A long line of smallish eleven-year-olds streamed from the entrance to the Great Hall. Rose glanced about, her young mind too overloaded with the sensory explosion of the chamber to stay focused on anything for more than a few seconds. Every square inch of the gargantuan hall may well have been covered in gold. She threw her head back and almost collapsed from the sudden change in balance. Her mother was right! The ceiling really was a sky!

"Weasley, Rose!" The call to the raised platform, on which stood a stool, a worn and grotty-looking hat, and Professor Longbottom, shocked Rose back into reality.

"Rose Weasley!" shouted Professor Longbottom again. She must've been standing there for longer than she thought if the professor had to repeat her name. Someone gave her a nudge forward, starting her journey to either celebration or condemnation. For the basic requirements for anyone with the surname Weasley were to go to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, be sorted into Gryffindor House, and have red hair. Fail any of those, and Rose was quite certain her family would abandon her. She at least had the red hair. There was hope for her yet… right?

She sat down on the stool, and right then, all she was aware of was every pair of properly working eyes being trained on her. Her brain began to hurt with all of the weight on her to be what everyone expected her to be. She was a Weasley. Weasleys took up a good chunk of the Gryffindor table. They had never been anything else, to her knowledge. Her heartbeat picked up at the thought of her not being in Gryffindor. What if she was sorted into Hufflepuff? Ravenclaw? Slytherin? She shuddered at the thought of Slytherin. It was the house she was brought up to hate with every fiber in her soul.

"Oh, it's another Weasley. Ye gads, you Weasleys reproduce like rabbits," muttered the Sorting Hat once it touched her head. "So, I suppose you are to be a Gryffindor then. But you have so much potential for any other house… well, except for Hufflepuff. I don't even rightly know what a Hufflepuff is, for that matter."

"Erm, I'd much prefer Gryffindor," she squeamishly replied to the Hat's rant.

"Very well, though I think you would do well in any other house, you are now a GRYFFINDOR!"

Raucous cheering filled the hall as the Sorting Hat (and a great deal of stress) was taken off of Rose's head. She beamed proudly as she strutted to the Gryffindor table to join a cluster of carrot-tops sitting in the middle.

"They must be doing this whole thing backwards!"exclaimed Dominique as she and Victoire slid apart to make room for Rose. "Someone had to have fudged the list."

"Thank you so much for your astute observation, cousin," Fred said on Dominique's other side, feigning wonder. "I don't think any of us could've come to that conclusion!"

"Shut up," Dominique reprimanded with a flick to Fred's head.

Several sortings passed, and then, it was Albus' turn. Victoire, being the de facto leader of the Weasley children, had to quiet the warring Dominique and Fred by charming a handy roll of Spellotape to stretch over their mouths. As bloodless as Al's nervous and clammy face was, he was sorted into Gryffindor, and his skin regained some of its color as he joined his family. "Told you I wouldn't be in Slytherin, James," Albus said to his brother smugly as he sat down next to Rose.

"Malfoy, Scorpius!" Professor Longbottom shouted. As the pale boy wove through the woefully unorganized line to the front, James sneered, "Oh, please. Watch that Malfoy be sorted into Slytherin."

"I dunno, James," said Albus. "He's not bad. And he's pretty brave, sitting with me and Rose for the entire ride here. In fact, he was so brave, I wouldn't be surprised if he was sorted into Gryffindor."

"Quiet, you two!" snapped Victoire.

Rose didn't quite know what to think of Scorpius. Her father told her not to get too friendly with him, but her mum scolded her father's commentary on the boy. Scorpius seemed cordial enough in the ride to Hogwarts, and Albus really took to him, but Rose didn't even look at him for the duration of their trip, for fear of being too friendly. She wondered what exactly the extent of "too friendly" was, and she figured that her looking away from Scorpius for so long was rather much, in retrospect.

So, she watched as Professor Longbottom picked up the Sorting Hat from the stool to let Scorpius take a seat. Rose didn't miss Neville's doubtful glance at the boy. He probably thought the child a monster like Draco Malfoy to be sorted into Slytherin. It was almost like he questioned the necessity of the ritual for this particular case. But he continued to lift the hat to Scorpius' head, anyway. Professor Longbottom was never one to make a scene.

Much like his father, the hat had barely touched Scorpius' head before it declared his house. It seemed quite confident in its judgment, but it had to have made a mistake.

"GRYFFINDOR!"

The Great Hall was the quietest it had been in a long time. Not one person spoke or dared to even move for fear of making their seat creak loudly and break the silence. Nearly every face in the place registered total shock; the rest were simply those of confused muggle-borns. But then, there was Scorpius' expression. If he was pale before, his skin was now the color of fresh snow. He was as surprised as anyone, but most of all, he looked worried as he stared at the ground. Rose pitied the boy immensely now, regardless of what anybody else thought of him. They were the same. In Scorpius, she saw herself if she had been sorted into Slytherin or any other house. For that, she wanted to run over to him and hug him and tell him everything would be all right.

Before she could, however, Albus, either completely oblivious to the tension in the Great Hall or being incredibly braver than he was that morning, stood up, waved to Scorpius, and called, "Over here, Scorpius! You're a bloody Gryffindor, too; isn't that terrific?"

As much as Scorpius' look begged to differ, he still stepped down from the platform and made his way to the Gryffindor table, shaking with nerves. Still standing, Albus lowered his voice (although not much) and told James, "Ha! See, James, I was right! Two for two! That's got to count for something!"

"Yes, Al, you'll be brilliant at Divination one day. Now sit down," Victoire hissed, perturbed.

Albus complied and made room for Scorpius between him and Rose. As the boy sat down, the sorting continued, with Professor Longbottom's voice cracking as he called for the next student. A low murmur began in the hall, everyone glancing at Scorpius, who looked like he'd have loved to melt into the cracks in the stone floor, right then.

"It's all right, Scorpius," Albus chattered at him. "This year's going to be great! We'll have a grand time, don't you worry!"

The Weasleys were giving Scorpius suspicious looks, frightening the Malfoy to no end. Rose gave him a slight nudge and a hopefully comforting smile and said, "Welcome to Gryffindor, Scorpius."

A/N: All righty, readers. Thanks for reading. I've been reading fanfiction for awhile, so I figured I'd take it for a whirl today. I've had this idea knocking around in my head for a long time, of Scorpius Malfoy being sorted into Gryffindor, as opposed to Slytherin, through the eyes of Rose. It always intrigued me to explore the what, the how, and the why of the thing, and possibly a few repercussions. I think I did pretty well with this first little entry in the tale I have going. Ah, yes, that's another thing; this is going to be a series of oneshots, taking place between Years 1-3 for Scorpius, Albus, and Rose. In short, the purpose of these is to set up for a full, cohesive story continuing from 4th year, and onward, and have some fun in the process. At least, that's the plan. I'm pretty sure my consistency in updating is going to be pretty sketch from here on out, what with school and other such things concerning my life. But no matter how long it takes, this WILL get written. No matter how many times I say to myself, "I give up!" and yet, still keep going with it. I do this because this is something that happens a lot to me. I don't stop because I love writing. Not only that, but my muse will keep banging around inside my head until I let it out onto the page. What can I say? My muse is riotous. I've got a lot of good ideas for this, in my opinion. So stick around. This'll be interesting.

R&R, bitte. I like me some reviews. Especially constructive criticism. No joke, I love it. Ain't it lunacy?

- DreamingInRhythm