Author's Note: Just to let you know, I decided to make Neville the head of Gryffindor house and the deputy head :)
Chapter 2 – The Sorting Ceremony
1st September 2017
The first-years filtered into the corridor leading to the Great Hall in Hogwarts, Albus Potter, Rose Weasley, and Scorpius Malfoy amongst them. Having just been accompanied across the lake by an absolutely huge man, they were now greeted by a much more human-sized man in smart black robes. He was tall and freshly shaven, and an old family friend of Rose and Albus.
"Good evening, first-years," Professor Longbottom greeted the students. He had a very friendly and calming tone to his voice.
As Professor Longbottom welcomed them and explained the process of Sorting, Albus shifted uncomfortably from one foot to another next to Rose. Rose squeezed his hand reassuringly, knowing just how petrified he was at the thought of being in Slytherin.
She, herself, was fascinated by the process and repeatedly assured herself that she would be thrilled, whatever house she was placed in—after all, just being at Hogwarts was a dream come true. She stared around the corridor, noting each face and trying to familiarise herself with each student.
Scorpius Malfoy was watching Rose very precisely and immediately ducked out of sight at the back of the group. He dreaded the thought of them being in the same house; that would make avoiding her a near impossible task.
Eventually, they were herded inside, every student gawping at the wonder of the Hogwarts Great Hall. Rose had been told a lot about Hogwarts by her parents and her older cousin James, as well as all her other aunts, uncles, and cousins as well. She'd also read most of Hogwarts a History already, but the first sight of the Great Hall was simply breathtaking. This was the moment when the realisation that she really was a witch, and that magic was real, sunk in.
She took a good look at the high table where the staff were seated, trying to figure out who was who from what various family members had told her. Right in the centre of the long table sat a witch with the look of someone very important. Rose recognised her instantly as the fairly new headmistress of Hogwarts: Melinda Bobbin.
She had been a Slytherin in the year below her parents—her Aunt Ginny's year—and was the youngest head teacher that the school had ever known. Due to her fascination with Hogwarts, Rose had done a lot of research beforehand on Professor Bobbin. There had been a huge article in the Daily Prophet when the announcement had been made that she was to be the headmistress, and Rose had queried Kingsley Shacklebolt, the Minister of Magic, as he occasionally visited her parents on business.
Daily Prophet 2003:
After five years since the death of Lord Voldemort, Hogwarts school of Witchcraft and Wizardry has recruited a new headmistress. The former headmistress, Minerva McGonagall, expressed that she felt she was much too old and exhausted to continue running the school after the Battle of Hogwarts, May 2nd 1998, however, due to the inability to find a suitable replacement, she has continued the role for a further five years with the promise that she will be replaced immediately. It seems immediately has only just occurred
Minister of Magic, Kingsley Shacklebolt, informed the Ministry that he had personally selected a new headmistress after committing himself to apparently five years of research into who the perfect replacement would be. On the matter, he said, "The subject of the new head at Hogwarts was a quest I decided to pursue myself. I wanted somebody who was very wise and authoritative but also somebody that the students could trust and bond with. Someone respectable—but fun. A natural leader—but also a friend. And I wanted somebody completely new—not a professor at Hogwarts or somebody well-known by the wizarding community—somebody fresh, and new, and exciting.
"So I took it upon myself to find this young man or woman, but no such luck was had. In fact, it was quite an accident when I stumbled upon Miss Bobbin. I was purchasing from her family apothecary and after a pleasant conversation, I realised she was the ideal Hogwarts headmistress."
Melinda Adrienne-Lynnette Bobbin, twenty-two, was a Slytherin student when she attended Hogwarts, achieving Os in all of her OWLs and NEWTs. She was in the school year below famous Auror Harry Potter, and was notably a member of Horace Slughorn's 'Slug Club.' A pure-blood witch with two younger sisters, Mae and Emilie, Melinda is the heir to the Bobbin apothecary fortune and majors in Astronomy, Arithmancy, and Potions. Many people are eager to see how well she will handle the position and whether Shacklebolt's new approach will be a triumphant success or a miserable failure. The wizarding community is currently split.
Although many agree that this new approach will be successful and wish Bobbin good luck, others feel that she is simply too young to be running a school full of roughly one thousand new witches and wizards. Quite a few people have expressed the desire for Harry Potter, also aged twenty-two, to run the school, due to his unbelievable talent and skill in wizardry and his many notable successes in magic—simply too many to list here. He, however, has explained that he simply doesn't have the patience and dedication to becoming a professor and wishes to continue his work as an Auror and start a family with his new wife, Ginevra, née Weasley.
Shacklebolt told us that it took a lot of convincing from himself, and consideration on her part, but Bobbin accepted the position approximately a month after they met, and the two have been working closely since then, along with Headmistress McGonagall, to discuss the future of Hogwarts.
Miss Bobbin, we wish you good luck.
Rose had been given the article by Kingsley, and since then the wizarding world had come to the conclusion that Professor Bobbin was, in fact, a very successful and deserving headmistress. Rose looked up at her now. She was very pretty, with long, wavy hair in a dark ebony colour, and was very well-dressed in deep emerald green robes. She looked very at home in the head's chair and was observing the new first-years, eagerly awaiting the Sorting.
The Sorting was reasonably quick and exactly how Rose expected it to be. She paid no attention to anybody else's sorting, suddenly overcome with nerves. As it was done in alphabetical order, Rose was almost the last person to be sorted, which made the tension and nervousness she felt increase dramatically.
It doesn't matter where you go, she assured herself. Her parents had been in Gryffindor, Teddy Lupin had been in Hufflepuff, her parents' friend Luna had been in Ravenclaw, and Professor Bobbin had been in Slytherin. This proved that any respectable wizard could come from any house, so really, she shouldn't be feeling too nervous—she continued to convince herself.
She was so deep in thought that she almost missed Albus getting sorted into Gryffindor. He looked extremely relieved and overjoyed as he hurried over to take a seat next to James, who was cheering enthusiastically and thumping him on the back. When her name was called by Professor Longbottom, Rose took a deep breath and shakily walked to the stool at the front of the hall. Albus gave her a reassuring look, as did Neville as he placed the Sorting Hat on her head.
"A Weasley!" the Hat exclaimed. "But ah, yes, you certainly have your mother's brains. Hmm, to me it seems you'd succeed in any house I were to put you in," it continued.
Rose was grasping the sides of the stool so tightly that her knuckles had turned white. She peered underneath the hat's brim at each table, imagining herself in each house.
The hat waited patiently before telling her, "You seem undecided, so I feel you would thrive best where generations of your family have. You have wisdom, courage, loyalty, and ambition, but for you, Rose Weasley, you shall be in... GRYFFINDOR!"
It bellowed the final word to the rest of the hall and was met with a thunderous applause.
From the other side of the hall, Scorpius Malfoy clapped just as loudly as the others. He was relieved that Rose had been placed in Gryffindor and himself in Slytherin. His mother would be thrilled; he knew that his parents and grandparents would be very happy with the news that he was in the house they had all been in, but his mother would be even more pleased with the news that both Rose and Albus were not.
Author's Note: As JK hadn't confirmed who the new headteacher of Hogwarts was when I first wrote this, I thoroughly enjoyed choosing who I thought would be suitable. Melinda Bobbin is actually a real character in the Harry Potter series! She's on page 220 (in the UK edition) of Half-Blood Prince, as a student in the Slug Club, and other than that, and that her family owns a large chain of apothecaries, that is all we know of her. Which is why it was fun to write about her :)
And the reason I chose this character, in particular, is because my name is Melinda too, and I thought it was awesome that there was a character who shared my name! If you've read my Teddy and Victoire fanfic then you'll recognise her as a character in that too, but just to be clear, these two stories don't overlap.
