Chapter 2: Anything's Better than Slytherin!
Hermione Granger said her goodbyes to Harry and Ron as they parted ways upon walking in Hogwarts to being their final year of school. As usual, Ron was "starving to death," so she had told them to go along to the sorting of the first years without her so she could fulfill the duty Professor McGonagall had asked of the Head girl upon arriving at the school. Before making her way to the Great Hall, she was to walk the corridors of the school and make sure that there were no lost first years wandering the halls instead of being sorted into their respective houses.
As she walked through the corridors, Hermione found herself deep in thought and already saddened at the prospect of leaving the school for good at the end of the year. The Hogwart's castle had become her home throughout the past six years, and although she had enjoyed seeing her parents and old friends during the summer, nothing compared to the elation of being back at Hogwarts.
While she was pondering this, Hermione froze when she thought she heard the sound of someone sniffling. She stopped in her tracks and listened carefully trying to figure out where the sound was coming from. Hermione walked around the corner and looked all around trying to find the source of what she was now certain was something crying.
"Hello?" she called apprehensively through the empty corridor. "Who's there?"
When she failed to get a reply to her query, Hermione used her wand to direct her to the source. "Point me," she said and sure enough, her wand pointed her in the direction of a broom cupboard and she slowly but surely opened the door to the closet. Inside, she found a young, black-haired, puffy-eyed girl sitting on the floor, staring up at her with a sorrowful expression. Hermione kneeled down so that she would be at the girl's level and looked at her with a concerned face.
"Are you okay? What are you doing in the cupboard? You should be at the welcoming feast. What year are you in?" At the barrage of questions, the young girl stopped crying and wiped at her red eyes and runny nose. In a watery voice, she replied, "I'm a first year."
"What is your name, darling?" Hermione asked the girl softly, unwilling and unable to scold her for being in a broom closet instead of being seated under the sorting hat, which was where she should have been.
The raven-haired girl was still sniffling, but had pulled herself together enough to reply, "Katie. Katie Chan."
"Well, Katie, I'm Hermione, the Head girl. Would you like to talk about whatever it is that's bothering you?" she asked softly.
"I just miss my mum and dad is all. I…I've never been away from them before." Saying the words aloud seemed to set her off again and this time the poor girl began sobbing with a vengeance, burying her face in her arms. Hermione sat down on the floor outside of the closet and began patting Katie's arm.
"Oh sweetie, I know just how you feel," Hermione soothed. "I missed my parents terribly when I first came to Hogwarts too. But then I made some really fantastic friends here at school, and I began to adjust to being away from my mum and dad after a while.
"Besides," she continued, "Christmas break comes faster then you think. And then you'll get three whole weeks to spend at home with your family. In the meantime, you'll do just fine, Katie. I promise." Katie looked at Hermione and saw her bright, reassuring smile and seemed to feel somewhat better.
"We need to get you to the Sorting now. Aren't you excited to see what house you'll be in?"
"I'm hoping to be in Ravenclaw or Gryffindor," Katie replied. "But anything is better than Slytherin." As she said this, she giggled a bit and then made a face. Hermione grabbed her hand and pulled her to her feet, then put her arm around her shoulders as they walked in the direction of the Great Hall.
Once inside the enormous dining room, Hermione hurried Katie to the front of the room, near the faculty table to where the Sorting was taking place. From the looks of things, the sorting was very near to being complete. Professor McGonagall saw Hermione walking over to her with her arm around the small girl's shoulders and she smiled down at Katie. Hermione quickly and quietly explained that Katie had "gotten lost" in the halls of the school, patted the girl on the shoulder and then Professor McGonagall swept Katie towards a high stool and placed the Sorting Hat on her head. Hermione heard the hat call out "Ravenclaw!" as she walked towards the Gryffindor table and smiled to herself.
As Hermione walked towards Ron and Harry, she couldn't help but look over at the Slytherin table where the new Head Boy was sitting. She was slightly alarmed when she noticed he was looking directly at her, along with Blaise Zabini, Theodore Nott and most of the other Slytherins sitting nearby the other three. Quickly, she turned her gaze toward her friends and noticed them looking at her with questioning expressions, probably wondering what had taken her so long to get to the Sorting. When she reached Ron and Harry, they both moved down a little so that she could sit between them.
"Gods, 'Mione, what took so long?" Ron whispered to her. Harry was also looking at her expectantly as if waiting to hear her reply.
"Oh, a first year got lost on her way here, so I had to show her how to get here." Hermione felt that Katie deserved some privacy and that nobody needed to know she had found her crying in a broom closet.
The boys were distracted then when food began to appear on the long tables. They both began filling their plates with food and talking through mouthfuls of dinner. Hermione shook her head and smiled to herself. Her boys would never change.
Across the table from her was Lavender Brown and Parvati Patil, who could safely be known as the gossip of Hogwarts.
"So Hermione," Lavender began, with a smug look on her face, "looking forward to sharing living quarters with Draco Malfoy this year?"
"I would be!" gushed Parvati. "That boy is hot!"
"Well, I don't know about him being hot or not, but actually, no, I'm not really looking forward to it at all," Hermione replied blithely. She wasn't lying either. The fact that she would be sharing her living quarters and head duties with Malfoy of all people had actually put a damper on her excitement upon receiving notification that she had been awarded with the title of Head Girl. She swept her eyes towards him again, feeling a strange pull to do so and was again slightly disconcerted when she noticed his eyes, along with those of his friends were still on her. She sighed, as she thought to herself 'This is going the be the strangest year yet!'