"The hat will call for us, soon, won't it," Raphael said, gripping his left hand so hard that he could feel his knuckles start to warp and crack.

"I'm alphabetically enabled, I think." Nathaniel said cryptically, and then grinned at Raphael. "I get to go first, out of us, if I'm right."

The dark haired imp by the name of Hagrain was sorted to Ravenclaw quite quickly, and then the moment of truth came.

"Greenleigh, Nathaniel." the voice calling his name.

Nathaniel stood up; the kitten on his shoulder sitting up straight and looking proud as Nathaniel walked to the stool.

Nathaniel looked at the Hat. The Hat looked at Nathaniel.

Then Nathaniel scooped the kitten from his shoulder and deposited it gently on the ground, where it sat looking between the boy and the hat.

After a very long moment, Nathaniel took the hat from the stool and sat on the stool, and put the hat on his head.

His hand rubbed at his left cheek as he lowered his hands from the hat, and he waited.

Another very long moment passed in the inky soft darkness of the inside of the hat.

~well?~ Nathaniel thought. ~do I make something up or admit the Hat's not talking to me?~

~neither~ said the warm voice of the Hat in his head.

~ah. ok.~ Nathaniel replied, feeling somewhat stupid.

~relax.~ the Hat advised gently. ~I don't bite.~

~you'd take my head off at the shoulders if you did.~ the aimless reply.

~well, well, well.~ the Hat said after another long minute. ~you're well hidden away in here, aren't you, young man?~

~what do you mean?~ Nathaniel thought, somewhat self-consciously.

~a labyrinth beyond a mirror.~ came the reply. It should have meant nothing to Nathaniel. Nothing at all.

~and beyond lies the apple tree and the black horse.~ Nathaniel thought instead.

The Hat chuckled. ~so you know, and yet you don't know.~

~I know and don't know what?~ Nathaniel's fists clenched a little in frustration.

~nevermind.~ the Hat sobered. ~just tell me the key.~

~what key?~

~the key to you.~

~I don't understand.~ Nathaniel was puzzled.

~the key to you.~ the Hat repeated with infinite patience.

~I didn't understand the first time, and saying it again slower REALLY doesn't help!~

~the mirror I could pass.~ the Hat tried to explain. ~I can't get through the labyrinth. I need to see you, I need to see what lies beyond.~

The Hat paused. ~tell me how to get to the apple tree and the black horse.~ it asked suddenly.

~beware the beast.~ Nathaniel's answer came smoothly and with that same distressing lack of thought. ~follow the woman in white.~

~ah.~ the Hat said with some satisfaction.

~ah!~ the Hat said a moment later, with some surprise. ~what lies beyond... goodness, where am I going to sort you, young man?~

Nathaniel waited in mute ignorance.

The Hat sighed.

~If I put you in Hufflepuff, you'll end up at odds with them all the time. So that won't do.~

~would I?~ Nathaniel thought in bewilderment, and there was a sudden rush of thought. A beach. A sunrise. A man in blue robes who looked distinctly disgruntled to see Nathaniel. And Nathaniel... he was all in black and the grin on his face felt insane.

Did the Hat see these thoughts? Who was the man in blue? If the Hat saw or knew, it wasn't saying.

~Gryffindor wouldn't suit you at all, again you'd identify the things you did not like and set out to change them by whatever means necessary.~

~I would?~ again the bewilderment followed by sudden thought. Letters two feet high burned into a stone wall.

~you don't know it yourself, but you would.~ the Hat assured him. ~If I put you in Slytherin, you'll absorb their attitude and then reject it. It's been tried before.~

Another sudden rush of thought that came and went in the blink of a mental eye. An underground passageway. Two men in robes, one of whom was looking slightly scorched and annoyed.

~what?~ Nathaniel almost whimpered. ~It's been what?~

"Ravenclaw!" the Hat shouted aloud.

Privately the Hat added to Nathaniel. ~best place for you to start, this time around.~

~what time around?~ Nathaniel asked desperately, but the presence of the Hat had gone.

Moving slowly the boy took the Hat off, and turned it over in his hands once before putting it back on the stool.

Nathaniel walked almost numbly to the Ravenclaw table, and sat down with an almost glazed expression in his eyes. The kitten ran at his heels and clawed its way up a bench leg to sit on his knee.

Sarah could not control her excitement and along with the general clapping that accompanied Nathaniel's Sorting especially from the Ravenclaw table, she changed places with another so that she could sit next to him.

She reached her hand to gently touch his in a gesture of friendship and support. He looked somewhat dazed and so she looked at the kitten seeking a cue from it as to whether it was OK to speak or was her presence merely enough.

Nathaniel didn't say anything for a long moment. The kitten looked straight at Sarah and then mewled in a friendly manner, dabbing at Nathaniel's knee with a paw gloved in velvet.

He blinked, and his hand automatically turned to hold hers gently, his fingers twining through hers.

"Um." he said vaguely, his eyes still focused somewhere in the middle distance. "Yeah."

Then he blinked again and managed half a grin. "That was... highly weird." he smiled at her. "Insanely so."

The kitten curled up and purred, looking smug.

"Well one night in the Common Room we can curl up in front of the fire with mugs of cocoa and you can tell me about it. Hopefully Raphael as well. Whichever House he is sorted into though we'll all stay friends I am sure."

She looked over to the table where Raphael suddenly looked so alone even though others were still sitting with him and hoped her smile towards him spanned the distance.

*************

The hat shouted out to the world: "Ravenclaw!"

Nathaniel and the cat made their way to the Ravenclaw table, dropping down onto it, shock registering itself on his face. Raphael stared, unable to fathom: what would his fate be? he couldn't help but smile, though: Sarah and Nathaniel would be happy tonight, in the Ravenclaw place, together, talking. And he would be-

... in a storm on a lonely cliffside... -away from this place, away from this school.

He glanced at Jian, and muttered to the other a forced nothing: "you're up next, I think."

The cracks on the table wavered and slipped from focus as Raphael sat and pondered. Jian had made his peace, finishing the conversation, to slip into his own reverie, staring at the Gryffindor table with fire in his eyes, or so it seemed to Raphael; the other student was preparing himself for what was to come, whatever decision the hat would make, whatever choice it would present to him.

Piotr didn't receive a glance.

A phrase was stuck in Raphael's mind: 'So now I must go,' he thought to himself, 'the penguins call.' Where had he heard that before? What did it mean? It was a stupid ditty, stuck in his mind, repeating, and a broken record - why was it plaguing him? He pulled back a desire to smash his fist on the table, a demand to move the sorting along, a demand for the next call to come, and instead sighed and let his eyes flicker up. Pushing through blurry slickness, Raphael blinked twice, and found his gaze resting on the Ravenclaws.

Nathaniel easily curled his hand around Sarah's, and a million thoughts crowded into Raphael's mind. Some were purely emotion thought nothing but reactions suddenly, without thought: 'shouldn't I be there?' and 'thank god someone is looking after him'. They clouded him, clouded his mind, and clouded his ability to think - until he looked into an inky darkness.

'What kind of power,' asked another voice from deep within, 'will change you into what kind of person, Raphael Lathander?'

What did that mean? Who could tell what he was... or what he could become... what did the actions of a girl and a boy he'd known hardly a day matter to him at all, when he was sure he was to walk from this place within the hour? Was he sure that he would leave? And what if he didn't?

"Would leaving be better? Could something here... could something here..." he whispered to himself, and the voice from within him finished the thought. 'Could something here determine your survival, not just physically, but as yourself, as you?'

"Yes," whispered Raphael, knowing the answer. And as he looked up, and Nathaniel's hand, clasped in Sarah's, took him away back a few hours to an oath sworn, Raphael prayed... knowing what to pray as Sarah looked up, and a single glance made him less alone then he had been in what seemed like hours, for it was a glance that seemed to wish he was closer... that the triangle was what held his salvation.

*********

One of the new students at the Ravenclaw table giggled and Sarah looked over and realised that she and Nathaniel were the object of this tittering.

She then looked down and saw that they were holding hands. It had happened so easily and so naturally that she hadn't been quite conscious. She didn't want to let go that was certain, yet she knew they probably should.

She blushed slightly and gave his hand a gentle squeeze and then allowed their hands to part - hoping that he would understand that it wasn't that she didn't wish to. She hoped the gentleness of the look she gave him would convey that without need for words.

She just was not quite sure if this is what friends were suppose to do or did it mean something else to him? To her? She didn't want to be hurt or to lose what she knew had in the course of one day become very precious to her - Nathaniel's and Raphael's friendship.

Nathaniel was still so shell-shocked from his encounter with the Hat that he honestly hadn't noticed he had twined his fingers with Sarah's until she gave his hand a gentle squeeze and let go. He ought to have been embarrassed by it. He wasn't. He was still thinking about what the Hat had said to him.

The kitten however was paying vast amounts of attention. It leapt onto the table edge and stalked down until it was sitting in front of the First Year that had tittered. The First Year had a calico cat that was easily five times the size of the mostly black kitten.

The mostly black kitten simply looked at the calico cat until it hid under the table, and then it started looking at the First Year until he was almost inclined to follow his cat under the table. Then the kitten stood and stalked back to Nathaniel with a disdainful flick of its tail as though the Firstie wasn't worth its time.

********

Professor McGonagall was not 100% sure which was the surname and which was the forename of the next student. Still the odds were pretty good there wouldn't be two with that name and he would know who he was either way.

"New Fourth Year student - Hupi, Jian." she announced.

"Yes," Jian said in a rushing out of held breath, "I am next." He placed a hand on Raphael's shoulder and added: "May luck be in your Sorting, too, Raphael."

He stood up from the table. It would seem the head of every person in the room turned in his direction. Blessed Buddha, why were they all staring at him so?

Jian made his way forward to the Sorting Hat, not looking at anybody.

"Is he really a Shaolin monk?" squeaked a girl from the Hufflepuff table. "You mean the kind that fly in Muggle movies?"

"Cool! Maybe we should ask him about kung-fu!" piped in another equally excited boy.

He dared not cast a glance at the Gryffindor table before taking the Hat and sitting down. That way, he would be less disappointed if he could never join them.

He placed the hat on his head and waited.

~Ah, who would you be, boy? You are not of this land. Your power is different...somehow.~

// China. I am a monk sent to study here by my Order. Mian-Ju-Tao. //

~I see. I remember another so many years ago. He was the perfect Ravenclaw, of course. Brave but much more intelligent still.~

// That was my great-uncle.//

~But you! Ah, you seem to be a difficult one, monk. A truly hard worker, with intellect, of course. A healer, am I right?~

// Yes. //

~Your mind holds secrets not known to many others, all held together by remarkable mental devices. Cleverly and cunningly disguised. No one could really get to you up there, boy. Hmmm...where shall I put you, then?"

// Blessed Buddha, just say what you believe me to be. //

~I see. Of course. There is no other choice. No one could hope to weaken the strength of your heart. It leads you in all things, monk, and gives no reason to fear anything. A trait of the truest..... "GRYFFINDOR!"

It was over.

Jian reached up for the Hat, removed it and stood up. This time, he looked at the Gryffindor table and saw it in a whole new light. That was where he belonged to now.

********

Winifred had taken a place at the Slytherin table among her fellow fourth years. As the first years dispersed, she joined in the applause for the incoming Slytherins. All of the revelry reminded her of her own sorting four years back. Unlike many students, the sorting hat was quick to place her in Slytherin; the reasons, for the most part, are still unknown to her.

As the transfer students' sorting began, Winifred turned to Luis. "I'm curious, why weren't you at Hogwarts last year and why aren't you participating in the new students sorting?" she inquired, hoping that her questions didn't sound too nosy.

Luis clenched his fists under the table as Jian Hupi, the holier-than-thou monk, was sorted into Gryffindor, but his face twisted into a mirthless sneer in the boy's direction.

"So the China-man finally got his wish, joining up with the rest of the holy lot of this school," he muttered under the table. For the briefest of moments, he glared in the general direction of the Gryffindor table.

He turned his attention back to Winifred. "I was sorted into Slytherin in my First Year, Miss Fanel," he replied, "I went to school here until my Third Year, then I quit. That was about three years ago. My classmates from before are now in the Seventh Year."

/And obviously sniggering at me right now,/ he added in his thoughts. /Especially the Gryffindor ones./

Winifred just nodded, not knowing exactly what to say in response. She made a mental note to do some research on Luis' background before turning her attention back to the sorting.

*********

The moment the Sorting Hat announced Jian Hupi as a Gryffindor, Shinrei applauded very loudly. She felt a smile light up her entire face and did not even care what her classmates made of her reaction.

When Jian arrived at their table, she stood up and gave him a very low, formal bow and an enthusiastic smile. "Welcome to Gryffindor House, Hupi-san."

Amy, who was sitting relatively close to Shinrei, applauded very loudly also. As Jian Hupi sat down near her and Shinrei, Amy whispered in his ear, "I'm very glad we're in the same house, and will have classes together! This year is going to be very fun!"

Then, she began rubbing her hands together, realising how cold she really was.

Jian had bowed back at Shinrei and, for the first time since he had left the temple, gave her his version of a smile: a very slight upward quirking of the ends of his mouth.

He still had to learn how to smile properly.

After he sat down and Amy had spoken to him, he gave her a respectful nod.

"It is my honour to be a part of Gryffindor House, Miss," he replied. "I am also looking forward to classes. I have much to learn."

********

Professor McGonagall had nodded to Jian as he took his place at the Gryffindor table.

She looked back at her list of those remaining to be sorted.

Reading the next name on her list, she glanced up at the table where Piotr and Raphael remained seat. Her forehead furrowed slightly as she looked at the names again.

Not wishing to hold up proceedings while she double-checked with Professor Dumbledore - she was sure.... never mind she would deal with the one she knew was right first....

"Rachinov, Piotr" she announced in her crispest voice.

Piotr had hardly paid attention to the Sorting at all, so boring did he find it. It came as something of a surprise, therefore when Professor McGonagall called his name. He got languidly to his feet, stretching his body like a cat and sauntered across the floor.

He sat down on the stool indicated by McGonagall and cast a superior glance around the room, where people were watching him intently. This should be interesting, if nothing else.

McGonagall dropped the hat on his head.

~ What on earth do we have here? ~ The dry voice in his ear sounded faintly confused. ~ There's something not altogether...right about you, boy, what is it? ~

The Hat probed deeper into Piotr's mind and its start of surprise was audible to the entire Great Hall.

// Well? // Piotr thought at it, bored already. // Are you going to get this over with, or what? //

~ You're not even *human*, ~ said the Hat, sounding more than a little panicky now. ~ I don't know what you are? ~

// Oh, I can help you there. // Piotr projected an image at the Hat which began to squawk aloud in a high-pitched voice, "Get me off him! Get me off him!"

For the second time that evening, Professor Dumbledore broke with tradition, usually remained aloof during the Sortings until his announcements that signalled the start of the First Night Feast.

He moved quickly to the Stool and spoke briefly and very quietly to the Hat. It calmed immediately. He also shot a stern look at Piotr as he returned to the Table; well aware now of the image the Hat had shown him. He was not amused by such antics.

On his return he also stopped and had a quiet word with Professor McGonagall - looking at the name she had skipped over. He nodded his head in acknowledgement that indeed that was correct and should be called as written.

The Hat considered Piotr a little longer. ~ There's only one place for you to go, ~ it said to him alone. ~ Your ambition and drive mean that you could go on to greater things, but only if you can lose the anger. ~

// Do I look like I care? //

~ You should care, Piotr Rachinov. Don't care didn't care, and all was lost. There is a spark of brilliance at your core, but you have chosen to stifle it under this mask you wear. ~

// Did I ask for lecture? Just damn well sort me! //

Piotr was semi-afraid. The Hat was dangerously close to the truth, and that was more than he was ready for just yet.

"Slytherin!" sang out the Hat, almost gleefully. Just before McGonagall removed it, it whispered a few final words in the boy's ear. ~ I know what you are, Piotr Rachinov, and I've seen both futures. What you eventually become is entirely your choice. Remember that. ~

Piotr got to his feet and walked to the Slytherin table in silence.

Professor McGonagall had not at all been surprised that Piotr had been sorted to Slytherin. Having had a quiet word with the Headmaster she returned to her list of those needing to be Sorted. He had assured her the name on the list she had omitted was correct and that the family concerned had made this placement for entry at the Fourth Year of study some years ago.

Therefore, without further hesitation she announced: - "Lathander, Rose."

Silence fell, hushed over the hall. The line between Raphael and the Professor's table cleared, and Raphael looked at the teachers sitting there, aware that he was the only one left on the newbie table.

Rose. Lathander, Rose. They had called for Rose Lathander - but she was not there. He knew what he should do: stand, step away from the table, walk out of the hall, leave... he was not meant to be here... this Rose... Rose... his Rose... was meant to be here...

And yet... he could feel the hall fading... into the background... he found himself standing... speaking... standing, announcing... and he couldn't hear the words he was saying...

To the others in the hall, eh stood and faced them, tall, straight backed, a dark cast over his face. But to Sarah and Nathaniel, they could hear the alien cast in his voice, the difference. "Rose Lathander is unable to attend," he announced. "Rose Lathander is dead. I, Raphael, her brother, am here to take her place. Call for Raphael Lathander to brave the Sorting Hat."

Again, the silence. And then Raphael seemed to sag, slightly, his eyes darting down to the floor for a second. What had he said? The hall seemed to look at him... the professors most of all... looking at him...

And so, with only a tiny snatch of a glance first towards Piotr, and then towards the Ravenclaw table where Sarah and Nathaniel sat side by side, Raphael waited. Waited for judgement.

Professor McGonagall glanced over towards Professor Dumbledore who nodded his head in acknowledgement of Raphael's declaration of intention to take his sister's place at Hogwarts.

She cleared her throat and looking at Raphael directly made the announcement again: "Lathander, .... Raphael"

********

Without doubt Sarah had been surprised when the name Rose Lathander had been called and a little perplexed - Raphael was a boy wasn't he?

She didn't think she was prepared for that sort of confusion about her feelings - no definitely a boy....

Therefore, it was with some relief that she heard him declare that he was there in his sister Rose's place. How sad she must have been his twin and she was dead - no wonder he was so deeply troubled.

She smiled warmly at him again from a distance hoping that he would take from that smile a sense of belonging there because as far as she was concerned he most definitely did.

She also kept her fingers crossed that he would be in Ravenclaw with she and Nathaniel so that they could spend time together and be a family of sorts just as Tish had described.