A/N: Sorry it's late, here's the next chapter. Let me know what you think!

Memories Misplaced

Chapter 4

The train pulls into Hogsmeade right on schedule.

"Hey," I stop suddenly just at the doors of the train, causing Neville to stumble into me. "Where did Astrid go?"

Ginny looks on the ground behind her, searching the long line of students waiting to get off.

It's still pouring outside, so much that you wouldn't be able to see three feet in front of you. I'm not eager to leave my friends and find my own way, but I step away from the door and start pushing through the bigger bodies.

"I'll catch up, you go ahead!" I call behind me.

The mass of students getting off quickly thins and it's easier to slip in and out of compartments.

Anxiety of being left behind in the dark and rain starts clawing out my stomach and I'm relieved when I finally find my cat.

She's in the very back of the train, trying to fit her mouth around the trapped Trevor the frog.

I scoop them both up, gagging at the slimy feeling of Trevor as I stuff him into one of my pockets, and shove Astrid into my robes in an attempt to keep her dry.

I'm soaked through by the time I make it five meters.

The train is absolutely empty as well as the platform outside, but I can barely make out the movement of people farther ahead, so I duck my head against the thick buckets of rain and race forward, sliding in the mud every step.

I grow confused as my foot snags on a tree root and glance up to search for the group again, and they're closer, but the path isn't the one to the carriages. In fact, I don't see the carriages at all, only a single bobbing yellow light high above everyone's heads.

I groan loudly as I come to the group of first years shuffling miserably in the mud. The carriages had left by now without me, so I have to go with the little ones across the lake.

"Common everyone," Hagrid calls. "Three to a boat; watch yer step."

With frozen toes, I clamber into a boat with a hyper boy who might be even smaller than I was my first trip across the lake. My numb finger slip on the slick wood, scraping my elbow pretty bad, but I can't really tell in the dark.

The only source of warmth is the wet shivering ball of fluff against my chest, but even that heat is quickly vanishing.

With a lurch, the boats start moving across the lake on their own, following the hulking mass of Hagrid. The rain doesn't let up, but everything is briefly visible as the sky lights up. A crack of thunder vibrates the world a second later, causing tingles to prickle along my spine.

Finally, finally, the boats touch the other side of the lake, which has gotten closer to the castle by several meters.

The tree Ginny and I often sit under is submerged in at least three feet of water.

Before the boat can fully stop at the shore, the tiny, bouncing, boy leaps to his feet.

"Hey!" I shout as the boat rocks so far that my hand clutching the edge touches the water. I rock to the other side to try and keep from falling in, but that was a bad idea too.

The little boy spills over the side, hitting the lake with a splash just before I do as well. The girl in the middle, the smart one, is the only one not to fall in.

Honestly, it didn't do much, I couldn't get any wetter before I fell in. Astrid and I both could have probably done without, though, for different reasons. Let me tell you, that kitten has claws.

I drag myself to the shore coughing and sputtering Black Lake water.

A large hand suddenly seizes my shoulder, dragging me to my feet.

"Alex? What'r ya doin' here? You should be up at the castle already."

"I couldn't, Hagrid!" My teeth chatter noisily. "The carriages left me behind!"

He reaches down into the water behind me and drags out the other boy without even looking. He then drapes his large fur coat over him. I stare a little in jealousy as it pretty much drowns him.

"Well, why did'ya fall in the lake?" He asks, looking truly baffled. Like I had wanted to go for a swim.

"I didn't mean to!"

He raises his large meaty hands as if to ward off my defensive glare. "Alright, alright. Let's get you up to the castle then."

I look around at all the half drowned first years, wondering if I look just as gutted and small.

The Weasley twins would probably say that I would look like a kitten that took an unwilling bath. Looking at Astrid poking her head out of my robes, I might even be able to agree.

The trek up to the castle seems unfairly long, but Hagrid is finally able to knock on the great big doors.

McGonagall ushers us all in hurriedly.

"Miss Taylor," she says upon seeing me. "Merlin's beard, what are you doing here? Why aren't you with the others?"

"I'm sorry, Professor, but the carriages left me behind!"

She sighs a little exasperatedly. "You better hurry in and have a seat; the sorting is going to start in only a minute. At your own table please."

"I know, Professor," I sigh, pushing into the Great Hall as inconspicuously as possible.

Every head in the hall turns to face me and I'm suddenly frozen for a moment. My entire body is numb as I walk passed the Gryffindor table, reaching into my pocket to draw out the even slimier Trevor, and let him out next to Neville.

The round boy lunges for the toad with a shout of, "Trevor!"

Ginny gives me a wide-eyed look as I pass her but I slosh right by to the Slytherin table.

I don't like the Slytherins, and they like me even less, so it's no surprise that they start snickering at me as I let Astrid out, shivering, spitting at me, and dripping onto the table.

I pull out my wand and start casting drying and warming charms at her and myself.

Finally, I stop shaking and the great doors open once again for McGonagall and the first years.

I eye the first year, drowning in Hagrid's coat, sourly as he excitedly bounces to the front of the hall, waving to someone at the Gryffindor table.

McGonagall sets up the sorting hat on the stool, and the hall hushes to wait for the inevitable song.

The last verse,

Now slip me snug about your ears,

I've never yet been wrong,

I'll have a look inside your mind

And tell where you belong!

stays with me even as the actual sorting starts.

I always felt that I didn't belong in Slytherin; I'd be much happier anywhere else, and the hat had told me that before ever being sorted in first year. But I had still insisted because that's what my father wanted.

I only vaguely pay attention to the sorting, noticing the smallest boy whose name turns out to be Dennis sorted into Gryffindor, the girl I shared a boat with, Orla, going into Ravenclaw.

When the feast arrives, I eagerly dig in, piling food high on my plate and ignoring all other conversations around me.

It's when Dumbledore announces the Inter-House Quidditch Cup isn't taking place this year that I actually start to pay attention.

The Great Hall is filled with displeased murmurs even as Dumbledore continues in an explanation.

Before he can get to it, a deafening rumble of thunder harmonizes with the banging sound of the large doors to the Great Hall.

A man stood in the door way, silhouette brightly illuminated by lightning suddenly forking across the ceiling.

He lowers his hood and shakes out his grizzly mane of dark grey hair, and begins walking toward the teachers table, leaning heavily on a long wooden staff. A dull clunk follows him with every step.

Another flash of lightning crosses the ceiling, and several people gasp audibly. My own face pales as both his sunken black eye, and his swiveling blue one meet my gaze and hold for several long seconds

A grotesque smile twists his mutilated face as he seems to stare through me, and then his blue eye is spinning away in another direction.

I feel like one of the ghosts had walked right through me.