Lucy Potter: Harry's little sister

Chapter 9: Life changes

Aunt Petunia came home first, probably from one of her friends. She always went to friends for gossip and to tell gossip and afterwards, she was strangely content with her day.

Until she saw me, then she'd roll her eyes, sigh and often curse her 'horrible life'. She'd be grumpy all over again and give me more chores to do.

Around half past 5, Uncle Vernon would come home, all annoyed and I'd have to watch every move I'd make for the rest of the evening.

After I'd made them diner and let them eat, me getting the left-overs, as usual, it was time for my daily punishment.

Uncle Vernon would beat me up, using his fists, feet and a belt.

I would usually end up blacking out halfway through anyways.

After this, I'd clean myself up and do some last-minute chores for the family and sneak out of the house to go around the block and get away from my family.

This night was the first one that was actually cold and dark, but I left the house anyway.

Always up for adventure and being away I guess.

I normally either find a prank to pull on Dudley or some bitch from school or get lost in my own thoughts.

Tonight, it was my thoughts, mostly about Harry and Hogwarts and a bit about the pain I was still in from the beating.

I saw Mrs. Figg watching me through her window and waved at her politely.

When I returned home, I went into my cupboard, making it look like I'd been in there all this time.

When I'd made up a plan for pranking I'd work on it now, but tonight I hadn't, so I just went off to sleep, ending one more stupid day of my life.

*~*

Harry's POV:

The hat started to sing a song, which informed us about the houses and how the choosing ceremony would go.

It turned out we only had to put on the head and then the hat would chose our house for us, based on our personality.

First there was a girl named Hanna Abbot, who was sorted into Hufflepuf, making Malfoy smirk and me roll my eyes at him.

I didn't pay attention for a while, until I heard a familiar name.

"Granger, Hermione," Professor called from a scroll with our names.

Hermione sighed and looked a bit pale when she stepped up to the stool.

It took the hat a lot of time to decide here and I saw Hermione looking at the students anxiously.

The hat finally yelled: "GRYFFINDOR!"

Ron, next to me groaned.

Hermione went to the Gryffindor table, a re- liefed look on her face.

The next name that caught my attention was Malfoy's.

Malfoy stepped forward with a confident, arrogant grin on his face and didn't seem nervous at all.

The hat had barely touched his head when the hat yelled: "SLYTHERIN!"

"Not surprising," Ron whispered in my ear.

Neville Longbottom was soon after. Neville was the opposite of Malfoy.

He almost tripped when walking forward and he looked sick of nerves.

The hat took quite some time (though shorter than with Hermione) to choose.

It yelled: "GRYFFINDOR!"