A/N: I'll address some things real quick here.

Eyesight potion, yes it's a stupid cliche, yes I used it, I'll let you decide later in the story when it becomes important on whether it was a waste or not.

Harry's comments about his clothing. A twelve year old is not 100% rational about everything, but yet he somehow bought his Hogwarts robes and will need to acquire his school robes for Beauxbatons. In his mind that's okay, those are things his parents would have paid for anyway. There is some additional information that will paint his comment in a different light as well that hasn't come up yet.

This is the longest chapter so far, and Chapter 6 is looking to be even longer, I'm hoping to find a good settling point for chapters. For those with encouraging words, thanks, this is my first try at fanfiction, and for those with criticisms either harsh or nice, thanks to you too! And once again thank you to my BETA: ekb1circloud

It was during a rather large celebration at the Weasley house that Peter Pettigrew decided it was time to move on. Arthur had taken Dobby's advice and had nailed Lucius Malfoy to the wall, while he didn't think the charges would result in Azkaban, he knew for a fact that Lucius's coffers were going to become just that much smaller. Even better he had gotten a bonus and a promotion out of the whole deal. Marginalizing Malfoy's political strength was just frosting on the cupcake. It was a great day in the Weasley house.

Peter though was having none of it. Slinking his way out of Ron's pocket he left the house and transformed for the first time in ages. With a flick of his wand he apparated away.

"Dawlish, get your ass in gear, either summon your patronus or call in sick already."

Auror Dawlish glared at Yaxley before he responded with, "Don't give me your lip Yaxley, you can't even summon a Patronus consistently, give me a minute, my wife was giving me trouble this morning and I'm not exactly thinking happy thoughts today."

Yaxley laughed in response, "Still better than working here every day, when's old fatso supposed to arrive."

"Yaxley, you are talking about the Minister of Magic, show a little respect."

Yaxley waved him off before continuing, "He does the same inspection every year, and every year he lets Sirius Black open his disgusting gob, I don't understand how the stupid idiot is still coherent enough to even speak, much less hold a conversation."

Dawlish looked at Yaxley like he was an idiot before responding, "If you were wandering around the closest thing to hell on earth, wouldn't you stop in for the one man who has a few words to spare? At least Black has a sense of humor, even if he is disgusting."

Yaxley chuckled in response, "He does always have something to say that's for sure."

A klaxon sounded and Dawlish quickly summoned his patronus before a crack sounded as the rest of Minister Fudge's escort portkey'd in.

"How long?" Dawlish said, before a second crack sounded and Minister Fudge pulled his jacket down and said with a bit of impatience, "Let's get on with it, there are a million places I'd rather be."

Dawlish decided it was best to get a move on and began the inspection, pulling out a clipboard he began annotating compliance issues and making comments to the Minister as he went along. Fudge simply grunted in response to most of his comments. Dawlish could understand, he had read the paper this morning too.

It wasn't long before they rounded on Sirius Black's cell, Yaxley yelled at him, "Black your yearly appointment is here."

"And here I was thinking no one cared about little old me anymore," a gravely voice responded from the cell.

Fudge smiled, he liked Black, even though he despised him, "Come now Black, I'd never miss our little meetings, how exciting is this, one of your victims has decided that you ruined Britain so well they'd rather attend school with the damnable French."

"We've gone over this before Minister, I don't have victims, I have fellow visitors in Hell. What have I done now though?"

Fudge grimaced and threw the paper through the bars, "Your precious godson has decided that Hogwarts isn't for him," he said with a sneer.

Sirius looked at the paper and did his best to hide his shock, "Albus really must be spinning his top over this."

Fudge laughed grimly, "You'd be surprised, he actually told me to not make a stink over it, he's right of course it would just end up making Britain look bad acting snooty over it, not that I know why I'm telling you this, it doesn't matter."

Sirius grinned wolfishly before responding, "You like to tell me these things because you know it'll torment me. Everyone loves to pick on poor Sirius."

"Well Black, get back to rotting if you don't mind." Fudge said before gesturing for his escort to continue.

Sirius looked at the paper and was suddenly overwhelmed, if Harry had gone to Beauxbatons in his second year, something must have happened at Hogwart's. He had to do something, he had to keep Harry safe.

"Welcome to new students and old alike, so begins another year at Beauxbatons academy, I hope all of you come to love this place just as much as I have. Some of you may have heard that Harry Potter has come to join us this year, I will only entertain the question to dispel rumors, but yes after much deliberation Mr. Potter decided he wanted to broaden his horizons and has joined us here, please treat him as you would any other student."

"As usual we have had some professors moving in and out of the faculty this year, Professor Disregard has left the Counterspell position and Remus Lupin has taken his place, he comes with a mastery in the art as well as Level 5's in many other skills, so I look forward to seeing you all succeed under his direction."

"The list of restricted items remains small with only the minor addition of Veritaserum outside of controlled conditions. Last year someone got it in their minds to spike the pumpkin juice during our Yuletide festival, I'm sure many of you remember. As usual I will repeat what I've said in the past, if you don't abuse it, we won't restrict it, so be responsible!"

"Lastly and what you've all been waiting for we will now begin the bidding. For those of you who are new here, there are thirteen teams representing the thirteen lunar months of each year, a captain or one of our professor's leads each team and they bid for students to join them. I ask that each student that needs to be sorted stand to the side of the room after they are done eating their fill."

Harry looked about the room at this point as the meal began in earnest and suddenly felt uneasy. No one was particularly looking at him, though he had received some curious glances, but it was far better than the staring that Hogwarts had. He felt uneasy though because now he was going to come under some intense scrutiny. There were a lot litany of spells that professors would cast on you during the sorting and he didn't really enjoy being inspected that closely.

Plucking up he decided to make the best of it though, how bad could it be, it was certainly better than being selected on some arbitrary emotional state he happened to be in at the time, even the hat had said he would do well in any house at Hogwarts. Finishing his food relatively quickly he wandered over to the gaggle of first years that had started to gather to be sorted. He gave them each a look before settling on keeping to himself, it was a tried and true tactic for him and he didn't feel like he had it in him to spark up a conversation at the moment, he was a bit too nervous.

It took a bit of time, but eventually the room quieted down and Madame Maxine stood, "As usual sorting is a private matter between you and the captains of each team, you will be called one by one into the adjacent chamber. After you are sorted you will get to meet your peers, your team is who you can trust to make sure you have what you need to succeed while at Beauxbatons, take care of them and they will take care of you."

Harry stood impatiently while names were called into the chamber one by one, it seemed to take about 10 minutes per person, so he would be here quite a while going alphabetically, so he pulled out his wand and began to do simple charms to keep himself occupied.

He had learned a lot since the beginning of the summer and he was pretty pleased with how helpful Madeline had been for potions, but what had surprised him was that she had been very helpful on other topics as well. His mind drifted for a while before he perked up on hearing Gabrielle Delacour being announced, looking up he saw a rather cute girl with brunette hair and soft grey eyes, the eyes reminded him of something he couldn't quite place and it was then he realized he was picking up features that he wouldn't have been able to distinguish at this distance with his glasses.

Shrugging it off as something to think about later he put her face to memory and decided he had enough twiddling his thumbs and struck up some small talk with the other kids around him.

"Harry Potter!"

Harry started he had gotten so lost in getting to know the other kids around him that he had to scramble to get to the other room. Walking in he found himself in a rather cozy room with a round table with fifteen spots, fourteen of which were occupied with Madame Maxine also being in attendance, picking the empty spot he sat and waited patiently to be engaged.

The man who he knew was the History professor, he thought his name was Henderson, spoke up, "Now Mr. Potter we are going to cast a small spell called a Wealing charm, are you familiar with it?" Harry nodded in affirmation, he had been shown how the spell worked by Philippe who had said it was commonly used in parts of the magical community for business deals. It was apparently a kind of divination, but Philippe had said he needed to take Spell Theory to really understand it.

The cool grey flame danced in the middle of the table before Madame Maxine posed a question to him, "What is more important, academics or ambition?"

Harry immediately felt his hackles rising, he hoped that this wasn't how the whole thing was going to go, one philosophical question after another. Trying to not let his frustration show he responded, "You aren't asking any trick questions are you?"

Madame Maxine smiled and responded, "I think that will do for your answer."

Harry's jaw snapped shut and anger flashed in his eyes before he controlled himself. The man named Lupin asked a question after that, "It says here you were sorted into Gryffindor in Hogwart's if you could pick another house to have been sorted into what would it be?"

Harry tried not to huff, he might be okay with talking about himself with one other person, but fourteen at once was a bit much, "Hufflepuff, I'm no stranger to hard work and everyone there is really friendly, and there is nothing stopping you from being a studious Hufflepuff, Cedric Diggory has been top of his class every year at Hogwarts."

A feminine voice he didn't recognize spoke up on his left, "May I cast a spell on you Mr. Potter?"

Harry asked, "What spell?"

"A mind magic, I know you are British so I will explain, the British fear the Legilimens and the Imperious, and rightly so. In fear they have outlawed more than just dangers though, they have also removed one of the most important cultural expressions of being magical. This spell will show you and us an imprint or maybe a symbol of what you are and what we are. No secrets, but maybe an icon of your aspirations."

"The experience is shared though? So like a trade?"

She nodded and he responded, "Okay."

It was quick, and suddenly the room was a completely different kind of a place, a few of the people near him eyes widened, but Harry himself was drawn to the new teachers face. Remus Lupin was like a beacon to him, and he couldn't help but stare. The image of a wolf surrounded the teacher but what was so curious was the way the wolf's eyes were on him like he was the most important person in the world. That was a feeling Harry was completely unfamiliar with and he couldn't pull his eyes away.

Remus for his part couldn't stop himself from saying, "Five weeks potion duty for my team."

The feminine voice he heard earlier spoke up, "Six weeks."

Remus immediately responded, "Seven, and one week groundskeeping."

The woman huffed, "You already snatched the Delacour girl, that means you have both and Philippe, and now you are spending all the rest of your bids on Potter. Are you going to share any of the best students."

Remus just grinned in return, "I'm new I have to make a splash."

"Eight and one."

"Nine and Two."

"Fine!" The woman said.

Two of the other professors rolled their eyes, and Madame Maxine actually was covering her mouth in amusement.

"Welcome to Team Moony Mr. Potter." Lupin said with a smirk.

Harry shook himself from his staring before he smiled, "Thank you."

Madame Maxine gestured to the door and said, "You'll find your team through there, welcome to Beauxbatons."

Sirius was anxious not a new feeling for sure, but at the moment it was making it hard to focus on keeping the Dementors out. He had taken to doing Arithmancy on the walls of his cell to keep himself occupied but at the moment it wasn't quite enough of a distraction. He would write letters, but that wasn't something they allowed.

Harry wasn't safe. He needed something to focus on, he had dreamed a few times of escaping, he knew he could pull it off given the rather careless attitude most of the guards here had, between his Animagus form and his Occlumency he had managed to stave off the worst of the effects of the place. He didn't want to cause more trouble for his friends or himself though.

His combination of abilities gave him a rare resistance, not that it made the food more pleasant, but it was better than going insane. Looking through the room his eyes landed on one of the oddities of the place, Dementors had a tendency to shed. Whenever they were full from tormenting, their cloaks would grow and every now and then they'd get caught on something and pieces would tear off.

It certainly added to their fearsome image, tattered cloaks and darkness. That wasn't what suddenly had Sirius curious though. The cloaks had a lot of magic in them, since contrary to popular belief that's what the Dementors actually fed on, their method was gruesome but evoking the worst of your memories had a tendency to make the human soul and by proxy its magic more easily consumed. It would of course grow back in time, that's why the Dementors agreed to service the isle, it gave them a free source of food.

Picking up the cloth Sirius shuddered a bit, usually the cloak would eventually unravel and the latent magic would sink into the stones of the castle, one of the side effects was that the castle was basically indestructible after centuries of it. Unraveling a thread, Sirius got an idea that he was sure was basically as insane as he would tolerate.

Looking back over to his bed he grinned wildly, lifting the mattress, he pulled the wood out from underneath, the wood was cheap, but it wasn't particle board, it was a single section that he could work with. Picking up a small splinter Sirius turned toward the cloth he held and began to pick at it trying to get a single thread from it.

He began to laugh, he wondered if anyone had ever shared this crazy idea, and began to work in earnest.

At Hogwart's a rat and a book made its way down into the Chamber of Secrets during the welcoming feast. And it wasn't long before a rat, a book, and a rather large snake left the premises under the cover of night.