The next morning was thick with tension—though hidden behind smiles, laughter, and the general bustle of students making their way to breakfast. Whispers and parchment notes passed like wildfire through the tables of every house. Placement results had been posted in each common room, and the implications were slowly setting in.
At the Slytherin table, Sirius sat with his usual quiet confidence, flanked by Burton Flint and Cloyd Prewett. Their section—1PA—was the most elite, composed solely of purebloods. They exchanged nods with Felix Nott and the others in their cohort. The unspoken affirmation in their eyes said enough: We've made it.
"I suppose it's not a surprise," Burton muttered between bites of toast. "But it's still a relief, innit? Being a Black didn't exactly guarantee anything... though I'd wager it helped."
Sirius gave a wry smile. "If it hadn't, I'd have hexed the whole staff by now."
Cloyd chuckled. "I'd pay to see that. Though... let's be honest, you didn't even need to try. You probably aced those exams in your sleep."
Around them, more Slytherin first-years were processing the results. The divide had become crystal clear overnight. Those in 1A and 1B sat taller, while those in 1C and 1D—a mix of half-bloods—were quieter, more watchful. The ones placed in 1E, the muggleborn section, were almost absent from the morning chatter altogether. A few sat in pairs, eyes cast downward as they picked at their food. They had not yet realized that no amount of effort could break them into the upper sections—not under the current system.
In Ravenclaw, a similar atmosphere prevailed. The 1PA and 1PB students held their heads high. The half-bloods in 1HC and 1HD tried to act indifferent, but whispers buzzed around them.
"I heard Acantha Greystone nearly burst into tears," a third-year Ravenclaw whispered to her friend. "She thought she had a shot at 1PA."
"She's half-blood, isn't she?" the friend replied matter-of-factly. "No chance. Doesn't matter how smart she is."
Over at the Hufflepuff table, the atmosphere was more muted. The house prided itself on unity, but even that was being tested. Students in 1HC and 1HD shared nervous looks, while those in 1ME were clearly feeling the divide. The seven muggleborns had been lumped together with barely a glance at their individual performance.
Gryffindor, for its part, had the most volatile response. A few students were openly angry—especially among the half-bloods who had done well on paper but were still placed in the second-tier sections. Others accepted it with a shrug, but even they couldn't help but notice the way seniors started treating students differently.
By the time classes began that day, the air was thick with observation. Upper-years from each house had suddenly taken a renewed interest in the first-years. In Slytherin, fifth-year Christabell Yaxley whispered to a friend as she passed the 1PA group:
"Greengrass, Black, Malfoy, Flint, Nott, Fawley, Prewett, Carrow, Rosier and Shafiq... Slytherin's finest, I daresay."
Her friend smirked. "And the rest?"
"Background noise."
Up in the Astronomy Tower, two Ravenclaw prefects discussed the outcome with some irritation.
"We had half-bloods who scored better than the purebloods from other houses. Still didn't get placed above them."
"It's not about fairness," one of them said darkly. "It never was. It's about perception. Blood and name."
Back in Slytherin, Sirius kept his expression carefully neutral as he observed the effects. He didn't revel in the division, but he also wasn't naive enough to deny its use.
"You alright?" Burton asked, nudging him.
"I'm fine," Sirius replied, voice calm. "It's just... funny. Everyone knew the game was rigged. But now that it's official, they're still surprised."
"That's the system, mate," Cloyd added. "We didn't make the rules, we just... survive them."
Sirius looked around at the tables. At the way some students stood taller, while others shrank back. He saw power realigning itself—quietly, efficiently.
Sirius Black had scarcely stepped out of breakfast the next monday when he found himself being swept into the whirlwind of his new academic life. His schedule, meticulously laid out in deep green ink, was packed to the brim. Fourteen subjects a week. Nine core subjects. Five electives. Even among the pureblood elite, few had taken on the maximum course load that was allowed. Even Burton and Cloyd had more free time than him.
But Sirius wasn't most students.
He tucked the parchment into his satchel and smirked to himself. "Light work."
The first few weeks passed like the turning of pages in a well-thumbed book—quickly, and with just enough time to do the homework. Sirius settled into the rhythm of life at Hogwarts with surprising ease. Despite the heavy schedule he had willingly taken on, he felt more invigorated than exhausted.
His mornings began early, sometimes before sunrise, when he would exercise for an hour and practice martial magic to keep up with it. Breakfast in the Great Hall was a thunderous affair, full of chatter and clinking silverware, but Sirius often kept a book propped against his pumpkin juice as he read between bites of cinnamon biscuits to prepare for classes. The familiar taste always made him think of home.
Charms was the first core subject of his week every monday, and it often felt like an anchor to more familiar waters. Professor Vass, pale and ponderous, taught as if time didn't exist—a fitting quality for a charms master. His voice droned like a slow-moving spell, but his subject matter was layered and nuanced if one knew where to look. On the second Monday, when he asked about the strategic consequences of the Cheering charms, Sirius answered without hesitation. His response, referencing not only the category itself but also its divisions and a few examples, earned him a rare smile and an approving nod from the professor.
It was a small moment. But in Hogwarts, small moments mattered.
In Astronomy, he found himself partnered with Laviana Greengrass, whose icy demeanor thawed slightly when Sirius drew a perfect model of the Eastern Constellation arc from memory. They started slowly building an alliance to dominate selection of house representatives at the end of month with the beginning of this partnership.
Charms and Transfiguration moved at a blistering pace, even without practical work in the first term, but Sirius handled the theory with ease. Essays on magical inversion, wand theory, and channeling efficiency became opportunities to outshine—not just to impress his professors, but to assert quietly that he belonged.
He wasn't the only one who stood out. Cloyd Prewett had a knack for pattern recognition in Arithmancy, and Burton Flint was shockingly competent at Herbology despite loudly claiming he found plants dull. Cassian Rosier and Darius Malfoy, two other boys also from Section 1PA, were shrewd and calculating, always whispering commentary behind their textbooks. But Sirius didn't mind their presence. If anything, the subtle rivalry spurred him onward.
But it was the electives that stirred something more than ambition. students from first to third year could start electives at the beginning of any year as they only held three years worth of study for OWLs, so it was usually a mix of all houses and first to third year in those classes, as some students needed more time to settle in hogwarts and did not choose any electives in their first year, sirius was one of the rare one with electives. Even Burton and Cloyd each just had two electives, one of them being Estate and business management, which was kind of compulsory for heirs.
Ancient Runes, held in a sunlit tower room near the Astronomy wing, became a sanctuary of sorts. With only thirty students—first through third years—the room felt quiet and curious rather than competitive. The circular tables were carved with old languages and tinged with faint traces of magic. Professor Corwin Ellery, tall and constantly in motion, made runes feel like a game of secrets. He flung chalk like darts, peppered students with puzzles, and laughed heartily when stumped.
Sirius often sat beside a Ravenclaw second-year named Cyra Fleet, who had a perpetual ink smudge on her cheek and a habit of humming while translating.
"You've read the Karanthian Lexicon?" she asked after he breezed through a complicated cluster of elemental runes.
Sirius nodded without looking up. "Last spring. Good bedtime reading."
Cyra grinned. "You're alright, Black. Just don't beat me too often."
That had surprised him. She didn't care that he was a Black. Or a Slytherin. She cared about the text, and the puzzle, and whether or not he could keep up.
It was refreshing.
In Music and Composition, Sirius met Francis Bell, a Hufflepuff who played the glass harp with such haunting clarity that even the enchanted instruments seemed to quiet in awe. Francis was soft-spoken, but when he spoke of harmonics and tempo spells, his eyes lit up like wandlight.
Then there was Leta Durham, a third-year Gryffindor in Literature and Poetry, who wrote verse faster than most people breathed. Her poems were sharp and brutal and beautiful, all at once. She muttered once during class, "Don't know why more people don't take this. This is the best part of Hogwarts."
Sirius had only nodded, caught in the rhythm of his own quill as he penned a reflection on The Song of the Wandering Queen. Under candlelight, with ink smudges on his sleeves and ideas swirling like wind, he had felt something unfamiliar and exhilarating.
He wasn't just learning. He was becoming.
Even Language Studies, the most crowded of his electives, crackled with energy. The class met thrice weekly in a high-ceilinged room full of floating translation banners and enchanted chalkboards that switched scripts mid-sentence. It was chaos—glorious, vibrating chaos—and Sirius found himself relishing every second.
Professor Renwick was a stout wizard with an unruly beard and the energy of three men. On the first day, he marched into the room with an actual sword strapped across his robes—rumored to be enchanted with a Babel Tongue hex—and bellowed, "Words are power! And in this class, you will learn to wield them like blades!"
"Merlin," Sirius whispered to Cyra Fleet, who had slipped in from Runes. "Are we dueling or conjugating verbs?"
"Hopefully both," she muttered back, eyes wide.
By the end of the first week, they'd touched on Gobbledegook, Troll Sign, Ancient Western Isles Chant, and even snippets of Undercommon—a particularly guttural dialect spoken by subterranean fae. When Sirius managed to string together a crude but grammatically correct insult in Troll Sign, Professor Renwick clapped so hard that dust flew from the ceiling beams.
"You'll make a fine translator or a terrible diplomat, Black!"
The students roared with laughter. Sirius only bowed.
Then there was Art, held in a sunlit studio that smelled of beeswax, lavender, and faintly of burnt parchment. The room was alive—literally. Paintings blinked from the walls, unfinished sculptures whispered ideas to passing students, and parchment that disliked your brush strokes would crumple itself in protest.
Sirius loved every inch of it.
He spent one afternoon trying to replicate a phoenix's rising flight through magically animated color. His first attempt exploded into a mushroom cloud of orange, startling three first-years and causing Professor Beasley to cheer, "Now that's artistic courage!"
Even when a splatter spell went rogue and covered Francis Bell's shoes in shimmering purple slime, the laughter was warm, unjudging.
"Honestly, Black," Francis sighed dramatically as he wiped glitter from his trousers, "if I wanted to swim in stardust, I'd have joined the Astronomy Club."
"You're welcome," Sirius said with a grin. "That shade brings out your eyes."
The classes blurred into one another over the next two weeks—each one chipping away at Sirius's old sense of limits. Estate and business Management was unexpectedly practical and amusing, especially when Professor Bonham made them negotiate over dividing fictional galleons in a simulated shop dispute.
"Your scenario," she said one Thursday, "is this: you run a wand-selling business. Your partner wants to add singing charms to the handles. You hate music. Go."
"Clearly," Sirius said smoothly to his Hufflepuff partner, "I'll be buying you out."
At night, after classes and dinner, the Slytherin common room buzzed with its usual cocktail of firelight and intrigue. Cloyd Prewett, always nosy, once caught Sirius reorganizing his thick study planner.
"You're mad, you know. You won't have time to breathe."
Sirius, lounging with a quill behind one ear, replied without missing a beat. "I'll breathe when I'm brilliant."
Burton, half-asleep on the couch with a book on potion theory draped over his face, raised a single hand. "Then I hope you enjoy gasping through O.W.L.s."
But there was affection in it now. Respect. Even the older Slytherins had begun to nod to Sirius in the halls.
At the end of each evening, just before sleep, Sirius reached for his most treasured magical object: a small black diary, twinned with another, locked to his magical signature. Phineas's diary. The boy was still at home, not yet of age for Hogwarts, but they wrote to each other daily in enchanted ink that shimmered faintly when fresh.
Wednesday Evening, Sep. 17th
Phineas:
Did you really tell your professor you'd "buy him out" in class? Mother would have fainted.
Also, Ella keeps stealing my chess pieces and says I need to "prepare for brutality." What does that mean??
Sirius:
Yes. And no one fainted. They laughed. Also, Ella's right. Hogwarts isn't brutal… unless you're unprepared.
Start reading Hogwarts: A Lawful History. I'll quiz you next week.
Also—don't let her use your rook. Hide the rook. Trust me.
Phineas:
I'll put it in my sock drawer.
Sirius:
Too obvious. Go with the biscuit tin.
Their exchanges were a mix of brotherly ribbing and quiet mentorship. Sirius took it seriously. He didn't want Phineas walking into Hogwarts wide-eyed and underprepared like some of the muggleborns had. Life wasn't fair, and Hogwarts made sure you knew that fast.
Sometimes, Sirius even wrote home the old-fashioned way—on parchment with black family wax seals, delivered by Opal, his owl.
Sep. 15th
Dearest Mother,
Classes are vigorous and excellent. I've joined all five electives I chose previously, all of which I find stimulating in different ways. Professor Housewick reminds me a bit of Grandfather—if Grandfather were louder and wielded languages like a battleaxe.
The castle is far larger than I imagined. I've made acquaintances in every house. Do not worry; I remain sensible and discerning.
Please give my regards to Father and Aunt Aliya.
Yours,
Sirius
His mother's reply had come two days later, neatly folded and crisp.
Sirius,
Five electives? Ambitious. Do not burn yourself out. Your father is pleased to hear of your confidence and progress. Aunt Aliya sends a tart recipe. Kint has it.
Do not neglect your posture. Or your penmanship.
With pride,
Mother
Sirius read it with a faint smile. She'd meant well—even if she hadn't said she missed him. He wasn't sure she did. But he didn't mind. He was learning what it meant to build something for himself now.
By the end of the third week, Sirius no longer needed to read the carved plaque on his dorm door to know he belonged here. His schedule was packed, his ink was constantly running dry, his sleep was fleeting.
But his mind? Wide awake.
And Hogwarts, in all its complexity and contradiction, was beginning to feel like his.
The summons came not by owl or prefect, but in the oldest Slytherin tradition: quiet words, passed like contraband through the common room.
"South study room. Half seven. Don't be late."
No explanation, no authority. Just the kind of message you obey without asking why.
When Sirius arrived, the air was thick with anticipation—and torch smoke. The study room had been rearranged. All the desks were pushed back, forming a wide open floor, and upper-year students lounged like sphinxes in the shadows. Some on desks, some cross-legged on windowsills, all of them watching.
At the center stood two students, unmistakably in charge.
Markus Flintstone—broad-shouldered, with a slow smile that always seemed one step from mockery—and Gemina Markeley, sharp and cold-eyed, her prefect badge glinting like a threat. They weren't merely students. They were institutions. Their presence didn't demand silence—it created it.
Sirius folded his arms and leaned against the wall near Burton and Cloyd, heart thudding with interest he tried to pretend wasn't there.
Markus spoke first, voice slow and amused. "Election week," he said, stretching the syllables. "It's not just about choosing someone to carry your parchments or kiss up to the Head of House."
The third-years chuckled.
"It's about learning the game. How fast you read the room. How deep you see."
Seraphina's voice cut in, crisp and honed. "Each of you will vote. Two names: one boy, one girl. Top two of each become your Class Representatives. The next two? Deputies. Everyone else—better luck next year."
Sirius glanced around. Most of the first-years stood stiff, trying not to blink. Cierra Fawley was already smiling. Laviana Greengrass looked like she'd been waiting for this moment since the Sorting Hat was sewn.
"Where does this happen?" Burton asked, eyes narrowing.
Seraphina's lips curved into something colder than a smile. "The Hollow."
A collective shiver passed through the room.
"The Arena," Markus clarified. "It sits beneath the common room. Seats around two thousand. All Slytherins attend. Every year. Every vote."
Sirius straightened slightly. So that wasn't a myth.
He'd heard the whispers from second-years—about a massive underground hall with water trickling down obsidian walls, torchlight that flickered in time with speakers' voices, and ancient charms that remembered every name spoken within it.
"It's tradition," Markus continued. "Centuries old. Goes back to 1223, when Salazar's blood descendants used it to train orators. Dueling with words instead of wands. Now, every year, we remember: power speaks first."
A pause.
"Campaign how you want," Gemina added. "Just don't be dull. Don't waste our time."
By the next morning, the Slytherin common room had transformed into a miniature parliament—if Parliament were run by overcaffeinated eleven-year-olds with delusions of grandeur and a flair for hexed stationery.
Deals were whispered over toast. Alliances were forged during Herbology revision. And Cloyd Prewett had somehow declared himself Campaign Manager-in-Chief of one Sirius Rigel Black.
"You're clever," Cloyd announced, dragging Sirius by the sleeve away from his untouched breakfast. "You're better read than most professors, probably. But you never sell it."
"I'm not a fruit stall," Sirius muttered, voice muffled by a bite of marmalade toast.
"You are now," Burton declared triumphantly, slapping a badge on Sirius's chest with all the flourish of a coronation.
The badge read:
"BLACK. Cleverer Than You."
Sirius blinked. "Is this… whispering?"
From somewhere under his collar came a soft, repetitive hiss:
"Vote Black… Vote Black…"
"It's got a Soundless Whisper Charm," Cloyd said, beaming. "Very advanced magic. Took me a whole hour."
"It sounds like I'm being stalked by a ghost with asthma."
"Exactly," said Burton. "Memorable."
Meanwhile, the rival camps were taking shape like storm fronts.
Darius Malfoy operated with chilly elegance, walking the halls like he was already elected to something more important than Class Representative—Minister, perhaps. He rarely spoke, just offered cool, appraising nods and the occasional perfect, disdainful smirk. His robes were pressed. His quills were monogrammed.
Felix Nott, on the other hand, was louder and leaner, slinking from group to group like a well-dressed fox. He made offhand jokes about Sirius's whispering badge ("Clever idea… if your campaign is trying to haunt people"), and smirked when first-years laughed a little too loud to impress him.
"We're running against powdered wigs," Sirius muttered one evening as Nott swanned past again.
"You're not running," Laviana Greengrass said with a sigh, appearing behind him like a ghost armed with a clipboard. "You're being pushed because of your name. At least act like it."
She handed him a folded parchment. "Talking points. Bullet Listed. Don't improvise."
"Is this alphabetical?"
"Yes. I know who I'm working with."
Sirius blinked. "You're helping me?"
"I'm helping us," Laviana replied crisply. "Fawley's already bribed half the half-bloods with licorice wands."
While Sirius and Laviana strategized like awkward aristocrats learning to waltz, Cloyd was quietly building a small empire. He approached all the five muggleborns in their year—Henry Pilch, Wesley Moore, Mary Owens, Angelica Montgomery, and Marianna Green—with a deal so understated, it didn't even feel like one.
"I've noticed," Cloyd said casually, "some of the reading materials are insufferably dense. I'm starting a study circle. Just a few of us. Discussion-based, inclusive. Every voice counts."
The muggleborns, still finding their footing in the stormy waters of Hogwarts tradition, blinked. "You mean… like a tutoring group?"
"No, no," Cloyd said, grinning. "You tutor me. I talk too much. It'll be great."
He didn't mention Sirius's name at all. Not once. But the next day, all five wore little green serpent pins—unofficial tokens of Sirius's team, hand-charmed by Burton to warm slightly when touched.
"Is that a bribe?" Sirius asked suspiciously.
"It's solidarity," Cloyd said. "With mild temperature control."
The truth was, Sirius hadn't meant to care. Not really. His instinct was to smirk, stand just to see what would happen, maybe shake things up.
To Sirius's mild horror, Cloyd and Burton had become… tooenthusiastic.
Burton's new campaign poster was six feet tall and enchanted to breathe green smoke in the shape of a serpent that looped the words:
"BLACK: SAY IT LIKE A SPELL."
It mostly coughed and sneezed glitter. Ezra Brown got a mild case of spark-lung from walking past it.
Meanwhile, Fawley's team had gone the confectionery route—handing out sweet rolls in green foil with "Vote Cierra" spelled in sugar letters. Morag Shafiq even offered to hex the rolls with a Laughing Draught "just for fun."
"She's weaponizing baked goods," Laviana said darkly.
"I respect it," Sirius admitted.
Back in Team Greengrass, things were run like a Ministry department. Laviana conducted practice speeches in empty classrooms. Hilda Avery reviewed eye contact angles. Ethel Goyle took names of anyone who sneered at Laviana and added them to something she called The Observation List.
"Which is not a hit list," Ethel clarified. "We're just noticing them."
But the more he watched the dynamics—the alliances, the quiet strategy, the raw ambition—the more intrigued he became. There was something… addictive about it. The thrill of maneuvering. The taste of legacy on the tongue.
And if he was honest with himself, the stage sounded fun.
They all think politics is about rules, he thought. But it's just theatre with stakes.
Each evening, Sirius scribbled a few lines in the enchanted diary he shared with Phineas.
Sirius: "Never run for office. Unless you've got a Flint and a Prewett to make a spectacle for you."
Phineas: "Do I need one too?"
Sirius: "You will. Practice speeches. Practice smirking."
Phineas responded with lopsided doodles and half-witty comebacks. Sirius looked forward to those moments.
He also wrote home twice that week—once to Mother and once to Augie.
To Mother:
I'm standing for class rep, mostly because everyone expects me to. I suppose if I must carry the name, I might as well make it sharp.
Classes go well. History drags, but I've taken to Art like a mermaid to water. Don't laugh.
To Augie:
I miss your bread. No, your bread, not the school's. Also, tell Kint he's not off the hook. I saw a boy with a crooked stitch on his robe and thought of your scolding.
Oh, and I might be running for something. Apparently being loud is half the work. The rest is looking unimpressed.
As the vote neared, the atmosphere in the common room turned electric. Sideways glances sharpened. People clumped tighter in their alliances.
Laviana breezed past Sirius one night on her way to the dorms. "We're going to win," she said coolly.
He grinned. "You say that like it's a surprise."
She looked at him with a raised brow. "I don't like surprises."
Neither did he—but he was learning to be one.