Author's note: I am having such a wonderful weekend, and I thought I'd make it even better by posting this chapter for you lovely people! Sorry it took so long, only between shopping and sleepovers, cleaning out bookcases and the mounting pile of homework that seems to accompany year 10 at the moment, I've not had much spare time.
The flesh is the surface of the unknown.
Stern looking, with her steely coloured hair bounder tightly back, sharp eyes suggesting nothing would possibly escape her notice... The woman seems to terrify most of my fellow first years, but they needn't worry. She has eyes only for me.
Perhaps you are being paranoid, I tell myself, my tone almost as stern in my own head as her gaze. Perhaps she is not looking at you in particular at all, just weighing up all the first years in her glance. But I knew she was not. I knew that it wasn't the other students who were being weighed up- who were being judged.
It was me.
Shaking legs led me to the hall.
Despite my nerves, I couldn't help but gasp in wonderment as I walked through the great hall for the first time. It was so beautiful!
Dressed as I was in my Hogwarts uniform, I made the wonderful realisation that I didn't look so different from the rest of the students gathered under the starry looking sky of the great hall. In our school uniforms, with our rumbling stomachs and, in the case of the first years, sickening nerves, we really weren't that different in any way, shape or form. Stomach plummeting, I realised it would not last. The minute the stern looking lady uttered my name, I would become an outcast once more, sticking out from the rest of the crowd wherever I went.
Fred and George stood either side of me, quite at their ease, discussing pranks they planned to play at first chance.
"Permanent marker." I said suddenly.
"What?" George asked blankly.
"You'd need permanent marker to pull that one off. I have some in my trunk if you want to use it."
I was only half oblivious to the gloating grins they exchanged across my chest. It made me want to grin, too. Even if only for a second. Because the sorting was upon us.
It seemed like no time had passed at all before Gabby Lester was being called. Waiting with bated breath, I tried to brace myself against the onslaught that was sure to come. Sure enough...
"Adeline Lestrange!"
A silence, much more sinister than before, seemed to steal over the Great Hall. Eyes of living and dead turned my way. Their expressions ranged from incredulous to fearful, outraged to bewildered. Brushing a stray curl impatiently out of my eyes with a little flick of my wrist, my shaking legs led me slowly to the raised stool on which the ragged hat sat.
Closing my eyes as the hat fell over the top of them, glad of something to block out the reproachful gaze of the entire Hogwarts population, I waited in silence for the hat's verdict.
"There is no need to apply occulmency against me, child." The hat whispered.
"Occul- what now?" I threw the thought back, certain the hat could hear me.
"Excellent. Well now, this doesn't look too difficult. Perhaps, due to your troubled past and the feelings of the population as a whole, you would be safer in Slytherin. It would be easier. However, I sense you as a person are much better suited to Gryffindor. In Ravenclaw, too, you may find yourself at home. It is my personal opinion, that the easy thing and the right thing are never the same. You have a hard path ahead of you, Adeline Lestrange. For that, I apologise."
Suddenly, a roaring voice filled the great hall, subduing the whispers which had broken out across the four tables. "Gryffindor!"
A great and terrible silence filled the great hall. I had the insane urge to reach out into the air around me, just to see if my hand would pass through the thick atmosphere. Stares of every description turned my way. Not a single person clapped or cheered, as they had for every other person. Straightening to my full height, I kept my eyes forward on the table which seemed so reluctant to let me join, brushing the curl out of my face again.
Out of nothing, out of nowhere, the loud cheering and wolf whistling of two red haired first years filled the silence. And the atmosphere of thickness and of fear seemed to burst like a soap bubble pricked with a needle.
Gratefully, I threw Fred and George Weasley a smile as big as the great hall itself. Dumbledore, too, began to cheer and, astounded, the rest of the hall joined in. It was small, and faded quickly, but it was something. Privately thinking I had never been so happy and so humiliated in my life, I slipped into my seat at the Gryffindor table.
"You made Gryffindor!" Cries both twins, their grins almost splitting in half with their grins. Beaming in return, I loaded my plate with food of every description. Ladies weren't meant to eat this much, after all... Separation from Aunt Narcissa might have its upside.
Speaking of which... What were they going to say when they heard? Uncle Lucius would be all ready to hex me into next September, I was pretty certain... Aunt Narcissa would probably be coldly disappointed, and Draco would be plain spitting mad. Gryffindor was not a suitable place for the daughter of Bellatrix and Rodolphus Lestrange, not as far as they were concerned, after all. A union between Black and Lestrange, two of the most prestigious pureblooded families in history, was one that could not be taken lightly. It would only happen once in history, after all, considering the scarcity of heirs. And for the child of that union to be a Gryffindor, and to consort with blood traitors... It was enough to turn my Aunt and Uncle to stone in fear...
I leaned forward slightly, smiling slightly in strange satisfaction. I would be causing my Aunt and Uncle many sleepless nights, no doubt.
"You know you probably just made an enemy of half the hall." I informed Fred and George.
They shrug. "Just because they're a group of judgemental, boring idiots doesn't mean we have to be." Fred replied, stuffing his mouth full of Yorkshire Pudding.
"Yeah, life's no fun for people like that." George laughed.
"Couldn't agree more." Lee Jordan timed in, grinning at me. I hadn't noticed him join the Gryffindor table- that was a nice surprise.
"Thanks." I said. It was the only thing I could, my mind going completely blank. A warm, fuzzy feeling was stealing over me, and I was oddly oblivious to the glares directed at me for the first time in my 11 years. Was this what it felt like, then, to be among friends?
Later, I would find that it was not. Being among friends meant bursts of love and irritation in equal measure. Being friends meant laughter in almost every second of the day, of smiles that almost split your face in half, and arguments that fair broke your heart. Being among friends meant feeling that you belonged, feeling that someone would care whether or not you were in or out, up or down, sick or healthy. It sometimes meant danger, and it sometimes meant adventure, but it always meant good fun.
Being friends with Fred and George meant being almost constantly watched by beady eyed teachers, with pranking and the occasional explosion every other day thrown in for good measure.
A boy with red hair, who I recognised as the twin's eldest brother, leaned around a girl with fawn coloured hair, whom was flirting most shamelessly.
"Pass the potatoes, would you?" He asked.
"Sure." I said, handing them to him.
"Charlie Weasley." he grinned.
"Adele." I said. He knew my last name, and most probably didn't want to hear it again.
"I see you've met troublemaker one and troublemaker two." He said, nodding at the twins, who both laughed.
"Yes." I laughed.
"I have only two words. Good luck." He laughed, turning back to the girl, whose name, it transpired, was Verity.
Turning back to the twins and Lee Jordan, the laughter died in my throat. Another red haired boy was staring in disapproval, his eyebrows knitted together, glare directed in my direction and my direction alone.
"What?" Asked George. He followed my gaze, and made a sound in the back of his throat that might have been outrage or disgust. Either way, it wasn't good.
"That's Percy. The world's second biggest prat, if we're going on the assumption your uncle is still first. I wouldn't pay him any attention. He's just too stuck up. The rulebook is the love of his life."
"Yeah. We swear we caught him snogging it once, but no one would believe us." Fred chimed in, communicating all the things he couldn't say in front of me with George using only his eyes. It would never cease to amaze me- the way they did that. The way George could just join in a conversation that Fred was having and know the topic instantly, and visa versa. The way they seemed to have endless conversations without needing to utter a single sound.
I couldn't laugh. My breath had caught in my throat, something George had said lodging in my brain like some sort of diseased animal, spreading it's infection throughout my body, turning me numb and cold with fear and regret.
The rulebook is the love of his life... The rulebook. Was there some kind of unspoken rule which had spread like wildfire through the hall as I sat with the hat over my eyes, which banned anyone from liking me?
I didn't know. And I didn't want to find out.