Chapter 1

"The sorting is taking even longer this year than usual," Pete mumbles.

Normally I would have to agree with him, waiting for the sorting to be over was never the best part of the Welcome Feast, the food was. Today though was a different day altogether though, so I mumbled a reply that even I did not understand, but, hey it works.

I have not seen her yet but I know she is there, but as the last first year was sorted I began to doubt myself. "Had it been a dream, a figment of my imagination," I began to myself, "An fictitious awakening of sorts, maybe." After I had found out that she would not be coming to Hogwarts with me, and that I would not be a part of the Slytherin house - all contact between us had been lost. It had caused my heart to break seeing as I thought myself in love, and that was the start to my "womanizing ways," well according to Lily's bloody psychological interpretations.

For a while it worked, but then one day I realized - actually Peter pointed out - after a picture of Angel, clipped from a Durmstrang newspaper my brother had been fawning over, fell from my wallet (a muggle invention- quite useful actually) that all the girls I dated have something in common with her. Of course, he did not say that at first but when Maggie Griffin (brown curls bounding behind her, spelled tan at its utmost brightness) ran up to me while he was still holding the picture that's what came out eventually. Again, I woke up from zoning to a hand in my face, and this time a new element, James' voice, repeating Angel's last name.

"Devant. Devant - I've heard of that name before, it's the one Mom and Dad was telling me about. They could never catch them in the act, but they do know they are one of the darkest and most powerful families out there. Reckon that's why they kept bringing it up in front of me, warning me. Padfoot, if my parents warned me she has to be worse than your cousins and Malfoy, we have to extra careful around her."

And that's when I saw her. The great hall doors had been blown open as though with a great wind, and she was already at the halfway point between the doors and the hat. The entire length of the Slytherin table had stood up and applauded as though she had already been sorted into their house. A clear sign as to where they thought she belonged. If that was not strange enough - some Hupplepuffs and Ravenclaws joined in standing and clapping. Looking back at her it is as though my eyes draw her own, because the next moment a few feet from the sorting hat she stopped walking to give a gentle smile in my direction. Now normally, this would be a good thing, a very good thing, but had anyone followed her gaze or saw my expression change with her look then I more than suspect we would be screwed. It was just my luck that two were picking up on the discreet gesture: one, like a brother to me and the other, someone I loathed with a passion.

James Potter and Lucius Malfoy.

"What was that all about?" James seethes at me. I shrug, again not wanting to tell the truth but also not wanting to lie to a friend. "Don't shrug me off, Padfoot. Devant just smiled at you, and you blush like a bloody schoolgirl. I want to know what's between you two."

Before I could retort, Angel sat down on the stool, enveloping the entire great hall into silence. It took a while for Minnie to get her bearings but soon she got her wits about and the hat came down. If the Slytherins were disappointed that the sorting hat did not immediately yell out their serpent house they did not show it. And after a minute in an awkward and heavily felt silence the hat finally spoke its fated decision.

"GRYFFINDOR!"

What ensues will go down in history as the one thing that both the Gryffindor and Slytherin house agreed upon: the hat is mistaken. Both tables' occupants' yell with a vigor that echoes through the great hall, making more noise and ruckus then fifty of our groups greatest pranks combined. As if that was not enough, the Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs are gossiping about it, as though not everyone in the school had been present for it, only helping to increase the volume ten-fold. As I sit still, I watched the reaction of the girl who had started all this. It was simple really: she gracefully got up and traveled through the chaos as one travels through a park on a leisurely stroll - nothing to it, and nothing against it. Finally reaching the table, she took a seat farthest from those throwing looks and began to eat.

-End Chapter 1-