James had nodded, but it hadn't worked. He knew what his dad really wanted--and expected-despite the talk. James was to be a Gryffindor, just like Mum and Dad, just like his uncles and aunt, just like all the heroes and legends he'd been told about since he was a baby, all the way back to Godric Gryffindor himself, greatest of all the founders of Hogwarts.

        And yet now, as he stood, watching the Sorting Hat being produced and held aloft by the skinny arms of Headmistress McGonagall, he found that all his fears and worries had somehow drained away. He'd had a sort of idea during the last few hours. Now it came fully to the front of his mind. He had assumed all along that he had no choice but to compete with his father and try to fill his enormous shoes. His subsequent terrible fear had been that he would be unequal to the task, that he would fail. But what if there was another option? What if he simply didn't try?

        James stared ahead, unseeing, as the first students were called to the chair, as the hat was lowered onto their heads, almost hiding their intensely curious, upturned eyes. He looked like a statue--a statue of a small boy with his father's unruly black hair and his mother's nose and expressive lips. What if he simply didn't try to live up to the giant shadow cast by his dad? Not that he wouldn't be great in his own way. It would just be a very different way. A decidedly, intentionally different way. And what if that started here? Right here, on the platform, on his first day, being proclaimed… well, something other than a Gryffindor. That would be all that mattered. Unless…

"James Potter," the voice of the Headmistress rang out with her distinctive rolled 'r' on his last name. He startled, looking up at her as if he'd forgotten she was there. She looked a hundred feet tall standing there on the platform, her arm held out ramrod straight and holding the Sorting Hat over the chair, casting a triangular shadow onto it. He was about to move forward and climb the short flight of steps to the platform when a noise broke out behind him. It shocked and worried him for a moment. He was irrationally afraid that somehow his thoughts had gotten out and betrayed him, that it was the noise of the Gryffindor table standing, booing him. But it wasn't the sound of booing. It was the sound of applause, polite and sustained, in response to the calling of his name. James turned to the Gryffindor table, a smile of gratitude and happiness already lighting his face. But they weren't the ones applauding. They sat there rather blankly. Most of their heads were turned toward the source of the sound. James turned, following their eyes. It was the Slytherin table.

        James felt rooted to the spot. The entire table was looking at him with pleasant smiles, every one open, happy, applauding. One of the students, a tall, very attractive girl with wavy black hair and large, sparkling eyes, was standing. She clapped lightly but confidently, smiling directly at James. Finally, the other tables began to join in, first in dribs and drabs, and then in a sustained, rather puzzled ovation.

        "Yes. Yes, thank you," Headmistress McGonagall called over the applause. "That will be enough. We are all quite, er, happy that we have young Mr. Potter here with us this year. Now, if you'll please resume your seats…" James began his ascent of the dais while the applause died down. As he turned and sat down on the chair, he heard the Headmistress mutter, "So we can finish this and have dinner before the next equinox." James turned to look up at her, but saw only the dark maw of the Sorting Hat coming down on top of him. He closed his eyes tightly and felt the cool softness of the hat cover his head, slipping down over his brow.

        Instantly, all other sound stopped. James was in the mind of the hat, or perhaps it was the other way around. It spoke, but not to him.

        "Potter, James, yes, I've been expecting this one. The third Potter that's come under my brim. Always difficult, these…," it mused to itself, as if it enjoyed the challenge. "Courage, yes, as always, but courage is cheap in the young. Still, good Gryffindor stock, just like the ones before."

        James' heart leaped. Then he remembered the thought he'd had standing before the dais and he faltered. I don't have to play the game, he thought to himself. I don't have to be a Gryffindor. He thought of the applause, thought of the face of the pretty girl with the long, wavy black hair, standing beneath the green and silver banner.

        "Slytherin, he thinks!" the hat spoke in his head, considering. "Yes, always that possibility as well. Like his father. He'd have made a great Slytherin, but hadn't the will. Hmm, very unsure of himself is this one, and that is a first for a Potter. Lack of sureness is neither a Gryffindor nor a Slytherin trait. Perhaps Hufflepuff would do him some good…"

         Not Hufflepuff, thought James.Faces swam up before him in his mind: Mum and Dad, Uncle Ron, Aunt Hermione, Gryffindors all. Then they faded and he saw the girl at the Slytherin table, smiling, applauding. He heard himself thinking, as he had thought minutes earlier, I could be great in a different way, an intentionally different way…

        "Not Hufflepuff, hmm? Perhaps you're right. Yes, I see it now. Confused you may be, but

uncertain you are not. My initial instincts are correct, as always." And then aloud, the Sorting Hat called out the name of his house.

        The hat was whipped off his head, and James had actually thought he'd heard the word 'Slytherin' still echoing from the walls, actually looked with sudden horror toward the green and silver table to see them applauding, when he realized it was the table beneath the crimson lion that had jumped up and applauded. The Gryffindor table cheered loudly and raucously, and James realized how much more he liked that than the polite, practiced applause he'd gotten earlier. He leaped from the chair, ran down the steps, and was enveloped amongst the cheers. Hands patted his back and reached out to shake his and high-five him. A seat near the front opened for him and a voice spoke in his ear as the cheers finally subsided.

        "Never doubted it a minute, mate," the voice whispered happily. James turned to see Ted give him a confident nod and a slap on the back before settling back to his seat. Turning back to watch the rest of the Sorting ceremony, James felt, so suddenly, perfectly happy that he thought he might split right down the middle. He didn't have to follow exactly in his dad's footsteps, but maybe he could start doing things deliberately differently tomorrow. For now, he gloried in the knowledge that Mum and Dad would be thrilled to know that he, like them, was a Gryffindor.

        When Zane's name was called, he trotted up the steps and plopped on the chair as if he thought it was going to take him on a roller coaster ride. He grinned as the shadow of the hat fell over his head, and it had no sooner done so than the hat cried out "Ravenclaw!" Zane raised his eyebrows and rocked his head back and forth in a cheerfully mystified way that brought a peal of laughter from the crowd even as the Ravenclaws cheered and beckoned him to their table.