Chapter 1: Harry Potter

Coby's stomach sank as it was explained to her by some stranger how to get onto "the platform". they were telling her she had to run, head first, at a solid brick wall. Now, she didn't know London, England quite as well as she did Haifa, Israel, but she did know that no matter where she went, there were going to be people who were bat-shit crazy that she should not listen to.

Coby already thought everyone had gone a little crazy in the past few months. After an owl showed up at their perfectly normal house and delivered a letter telling her that she had magic, everything went downhill. Her parents decided she needed to pack up all of the essentials, buy some crazy stuff from a street she'd never heard of, - diagonal lane, or something? – and then come all the way to London to get on a train.

So, there she was, a healthy sixteen year old girl, running straight at a brick wall. They could pay her medical bills, once she got hospitalized from this.

But then, suddenly, she was standing on a busy, bustling train station platform. It was loud and crowded and smelled like train smoke. On the tracks was a scarlet train engine, followed by a hundred passenger train cars.

Her parents and the person who was explaining how to get here soon followed her onto the platform, and they began pushing their way towards the train.

The train ride sucked. She tried to read a book she had brought with her, but the carriage she had once had to herself soon got filled with four loud third-year students. So, the entire ride there, Coby was dealing with bouncing seats, screams, and wads of paper - wait, "parchment" – being thrown.

Finally, Coby thought the train ride was over. She would get to go sit with people her age, make some friends, and try to read some more. However, once she arrived, a very tall man named Hagrid told her to get on a tiny little boat and ride across a dark, probably freezing lake so she could be "sorted".

Eventually, Coby's head adjusted to the insanity around her. She decided to play along with everything and hope everything went well.

Things got to be a bit of a blur. She stood in a hallway with a bunch of 11 year olds for a little while while an intimidating but kind woman in green explained the sorting, and told her she would be going first, due to the abnormality of someone coming in her year.

Then, they went into the great hall. And damn, was it a gorgeous room. A high ceiling that displayed the starts outside, presumably by magic, a raised platform with official looking people sitting in chairs, and giant carved doors that stretched most of the way to the ceiling, complete with ornate handles.

Coby took a breath and raised her head, leading the group of 11 year olds between two long rows of tables. She promptly took her place on a stool at the front of the raised platform, and sat patiently as an ancient pointy black hat was brought out and placed on her head.

It took all her self control not to swear once the hat started talking. It muttered short quips about her hair and her name, but seemed pleased with her grades at muggle school and the amount of reading she did the previous summer.

Eventually the hat came to a decision and perked its self up, announcing loudly to the room, "Ravenclaw!"

The fuck did that mean?