Disclaimer: Harry Potter belongs to J.K. Rowling. I make no claims to ownership.
James didn't bother looking for Teddy, who would be in a meeting with Victoire and the other Prefects. Instead he made his way down the corridor, peeking inside each compartment to see which contained his trunk. He really should have gone with his father when Harry loaded it onto the train. Now he was left looking like an idiot on the first day.
Finally he reached a compartment which held two students about his own age. Above them on the rack was his trunk, easily identifiable because Lily put Gryffindor stickers all over it. In the rush of everything earlier that morning, no one had taken them off.
James opened the door and the two occupants looked up with identical expressions of wariness. He somehow sensed that they were related, even though they looked nothing alike. The boy had midnight-black hair and strange dark blue eyes with a ring of gold. The brunette girl seemed familiar, and it took James a moment to recognize her from Diagon Alley. He felt his cheeks tinge pink when she quirked an eyebrow at him.
"Your trunk, I presume?" she said, pointing to it.
"Er, yeah," he mumbled, and then, trying to make the best of the situation, asked, "Mind if I join you?"
She exchanged a glance with the boy, who shrugged and gestured for James to sit down. As James did so, the boy stuck his hand out and said, with a trace of an accent James couldn't identify, "I'm Sirius Black, and that's my cousin, Ivy Nott."
"Second-cousin," Ivy corrected, but James wasn't paying attention to her. He was too busy gaping at the other boy.
"Is that a joke?" James demanded furiously. He was angered on behalf of his father, even if Harry cared more about remembering Dumbledore and Snape than people who truly loved him.
"No," the boy said, his brows furrowing. "It's a family name, and I'd thank you not to mock it."
"Mock it? I'm not the one –"
He cut off, regaining his composure as the compartment door slid open. It wouldn't do for anyone to see him lose his temper. The news would immediately grace the front cover of every paper, and unlike Al, James didn't enjoy calling attention to himself. He turned, a smile plastered upon his face.
The boy who stood in the doorway blinked at them. "Um, hello," he said. "I'll just…"
"Oh, you're welcome to join us," drawled the boy claiming to be Sirius. "Why not add a Weasley to the mix?"
James shot him an irritated glance. "He's not a Weasley," he snapped. "I think I'd recognize my own cousin."
"Um," the other boy said, and then shifted his gaze away as James looked at him. "I kind of am. A Weasley, I mean. We're second-cousins."
Narrowing his eyes, James studied the boy closer. Not every person with red hair was a Weasley, but he also had the same bright blue eyes as James. Mind racing at this unavoidable truth, James was startled when the boy spoke, a note of nervousness ringing in his voice.
"Our grandfathers are brothers, but they're kind of estranged. My grandad, he didn't like the way your grandfather's family was promoting prejudice."
Once again, James felt his annoyance flare.
"We're not prejudiced," he ground out.
The boy glanced at Ivy and her cousin, frowning, but they stayed silent behind James. He could feel them avidly watching him, though, and it made him stiffen his spine.
"What would happen if you were in Slytherin?" the boy asked quietly.
Before James could snap a response, the boy deliberately raised an eyebrow, and James stopped, an irrational worry bleeding into his mind. There was no way his family would disown him for being in Slytherin.
They wouldn't if it were Al, a traitorous voice whispered to him, but what if it were you?
He suppressed his sudden anxiety and forced a smile.
"It would be okay," he said with a small shrug. "But I'll be in Gryffindor, so it doesn't matter, does it?"
Behind him, he heard a soft scoff, but when he twisted around, Ivy only silently met his gaze, her face carefully blank.
"Well, what about you?" James asked, turning to face the boy again. "What House do you want to be in?"
The other boy had finally moved out of the doorway and sat across from James, on the same bench as Ivy. A thoughtful frown developed over his face.
"Probably Ravenclaw," he responded. "But my mum was in Hufflepuff and my dad was in Gryffindor, so either of those are a possibility."
"Don't discount Slytherin," Sirius threw in.
In the privacy of his mind, James had begun calling him by the name, but he still didn't believe it. His father had been adamant that there was no one left in the Black family, save for Andromeda and Narcissa.
"That, too," the boy said in an agreeable manner, though he clearly didn't think it was a real possibility for him. "I'm Chris, by the way. Chris Weasley."
"Are you part of the main branch?" asked Ivy.
He nodded his head. "My grandfather was older."
She exchanged an unreadable glance with Sirius, although neither of them said anything. James was baffled by the whole interaction, but he didn't want to seem like an idiot by asking about it. Besides, he doubted any of them would tell him.
Doubt it'll be Ravenclaw, then, he thought glumly. That left Gryffindor and Hufflepuff as his only options. Hufflepuff wouldn't be too bad; he'd be in the same House as Teddy and Dominique, at least.
For the rest of the time, they sat in silence, James in his own thoughts, Sirius and Ivy contemplated the passing landscape, and Chris read a book, Inside Hogwarts. Underneath the title were the words: A Personal Account. The author's name was listed as Susan Macmillan, and James wondered why he hadn't seen the book in the window at Flourish and Blotts. He concluded that she was too humble to display her own works.
When a plump, friendly witch came by the compartment with a food trolley, Ivy was the only one to stand up and buy some snacks.
"That entire scene in the play was rubbish, you know," she said as she sat down again.
Chris didn't even look up from his book, so James was left alone to look at her in bafflement.
"My mum said the trolley lady didn't do anything when the Death Eaters boarded the train," she continued, knocking Sirius' hand away when he tried to snatch a Chocolate Frog. She did give him the card, though, and he tucked it into his pocket with a sigh. "If she really is some kind of guardian, she didn't do her job."
"Well, it was a bad situation and maybe she couldn't do anything," James said, trying to be fair even though he had stopped reading at that scene. Al had forced himself to read the entire script, hoping for a redemption of his character, and then cried at the end when it didn't happen.
"Is that your dad's excuse, too?" asked Chris.
The question was so out of the blue that James wasn't the only one to look at him in confusion.
He lifted the book he was reading.
"It goes in depth about Snape in here," he explained, "and holy fucking shit, was he a bad person. He let first-years get tortured. And that's not even going into what happened to the older girls."
"What do you mean?" asked Ivy, frowning.
Chris' face clouded. "Trust me, you don't want to know," he said darkly.
A shiver ran like a ghostly touch over James' skin. He recalled a conversation he'd overheard between his mother and Aunt Hermione. Snape thought of women like possessions, Ginny had said, her tone laden with disgust.
Bile rose in James' throat. His mother had taught him women were their own person and didn't belong to anyone else. It sounded like Snape didn't receive the same lesson if he let the older girls be used like objects. In Snape's mind, rape was probably better than death.
I'm never letting Lily near him, James decided in a surge of protectiveness. Or Al, he'd be devastated.
There was a knock at the door just before it opened to let an older student inside. James watched as Chris' eyes glossed over, his skin flushing a pink hue. Curiously, though, Sirius was not similarly affected by Victoire. Instead, both he and Ivy were looking at her with a reserved wariness. Despite Victoire's pale blonde hair, her freckled complexion clearly marked her as a Weasley.
"Your portion," she said primly, handing James a small box which he knew contained fudge.
Their grandmother made a few squares for each of them to eat on the ride to Hogwarts. According to the adults in the family, it was much better than the sandwiches they had received.
"Thanks, Vic," said James. "Anything else?"
"No, just the chocolate." She paused and studied the other occupants of the compartment. "Are these your friends?"
He felt his face grow warm. "Er –"
"Ivy Nott," a smooth voice cut him off, "and this is my cousin Sirius, Heir of House Black."
Sirius inclined his head. "A pleasure to meet you, Ms. Weasley."
In a strangled voice, Chris said, "Chris Weasley. Not the heir."
Victoire's brows rose. "No, though by right, it should be you, I suspect."
Chris twitched his shoulders in a semblance of a shrug.
For the second time, James seemed to be the only one left confused by the exchange. He looked around at them all, frowning. "What's going on?"
"Great-Uncle Alexius was forced to give up his seat among the Sacred Twenty-Eight. I'm entirely sure of the specifics…" Victoire shot a glance toward Chris, who looked away, "but it was a messy process and my dad took the seat after the war. Louis is in training as the heir."
"Heir?" James repeated in a rather weary tone of voice. "Sacred Twenty-Eight?"
"An Order formed in the Middle Ages," said Ivy, "although the term 'Sacred Twenty-Eight' came into use during the last century."
Sirius rolled his eyes. "Yeah, because of your ancestor."
She grimaced in response, as if it was a sore point of which she wasn't particularly fond.
To James, he added, "There's nothing really special about us. We're just an elitist group that's been around for a while."
The words were right, delivered in a careless tone even, but instinctively, James knew there was more to it than that. He weighed pressing for more information, but ultimately decided against it. From their expressions, he doubted any of them, even Victoire, would give him a real answer.
"Well, I'll leave you to it," his cousin brusquely, and then departed as abruptly as she entered.
Silence descended over the compartment again. With nothing else to do, James opened the box of fudge and began eating it. He offered some to the others, but only Chris took a piece, his face settling into one of sweet adulation as he chewed. One way to get over the allure, James noted with amusement.
He hadn't expected Victoire's Veela characteristics to have such a big effect on Chris. Since they shared blood, Chris should be more immune to it. Maybe he's naturally attracted to blondes? James wondered. Victoire was certainly beautiful even without the allure.
As the train pulled into Hogsmeade Station, James stumbled into the press of people in the corridor. He expected Sirius and Ivy to leave him, but then she said, very irritably, "Come on, James," latched her fingers on his arm, and dragged him forward with them.
Twisting his head, James saw Chris getting left behind in the throng of people, and flung his arm out, desperately reaching for him. Chris lunged forward, their fingers slipping for a moment before he got a more firm hold. They made for an awkward line as Sirius, at the lead of the group, forced his way through the other students.
Finally they emerged from the crowd, and James gulped in the fresher air.
"We did it!" Sirius cheered.
Ivy rolled her eyes, but her lips tugged upward.
"I think we're supposed to go over there," said Chris, pointing to carriages waiting off to the side. James felt a bizarre desire to pet one of the skeletal horses, which went ignored by the other students.
Just as the small group began heading toward the carriages, a man yelled over the voices of the students, calling for the first years to join him.
"Or not," said Chris, grimacing and giving them a rueful smile.
In the dim light, James made out the features of Seamus Finnegan waiting for them. He only vaguely knew the man as another member of Dumbledore's Army. Seamus had taken over Hagrid's position as the professor for Care of Magical Creatures, and Hagrid was edging toward retirement, working only as the groundskeeper again.
"Bloody hell, there's a lot of you," Seamus remarked. "Alright, four to a boat, five if you can fit."
James climbed into a boat together with Ivy, Chris, and Sirius. Then, after a command from Seamus, the group of boats began to glide forward. Despite his upbringing, James couldn't help being awed by the piece of magic.
He turned to his companions. "I'm sorry if I came off as rude," he said, guilt blooming in his stomach. "My only friends growing up were my own cousins. I'm not used to being around people my own age."
There was a long pause as his words dropped into what had been a beautiful, serene silence.
"It's alright," Sirius said at last. "Ivy and I are the same way."
Ivy's mouth opened as if she was going to protest this assessment, but then she sighed and nodded.
"I've never had friends," said Chris, and then looked away, bashful, when they gaped at him.
"Well, that has to change," James declared after a moment.
"Right," Sirius said, nodding. "Even if we're in different Houses –"
"We'll still be friends," Ivy finished.
A smile built up on Chris' office, and then he let out a genuine chuckle.
"You're all so weird," he said, shaking his head, and then protested loudly, "Oi, what're you doing?"
"Ruffling your hair," James said primly, retracting his hand. "My older brother does it all the time to me. It's a sign of companionship. It means, 'I like you, kid.'"
"Thanks… I think?"
Sirius laughed and even Ivy's lips rose into a smile. For the rest of the boat ride, they all chatted amicably and James was almost disappointed when the boat reached the harbor. His nerves had also returned, something of which he hadn't even been aware until now.
The large group of first-years followed Seamus up the passageway and to the castle. When he knocked on the massive oak door, it swung open to reveal a man with a round, kind face.
"Thank you, Seamus," said Neville. "Please, all of you come inside."
He stepped aside and the first-years filed past him into the Entrance Hall. They quietly followed him into a room beside the Great Hall, from which they could hear muffled voices. James' stomach began to knot at the idea of food. He just wanted everything to be done at this point.
Once the customary speech was delivered and Professor Longbottom left the anteroom, whispers broke out. James purposefully ignored them as he heard his own name floating around the room.
"Which one is he? I don't even know what he looks like!"
"Doesn't he have green eyes?"
"No, no, that's his little brother. You know, Albus Severus."
At those words, there were a few snickers and some dark mutterings. James felt a tightening of his skin. He knew that outside his own family, Snape was despised by nearly everyone, but it was still odd for him to hear such disparagement. Al was going to have a hard time when he left the sheltered bubble of their family.
Finally Professor Longbottom returned and called them into order. Then they trekked into the Great Hall and filed down the aisle in between two tables, which James identified as Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff from his cousins' seating. He watched as Professor Longbottom set up a stool and raggedy old hat. From his father's stories, James had been expecting the Hat to burst into song about the four Houses, but instead Professor Longbottom opened a scroll.
"Adams, Evelyn!"
With bated breath, James watched as the first person sat under the Hat. It seemed to take forever before the slit on the brim opened to shout a single word.
"GRYFFINDOR!"
Brimming with happiness, the girl hurried toward her new housemates, who had erupted in applause.
"Astell, Heather!"
"HUFFLEPUFF!"
Sean Atkinson was also sorted into Gryffindor, and after him came Felicity Avery, who was the first Slytherin. At the latter sorting, Ivy and Sirius leaned together and whispered. James caught the words 'bastard child' and figured they knew Felicity. He wished he knew more about the wizarding families, too, but so far he didn't recognize any of the names. All of his parents' friends had children at a later age.
"Black, Sirius!"
At once, the Hall exploded with whispers, and not even Hermione's stern eye from the staff table could calm them. People leaned forward to get a view of Sirius as he walked to the stool, his chin held high and his back straight. James' stomach twisted nervously as the Hat was settled on Sirius' dark hair. Even Professor Longbottom was eyeing Sirius, a marked wariness upon his face.
"SLYTHERIN!"
James let out a quiet, shuddering breath. Sirius strode to the Slythern table, seeming unaware of the lack of applause, and by the time James realized he should have clapped for his friend, Sirius had already sat down.
The rest of the Sorting passed by in a blur. He recognized a few names from Dumbledore's Army, but since he didn't know their children, he didn't really care about them. He did note, however, that Amelia Macmillan was sorted into Hufflepuff, shortly before Ivy was made a Slytherin.
Then, finally, James' own name was called. As he walked forward, he heard whispers rise around him again.
"Look, it's a Potter!"
The hat was lowered onto his head, and James' view of the hall was obscured.
"Oh, the idea's already there," a voice murmured into his ear.
James clutched at the edge of the stool as he thought of the possible collateral damage. He was meant to be in Gryffindor. It was expected of him. He was a Potter.
"It doesn't matter if you're a Potter," the Hat continued relentlessly. "Yes, it is your destiny to undermine the order… James Sirius, the Supplanter, the Scorcher, you will set a new precedent in… SLYTHERIN!"
