A Little Bit of Love and Laughter

The train lurched as it arrived at its destination. The air around us was rather brisk as we exited the locomotive, and I tried to snuggle under my cloak to stay warm. The wind burned my cheeks, turning them pink with rawness.

“Firs’ years!” a very large, burly man called out. “Firs’ years, o’er here!”

I walked with Fred and George, and the large group of new students was ushered into the Hogwarts castle. There on the staircase stood a stern-looking witch in emerald green robes. “First years, form a line, please, and follow me into the Great Hall.”

She led the lot of us into a large, brightly-lit hall, where the rest of the returning students sat at colourfully decorated tables, and those witches and wizards whom I assumed to be professors and other various faculty members sat facing the students. The ceiling mirrored the weather outside; dark and clear with a full moon. As I admired the room, the witch placed a stool and a wizard’s hat on the floor in front of us.

“What’s that?” I asked, turning to the twins.

“Sorting ceremony, I suppose.”

The first years watched in silence as the hat twitched and formed a mouth at its brim..

“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.”

The hat continued its song, and as it went through the various houses, I recognized the name of Slytherin. Severus had told me that he and my father and Oliver had all been in Slytherin, that the name had been essentially passed down in the family for generations.

The woman in emerald robes stepped forward, now holding a long roll of parchment, and said, “When I call your name, you will sit on the stool and the hat will sort you into your house.” She paused and said, reading the parchment, “Burke, Violet!”

The blonde haired girl that I remembered from the train skipped up to the stool and placed the hat eagerly on her head.

“Ravenclaw!” cried the hat.

The witch continued reading. “Capper, Steven!”

“Hufflepuff!”

“Davies, Roger!”

“Ravenclaw!”

“Herrick, Daniel!”

“Ravenclaw!”

“Johnson, Angelina!”

“Gryffindor!”

The names and houses were flying by so fast that I could hardly keep up. There were a handful of Slytherins and Hufflepuffs, and though the list started out mainly dominated by new members of the Ravenclaw house, there were few more as the sorting continued.

“McIntyre, Patrick!”

“Slytherin!”

“Prince, Emily!”

A million thoughts ran through my head all at once, and as I sat on the stool, my breathing sharpened. The hat, though made of rather thin fabrics, felt like it was weighing down against my head, along with the rapid reflections racing uncontrollably in my mind.

‘Put me where I belong,’ came the dominant thought. ‘Please, just put me where I’m supposed to be.’

“Ravenclaw!” shouted the hat, and as I walked over to the blue and bronze table, I could feel Severus glaring at me from across the room. I knew what he must have been thinking; I was an embarrassment, to him, to the family, just an embarrassment in general. My father would have been ashamed.

Every previous member of my wizarding family had been a Slytherin. The name was a family trait, and I, a Ravenclaw, had broken it for all history.

“Weasley, Fred!” The woman’s voice caught me off-guard, and I was immediately shaken from my thoughts.

“Gryffindor!”

He shot me a sympathetic smile as he took a seat at the red and gold table.

“Weasley, George!”

“Not another one. I swear I sorted you already,” the hat groaned as it was placed on George’s head, then shouted, “Gryffindor!” And George sat next to his brothers.

A tall wizard with a long white beard stepped forward. “Thank you, Professor McGonagall. Now, I have a few announcements before we begin. First of all, welcome; welcome to a new year at Hogwarts. I would like to remind our first year students that the forest on grounds is forbidden, and our caretaker, Mr. Filch, has asked me to remind all of you that magic is not to be used in-between classes in the corridors. And that, I believe, is all. Dig in!”

Food magically appeared on everyone’s plates, which at a place of sorcery should not have been as surprising to me as it was, and we all ate heartily before being called up to our new dorm rooms.