All my life, I was led to believe that love didn't exist. If you clung to that notion, I'd brand you foolish and unrealistic. I lived a cold and barren existence simply because I didn't know there was any other way to live. I'd seen glimpses of happiness and love, but they were always canceled out by fear: the fear of my father-of Voldemort.

I never realized that my life could be full of amazement and happiness, not until I met him. He opened my eyes to a new world of love and warmth; a world where I could flourish and others mattered just as much as I did.

I realized this only after I left the one place that I ever felt was my home.

Pandora gazed up at the ceiling of the Great Hall as she stood in line to be sorted into a house. The room certainly was beautiful and it reflected her care-free mood-which was very different than the quivering first-years in front of her. She already knew which house she'd be in. She could see it now: Before the sorting hat would barely be placed upon her head, it would scream out with great enthusiasm "Slytherin!" and she would gladly, and with great pride, saunter off to be with her fellow kinsmen.

Soon it was her turn to be sorted and her name "Pandora Rider" was called. She confidently walked up to the front of the room and, as the hat was placed on her head, she heard whispering all around her. "That's not a first year!" and "She's too old" and "Is she a transfer?" could be heard contagiously spreading throughout the room. She gave a glare to all of them and crossed her arms, looking up at the sorting hat for an answer.

"Hmm..." the hat debated. "You come from a long line of Slytherins, no doubt." Pandora rolled her eyes and nodded her head. "But I see something greater within you," he went on to say. "I see a great deal of courage and confidence-a good match for Gryffindor. Yet I also see an unwavering loyalty-"

"Just put me in Slytherin already," Pandora hissed quietly at the hat.

"Slytherin, you say?" the hat asked. "Ah yes, Slytherin. I see the utmost cunning in you, but your ambition...it doesn't seem to stem from the right place...I say, Ravenclaw!"

"Ravenclaw?" she breathed, frozen with shock. The room hadn't stopped whispering and she didn't get up until Professor McGonagall gave her a nudge in the right direction. She mindlessly walked over to the table and sat herself down, still dumbfounded.

"I am sorry, Miss Rider, but you cannot change houses," Professor Flitwick told Pandora as he straightened a pile of music on his desk. "We've been able to place you in fifth year classes because of your home-schooling, but I'm afraid we can do nothing more."

Her eyes seemed to light up at that. "And Harry Potter, he's a sixth year, isn't he?" she asked eagerly.

Flitwick gave her a strange look but reluctantly nodded. "Why do you ask?"

She smiled pleasantly and simply said, "Well, he's famous, sir."

Up at the Ravenclaw common room, Pandora began to unpack her trunk. "I don't see why I didn't make it into Slytherin, Nagini," she angrily told her father's enormous snake in Parseltongue. "I mean, my father practically made the house what it is!"

The snake, who was sitting on Pandora's bed, nodded in agreement.

"I just-"

Pandora heard a creak on the stairs to her dorm room. She quickly got to her feet and pointed her wand at the door. "Who's there?" she called out aggressively, jerking the door open with a flick of her wand.

Standing in the doorway was a sandy-haired boy with freckles who looked just about Pandora's age. He had his hand up to knock, but let it rest at his side now that there was no need.

"I'm sorry, I'm just...I was wondering what that noise was. It sounded like a-" his sapphire eyes then rested on Nagini. "Oh, a snake." His face then brightened up and he smiled. "I'm sorry," he reiterated, walking closer to Pandora with his hand outstretched.

"My name's August," he told her, shaking her hand.

"Pandora," she said, smiling weakly.