Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or like, anything. My ocs are my own, but the name Alistair Rutherford may be a reference, I don't own Dragon Ageeither.

Chapter 1:

"Hufflepuff!" The hat cried out, causing a quiet murmur of disapproving whispers amongst the other yet-to-be-sorted first years. I fidgeted in the seat for a second, going completely red. Was Hufflepuff a bad house? Cheers erupted from the Hufflepuff table and the hat was taken off my head. I shuffled down to the table when I heard a snide voice (not so quietly) whisper, "I'd HATE to be put in the house of nice-y nice-y rejects who aren't good enough for the other houses." I bit my lip, wanting to say something back, but not sure what to say to defend myself. I sat down at an empty spot where people immediately started clapping me on the back and grinning at me. An older boy (a second year maybe?) leaned over and looked me dead in the eyes, "Don't let them get to you. All the other houses are just too full of themselves to realize we're a valid house too." He smirked and raised his mug, "The best house too, if I do say so myself. Right lads?!" This was met with another cheer and everyone clinked mugs together.

We watched the rest of the ceremony, getting a couple more Hufflepuffs added to our group. I looked closer at the older boy next to me, he had russet colored hair, gray eyes and had a slight Scottish accent. He seemed to have a permanent smirk on his face, accentuating the dimple on his left cheek. He was much taller than me, but then again most people were...

In comparison, I was a short american (who's family had just moved to London) with long curls of dark brown hair and green and blue eyes. Not too much to look at, a little on the chubby side but I wouldn't complain too much about it. I was what they called a "muggle born" which I guess is just a nice way of saying that my family wasn't born to the Wizarding World. So getting a letter from a grumpy owl who had just landed in my birthday cake addressed to "Aurora Peters in the downstairs bedroom" was pretty off putting for us. Including my two other siblings (10 year old sister and 15 year old brother), who mostly just seemed irritated they couldn't come with me. After walking through Diagon Alley they fell in love with magic, and my sister can't wait to get her letter when she turns 11, which I'm not sure how I'll get blamed if she doesn't get one...

After the feast was over we all headed to our houses, walking in thick long lines headed by a smiling girl who called herself a prefect. We headed past the kitchens to a shadowed corridor. The prefect girl looked back at us with a smile, "Okay to get in" she gestured to the still life painting on the wall "there's a password. We'll change it intermittently but if you can't remember just ask one of the older students. They should help some." The boy from before stood next to me and shook his head with a laugh, "Don't trust us. Just go straight to the prefects, they'll most likely know. You can tell which one's they are from the perfectly in place uniform and cute little badges." I smiled up up at him, "Hi. I'm Aurora. You can call me Rory." His eyes lit up and he went into a deep bow before imitating a southern accent, "How rude of me, I haven't introduced myself! I am Alistair Rutherford. And you, lass, can call Alistair." I wasn't entirely sure where the Scottish stood on the whole 'having people call you by your last name' thing, but if they were anything like the British I think that meant we were... Friends now?

It became evident after the first class how people viewed Hufflepuffs. We were paired with Ravenclaw in Defense Against the Dark Arts class, and they immediately started bashing our intelligence. Not to say that everyone was nonstop mean to us, but it was clear that we weren't considered as good as the others by the people who happened to speak louder than the rest. I had stayed up all night reading my new textbooks, eager to learn literally everything I could, but that turned out to be not the greatest idea in the world when I fell asleep in the middle of our teacher's lesson. So when the teacher called on me I was utterly knocked out, and then got elbowed to another plain of existence by the person sitting next to me. I fell out of my chair with a thud and squeaked in a pitch that was probably too high to be picked up by human ears... Then the laughter started. Which, I can say for sure, wasn't the way I imagined my first day going. The teacher raised his eyebrow and gave a stern look and the class fell silent. He offered me a small smile, "Are you alright, miss?" I nodded and plunked myself back into my seat. "Now, miss Peters, can you tell me what creature do you think is the most dangerous to witches and wizards?" I bit my lip for a second and looked around at the Ravenclaws who looked very eager to put in their 2 cents about the subject. I closed my eyes for a second and took a deep breath, "Witches and wizards themselves, sir." I heard a collective sigh from Ravenclaws who seemed to think their answers would have worked much better than mine. "And why is that, Peters?" I puffed out my cheeks a little, "Because people suck just to be mean and animals just want to chill..." He gave me a small smile, "Eloquently put. Humans are capable of consciousness about their bad deeds while animals don't intentionally do harm just to do harm?" I shook my head, "Not exactly. Some animals know when they're doing something wrong. And these magic ones probably can know too. But humans are too at war with each other to be able to agree on like, anything. You know?" The teacher nodded slowly, "Good answer. 5 points to Hufflepuff. Just... Please don't think every time you fall asleep in my class you'll be rewarded.

I stood by the house hour glasses and watched the diamonds glimmer in the sunlight. "This must be worth A LOT of money." I admonish to Alistair, who nods and strokes his chin, "I'm surprised no-one's broken one yet. Are they even real is the real question. Maybe they're just illusions!" I laugh and shift my bag so it fits more comfortably. "I just can't believe it's Christmas already..." I look at the brightly decorated halls and smile a little. "So what are your plans?" I ask him. He's been a really good friend to me through my stumble into the life of a Hogwarts student, always sitting next to me during feasts since he couldn't come to my classes with me. I mean, I'm not like... shy or anything. The whole constantly-studying-my-butt-of- to-get-on-the-same-level-as-other-students thing just had me too busy to be looking for friends. But I actually got stuff now, so that's a positive side.. Alistair pulled me back into focus as he gave a little happy sigh, "It's back to Scotland for me!" His accent got heavier as he talked, "I can't wait to see all of my family again. And leave... Where ever it is in we are in Europe, I honestly don't know!" I nodded, "What's Scotland like? Are there lots of sheep roaming around? Do you only eat haggis?" I gasped "Do you live in a castle? You better live in a castle or I'm disowning you as a friend." He put his hands up as if to hold me back, "Whoooa, there lass. Too many questions. Scotland is beautiful, sheep will be sheep, and I'm not breathing a word to you about haggis. It's a Scotsman's secret that must not be revealed to nosey Americans." He grinned and poked my forehead, "I'm not telling you about where I live either. You Americans all thing we live like lairds in big estates, and I'm not going to correct or confirm it." I laughed, "I'll visit you one day and then I'll just see for myself!" He started to make a reply, when a blonde Gryffindor girl walked by and the words died on his tongue. I smirked, she was beautiful for sure. Big light blue eyes, pale as most English people seemed to be, a sort of model-like tallness that worked for her. I elbowed him, "Ooooh, someone's got a crush!" I giggled, he blushed completely red and said something outraged in what sounded like Gaelic. The girl turned to look at us and I beamed at her and waved. Alistair just about fainted and gave a small wave back. She blushed a little and smiled at us before walking away. I hit his arm, "Progress!" I yelled victoriously. He looked at me with a mix of disbelieve, violence, and a little bit of gratitude. I gave my best innocent smile back and shrugged, "Do you know her name, or where you just checking her out like a perv?" He looked down, "Her name is Genevieve Rivers..."
"Well, Rivers doesn't know it yet, but she's just met the man of her dreams!" I silently congratulated myself for using her last name like a real British person. Alistair smiled, "Thanks Rory. You're the best."

As soon as I saw my family waiting for me at King's Cross I immediately ran to them, forgetting to say goodbye to Alistair. My mom ran out to meet me, holding me close as we collided, she muttered in Italian under her breath as she stroked my hair. "My baby," she said "I missed you so much." I nuzzled closer to her, tears blurring my eyes "I missed you too mamma." My dad joined the hug too, lifting us both off the ground for a second. Then Lottie and Tony joined too. Lottie balling like a baby, and Tony ruffling my hair. When we parted I looked at my family with a grin, Momma looked the same as ever. She was born and raised in Italy, she had beautiful light caramel skin and long dark hair just like mine. She looked at me with her bright hazel eyes rimmed in tears, just like the day I got on the train. My dad was born and raised American, 6"2' with sandy blond hair and my eyes exactly. He had grown a little bit of stubble that reminded me of when I was a little kid. Antonio looked exactly like my mom, but male. His hair was a couple shades lighter, and a lot shorter but the eyes were the same. He had gotten even taller than the last time I'd seen him, and everyone always joked that he'd be taller than my dad someday. Charlotte looked like my dad, she was lighter skinned than me and Tony and had lighter blonde hair than even dad. But her eyes were a deep brown and she still had mom's smile. And I was in the middle. Middle child, and perfect mix of my mom and my dad. And that was good enough for me.

Christmas Day me and Lottie shot up in bed at the same time. We looked over at each other and grinned, which spooked our German Shepard Rose who had been faithfully watching over us in our sleep. She bolted up with a surprised bark and ran to the door. We ran after her and flung open the door, running to our parent's room. Rose ran to Tony's room and scratched at the door, whining. After the rest of the family had been assembled, looking very tired and slightly annoyed at being woken up at 7 in the morning. We gathered around our Christmas tree and looked at the sea of presents around us. Dad's new job paid really good, and we already knew that Santa wasn't real, so none of the tags said "From Santa". We started ripping into our presents, and soon they were all opened and we were all laughing with each other and eating candy from our stockings. Mama shot up, "Ah! I almost forgot!" She ran out of the room and the rest of my family looked at each other with a grin. I frowned, what was going on? She walked out of my dad's study backwards, "Are you reeeeaaaadyyy?" She said as she slowly turned around. Holding a pure silver fluff ball of a kitten with a big red ribbon around it's neck. I screamed and jumped up, she handed it to me and I held it close to my chest. I could feel it purring, and I started crying. "Thank you so much this is the best gift ever I'm so happy!" They all smiled and came to hug me. As my mom started making pancakes for breakfast and we all sipped on hot chocolate they all started asking me what I was going to name her. I looked at the tiny little kitten in my arms "I think I like... Stella."

After introducing Alistair to Stella and talking about how our Christmases went, I paused. "Hey, so I know I'm a muggleborn but... What are you?" He shrugged, "I'm what they call a Half blood. Half witch, half muggle." I nodded, "So your mom is a witch?"
"Yeah, a pure blood one too. She came to Hogwarts too, she was a Slytherin."

When we got back to the castle I started thinking about the houses. Every house has a stereotype about it, and mine was that I was useless. I wasn't sure how, but that was going to change.

It was the final game of the season, Hufflepuff against Slytherin. No-one had expected us to get this far, but we did. Alistair was one of the chasers, so I actually found myself getting into sports for once. As a first year I wasn't allowed to go out for Quiditch yet, but I wasn't sure if I wanted to. I had my eye on the announcer. He was a 6th year, so I figured I could probably take over his duties by my 3rd year. He was too boring anyway, if it was me I'd make it more fun. The Slytherins were shouting this stupid little mantra, "Down with the puffs" which really isn't clever or insulting, which is why it irritated us even more. When they were against Gryffindor and even Ravenclaw they had something clever to say. But they didn't expect enough out of us to come up with a real insult... All of Hufflepuff was up on their feet waving our flags and showing off our yellow and black face paint. I'd say the Hufflepuff has the most muggleborns in it, so it shouldn't come as a surprise that we all immediately started the song that pretty much screams competition.

Stomp stomp clap. Stomp stomp clap. Stomp stomp clap.

"WE WILL WE WILL ROCK YOU" we screamed, which seemed to put our players in better spirits. We started scoring like crazy, leaving Slytherin in the dust. The seekers from both sides kicked into action and chased after the ball that none of us could see. We roared, drowning out the Slytherins. Both seekers were neck in neck, reaching for the small blur of gold. Then, a Slytherin hit a bludgeon towards our seeker. They dodged right in time, and the Slytherin seeker had to pull back to avoid getting hit. Our seeker, a girl named Johnson reached out further...

And we won.

After the game I was walking around trying to find Alistair to congratulate him on his excellent goals, when a guy with silver and green smeared on his cheeks like war paint came up to me. He smiled ruefully, "You guys just got lucky." He said, but with a joking tone in his voice, unlike the other Slytherins who said it with an air of superiority. "We'll get you next time, and don't think we'll be underestimating your taunting skills next time. We'll have an awesome one. Now..." He said thoughtfully, tapping his chin, "what on earth rhymes with Hufflepuff?" I laughed, "Great stuff. Too tough. Get rough." He smirked, "That did not help me at all you too tough Hufflepuff." I shrugged, "Well, Slytherin rhymes with it's a sin, not in, and can't win!" He gasped and clutched his heart, "You wound me! Your rude American ways have hurt my delicate cunning heart." I grinned, happy to meet a not so horrible Slytherin. "I'm Rory. Good game."
"I'm assuming from your American ways that Rory is your first name? In that case, I'm Will. Good game." His blue eyes sparkled with laughter. I blushed a little, I think I've seen him before in class so I'm guessing he's a first year too. He has slightly curling black hair that goes down a little past his ears. Oh yeah, and he's like stupid attractive. Suddenly seeing him as a guy sort of took away my ability to speak normally to him, so I'm relieved when a sweaty Alistair shows up and picks me up and spins me in a circle. "We did it!" He screams. I laugh and we both yell "Puff pride!" At the same time. When he sets me down I see Will's slightly shocked face. He gives me a small smile, nods to Alistair, and walks away. Alistair looks at me accusingly, "Was that a Slytherin?"
"A nice one!" I lower my voice, "A really cute one..." Alistair hears me and claps me on the back. " You dog! Were you flirting with him?" I blush and look down, I don't... Think so? Plus, I'm only 11, there's no way I could get a boyfriend..." He shrugs, "Whatever happens, happens. Now, lets go celebrate!" I laugh and we run to the rest of the herd of Hufflepuffs who are using their wands to shoot up yellow and black colors into the sky as we get handed our trophy.

For a few weeks people seem to have more respect for Hufflepuff, but it doesn't last long as the war for house points picks up we near the end of the year it seems like the less points we have. From always sneaking into the kitchens at night to not getting the right answer in potions, our house was taking a hit. It didn't come as much surprise to us when our headmaster stood in front of all the students and said that Slytherin had won the house cup. We placed in 3rd, right before Gryffindor who seemed to be having a bad year all around. I saw Will give me a cheeky grin from the other side of the room as the banners all turned silver and green. He shrugged and cheered with the rest of his classmates. I laughed and stuck my tongue out at him and mouthed it's on to him. He raised one eyebrow and smirked.

"Come on, Alistair! You know that something has to change around here. No-one validates us! You said it yourself." He reluctantly nodded, "Yeah... I know. But what are you going to do about it?" I raised my 12 1/4" Hawthorn wand with a phoenix feather core and grinned, "Start a war. A Hufflepuff War!"