1

Sorted Out

In the main hall of an ancient castle, an eleven-year-old boy named Sirius Black sat on a three-legged stool and stewed in his own self-consciousness. He was young, conflicted, and, for the moment, uncorrupted by the beliefs of his ancient pureblood family. He was about to have the course of his life decided by a ceremony involving a hat.

There was a good deal riding on what the hat said and where it sorted him. He had known this since a very young age. He was a Black—a proper, pureblood, Black, and the only place for a Black was Slytherin. He knew this, on a superficial level, but he did not understand. This was perfectly understandable. He was an eleven year old. There was a lot he did not understand. What he did not understand, at that particular moment and about that particular ceremony, was whether or not he wanted to be a Black after all. He had met a lot of his relatives, and he had met a lot of nasty people, and the correlation was not exactly coincidental.

He took a deep breath. That was the answer. He did not want to be a nasty person. He did not want to be a Slytherin. He did not want to be a Black. Just then, as he sat there waiting for the rest of his life to come down around his ears and decided just how it was going to fall, something happened, and something changed. Just before the deputy headmistress placed the hat on his head, his eyes slid over a familiar face in the mass of hall tables, and his attention snagged. He looked into the dark, expectant eyes of his cousin Bellatrix, and he realized just what his family would do to him if he decided that he didn't want to be one of them. He barely had time to register that he was wearing a hat at all before he felt it being lifted off again, and just above the roar from the students, he could hear the echo of what the hat had said.

Slytherin. Hanging there. Lingering on the air like a bad joke. This wasn't what he had wanted. Not really. But what did it matter? He looked at his classmates, and James Potter did not look back. That's what it mattered. They had been friends. For half a second, Sirius wanted to scream. To shout at James that it wasn't his fault, and that Salazar Slytherin himself could eat the sorting hat for all he cared. Then he looked back at his cousins. Bellatrix gave him an approving nod, Andromeda a friendly shrug. He was already walking towards them.

Bellatrix and Andromeda scooted aside for him to sit between them as Narcissa smiled sweetly from across the table. He sat down and let their praise and reassurance assuage him. He could not be different. Not even if he wanted to. Not even if he tried. As he realized this, he realized that he didn't have to be. He sighed as something very heavy began to lift from his eleven-year-old soul. It was the weight of independence. The weight of righteousness. The weight of morality.

Who was James Potter anyway? Just some blood-traitor Gryffindor. They never would have gotten on very well anyway. Sirius Black sank quietly and without fuss into his proper place in wizarding society, and he knew that it was probably for the best.

AN: This is going to sound weird, but this kind of hurt to write. Oh well. This story isn't going to follow chronological order, mind. There's a twenty-something year time skip and a hop across realities in the next chapter, so just try and go along with it. Basically, it's a character examination of Sirius, Snape, and Lupin, and what sort of people they would have been with and without each other.