When Roxanne Questioned Albus
Eleven year old Roxanne Weasley was going to Hogwarts and she was going to be sorted into Gryffindor. "You better be," Fred told her, having already been sorted there himself two years before, "or I'll totally disown you."
"You wouldn't dream of it," Roxanne replied easily.
Fred rolled his eyes and walked off leaving her to her own thoughts. But she didn't want to be alone, she wanted somebody to talk to so she didn't have to actually think about the sorting that was going to be taking place in a couple of hours. She'd never admit that she was actually nervous about what house she was going to be placed in.
She set off to find a companion for the train ride. She had a few friends (acquaintances) already and Lucy (if you could count her as a friend) that she could talk to but she didn't really want sit with them as they talked no stop about what Hogwarts was going to be like.
She ended up literally running into Albus towards the end of the train. He grabbed her by the shoulders and steadied her. "Whoa, Roxy," he laughed, "Slow down."
"Sorry," she apologised, "I wasn't looking where I was going and I'm sort of in a rush to look for somebody to sit with so I don't look like a complete loner."
He shook his head at her in amusement. "Come sit with me," he told her as he wrapped an arm around her shoulders. "It's only me and Alice in my compartment since Rose is currently missing. I was going to go and find her but I might as well come and talk to you instead."
Once they were comfortably settle in a compartment at the end of the train with Alice who was half asleep against the cool glass of the window, she asked him, "Were you nervous about your sorting?"
She hadn't meant to ask him that, she'd meant to ask him anything but that. She didn't want to talk about Hogwarts and all it's glory but she just couldn't help herself. "'Course I was," Albus replied much to her surprise. "I was beyond nervous, 'specially since James was telling me that I'd end up in Slytherin."
"Fred said the same thing," she confessed. "Well he basically did, anyway. Did the house ever consider anything but Gryffindor for you?"
"Yeah." Albus smiled. "Ravenclaw and Slytherin, mostly. But if you ask nicely then sometimes the hat will put you where you want."
"Do you think that you're a Gryffindor?"
"What's with all the questions, Roxy?" he asked with laughter. When her only response was a shrug, he continued, "Sometimes I wish that I had been put into another house, just to be different, you know. I can't help but wonder what I would have been like in Slytherin or Ravenclaw or even Hufflepuff and how different it could have been."
"Do you regret asking the hat to be put into Gryffindor?" she asked.
"Sometimes, yeah. But not often. If I had another choice though I might chose something different."
She smiled at him. "I think I'm just going to let the hat put me where it wants, even if it is Slytherin."