Aurora Rosier & the Year of the Snake

The Year of the Snake

Aurora pondered where to begin - it felt like each food was personally calling her name. Marius and the Diggorys had ensured that neither Aurora nor Cedric went hungry a day in their lives, but she had never seen such a rich selection. She took a hearty serving of the roast duck and mashed potatoes while Draco helped himself to a choice cut of bloody steak.

"Try and imagine seven years with him," the handsome dark-skinned boy whispered from across the table. He leaned closer to Draco and jerked his thumb to where Dumbledore was laughing merrily at the head of the teacher's table, his plate artfully stacked with only peppermint humbugs. "I think I'd go absolutely mental."

"My father always said Dumbledore was the worst thing to happen to Hogwarts," Draco sniffed. "I bet he gets two years before he's replaced. Tops."

The first boy eyed Draco, seeming to size him up. After a moment he smiled and held out his hand, careful to keep the sleeves of his robe out of the gravy. "I'll take you up on that. I'm Blaise Zabini."

"Draco Malfoy. And this is Aurora Rosier."

Aurora quickly covered her mouth with her napkin, caught off-guard by Draco's introduction. She swallowed her mouthful of potatoes before shaking Blaise's hand over a pyramid of peas. "Pleasure to meet you, Blaise."

"Likewise," he said, studying her now.

"You were up there for a long time, Aurora," cut in Daphne Greengrass from next to Blaise. Her blonde hair was still neatly bunned and a black lacey headband kept any stray hairs out of her wide, blue eyes. "Nearly thought you'd be a Hatstall!"

"Yeah, what gives? The Sorting Hat's never wrong." Pansy eyed Aurora suspiciously. "Bet you tried arguing with it. Or you tried to get a compliment, the Sorting Hat never just gives out compliments."

"Oh, come off it, Pans," Daphne laughed, flinging a small piece of roll across the table.

"Stop it, Pheenie!" Pansy flushed. She flicked a few peas back at Daphne, swiping at the crumbs that had sprayed across her cheek.

"It talked a lot about my family, I guess." And my destiny, she thought, but she didn't feel like it was the time to mention everything the Sorting Hat had said. She took a sip of pumpkin juice from her goblet. "It did a lot of thinking. Which, I guess is what you get when a talking hat reads your mind."

Blaise chuckled, which Aurora appreciated. She was trying to not let it show, but she was still rattled from her conversation with the Sorting Hat, beyond the 'sorted into Hufflepuff vs. Slytherin' debacle. All the hat's talk about her father had made her morbidly more curious than before and had unearthed way more questions that she still didn't have answers to.

All conversation around the table lulled as the feast carried on, all worries temporarily pushed from Aurora's mind with a particularly delicious bite of lamb. She took the pause in conversation to finally look around at all the newly sorted Slytherins. Crabbe and Goyle, who had been seated on either side of a displeased Slytherin prefect for their apparent 'crude behavior' upon arrival, were stuffing their faces with a gravy-soaked meal. There was a gangly brunette on the other side of Blaise slowly picking at the bits of food on his plate - Aurora remembered him vaguely as Theodore Nott. Draco had pushed his plate away, seeming to have lost his appetite altogether thanks to the ghost of Slytherin (nicknamed 'the Bloody Baron'), who had decided to take a seat between the blonde and an unbothered third year. Aurora listened as Daphne and Pansy bickered across the table. They had grown up together, much like Aurora and Cedric had.

When everyone had eaten as much of the feast as they possibly could, the remains faded from the plates, eliciting two groans of disappointment from Crabbe and Goyle, who had been reaching for fourths. However, dessert appeared seconds later. Blocks of ice cream in every flavor imaginable, apple pies, treacle tarts, chocolate eclairs and jam doughnuts, trifle, strawberries, Jell-O, rice pudding...