Acheron

Chapter Two: Pan

This is the last day of our acquaintance

I will meet you later in somebody's office

I'll talk but you won't listen to me

I know what your answer will be

-Sinead O'Conner, The Last Day of Our Acquaintance

"Relax, Minerva," a soothing voice murmured; his fiery red goatee scratched her ear.

Her grip on the scroll tightened. "I can't. I don't know how you can, either: you heard the same reporter as the rest of us."

"Minerva," stroking her arms, "Relax."

Stepping forward, she shook herself away. "I told you; I can't. Not with all that's happened."

He leaned against Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry: the lights in the painting blinked on. "You're not going to be much of a hit with the first years as long as you've got that kind of an attitude."

"I'm not worried about making them like me: that's your area of expertise. I don't see what the point is, since you don't even have them until they turn thirteen," crossing her arms, she cringed at the sound of the scroll crumpling beneath her elbow.

"Not anymore, darling," he reminded. "The curriculum's changed: third year classes are being bumped down to second."

Sticking her nose in the air and ignoring his ratification at her disorganized state, she insisted, "I still don't see why you bother. We're here to teach, not to make friends."

"Well, I have to say that I'm very, very good at it," he responded lazily. "I'd be good at you, too, if you gave me the chance."

"Voldemort attacked us today, Cassius. Doesn't that concern you?"

"No, he attacked France. He left us very well alone."

Blinking away tears, she recrossed her arms. "But it's only a matter of time until..."

"Hush, Minerva." She didn't know how he got to her side so fast, wrapping his thin arms around her again. "You're fine. You're safe. And so are those kids: we've checked the clocks, and every last one of them is in mint condition."

He was right, of course: she'd have come to the same conclusion, had she another five minutes to herself. Minerva straightened, but he didn't let go. "This isn't going to last forever, you know. He's going to come after us, eventually. He's always had his eye on Hogwarts. Everyone knows that."

"Look at me."

Minerva didn't know why she was humoring him, but because of the firm in his voice and her presently shaky demeanor, she did.

"You will always, always be safe. As long as you're here with me, he can't touch you."

She felt her muscles strengthening; her circulation started up again. "How can you guarantee that?" Self-doubt was the best medicine, as an old friend of hers had always said.

He said nothing of it. "The first years are waiting."

-*-

"Welcome to Hogwarts," she said briskly, passing her future headaches without a glance at a single one. Not that she would have seen anything had she done so: the redheaded Arithmancy Professor Chaurand had stolen her glasses, telling her that she needed to 'look marvelous' for the school governors viewing the Sorting, though the transfiguration Professor didn't think her lack of spectacles would put them ahead of schedule. The Sorting Hat had lost its voice, and each of their minds was concentrated on the recent attacks.

"As I highly doubt that any of you need me to spell it out for you, I ask that when your name is called, last, then first, you please step out onto the stage, walk straight up to the Sorting hat, place it on your head and sit on the stool. When your House is declared, you are to walk down the steps and take one of the empty seats at the end of your Table. You will know your House table by the ungodly amount of cheers erupting from its inhabitants, but in case you happen to trip on your way down--please, do not trip on your way down, we don't want a repeat of last year--the House banners are hung above each of the tables. The lion is Gryffindor, the Raven is Ravenclaw, the badger is Hufflepuff and the snake is Slytherin. Red; blue; yellow; green. Any questions?" The students obviously sensed her nervousness--her speech, though meant to relax them, had apparently only made them more nervous. "Good. The Deputy Headmaster Binns will be calling the first name momentarily." Smoothing her hair with one hand and brushing her skirt with the other, she followed the same path from which she'd come, ran into a few walls, and somehow found herself in her seat.

"Minerva," Charaund nodded to her when she arrived and offered her the seat next to his.

She took it, of course: she'd sat in that seat long before his debut, and it was where she'd continue to sit long after his final bow. "The new Potions Professor behaving herself?"

"But of course, my dear. What ever would make you assume otherwise?"

"She dated you," Minerva folded her hands on the table, wringing them anxiously and searching for Professor Malfoy. Ah, there he was: speaking to his nephew. What a surprise. "A bit young, isn't she?"

He didn't address it; Minerva thought of asking him what had come over him.

Aha.

She'd thwarted his advances. There was a very good chance Minerva would come to like this girl. "Argyl Spinnet was an amazing educator, may he rest in peace. I only hope his daughter will he half as good as he. She's got quite a following."

"Well, the old bastard made us a successor of extreme diplomacy," he muttered, adjusting chair.

"You didn't teach her, then?"

"No," she looked around the table for any sign that their murmured conversation was causing a stir. There was none, as usual. "I was a judge in the Criminal Justice Court at the time."

-*-

"Abbot, Anna."

Sirius was shaken from his sleep. The History of Magic Professor, had Achilles said he was? Sirius wondered whether he gave an entire lecture on himself: the man was history.

He turned his attention to the Sorting itself, in hopes that it would be more interesting. The slender brunette looked as if she were dancing to the Sorting Hat, banana curls bouncing and black robes swirling as she joyously skipped and sat. Sirius would've bet his Shooting Star she'd be a Hufflepuff.

"Slytherin!"

He winced: ouch. Slytherin wasn't the best way to open a Sorting. The Great Hall, however, begged to differ, as the 'ungodly cheers' threatened to blow the House down. Slytherin, of course, was thrilled at the new innocent to slaughter; the other houses were relieved to have gotten out unscathed. Not even the Hufflepuffs seemed to favor the perky type.

"Abbot, Calvin."

Nodding to the nervous boy in encouragement, Sirius crossed his fingers behind his back. Not Slytherin, not Slytherin... He'd met the Abbot on the train: a nice bloke. Sirius didn't want him ending up in the wrong crowd.

It wasn't that the Slytherin House on its own was horrible, exactly, though you had to suspicious of a group of people who claimed the international villain as their mascot and took pride in the ability to do things behind other people's backs; it was just that their track record wasn't particularly excellent. Both Grindelwald and his granduncle had come from Slytherin, not to mention every Malfoy from here to Wales.

"Hufflepuff!"

Sirius breathed a sigh of relief. Hufflepuff wasn't at the top of everyone's Christmas list, but at least it wasn't Slytherin.

It was then that it hit him. He... he... he came after the last Abbot. He inadvertently stuck his nail between his teeth and began nibbling, figuring that it couldn't be too difficult. He'd just strut up there, stick the battered old hat on his head, and be declared Gryffindor: Achilles was in Ravenclaw, but Gryffindor was by far the best, and just where he had to be, even if he needed to turn on the old Black charm to get there. Which, as his father had pointed out more than once, he was damned brilliant at. There was nothing to worry about; absolutely nothing at all.

So he could take his thumbnail out of his mouth, now.

His eyes scanned the rest of the line behind him for moral support. James, standing on tiptoe, winked.

Lucky prat, he felt a wave of frustration, always at the end of the line.

"Abbot, Edward!"

He wasn't sure he could do this.

C'mon, Black, buck up and take it like a wizard. Or take it like a man, at least!

He got a mental image of his father, sitting out on the lawn with a beer, watching him fall from his first Quidditch broom. It hadn't been fifty feet up, but it'd been high and fast enough to scab both his knees and send him into tears when he'd fallen.

Clenching his fists, he used them as support, and managed a grin back to James. After all, what kind of a Gryffindor was he if he couldn't wear a fuc--

Motivational speaking, apparently, wasn't the only attribute he'd inherited from his father.

"Ravenclaw!"

The students reacted the same way they always did, and so ended the Abbots: one Slytherin, one Hufflepuff, and one Ravenclaw. Sirius wondered if any of them would miss the others. Didn't they want to be together?

Then remembered Achilles, in Ravenclaw, and understood.

"Black, Sirius."

Sirius stopped dead. The hat was--the hat was looking at him!

No one had told him the thing had eyes. What was he supposed to do now? Go and put it on? Could you do that to a thing with eyes?

Yes, he could, he resolved, he really, really could. All he had to do--

"Black, Sirius!"

His blood pressure skyrocketed. Now he'd done it: gone and ruined his entire Hogwarts career, all in one go. They probably had a boat waiting out back for failures like him. He'd go home to find his parents kissing, or something as gross as that, and they'd have to send him to a muggle school out there, where he'd get made fun of for his weird first name. Then his father would go to parent-teacher meetings in wizard's robes... he didn't want that. He really didn't want that. He couldn't handle that. But they'd already called his name twice--

"Black, Sirius!"

Make that three times. He turned back to James. All he needed was a little push in the right direction...

James was keeled over with laughter, red in the face and teary-eyed.

What a friend he was.

The image of banging James's head against a pillar... it didn't look too bad, right there. It actually brought a tingle of glee. Plastering the emotion onto his face in a widespread grin and standing up straight, he proudly stepped out from behind the scarlet curtain and strutted across the stage.

"What took you so long?" The frantic Professor McGonagall hissed, making him stop in his tracks.

Sirius's face lit up as if he'd already gotten his first motorcycle. "Your pretty face made me forget that we weren't in heaven, and that there was a Sorting going on."

He didn't understand it, but somehow the comment had set the Great Hall into a fit of laughter, wakening those who had dozed off during Binns's welcoming speech.

Confidence solidified, he left her to focus her attention on the man seated beside her muttering something about eyewear, approached the Hat and slipped it on his head.

A Slytherin are we? The Hat didn't like waiting, it seemed.

No, Sirius argued. A Gryffindor. He hadn't considered that he'd fit well anywhere else. Then, that could have been self-denial. And if you put me any other place, I'--

You'll tear me point from brim, will you? It wouldn't be the first time, I'll have you know. That was a Slytherin, too. Known for their destructive tendencies, they are.

I'm. Not. A. Slytherin.

The Hat laughed. You are whatever I make you, Sirius Black, and you'll do best to remember that. You're a quick-thinker, and you've got the natural inclination to get yourself out of trouble... or is that survival instinct? Even if it isn't, no, I don't suppose it's enough.

Sirius calmed.

Slytherins are ambitious and cunning.

He got the distinct feeling that the Sorting Hat had been a Slytherin, itself.

"Gryffindor!"

He hadn't heard the news any sooner than the rest of the Great Hall, who were standing up and giving him the biggest applause yet.

"Delacour, Skye."

-*-

Gwen was nervous about the Sorting, but for entirely different reasons.

"Your fate has been decided."

The words of Rouge Marina rang through her heads, words she had heard only moments before as she solemnly walked past the Slytherin table, avoiding the glare of Carrie Empiral, the anxious look from Lucius Malfoy as he exchanged words with Durantaye that she assumed she wasn't intended to hear.

"It may not work," he said, "she could be sorted into another house."

She thought that the magic was binding--

"It will work." Rouge. "It is a binding magical contract--"

--And, apparently, it was. Still, there was that glimmer of hope that it was performed incorrectly; that something had gone wrong.

Yet, these were Slytherins. She knew nothing had.

She watched as person after person was sorted, knowing that soon she would have to accept the inevitable.

Sirius was the first to be sorted into Gryffindor. Lily followed, and then "Fawcett, Ardin" was sorted into Hufflepuff. Repressing a snicker, Gwen reminded herself that Hufflepuff was better then Slytherin. She would rather be banished to a remote island full of Hufflepuffs than be stuck in a large city with only a few Slytherins. The less Slytherins there were, the better.

"Krichati, Corinne"

Ravenclaw.

If she could remember correctly, L followed K... that meant...

"Longbottom, Gwendolyn"

She took a deep breath and stepped up the stairs leading to the Sorting Hat. McGonagall and Binns were there, smiling artificially. They wanted it to be over, wanted to be safe in their offices, asleep for the night. So did she.

She put on the hat. The cloth was rough to the touch.

"Ahh... initiations," The voice spoke, not into her ears, but into her head. "Sadly, I cannot change that which is already decided."

"Slytherin," it spoke to the crowd, and immediately the Slytherin table broke out in cheers. However, that was not that table or the people at it her eyes went to. She saw Lily and Sirius at the Gryffindor table and the others waiting in line. Shock was the best way to describe their expression--they had no clue. Tears filled her face and she shrugged, walking slowly to the Slytherin table.

It was obvious that her seat had already been decided for her, and she sat down next to Lucius Malfoy in the middle of the table. It would do no good to hide her tears: they would come eventually, and she might as well let them now, while the sorting distracted the rest. Lowering her head to the table, she let them flow.

"There is no crying in Slytherin," Lucius' voice, from next to her. She looked up, slowly, wiping back her tears. "Take it like a Slytherin. You'll live. We're all still alive. Slytherin isn't a death sentence. In fact, I do expect you'll enjoy it."

She grunted.

"I assume that means you think you won't? Think again. Look at Carrie," The girl was at the end of the table, obviously upset, with a manic expression on her face. Whatever example Lucius planned to make of her, it couldn't be a good one. "She was a newcomer, like you, six years ago. Scared and alone, pureblood, but she certainly didn't expect to be good enough for us. Of course, at the time she didn't think the Slytherins were necessarily good, but look at her now. Wouldn't give up her house for the world. A Queen, even if only for a few months."

"I'll never like Slytherin."

Lucius laughed, an evil, conniving laugh; the kind you generally accompany with a twisted grin and a knife. "Of course you will."

-*-

Lily Evans stuck her fists up in the air, yawned, and let body collapse on the leather bean bag chair sitting behind her. She was exhausted, to say the least: at one o'clock in the morning, she wondered if anyone else would come and find solace in the Lounge. The room was said to be in the dead center of Hogwarts, it had become known and used as an inter-house meeting ground.

A boy walked into the Lounge, followed by another, both tall and with black hair. "Hello, James," she muttered. She knew the boys from the previous summer--she had stayed at Gwen Longbottom's house that summer in the Adopt-A-Muggleborn program, and when James' mother had died--passed away, she corrected herself--he had come to live at Sirius' house, which was right next door to Gwen's.

"What, no hello for me?" Sirius said, plopping onto the bean bag beside her.

"Hello, Sirius," Lily mumbled.

"Can't get a bloody wink of sleep in there- everyone's still giddy from the initiation." James dropped into the bean bag across from them.

Lily let her head fall to the side of the pillow, trying to block out the conversation between James and Sirius. "Honestly, you two. If you wanted to sleep, then why are you talking?"

They looked at each other and shrugged.

"I didn't really want to--you know--sleep," Sirius muttered, throwing a pillow at Lily.

Lily rolled her eyes, throwing the pillow back at him. "What was your dare?" she said, snuggling up in the blanket that had been laying next to her.

Sirius grinned. "I got an easy one. Just have to sneak into Filch's office tomorrow and steal some Filibuster's Fireworks."

He poked James in the side, waking up the already half-asleep boy. "Your dare?"

"Oh," James sat up, leaning against the wall. "Nothing much. I have to earn detention by Friday."

Sirius pulled at his cloak, taking out a piece of paper. "No, it's not," he looked at Lily. "He's got to sneak into the girls dormitories."

James blushed, and was about to protest when a short, heavyset boy stumbled into the room and collapsed on the couch, pulling a pillow over his eyes. "Can't sleep."

Lily struggled for a second with the boy's name, but then it came to her: Peter Pettigrew, who's mother was an old friend of Gwen's father. He had come over for dinner one night, and had seemed rather quiet and boring. However, James and Sirius took an instant liking to him.

"Your bed is next to that Remus fellow's, isn't it?" James asked Peter, pulling the pillow from his hands.

"That's why I can't sleep!" Peter groaned, lifting his head. "Stupid boy keeps on complaining about his dare." He made a (very bad) impression of the boys voice. "'I can't walk around the Whomping Willow! It'll kill me!'"

James and Sirius laughed, but Lily fired them a Look. "It will kill him." She turned her gaze to Peter. "Can't he... you know... get it changed or something?"

Peter shrugged. "I doubt it. If it kills him, it kills him."

Lily caught Gwen's figure in the doorway, asking, "What'll kill who?"

"Gwen!" Lily exclaimed, and the current topic was forgotten. "You look..."

"Like a walking dead woman," Sirius finished.

And she did, too: her eyelids were drooped, and she stumbled across the floor to where they were clustered before collapsing between James and Sirius, unconscious.

"What..." Sirius' fingers touched the flap of the unzipped robe sticking out in the back. Eyebrows furrowed, his eyes flashed. "What did they do to her?"

Peter and James both slid over for a closer look, and Lily jumped from her bean bag.

"It..."

Lily gaped. "They... no, they wouldn't."

Even Sirius didn't make an argument for Slytherin ruthlessness.

"What does it say?" asked Lily, leaning over it and squinting. She now saw the details she hadn't seen before on the small of Gwen's back--the blue and black shine of the snake's green scales, reflecting against the low firelight, the light purple threads in the deep violet banner crossing over it; the engraved words shining in the circular silver gem. It reminded her of the frame Snow White's stepmother had, and expected a voice to question--"Mirror, mirror on the wall, who's the fairest of them all?"

But the transfiguration-- that couldn't simply be taken away. It wasn't a painting or even a tattoo--it looked as if the spot of skin at the beads, all sewn together with an invisible thread in place of Gwen's skin. She stuck her hand out---dare to touch it?--shut her eyes, and threw her hand down before fear could get the best of her, running her hand over the spot. A rush of something she couldn't name fell over her: it was... like a thousand tiny pearls beneath her fingertips, it left her skin ten times as smooth as it had been before. Reverence: that's what she felt. Hallowed reverence.

"Narcissa, Queen of Slytherins, Bow Before Her All." James read. Confusion inflicted his voice.

Sirius, too leaned in further. "No ..."

"That can't be good, can it?" Peter looked up at them.

"No," Lily squeaked, then reaffirmed his tone. "No, it's not. We need to tell a Professor."

Solemnly, James shook his head, and Lily was inclined to agree.

"But," Sirius leaned in further still, completely ignoring the fact that this was a girl's back millimeters from his nose. "What about the outside? Doesn't that say something?"

"I know not who you choose to be, I know you as you are. I am the constellation, twinkling from afar," James sat back. "What's the rhyming scheme?"

"Dramatic effect, probably," explained Peter. "Slytherins love scaring people."

"So what do we do with her?" Sirius asked. "We can't exactly take her to Madame Pomfrey."

"The Common Room?" Lily wondered.

"She's a Slytherin," James pointed out. "There'd be trouble."

"No classes tomorrow- you think we should just leave her here?"

Each of them took a minute to think about it, glancing at the different corners of the room. When their eyes met again, they were all nodding.

"I'll gather the blankets," Lily sighed, and got up. They would all be staying with Gwen that night--of that they were certain.

When they woke the next morning she was gone.

-*-

Lucius grunted, and leaned against the stairway wall. His cargo load may have been barely half his size, but it was heavy enough. Carrying the sleeping body halfway across the castle was no easy feat. Now he had only three steps down; he had to be sure not to trip and drop her... swiftly, one, two, three, he slid down, and one two three four five six seven down the stairs, they were in the first year dormitory. One two three four up five turn six: step seven eight nine ten, she was on her bed. The one at the very end: how convenient.

A lamp flipped on in the corner, which was now behind him. "I've been waiting for you."

"Good gods, Rouge, don't be overdramatic," Lucius leaned over the green comforter and untied one of Gwen's shoes with a single pull of a string. He slipped it off.

"I knew you'd go and find her," Rouge continued, but in his more familiar, I-Am-A-Mastermind routine, "You were practically beside yourself during the initiation. Let Carrie do all of the work, this time."

"I always leave her to the manual labor," And another shoe, off and thrown beside his feet. He continued to the socks.

"And I don't suppose you call this manual labor?" Rouge's eyes glittered.

"If I left this to Carrie," Lucius drawled, "Gwendolyn would be dead by morning." The other sock was off with a flick of his wand. He moved to pull the covers down beside her.

"You favor her."

"Don't be disgusting. She's eleven, and a Longbottom." Rouge ignored him.

"First, you help her onto the train, when you very well could have called on any other Slytherin to do the job. You order Severus to carry her trunk, something you never even considered, let alone dealt with in the past. As for the whole of the train ride preceding her initiation, not once did you ridicule her family, her station, or even mention the recent Daily Prophet article, which was the golden opportunity. During the initiation, not only did you not snap at her for undermining Slytherin tradition, you let your approval of her overrule the necessity of the ceremonial introduction, and even stood up for her when her position was on the line. Afterwards, you let her chase after you and even had a suitable conversation with her when, with any other person, you would have blown them off completely. You saved a seat for her at the sorting--the Queen's seat, might I add, when we all agreed that she would be Countess--and instigated a conversation with her, during which, if my eyes don't deceive me--and they don't--you seemed to be quite enjoying yourself. But this, this is the big one--tonight, when you shouldn't have cared less whether or not she lived or died, you were scared out of your mind for her and went gallivanting about the castle to find her, carrying her back in the early hours of the morning, and are tucking her in, for Merlin's sake."

Lucius stared him in the eye, returning his glare.

"This morning there was a small crowd glowing on Platform 9 ¾: abandoning the trunk or having someone else do the job would have been horrible publicity--when added to the Voldemort attacks, it would have been atrocious. Had I poked fun at her in any way, she would have recognized her returned strength much too soon and tried to make an escape, which would have complicated matters. Skipping the ceremonial procedures was necessary--in case you hadn't noticed, we arrived at Hogwarts directly after the initiation was complete. Had we performed the traditional ceremonies, we would have been too late. Conversation with her afterwards was the only humane thing to do, seeing as her git of a brother and friend were waiting to tear me limb from limb. I gave her the Queen's seat because she is Queen already, I defended her because I'd much rather have her at the throne than Carrie, who was due to inherit it this year. All matters of my emotion are a matter of viewpoint and whether or not you wish to romanticize my heartlessness.

"I am treating her like a queen because she is the Queen, and it is her first lesson in royal policy. Coinciding with that, there are things involved with being the King and Queen that would make your skin crawl--I would much prefer my Queen to be alive tomorrow morning."

Rouge smirked. "You're good--you're damned good, Lucius. Durantaye would even go for that one," Even with the tension as it was, they snickered together. Durantaye went for anything. "You favor her," Rouge whispered in his ear, and swept out of the room.

Lucius reached behind the flap of her robes--yes, it was still there. Exactly like his.

He threw the covers over her and left her to a dreamless sleep.

-*-

"Good gods," Lily rolled over. "What are you doing up at this hour?" Smacking the empty space beside her, she dragged herself over to the fire. "Sirius?"

He jumped. "What are you doing up?" he hissed.

"Something woke me up."

"Oh, right," He stopped, considering something. He flashed a look at James, asleep next to him on the floor. "All right. Can you keep a secret?"

"What is this, Soaps of Sorcery?" She sighed; figuring that, as long as she was up, she had might as well be doing something. "All right, all right, I can keep a secret."

She did so, careful not to trip over anything or step on anyone. She furrowed her eyebrows, causing wrinkles on her forehead. "Sirius, what are you doing?"

He had one hand wrapped around some gem on a chain, another wiping James' forehead with his sleeve, and he'd just muttered something about Yuri Gargarin.

"I'm..." he actually blushed--sure, Lily had only met him a few months ago, but she hadn't thought it possible. Then again, he was in a compromising situation. "Keeping him from screaming."

Her eyebrows raised.

"He has nightmares." As if that explained everything. It was obvious that it didn't, so he continued. "He's had 'em all summer."

"So? Why don't you just leave him? It's only a dream."

He looked as if it hadn't occurred to him. It hadn't, in truth. "Well... it's not like I'd get any sleep, anyway, with him screaming an' all, so I'd might as well be doing something."

Accepting this answer, she knelt down beside him. "So, what do you do, anyway?"

"I don't know for sure what I'm going to do now, but at home I..."

-*-

"Where were you guys last night?" The runtish boy in their dormitory jumped out of bed. "You were supposed to stay in here!"

"Were we?" Sirius yawned, and flopped onto his bed. "Never knew," his eyelids had shut themselves; his arms were too heavy and exhausted to comfortably position himself.

"Yes, I couldn't sleep all night, almost, I didn't know where you were."

Peter murmured something about his grandmother and coming home after dark.

"I just about told the prefects I didn't know where you had gone!" He was beside himself, eyes wide and skin stretched. James decided it wasn't a good look for him.

"But you didn't, did you?"

His face relaxed. "No, said you were in the bathroom." The rest of his muscles followed suit. "But you should have told me you'd be gone, I was worried! This is Hogwarts."

James expected Sirius to say something about being accountable to a boy they didn't even know, but he didn't; he was out like a light, over there. James would have said it himself, but his nerve failed him. "Sorry," he muttered.

Remus sighed, and looked longingly at his bed. "You don't mind if I go back to sleep, do you?"

Of course not, he almost said, but Peter's mouth was open first. "Go ahead, Remus--I'm going to sleep, too. What time is it?"

"Around six." Remus said, "and thanks." Peter grinned; James nodded.

"I'm James, by the way," He said it more to his mattress then to the boy, but he heard.

"Remus. Remus Lupin."

James groaned, and was asleep before he could respond.

-*-

"James Potter, how dare you leave me. Alone. In the middle of the night."

"It wasn't the middle of the night," he defended, "It was six in the morning. And why is this all my fault? Sirius was the one who suggested it. You weren't all alone, either, Gwen was with you." James motioned to the girl walking by the Gryffindor table.

"I did not!" Lily screeched, "She left me too!"

The three of them at the table dropped their rolls. "You mean she was gone?"

"What, you didn't know? Woke up and she was gone. Missing. Guessed she got up and left or something while I was sleeping."

"She wouldn't just get up and leave," argued Lily. "Something must have happened to her."

Sirius took a bite of his croissant "We did. I can go ask her, if you want. She's at the Slytherin table eating lunch."

"No," said Lily, "We'll all go."

"We're meeting in the Lounge after lunch," Lily told Peter, who was sitting down beside her. "Need to talk to Gwen."

"Can Remus come along?" He asked, pointing to the boy who was also taking a seat.

Lily fidgeted: she couldn't exactly say no--no, she couldn't say no. But she didn't want to get another person involved, either.

"As long as he doesn't ask questions," James answered for her. "And he can keep his mouth shut."

Lily couldn't see the boy, but she imagined that he must have been confused, to say the least.

They took longer than normal to finish breakfast. "I'll go tell Gwen to meet us, then?" James was up and out before Lily could say that she or Sirius should do it: they were the ones who actually knew Gwen.

He did fine, however--from what Lily could see of the situation, Gwen had been a bit uncertain, but when James had pointed to their table, she understood.

"She'll be over as soon as she talks to Lucius," James reported.

"Talk to Lucius?" Sirius. "What does she need to talk to him for?"

"I dunno," he replied. "Guess it's some Slytherin thing. What's your problem with Slytherins, anyway?"

"My dad did business with then a while back," he stabbed his meat harder than was necessary. "They're a bad lot.

"But that doesn't mean they're all bad," defended Peter.

James snorted. "Right."

-*-

The hour of their meeting came and, after many tearful explanations from Gwen, went.

Lily had explained the importance and origin of initiations--"they were used by the original founders to give new students a sense of fellowship with others of their House. Generally it was a dare, relating to the implied strength of a house--for instance, Gryffindor students would have to prove their bravery, Ravenclaw would have to prove their cleverness with a puzzle of some sort. Eventually the Houses invented their own initiations, although most were similar to the original, school-wide initiations."

Sirius had then ranted, "Initiations were only supposed to be after you had been sorted--how could you have been initiated before the Sorting Hat chose you, and why couldn't it reverse it?"

No one had an answer; it's what they all wanted to know.