A Lion's Honor & Pride (Harry Potter) (Under Editing)

Prologue/Chapter One: The Sorting Hat

Ariana Malfoy was sitting in an empty compartment by herself and was watching as the landscape changed drastically outside of her window. Over a thousand thoughts go through her head as she continued watching the changing scenery. She had been hugged and kissed by her mother before she left, but her father had ignored her (unsurprisingly) as he spoke to her twin brother, Draco, before they had both boarded the train. Draco had went to speak to his friends, but Ariana had decided to sit by herself. She knew that she carried their mother's love and their father's disappointment, since he wanted a boy and not a girl. But she soon regained her wits as Draco had came back as the sighting of Hogwarts Castle had came to view. She hopes to make a change in the history of both Malfoys and Blacks, like being an House no Malfoy or Black had been in before. In a sense, Ariana admires Sirius Black, despite his being in Azkaban for some reason, and Andromeda Tonks.
Ariana straightened her hair and gotten dressed in her black robes, she peered out of the window and marveled the night sky. She could see the mountains and forests under the twilight sky. The train seemed to be slowing down.
A voice echoed through the train: "We will be reaching Hogwarts in five minutes' time. Please leave your luggage on the train, it will be taken to the school separately."
Ariana's stomach lurched with excitement and nerves, Draco looked at Ariana with an encouraging smile and it calmed Ariana's nerves. The train slowed right down and came to a complete stop. People pushed their way towards the door and out on a tiny, dark platform. Ariana felt herself shivering in the cold night air. Then a lamp came bobbing over their heads.
A giant man stood there and was holding a lantern over their heads. His face was almost completely hidden by a long, shaggy mane of hair and a wild, tangled beard, but they could make out his eyes, glinting like joyful black stars under all the hair. He was wearing huge furry brown clothes and boots.
"Firs' years! Firs' years over here!" said the giant man with a smile. "My name is Rubeus Hagrid, 'he gatekeeper. C'mon, follow me — any more firs' years? Mind yer step, now! Firs' years follow me!"
Slipping and stumbling, they followed Hagrid down a steep, narrow path. It was so dark on either side there. Nobody spoke much. Ariana and Draco kept exchanging curious and excited looks. 
"Yeh'll get yer firs' sight o' Hogwarts in a sec," Hagrid called over his shoulder. "Jus' round this bend here."
There was a loud "Ooooh!"
The narrow path had opened suddenly onto the edge of a great black lake. Perched atop a high mountain on the other side, its windows sparkling in the starry sky, was a vast castle with many turrets and towers.
"No more'n four to a boat!" Hagrid called, pointing to a fleet of little canoes sitting in the water by the shore. Ariana and Draco were followed into their boat by a dark-haired boy named Theodore Nott and an African American boy named Blaise Zabini.
"Everyone in?" shouted Hagrid, who's in a canoe himself. "Right then — FORWARD!"
The fleet of canoes moved off all at once, gliding across the lake, which was smooth as glass. Everyone was silent, starting up at the great castle overhead. It towered over them as they sailed nearer and nearer to the cliff on which it stood. Ariana heard a loud splash and a bit of yelling from behind them, making a few of the first years laughed a bit as the Giant Squid's tentacles poked out of the water and helped the others get back into the boat.
"Ahh, ya'll met th'e Giant Squid," Hagrid said when he saw what was going on. "'Riendly little fella, ain't he?"
Ariana and the other students looked at each other, bewildered from the sudden sighting of the Giant Squid's tentacles or Hagrid's comment.
"Little?" Ariana raised an eyebrow at the others and had an dumbfounded expression as well as the boys.
"Heads down!" yelled Hagrid as the first boats reached the cliff; they all lowered their heads and the canoes carried them through a curtain of ivy that hid a wide opening in the cliff face. They were carried along a dark tunnel, which seemed to be taking them right underneath the castle, until they reached a kind of underground harbor, where they clambered out onto rocks and pebbles.
Then they clambered up a passageway in the rock after Hagrid's lamp, coming out at last onto smooth, damp grass right in the shadow of the castle.
Ariana felt Draco slipped his hand into her own and gave a gentle squeeze. They walked up a flight of stone steps and crowded around the huge, oak front door.
"Everyone here?" All of the students nodded. They watched as Hagrid raised a gigantic fist and knocked three times on the castle door.
The door swung open at once. A tall, black-haired witch in emerald-green robes stood there. She had a very stern face and Ariana's first thought was that this was not someone to cross.
"The firs' years, Professor McGonagall," said Hagrid.
"Thank you, Hagrid. I will take them from here." She pulled the door wide. The stone walls were lit with flaming torches like the ones at Gringotts, the ceiling was too high to make out, and a magnificent marble staircase facing them led to the upper floors.
They followed Professor McGonagall across the flagged stone floor. Ariana could hear the drone of hundreds of voices from a doorway to the right — the rest of the school must already be here — but Professor McGonagall showed the first years into a small, empty chamber off the hall. They crowded in, standing rather closer together than they would usually have done, peering about nervously.
"Welcome to Hogwarts," said Professor McGonagall. "The start-of-term banquet will begin shortly, but before you take your seats in the Great Hall, you will be sorted into your houses. The Sorting is a very important ceremony because, while you are here, your house will be something like your family within Hogwarts. You will have classes with the rest of your house, sleep in your house dormitory, and spend free time in your house common room. The four houses are called Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and Slytherin. Each house has its own noble history and each has produced outstanding witches and wizards. While you are at Hogwarts, your triumphs will earn your house points, while any rulebreaking will lose house points. At the end of the year, the house with the most points is awarded the house cup, a great honor. I hope each of you will be a credit to whichever house becomes yours. The Sorting Ceremony will take place in a few minutes in front of the rest of the school. I suggest you all smarten yourselves up as much as you can while you are waiting."
Her eyes lingered for a moment on a plump faced boy's cloak, which was fastened under his left ear, and on a red-haired boy's smudged nose. Ariana nervously tried to keep her hair braided.
"I shall return when we are ready for you," said Professor McGonagall. "Please wait quietly."
She left the chamber. Ariana swallowed, but her nervousness had settled down a bit and was replaced with curiosity when Ariana had saw her brother looking around for somebody.
"Who are looking for Draco?" Ariana asked Draco.
"Harry Potter," replied Draco. "I want to be his friend. Lets just say me and him had gotten off the wrong foot."
"How about I talk to him?" Ariana asked Draco.
"Well, okay." Draco nodded. "Let me know how it goes."
Then something happened that made Ariana jump about a foot in the air — several people behind her screamed.
"What the—?"
She gasped in surprise. So did the people around her. About twenty ghosts had just streamed through the back wall. Pearly-white and slightly transparent, they glided across the room talking to one another and hardly glancing at the first years. They seemed to be arguing.
What looked like a fat little monk was saying: "Forgive and forget, I say, we ought to give him a second chance —"
"My dear Friar, haven't we given Peeves all the chances he deserves? He gives us all a bad name and you know, he's not really even a ghost — I say, what are you all doing here?" A ghost wearing a ruff and tights had suddenly noticed the first years.
Ariana stepped forward and said softly, "We're first years sir."
"About to be Sorted, I suppose?" said the Fat Friar, smiling around at them.
A few people nodded mutely.
"Hope to see you in Hufflepuff!" said the Friar. "My old house, you know."
Professor McGonagall had returned. One by one, the ghosts floated away through the opposite wall.
"Now, form a line," Professor McGonagall told the first years. "And follow me."
Feeling oddly as though Ariana got into line behind Susan Bones and Daphne Greengrass, and they walked out of the chamber, back across the hall, and through a pair of double doors into the Great Hall.
Ariana had never even imagined such a stunning place.
It was lit by thousands and thousands of candles that were floating in midair over four long tables, where the rest of the students were sitting. These tables were laid with glittering golden plates and goblets. At the top of the hall was another long table where the teachers were sitting. Professor McGonagall led the first years up here, so that they came to a halt in a line facing the other students, with the teachers behind them. The hundreds of faces staring at them looked like pale lanterns in the flickering candlelight. Dotted here and there among the students, the ghosts shone misty silver. Mainly to avoid all the staring eyes, Ariana looked upward and saw a velvety dark blue and purple ceiling dotted with stars.
It was hard to believe there was a ceiling there at all, and that the Great Hall didn't simply open on to the heavens.
Ariana quickly looked down again as Professor McGonagall silently placed a four-legged stool in front of the first years. On top of the stool she put a pointed wizard's hat. This hat was patched and frayed and extremely dirty.
In the hall was now staring at the hat, he stared at it, too. For a few seconds, there was complete silence. Then the hat twitched. A rip near the brim opened wide like a mouth — and the hat began to sing:
"Oh, you may not think I'm pretty,
But don't judge on what you see,
I'll eat myself if you can find.
A smarter hat than me.
You can keep your bowlers black,
Your top hats sleek and tall,
For I'm the Hogwarts Sorting Hat.