Ophelia Otsuka's POV
September 1st, 2004,
Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry,
A middle-aged man who snidely introduced himself as Professor Brushwick lead the awed first years through the Entrance Hall and she let out a sigh of relief at the sight of it. She was finally here. The beautiful stone walls covered in lit torches and the marble staircase to the side that lead up to the dorms she was so eager to see. Professor Brushwick lead the students into a small chamber off the hall to await their cue to join the rest of the school in the Great Hall to be sorted.
The Great Hall was lit by thousands and thousands of candles, floating in midair over four long tables, where the rest of the students were sitting. The wooden tables were laid with glittering golden plates and goblets. At the top of the hall was another long table where the teachers were sitting. Professor Brushwick led the first years up here, so that they came to a halt in a line facing the other students, with the teachers behind them. The hundreds of faces staring at them looked like pale lanterns in the flickering candlelight. Dotted here and there among the students, the ghosts shone misty silver as they floated above the tables.
She got nervous suddenly, under the scrutinizing gaze of every other student. She stood at the end of the line, trying to hide behind a couple of taller first years.
Professor Brushwick silently placed a four-legged stool in front of the first years. On top of the stool she put a pointed wizard's hat. The hat was patched and frayed and extremely dirty. The boys who were arguing earlier looked disappointed at the hat, and she was incredibly smug with herself at the sight and caught their eye to raise her eyebrows at them.
For a few seconds, there was complete silence. Then the hat twitched. A rip near the brim opened wide like a mouth - and the hat began to sing. Otsuka generalised it to being the usual house pride nonsense, as usual.
Professor Brushwick now stepped forward holding a long roll of parchment. "When I call your name, please place the hat on your head and sit on the stool to be sorted," she said. "Abbott, Adrian!" A blond boy slowly made his way to the stool, put on the hat and waited for a few moments.
"SLYTHERIN!" shouted the hat.
The boy made his way to the far end of the hall where a table dressed in green and silver was waiting for him with applause. Among the students she immediately caught sight of a group of teenagers varying in age, all with either sandy blonde or light brown hair. It annoyed her immensely that she didn't have any idea who they were before hand.
"Alton, Samantha!"
"RAVENCLAW!"
"Brownswood, Jerry!" The small boy looked a whole lot less nervous now that he only had to wear a hat, after all his worries about a dragon.
"HUFFLEPUFF!" shouted the hat.
It went one for a while later, and she silently watch each and everyone who got up without much interest, until a boy who was anxious about the soring process earlier was called. He had a light brown, or dark blond coloured hair, and was on the scrawny side.
"Knowles, Alexander!" The large group who were complete unknowns to her, yelled and clapped eagerly awaiting his sorting. She scoffed, lunatics, but couldn't help but let her eyes stray towards them again. They stuck out like wizarding robes in muggle London.
A second later the hat yelled out, "GRYFFINDOR!"
Then another tall girl with the same hair was called. To her, everyone was tall.
"Knowles, Victoria!" There was barely a second after it had touched her hair, the hat cried, "GRYFFINDOR!" She took off the hat, handed it back to Professor Brushwick, then hurried toward the cheering Gryffindors, but as she walked past she glanced back at someone, and there was a sad little smile on her face.
The entire Gryffindor table yelled out congratulations to them as they sat down in the middle of the table beside the large group of rowdy blondes, instead of with the rest of the nervous first large table of lions roared with cheers, no one more than two lanky boys further down that yelled their heads off shouting, "Way to go sis'!"
"Knox, Theodore!" The next was called out, and her interest was piqued again. The tall bloke, she noted diligently.
She waited with baited breath for his results.
"GRYFFINDOR!" She rolled her eyes in frustration. There goes that potential acquaintance. Her mind blanked out again in boredom until her name was about to be called out.
"Good luck, Cassie," A girl she talked to on the train smiled as she noticed that the young heiress was next. She grimaced internally at the nickname.
"Luck?" She questioned. "I do not nor will I ever need luck. It is merely a superstition for those too dense to achieve anything themselves." She repeated it herself. Often when she felt queasy from anxiety, she fell back into alliteration, assonance and sibilance. Stupid superstition. Violently vomiting. Incredibly ill. Incredibly ill. Incredibly—
"Plan on tricking the Sorting Hat in order to get into Gryffindor?" A Pureblooded girl she barely recognized said snidely.
"That would be awfully Slytherin of me, if I do say so myself," She returned scathingly.
"Otsuka, Ophelia!" It yelled.
Silence fell over every single person in the room.
She walked up to the stool with as much pride as she could with everyone staring at her, The Headmaster included.
Incredibly ill. Incredibly ill.
Her bright eyes followed her with interest and it made her feel uneasy. She's heard over the years that she played favourites, and she worried that she just decided that she would be one. Either that, or she had just unknowingly put herself on the naughty list just by showing up.
She struggled onto the stool that was too big for her, and waited in suspense as Professor Brushwick placed the hat over her head and fell over her eyes.
"Slytherin," she thought. "Please."
"Ah, I see, Miss Otsuka. A lot of things are riding of this sorting aren't they, little one? Let me have a look past your layer of occlumency, and I will decide your fate."
She put down the occlumency that she never realized she put up in her mind. Seconds passed. The hat hadn't anything yet. She could hear whispers start to travel about the hall about the length of time that she was up for.
"I'm afraid, Miss Otsuka, this has never happened before," the Sorting Hat spluttered, "-a child has never managed to pull the wool over my eyes- no, it couldn't be." The voice disappeared again.
Then all of a sudden the calm was broken through like a stone dropped into a pond, "Your destiny is uncertain, yet speculative. You do not belong to any house wholly, so choose wisely," it said.
"Slytherin?" She confusedly asked the hat. She didn't know what he meant by those words, but she was going to look it up in the famously over-sized library once she got the chance. Someone not belonging to any of the four houses? It was unheard of.
"SLYTHERIN!" The hat yelled in the end. She let out a long sigh of relief and she rushed away from the hat. The Slytherin table erupted in cheers, most likely at the prospect of having someone of her class in their house. She rolled her eyes again in exasperation. She'd kiss the first person she saw who didn't care about her surname.
When a nervous looking lanky boy stepped forward, she payed attention. Despite his nerves, "Xavier, Gabriel," was sent to the Slytherin table. He came over to sit beside her and she said to him, "Nervous?"
"I was so nervous," He swallowed as he sat down. Muggleborn, she suspected. He wouldn't be the first Muggleborn to be sorted into Slytherin, even if it was extremely rare. "That's not very ambitious of me, is it?" he frowned, so distracted by his worries that he didn't notice others from the table looking at him in surprise.
"Ambition isn't everything in a Slytherin. Fame is the thirst of youth. It part of the reason why Muggleborns are so popular for Slytherin now, unlike before The War. The glorification in the Muggle World is a much bigger industry than in the Wizarding, mostly because of capitalism and how the minority rich stay rich and the majority stays in poverty. The strive is there to be on of the rich while also demonizing those fortunate enough to be at the top of the food chain," she took in a covert deep breath, smiling to herself. At the confused looks on their faces she added, "A food chain is a series of living components that are reliant of each other as a source of food. Basic predator versus prey logic..." she finished slowly.
"Really?! Muggleborns are sorted into Slytherin?!" Gabriel said with excited eyes. She was a bit put out by his concentration on that one part of all she said, but stayed quiet.
"Of course," came a bitter voice from behind her. She whipped around and looked at an older boy with his arms folded over his chest, glowering at them.
"There's nothing wrong with not knowing everything at first, mate," Gabriel Xavier spoke up.
"You should've been put in Hufflepuff," The older boy scowled.
"Quite, but there's nothing to be done about it now," she shrugged her shoulders and then looked back at the boy. "Being sorted into Hufflepuff isn't an insult. Salazar wasn't the only founder to create a concealed chamber for their successors. However the Chamber of Secrets was for the sole use of his Heir, Helga Hufflepuff created a sanctuary for any student of Hogwarts regardless of their house affiliation or blood status, did you know? Incredible display of magic. Hufflepuff doesn't equal a lack of character, the same way that Slytherin doesn't equal success-"
"-Just because you are not going to succeed and you admit it, doesn't mean you can speak for every other student in our House." she pushed her long fringe back out of her eyes as she leveled them at the older students'. She didn't appreciate being interrupted, especially by someone will lesser intellect.
"You've missed my point completely," she rolled her eys dramatically, "which is most undoubtedly a common occurrence in your life, I should guess. But nonetheless, I'll explain to you." She detested the sickly condescending tone she had to use. Her parents would want to her to make a stake like this early in the year. She was even more disgusted with herself that the thought of not disappointing them pleased her. She continued without a pause, "I was merely stating that the House in which you are sorted does not determine your future definitely. I know this because I shall succeed despite being sorted into whichever House of segregated miscreants."
She smiled without any warmth at the other first years around her, "Face it; your precious Sorting Hat is a flawed system."
The Headmaster had gotten to her feet. It was a pleasant intermission from the tense table of silence. With her hear pulled back ferociously, the beaming smile on her face looked out of place. Nonetheless, she was smiling at the students with her arms opened wide, as if nothing could have pleased her more than to see them all there. "Welcome," she said. "Welcome to a new year at Hogwarts! Before we begin our banquet, I would like to say a few words: Duo Verba."
The older students who understood Latin all chuckled, save for the Slytherins who all looked incredibly irritated. Of course, she had understood the joke, and thought it clever. Sometimes being a Pureblood and having a more complete Wizarding education from an earlier age was helpful, but then again, she states I didn't know how muggles spoke to each other from far away without owls.
He seemed unruffled by the many eye rolls dressed in silver and green, but he distinctly noticed her lack of exasperation by his word choice.
He continued to speak, "A large welcome to all new students. May you find Hogwarts to be your home and sanctuary, a place of safety and familiarity against a recovering world of fear and death. May we mourn the loss and not let it keep us back. Now, before we send you off to bed, tuck in and enjoy this brilliant feast!"
The empty golden dishes in front of them were suddenly piled with food. Everyone immediately dove in, loading up their plates.
She glanced around as she put a little bit of everything on her plate to try, but was aghast at what she saw. Even Gabriel, who she thought would have more manners than most eleven year old boys, was there stuffing his face inelegantly like a bunch of other boys.
"I can see you're fighting back from a full blown grimace. I know, we're disgusting plebeians who eat like starved savages. Unlike yourself, your highness," another boy she didn't know the name of chuckled and winked at her, she rolled her eyes at him.
"Don't roll your eyes to Jesus or he might come down and stick them facing opposite directions," Gabriel teased her quietly, making eye contact but then backing out. She had to force down another eye roll.
"Jesus? What's that?" She hated admitting to not knowing things, but she hated not knowing things more.
His cutlery dropped to the table with a clatter, and a couple of upperclassmen looked down the table to the small group of first years. "Sorry- Hold up a second. Did you just ask me who Jesus was?!"
A couple of others who were listening snickered at her. She was being made out to be a fool. She was enraged. What did he think he was doing, publicly humiliating her especially on the first night?
"'Must be a Muggle thing," She spat the word, hoping to get him back, going on her previous assumption that he was Muggleborn or close to it. His hurt expression proved her earlier guesses correct. There was an uneasy silence among them.
"Did you see the stars, yet?" A girl with sparkling black-ish eyes smiled sweetly as she looked up in awe. "It's so beautiful. I love Astrology." She was sitting on her right, so she probably hadn't heard her and Gabriel's spat and was completely oblivious to the tension in the air. That was not the only thing she oblivious to either, it seemed, she thought to herself. She ground her teeth together. She had to physically hold back from correcting the Pureblooded beauty from her blithering mistake. Surely someone of that background would be more familiar with the study of the stars instead of the field of 'study' that Muggles liked they to call star-signs?
Apparently not.
"I'm Perks, by the way, Marie Perks." Her perky voice, pearly teeth and delicate eyebrows, but the most prominent thing about her was the way she held herself. Pureblood, she realized
She turned to talk to Marie but the longer she listened the more she realized how soporific this girl was. It's like what her mother used to say about those kind of people, no sentences of their own.
She knew the girl was only talking to her because of her lineage. She could feel it in the way the girl kept looking down at the rock around her finger proving her heritage. These kind of people are disgusting, she thought to herself while keeping a pleasant enough face on.
When dinner was over, she followed the Prefect towards the dungeons. Her mind was whirring and she was tired. All she wanted was to curl up and go to sleep. The rest of the night was all a blur until she was in her new bed, under cold covers and thinking about all the people she had met that day.
Ironic, was the only thing she could think about the dinner affair. The boy on her right; obviously intelligent enough to keep up with her in conversation, and cultured enough to get her out-dated taste in literature. The perfect candidate to strike up a friendship with. The only catch- Muggleborn. Her parents would be appalled at her choice of friends.
Marie Perks, however, was the opposite. She had the blood status, which was enough to keep her parents off her back, but that was it. She had no personality, or opinion, or view on anything. Ironic was the word.
Things could never be as simple as she wanted, was the last thought in her brain before she fell asleep.