AUTHORS NOTE: This chapter is deticated to Whisper for helping me edit some mistakes. Thank you!
Chapter 2
The Sorting
Well, so much for staying away from the Malfoys this year.
I started off rather badly, didn't I? I thought, as I twisted a lock of my fiery hair around my index finger.I had never really talked to Scorpius Malfoy- yes,I had lessons with him, but I usually avoided him, and tried to maintain an arms length away from him. Albus didn't really care all that much. He said once that "Scorpius is actually pretty okay, I suppose."
Don't ask me where he got that from.
He picked some dirt out of his robes and stood up rather angrily.
"What?" he snapped, his eyes glistening like hot coals. I shook my head, as if to wake my self up from my trance and blinked.
"Umm, nothing. Nothing," I stood there, since he was blocking the way to the corridor.
His light eyebrows raised, so they were almost hidden in his hair. "Well, well, you must be a Weasley." He sneered maliciously. This time, I raised an eyebrow and put my hands on my hips.
"Oh yes, and what do we have here? A rat? Oh no, sorry it's just a Malfoy." We stared at each other through a pregnant silence, shouting wordless insults back and forth.
"Well watch where you're going, or do you not know how to walk?" he drawled annoyingly. He was surprisingly tall; I was usually one of the tallest girls in out form, but he stood over me, sneering. I could feel my face going red, but was determined not to show it.
"Just shut it, Malfoy." I growled, and sidestepped him, marching off in the direction of my compartment.
"Later, Weasley!" he cried out. I turned around to get a glimpse of his smiling face turning around and walking in the opposite direction.
Bloody Malfoys.Was that a fight or just a game to him? I mean what's up with that smile of his? No wonder Dad tells me to keep a distance. I pushed open the compartment door, still cursing the damned encounter under my breath and muttering about the ignorance of most slytherins.
I turned around to find James, sitting lazily on my seat, his legs extended, taking up a big part of the floor. I scowled at him and sat down beside him angrily.
"Hullo Red!" He always called me Red. Never Rose. Red. "What was that about Slytherunts? I didn't catch it!" he grinned cheerfully. The Scamader twins held up magazines, covering their faces, but they lowered them, so that only their eyes peeped out. The title read "The Quibbler". Huh. I though they stopped publishing that. But Luna did send us some copys occasionally.
Lorcan - I think it was him, at least, and I hoped it was, since I was his best friend for some time when we were smaller so I better know which is which- lowered his magazine and said in a breezy voice: "Those Slytherins are never any good....."
"..only cause trouble." Lysander completed nodding behind his own copy.
"Oh it's nothing!" I said tiredly.
"Whatever- you- don't- say!" James sang merrily, sitting and leaning over to me. "But you'll like to hear this, Red. Because you are a girl and girls enjoy gossip." I sighed exasperatedly at James. I have practically lived with him for 14 years yet he still doesn't understand I don't care about gossip.
He must have read my expression because he made a surrendering motion with his hands, both of his palms facing me. "Fine, it isn't gossip. But it's good. It's about.." he beckoned for me to lean in closer. I stared at him for a moment and then leaned in unwillingly. James glanced at something beside my head and whispered something, barely audiable.
"AAAARGH!" I scrambled to my feet as a sticky, wet and cold substance slipped down my shirt and made me dance like a loon trying to get it out. The whole compartment burst out laughing as I finally whipped my wand out and muttered a spell, proceeding into turning around and giving Fred (who was almost falling with laughter) the evil eye.
I should have glanced sideways.
But I didn't.
Before I could start cursing Fred and James with swear words my parents wouldn't approve of and possibly jinxing them too, Lily burst inside, followed by Hugo. "Look! It's Hogwarts!" She cried gleefully, pressing herself on the smooth, cool window.
Sure enough, the castle-like-structure crept out of the gloom, towering over the grounds and the Quidditch pitch,and the small Hogsmeade village, which was half-hidden by the mist. . The sun weaved itself through the clouds, shining spots of sunlight now and again. It was quite a breathtaking view.
We all gazed at our school in awe, like a kid does when they pass by the broomstick shop, never being able to get used to it's massive power and history, which, by the way, makes the whole aspect much more interesting.
"It's aura seems different." Lysander mused as he peered outside as well. His magazine was tucked inside his bag and his distant eyes scanned the school like a man debating wether to buy a new suit or not. "More... adventurous. One might, perhaps say, dangerous."
'Well, danger can also mean romance." Lily sighed dreamily, her breath fogging up the window. This also got her looks from both her brothers who stared at her as if she had said she wanted to marry a whale. Hugo just leaned away from her, as if her ideas would travel into his own head, making a rather repulsed face.
I bit my lip, trying not to laugh at their faces as the train puffed along, for about another 10-20 minutes before we finally arrived.
"I do hope we don't take too long.... I'm starving." Hugo rubbed his stomach for emphasis. I rolled my eyes and snorted along with the others. Hugo was just like my father in some aspects- never stop eating was one of them.
"You don't suppose there are any yurios in the bathrooms this year, do you?" Lorcan asked suddenly. We all turned around skeptically and stared, then started laughing.
But sure enough; there it was. Home.
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I flung myself down on the wooden bench beside Albus, on the Gryffindor table. The Great Hall was packed with people, all chatting and drifting from place to place at the tables, catching up with friends. The sky rumbled,as if to call for attention, and grey clouds swirled overhead.
Fred and James had already disappeared. They were probably going to start their Prank-extravaganza together with the first meal here.
'Since its our last year,' Fred explained, 'We must do something grand. Something to be rembered for; The true pranksters of Hogwarts. Not counting my father, of course.' he had added hastily, since most of their jokes came from Uncle George's endless supply at Weasley Wizard Wheezes.
Roxanne might me helping them, I thought. She usually did, since she and her brother were quite close. But lately, according to Fred, she was having too many 'female crises' to deal with proper jokes.
McGonagall called for attention, her loud clap of hands bouncing off the walls like a ping pong ball. The oak doors at the back of the hall burst open, and Flitwick lead a herd of frightened and nervous first years through towards the stage. The ancient hat we all knew sat on his usual stool, in the middle of the stage, His brown features dark and dusty, and his brim, which was also his mouth, if you can say he had one, was closed shut. As soon as everyone settled down in their chairs and fell into silence, McGonagall smiled, and the hat broke out in his yearly song, full of rhymes, and ending with a warning:
'Beware of those with the hair, for those are the ones who will cause despair!!"
Headmistress McGonagall called foward the first year boy to be sorted, and dropped the tattered hat gingerly onto the head of the trembling boy. He mumbled with the hat, his eyes hidden under the large flap.
I noticed a little girl, with strawberry blonde hair who was glancing everywhere. She reminded me of my own sorting, when I was 11.
I was twirling my short hair nervously. I simply HAD to be in Gryffindor. I looked down at the rows of people before me. Fred and Roxanne sat together, whispering, probably about a new scheme for a joke they wanted to play later on. James was sat opposite to them, smiling broadly. I could see Teddy Lupin from far away- his distinctive blue hair called attention to him whilst he sat on the Gryffindor table, this being his last year here.
His eyes were fixed on his girlfriend, Victoire, who was seated at the Ravenclaw table, her beautifull platinum blonde hair shimmering, inherited from her mother, who was part veela.
"Potter, ALbus!" Headmistress McGonagll called out loudly, her eyes twinkling. Albus shrunk and walked carefully towards the wooden stool, sitting down quickly, as if not to fall. McGonagall let the restored hat fall over his green eyes, covering his mat of dark hair.
I could hear him faintly muttering something at the hat. His hand curled into a fist. I crossed my fingers, hoping he would be in Gryffindor and not Slytherin- he told me that even though his dad said it was okay to be a slytherin, James would never let him hear the end of it. His anxiousness had caught on, even though it wasn't his father who would disown him if he was in Slytherin.
The hat seemed to have made his decision, after quite a while and opened his flap. "SLYTH-"
The whole roomed was dead quiet. No one moved- could it be? One of the legendary Potters was a Slytherin?
I held my breath and closed my eyes tightly, paralysed and incapable of doing anything else. James was staring at his brother unbelieving, his eyes wide and his moth dropped open.
The silence continued. Albus was arguing with the hat in hisses and angry whisperers. McGonagall looked uneasy, debating if she should remove the hat or not. Then the hat shook itself and opened his flap again:
"GRYFFINDOR!"
After a momentary silence, the table erupted into cheers and Albus gingerly placed the hat down, his cheeks flaming, and ran to sit down. Before I knew it, my own names was being called.
"Weasley, Rose!"
I stumbled out of line and tried to stop the hot blush from spreading around my face. The hat fell swiftly over my ginger head, overwhelming me in sudden darkness. I could almost smell the ruins of the ancient battle inside the hat, that I knew every detail of thanks to my parents, as if it held onto it like a souvenir of his adventures.
If a hat could even have adventures...
Power steamed off the hat like a hot oven, and he finally started talking. Or whatever that hat does.
'Aaaaah, another Weasley! What a surprise. So many there are, no? Now let me see.... You like Quidditch. Brilliant mind- just like Hermione Granger's, I see. Brave. Clever. You would do great things in Ravenclaw.' The hat offered.
No,no,no,no. I thought desperately, my hands closing agitatedly. I have to be in Gryffindor. Dad will disown me if I don't. And James will never let me hear the end of it. I will.... I continued with my list of reasons to be in Gryffindor, but the hat interrupted.
'Have to be? There is no such thing as having to be in a house. I sort you depending on your personality and where you belong...though you do have a brave heart, and will do anything for friends and family, you could not do the same things that you would do in Ravenclaw in the house you choose...'
I closed my eyes tight and crossed my fingers, hoping, wishing with all my might to be a Gryffindor. It seemed to take ages before the hat responded.
'Are you sure? You will not be able to take it back... No? Well then, if not Ravenclaw, then ....
GRYFFINDOR!"
I let my breath out, not realising I had been holding it in and smiled, relived to be placed in my family's house. I placed the hat back on the stool and whispered 'Thank' to it. Which is weird, but okay. I was 11.
An eternity later, I told Albus that the sorting had seemed hours long. He responded by saying his was even longer, which I highly doubt.
"But didn't it happen in my head? Wasn't it, like a dream?" I had asked Victoire and Teddy (who seemed to be the happiest couple ever in existence). Victoire simply smiled knowingly and answered:
"Even if it had happened in your head, why would that mean it was not real?"
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