Sirius is eleven years old. He is the pride of the Black family, and heir to their fortune. His sharp tongue and wicked sense of humour have occasionally earned him a cuff on the ear or a night without supper, but they have also earned him the respect and admiration of his younger brother, Regulus, and many other pure-blood children around his own age. His parents are even discussing the possibility of making a proper match for their eldest son, but he is still young enough to wrinkle his nose at the thought of girls.
On the first of September, he boards the Hogwarts Express from platform 9 3/4, walking tall and proud in his new robes and his green and white Slytherin scarf, as Kreacher, the Black family house-elf, totes his trunk onto the train. He has all new books, cauldron, robes, and quills, and - because first year students are not allowed them - a promise from his father that if his marks are good this year, he will have the finest racing broom money can buy for his twelfth birthday next June.
On the train, he sits with other pure-blood children: his cousin Narcissa and her haughty, blond, seventh year boyfriend Lucius Malfoy, Rabastan Lestrange, Madeleine Yaxley, Evan Rosier, and Sirius's friend Peter Pettigrew, a short, anxious-looking boy.
Sirius regards Peter with contempt and pity. He'll never make Slytherin, he thinks, and tugs at his scarf.
The compartment door opens, and a pale boy in shabby, patched robes looks in nervously.
"No room," sneers Narcissa, looking at the boy's clothes, and not his face.
In fact, Sirius is the only one in the compartment who sees the boy's face at all. He has some odd scarring, and turns away quickly when he notices Sirius looking at him, and departs without saying a word.
At Hogsmeade Station, the older children wish him well as he is rounded up along with the other first years for the traditional journey across the lake. The children around him are buzzing with excitement as Sirius and Peter find themselves a boat, which they share with a sullen-looking, black-haired boy and a pretty, redheaded girl. He hears all four houses of Hogwarts being mentioned around him with varying degrees of anticipation and fear. But Sirius is not worried; all Blacks are Slytherins, just as all Weasleys are Gryffindors. Everyone knows that. Sirius wonders idly if the red-haired girl in the boat with him is a Weasley before he remembers that the Weasleys never have girls.
"Who are your family?" Sirius asks, just to be sure.
She thinks he is being friendly, and smiles at him. "I'm Lily Evans," she says, putting out her hand. "My family are from Yorkshire."
"Evans," he says thoughtfully, not shaking the proffered hand. "That doesn't sound familiar. Are you at all connected with the Weasleys?" Unconsciously, he uses the disdainful inflection with which his parents always say that name.
"Oh, no!" she says with a pretty laugh. "My family aren't wizards at all! I'm the first."
She looks proud of this fact, but Sirius wrinkles his nose. "Muggleborn," he says in disgust, and turns away.
The other boy in the boat is regarding him with mistrust.
"I suppose you're Muggleborn, too?" Sirius says to him.
"No," the boy scowls. "My family's magical."
"Who are they, then?"
"Snape. Sheffield." The boy gives him a contemptuous look, as if daring him to make something of it.
"Never heard of them either. How far back do they go?"
In the end, the sullen boy has to admit that, while his mother is indeed a pure-blood, she sullied her good name with a Muggle. Silence descends upon the boat for the remainder of its journey.
The excitement rises as the first years crowd together in the entrance hall. Sirius pays no attention to the explanation of the Sorting Ceremony. As far as he is concerned, it is just a formality. He will go up, put on the Hat, and then walk to the Slytherin table to join the people he will be living with for the next seven years. Slytherin being the largest house, there should be lots of them; plenty of people for him to make connections with and begin building a promising future for himself.
As they file into the Great Hall, their names are called out alphabetically. His name is preceded by three others; two Slytherins and a Ravenclaw. Back straight, eyes forward, he approaches the stool, sits, and puts on the Hat that will confirm his destiny.
"Oh, ho, ho!" says the Sorting Hat. "A Black, eh? Well, well, well. A clever one, too."
Sirius waits impatiently for the Hat to say "Slytherin". Why is it taking so long?
"Oh, so you think you're going to be in Slytherin, do you?" says the Hat. "I wouldn't be so sure about that! Too much the rebel for House Slytherin, I fear. Now, let me see ... There's enough loyalty here for Hufflepuff, but not enough hard work and dedication. You're clever, but you don't like to study, so not Ravenclaw either. Really there is only one place for you, and it has to be GRYFFINDOR!" it finishes, shouting out its verdict for all the hall to hear.
There must be some mistake. This simply cannot be happening. Sirius feels faint. There is a stunned silence from the Slytherin table, and confused whispers breaks out at the other three. Slowly, all eyes on him, he stands and walks down the centre of the room to an empty seat at the Gryffindor table. There is none of the cheering and backslapping which greeted the three students Sorted before him. Everyone is looking at him. He hears a nasty giggle from the Slytherin table. His cousin Narcissa.
"I guess he's not one of us after all," she says loudly.
Numbly, Sirius sinks onto the Gryffindor bench, into a space that has been left clear for the newest additions to the house. All down the table, eyes turn towards him. There is no overt hostility, but there is silence and wary uncertainty. Sirius's eyes are firmly fixed on the table.
A moment later, someone sits down on the bench next to him.
"Hi," says the redheaded girl from the boat, still trying to be friendly. "Looks like we're housemates. I didn't catch your name -?"
"Go away, Mudblood," Sirius growls.
There is a sharp intake of breath from all down the Gryffindor table. The girl does not seem to know what the word means, but recognises it for an insult. She stops trying to talk to Sirius, and even slides down the bench a little. She turns instead to introduce herself to another new girl who has just sat down.
The Sorting continues, and as each new member of Slytherin house is announced, Sirius's expression becomes more and more sour, and he slumps lower and lower in his seat. Even a poncy-looking blond boy named Lockhart is sorted into Slytherin, while he, Sirius, heir to the Noble and Ancient House of Black, is stuck in Gryffindor, a house known for its blood-traitors. What will his parents say?
But as he grinds his teeth and contemptuously watches Lockhart take his seat among the Slytherins, his view is blocked by someone standing uncertainly across from him. Startled, he looks up into the face of the pale, shabby boy from the train.
"Is it all right if I sit here?" the boy asks, voice barely above a whisper.
Sirius nods, forgetting to sulk for a moment. The boy sits down, and Sirius waits expectantly for a moment, thinking that he'll introduce himself or ask Sirius his name. He does neither.
A few moments later, Peter plops himself down between Sirius and the Muggleborn girl.
"This is brilliant!" he says. "The Hat wanted to put me in Slytherin, but I asked it to put me with you, and it said okay."
Brilliant, sulks Sirius. Even Peter had a shot at Slytherin.
Peter is quickly followed by a boy with messy black hair and glasses. He shakes hands with everyone within reach, grinning broadly and introducing himself as James Potter, saying how happy he is to be in Gryffindor. Sirius can tell he is the sort of boy to whom people take an instant liking, and stubbornly decides not to like him.
Perhaps if he does not get on with the other boys in his dorm, Headmaster Dumbledore will be forced to transfer him to Slytherin. Instead of introducing himself to the Potter boy, he stares resolutely across the room, just in time to see the sullen, dark-haired boy from the boat being sorted into Slytherin.
Even common Mudbloods get sorted into Slytherin. Mother and Father will be furious! Maybe they'll write to Dumbledore and make him move me.
He is silent through the rest of the meal, ignoring the conversation around him, letting Peter introduce him to the others, and replying to any direct questions with no more than a shrug. He eats very little, and when the students rise to adjourn to their common rooms, he trails along behind the rest of the Gryffindors, as if hoping to disassociate himself from them. He barely pays any attention when Gryffindor's prefect, Fabian Prewett, gives them the password - dragon bogeys - with a mischievous grin.
His first weeks at Hogwarts are miserable. His own cousins will not speak to him. The rest of the Slytherins make snide or sarcastic comments. His parents write, telling him how disappointed they are that he has not been placed in Slytherin, but do not offer to take steps to remedy the matter. Regulus does not write to him at all, though he had promised to do so. No one looks up to him. No one respects him. No one even likes him. No one except Peter, and what good is that?
Sirius, lying alone in his cell in Azkaban, remembered all these things with remarkable clarity. He felt again the sharp pain of rejection, the shock and horror of realising that everything he was - or everything he had thought he was - had been ripped away from him in a heartbeat. The loneliness cut him time and again, amplified tenfold and more by the presence of the Dementors.
He remembered the bare fact that he had become friends with his housemates eventually, and that the loneliness and emptiness had ended, but he could not for the life of him remember how it had come about. It felt like a dream which slipped away whenever he tried to grasp it.
All that Azkaban would allow him to remember was the jealousy he had felt when Peter had transferred his admiration from himself to James. The quiet shadow of Remus Lupin barely brushed his memory, appearing only as a pale spectre, ill and secretive after each full moon.
The Dementors added to his memories as well. The laughter of the Slytherins was amplified. Things he had only imagined people thinking now rang in his ears. His housemates ignored him, or joined in the mockery. Sometimes Snape's sneer would appear on Remus's face.
He could not remember at all the day James had come upon him being taunted by a gang of Slytherins, and had bodily dragged him away with the declaration that "No one treats my Gryffindor brothers like that!", or the marvelously crafted prank that followed, resulting in all the Slytherins' robes turning pink in the wash, and every member of that house suffering terrible flatulence for a week every time they tried to speak. He and James had become inseparable following that incident.
But the Dementors drained away the laughter and boyish glee. They fed on comfort and companionship and any feeling of rightness, and left Sirius with only the cold, the fear, the rejection, and the loneliness he thought he had shed long ago.