sometimes I think we sort too soon…

"Dad!" said a young girl's voice. For a moment Percy didn't believe he was in his Ministry office, but back at home.

"Phelia! What are you doing here?" he said to his only child, his 8 year old daughter, who, wearing a bright pink jumper and small black dragonhide boots, sat comically businesslike in the chair across from her father's desk.

"Mum came to talk to Auntie Hermione and that lady Fernella from the Department of Whatever It's Called, so I came to see you instead," she said cheerfully.

"And you got up here all on your own?"

She looked at him as though he had asked a thoroughly stupid question. "Of course. The elevator tells me where each department is!"

"Oh," he replied. Sometimes it worried Percy that his daughter was so autonomous.

"But Dad," she said abruptly. "I wanted to ask you a question."

"Go ahead."

She looked a little nervous. "Why were you a Gryffindor?"

He didn't speak for a moment; he sat back in his cushy office chair and folded his hands.

"You know, Ophelia, no one has ever asked me that question."

"Not in the…" she counted on her fingers. "Nineteen years you've been a Gryffindor?"

"No, because every other Weasley, for a very long time, have been Gryffindors. I guess I was always supposed to be a Gryffindor. Which is why I asked the Sorting Hat to make me one."

"Where did it want to put you?" she asked, wide-eyed.

Percy's face reddened. "Slytherin. I would have done well in Slytherin if I wasn't a Weasley."

"Do you think you are a Gryffindor?"

He hesitated. "I don't think I'm a Gryffindor like Uncle Harry or Uncle Ron. But I think everyone has their own way of being brave and noble."

"Do I have to be a Gryffindor just because I'm a Weasley?" she whispered gravely.

Her father laughed. "No. You can be whatever you want to be, Phelia. You'd be the first but if it's be anyone's daughter, it'd be mine. Besides, Mum's the only one in the family who wasn't a Gryffindor. She was a Ravenclaw, and brilliant one at that."

Ophelia smiled. "I think I want to be a Ravenclaw, Dad. Mum says they're the best."

"Don't listen to everything your mother says," he muttered. "Besides, where did you learn all this?"

"Auntie Hermione gave me Hogwarts, A History," she replied brightly.

He chuckled. "Chances are you'll have it memorized by the time you're Sorted."

"I hope so!" she said. "Dad, do you know anything about the diadem of Ravenclaw?"

"Ask Uncle Harry about that," he replied.

"Okay!" She got up off the chair. "I will!" And she left her father's office before he could follow her, but Percy figured she didn't want to be followed.

OOOOO

A/N: I'm thinking about writing the Ophelia and Harry conversation. What do you guys think?