Author's Note: I just wanted to let everyone know that I went through the first several chapters of this and revised them. If you have been following this story since I first published it in 2013, it would be a good idea to go back through the chapters from the beginning. If you just started reading, you're all good.
Lucy felt dazed as she handed the hat back to McGonagall and headed to the yellow table. Hufflepuff? She'd never even considered the hat putting her there. This was going to change everything.
She settled into the Hufflepuff table in-between some of the other first years. Looking down, she noticed that the patch on her robes had automatically changed to the yellow and black of the house.
She was going to be interacting with people on an everyday basis that she barely even knew.
Glancing down the table to look over her new housemates, she caught a flash of dirty blonde hair that she knew. She leaned over to look, and there was Cedric Diggory. Her breath caught in her throat as she looked at him. The first person she knew that died in the second war against Voldemort. His death had always affected her, but here he was alive, a happy third year.
What was she going to do? She really didn't know any of these people. And now, no one was going to take her seriously! No one would actually think a Hufflepuff could save everyone!
Then she stilled for a minute.
Colin Creevey had always been underestimated because of how small and friendly he was. Mind you, he was pretty harmless for most of his Hogwarts career, but he had proven himself to be a true Gryffindor during the war.
Maybe she could use this to her advantage instead of considering it a negative?
She was interrupted from her musings by one of her classmates leaning over to her, "Aren't you the one who rescued that Longbottom boy on the train? What're you doing in Hufflepuff?"
The others looked at her with questioning eyes. She wasn't sure what to say, so she just shrugged. After all, she wasn't completely sure either why the Hat had chosen to place her in Hufflepuff. Turning from the curious eyes, she turned back to the sorting.
She watched as Patil, Parvati went to Gryffindor and immediately started talking to Lavender.
Then Perks, Sally-Anne and finally it was time for Harry.
As Harry stepped forward, whispers suddenly broke out like little-hissing fires all over the hall.
"Potter, did she say?
"The Harry Potter?"
She noticed that the boy seemed slightly more nervous as he walked by himself to the Sorting Hat. Then the Hat was dropped onto his head, and she could see as much as anyone else. She remembered the first time she had talked to the sorting hat in her last life, but there was no way of telling what they were saying now.
Was it possible that Harry would end up in a different house too? What kind of changes would that bring?
She fidgeted in her seat until she heard the Hat yell, "Gryffindor!"
She sighed in relief, but also a bit of regret as the black haired boy strode over to the red table. All around her, the Hall erupted in the loudest cheer yet. The Gryffindors went crazy while HUfflepuff and Ravenclaw clapped politely. The Weasley twins were yelling, "We got Potter! We got Potter!"
Lucy turned back to her classmates, trying to subtly observe them before the sorting ended and they had to talk. Unfortunately, her subtle observing skills weren't always the best, and the girl next to her smiled back at her.
And now there were only three students left to be sorted. The first two went to different houses; Gryffindor and Ravenclaw. Then it was Blaise's turn.
She tried to smile at her friend as he walked by, but she couldn't catch his eye. She watched with the rest of the Hall as he was made a Slytherin. On his walk to the Slytherin table, he again didn't catch her eye, and she felt her heart sink a little.
Professor McGonagall rolled up her scroll and took the Sorting Hat away.
Dumbledore had gotten to his feet. He beamed at all the students with a twinkle in his eye. Lucy wondered if the mental shields Carver had placed on her mind were holding. If they weren't, she'd know soon enough. She mentally thought of Dudley as a toddler taking a bath. It was a memory that had long haunted her mind, might as well share it with Dumbledore if he could read her mind.
Fortunately (or unfortunately depending on how much she wanted to scar Dumbledore), his eyes passed right over her without pausing. He must not have found anything weird.
"Welcome!" he said. "Welcome to a new year at Hogwarts! Before we begin our banquet, I would like to say a few words. And here they are: Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak!"
He sat back down. Everybody clapped and cheered. The girl next to Lucy nudged her, "Did he have a secret message behind that or is he a bit-?"
"Oh he's quite mad," she replied.
The boy on the other side of Lucy leaned over, "A bit mad, but a genius! Please pass the carrots."
Lucy grabbed the carrots as she shrugged. The girl, who Lucy eventually recognized as Hannah Abbot, looked shocked.
"But, but, they were empty a second ago? How's the food get there?" she asked in amazement.
"Magic of course," Lucy smiled at her. "I think it's pretty amazing too."
After that, there wasn't much talking expect for the passing of food as everyone dug into the food around them. The Fat Friar, who couldn't eat and wasn't much interested in it, started a conversation from his spot among the First Years.
"So – new Hufflepuffs! Great house to be in for sure! I'm sure you'll all be great help in gaining house points. Course, I'd prefer for anyone, but Slytherin to win this year. They've won for six years in a row! The Bloody Baron' becoming almost unbearable."
"Who's the Bloody Baron?" a First year boy asked.
The Fat Friar glanced towards the Slytherin table where Lucy saw the horrible looking ghost sitting there, with blank staring eyes, a gaunt face, and robes stained with silver blood. He was sitting next to Malfoy same as the first Sorting. Lucy smirked as she noticed how uncomfortable Malfoy looked.
"He's the Slytherin house ghost same as I'm your house ghost," the Friar explained.
"Why would they pick someone so scary?" asked the girl Harry knew to be Susan Bones.
"How did he die?" asked Justin Finch-Fletchy.
Lucy felt her eyes glaze over and her mouth open without her control, "After killing someone he shouldn't have, he killed himself."
An older student peered at her, "How would you even know that?"
Lucy snapped out of her seer trance and shook her head, "Just by, you know, magic."
The older student frowned, "Well I don't know anyone who asked him, so I bet you're just lieing to seem cooler."
Lucy shrugged, "I didn't say you had to believe me."
The student opened his mouth to reply when she noticed none other than Cedric place a hand on his shoulder, "Alex, just leave it be. She's just a First Year."
Lucy huffed at being called "just a First Year," but she turned away from the student and back to her classmates. She hoped she didn't have a lot of trances like that or else her Seer secret would get out pretty quickly. At least most of them seemed to have thought she was just making up a story and didn't realize the glazed eyes.
Lucy glanced over to Harry. She was surprised to notice him sneak a couple pieces of food into his robe pocket. During his first year of elementary school, he used to sneak food from school to have when the Dursley's decided to lock him in the cupboard for days without food. She remembered doing it all her years at Hogwarts the first time around.
It was surprising to see Harry still have that habit. Based off of his other actions that she'd seen, he didn't seem like he'd have any food issues. Maybe there was more to Harry than she had first assumed.
When everyone had finished eating, the food disappeared a vast array of desserts covered the tables.
Lucy helped herself to a generous helping of treacle tart and listened to the conversations around her. The students seemed to be talking about their families.
"My auntie raised me. She works in the Ministry, so we were always over there growing up," Susan Bones said.
"I'm half-and-half," Hannah said. "My mother is a pureblood, but my dad is a muggleborn."
Lucy listened with interest, "If you married a pureblood, would your kids be considered a pureblood?"
Hannah shrugged, "Depends on who you ask. Most documentation would accept that as a pureblood, but most people for employment or such prefer at least three generations of wizards before they consider the kids pureblood."
"I had been down for Eton. Mother was disappointed when I told her I'd rather go to the magical school. Ten generations of my family had gone to Eton before me," Justin spoke up.
"What's Eton?" Ernie McMillan asked.
"A school for non-magicals," he replied.
"You mean muggle," Ernie said. Justin nodded in agreement.
Feeling warm and comfortable, Lucy was glad to be back in Hogwarts until she glanced at the Head Table. Looking there, she remembered several problems she had to deal with. The first was, of course, Dumbledore.
The man looked like the night sky is his blue robes with stars all over them. She'd rarely met another wizard who dressed like that. Despite his ridiculous appearance, it wouldn't due for Lucy to underestimate him. He may be a manipulative and controlling old man who had screwed with her life repeadetly, but he was a powerful old man. Lucy just felt releaved that Carver had offered to put mental shields around her mind to protect from any Legimency or mind altering spells like Oblivate.
Despite having four years to practice her mind magics with Carver, Lucy still royally sucked at all things mind magic. Carver had eventually given up because, despite being a master at mind arts, he had been created that way and he didn't know much about teaching such skills to a wizard anyway. Instead, he'd placed shields using angel magic (as Lucy had taken to calling his skills). He'd said that they should appear as though they were her own.
Off to the side of the Head Table were Quirell and Snape. Those two were two separate problems. First, she had to find a way to defeat Quirell without revealing herself to Dumbledore or allowing Harry to go through the same trials. Plus he reminded her of the fact that all of Voldemort's horcruxes still existed.
Susan followed her gaze and groaned when she spotted Snape. Alex, Cedric's friend, noticed.
"Heard about Snape have ya?" he asked her.
"Yeah. Supposedly he hates everyone who isn't a Slytherin. The parents who work with my mum are always telling horror stories about things he's done to their kids," she whined.
Alex nodded, "That's true. Unfortunately, you all are in Hufflepuff. The only group he hates more are Gryffindors. He's sure to take off more points than any other teacher, but don't worry. None of us older kids will get about that. We understand that Snape's a prick and you probably didn't do anything wrong."
Lucy frowned in thought. She still wasn't sure what to do about Snape. In the end, he'd saved her life many times and died a hero. But he had a horrible attitude. She wondered if there was anything she could do to change his life. Maybe even Snape deserved the possibility of a second chance.
At that moment, Dumbledore seemed to sense that everyone was finishing up. He stood up for the second time that evening.
"Now for some more housekeeping, I have several more announcements to make since we are all fed and watered," he called. "Our caretaker, Filch, would like me to tell the students that he has a growing list of forbidden items posted on his office door. In addition, the Forbidden Forest is as always forbidden."
At this point he seemed to focus on the Weasley Twins who looked decidedly innocent. With his eye twinkling, he turned back to the rest of the group.
"Finally, I must announce that the Third Floor Corridor is strictly off limits under penalty of death. Good night, and have a great first evening back at Hogwarts! You are dismissed."
This time around, Lucy didn't laugh thinking he was joking. She glanced at the older students at the other end of the table that looked completely confused. She could tell that he hadn't explained anything to them. Seeming to shrug it off, the seventh year Hufflepuff prefect stood up. He motioned at several other students.
"Hello, I'm Aleco Rivingston. I'm Hufflepuff's seventh year male prefect. This is Megan McKenzie, she is the seventh year female prefect. If you have any issues, you can come to us for help," he proceeded to introduce the other prefects which made up most of the group. "Ok now Megan and I will lead you to the Hufflepuff common room. Follow me!"
Lucy stood with the rest of her year mates and followed the prefect in a large clump. Instead of heading up the stairs to the Gryffindor tower as she was used to, she followed them down the hall. While Gryffindor and Ravenclaw dorms were both in towers and Slytherin was down in the dungeons, the Hufflepuff common room was on the ground level a ways down from the kitchens.
With no small amount of curiousity, Lucy watched as the Prefects approached what seemed to be a simple stone wall at the end of the corridor, similar to other such walls throughout the castle.
"Alright, listen up!" Aleco told the First Years. "This is the entrance to the Hufflepuff common rooms. Notice the paintings on either side of the wall with a blank section of stone in the middle. They are a landmark to allow you to know that you are at the right place."
Glancing over, Lucy noticed that there was a painting of a blonde haired man on the left and a blonde haired woman on the right of the wall. They smiled and waved at the students.
Megan took over from Aleco, "Our common room is password protected. The password currently is "Yellow Gold;" however, we also have an emergency key incase you didn't hear about the password change or you can't remember it. All you have to do is start at the female twin. Go to the left three stones and tap your wand once. Then go down three stones and tap your wand again. Finally, go three more to the left and tap your wand a final time. It's pretty similar to the doorway at Diagon Alley. The entrance is trained to automatically recognize the wand of any Hufflepuff. It won't work for anyone from another house."
Demonstrating how to open the entrance with her wand as she was explaining, Megan tapped on the appropriate stones. Lucy was amazed to watch the stones seem to fold back on themselves into a doorway about 5 foot by 7 foot was opened in front of her. She piled into the corridor with the rest of the students.
A sloping dirt passageway sloped gently downwards into a round room. With several hallways leading off on each side, Lucy felt like she was in a badger's den.
Unlike the bright reds and golds of the Gryffindor common room that excited a person and screamed of adventure, the Hufflepuff common room seemed to scream of comfort. The walls were done in gentle shades of yellow and tans. The furniture was mostly light honey colored woods and overstuffed black couches. Several overstuffed cream armchairs were set throughout the room. The couches and armchairs were covered by a variety of yellow and black throw cushions. Many of them were oversized and clearly meant to be used as floor pillows to provide additional seating.
Scattered throughout the room were a variety of different houseplants. Lucy recognized spider plants and creeping vines like her aunt Petunia used to keep as well as many others that she didn't recognize.
Towards the top of the wall were many round windows. They looked out onto gently waving grass. Directly across from the entrance hallway was a large fireplace. The wooden mantle was decorated with badgers. Above the mantle was a still life painting of Helga Hufflepuff, founder of the Hufflepuff house.
Lucy surprised herself by loving the room instantly. She'd expected to miss Gryffindor more, but she felt like she was really starting to realize that she had a clean slate to start over instead of constantly being bombarded by reminders of what she'd lost and the betrayals she'd suffered.
"Ok, girl's dorms are down to the left and boys dorms are to the right. Aleco will show the boys while I show the girls," Megan called.
Lucy and the other first year students followed Megan down the corridor on the left. Megan stopped at the first door, but Lucy noticed more as the hallway continued back. She figured they were probably for the other years.
Megan opened the door with a flourish to reveal a smaller round room. Inside it was six full size beds. Each bed was covered with a patchwork quilt. Lucy ran her hand over the quilt of the bed she was standing beside.
Megan smiled at her, "The quilt you pick will stay on your bed all your years at Hogwarts. When you graduate at the end of your seventh year, you'll get to take it with you as a reminder of all the years you spent here."
"Do the other houses have something like that?" she asked even though she already knew.
"I don't think so. Helga Hufflepuff, the founder of our house, was famous for wanting to make every student fit in. The rumor goes that in the first year of opening Hogwarts, two of her students didn't have any sleeping linens, so she decided to make them their own quilts. Of course, she couldn't single out just those two, so she made all the students in her house one. She was so touched by their reactions that she decided to make it a tradition. She knew that sometimes students would come to Hogwarts without a happy home, so she wanted to make Hogwarts their home."
Lucy frowned, "But who makes the quilts today?"
Megan shrugged, "I'm not really sure, but it's probably part of the crew that makes the meals and washes clothes and sheets. Or it's just part of the magic of Hogwarts."
Lucy wondered if the quilts really were made by the House Elves. She'd have to ask sometime.
"Alright, are there any questions? Ok, settle in and get a good nights sleep. You'll get your class schedule tomorrow morning at breakfast. Feel free to come talk to me if you have any concerns," Megan announced as she walked out of the dorm room.
Lucy found her trunk and other luggage at the end of the bed she was standing beside. As the other girls walked through the other doorway in the room to explore bathroom, Lucy walked over and released Akia.
The small snake slithered up her sleeve and wrapped around her upper arm like a bracelet.
"I'm glad you are back. While I didn't mind sleeping in that box, I was growing quite bored," she hissed.
Lucy smiled at her, "I'm glad you're ok. Don't forget, I don't want the others to know I can talk to snakes so I don't be able to reply when they're around."
Akia tightened in a quick squeeze that Lucy took as acknowledgment. Right then, Susan walked back into the dorm room. While Lucy wouldn't try to hide Akia, she also didn't want to show her off or reveal that she could talk to snakes. She wasn't sure how the Hufflepuffs would handle her snake.
Lucy soon settled into bed smiling. Despite things continuing to be different from how she expected, she was happy to be in the Hufflepuff house.