Sometimes I don't believe the Sorting Hat actually knows what it is doing. For example, take me; I'm a Slytherin girl, who acts like a Ravenclaw girl. I understand I may not always be the most tolerant of people but I'm not exactly evil like some of the others. They believe in blood purity and all that. I believe in me. Ok, so that doesn't really sound like a Ravenclaw statement, but I also believe that knowledge is power. And I will be powerful.
After 6 years I already had a good reputation around Hogwarts for being the girl you go to for information. This is how I met one of the most interesting yet strangest wizards ever: Josh. He's another one I think the Sorting Hat got wrong. He was placed in Ravenclaw and to watch him in class or in the common room you would believe he belonged there, yet when you knew him better you understood why he didn't have many friends.
He came to me one day after breakfast and quietly asked if I would be able to get him some things that were rather difficult to acquire. As I looked at him wondering what he needed and why he needed me to get it I had to smile. He had a glint in his eye like he was planning something. Anyone could tell this boy was a dreamer. I asked him a few questions to make sure he wasn't going to harm anyone or anything (I never wanted my name connected to scandal) and my thoughts were soon confirmed.
"I'm working on a small hobby project," was the cryptic answer I finally received.
"What kind of project?" I asked with a mixture of curiosity and suspicion. If it was anything worthwhile I wanted in on it too. As he looked around to make sure no one was within earshot,
"I want to make my own beer."
I laughed. This simple business deal had led me to someone with a kindred sprit. And soon to be alcoholic spirits too. He gave me a short list, mainly magical ingredients that couldn't be scrounged or stolen from anywhere in the castle. There were also a few muggle books on brewing beer and ale. The library didn't stock muggle books, and they were notoriously hard to order through the owl-post.
Once I was able to smuggle in and deliver the things he requested I visited him in an unused room where he had set up a little brewery. There was a tangle of glassware, pipes, a sealed copper urn taller than me, and a strange, soft humming noise.
"What's that noise?" I asked him.
"Just a small temperature control charm, really. I enchanted it myself. It's not too tricky. Now, this, on the other hand," he said, pointing to coils of silvery, shimmering metal that surrounded the copper urn, "This is a bit complicated, and an incredible luxury. I couldn't have done it without you. It's a sort of time-field. It makes the fermentation process much quicker."
He knew I was friends with the house-elves, so together we found a chance to sneak into the kitchens and cajole them into giving us the ingredients – real food being nearly impossible to magic up, and even more impossible to get right. I had to get a bit firm with them, which I'm sorry about, but they're very used to it from wizards. And we did get plenty of things to make beer with.
Once the alcohol had brewed, a few days later, he invited me up to test it. At first it was very average tasting beer, much like the muggle version, but soon we began to experiment with it. We added flavourings and soon started to add spells and potions to it, mainly ones to make it undetectable to the professors. After an hour or two of 'testing' we had become intoxicated and it had loosened our tongues.
"You know what?" I slurred at him next to me, sitting on the floor against the wall "I know a secret about everyone in this place. Did you know that Snape and Lily Potter used to date? They thought they kept it a secret but I saw them by the woods one day. And you know Horace in Slytherin? His half sister is a squib, they won't let her attend Hogwarts. And you don't even want to know what's in the Black family vault! The list goes on and on with secrets and lies people have told, but I don't know one about you, Josh."
As I watched him considering his reply, staring into his cup he smiled.
"Well, I'm Ravenclaw, after all. We don't get to spend much time together. And, I suppose I don't talk to that many people. Or they don't listen to me anyway."
"Well, I think you owe me one… instead of payment for this… stuff," I vaguely motioned at the machine he had built, "All I ask for is a secret of yours."
"Just one?"
"Just one… but it had better be a good one!" I said, and I'm not usually one to joke around.
He looked around the room, as if we had been in the Great Hall during lunch, and leaned closer to me. As he started to grin I became impatient.
"What is it? Tell me!" Like child waiting to open presents on Christmas Day. Suddenly I felt his lips on mine. I pulled away from him startled and looked at him speechless for a moment. He opened his mouth to say something, maybe beginning to apologize for his actions before I cut him off, returning the kiss. Perhaps it was the alcohol, or perhaps it was the fact I had found another soul who understood how powerful knowledge was, someone as unwilling to share their secrets as I was, but soon I found myself straddling him, wrapped up in the moment and the passionate, eager, clumsy kisses of youth. With my eyes closed, savouring the feeling of being closed to someone, he bit my shoulders and pulled me closer. His hands warming the skin on my back, my hands running through his hair. Both of us refusing to give in to other, we felt like we knew everything in the world. We felt powerful, but if we'd said it aloud, the spell would have broken. Besides, we couldn't talk much anyway – we were tongue-tied.
We should have known that we wouldn't last very long together. I would be reading newspapers and letters in the great hall over breakfast, and he would be at the Ravenclaw table, scribbling some doodle or with his nose in a book. He'd want to go up to the astronomy tower, or down to the greenhouses, and I'd want to talk to the house elves in the kitchens, or chat with the merpeople in the great lake. We'd built up a small, lucrative business of selling some beer to our closest friends, and I wanted to expand it, while he just wanted to keep it between us, our private little world, sheltered by secrecy and sanctity.
His absent-mindedness made him quiet most of the time, and I was always suspicious. He could ruin me with all the information he knows about me, and I could do the same to him. All these differences, that seemed so tiny when we were younger, eventually destroyed our romantic relationship soon after we left Hogwarts. We're still friends, but as much as we still love each other, we will never trust each other.