Bayonetta Black and Addison Lupin looked up at Hogwarts Castle in awe.
"It's even bigger than I thought it would be…" Addison whispered.
The huge man who had introduced himself to the first years as "Professor Hagrid" knocked on the massive wooden doors, and they opened almost instantly. A tall, thin, woman appeared and regarded the new students. Bayonetta couldn't help but feel that the woman's gaze lingered on her for slightly longer than any of the other first years.
"Welcome to Hogwarts," she greeted, gesturing for them to come inside. "I am Professor McGonagall. In just a moment, you will enter the Great Hall of Hogwarts, where you will be sorted in to your houses. The sorting procedure is very simple. I will call your name; you will come to the front and sit on the stool; I will put the Sorting Hat on your head, and it will determine your house. There are four houses here at Hogwarts. They are Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and Slytherin. Any questions?"
She glanced around and all of the first years shook their heads.
"Very well. Follow me," she gestured.
"I hope I'm in Slytherin with Harry…" Addison whispered to Bayonetta.
Bayonetta nodded her head intently.
"Yeah… Daddy said he would disown me if I was in Slytherin but I think he was kidding because he still loves Harry," she whispered back to her friend.
Being early in the alphabet, it was not long before Bayonetta was called up.
"Black, Bayonetta," McGonagall called.
She hurried up to the stool, and spotted Harry grinning at her from the Slytherin table before the hat was dropped on her head.
"Ah, Miss Black," a voice whispered in her ear, and Bayonetta jumped slightly. She hadn't been expected the hat to talk to her.
"Blacks used to be easy… I just put them all in Slytherin," the hat continued. "Of course, your dear old father put a stop to that. Yes, I remember Sirius well. Mischievous, that one. You're a lot like him."
Harry was about thirty feet away from her and could notice her worried face. 'It's okay Bay,' he was thinking to himself, 'just tell him what you want. He always listens.'
"You can put me in Slytherin if you want," Bayonetta thought out loud, thinking of Harry.
The hat chuckled in her ear.
"You need to learn to stand on your own two feet though, Miss Black. Your god-brother will only be at Hogwarts for another year, and then you would be stuck in a house that you don't belong in for another six. No, no… you're no Slytherin. It's going to have to be... GRYFFINDOR!"
The hat screamed out the last word, and the Great Hall erupted in applause. Bayonetta pulled the hat off her head and glanced over at the Slytherin table. Harry smiled at her and gave her the thumbs up, though she could see from his eyes, even at the distance, that he was a little disappointed she wasn't joining him in Slytherin. She hurried over to the scarlet and gold table, and was slightly disappointed to see that the head girl from the train was also at that table.
The rest of the sorting ceremony was fairly boring. It took a little while to get to Addison, but finally…
"Lupin, Addison," McGonagall called.
Addison half-jogged up to the hat, her blonde curls bouncing.
The hat took a long time to decide. Bayonetta could see Addison whispering to it furiously, looking like she was arguing with it.
Finally, after a good five minutes, the hat opened its mouth.
"GRYFFINDOR!" it called, and Bayonetta sighed with relief as her best friend joined her.
"It wanted to put me in Ravenclaw!" Addison whispered. "Said I was brave like my father, but my work-ethic was stronger than my courage like my mother! I convinced it though. I said I wanted to be in Gryffindor with you or Slytherin with Harry. Then it said that maybe standing up to it showed my Gryffindor courage after all."
Bayonetta nodded before saying, "It didn't listen to me. I asked it to put me in Slytherin with Harry too and it still put me in Gryffindor."
The ceremony ended, and the feast began.
A pretty red-head girl leaned over the table to talk to the new first years.
"Hello, I'm Ginny Weasley," she introduced herself, smiling.
Addison and Bayonetta introduced themselves as well with the rest of the new first years that were sorted into Gryffindor. "You'll love Gryffindor," Ginny told them. "We're the best house in the school."
"I'm really worried I will be behind everyone else," a first year named Katelynn admitted. "My parents are muggles and I didn't even know that magic existed until a month ago!"
"That doesn't matter at all," Bayonetta told her. "My Aunt Lily was exactly the same and she's one of the best witches I know!"
Ginny smiled at the little girl and nodded.
"Agreed, see the girl with bushy brown hair over there?" she said, pointing down the table to the mean head girl. "That's Hermione Granger, our head girl. She's muggle-born too."
"She's mean," Addison piped up.
Ginny looked at her in confusion.
"Who? Hermione?" she asked, surprised. "Why do you think that?"
"I saw her be mean to my friend," Addison informed her.
Bayonetta nodded emphatically. "Yeah, I did too! He's my god-brother and she told us that we should stay away from him!"
"That doesn't sound like Hermione at all," Ginny said. "Who is your god-brother?"
"Harry Potter," Bayonetta announced proudly.
Ginny's eyes darkened slightly.
"Oh. I see," she said.
Bayonetta frowned.
"You don't like him either," she realized.
Ginny winced.
"Sorry," she said. "It's just… they're Slytherins. They hate us and we hate them. It's a Gryffindor/Slytherin rivalry thing."
Bayonetta shook her head, confused.
"Harry doesn't hate Gryffindors. Aunt Lily and Uncle James were both Gryffindors and so were my Dad and Addison's Dad!"
"That's right, Weasley," a deeper voice said behind them. "Harry doesn't hate Gryffindors!"
Ginny swung around and glared at the boy in question, who was smirking at her, bright green eyes sparkling.
"Harry," Bayonetta said in relief, jumping to her feet and looking close to tears. "I'm sorry Harry! I told the hat to put me in Slytherin and it didn't!"
Harry grinned and hugged her.
"Hey," he said in his most comforting voice, "Sshhh. It's okay . It doesn't matter what house you're in, Bay. There is no sense in it putting you in the wrong house. Besides… I already knew that you and Addie wouldn't be Slytherins."
"You're not mad?" Addie asked.
"Course not! Why would I?" Harry laughed.
"Will you sit with us?" Bayonetta asked hopefully.
Harry glanced at Ginny and shook his head.
"I better get back to my table and let you keep talking to your new… friends. But before I go, just know that no one will be mad at you two. Tonight, Gryffindor house has just gained the most beautiful, intelligent, and most wonderful young witches that Hogwarts has ever seen."
The girls grinned, nodded, and waved as he headed back to the Slytherin table.
Bayonetta sent a smirk at Ginny.
"See?" she said. "Harry doesn't hate Gryffindors!"
Ginny shrugged, a little confused. Harry Potter had always appeared to be an arrogant trouble-maker. She had never imagined that he could be as affectionate as he was with his little god-sister and her friend.
"I guess he doesn't," she murmured.
Hermione slumped down on to a couch in the Gryffindor common room next to Ron and Ginny.
"What a day!" she said.
"You got the first years settled in to their dormitory okay?" Ginny asked.
Hermione nodded.
"Yeah, mostly. Two of the girls don't like me though."
"I know," Ginny admitted.
"Which ones?" Ron asked. "Why don't they like you?"
"Bayonetta Black and Addison Lupin," Hermione said. "I don't know why they don't like me. I was only trying to help them…"
"They think you're mean," Ginny informed her. "They seem to worship Harry Potter and I don't think they liked you telling them that they shouldn't go near him."
"Well they shouldn't! He's bad news!" Hermione insisted.
"Their parents are close friends I think… the girls grew up with him like an older brother. I'd be pretty upset if someone told me to stay away from my brothers," Ginny explained.
"Maybe you'd feel different if your brothers were bullies like Potter," Hermione argued.
"Potter's not so much a bully as he is a trouble-maker. Fred and George were too and I don't think they've been a particularly bad influence on me!"
"Why are you defending Potter so much?" Ron asked his sister, confused.
Ginny paused, unsure. She shrugged her shoulders.
"I don't know…" she muttered. "I'm going to go to bed. See you guys tomorrow."
As she lay in bed that night, she couldn't take her thoughts off Harry Potter. The sparkling green eyes danced across her mind every time she closed her own. Like Hermione, she'd always thought that he was a bit of a bully, but the way that he looked at Bayonetta and Addison, with so much caring and love, she couldn't help but wonder if she may have been wrong about the Slytherin quidditch captain.
"What's wrong with me?" she whispered to herself.
"Can't believe we're seventh years!" Blaise Zabini, Harry's other best friend, announced, flopping on to his four poster bed in the Slytherin seventh year boys' dormitory.
"I know! One more year and we will be out of this shit hole!" Draco smirked. "Did you guys see Astoria Greengrass today? Merlin, has she grown up over the holidays!"
"And by grown up, you mean?" Blaise asked.
"Massive boobs," Draco confirmed, smirking.
Blaise laughed heartily.
"You calling dibs on her then, mate?" he asked.
"Think so!" Draco said.
"Awesome, I'll take the big sis then. Daphne's no less grown up!"
"It's a deal," Draco agreed. "You got your eye on anyone, Harry?"
Harry shrugged.
"Don't know really…" he said non-committedly.
"You could give Pansy another whirl," Blaise suggested.
Harry laughed.
"Been there, done that. Not really good enough to go back. She's too easy."
"We've all been there and done that," Draco agreed.
"I kind of want a challenge, you know?" Harry admitted to his friends.
"Would you lot keep it down?" Theodore Nott, a stringy boy with a face slightly resembling that of a rabbit, asked. Nott was a bit of a loner and didn't hang out with Blaise, Draco and Harry very often.
The other two boys who shared their dormitory, Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle, were already asleep in their beds snoring.
Harry glanced at the watch that his parents had given him for his seventeenth birthday just a few weeks earlier.
"We should probably go to sleep," he told his friends. "Classes start tomorrow morning."
Draco nodded and climbed in to his bed.
"Night everyone."
"Night," the others replied.
Harry stared up at the roof, not really feeling tired enough to sleep just yet. He couldn't help but let his mind drift to the Weasley girl. He's never noticed her really before today, but he had to admit that there was a tinge of admiration when she had stormed in to the bathroom and gone off at him and Draco for the spider prank. She seemed fiery and she had definitely "grown up" over the summer, as Draco so eloquently put it.
Ginny Weasley would be a challenge, Harry realized. Quite an enjoyable challenge at that. He could definitely have a bit of fun with her… Of course, Draco and Blaise would probably be disgusted at the very suggestion if he told them he fancied a Weasley. Then again, a roll around in bed might be just what the red-head needed to get off her high-horse and realize that she was no better than anyone else in this school.
Harry smirked to himself, decided.
Ginny Weasley wouldn't know what hit her.