As Professor McGonagall put the sorting hat down on the stool the first years would sit on to be sorted it suddenly burst out into song. After the end of the lengthy song Emmanuelle frowned as she looked at her hands, she had a feeling this year was going to be very... Eventful. Her eyes met with Odette's as Angel was called. The young girl shakily stepped up to the sorting hat and it was placed on her head. After a moment the hat opened it's brimmed mouth.
"Hufflepuff." it announced and Emmanuelle let out a small sigh as Angel looked straight to her. Emmanuelle smiled brightly at the younger girl and clapped along with everyone as Professor McGonnagall took the hat off of the young girl's head. Rather than walking to the Hufflepuff table Angel rushed to Emmanuelle who stood up when she saw her sister coming her direction. An eruption of giggles and gasps broke across the great hall as Emmanuelle put her arm around her sisters shoulders and urgently whispered in the young girls ear. After a moment Angel nodded and quickly went to the Hufflepuff table. Emmanuelle looked at the staff table and her eyes met the headmasters. She offered him a light smile he returned before she went back to the Slytherin table and sat down. After the last girl got sorted Dumbledore stood up.
"To our newcomers," his twinkling eyes landed on Angel. "Welcome! To our old hands- Welcome back!" There is a time for speech making, but this is not it. Tuck in!" with those words food appeared on all of the tables, everyone started serving themselves, talking to each other about their breaks and about everything they deemed important enough to talk about. As Emmanuelle looked over to the Hufflepuff table she saw Angel talking to a second year boy. She sighed gently to herself, glad Angel was getting along with people in her house. As she looked over the staff table she realized three things,
1) the Care of Magical Creatures teacher Hagrid was gone and had been replaced by Professor Grubbly-Plank, a no-nonsense woman who, while she taught the general classes, she was pretty unimaginative. 2) There was a Ministry official sitting at the table, and while she had never spoken to this frog-like woman she had seen her during the summer when she accompanied her father and brother to the Ministry of Magic. 3) The Head of her house, Severus Snape was looking right at her.
She met his dark eyes and for a moment that seemed like an hour before he looked away from her, and to Professor Sprout who had just asked him something. Emmanuelle looked over at Sylvie who was walking over to her.
"What do you want Gryffindor?" one of the Slytherin first years asked rudely, trying to make an impression to the older students. Most of them would have laughed had it not been Sylvie Volkov walking over. For the most part no one in Hogwarts could find any reason to fault the Volkov girls, they kept to themselves, and were extremely loyal, though very secretive. Emmanuelle Volkov had the highest marks in her class, and it surprised no one when she became head girl. No one laughed along as both the Volkov girls turned their cold glare on the first year who instantly realized his mistake and grew silent as Sylvie looked the students over, then looked at her sister. The two conversed in a language unknown to the rest of the Slytherin students, though you could often hear the Volkov girls speaking it, and Sylvie went to the Ravenclaw table, then to the Hufflepuff table where it was assumed she was speaking that odd language. After the feast, the headmaster was giving his speech when he was interrupted by the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, a woman named Deloris Umbridge as they found out who did something no other teacher had done, made a speech, though her speech was worded carefully if one were to pick through the words and really think about it, which is what Odette did and Emmanuelle both did, she was talking about the Ministry interfering at Hogwarts. Emmanuelle sighed to herself. This certainly was going to be an interesting year.