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Dividing


James stayed snogging Maryrose in the compartment they’d found for most of the trip until a Ravenclaw prefect had alohamoraed the compartment door opened and declared it was time for them to go and put on their robes for Hogwarts, “Although you might wanna start with a shirt, Potter,” she added, turning to go, leaving the compartment door opened. Maryrose had pushed James’s sweater vest off and unbuttoned his white oxford, even though he hadn’t even dared to move his own hands from her hips.

Maryrose helped him redo his Gryffindor tie once he’d rebuttoned the oxford and he tugged the vest on over his head, getting it stuck on his glasses frames. That was when Lily Evans paused in the door, as James was struggling with the vest, the oxford climbing up over his belly button as he fought with the vest, arms in the air, looking a bit like the giant squid, “It’s the ruddy glasses,” he was saying from inside the vest, “Bloody wire frames. They’re awful, hate them really, get stuck on everything… I can’t see a thing… I can’t get out… Maryrose… help me.”

Lily raised an eyebrow as Maryrose leaned closer and tried to untangle James from inside the vest. When she’d finally done it, James got his glasses back on his face, “Thanks,” he said, and then he looked over Maryrose’s shoulder at Lily. “Evans, what do you want?”

Lily could tell by their faces, the way their lips were puffy and the way that even Maryrose’s hair was messed up that they’d been snogging in there and she shook her head and said, “Just letting you know it’s time to get your robes on,” and she turned away quickly and disappeared from the doorframe.

James walked Maryrose back to the compartment where some of the other girls were, where Maryrose had been sitting before she’d gone looking for James. “See you,” Maryrose said, and she kissed James’s cheek and he nodded and went back to the Marauders’ compartment.

Sirius was standing on his bench, yanking their robes out of the luggage compartment, getting James’s owl-feather-covered one from Bubo’s cage. Sirius had his Gryffindor tie wrapped around his head as he usually did with it (James wasn’t sure if this was a rebellious thing or if Sirius just didn’t know how to tie it properly and therefore did stupid things with it instead), and Peter was struggling with his own. “Well what do you know?” Sirius said, throwing James’s robes at him, the owl feathers flying about the compartment as Bubo shrieked at the rapidity with which Sirius had uncovered her, “The second sea monkey’s back.” He jumped down and shoved Peter’s robes into his arms, leaning closer to James’s face, inspecting him. “You’ve been snogging, Potter.”

“Yeah? So what? I have a girlfriend.” James shook the remaining feathers out of his robes and shrugged them on.

Sirius grinned, “No wonder you didn’t come back to the compartment. Good thing your girlfriend isn’t a prefect, like my boyfriend is, or else the most you would’ve seen of her was to be reprimanded for having a spot of fun on an otherwise wholly boring trip. Seriously, worst trip on the Express yet.”

James was doing the clasp on his robes and smoothing the fabric out carefully, “Well, my girlfriend may be dating the Gryffindor Quidditch Captain,” he said.

Peter looked up, “Maryrose is cheating on you?” he asked, pity in his eyes.

“No, blimey, she’d have to be mental to cheat on him,” Sirius said, “You git, he’s one of the most wanted boys in the whole of Hogwarts!”

Peter turned red, but James grinned at this, “Boy most wanted,” he said, thumbing at himself.

Sirius turned to James, “But wait… Are you saying that you got named captain, then?”

“I’m on the shortlist,” James said, “Me and Frank. Andy’s going to decide this month. We have to train first years on flying and he’ll choose from that.”

Sirius grinned, “Hey!! Marauders are moving up in the world! First a prefect, then Quidditch Captain! And they thought we wouldn’t amount to much of anything if we kept up the mischief.” His eyes glistened, “I’m so proud of us all.”

Peter said, “That’s brilliant, mate,” to James, smiling up at him with admiration.

James waved it off, “It’s not official -- yet -- but I’m going to bloody do my best. And if I don’t win, hey, then Frank will be Captain and that’s pretty grand, too. I bloody love Frank Longbottom.”

“Maybe you should be snogging him instead,” Sirius said, “I highly recommend snogging other boys, it’s grand. Just don’t snog Moony.”

“I’ll leave the snogging of Moony to you and the snogging of Longbottom to Ali Prewitt, thank you,” James said. “I’ll just stick to snogging Ev--Maryrose.” His face flushed.

Sirius smirked. “Cat got your tongue, Potter?”

“Shut it.” James shoved Sirius and grabbed Bubo down from the overhead, then hurried out of the room as the train had come to a stop at Hogsmeade station and there was a stream of students already filing out, filling up the corridor.

Peter looking up at Sirius and asked, “Was he about to say Evans?”

“He sure was. Old habits die hard, I reckon.” Sirius shrugged his robes on - though he refused to hook the clasp, and he grabbed his bookbag, slinging it over his shoulder as Peter stretched to reach his from the rack. Peter scurried along after Sirius through the corridor until they’d caught up with James, who’d found Remus out on the platform.

Remus was standing at one of the doors of the Express, waving First Years toward Hagrid, who stood at the far side, calling, “FIRS’ YEARS O’ER HERE…”

“Come sit with us in the carriages,” Sirius demanded him. “Hagrid’s big enough for the ickle firsties to see without your help. None of the prefects helped us find him our first year. And we had Bilius Weasley as prefect - greatest bloody prefect there ever was!”

“Alright,” Remus gave in, seeing as none of the other prefects had seemed to think it was important to point Hagrid out, either.

Sirius put his arm ‘round Remus’s waist as they walked and Remus squirmed away, “Sirius,” he said lowly, “People will be looking at us if you do that.”

“So?”

“So… they’ll be looking and talking and the next thing you know the Slytherins will start in at calling us gay and --”

“And they’d be right. So what?” Sirius demanded.

Remus turned red, “You don’t know what it was like to be tortured and made fun of! And you were gone already last term when Severus Snape told the whole school he’d seen us snogging. All the looks people gave me and the way they talked… Sirius, they were really cruel and it was horrible and I’d rather they forget about it. I don’t like all that attention, you know that.”

“Well I’ll bloody hex anybody that opens their mouths, won’t I?” Sirius said, “Teach them all a bloody lesson for being homophobic arseholes!”

“Sirius, please,” Remus begged. “You aren’t the one that was literally branded by the Slytherins!”

Sirius looked a bit hurt but he pulled his arm back from Remus. Without saying anything else, he walked ahead to lay claim on one of the carriages. Remus sighed and came to a stop and Peter stopped beside him as James went on to catch up with Sirius. “I understand why you don’t want anyone to know,” Peter said. “After the way they bullied you… I wouldn’t either.”

“Thanks, Peter,” Remus said.

James was waving Peter and Remus over enthusiastically from the carriage he and Sirius had commandeered. “C’mon you lot, hurry up!” he called. Peter and Remus ran over and climbed aboard and the cart started rolling, pulled by the thestrals, headed up to the castle, which glowed blue and yellow-orange in the night.




Regulus Black settled himself into the seats along the the Slytherin table. He’d sat in a compartment with Barty Crouch, who had gone on and on about what a horrid summer he’d had. His father was a huge Harold Minchum supporter and that was all that Barty Crouch Sr. had talked about the whole summer, according to Junior. “All bloody summer - elections, elections, elections! I meant he could become head of the Department of Law Enforcement because Minchum’s second and he made Moody his head of security and therefore Father was the next one up in line and bloody hell - you’d think he’d just been named Minister himself! THAT’S ALL HE’D TALK ABOUT!”

Regulus knew the feeling because in turn that was all his son could talk about all the way from London to Hogsmeade.

But even Barty Crouch Jr’s incessant dribbling about Barty Crouch Sr was better than the stress he’d been under since his own father had been killed at Number 12, Grimmauld Place (when he’d told Barty what happened, Barty had barely responded. “Too bad,” he’d said, “Wish it’d been my father the Dark Lord had done off with.”)... He’d been terrified every time he’d been in the room with the Dark Lord since that day - scared that Voldemort would notice him, would invade his mind, would find things there that Regulus didn’t want him to see. He read the book on Occlumency that Severus Snape had given him the term before, and practiced as best he could on his own, alone in the dark of his room, but he didn’t have anyway to know if he was getting better at it or not, or if he was just wasting his time. He couldn’t even order Kreacher to help him, like he would’ve done if it had been anything else he needed help with, because Kreacher wasn’t a legilimens.

So many times he’d cried himself to sleep over the summer, or else woken up with nightmares and had to be calmed by the old House Elf. Kreacher had been there for him time and again, rubbing his back, bringing him cool cups of water and washcloths to wipe his eyes. Kreacher, it seemed, was the only one that loved Regulus Black.

And he couldn’t even tell Kreacher all the things that pained him.

Regulus stared at his dinner plate as Minerva McGonagall came in the side door, carrying the stool and the old Sorting Hat, followed by the rows of first years. The Great Hall was nearly silent, all the students in somber, nervous moods, and the poor first years looked horribly terrified as they scurried along after McGonagall.

“Look at that. Most of them are muggle-born or half blood, at best,” muttered Geoffrey Mulciber in disgust. “Not many new Slytherins this year.” He shook his head.

“Send ‘em all back home on the bloody Express!” said Grant Crabbe.

“Dunno what you lot are so upset about,” said Evan Rosier, his eyes glinting evilly, “All the more fun we can have.” He mimed using his wand to hex the lot of them and Crabbe and Mulciber laughed.

The stool was placed in the center of the plinth, the Sorting Hat upon it, and Professor McGonagall stepped back, standing at the edge with the scrolls bearing the names of the new students upon it tucked beneath one arm, peering over her glasses at the hat. It took a moment, but finally it split at the brim and the hat made a sound as though it were stretching, yawning, waking up. There was a long, breathless pause as everyone stared at it in the entire room - the older students with smiles and excited expectation - the first years with wide eyes of shock, most of them having never heard about the Sorting Hat before. They hadn’t any idea that there was a hat who could yawn.

They were even more surprised when the hat began to sing.

“Another year, and we are here, together one and all,
Gathered up along our tables, in Hogwarts’ Great Hall --
A more joyous time of year, I cannot name
Yet something is just not the same
I am afraid that fear is the feeling
Filling this Great Hall from floor to ceiling!
Darkness has gotten into each of your heads
Haunts you through the day and at night, in your beds
Once it was the sound of joy and laughter
That filled this Hall from tile to rafter
Behold, what greed of power has cost!
Oh the Founders would weep o’er what we’ve lost…
Godric Gryffindor believed in being brave and true
But with all the evil in the world, being brave is hard to do
Rowena Ravenclaw said wisdom would serve you well
But what good will riddles be when attacked by spell?
Helga Hufflepuff put first being gentle and doing what was right -
Impossible to do when we in battles fight…
Salazar Slytherin would beg for Slytherins to stop and pause
At what suffering his descendant has caused
For this castle’s confidence has been greatly shaken
Oh how can we get back what the Dark Lord has taken?
Believe in what is good and true and right
And pay less attention to the dividing that I will do tonight
Whatever house you may belong in -
Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff, or Slytherin --
Remember that we are stronger when we are a whole, as one
For it is only with love that the Dark Lord will be undone


There was a soild minute of absolute silence following the Sorting Hat’s song - a ringing sort of silence that felt heavy and important. Regulus shivered as the words sunk into his head. He wished more than anything the hat’s song could change the way things were, that people would listen to that hat and things would be better, healed because of the words it had spoken…

He glanced across the Great Hall towards where Sirius Black was sitting, staring up at the Hat with wide eyes, an expression on his face as though he might be thinking the same thing...

Finally, Professor McGonagall cleared her throat, moving to the center of the room. “Ashbury, Melinda!” she called.

Melinda Ashbury was a teensy little girl with black hair in thick, frizzy curls. She walked tremulously to the stool and sat down, her palms on her knees and McGonagall dropped the hat upon her head…

“RAVENCLAW!”

And the dividing had begun.