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DOM
Ravenclaw. Goddamn Ravenclaw. That Sorting Hat is going to pay for putting me in such a house.
I sit on the edge of the bench, next to some girl named Mona who's got thick-framed glasses and a massive overbite, and keeps rattling on about how her parents were in this house and how they had always told her that they just knew that there was something special about her - that they just knew that she would end up in Ravenclaw. I couldn't care less. I sit and watch all the other people being sorted into Slytherin, where I should e: Ophelia McKinnon. Reginald Cann. That girl in my boat, Sophia Selwyn. And a boy, Tom Riddle, who seems ... different. In a good, magnetic way. He doesn't seem like the usual Slytherin boys around.
"And my wand is made of vine wood, which means I'm likely to be a very high achiever -"
"Mona, shut up!" I shout, and with a flick of my wrist, Mona's mouth had been superglued shut.
"Miss Fawley!" roars the Prefect nearest to me - Michael Jones Junior or something. He spins Mona around, and mutters the counter charm, and her mouth begins to function normally again.
Mona turns to me, beaming. "So that's why you're in Ravenclaw!"
I'm confused. "What?" I'm not supposed to be in Ravenclaw. I'm supposed to be in Slytherin. It should be me sitting there in green and silver. There is no reason why I should be in Ravenclaw.
"You haven't done any classes ... but you managed to shut my mouth without even saying the charm!" Mona shouts excitedly.
"And I'll do it again if you don't shut up," I say.
Mona's eyes widen and she returns to her food. Michael Jones Junior glares at me.
"Miss Fawley, we can't have you threatening other students - especially not fellow Ravenclaws!"
I roll my eyes, and look down at my full plate. I continue to pick at my food.
"I'll let you off just this once, Fawley, because it's your first day. But next time ..." Michael shakes his head. I tune him out. God, do Ravenclaws ever stop talking?
The answer to that question is no, apparently. There is a constant chatter of stuff that only complete nerds can relate too, about his year's spellbooks, and the correct wand position for casting the charm to make teaspoons fly. Why anyone would want to make a teaspoon fly is beyond me, but I can hardly be bothered to join in the conversation and ask.
The night wears on, and on, punctuated with unending chatter, not just from the Ravenclaws but from all Houses. Was it only my family who ate dinner in silence?
I look up once or twice to examine the people who I will have to share a House with for the next seven years. There is Mona, obviously, with a face full of freckles, an overbite, thick glasses over frog-green eyes and dark hair twisted into two short, thick plaits. Then there is another girl, Daisy Johansen, with curly blonde hair that sticks up everywhere, pale blue eyes and a thin snub of a nose. Alma Reid sits next to her, with her shiny black hair falling in a sheen down her back. She sits and chews slowly, eyes on her plate, not saying a word. And Ophelia James, with stringy brown hair and green-blue eyes in a too-thin face. Those are just the girls, who I suppose I have to share a room with. The boys aren't much better: Johnny Tucker sits with his knees curled up near his chest, too-big eyes watching us all warily, not touching his food. He's miniature, and could probably pass for about eight. Next to him sits Will Lynon, who has blonde hair, glasses, and an eternally runny nose which he sniffs every five seconds. Next to him is Edgar Willemson, who has chocolate-brown hair and a massive nose. There's one other boy, Joey Lee, who has dark hair and dark eyes like Edgar, but with bushy eyebrows and an overbite that could almost be worse than Mona's.
And that's it. That's all the first-year Ravenclaws. I guess I have to learn to live with them for the next seven years.
But there's one boy. He's not in first-year, I don't know his name. He's sitting next to Edgar, across from Michael Jones Junior, the Ravenclaw prefect, and he keeps looking over here. At me.
We get up after the meal, and Michael Jones Junior directs the whole of Ravenclaw House out the doors of the Great Hall and through an endless maze of twists and turns through staircases and secret passages. My legs begin to hurt as we shuffle into the bottom of a tower, where a staircase spirals up against the wall, higher and higher until I can't even see the top. Michael Jones Junior tells us to start walking, and so we do. We walk for a forever, sometimes stopping for a breather every now and then. I realise we're in one of the gigantic spiraling towers visible from the outside of Hogwarts. There are windows in here, broad and tall and arching over me, with square panes bigger than my hands. I stop for a few seconds in front of one, and stare out at how magnificent the view is.
The sky is dark now, and this far away from the city, the entire galaxy is in view, an explosion of stars lighting up the sky, coloring it white and purple and blue with distant stars sprinkled through it, shining pure and bright. But the brightest thing in the sky is the moon, which hangs, swollen and full, in the middle of the sky, shedding its milky light on the earth below; illuminating the acres and acres of empty fields and plains and moors, its beams protruding through the leafy darkness of thick forests, shining on the tops of distant Scottish mountains, sprinkling light on the Lake.
Maybe, with a view like this, I won't mind being a Hogwarts so much.
We reach the Ravenclaw first-year girls' dormitories at long last, with our trunks having been magically transported to our beds. They gave me the end bed, with my initials D.F. engraved in silver on the front of my trunk that lies at the foot of the bed. Silver, the second colour of Slytherin. Slytherin, the house I should have been in. My robes will probably have already been magically turned blue and bronze, or whatever the Ravenclaw House colours are.
My heart sinks, as I remember I have to tell my parents the results of the sorting. What will they think of me? Will they disown me, cal me a blood traitor for daring to be in a House other than Slytherin? Or will they realise that I never wanted to be put in here, and write an owl to the school, saying that it must be a mistake, and I should be transferred to Slytherin at once?
My heart sinks even lower as I remember that the first classes of the year start tomorrow. And I will be taking part in them as a Ravenclaw.
I remember all the excitement I had over the summer, so excited to finally be going to Hogwarts, to learn magic, to meet other pure-blood families. I was sure, so sure that I would be put in Slytherin. And look where I am now. Filthy Ravenclaw.
I close my eyes and exhale deeply. I stagger onto my bed, where I lay sprawled, but still, as I listen to the other four girls murmuring as they get ready for bed. I try to not focus on the bleak reality that I really am in Ravenclaw, and that this isn't just some bad dream.
Eventually, a few minutes after their chattering has turned into soft sleep-sounds, I get up from my bed and open my trunk quietly. I rummage around for my pyjamas, and pull them on silently. The moon has moved west over the sky, and now it shines directly through the window, falling onto the floor in my room. I stare at the breathtaking view a while longer, before crawling slowly into bed, pulling the curtains around me.
As I lay there, I let the Ravenclaw reality sink in.
Damn it. God damn it. It's real. It's true. I'm a bloody Ravenclaw, and there's nothing I can do.
I am Dominique Elizabeth Fawley, daughter of two Slytherin parents, who were the children of two Slytherin parents. To be in Slytherin is my birth right. I am not a Ravenclaw.
And yet, I am in Ravenclaw.
I let a single tear fall.
