i fear and expect a good deal of hatred from many of you when you see
the house assignments of Lily and her friends. But I beg you not to blame the
messenger for the message - I only tell it to you as it was told to me by Lily. But
much as Lily and the small troupe of friends that built itself around her may have hated
at first being seperated from each other, it is my firm belief that the short respite from
the hatred between the houses that went on before and goes on again now was due in its
entirety to the strong bonds that linked Lily with her friends, thus linking the houses
together. This diversity in Lily's social clique, spanning school houses and years,
would also later become directly responsible for that final reinstatement of the Triwizard
Tournament, which cause the dark lord to regain his power. Yet another instance of
Lily's noble dreams and works rising up to destroy her and those she loves. Was Lily
under a curse? Or was she perhaps simply too good a magician and a musician for such
a cruel world?
Chapter 2 - I Dreamed a Dream (from Les Miserables)
Then I was young and unafraid
And dreams were made, and used,
And wasted
There was no ransom to be paid
No song unsung
No wine untasted.
Through the window, I could see the mist swirling across the surface of the lake, and overlooking it on a high cliff was a magnificent castle that sprouted turrets and parapets at completely incoherent and unexpected angles. The overall effect was one both of dignity and spontaneity. I had never seen anything so magnificent in my life (unless you count my palace retreat in Italy, which would have been far more interesting to me than this up until the moment I felt the vigour of Diagon Alley beating itself into me). "Oh," I breathed softly. "It's so beautiful."
Instantly the three other first-years in the compartment were crowding for a glimpse of the castle. I gave up trying to watch the castle grow nearer as Lavinia and Mariann and Peter forced their heads in front of mine. Eric and Margarethe and Severus, who were also in the compartment, exchanged knowing smiles. They remembered their first views of the castle well.
Soon enough, I heard the brakes squealing against the wheels, and the train came to a rumbling halt. I glanced out the window of my compartment and saw the castle rising against the starry night sky, its gray stone walls forming a crazy angle with Orion's Belt. I took another moment to savor the picture, to wonder what kind of life awaited me here, for an instant dreaming again my dream about evil sorcerers in high towers waiting to be defeated by me: the valiant knight, and the beautiful princess, and the powerful magician.
I felt something tug on my arm, and turned to see that it was Marianne, who was saying crossly, "Snap out of it, Lily! You can gawk at the castle another time. We're being left behind." Looking around, I realized that the train was entirely deserted. I jumped up and ran after her. Out on the platform, mist swirled around our feet, sending a little chill across my back. We followed the sound of children's voices, and quickly found them boarding a group of boats that floated on the edge of the smooth gray lake. Tendrils of mist danced like tiny clouds across the surface. "Four to a boat," we heard a man yelling, and we quickly took two unoccupied seats in a boat next to Lavinia and Peter, the other first-years in our train compartment.
We didn't talk on the journey across the lake. Marianne said something once, but the sound was deadened by the water and the lamplight was flickering eerily against the mist, and she quickly closed her mouth again. We were all lost in our own thoughts - instead of nervous and excited, we were now simply terrified. The castle loomed ominous against the night horizon, and I was sure I saw a flash of scales under the moonlight there a little way down the lake. The sounds from other boats drifted to us across the water, but the voices sounded empty and afraid. The journey ended none too soon.
The rest of the evening passed in a frightening blur, and I won't bother to bore you with details, since the ritual is the same every year, and you've probably heard it a dozen times from a dozen other students. Suffice to say that the feast was magnificent, although I didn't eat any of it, and the deputy headmaster who greeted me looked stern enough to have literally bitten my head off if I once spoke out of turn.
The ceremony everyone had been waiting all evening for seemed to take forever to arrive. Severus and Eric and Margarethe, who had sat with me on the train, had filled the first-years in on the details concerning the houses. Their conversation was riddled with sometimes heated debates over the superiority of their various houses (the only thing they all agreed upon was that Ravenclaw was full of snobs), but we did manage to get some useful information from it. For one thing, we all realized that this was among the most important moments of our time at Hogwarts. It would define our friends and influences over the next seven years, and I would undoubtebly come out very differently from one house than another. The sorting hat supposedly knew how to put us in the house most suited to us, but they had all been very vague on that.
It was not until I saw Headmaster Dumbledore bring out the hat that I realized they'd been referring to a literal hat. I thought it was an odd nickname for some sort of test. And when "Acaras, Julian" was called, the entire hall went quiet. The suspense crackled in the air just below hearing level. But we could all feel it. "Addams, Marianne." I felt her get up from her chair beside me and try to walk at the right speed on her trembling legs to the stool. She sat down, and the hat had barely touched her head when the hat bellowed, "GRYFFINDOR!". She went to join the Gryffindor table. I apprehensively for me name, both wanting and not wanting my turn to pass quickly. "Bellevue, Erin." "Bysanium, Minerva." "Carigor, Ryan." "Davies, Will". "Evans, Lily."
It took me a moment to register that my name had been called. I stood and walked the interminable distance to the stool, now both terrified and excited beyond words. I felt the hat being placed upon my head. I almost jumped off the stool as I heard its voice in my mind. "Hm...very interesting. Certainly not Hufflepuff - you're far too selfish for that." I was too stunned to reply. "Slytherin, perhaps? Yes, you'd do very well in Slytherin. You've got more brains than the average Gryffindor, and you're really not the bold daring warrior type anyway. Slytherin or Ravenclaw...Slytherin or Ravenclaw...oh, I hadn't noticed this...you love music! Well then, I think it'd best be" "RAVENCLAW!" Stunned, I pulled the hat off my head and moved slowly to join the Ravencalw table. Music? I'd hardly ever heard music in my life! Certainly never paid attention. And I was to join a house of snobs just becasue the hat thought I liked music?
The rest of the evening passed without my notice. I was far too tired to notice "Lupin, Remus" become a Ravenclaw, or "Pettigrew, Peter" become a Hufflepuff. I remember my house prefect leading us all to the Ravenclaw common room, and being led to my dormitory, and seeing my bed. I don't remember anything after that.