Harry Potter and the Mysterious Sibling
Chapter Seven: What Just Happened?
As soon as the portrait of the Fat Lady swung open, Melanie was engulfed in a hug by Hermione and her vision was obscured by a mass of bushy brown hair. "Hermione, I need to breathe."
"Oh, I'm so sorry! Are you alright?"
"Yes, I'm fine," said Melanie, effectively cutting off any rambling that Hermione was sure to have done. Just a little bit behind her stood Harry and Ron, who seemed to have made up with Hermione. Somewhat. At least, Ron wasn't glaring at Hermione anymore.
"Here." Harry handed her a sandwich, which, she was told, the Weasley twins had gotten from the kitchen.
They all stared at her while she ate, and she had a good idea why. Of course, her idea was proven to be correct when Hermione said, "I told them what happened," and handed back her wand.
Before anybody else could add anything, Melanie held up her hands. "I'm tired, I'm grumpy and I want to sleep. I'll tell you three later."
With that, she marched off to her dorm, lay down, and promptly fell asleep.
~.~.~.~.~
"Hermione?" Melanie whispered. Had the Gryffindor dorms changed overnight?
Everything was so much brighter, which she thought was due to the fact that red was replaced by yellow.
Wait, why is everything so yellow?
Despite the change in scenery, at the foot of her bed was Ash, curled up and asleep. She looked over at the other beds and screamed. The other three beds were occupied by Susan Bones, Hannah Abbot, and another girl named Lydia Joans.
Her screamed awakened the other three girls, who immediately sat up.
"What're you doing here?" Hannah demanded, once she'd gotten slightly more than half awake.
"How did you get in the Hufflepuff dorms?" asked Susan.
"Aren't you a Gryffindor?" said the final girl, Lydia.
Before she could answer any of the questions, things Shifted (which was such a dramatic shift that she thought it deserved a capital 'S'). It reminded her of what had happened just before she got Sorted into… Had she gotten Sorted in Gryffindor of Hufflepuff? She blinked rapidly, suddenly confused. When Melanie pushed the thought aside for the moment, she met the gazes of the other three, hoping they'd have an explanation.
Instead of three curious Hufflepuffs glaring at the Gryffindor, their gazes went blank and then changed into something of concern and worry.
"Did you see a spider or something?" Hannah said, sounding worried as she scanned the floors for said creature.
Melanie thought for a second, but decided to play along for now. "Er… No. Just, um, a nightmare." The other three nodded at her answer, then started to get ready for class.
Quickly getting ready (A yellow and black tie!), Melanie took a bag of what she would need, after shooing Ash out of the bag, and ran out the room as if she was being chased by a mob of angry Hufflepuffs.
The Hufflepuff Common Room is quite nice, she commented to herself. Are those blades of grass in the windows? How far down are we? She realized that she'd thought 'we' and not 'they'.
It was rather odd how everything was patterned yellow and black, but then again, the Gryffindor area was all red and gold. The red and gold we have are nowhere near as bright as this yellow, though, she thought, and they don't contrast with the each other nearly as much. She frowned, recognizing the criticism in her thoughts.
It was still quite early in the morning, so not many people were at the Great hall yet. Thankfully, Hermione was there, but sporting a blue and bronze tie, looking quite panicked as she was trying to decide which table she was supposed to sit at. She spotted Melanie and headed over to her.
"What is going on? I woke up in Ravenclaw this morning! If this is some prank, I swear-"
"I was just in the Hufflepuff dorms," interrupted Melanie, pointing at her black and yellow tie.
After a moment's pause, Hermione voiced the question that they were both thinking about. "Where are we supposed to sit? At Gryffindor or…?"
"Let's just stay at Gryffindor for now; we can always say that we were waiting for Harry-" At her brother's name, Melanie stopped talking. "Speaking of which, what houses do you think Ron and Harry are in?"
Hermione shrugged, leading the way to the Gryffindor table. The eyes of the few people in the Great Hall followed the two girls, clearly not used to seeing a Hufflepuff and a Ravenclaw walking together, let alone towards the Gryffindor table. Were they not friends?
Instead of sitting down, they hovered awkwardly around the end of the table that was nearer to the entrance of the Great Hall. Ignoring the staring students, the two girls just talked to pass the time until either Ron or Harry came in.
Ten minutes later, Ron burst into the Great Hall, looking slightly frantic. "Where the bloody hell were you two this morning?" whispered Ron. Then, he noticed their ties, becoming more and more confused. "Aren't you two in Gryffindor?" Melanie waited for the blank look to come over his face and him to realize that they weren't in Gryffindor, but it never happened.
The three talked over each other for the next minute or so, finally stopping when Ron gasped and pointed at the entrance. "Harry's with Malfoy!"
Sure enough, Harry and Draco were talking, being followed by Crabbe and Goyle. Melanie noticed that Harry's tie was silver and green. Although the two seemed to be arguing about something, neither seemed mad, only slightly irritated. Harry didn't seem to be slightly confused though, and he kept a wary eye on both Crabbe and Goyle.
"Harry!" called Melanie. Her brother turned away from Draco, looking relieved when he saw that they weren't sporting Gryffindor ties like Ron.
"Thank goodness," Harry breathed, running a hand through his hair. "I thought I was the only one!"
"Okay, what happened?" Ron questioned, being the only one that didn't wake up in a new House.
"It seems that we've changed Houses." Hermione sounded extremely confused.
Melanie raised an eyebrow. "I could've sworn that I fell asleep in the Gryffindor dorms." She shared a look with Harry, being reminded of suddenly waking up at the Dursleys' house. He nodded, agreeing with both her words and her hidden meaning.
"Look, I know this is a strange question," said Harry, "but do you remember your Sorting?"
Actually, I remember three: your Gryffindor Sorting, my Gryffindor Sorting, and, now, my Hufflepuff Sorting. However, she lied and said she remembered two, as she expected everybody else did.
"I actually remember two Sortings also, but that's not possible!" exclaimed Hermione with a look on her face that clearly said that she wanted to search for something like this in the library. "What spell could be responsible for this?"
"Is there a problem?" The four talking started; they hadn't noticed that Professor McGonagall had come up to them.
Again, the people in the Great Hall were all staring at them, having heard Hermione's raised voice and presuming that they were arguing about something. Some of the students even looked eager, as if they were anticipating a fight breaking out.
"No, not at all, professor," assured Hermione. "We were just talking."
Professor McGonagall still looked doubtful but chose not to question what they were talking about. "Return to your House tables."
Back at the Slytherin table, Harry's mind was reeling. It felt odd being on friendly terms with Malfoy. Draco, he corrected mentally.
After all, he clearly remembered how he'd teased Ron on the train ride here, but that didn't seem to have happened in this 'universe'. Instead, Harry had embraced his Slytherin side and made some vague statements that neither offended nor appeased either Ron or Draco. It was the same in Madam Malkin's shop. It seems that I'm the one who's changed, not him.
At least I can get Malf- Draco to be nicer now, Harry thought, mentally making a To-Do list now that he was in Slytherin. Maybe he'll even stop calling people Mudbloods. On a few occasions in his memories, he remembered lecturing Draco about how blood didn't matter, especially when he'd scoffed at Hermione.
The reason that Harry got into Slytherin this time, he assumed, was because he'd stayed still and listened to the Hat's ramblings instead of requesting to not be in Slytherin.
Overall, it wasn't too bad.
There were only a few things that Harry was mad about.
1: He wasn't friends with Ron or Hermione in this universe, although their friendship seemed to have carried over from the other universe, oddly enough. That was going to be frustrating to have to explain to everybody.
2: Melanie wasn't in the same house as him, so things would be extremely different now. Just when he'd gotten used to having a real family member…
3: He wasn't on the Quidditch team and the first match of the season was nearing. Which team was he supposed to root for anyways? He was in both of the Houses that were playing.
4: It didn't seem to matter what universe he was in. There were still some people, though substantially less, that hero-worshipped him.
At least Snape seems nicer in this universe. The cranky professor seemed reluctant to criticize or take points away from his own House, which was a major bonus for Harry.
"Harry? Are you even listening to me?" With that sentence, the annoyance in his voice brought out a side of Draco that reminded Harry of the other Draco, the one he called 'Malfoy.'
"Huh? Sorry; just kinda tired today."
"Well, as I was saying…" Draco's voice faded into the background as Harry tuned him out, remembering to nod every once in a while. He cast a desperate look at Melanie, silently asking her to get him away from this blabbering Slytherin.
Melanie saw the look and ignored it. At least he had somebody to talk to! Sure, Susan, Hannah and Lydia were nice enough, but they were already friends. Although Melanie was technically friends with them, she still felt like a stranger.
She could see that Hermione was dealing with the same thing, having to choose between being friends with Cho Chang and Marietta Edgecomb, or Parvati and Padma Patil, another pair of twins.
Is it more likely to have twins if you're magic or something? Melanie shrugged, pushing that question to the back of her mind for the moment.
~.~.~.~.~
Through the next month, they remained in their separate Houses, talking and meeting up whenever possible. Everybody within Hogwarts was surprised at the beginning.
After all, even if Hufflepuffs were seen talking to Gryffindors outside of class sometimes, Gryffindors and Slytherins? Not so much. Sneering, insulting, and yelling hexes really didn't count as talking.
Eventually, the others Hogwarts students stopped hoping for a fight to break out between the four (a.k.a. stopped making bad excuses to lag behind and watch them interact in the hallways, classes and the Great Hall), while the professors stopped expecting a fight to break out between the four (a.k.a. stopped snooping around when the four of them would talk to each other).
Within the group of four, it was established that everybody had a second set of memories, one where they were all Gryffindors and the other where they were all in different Houses.
What Melanie didn't tell any of them was that she had a third set of memories: a universe where she didn't exist.
Disclaimer: I guess I should remind all of you that I'm not J.K. Rowling.
And that's chapter seven! Finally getting off the canon events, but I'll be back on them soon. XD
I'm probably going to end up doing all seven years (the last may or may not be horcrux hunting).
Most of the main events are going to happen (e.g. Philosopher's stone first year, Chamber of Secrets second), but some will be different. The events that happen in the same way won't be narrated from Harry's POV unless I can think of a way to make it different enough from canon.
[EDIT: I'm not sure whether I'm doing six or seven years. We'll just have to see. XD]
Reviews make me grin!
~ScaleneGalleons~
