A Journey of Brothers

"Black, Sirius!" yelled the middle-aged, strict looking woman.

Sirius Black walked up to the chair in the middle of the Great Hall, where the hat was resting, sat down, and put it lightly on his head.

"Ahhh... another Black, I see. But this one is different to the others...hm... I good heart, a good soul... very smart too...also very powerful...but Slytherin won't do for you...no," said the tattered old hat quietly.

A look of horror came upon Sirius' face. 'No...I have to be in Slytherin...my parents... they'll kill me...' though Sirius urgently.

"Ah...but I must put you into the house that you belong. And Slytherin is not the right house for you...you are not power-hungry, although you are powerful. You have a good heart...and...yes, I think it would be best if-

GRYFFINDOR!' the old hat shouted.

Sirius Black emerged from underneath the hat, shaking with anger and horror. The entire hall was silent, staring at him in shock, even the teachers. He started walking over to the Gryffindor table, through the silence that was so intense, that it could be cut with a knife. Through the children that had been sorted before him, there had been clapping after the sorting. But now, there was only one person clapping- Albus Dumbledore. Slowly people joined in, but not after a lot of encouragement.

He sat down at the table forlornly, his face bright red. Not from embarrassment, as you may think, but from anger. Anger at that stupid piece of material, that hadn't put him where he wanted to be. He didn't want to be in Gryffindor! What would his parents do? He wanted to be in Slytherin...then his parents would be proud of him. That was all he wanted. To make them proud. Not to be in some stupid house with muggle-lovers, mudbloods, and half-bloods.

Sirius sat thinking for a while, until he heard someone sit down beside him. Why was someone sitting beside him? He looked up...There was a boy with scraggly brown hair and glasses sitting next to him on the bench. The boy glared at him- "Don't think that I wanted to sit next to you. There was nowhere else to sit," said the boy scathingly, gesturing round at the rest of the benches, which were completely full.

"Good. Why would I want to sit next to a Potter, anyway? Yeah, I know who you are. You're James Potter, son of Harold Potter, the auror," spat Sirius, and then turned around to face the other way.

James just glared at him, and then turned and starting talking to a sandy-haired boy to the other side of him. The food appeared, and Sirius ate his meal in silence, not bothering to reply to the odd looks he was receiving from all the way around the hall.

Once everyone had eaten, and Dumbledore had made his speech, a pompous looking prefect stood up at the Gryffindor table.

"Right. Gryffindor first years, follow me," he said loudly, and then walked grandly out of the hall. Sirius waited until all the other first years had started to follow, and then trailed behind them all sullenly.

Suddenly a hand reached out from a niche in the wall beside him, and pulled him in, putting a hand over his mouth.

"Mmph," said Sirius, his voice muffled. He looked up to see his captor.

Damn.

"Hello, young cousin," said Bellatrix Black smoothly.

He gave her a glare in return, as he couldn't do much else- she had him trapped.

"I noticed that you are not in Slytherin. My, my, my... what will Mummy and Daddy say I wonder?" she said mockingly, removing her hand from his mouth, but still keeping a tight grip on his upper arm.

"It's not my fault. It was the stupid hat," protested Sirius, looking at the floor, so that he didn't have to look into his cousin's eyes.

"Ah...but the hat puts you where you want to be. You always did stand up for yourself, didn't you Sirius. Just like your traitorous cousin- Andromeda," she spat spitefully.

"No...no...I wanted to be in Slytherin- truly! But it wouldn't let me..." protested Sirius weakly.

Bellatrix peered down at him amusedly. "The hat wouldn't let you? Oh, poor baby, couldn't even get a hat to do what you wanted. You don't fool me Sirius. You are taking the wrong path...disgracing the family."

Sirius looked away miserably. "I have to go now," he said, breaking free of Bellatrix, and jogging to catch up with the rest of his year.

"Just remember Sirius! Bad things could happen..." she called after his retreating figure.

He caught up to the pompous prefect and the crowd of first years, who were being shown to their dormitories. It turned out that Sirius was stuck with the Potter boy, the sandy-haired boy, whose name was Lupin, and a small, pudgy rat-faced boy, called Pettigrew.

Sirius sighed, and chucked his belongings next to a bed at the far side of the dormitory, so he could be as far away from the others as possible. He climbed straight into the four-poster, without even getting changed, and fell asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow, much to the surprise of his room-mates.

THE NEXT DAY

Sirius woke up at seven o'clock, got changed out of his rumpled clothes from the night before, and made his way down to the Great Hall. He sat down at a bench on the far side of the Gryffindor table, once again, to stay as far away from prying, nosey people as possible.

Ten minutes later, the sandy-haired boy from his dorm came and sat next to him, much to Sirius' dismay. Sirius just hoped he wouldn't speak to him- although, why would he anyway, it wasn't as if Sirius was very welcoming.

"Hi. I'm Remus Lupin," said the sandy-haired boy, awfully cheerfully for such a early time of the morning.

Sirius just stared at him for a minute, and then mumbled- "Sirius Black. But you don't want to speak to me." He then turned away, figuring that this Lupin boy had gotten the message.

"Nice to meet you. If I didn't want to speak to you, then why would I be speaking to you?" Sirius turned to stare at him again.

"Listen, mate. I don't like you. And you shouldn't like me. So, take a hint, and go back to Potter," said Sirius exasparetedly.

"Nope," he said, still overly cheerful.

"Right. What do you want?" said Sirius, realizing that the boy probably wanted something, which was why he was talking to him at all.

"I want to know a couple of things."

"Right," sighed Sirius, thinking it was something about Dark Arts, or something about his family, "Go on then."

"Why don't you like James?" inquired the boy peacefully.

This hadn't been was Sirius was expecting, but he answered nonetheless -anything to get this boy to go away- "Because...because he's a Potter."

"So you don't like him because of his name?"

Argh! Why wouldn't this boy just leave him be?

"Yes...No. Yes."

"So that's a yes then?" Sirius nodded.

"So...let me get this straight. You don't like James because of his name...?"

Sirius suddenly realized how completely and utterly ridiculous it sounded. To hate someone because of their name. What was the point? Oh, wait! There was another reason.

"Yeah. And also because..." Sirius lowered his voice, so that only Lupin could hear, "his family are all muggle-lovers." For some reason, it didn't feel good to say that.

To Sirius' surprise, Remus didn't glare at him, or gasp, or throw a curse at him. He just stared at him intently, and said- "Ok. But I know that you're different from the others, Sirius Black. I can tell, just by looking in your eyes."