A/N: For Chloe.

Albus walked behind Scorpius as they entered the Great Hall to be Sorted, each as nervous as the other. After the Hat sung his song, the Sorting began. Names Albus didn't recognize were called to be Sorted, until "Finnegan, Patrick!". The first and only son of Seamus Finnegan and Lavender Brown was Sorted to Gryffindor! and right after him, "Fitzpatrick, Liam!" Liam looked terrified. The hat debated for a moment or two, before shouting Gryffindor! as well. Liam still looked terrified as he sat down beside Fred II, who shook his hand, welcoming him to the house of the biggest pranksters ever known to wizard kind. Names passed, and "Longbottom, Francis!" got Sorted into Gryffindor as well, and finally "Malfoy, Scorpius!" was called. Scorpius, quite a far cry from his father, did anything but swagger up to the stool, where he sat, and not the moment the hat had touched his head, yelled out Slytherin! Scorpius shrugged to himself, and skipped off to the Slytherin table to join his new housemates. Two names were between Scorpius and Albus – "Murphy, Jessica!" (Hufflepuff!) and "Nolan, Chloe!" (Ravenclaw!). Finally "Potter, Albus!" was called. He walked as best as he could up to the stool and sat down, trying to calm him nerves – of course he would be in Gryffindor, his whole family was. But on second thought, did he want to be? Albus wanted to be different. Family was great, but Hogwarts was all one big family – did it really matter which house he belonged to?

"Family is important," whispered the hat in his ear.

"Well, I know that," Albus thought. "My father–"

"I knew your father," the hat said. Albus thought nothing.

"What do you think?" Albus finally asked the hat, after many moments had passed while the hat was silent.

"I was going to ask you the same thing," the hat answered.

"I…" Albus looked from Scorpius, looking on anxiously from the Slytherin table, to all of his cousins at the Gryffindor table. The hat read his mind, and if a hat could smile, this one was.

"Slytherin!" the hat shouted. McGonagall pulled the hat off Albus's head, quite astonished herself, and Albus trotted over to sit next to Scorpius, giving him a high five as he did so.

"Slytherin, really?" Scorpius said to Albus when the cheering had died down. Albus shrugged.

"It was the hat," Albus said. "Plus I couldn't leave you here all alone. And who wants to be in the same house as all the rest of my relatives? Honestly."

"Slytherins aren't so bad anymore," Scorpius said, as "Richards, Caroline!" was Sorted to Slytherin as well, and came and sat down with them. They introduced themselves as "Scamander, Lorcan!" and "Scamander, Lysander!" were Sorted into Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw, respectively. "Smith, Jaslyn!" followed them. The hat seemed at a loss.

"What's going on?" Liam asked Fred.

"It's a hatstall," Fred said. "It means the hat can't decide where to put her. The Smiths are a pureblood family, they go back as far as any pureblood family, and they've all been in Hufflepuff, the lot of them. I can't imagine what's taking the hat so long…"

"What's a pureblood?" Liam asked.

"Someone whose family has all been witches and wizards for ages and ages," Fred said, now staring intently at the hat.

"Hatstalls are very rare," Louis Weasley, third year, youngest child and only son of Bill and Fleur Weasley, said, also intent on the hat and the girl beneath it. "It must really be having a hard time." And then suddenly…

"Slytherin!" the hat announced. Poor Jaslyn looked like she was in tears as she walked over to the Slytherin table to join Scorpius, Albus, Caroline, and their other classmates.

"Poor girl," Molly Weasley II, year six, eldest daughter of Percy and Audrey Weasley said. "An entire bloodline, and it ends up in Slytherin."

"That is my brother over there," James Sirius grumbled.

"If you didn't want him in Slytherin, you shouldn't have given him such a hard time about it," Dominique Weasley, middle child of Bill and Fleur, year four, said, rolling her eyes. "Shush, I want to see this!"

"Weasley, Rose!"

"She must be a Gryffindor," James said. "We have to get at least one this year."

"Hermione is smart, she could be a Ravenclaw," Molly said. "Lucy's in Ravenclaw." Lucy was her younger sister, also a fourth year.

"Gryffindor!" Rose trotted over to sit next to James.

"Finally," James said. "Having an argument with the hat, were you? Debating whether to go to Slytherin too?"

"I don't know why Al's in Slytherin," Rose said, coolly. "I suggest you ask him." James grumbled to himself, as "Zabini, Nicole!" became a Hufflepuff.

Professor McGonagall, never as eloquent as Dumbledore had been, returned to her seat at the center of the head table, where the headmistress should sit. Before she sat, she said, "Let the feast begin!" Automatically, all the plates were filled with food, and the upbeat background music played, and everyone ate to their hearts content. When the feast was over, McGonagall gave the start of term announcements, including the usual ones about the Forest being Forbidden, and that Filch, the caretaker, had compiled a list of all the items now banned from Hogwarts, which were available for viewing, posted on the door to his office.

Every year since the end of the war, the Hogwarts School Song had been sung at the Welcome Feast, and this year was no exception. The entire hall broke out into chorus, each singing their own tunes…

Hogwarts, Hogwarts, Hoggy Warty Hogwarts,
Teach us something please,
Whether we be old and bald,
Or young with scabby knees
Our heads could do with filling,
With some interesting stuff,
For now they're bare and full of air,
Dead flies and bits of fluff,
So teach us things worth knowing,
Bring back what we've forgot,
Just do your best, we'll do the rest,
And learn until our brains all rot.

The last ones in the hall to stop singing were James, Fred, and Louis, resident pranksters, singing at a very slow march. McGonagall looked at them sternly, but they did not waver. 'Twas tradition. When at long last, they were finished, the students were dismissed to their dormitories. First years were led by their prefects, as usual. The Slytherin prefect – Leonard Nott – assembled his group of first years and led them across the Great Hall, into the passage that led to the dungeons.

A/N: All I have right now. :D

Love, Samantha/samlover14/LilyLuna