During breakfast, it was not Cressida who brought the Howlers, but Juno, Orion Black's personal owl. Sirius stared dumbly at the two red envelopes that fell onto his plate of eggs and sausage, dreading his inevitable embarrassment. James whispered to a nearby Jack and Topher about the significance of Howlers, while Frank gently urged him to get it over with. Hands shaking, he tore open the envelope addressed in his mother's script.

The envelope burst into life, and Walburga Black's voice echoed through the Great Hall. "SIRIUS ORION BLACK, THIS HAD BETTER NOT BE ONE OF YOUR JOKES! I SWEAR TO MERLIN IF YOU THINK LIVING WITH HALF-BREEDS AND BLOOD TRAITORS IS A PRANK, I WILL HEX YOU INTO YOUR SIXTH YEAR!" Fortunately, the Howler did not last long, and the envelope soon burst. All eyes locked on Sirius, some with embarrassment and pity, some with fear of his mother's bigotry, and some with contempt. He wanted to make some smart remark with all of the attention, but he could do little besides breathe with his heart pounding in his ears, his body bracing itself for his father's abuse. He didn't know how to tell his fight-or-flight response that his father's current weapons were only words, and thus he felt as though on the verge of receiving wand burns or disciplinary shocks.

"Just open it," James said, looking at the second Howler. "We won't judge you for what your parents think." Sirius could only hope that would hold true a second time.

Orion's Howler was not like his wife's. Where she had screeched at her rebellious son, he did not yell. Instead, he spoke with his heavy voice laced with judgment, projected to the same volume as the previous Howler. "I DON'T CARE WHAT YOUR MOTHER SAYS, BUT THIS HAD BETTER JUST BE ONE OF YOUR STUPID JOKES, BOY. I WILL NOT BE HAVING THE BLACK HEIR SULLY THE FAMILY NAME WITH FOOLISHNESS AND MUDBLOODS. NOT ONLY HAVE YOU PUT YOUR MOTHER IN DISTRESS, BUT YOU HAVE DISAPPOINTED ME. WE WILL ARRANGE A CONFERENCE WITH THE HEADMASTER SHORTLY."

Sirius was in shock. This event was by no means unexpected, but he did not anticipate caring so deeply what all of Hogwarts thought of him. He did not expect his parents to send two Howlers, and he did not expect his father to say "mudblood" for all the school to hear. The Gryffindor table turned away from where he sat, as if to give him up for the Slytherins to take. The Slytherins, however, seemed torn between amusement at his plight and embarrassment at having such outdated prejudices associated with their House. The Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws simply stared.

It was Remus who put a comforting hand on his shoulder, and James who finally broke the silence. "Well, he's obviously not like his parents, or he wouldn't have been put in Gryffindor, would he?" he said loudly. And, like children caught sneaking out of bed, the students returned to breakfast with heads bowed in embarrassment. Conversation slowly returned to its normal pitch. Peter and Frank gave him uneasy, but not betrayed, glances.

"Thanks," Sirius mumbled. His voice was still quivering. He looked at his eggs, now littered with pieces of red envelope, and realized he had lost all his appetite.

James shrugged. "I meant it. We can't blame you for what your parents think, especially when you're obviously not a bigoted, purist Slytherin. That just wouldn't be fair."

Remus leaned in closely to ask a question under his breath. "When she—your mum—said 'half-breeds,' what exactly did she mean?"

Sirius studied his friend's expression. Remus was obviously thinking of his furry little problem, but he might also have considered his blood status a hindrance to their friendship. "She doesn't think that wizards should, er, 'mate' with Muggles. But I promise you I don't care if you're half-blood or pureblood or Muggleborn or whatever. I'm not…"

"Not like them," James finished for him.

Jennifer Jones approached the first-years, schedules in hand, in lieu of Professor McGonagall, who had yet to be seen all morning. Sirius wondered with dread if she, too, had been on the receiving end of his parents' Howlers. His ill feelings were short lived, as he looked at his schedule to find Charms his first class. Finally, he could do magic again. He had not wanted to rouse suspicions or cause trouble on the train or in his room, not when he had more pressing matters to attend to like having a laugh with James and figuring out what the hell to do with Peter. He became more aware of his wand stuck in his back pocket and used the thought of doing magic to get him through the rest of his mortifying breakfast.

Professor Flitwick welcomed the students heartily, bade them sit, and began a well-practiced monologue in his high-pitched voice. "Magic is, at its heart, bringing an idea into reality. This means that magic goes beyond mere wand waving and incantations; those are simply the vessel through which your magic moves. However, as the vessels for your magic, it is crucial that you master these skills in order to produce the best outcome for each spell. Beyond wands and words, magic depends upon will, intent, concentration, understanding, and experience. These aspects are best honed through practice." Sirius considered for a moment that his mind had significantly more understanding and concentration than any of his classmates', but this physical body had little magical experience. Was the Sorting Hat correct when it said he would be the top of his class? "We will spend the first half of each class covering wand movements, incantations, and spell theory. The second half will be dedicated to practice."

Their first class was dedicated to the Levitating Charm. The whole class chanted together "wingardium leviosa" and drilled the swish-and-flick motion. When Professor Flitwick was satisfied, he passed out a feather to each student and directed them to attempt levitation. Sirius watched his other classmates before practicing on his own, as he didn't want to draw more attention to himself after his parents' Howlers. However, as only a few students got so much as a wiggle out of their feathers on this first few tries, he decided that the thrill of performing magic outweighed the risk of unwanted attention. He felt the magic practically pulsing through his arm when he held his wand, and the incantation slipped from his mouth as easily as calling Snape "Snivellus."

Sirius's feather leapt from the table and hovered four feet in the air. He grinned, completely forgetting his parents for the time being, and admired his own handiwork. This surge of happiness had an unforeseen side effect, because soon his parchment followed the feather, along with his inkwell and quill. Sirius was caught completely off-guard, and when James looked up from his own feather—then a respectable foot off the table—and cried out "wicked!" he lost his concentration altogether. His inkwell faltered, wobbled, and finally tipped over onto the head of one Lily Evans, whose feather fell back to the table as quickly as it had flown upwards.

The whole classroom stayed silent for a full three seconds, enough time for Sirius's quill to hit the stone floor with a muted click.

James burst out laughing first. "Evans, now your hair matches your boyfriend's!"

"Potter!" she shrieked, turning around with a mixture of ink and tears streaming down her face, which had turned almost as red as her hair. Sirius wanted to feel sorry for his future friend, but he was soon swept up in the amusement of the situation.

"I dunno, James," Sirius said while he still had the chance to be heard, "I think Snivellus's is slimier."

This sparked a shouting match between James and Lily with Marlene McKinnon and Dorcas Meadowes taking her side, Sirius and Peter taking his. Flitwick attempted to call for silence, but his voice was lost in the ensuing chaos. He instead cast a quick Scouring Spell to clean up the mess, but it seemed Ms. Evans was too busy being angry at Mr. Potter to notice or care.

"Nitwit!"

"Cry baby!"

"Jerk!"

"Witch!"

"Now that's just uncreative," Marlene scolded James.

"You—you—" Lily stammered before settling on the worst comparison she could make. "You are an insufferable Gilbert Blythe!"

"Who?" asked nearly all of the students, James and Sirius included. Lily frowned when her insult was lost on its target.

"You know he only ever did those things because he liked her," said Remus, who apparently understood her reference, pointed out.

"It wasn't even James's fault!" cried Peter in defense of his newfound defender.

At this point, Flitwick cast a Silencing Charm on the whole class. Lily and James continued mouthing insults at each other despite no words coming from their lips and began making faces. The Professor ignored this.

"Ms. Evans, your hair is clean, and the damage is undone. You had quite the Levitation Charm going on before your concentration was interrupted. You, too, Mr. Potter." He turned to Sirius. "Mr. Black, it is quite unusual for a beginner wizard to cast such a strong charm. I suppose your parents tutored you some at home before the term."

"Er, a bit."

"Well, your family is not known for mediocrity. You show wonderful promise. Did you mean to levitate all the contents of your desk?"

"No, sir."

"I won't punish you for an accident, so 10 points to Gryffindor for sheer potential!" Lily gaped. "Mr. Potter, you caused quite the disruption for magic that was not even yours, so 5 points from Gryffindor. Back to practice, everyone."

Flitwick lifted the Silencing Charm, and class resumed. Sirius did apologize to Lily for his blunder, and she accepted it with a curt nod. He found that his suspicions about his magical prowess were correct, as the imbalance between his mind's experience and his body's inexperience caused him to be ahead of his classmates, but not unreasonably so. By the end of the period, Remus, Rose, Aloysius, and Frank had all caught up to Sirius, James, and Lily's success. It came as a bit of a relief to know that he still had to exert effort in his classes and would not spend the next seven years even more bored than normal. Besides, this time he knew he had a war to train for. Unfortunately, History of Magic proved to be ever duller the second time around, so Sirius spent this period passing notes to James speculating about Gilbert Blythe in between his sparse notes about Ancient Greek wizards.

During lunch, a black owl flew into the Great Hall, apparently missing the memo that mail was meant for breakfast. Cressida dropped a letter in Sirius's lap and flew back to the owlery, not bothering to stay for a treat or petting. Sirius looked at the envelope, recognized the messy scrawl, and found himself feeling something akin to joy when he tore into the letter from Reg.

Sirius,

Mother and Father have been fussing about your Sorting nonstop since your owl. So far, they've been too busy trying not to disgrace the Ancient and Most Noble House of Black too badly to pay attention to me. Even when you're not here, you do a good job of distracting them, which made it all the easier to sneak into your room and filch your Harpies mag. (I knew where you keep it, by the way. You're not a very good hider.) Not sure why Father got so flustered over it; it's just Seeker Weekly. There are plenty worse things out there.

I do have a reputation to uphold, so I obviously can't be seen owling you the entire thing. I've torn out a shot of Guinevere Golightly to go with this letter. Maybe we can work out a trade—you keep distracting our parents by disappointing them and I reward you with pictures of pretty girls. Besides, this way, I get to keep the magazine.

How did you manage to get into Gryffindor? I'd even call it remarkable if it wasn't so damn hilarious. Anyway, keep the Hogwarts stuff coming. – Regulus

PS: Guinevere isn't too happy that I tore her page out. Good luck getting her to fly back.

Sure enough, Regulus had included a page from the magazine, though Guinevere Golightly was barely more than a speck on her broomstick in the distance. Sirius sighed with disappointment that he was not going to have an easy time of papering his walls with hot girls. Still, he supposed he could coax Guinevere out eventually.

When Sirius felt a stern hand on his shoulder, he shoved the magazine page and letter into his pocket, flinching at who he thought was his mother. Instead, he realized it was his Head of House.

"Mr. Black," Professor McGonagall began, "I understand your parents are not pleased with your Sorting."

"No, ma'am."

"That's an understatement," James said.

"Mr. Potter, this is not your conversation. Mr. Black, I am here to assure you that, no matter how many Howlers your parents send you or me, you are welcome in Gryffindor. Congratulations on already earning your House points." Though her tone was as stern as ever, her words were refreshingly kind. She looked across the table at James. "You, on the other hand, have already managed to lose points. Do not make a habit of it."

"Yes ma'am," James mumbled. He turned to his friend. "Didn't you tell Evans you wouldn't even be using your owl this year? You've already sent two letters and got one back." Thankfully, he did not mention the Howlers.

Sirius shrugged sheepishly. "Well, I still hold by what I said. They don't want to hear from me. But I couldn't not tell them that I have forever besmirched the name of Black. And my little brother wants to know about Hogwarts. Once the shock of me not being in Slytherin wears off, I expect they'll just try ignoring me."

Fortunately, Sirius attracted little attention the rest of the day. He spent his study period talking to Frank, swapping pureblood family stories about cotillion balls and governesses. It took a bit of effort to recall his life before Hogwarts, but the talk of debutantes triggered memories of his cousins' entrances into wizarding society, which in turn unearthed entire chunks of his childhood he thought he had forgotten.

"There was actually a time when my parents wanted to arrange a marriage for me," Sirius said.

"That's not too weird for purebloods," Frank pointed out. "I think my mum and dad were arranged."

"Yeah, well, are your parents cousins?" he asked. Frank blanched. "Yeah, I didn't think so. Pretty sure Mother wanted me to pair off with my cousin Narcissa. They stopped talking about it when I was nine, since that was the year of her debut. She's seeing that Malfoy fellow now."

"Do you ever envy the others, the ones who didn't grow up with all that stuff?" Frank asked thoughtfully. "They know all of this Muggle stuff that we'll never get to know."

"I dunno. I think I envy anyone whose parents don't try and set them up with their cousins, magic or Muggle."

Study period was followed by an uneventful class of Herbology with the Hufflepuffs, which was never one of Sirius's favorite subjects. Professor Podmore showed them around Greenhouse One and how to properly gear up for different plants, and a demonstration on improper spade usage took up the rest of class. Meanwhile, Sirius took occasional peeks into his rucksack at the picture of Guinevere Golightly, who had flown close enough to the foreground that it was at least apparent she was female. The only other good thing to come out of the class was the phrase "improper spade usage." The single disruption to an otherwise peaceful afternoon came in the form of one Snivellus Snape, who cornered him in the hall before dinner.

"How can you make fun of my name when yours is so much worse?" Snape asked. "Sirius Orion Black—what wonderful initials. S.O.B."

Sirius rolled his eyes, having already heard one lifetime's worth of teasing about his name. "Call me a son of a bitch all you want, Sniv. I'm not going to deny it. What are your initials, anyway, Snivvy? SOS, a little cry for help?"

Snape's eyes narrowed, and Sirius wondered for a moment if he had actually guessed the boy's initials right. "I'm grateful the sorting hat had enough sense to keep you out of my House. You may be good at being a Gryffindor, but you suck at being a Black." Snivellus pivoted and walked away while he still felt he had the upper hand. He had only been in this new timeline for two days, and it seemed that Sirius had already cemented his rivalry with Snape. Some things, perhaps, were simply meant to be.

Dinner brought with it the inevitable topic of Quidditch teams. James and Frank pestered Peter about his unfortunate loyalties.

"Peter," James said, "you've got to pick a new team if you're going to live with us. You can't be a Cannons fan forever."

"Why not?" Peter asked through a mouthful of potatoes.

"Because they're never going to win! Pick a team that's actually worth it."

"Easy for you to say, seeing as you've been supporting Puddlemere your whole life." Sirius thought he heard a hint of vindictiveness, or at the very least, resentment. Considering James's pampered upbringing, it would be no surprise to find that Peter envied him. Sirius wished he could believe that Peter had always harbored some grudge against James that would make sense of his betrayal, because the alternative—that he was a good friend until the day he wasn't—hurt too much to bear.

James (very much alive and unbetrayed, Sirius reminded himself) scoffed. "There's no law that says you can't change Quidditch teams. I doubt the Cannons will notice."

"They'll notice," said Frank, "because they'll be losing 10% of their fan base in one go."

"Never mind him," James said, turning back to Peter. "There's no shame in changing sides if you're picking the winning side. Look at Sirius—he probably grew up thinking he was going to be Slytherin, but nobody can blame him for jumping ship since he's a Gryffindor now."

Remus shot him a dirty look. "It's a bit soon to be joking about that, isn't it?"

"I don't mind," Sirius said. "I'd rather joke than have everyone think of me as the inbred pureblood kid who can't even put on a talking hat right." All five of them laughed heartily at that. James relented from his anti-Cannons tirade for the rest of the evening, but he made it clear that the conversation was far from over.

The night of September 2, 1971 was the first of many, many Evans-Potter showdowns in the Gryffindor common room. Sirius wondered if there was anything he could do in this timeline to ensure his friends would get together sooner and spare them six years of teenage angst, but their fights were too amusing to miss out on.

"Come on, Evans, you aren't still mad!"

"You know, Potter, I can't imagine why I'd be mad."

"Me either. You like Snape so much, I thought you'd love having his hair."

"You couldn't even get your inkwell off the desk if you tried!"

"And you could?"

Lily harrumphed and pointed her wand at James's face. Sirius smiled, knowing that it would be the first of many times his friend would stare down Lily's wand. "Wingardium leviosa!" she cried, and James's glasses wiggled off of his face, hovering in the air just out of his reach. He jumped and flailed to catch them, but to no avail. Marlene and Dorcas giggled from the armchairs by the fireplace.

"Evans, come on! I need those if I'm going to write my paragraph on how to properly use my spade."

"I'll tell you where you can put your spade."

Unfortunately, Lily's magical abilities were still band-new, and her concentration on James's glasses wavered, sending his spectacles falling to the ground. She glared and stomped away to her friends, who were attempting to complete the aforementioned paragraph assigned for Herbology. James put on his glasses and took a seat by the other first-year boys, but he did not pull out his textbook. Instead, he pouted for much of the night and started writing his first letter home. Sirius reluctantly decided to do his homework the night it was assigned rather than waiting until just before it was due, if only because it distracted him from the Peter Problem. He was already forgetting what had happened during his first first day of Hogwarts as he got more caught up his new life, and he wondered as rolled up his completed homework if he should invest in a journal to keep track of his old life.

Jennifer Jones stopped Sirius on his way to his dormitory with a piece of parchment. It was in McGonagall's tight script and read: Meeting tomorrow morning at 8 in Headmaster's Office. Sirius groaned, knowing that sleep would not come easily with the prospect of seeing Orion and Walburga the next day.