened wide, like a mouth, and began singing, of all things!
Lily watched, aghast, her mouth opened wide, much like that of the other first-years. Except for James, who, after the first shock, had adopted a pose of complete nonchalance.
Eventually, the hat finished its odd song about the school houses and a skinny man with a heavily crooked nose and beady eyes not much unlike that of Peter's stepped forward with a long roll of parchment in his hand. (A/N: notice this is my substitute for Lily and James' "McGonagall" since Dumbledore is the headmaster. Bear with me here.)
"When I call your name," he announced in a reedy voice, "you will put on the hat and sit on the stool to be sorted. Ahlin, David!"
David sauntered up and casually placed the hat on his head, sitting down. The hat shouted,
"SLYTHERIN!"
He jumped down to join a crowd of cheering Slytherins.
"Biggs, Joanne!"
"RAVENCLAW!"
"Black, Sirius!"
"GRYFFINDOR!"
"Buine, Timothy!"
"HUFFLEPUFF!"
"Cadrle, Fean!"
"SLYTHERIN!"
And on down the line it went, every student sorted being loudly cheered by his or her own house. Sometimes the hat took a long time to decide, and other times it barely touched the owner's head that it screamed out a house. Finally, it was Lily's turn.
"Evans, Lily!"
She walked nervously up the steps, feeling as though every eye in the room was boring into her back. It was not pleasant. She dropped the hat on her head – it fell to the bridge of her nose – and settled down in the stool.
"Ah. Interesting. Interesting indeed. You're quite a tricky case, young lady!" a small voice said in her ear. "Why, I hardly believe you fit in any of the houses! Not a whit of courage – the little you had was buried deep in those ridiculous teachings, anyway – your only loyalties are to your parents and yourself; Hufflepuff will never do for you. Ravenclaw, perhaps? No . . . no, you're not very eager to learn anything besides curtsying properly, are you?" It made a noise resembling a snort. "I suppose that leaves Slytherin, although you don't seem a very cunning girl. . . Let me think a little about this."
That moment, interestingly enough, was the one Sirius chose to whisper loudly in James' ear.
"It's too bad they don't have a 'Prat' house!"
James snickered loudly, boiling Lily's anger.
I hate them, she thought. I want to twist their
scrawny little necks into bow ties! Idiots! Stupid little . . .
"Oh ho!" The hat said delightedly. "Made some enemies already, have you? In that case, you'll do very well in SLYTHERIN!"
He shouted the last word, and Lily yanked it off to scuttle to the Slytherin table, where everyone was cheering noisily. Smirking, she stuck her tongue out at the four, who were looking at her with a look of pity. Pity!
Lily sat down next to a girl with raven-black hair and settled to watch the rest of the sorting. Enemies, eh? She could live with that.
***
A/N: The shortness! The shortness! It's awful, isn't it?? Oh well. I just had to get the sorting done. Notice how Lily's starting to build some spirit :) Whoo hoo! This should be fun. R/R!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!