Every Hogwarts student in the Great Hall was whispering to one another, causing a low hum to take over the entire room. There hadn't been an official feast called, but every student who had heard the rumors had made sure to show up for dinner. Dumbledore had wanted the head students to be present at tonight's supper, so James Potter had been notified along with Lily Evans that the rumored event was actually taking place.

Obviously James had told his friends right away.

"So when do you think she'll be here? Dumbledore tell you what time, Prongs?"

James made sure to immediately elbow Sirius, who was sitting to his left and not speaking all that quietly through a mouth full of food. He didn't want to risk Lily overhearing that James had told his friends the official news when it was supposed to be kept confidential– he was only just starting to become friendly with her. However, he knew that Remus had been contacted about the new student, with McGonagall asking him to tutor her in a few subject.

Hissing under his breath, James answered, "He didn't say, but all the professors have gone quiet, so I think it'll be any minute. Just act natural until she gets here. McGonagall is the one who'll be escorting her in."

He looked across the table and saw Remus and Peter go back to eating quietly, after having been staring at the entrance doors to the Great Hall and sitting still. Sirius shrugged and did the same, allowing James to let out a sigh of relief in his friends not acting too obvious.

He shouldn't have been worrying. One out of every three students had their eyes locked on the door, barely blinking as though if they closed their eyes for even a second they would miss her entrance.

Ten minutes passed, and the sound of footsteps approaching the doors was practically deafening.

It was McGonagall who walked in first, opening the doors confidently and walking forward with a steady, measured gate. When the girl she was with slowly followed her into the room, there was a beat of silence.

Moments later the Great Hall exploded with the sound of nearly every student beginning to talk excitedly.

However, James, Sirius, Remus and Peter weren't talking to each other yet, each one observing the girl silently and trying to make their first assessment.

Everyone in the wizarding world knew about Brette Jacquet. Even the muggleborn first years, barely two weeks into the school year, would have heard the horror stories.

She was the youngest person ever sent to Azkaban. At sixteen years old she had been sentenced to a life-long imprisonment after murdering two aurors. Her trial had been quick – after all, the entire Jacquet family was infamous for the dark wizards their bloodline produced, and even before they had gone into hiding it seemed as though it was inevitable that their family would ally with Voldemort. She had been found at the scene of her crime passed out due to magical exhaustion from what appeared to be a long battle. Her wand had been tested, and the two avada kedavra curses had been proven to be hers.

But just last month the entire wizarding world had been shocked when her Deatheater brother had been captured and gone on to admit under veritaserum's influence that he had been the one to commit the crime. Even more surprising, he had framed her deliberately.

Which meant an innocent teenager had been in Azkaban for two years.

Brette had been immediately released of course, but so far she had been out of the public eye and avoided the press under the protection of the ministry. There was speculation in the papers, some calling her a mastermind while others cried out in protest on behalf of the girl's sentence and treatment – even those who had been the very same people advocating for her imprisonment.

She had apparently been a sixth year student at Beauxbatons Academy before she was arrested in Great Britain. That had been yet another part of her arrest that was sensationalized – it was very rare for a wizard or witch from another country to be held in Azkaban, so there had been a bit of debate between France and Great Britain's ministries.

James didn't really remember the trial. The Marauders had been in their fifth year when it had taken place, and looking back, becoming an animagus had overshadowed almost everything else going on in his life. Besides, even if his dad and mum were aurors, they had tried to keep him from delving too deeply into that part of their lives, telling him to "enjoy being young while he still could".

He'd only remembered seeing it on the front page, but the killing of aurors and muggleborns alike had been skyrocketing the past few years so it hadn't seemed incredibly out of the ordinary, as awful as that sounded. James could vaguely remember seeing her picture though, the blonde girl staring at the camera, unmoving with an eerily blank expression in her dark eyes. He'd made an offhand comment to Sirius, saying how it was such a shame that she was fit girl.

But she wasn't locked up any more. And it had been announced three days ago that Brette Jacquet would be attending Hogwarts to finish her seventh year of schooling at the age of eighteen, even though two weeks had passed already since the start of classes. It seemed as though the authorities of the wizarding world were eager to make her life return to as normal as it was possible in order to somehow make people forget that she had been in one of the most horrific places in the world for two years due to their mistake.

And bloody hell, was it horrific. James had made his dad tell him about it when he was younger, and even his father had shuddered at the mention of it. If one was sentenced there, they looked forward to isolation, a small cell, and the constant presence of the dementors sucking any bit of happiness from the prisoners.

The fact that the girl was composed enough to even be walking was one hell of a feat. After two years, it was assumed she had gone insane, and James honestly felt a bit bad that she was now being paraded through the Great Hall like an attraction at the zoo.

Remus was the first of them to speak, quietly observing, "she doesn't look so good. Healthy, I mean."

Sirius, James, and Peter nodded in agreement before Sirius said, "The girl definitely needs some meat on her bones. Can't be too critical though what with her just getting out of prison."

James opened his mouth to reply to him, but was cut off when McGonagall and Brette stopped walking. They had reached the very end of the row of tables, now standing just in front of the table seating the professors.

Dumbledore stood up slowly and held up his hand, causing the room to instantly become silent.

"Students, tonight we welcome a student transferring to our school – "

Sirius leaned toward James and muttered in a dark tone, "Transferring? Is that really what they're calling it?"

" – so we will holding a separate sorting to welcome Brette Jacquet into one of our four houses."

No more words were said, and with a flick of her wand, McGonagall made a plain wooden chair appear. Just before Brette went to sit down, James saw the professor briefly place a hand on her shoulder as if comforting her.

For the first time since entering the Great Hall, all of the students present could see her face as she sat down and awaited her sorting.

Her dark blonde hair acted as a thin curtain that prevented her downturned face from entirely showing, but her features could be vaguely made out from behind the strands. Dark circles beneath her eyes made her pale skin look nearly translucent, while her cheekbones looked more prominent than was healthy. If James looked closely, he could imagine that she had been a bit pretty, but now she looked, well, sort of dead. The fact that she held herself entirely still definitely contributed to the eerie feeling she gave off.

Brette Jacquet had very clearly not escaped her time in Azkaban unscathed.

McGonagall seemed tentative as she approached the sitting girl, letting the sorting hat hover above her head for a few moments. At this point, people had begun to talk in louder voices, speculating about what would happen, and the word obviously muttered the most was "Slytherin".

The hat was lowered onto her head, and after a few longs minutes of silence it sang out in its gravelly, loud voice a single word.

"GRYFFINDOR!"