Hufflepuff.

The hat had put her in Hufflepuff. She wasn't quite sure where this hidden vault of Hufflepuff aspects was hidden in her brain, but apparently it was in there somewhere and now it was black and yellow instead of bronze and blue or silver and green.

Speaking of, she was going to catch so much flack for this at home. Not from her mother, of course, but her Slytherin sister? It was going to be long and drawn out and most likely brutal. She was going to have to come up with some sort of clever retort later.

She plucked at the yellow band on her robes. Maybe yellow wasn't such a bad color, she thought. Green was better, maybe. Or blue.

Not red. Red meant Gryffindor and not only had "bravery" always seemed like "recklessness", one of the older Gryffindor boys had told her that for the sorting there was going to be a test for the sorting and, thoroughly horrified, she'd locked herself in her train compartment and spent the whole time studying instead of making friends or at the very least enjoying the scenery outside the window.

Then she'd gotten there, and gotten sorted and not only found out she was Hufflepuff bound but now everyone already knew each other. The only thing she'd said that night at the feast was that Snape reminded her of Batman if Batman had been neither rich nor succesful, and all of the people sitting by her had turned out to be from wizarding families and gave her strange looks. That had been funny, but there was no telling them that.

Hufflepuff. Not Slytherin, and not Ravenclaw.

Well.

She'd show that stupid hat. She'd work harder than all of the other students here and then she'd be the smartest and the best student in the school and that hat would regret not putting her in Slytherin or Ravenclaw!

….Wait wasn't hard work a Hufflepuff trait?

She kicked her desk sullenly, startling the only other girl in the room – a Ravenclaw who'd shown up as early as she had. Forlornly, she figured the other girl had shown up because she was eager to learn, as opposed to her own desire to not be late on account of getting lost.

A short funny looking man bustled past her and startled her out of her moody introspection. He was followed by the rest of the Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw first years, looking very much as though he'd led them here.

Poo.

The short funny looking man introduced himself as Professor Flitwick, the Charms Professor here at Hogwarts. The first order of class, he informed them, was to learn more about the other students in the class. For the Ravenclaws, he explained that it helped to have a study buddy – someone who might take notes if you ever had to miss class; for the Hufflepuffs, he told them it was a chance to make more friends.

Of course, contrary to his edict to find someone you didn't know, the students all paired off with someone they'd clearly met before, usually the student sitting right next to them – Ravenclaws with Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs with Hufflepuffs.

She looked around the room, trying to catch someone's eye, but they were all deeply involved in coversation with their new partner. Frowning, she considered asking if she could join and make a group of three (she knew the Hufflepuffs would accept, if only on a matter of principle) but that was awkward to have to approach people who had paired already.

Then she spotted the Ravenclaw girl from earlier hovering on the edge of crowd, a look of vague consternation on her face.

Adopting her "I'm am totally not nervous right now" stance, which mostly involved a ramrod straight spine and stiffly locked elbows and knees, she strode over the Ravenclaw and stuck out her arm straight in front of her.

Then she realized she didn't know if wizards shook hands.

The girl, who had long curly brown hair and brown eyes, peered at her curiously.

"I don't know you." She said, as though that would explain everything. She hoped it would. "I'm Anna."

The girl brightened immensely, and replied cheerfully as she took her hand and shook it. "Kimberly!"