Amelia stood in line with the rest of the first years, but being a good 4 years older, she towered over them, receiving curious looks from the students around her. Even though she felt extremely uncomfortable, she kept her eyes straight at the large banners that were placed right above the teachers table. She looked down briefly, and found Dumbledore to be staring at her with quite an amused face. She rolled her eyes, and went back to staring at the banners.
"As I call your name, " said Professor McGonagall, "you will come sit on the stool, and the sorting hat will be placed upon your head, sorting you in to your designated house." She looked down at her parchment. "Olivia Astwood." was the first name she called out, and a small girl with long blonde hair walked up very quickly to the stool, and sat down. A large pointed hat was placed upon her head, and it soon came to life. Amelia tried not to look too surprised, as she knew Dumbledore was still looking at her, and she didn't want him to think she was enjoying herself.
"Hufflepuff!" yelled the sorting hat, and she jumped off the stool, almost falling down, and walked over to the cheering table of yellow.
The list went on and on, more first years getting sorted, and Amelia still was not sorted. When she was the last one, she knew something was up, and she did not like it, even though she did not know what it was. Dumbledore stood up, and smiled.
"I would like to give a special welcome to our new student, Amelia Zamora, who will be joining us, starting her fifth year at Hogwarts, under special circumstances." he said, his twinkling eye looking down. Amelia could feel the heat rising up to her cheeks. She did not need this, Everyone could have thought she was a freakishly tall eleven year old, she would not have minded.
"Step on." said Professor McGonagall, and she did so, not nearly as excited as the rest of the scrawny first years. She sat down, the sorting hat being placed upon her messy mane of brown and blonde. She sighed, staring down at her fingers as the sorting hat kept on whispering things in her ear. "Yes, very ambitious indeed..."
"Bloody hell, shut up and sort me already, I haven't got all day." she said to the hat, looking up. She hears a cough coming from Professor McGonagall, and several giggles from the students.
"Gryffindor!" it yelled, and the school cheered. She got off, and walked over to the first space she could find at the table, sitting down.
"And now," said Dumbledore, "we feast!" and a line of what looked like a hundred different plates of food suddenly appeared.
Around her, students where talking about their summers, and while Amelia was grabbing a drumstick, a ginger boy in front of her introduced himself.
"Hello, I'm Ron Weasley." he said, and everyone else around him stopped talking, trying to listen to see if Amelia sounded like a nice girl, or an upright bitch. She smiled nicely and said as nicely as possible "Hello, I'm Amelia. What year are you in?" she needed friends, and now was the time to make them. Everyone around them tensed down, and was freely talking again. After Ron and Amelia talked about both being in fifth year, and about taking something called O.W.L's (she remembered Dumbledore saying something about this) she drifted off into a conversation with a girl called Hermione about why she is starting in fifth year.
"Well, I was kind of home schooled by my mum. The ministry of magic found out, and they weren't too pleased about that." she said, completely lying through her teeth. She remembered this was the best lie her and Dumbledore came up with, and it had seemed to work.
She found it was easy to talk to them, still not being so open about her life, and "being home schooled". She always changed the subject to things about Hogwarts, such as Quidditch, how annoying Professor Snape is supposed to be, and other things.
After about forty five minutes of feating, it was time to go to bed. Hermione walked beside Amelia, talking about the education at Hogwarts, the load of classes she taking this year, and how many classes Amelia was taking that year.
When they reached the dormitory, everyone was really sleepy, and they quickly ended their summer conversation, and going off to bed. Amelia did the same thing, wishing Hermione, a girl named Ginny, and another one named Marie, goodnight. When they all turned off their lamps, she slowly reached down into her trunk, for a cotton ball and a small vile of clear liquid.
She closed the curtains around her bed, and rolled up her sleeve, revealing a black dark mark, outlined in red from the pain it was causing, embedded on her arm. She dabbed the cotton ball in the liquid, and rubbed it around her arm, numbing the pain of the Dark lord calling.