Chapter 1: Year One: Sorting
She inhaled deeply, counted to five and then calmly breathed out. Slowly she felt the people around her fade into the back of her thoughts: nervous first years shifted around her and she ignored them; older students laughed and cheered as the sorting continued and she blocked them out; pupils' names were called out at uneven intervals and she didn't hear them.
There was one name, of course, that cut through her silence.
"Potter, Harry."
Her eyes along with everyone else's followed the boy as he stumbled up to the stool. He was skinny and trying to make himself look smaller. He regarded the Sorting Hat with clear trepidation. She stopped her counting and her eyebrows furrowed; he wasn't what she had expected. Until that moment she didn't realise she had any expectations of Harry Potter and what he would be like, but now she was certain he was not what she had expected. It seemed curious to her that The Boy Who Lived should be a hat stall and yet silence lingered in the hall.
"GRYFFINDOR!"
The table to her left erupted in a red and gold roar, even Dumbledore seemed pleased with this sorting.
"We got Potter! We got Potter!" Involuntarily, she turned in the direction of the chanting and her eyes landed on two red-headed twins, their voices carrying. Weasleys.
The next first year was called up to the stool. She inhaled deeply, her name would be called soon. He resumed her breathing and counting, counting and breathing, once again paying little attention to the important ceremony happening around her.
"Rosier, Lyra."
For a moment she closed her eyes and then made her way up the stairs. In, two, three, four, five, out two, three, four, five. As she turned and sat, her gaze caught two grey eyes and her steady breathing faltered, but then the hat fell over her eyes and all she could she was thread and ripped fabric. It didn't take long for the hat to decide.
"RAVENCLAW!'
Lyra let out one more breath then broke out into a wide smile and walked towards the Ravenclaw table. She dropped into the first empty spot she saw and turned her bright smile towards a fellow first year. The girl smiled back and extended her hand.
"Hi Lyra, my name's Su, it's nice to meet you." Lyra nodded her head in response. "Aren't you glad that's over?"
"Absolutely, I could barely breathe!"
Su giggled with her and turned her gaze towards another first year who sat opposite Lyra, "That's Mandy, she was one of the first sorted, so lucky!"
"I've never been so glad my name is Brocklehurst! It's nice to meet you Lyra."
Soon the sorting was over and the feast began. A mixture of nervousness and adrenaline had the girls chattering constantly between mouthfuls.
Just as the pudding arrived, Su's voice dropped to a whisper, "Please don't take this the wrong way and I don't want you to think it matters to me, but my mum is muggle-born and she said the first week at Hogwarts was really hard for her, so I just wanted to ask, are your parents magic?"
Mandy answered first, "Don't worry, it makes sense to ask. I'm half-blood. How about you?"
Su let out a breath, "Yeah, me too, Dad's muggle."
The two girls turned to Lyra and she let out a slow breath. "I'm pure-blood, doesn't help me know about Hogwarts though, my parents met at Beauxbatons."
Su squealed. "Are you French!? You don't sound French. Oh, I love France!"
"No, I'm not," Lyra replied, smiling easily now, "and neither are my parents. They both have a lot of family in France, so they both went there. They've always lived in England though and so decided to break the trend and send me here." The disappointment was clear on Su's face; a smiled tugged at Lyra's mouth, "I do have family there though and spend a lot of my summer in the Alps." Mandy and Lyra giggled as Su squealed again.
A pair of worried grey eyes lay untouched at the back of Lyra's mind.