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Chapter 6: A Private Sorting

The last few weeks at Grimmauld Place were probably the happiest Harry had seen all summer. Now that he knew that Lyra didn't hate him or blame him for Sirius's death, he got along with her much easier. Despite actually enjoying his stay, he couldn't wait to get back to Hogwarts and start Quidditch again. He wasn't the only one either. He had spotted Hermione rereading Hogwarts, A History on more than one occasion for the past week. Many of the house's other occupants were quite bored as the days leading up to September first grew closer.

During their last week, Lyra and the Twins had engaged in a prank war. It would have been rather funny if others hadn't been caught in the crossfire. Harry could remember one unforgettable afternoon when Tonks ate a Canary Cream and burst into feathers. Even Dumbledore wasn't safe from their pranks. He walked into the kitchen after an Order meeting and opened a box of Animal Crackers, only to have colorful animal firecrackers fly out as people tried to get out of their way. Lyra tried to apologize to all the people with singed robes without laughing but she couldn't quite manage it. The war was soon brought to an abrupt end, however, when Mrs. Weasley drank one of the twin's newest inventions, Butterbeard, and found a brightly colored, red beard on her face. Harry could appreciate that had this happened to anyone else, it would have been funny, but on Mrs. Weasley it was just scary. She had yelled at Fred and George furiously for over an hour until the beard finally disappeared.

After that incident, Lyra, Fred, and George had all called a truce and she even began to help Fred and George with some of their new projects. By the end of the summer, they had extended the Skiving Snackboxes to include Coughing Candy and developed a portable snowstorm. Harry couldn't help but wonder how many of their new creations would show up this year at Hogwarts.

On their last day at Grimmauld Place, the doorbell rang rather unexpectedly during the afternoon. Harry, Ron, and Hermione couldn't see who it was from the top of the stairway, but they heard Mrs. Weasley address the visitor.

"Minerva, what are you doing here?" Mrs. Weasley asked surprised.

"Albus thought it would be best if Miss Black was sorted privately rather than in front of the whole school. It would attract less attention than having a sixth year being sorted with the first years. " Professor McGonagall stated.

"I think Lyra is upstairs," Remus said, "Shall I go and get her?"

"Yes," Harry heard his Transfiguration professor say, "You might as well bring the others down too."

When they heard that they tried to scramble away from the stairs as fast as they could, but obviously it wasn't fast enough. Remus came into view before they could get away and he gave them an amused look.

"Would one of you mind getting Lyra?" He asked, still smiling.

"Sure," Hermione said feebly as she ran off to go get Lyra.

Harry and Ron, however, followed Remus down the stairs and into the entryway where the others were waiting. Professor McGonagall looked up when she saw them enter with Remus.

"Well, that was certainly fast," she stated, though Harry could hear a note of suspicion in her voice.

Luckily, he was saved from making a response when Hermione came back down the stairs with Lyra, Ginny, Fred, and George. Once they were all grouped together, Professor McGonagall beckoned them to follow as she made her way into the kitchen.

"Well Miss Black," Professor McGonagall said as she conjured a stool from thin air, "you are going to be sorted into your house today. Has anyone told you what the four houses are?"

"No," Lyra answered as she looked curiously at the hat.

"They are Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, Gryffindor, and Slytherin. Each House has its own noble history and skills that set them apart from each other. You can earn points for your house or-" she paused and looked rather pointedly at Lyra, "-you can loose points for misbehavior."

Lyra gave Professor McGonagall an innocent look but nodded her head all the same.

"The Headmaster also wants you to change your last name so it is not so obvious that Sirius Black is your father."

"How about Summers, that's my godmother's last name." Lyra suggested after some thought.

"That will work," Professor McGonagall said, then she gestured to the hat on the stool, "Well then, let's begin the sorting."

Lyra eyed the frayed hat unenthusiastically before she sat on the stool and put it on her head. Harry couldn't hear what the sorting hat was telling her, but it seemed to have a hard time deciding where to sort her. From the look on Lyra's face, he could tell that she didn't like the hat's voice in her head. The whole group watched her anxiously for nearly five minutes before the sorting hat finally yelled out, "GRYFFINDOR!"

Everyone in the room, except for the professor, cheered rather loudly, given that everyone was or had been in Gryffindor at some point in their lives. Professor McGonagall did give Lyra a slight smile that was, in Harry's opinion, the equivalent of cheering for her. Lyra then took off the hat and handed it back to the Transfiguration teacher and wandered back to the group.

"I must be getting back to Hogwarts now that this is taken care of," Professor McGonagall said, "I shall inform the Headmaster that you are in Gryffindor and make preparations for tomorrow."

She then vanished the stool and made to leave the room, but she suddenly stopped at the doorway and turned around.

"Your father would have been proud of you," she said with a very slight quaver in her voice, hardly recognizable. With that said she left.

While Remus hugged Lyra, Harry thought about what Professor McGonagall had said. Your father would have been proud of you. She had said those very same words to him when he had made the Quidditich team his first year at Hogwarts. Somehow, he knew, with a slight pang of sorrow, that Sirius would have been thrilled to know that his daughter was sorted into Gryffindor.

"Come on, Harry!" Hermione said, shaking him out of his musings, "Mrs. Weasley wants us all packed and ready so we're not late like last year."

"Right," Harry said as he began to follow her out of the kitchen.

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"So what took the hat so long to sort you?" Ron asked, as he looked up from his game of Exploding Snap.

Now that everyone was packed, Harry and the others, including Bill, were sitting around the small table in the living room playing a round of Exploding Snap, with the exception of Lyra, who was sitting on the couch reading a book entitled Advanced Potions; Ron had been inclined to make fun of her for reading it.

Lyra looked up from her book and answered, "The hat considered putting me in Slytherin instead of Gryffindor."

All of the others looked at her in disbelief so she continued, "it's not that surprising, my mum was in Slytherin and my uncle happens to be Head of the house."

Harry thought back to his own sorting experience, when the sorting hat told him that he would have done well in Slytherin. He had never shared that information with anyone other than the Headmaster.

"Besides, it's not like there's anything wrong with being in Slytherin," She continued, failing to see the incredulous looks she was given or pretending not to notice.

"How 'bout the fact that every evil witch or wizard was in Slytherin," Ron said.

"My mum was in Slytherin and she wasn't evil," Lyra reminded him stubbornly.

Ron looked like he was going to comment on this, but he was interrupted when Sturgis Podmore burst into the room, his hair and robes were a disheveled mess. His eyes darted around the room until they came to rest on Bill.

"We have to go to Azkaban!" he said frantically as Mr. and Mrs. Weasley came into the room to investigate the source of the noise, "Death Eaters are attacking the prison! A few Aurors are there, and Remus and Emmeline but they're outnumbered. They need help!"

"Right," Mr. Weasley said as he reached into his robe pocket and took out his wand, "I'll come with you."

"Me too," Bill announced, standing up and abandoning his game of Exploding Snap.

"George and I will help—" Fred began, but his mum cut him off.

"No!" she said sternly, "I need you and your brother to stay and watch everyone in the house."

The twins looked like they were going to protest but suddenly Ginny stood up and wrapped Bill in a hug, "Be careful," she said.

"Don't worry, I will" Bill said as he hugged her back. Then without saying another word, they apparated out of Grimmauld Place, leaving Harry and the others in the room alone.

Fred and George sat down on the couch by Lyra; Harry could tell that they were in an extremely bad mood.

"They can't keep leaving us out of these things," Fred fumed furiously.

"Still, it would have been nice to know what's going on," George joined in, just as angry.

"I'm more worried about Remus to tell you the truth," Lyra said softly, "I hope he'll be okay."

"Don't worry," Ginny assured them, "we can watch them and make sure they're all right."

"And how do you propose we do that," George questioned her, watching suspiciously when he saw her face split into a grin.

"'Cause I put a Spyder on Bill when I hugged him," Ginny said as everyone gaped openly at her.

"Ginny, how un-prefect-like of you, " Fred said good-humoredly, looking at her with admiration, "I'll go upstairs and get the sunglasses."

It didn't take long for Fred and George to disapparate and apparate back down to the room where Harry and the others were waiting impatiently. When they came back their arms were full of sunglasses, and without hesitation, they handed them back out to everyone in the room. For the second time since coming to Grimmauld Place, Harry put the sunglasses over his regular glasses and waited for the image to appear. When the image finally focused, he could see the dark island of Azkaban. He could hear the sea pounding harshly on the rocks below. The removal of the dementors did little to erase the dark shadow that surrounded the prison…or would have surrounded the prison. The walls were reduced to rubble and bricks were scattered about in every direction.

Harry could spot a crowd of witches and wizards gathered around one of the rubble heaps. Though it was too dark to properly see who every one was, he thought he could recognize a few of the people in the group, including Bill, and Mr. and Mrs. Weasley.

"…they've all been freed," Moody said gruffly, "Every single Death Eater in Azkaban escaped."

"Is everyone alright?" Mrs. Weasley asked concerned, as she looked around to see who was all there.

"No one was killed, but several people were injured," Remus said as he walked towards them; Harry noticed, with some anxiety, that he was limping slightly, "We've managed to capture some of the Death Eaters."

"It could have been worse," Mr. Weasley said finally.

"Trust me, it's worse," Moody promised him, "You-Know-Who had two purposes for attacking Azkaban. The first was, of course, to free his followers. The second was to train his newly recruited Death Eaters. In my opinion, he's accomplished both of those goals rather well."

"My question is how he's managed to gain so many followers so quickly?" Remus said.

"It probably wasn't too difficult," Moody said dismissively, "I mean, he's had a whole year to gain them and properly train them secretly-."

The crunch of gravel had just turned the group's attention to a new bunch of people that were walking toward them. It wasn't until the newcomers had come into the range of the Sypder's camera that could Harry identify them. Shacklebolt and Tonks were among them, carrying one of the captured Death Eaters on either side of them. The Death Eater in question was still masked, there was no possible way that Harry could tell who it was, at least not until Moody walked over and lifted the mask off his face.

Harry could only gape in shock when he saw the face beneath the mask. It was none other than the former Slytherin Quidditch captain, Marcus Flint. He looked much different than Harry remembered, he still looked like a gorilla, but his whole aura seemed much deadlier than before, when he was only trying to knock a Gryffindor off a broom. Apparently in the year that he left Hogwarts, he joined Voldemort.

"What should we do with him now that Azkaban has been damaged beyond repair?" Mr. Weasly asked, eying Flint warily.

"We'll have to take him to the Ministry," Kingsley Shacklebolt concluded, "At least there You-Know-Who shouldn't be able to attack for a while."

Shacklebolt started to reach for a broken bottle, Harry could only assume that it was a portkey, when Flint's voice stopped him.

"You just wait," Flint laughed, with a kind of mad glint in his eyes that Harry had only seen on two other people: Barty Crouch and Bellatrix Lestrange, "You think that the Blood Traitor's daughter will be safe at Hogwarts!? The Dark Lord will find her, and when he does, he'll be immortal. No one will stand in his way when he rids the world of the Muggles and Mudblood lovers! He'll attack the Ministry and free me-"

Harry would have liked to keep the Spyder glasses on and listen to the rest of the conversation, but the abrupt footsteps and the slam of the living room's door brought him back to his senses. He quickly took off the glasses and hid them behind his back as he searched the room for the new arriver. There wasn't anyone new in the room, though. Funny, he could have sworn that he heard someone enter…

When he took a better look around the room, however, he realized that no one had come in, someone had left. Lyra was missing. Harry, along with everyone else in the room, got off the floor quickly and made to follow her wherever it was that she went.

Harry could hear her footsteps traveling upstairs so assumed that she was going to her room. When he was about to open the door and go into her room, but when he reached for the handle, he practically almost ran into her as she was leaving. She looked really pale and she was shaking slightly. Harry didn't really notice this, though, because he was more focused on the suitcase in her hands.

"What are you doing?" Hermione asked uneasily.

"I'm leaving," Lyra announced adamantly, "I'm going back to France…somewhere—anywhere, as long as he can't find me!"

She looked like she was going to have a full fled panic attack, but she dropped her suitcase all the same and sat down on her bed. Harry caught Ron's eye; they both had no idea how to handle this situation. Luckily for them, Hermione did.

"It's going to be okay," Hermione said in a persuasive voice.

"Yeah. Don't worry," Fred assured her in an uncharacteristically somber voice as he sat beside her, "They always said that the only wizard You-Know-Who ever feared was Dumbledore. As long as you're under Dumbledore's protection he can't get to you."

"Yeah. Right," Lyra agreed halfheartedly, as Fred wrapped his arm around her, though, Harry could tell that she only half believed his words.

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A/N: Chapter six is up to celebrate the fact that I just gave my last speech in my public speaking class (I hate speaking in public)!! Next chappie, they finally leave for Hogwarts! I'm not going to post it till I can get 10 reviews. Please read and review!