Chapter 4

Sirius walked into the hall, staring around, suddenly lost. He knew he had to get sorted but how? Malfoy, Snape, and his cousins had left him in the entrance to Hogwarts, telling him that a professor would come and assist him.

Sirius sighed softly. As he stood there looking around, a person suddenly caught his eyes. It was Potter and his two friends. Attempting to avoid a confrontation, Sirius shrank back into the shadows of the castle. He watched as the three friends walked into the school, each talking excitedly and randomly gesturing animatedly. Sirius watched them wistfully. If only he could have such good friends. At Durmstrang, Sirius was abnormal. He enjoyed having fun and lashing out at the teachers. That was not a normal occurrence at Durmstrang. As such, people avoided Sirius, leaving only desperate people who wanted his money.

Sucks for me, Sirius thought. Just then he noticed a teacher walking towards him.

"I'm assuming you are Sirius Black," the woman said in a strict sounding voice. All in all, she looked incredibly stern with her brown hair tied back into a tight bun and a small frown on her face.

"Yes, that would be me," Sirius smiled.

She ignored his display of cheerfulness and curtly said, "Follow me."

Sirius furrowed his eyebrows in mild confusion at her impoliteness, but chose to dismiss it as distraction. Of course, with all the chaos and everything, all of the teachers were probably distracted.

As they walked along, the teacher began to speak. "I am Professor McGonagall. Normally you would just join your house, but considering you haven't been sorted yet-" an odd expression flashed across her face at those words, as if she already knew where Sirius was going to go "-you will be sorted with the first years. After their year is done." She stopped in a small room. "You will wait here until your name is called. When your name is called, walk out this door and over to the stool. Hopefully you won't get lost. Any questions?"

Sirius looked at her, his head reeling slightly. Wait, name called, door, stool. "Yeah, I think I've got all that," he said, smiling again. This time, she returned his smile with a small, thin lipped grin. Then she swept out of the rooms, her black robe billowing behind her slightly.

Sirius stood there, staring at the door that Professor McGonagall had just exited through. Wait, name called, door, stool.

That doesn't sound too hard. I should be able to manage that without completely making a fool of myself.

You'd be surprised…

Sirius rolled his eyes and sat down in a chair to wait for his name.

"Do you see him anywhere?" asked Remus as he looked around at all the first years.

"I think he would kinda stick out, my darling Moony," teased James. Recently James had gotten into the habit of calling random people 'dear' or 'darling' or even an occasional 'sweetie'.

Remus simply rolled his eyes at the term of endearment and turned his attention to the front of the hall where the sorting hat was starting to sing. He tuned the song out and thought of Sirius Black. Sure, he probably would be sorted into Slytherin, but what if he wasn't? He hadn't seemed like a heartless Slytherin.

Not all Slytherins are heartless," Remus reminded himself. It was one of those typical stereotypes that Remus so hated. Being a werewolf made him appreciate the benefit of a doubt. Even if it didn't happen often.

James was sitting next to Remus, thinking similar thoughts. Well, kinda. He was actually planning out ways to make Sirius Black's life as dark as his last name. an array of different pranks kept flashing through his mind. Each one brought mild to severe pain and humiliation to the victim.

Peter sat across from his two best friends, contemplating James's reaction to the young Black. Peter knew just as much about him as his friends did, but that still didn't give James to react the way he had. It just wasn't polite. Not to mention it made them as bad as he supposedly was. It just made them huge hypocrites. And no one likes being regarded as a hypocrite.

Sirius sat in the room, examining his hands. The had suddenly gotten a lot more entertaining in the past five minutes. Distantly, he could hear someone or something singing and could here random shouts of "SLYTHERIN" and "RAVENCLAW" and once in a while "HUFFLEPUFF" and "GRYFFINDOR". The students would always applaud and he could hear the cheers, most likely from the house that had gotten the first year.

After a while, the first yeas had all be sorted. Sirius Black sat in the back room, patiently waiting with dread growing in his stomach. James waited with raised eyebrows, Remus waited with somewhat baited breath, and Peter stared anxiously between his two friends. The rest of the Great Hall buzzed with mild confusion and expectation. The sorting was over, shouldn't Dumbledore be saying mildly witty yet pointless things? Where was the food?

The silence in the Great Hall was so loud that it was becoming increasingly uncomfortable. So when Professor McGonagall called out the next, and final, name, her voice boomed throughout the huge hall. "Black, Sirius."

Silence once again filled the Great Hall. Eyes eagerly searched around, looking for this new student. He was nowhere to be seen. A creak of a door made everyone look up to the front of the hall again. A door to the left side of the hall opened and out walked a handsome looking fifteen year old, with his dark hair falling over his eyes. A small cocky smile was on his face and he walked with a haughty step. Yet underneath it all, it was simple to tell that he was nervous and most likely fighting some internal battle. Which he was.

Slytherin.

Gryffindor.

Slytherin.

Gryffindor.

Will you shut up? If you think the G-word one more time I'll…I'll stop thinking. So there.

…fine, anything but Slytherin.

Argh...we'll see.

Sirius carefully walked to the stool and sat down, allowing the teacher to place the hat on his head. He sat there, painfully aware of the hundreds of eyes that were eagerly fixed on him. he could sense that the Slytherins were confident that he would be in their house. In fact, he could sense that the entire school expected him to be in Slytherin.

Sirius sat perfectly still, contemplating his near future while the hat made it's decision.. Slytherin…it couldn't be that bad of a house, right? Even if he didn't agree with any of the ideals or morals. After all, no one said ambition was bad. Right?

Well…hmm, where should I put you? You have such a complicated mind. You have the desire to be a non-conformist yet you want to please others as well. Which is completely impossible, as you probably have realized. You have great potential to be powerful and strong. You are brave and rash, yet sly and clever. Of course, your family lineage says something for you. Perhaps you'd be best off in Slytherin?

Sirius closed his eyes as he listened to the hat talk. Whatever you think is best. I'm not really caring at this point.

Yes you do! You want to be in Gryffindor! his counter personality screamed.

Sirius managed to block it out and thought, Slytherin's cool with me. I think.

Such doubt, aye? the hat said, Well, if you insist…SLYTHERIN!

The Slytherin table erupted into loud cheers, enthusiastic to have the young Black heir in their house. Sirius could see an ecstatic Regulus cheering with the rest of the Slytherins. Sighing, he walked over and sat down next to Malfoy. He smiled at Sirius and hit him gently on the back in a reassuring manner that wasn't reassuring at all.

Sirius looked at his new housemates, doubt once again filling him. Maybe the hat was wrong…Maybe I was wrong.

I told you that you should be in Gryffindor…but do you ever listen to me? Nooo…

Shut up.

A.N. Alright, that's the changed part. Now Sirius is in Slytherin. I had a good idea for it. So now you can read about both. If you're reading this…anyways, if you did read it, please review. Bye.