The Heart of Gryffindor
by SJR0301
Part III - Chapter Twenty-Four
The rest of the summer flew by and on the first morning in September, we were scrambling to pack the last of my school things. Dad was supposed to go to the train station with us, but he was called into work early in the morning and it ended up that Mum and Aunt Hermione and Aunt Fleur took us. The traffic in the city was horrible and Mum started worrying that we would miss the train. As we got nearer and nearer to the station, things got worse and worse and at one point the constables directing traffic made us actually turn around and go the other way.
We finally got through the detour and when we got to the train station we had to make a mad run for the platform.
The traffic jam was explained by the telly screens, which hung in the waiting rooms. A news announcer was reporting on a possible terrorist attack. Apparently a bomb threat had been called in and the police were trying to evacuate the neighborhood through which we had tried to go in order to get to the station. The terrorists had been caught, but the traffic was still a nightmare.
We got to the place where Platform Nine and Platform Ten meet and cousin Bryony was waiting there with her Mum and Dad looking as though she would cry.
"Not to worry!" Mum cried out to them. She took Bryony by the hand and ran through the barrier onto Platform Nine and Three-Quarters. Cousin Dudley's face was rather green, though he did not appear surprised; Cousin Ashley simply gawped as Mum and Bryony vanished through what looked like solid brick. We didn't have time to say anything as Aunt Fleur dashed through the barrier with Vicky and Aunt Hermione gave me a nod and we followed after.
What can I say about the Hogwarts Express that hasn't already been better told? The scarlet steam engine was huffing and Mum swept me up into a huge hug. "Be good!" she cried. She would have said more, but the train started moving, and I felt a tug of excitement and loss as the train pulled away from the station, whilst Mum and Aunt Fleur ran a little way along with the train waving madly and blowing kisses.
Both Vicky and Bryony were looking just as I felt. I squared my shoulders and said as coolly as I could, "Let's go find a compartment, shall we?"
We dragged our trunks down the corridor peering into various compartments as we went. They all seemed to be filled up with other students, all of whom looked much older and perfectly at home. We finally found an empty compartment at the very end of the train and with considerable effort I managed to hoist the trunks up to the seat beside us, but not all the way up to the racks where they belonged. I made sure to keep Athena's cage covered as I had discovered that she was very likely to screech loudly if she were woken too quickly during the day. Bryony refused to let anyone touch the wicker basket in which her cat was kept. She grabbed the window seat and sat the basket on her lap and continued to look quite frightened.
I sat on the other side with the trunks to one side and Athena's cage on the other. It was, I thought, going to be a long uncomfortable ride. Vicky, however, had settled in and she shook out her long golden-red hair and proceeded to brush it diligently. Bryony watched her frowningly and said, "There's nothing wrong with your hair. It's quite nice already."
"I want to look nice for the Sorting," she replied.
"What's that?" Bryony asked.
"The Sorting is when you get placed in the House, your dormitory, where you stay for all seven years," Vicky explained. "They have a Head of House who keeps track of all the students and prefects and all."
Bryony's face cleared a bit and she said, "That's not so different from Smeltings, then. How do they place you? Is it a lottery or do your parents sign you up?"
"Not exactly," Vicky answered. "But usually families end up in the same House. My Dad was a Gryffindor and most of the Weasleys were in Gryffindor, so I expect I will be."
"What about your Mum?" Bryony asked.
"Mum's French," Vicky explained. "So she didn't go to Hogwarts."
"Isn't she a witch?" Bryony asked.
"Of, course," Vicky replied. "She went to Beauxbatons - that's in France. She and Dad had a bit of an argument about where I should go, but Dad insisted on Hogwarts as all the Weasleys go there."
"I see," Bryony said. "It really is like Smeltings then. All the Dursleys go there. Except for Cousin Harry."
"Dad went to Hogwarts," I cut in, "and my Mum, too."
"Well, I don't care what House I'm in," Bryony said, "so long as I can be in the same House with you two. Then I'll know someone and I won't feel..." She flushed pink with embarrassment, but her face again relaxed when I finished for her, "so lost. It is a bit scary to go on your own, isn't it? And everyone else will be better than me," she said anxiously. "They have witches and wizards for parents, like you two."
"Well, everyone worries," Vicky, said. "We haven't had lessons yet either, you know. I expect you'll catch up quite quickly."
Bryony opened her basket as her cat was poking a fluffy brown paw through the reeds. Her cat sprang out and landed right on top of Athena's cage and then slid down dragging off the black velvet cover. The sudden glare of sunlight woke Athena and she gave one of her rare but startling whistling cries. The cat, which looked like a Siamese but had very fluffy long hair, bushed out to twice its size, which was quite considerable to begin with, and hissed menacingly at Athena. Athena blinked her black eyes reproachfully at me and tried to flap her wings, but being in her cage, she could not do so completely.
Vicky laughed. My cousin has got a very infectious laugh, and after a second, we both joined in. Soon we were all laughing quite loudly, which made both the cat and my bird hiss and whistle again. A small blond haired boy stuck his head in our compartment and said nastily, "Who the devil are you lot and where did you come from? Sounds like a Muggle menagerie in here."
"It's none of your business who we are," I snapped. The blond haired boy swaggered away saying, "I bet they're all Mudbloods. They can't even control their animals." There was a rumble of agreement from the boy's companions and I said with irritation, "Let's just hope we're not in that git's House."
"I say we make a pact," Vicky said. "We shall demand to be in the same House. Wherever they try to put us, we just ask to go with the one who gets sorted first."
This appealed to my imagination as I had just read the Three Musketeers the previous week and I said, "One for all and all for one," and put out my hand. The other two caught on and chanted, "All for one."
We grinned shiftily at each other when Bryony said, "Goodness! That felt like a spell, didn't it?"
"A promise is a kind of magic," Vicky answered. "A wizard should always keep his promise or funny things can happen."
The lady with the food cart interrupted us and we all happily dug into the Cauldron Cakes and Chocolate Frogs as fast as we could. But I couldn't help agreeing with Bryony. Our pact had felt quite like magic and from that moment on, cousins or not, we all shared a bond of friendship that stood us in good stead in later days.
When we arrived at Hogwarts, the sky was rapidly darkening and a hundred billion stars danced in the canopy of the night and reflected upon the surface of the lake as we crossed from the station to the Castle. I drew in a breath of anticipation as I followed the other first years into Hogwarts and got my first glimpse of the floating candles and the enchanted ceiling of the Great Hall. They were just as Hogwarts: A History described them.
The older students were already seated at their House tables and I was so focused on getting through the Sorting that I jumped when Professor McGonagall told us come forward in a line. The Sorting Hat opened its brim and sang, but I, who normally can remember everything I hear and see, can recall nothing of what it said. I do recall Bryony giving a small shriek when a stream of ghosts entered the Hall, and she grabbed my arm in fright.
Ahead of us, the first students were moving up, some slinking reluctantly toward the stool to put on the Hat, others tripping forward eagerly. At the very front of the Hall in the center of the head table, a very old wizard dressed in magnificent purple robes sat with his hands steeled gazing into the heavenly vault that appeared in the enchanted ceiling. He seemed to take no note as a boy named Avery was sorted into Slytherin and a girl named Greengrass was placed into Gryffindor. Seconds drew out into an eternity as I waited. Yet the moment my name was called caught me all unprepared and for a moment I failed to respond to my own name. "Sirius Potter," Professor McGonagall read. She said my name with a faint burr on the r's, so that I was reminded of the rasping purr of a cat. Vicky whispered, "good luck," and I walked forward to the stool hoping I would not stumble or make a fool of myself before all those watching eyes. Perhaps it was my imagination, but I thought that the old wizard turned his attention from the stars and that a pair of light blue eyes watched my progress with undivided attention.
Concealing my faint tremble, I picked up the old Hat, sat on the stool and placed it on my head. I nearly fell off when the Hat spoke, even though I had heard it cry out a House for each person who had come before me. "Now you have got an interesting mind, haven't you?" the Hat said. "A very clever mind, one of the cleverest ever," the Hat, said. "Subtle, too, and strong. My yes, strong and brave enough, but where do you belong? A bit of a puzzle, aren't you?"
My imagination presented me with the picture of all the other students neatly sorted, and only myself left alone, still on the stool, unable to be sorted. I blurted out, "I know where I belong. I belong in the same house my Dad was meant for."
"You think so?" the Hat said thoughtfully. "Are you sure about that?"
"Of course, I'm sure," I said indignantly, losing all my fear at the Hat's failure to instantly see my resemblance to my Dad.
"Better be SLYTHERIN, then," the Hat said.
I sat on the stool for another moment as a noise sounded and another name was called. Then I stumbled away in shock trying to figure out how the Hat could get things so wrong. My Dad was a Gryffindor, I was sure of that. How could that Hat have made such an error? How could it have placed me in the wrong house?
I hardly noticed when Bryony Smyth-Dursley and Victoria Weasley were also placed in Slytherin or when my two cousins sat on either side of me. The impossible had happened and when Professor Dumbledore stood up and waved his hand and made the feast appear, I hardly noticed that either. I hardly listened to his speech after the feast and I refused to eat, just poked away at the food in front of me and wished I were back at home with mum and Dad and the twins, before the whole world had realized I was different; not like my Dad at all.
And when the Houses were all dismissed for the night, I sat at the table and refused to go with the rest. The prefect, whose name I would not learn, could not get me to rise and had to summon a professor, who led me from the rapidly emptying room after the headmaster. He had dark, black, oily hair that fell about his face and he muttered, "Another Potter. Whatever did I do to deserve yet another Potter?"
I did not respond, however. I mounted the moving stairs to the Headmaster's office without wonder, as though I were merely going up the escalator at Marks and Spencer’s to buy a pair of trainers I really didn't need. And when the door to the Headmaster's office opened to admit us all on its own, I noted it with the greatest indifference.
***
Looking down at the recalcitrant boy with the black hair, Snape suffered a nasty shock when the boy looked up at him mutely, his pale eyes those of a beloved puppy suddenly rejected. For the boy before him was not the image of the Boy Who Had Lived; he was not the image of the One who Snape suspected, no knew, must be the real father. This face was the twin of his namesake Sirius, though Snape could not ever recall seeing that expression on Sirius Black's handsome, arrogant face.
The boy, whom Snape was having difficulty thinking of as Potter now that he had seen him up close, followed Snape in silence to the Headmaster's office, and Snape wondered whether Dumbledore knew. He must. He of all people must know. Snape closed up his mind and face and presented his most neutral expression as he entered the office. He began to say, we have a problem, but the words were never uttered. Standing at the other end of the office looking out the window was a tall slim man with the untidiest black hair in history. He turned and looked gravely at the boy standing beside Snape, and Snape had his second shock of the night. There he was, Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived. Snape had not seen him in ten years, not since that year that the Dark Lord had been vanquished finally and forever. Ten years, yet not a line nor a mark revealed that time had passed. The face was as young as it had been at seventeen or eighteen. The leanly muscled form was the same. Only the eyes were different. They were the same bright green, green as a cat's, clear as emeralds, and altogether serene. The bright gaze caught the boy's and the boy broke out of his muteness to speak one word. "Dad!" he cried as he hurled himself at his real father's nemesis.
Harry opened his arms and hugged the boy as though this were indeed his own son, more lovingly than many fathers loved their real sons, and said with terrifying gentleness, "What's happened, Sirius?" Yet Snape was sure, despite the unreadable serenity and grave concern that Harry knew exactly what had happened, that he had expected it, perhaps feared it would happen, and that was why he was here so soon.
"It's all wrong!" The words tumbled out of the boy. "It's all a mistake!" Then he stopped as though he couldn't bear to go on and Snape felt resentment rise. He wondered what stuff they had fed into the boy's head to make him so upset at the Sorting Hat's choice. All Slytherin’s were bad, he supposed.
"What is?" Harry prompted.
"The Hat! I'm in the wrong house! It's all, all wrong!"
Harry's brows rose. The faint surprise on his face quite well done: so well done that for a moment Snape almost believed Potter did not know.
"The wrong house?" Harry asked. His tone was mellow, bemused. "Which one, then?" he asked when the boy nodded, mute again.
The words dragged out of the boy. Not exactly the way Snape would have expected. "Not yours," he muttered. "You're a Gryffindor," he said more strongly, almost accusingly. Potter nodded and said, "yes," still encouragingly, and the boy continued, quite outraged. "But I'm not. I'm supposed to be in the same house as you. But I'm not." The hurt distilled in this last, so dully sounded, caught some spring of sympathy unsounded, and Snape blinked in surprise at the alien feeling.
The bright green eyes changed, minutely. A swift glance took in Dumbledore, but whatever they noted there in the Headmaster's face, it was not exactly what Snape might have expected. The clear gem-like gaze returned to the boy and Potter said still calmly, but more intensely, "Tell me what happened. What did the Hat say before it sorted you? Did you say anything?"
"Yes!" the boy said. "How did you know?"
"Tell me," was all the reply, but it was all the encouragement the boy needed.
"I put it on," he said, "and it told me stuff. It said I was clever and...oh, very clever, and brave."
"So you are," Harry said. "Go on."
Taking courage from this, Sirius went on. "Then it said I was a bit of a puzzle, like it didn't know what to do with me, and I got worried because it didn't know where to place me where I belonged and I told it..." He stopped again and a faint look of enlightenment swept the still so young face of the other Boy.
"What did you tell it, then?"
Sirius - Snape had no trouble thinking of him by that name - Sirius continued, "I told it to put me where I belonged, in the same House my Dad was meant to be - and it put me in Slytherin!" he finished in outrage. "I should be in your House, where you belonged, Dad." his shoulders slumped just a little and he said, "Why?"
Harry took a faint breath as though he were taking in a bit of extra air before going into battle. In fact, he looked as though he were dressed for battle or as though he had only just come from one. The black trousers and sweater looked like part of some Muggle uniform, though the boots were Dragon hide.
Potter moved then, decisively, and walked over to the shelf on which the headmaster had set the Hat. Yet it was almost reluctantly that he picked up the Hat and set it on his own head.
"Hullo, Hat," he said. "Do you remember me?"
Then Snape understood, or thought he did, and he saw that Dumbledore did as well.
There was a very brief pause and the Hat said, "Well, bless my soul! Harry Potter!"
"You do remember me," Potter said.
"I remember every student I've ever sorted," the Hat replied. "Yes, I remember you. You were difficult, very difficult to place."
"And do you remember where you put me?"
"I stand by what I said," the Hat replied, "You would have done well in Slytherin."
Sirius looked quite astonished. Nearly as astonished, as Snape had been the first time he had learned of that. They all looked at Harry and Snape noted a peculiar hint of defiance, as well as mischief and curiosity in the formerly serene eyes. "And now?" he asked.
Again the Hat was silent. "You have grown," the Hat said, "You are beyond me now, and I cannot place you at all."
Harry took the Hat off his head rather hastily and Snape wondered whether that answer had surprised him or whether he simply did not want the rest of them to know what else the Hat might have said. He laid the Hat back on the shelf and looked down at the boy - his son - and said, "You see. The Hat put you in Slytherin because that's where you told it to put you. Where the Hat thought I belonged."
The clever pale eyes fastened on Harry's face - the so young face - and asked, "Then why aren't you in Slytherin, if that's where you belonged?"
Harry flushed faintly pink and said, "I told it not to put me in Slytherin. That's why." Seeing the puzzlement he continued, "I met a boy on the train up and we didn't like each other. It was one of those things you know, when it's like chemistry, you just don't like someone at first meeting." He took another deep breath and said, as though he were ashamed, though Snape would not have believed that were so, and said, "He got sorted first and he got put into Slytherin. So I told the hat not to put me in Slytherin so I wouldn't be with him." Harry grimaced ruefully and said, "Not a very good reason, really. I just told it not to put me in Slytherin so it put me in Gryffindor. But that was its second choice, you see."
The boy looked up and said, "I see." Tentatively, he added, "Be careful what you wish for."
"Exactly," Harry answered. The two gazes met, with quite perfect understanding. The child didn't know, couldn't know, then, and yet how strange it was, this sympathy between Potter and the child.
"But can't I...?"
Harry looked again at Dumbledore, in appeal, for the change, for the favor, but Dumbledore, for good or for ill, shook his head minutely, and Harry answered the unspoken question, "No. The Sorting is the Sorting. If the Professor makes an exception and changes you, then everyone will demand to change and it would cause quite a mess."
He sat on the edge of a chair and drew the boy to him. "Listen," he said. "You need to understand, that it really doesn't matter what House you're in. The Houses are just convenience - a way to place students with others they may get along with. It really doesn't matter what House you're in," he said. "What matters is what you do, Sirius. Do you understand?"
"No, I don't," Sirius replied. He looked troubled as he added, "It says in Hogwarts: A History that the Founders chose the ones they wanted to teach. And the Hat sorts you according to which founder you're most like."
"In a way," Harry answered. "But it's very different now than it was then. The founders each taught only their own students and no others. Now all the students have the same teachers no matter which house they are in. All of you will have Professor McGonagall for Transfiguration and Professor Flitwick for Charms and Professor Snape here for Potions. What matters is how you do in their classes. What matters is whether you choose to apply yourself and to behave or not. Not which House you happen to go to sleep in and study in at night."
Sirius frowned and said, "Mum will be so disappointed and Nana."
"They've been disappointed in me plenty of times," Harry answered. "They'll get over it. I shall see that they do." Harry placed a hand on the boy's cheek and said more urgently, "Listen, Sirius. I know it's hard to start something new and to feel as though you might not fit. But I know that you'll do fine. I know you're going to do good things some day, great things maybe. Just believe in yourself and remember, I love you."
Sirius hugged him again and Harry looked quite sad as he relinquished the boy. He turned him to face Snape and said, "This is Professor Snape. He'll be your Head of House. If you have problems, he will help you. And when you're both stumped, Professor Dumbledore will help you."
The boy's pale eyes sought his face and Snape did not know what to think. Harry said softly, "I'll rely on you Professor, to take good care of my son."
Snape stared back at Harry and nodded curtly, "I always take care of the children in my House."
He set his own thin hand on the boy's shoulder and said, "Come along then, Mr. Potter. You'll want a good night's sleep so you can show your stuff tomorrow."
With a final look back over his shoulder at the man he believed to be his father, Sirius straightened up and said, "Yes, sir," as he followed Snape out. On the way down toward the dungeons the boy said sheepishly, "I suppose I've acted like a total git."
Snape considered and said dryly, "Yes, actually." He did not believe in sugar coating things, no matter who the child was.
The boy flushed further. Then he seemed to recover and he asked, "Did you really teach my Dad when he was here?"
"Unfortunately," Snape said even more dryly, "I did teach Harry Potter."
The boy stopped dead and then followed after again. "Wasn't he good in your class?"
Snape found a faint smile twitching at the corner of his mouth. "No, he wasn't. Not at all."
"Potions?" Sirius asked.
Snape nodded surprised that the boy hadn't thrown another tantrum. Instead the blue-grey eyes were thoughtful and he said, "It's not surprising really. I bet Potions takes lots of patience and Dad hasn't any at all for small tedious things. For big things, things he cares about, he's endlessly patient. But not for small things like that. To be honest, I don't quite understand how he sticks to his job, as it seems to be lots and lots of paperwork. Reams of parchment he gets through, he says."
Snape had to school his face again as he wondered just exactly what job Potter was supposed to have. He wondered, too, just when he had gotten so good at lying. It was a shock to recall that Snape himself had taught Harry the rudiments of the great lie.
***
Harry's face was a study in the mixed emotions a child can evoke in his parents: love and pride and anxiety and loss all at once. Dumbledore knew those emotions well; he had felt them quite often for the young man who stood before him; the young man, who of all his students in all the years he had taught had most, captured his own heart.
As for Dumbledore, the young Sirius had been an interesting revelation. Harry had not been wrong about this child of Voldemort. He was undoubtedly his father's son in his intelligence; in everything else, he was his own person. There was always hope, he thought, and always the face of providence was full of mystery and irony and not ever truly knowable by man. That did not, however, mean that Dumbledore could avoid his duty.
"He doesn't know, does he?" Dumbledore asked.
Harry did not even pretend to misunderstand. "No," he answered, "and I don't intend to tell him anytime soon."
Dumbledore said nothing. He studied Harry's face and raised his eyebrows in question only a little. Again Harry answered directly, without any evasion. "I may never tell him," he said, "and I should prefer that you say nothing either. And if the subject arises, I should prefer that you let Professor Snape know as well."
Dumbledore had long ceased being surprised at the vagaries of human nature, but he had thought he knew Harry well, and this seemed unlike him.
"You think I'm wrong," Harry said before Dumbledore could respond. He stood poised and still, but full of tension nonetheless as he said forcefully, "There's no reason, really, for him to know. Voldemort is dead and almost every Death Eater who knew is also dead or in jail. Their power is broken. No one is left who would try to raise Voldemort again. The few who remain are more interested in their own power now. And he - Sirius - he's utterly unlike Voldemort in every way that matters."
"I recall," Dumbledore said gently, "another young man who was quite angry, so very angry, when he was kept in the dark."
The green eyes turned inward and the fair face flushed with embarrassment, even shame. "I owe you an apology," he said abruptly. "I did not understand then."
"On the contrary," Dumbledore answered, "I was wrong then and it was you who bore the brunt of the consequences."
"He's only eleven," Harry said, "and this is different. I do not think that he can live with himself if he were to know who his father was. He has...I dunno...almost an innate sense of honesty and goodness. It's not from his mother and it's not from his father. I don't see how he can bear it if he ever learns what a monster his real father was." He paused and said vehemently, "He's my son now and I won't have him hurt."
Dumbledore sighed and said, "I will honor your choice, Harry. It was you, after all, who chose to save him and to take him in. You showed the greater wisdom then. I hope that this will be the right choice as well and not bear bitter fruit for you."
Harry's face relaxed and he appeared suddenly quite weary. In the firelight, Dumbledore noticed a faint bruising showing on his cheek and he asked with concern, "Are you all right?"
"Fine," Harry replied. "We had a run in with some nutters today is all. They thought they were going to blow up Piccadilly Circus." He grimaced and added, "Sometimes I think they're all the same, whether they're wizards or Muggles. They act as though life was created for them alone and everyone else in it is just so much...garbage to be disposed of."
He stared into the fire and said abruptly again, "Did you expect this? That he'd be put in Slytherin?"
Dumbledore frowned and answered carefully. "I thought it a possibility. He is the Heir of Slytherin after all. But, it is interesting that he wanted to be like you." He smiled and said, "It's a very wonderful thing, when a son looks up to his father so, especially when the son knows his father."
He sighed and felt a sense of loss when Harry bid him farewell and in a brief moment blurred into the crimson bird and took flight, disappearing in a flash of brilliant gold.
