ᴅɪsᴘᴇʟ ᴍʏ ʙᴏʀᴇᴅᴏᴍ | ᴍᴀʀᴀᴅᴇᴜʀs' ᴇʀᴀ

Winners

An ancient hall was filled with a crowd of noisy students. Sirius looked up to them and felt extremely uncomfortable, which, incidentally, was utterly impossible to say from his haughty calm face. Eleven years with Walburga were able to carve rebellious rock and turn it into wonderful sculpture.

Sirius sat neatly on a chair, looking unkindly at tattered panama, which for some reason were called with respect the Sorting Hat.

To Sirius's great happiness, his name was the first on the list and none of these snotty kids in the long line had time to put that hat on their heads.

The Blacks have always been the first in everything.

"So..." the Hat sank to Sirius's head and he swallowed, looking forward to the moment when all this was finally over. "Mr. Black, did you know that every member of your family was in Slytherin? No need to answer me out loud, dear, I can hear your thoughts, he-he."

Black shuddered and the Hat snorted mentally.

Inside his head.

This ragged cloth was inside his head! What the hell?!

"Disobedience, ambition, lust for power, arrogance, inner strength, brilliant mind... Slytherin?"

Sirius froze up.

For a moment, pictures drawn by the imagination flashed before his eyes. Here he is in the cold green common room in the dungeons. Here his sister is walking around hand in hand with sleeky Malfoy. Here they are discussing exactly how muggle-borns would be tortured, imagining all the details and laughing...

"NO!"

"You don't want to be in Slytherin, young man?" the Hat smiled as if mocking Black. "Perhaps Hufflepuff?" it really was mocking him.

"Gryffindor!" Black blurted out. "Or Ravenclaw. I don't care, but not Slytherin."

"Ravenclaw at the worst, eh?" the Hat laughed, and the desire to take it off his head and throw it into the window became almost uncontrollable. "Well... GRYFFINDOR!"

Black for a moment was dumbfounded, but immediately swallowed his uncertainty. The applause from red and gold table was stormy, benevolent and... surprised.

Sirius casted a short glance toward the silver-green relatives. Narcissa's face was contorted with disgust. Lucius had bored look as if he wasn't at all surprised at Sirius's fall. The other Slytherins, who had already worn their "friendly" grin and were ready to welcome new "member of the family", looked as if they had been poured with icy water.

Sure thing! The heir of the Black family in Gryffindor! Among mudbloods and miserable mutts who traded high society for muggle-borns. Mother would have a heart attack.

And at that moment Sirius realized - he did everything right.

He was seized with such jubilant joy that he forgot even about the gray-green rag on his head. Grinning like a Cheshire cat, he jumped off the chair, literally shoved the Hat to surprised McGonagall and headed for the Gryffindor table. Pomposity disappeared from his face and his gait lost its hauteur.

Just a happy boy, running to new friends.

At that moment, Minerva knew that this one will cause much trouble.

Sirius didn't particularly listen to the sorting of subsequent students. He sat on the bench, looking with interest at the red-haired twins across and occasionally squinted at the sour faces of Slytherins.

The Gryffindor table again burst into applause, and Sirius involuntarily glanced back at the platform with a chair and the Hat. There was a black-haired boy standing there. Beaming with his radiant smile, he bowed brazenly in front of laughing crowd, even Minerva smiled approvingly.

A minute later, insolent boy jumped off the platform, deftly landed and headed for the table. He unceremoniously shoved Sirius aside and flopped down beside him.

"James!" he shouted in a ringing voice, stretching his hand to Black. The latter, somewhat discouraged by such pressure, automatically shook it.

"So," James continued, tugging at the hair with his other hand and adjusting his glasses, "Are you Black?" in his voice, there was some strange aspiration.

Not this again, Sirius thought wearily.

"Yes," he answered with laziness, "I'm the same Black from Black's house-"

"Are you that Black who broke window at the Hogwarts Express with the head of the Slytherin?"

"Err, yes..."

"We'll get on, mate!" James slapped Black on the shoulder and Sirius, far from being sick and frail, almost flew to the floor. "You know, I..." James's voice stumbled, interrupted by a happy laugh.

The ginger girl sat on the other side of the table, and Prewett brothers ruffled her blazing hair flashing in the light of magical lamps.

Sirius looked at his new acquaintance. Someone fell in love, he grinned inwardly.

But Black couldn't resist. "I bet she won't pay attention to you."

"What, huh? I...! Any girl!.."

Black laughed, James frowned and shook his head. And Sirius again noted for himself that everything was right.

This shaggy boy may be a simple-minded fool, but there was something sincere about him, honest, uncontrollable, something that attracted attention. James was impossible not to like.

Sirius desperately needed friends. He would never have said it out loud, but he had to confess to himself.

"She'll be mine," James said suddenly. Firmly, confidently. Too confident for eleven-year-old boy.

That's the bet, then?

"Deal," Black snorted after a moment's hesitation. "Hey, you! Break it!"

The emaciated little boy with a gray face, covered with scars, in good, but old clothes, looked at Sirius in surprise, but then nodded and rose over the bench. He broke the air and the handshake of two newly made friends, and this movement was unexpectedly strong for such a puny little boy.

Short-haired boy, small and too thin, measured Black and James with a skeptical gaze and turned to Lily Evans sitting next to him.

"What's your name?" she asked, and as if poured the poor fellow with a waterfall of sun's rays.

"Peter," he nodded. "Are you Lily?"

"Yep!" she nodded and turned to the new kid hungry for the portion of her smile and warmth.

McGonagall heaved a sigh, watching laughing James Potter and Sirius Black. The way the black-haired boy looked at pretty Lily Evans embarrassed her.

"And now, ladies and gentlemen, new arrivals and regulars..." Dumbledore began his usual speech.

Everything remained the same. Everything was familiar. Only these two were like two stars fallen from the sky. They burned so bright that it became immediately clear - their role in the upcoming events will not be the last.

People like them never settle for second best. They are the first in everything, always, at all times. And to the very end.