Chapter 3: One Point for Hufflepuff
Marlene
Marlene, Mary, and Lily were being carted along in a carriage, making their way to Hogwarts. Lily looked out the window contemplatively. Marlene guessed she was looking at one of three things. The castle—understandable since they were impatient for food and sleep after a long journey. Another possibility was that she was looking at the invisible horses which carted them along. Though there were no horses to see, it was both interesting and eerie to watch their bridles blob along in the air as though there were. The final option was that she was just staring into space and mulling over her thoughts.
Her other friend, Mary was busy polishing off the last of her Chocolate Frogs. Though they'd shortly attend the start of the year feast, none of them had anything proper to eat since breakfast. A fact that Marlene was continually made aware of by her growling stomach. Marlene had already devastated her supply of Every Flavor Beans and Exploding Bonbons she'd gotten from the train trolly.
The rest of their train ride had passed predictably. Lily got angry with James Potter and Sirius Black for getting into a fight an hour into their school year. Marlene defended James Potter and Sirius Black by pointing out she was in the fight too. She also admitted that she was very close to starting it which, in turn, caused Lily to be irate with her.
Then they got caught up with their respective summers. All of them were with either their immediate or extended families. Marlene spent her summer, predictably, abroad with her mother's family in Germany. Before they knew it, the train ride was over and they headed for the carriages. Snape had been waiting in the front of the line with his enclave of Slytherins.
Of course, there was Mulciber, Avery, and Rosier among them. A more recent addition to their number was Regulus Black, Sirius Black's younger brother. There was a moment when their two groups glimpsed each other before the Slytherins began boarding their carriage. Snape determinedly avoided eye contact while Mulciber sneered in greeting. His attempt at intimidation was sullied by his still-broken nose. Marlene had smirked in return.
She looked at Lily, sitting across from her in the carriage, and wondered if she was still contemplating the (non)interaction. As far as she knew, it was the first time Lily had seen Snape in person. At least since the last term. Her friend was quieter than usual, though it could have been more related to the long day and lack of non-candy food more than anything else.
"Did you see him at all this summer?" Marlene asked suddenly; directing the question towards Lily, who was shaken from her reverie. She didn't need to clarify who 'him' was.
"No, why do you ask?" Lily responded back rather sharply.
"No reason. I suppose I wondered if you'd seen him around town."
Lily shook her head in response.
Marlene knew that it was asking trouble to bring up Snape. Evidently, Mary agreed since she raised her eyebrows at Marlene. In her defense: she was very curious. After last year's incident, when Snape called Lily a Mudblood in front of the entire school, the straw had finally broken the camel's back. Lily snuffed out their friendship once and for all. Since then, Lily had been resolutely against evoking his name in conversation. Though technically speaking, Marlene hadn't said his name.
The truth was that Marlene was surprised that Lily kept up her resolution for so long. She thought that she'd eventually forgive him, same as always. Especially since he'd had unfettered access to her during the summer at Cokeworth. Plenty of time to make his case.
"I still can't believe you fought like Muggles," said Lily, breaking the silence and expertly changing the subject in one maneuver. "I mean, Potter and Black I understand, but the Slytherins? It seems like something they'd consider beneath their dignity."
"Smart of them though," said Mary. "If they had been using wands, there would have been a lot more damage. They would have made a lot more noise too… Muffliato can only go so far."
"I reckon their reasoning was more ego than brains," theorized Marlene. "Mulciber probably didn't want to look like a coward by using his wand."
"Speaking of Potter…" Mary started.
"We weren't!" Lily said again sharply. In defense of her prickly mood: Snape and Potter were probably her least favorite subjects at the moment. They had brought them up back-to-back.
"Yes, speaking of Potter—I think it's safe to say that crush is still intact," concluded Mary. "He kept looking at you while Clearwater was yelling at him."
"Yes, Potter's supposed crush…" Lily responded looking out the window; they were drawing nearer to Hogwarts.
"You're going to make me laugh, Lily," said Marlene in astonishment. "How on Merlin's-modern-earth are you going to deny it?"
"The same way I always have," she responded.
"But he asked you out in front of the whole school Lily…" said Mary slowly, as if Lily might have contracted amnesia and forgotten last year's incident.
"He asked me out in front of Severus," said Lily, emphasizing the name.
"You think James Potter is much more calculating than he actually is," said Marlene, picking up on her insinuation.
"Oh please, now you're making me laugh," she said. "He is always up to something and loves to annoy Severus."
"I don't think he'd ask you out just to bother Snape," said Mary. "It seems excessive."
"I think you're both overestimating Potter's character."
"I think you're massively underestimating his crush on you," Marlene replied, as their carriage came to a stop. They'd parked in front of the school's gates.
"Obviously he asked you out because he's been obsessed with you since the first year," said Marlene.
"Ugh, you always say that but I don't buy it," she said back.
"Lily, look at the facts," said Mary as they stepped out of the carriage. "Even if he hasn't been obsessed with you for five odd years, he's at least developed feelings again."
"I don't think so," said Lily, folding her arms over her chest.
"Pray, tell why else he'd ask you out?" asked Marlene.
"Because he's a prat," she explained. "He's had it out for Severus since he first met him. He is using me as a weapon in his campaign again him. Finally, he's not mature enough to form a serious attachment to anything. Wait—an amendment to that last part—too immature to form a serious attachment to anything that isn't his hair and Quidditch equipment."
"You're not still on Snape's side?" asked Marlene. She wasn't sure if it was curiosity, boredom, or a lack of self-preservation—or perhaps a deadly cocktail combination of all three—that made her bring Snape up again. She surreptitiously peeked at Mary, who gave her a very pointed look in return.
"No!" Lily scoffed. "Not after… well, not after everything."
Marlene nodded, trying to keep any expression off her face. She had a feeling that Lily could sense her disbelief.
"Even if I'm not friends with… Snape anymore," said Lily, tripping over his last name. "It doesn't negate the fact that Potter flirts with me to aggravate him. Therefore he's a prat."
"Well I suppose you wouldn't give him a shot even if he is being sincere?" asked Marlene with a sigh.
"Definitely not," Lily affirmed. "Not that he is being sincere… speaking of sides, you seem to be advocating an awful lot for Potter?"
"What can I say?" Marlene said sarcastically. "After spending years watching him pine away, I've become sympathetic. He's quite pathetic."
"Now who is being unfair to Potter?" asked Lily laughing.
They waited in the front gates of Hogwarts, which were rung with a half-dozen Aurors. All of them were busy checking groups of students.
They made their way to the first unoccupied Auror; a woman with meticulously curled red hair. Marlene stepped forward first.
Frisking was never a comfortable experience, but after five odd years, she'd gotten used to it.
First was the Probity Probe. The Auror slowly passed the golden baton over her body. The stick remained silent.
Next, the Auror muttered a string of indecipherable spells, each time passing her wand over Marlene. She tucked her wand back into her robe's pocket and stepped back.
Marlene grimaced. Last was the Niffler, her least favorite security procedure. A Niffler was normally a fairly innocuous creature that hunted for treasure. These were not normal Nifflers. Ministry Nifflers were either trained or bred (or both) for hunting hidden dark objects. Ones that spells were unable to detect. Nifflers, unlike wands and darkness detectors, had the added benefit of sentience. They are also able to crawl through small crevices and often did so with great pleasure. It tickled a lot but it was more dignified than getting strip-searched every time they entered the campus.
The Niffler dove into her robes and then crawled out of one of her sleeves. Then it when into one of her pockets and somehow popped out the other. Finally, it paused near her fanny, sniffing deeply. Marlene waited uncomfortably as the Niffler determined whether or not she had a cursed object stuck in her womanhood; she supposed she was grateful that it was a Niffler rather than the redheaded Auror doing the sniffing.
Finally, it climbed off her. Marlene was free to walk through the gates. Then the same process was repeated for Lily and Mary. Once the Niffler climbed out of Mary's pocket—with what distinctly looked like remnants of Chocolate Frog on its thin lips—they eagerly took off towards the castle in comfortable silence. At least for a bit.
"Is there any new news?" asked Lily nervously. "I've been keeping up with the Prophet, but they don't always report everything…"
Marlene contemplated ignoring the question. She supposed it was fair turnabout that Lily broached her unspeakable topic. It was a massive show of unusual self-restraint on Lily's part that she hadn't broached the subject till now.
"No, no nothing," said Marlene, her throat closing up. She swallowed to beat back the pesky emotions. "There's no bad news either so I suppose that's something."
"Of course, no news probably good news," said Mary reassuringly, while nervously twisting her pendant necklace. "You would have heard something if something bad happened to him."
As they stepped through the Entrance Hall, Marlene felt like she reached her limit on the subject so it was her turn for a (slightly less adept) conversation pivot.
"I wonder what they're serving. If they don't have Treacle Tart, I'll riot."
In the Great Hall, the students filed in much too slowly. People greeted friends they hadn't seen on the train and Marlene tried to drag her friends to a table, hoping to set an example.
Finally, even the stragglers settled onto benches and the hall's doors opened to let in a cluster of first years, led in by Professor McGonagall. Usually, it would be interesting to watch kids get sorted into their houses. However, Marlene's patience was running thin since it put off the feast. She'd been dreaming about it for weeks.
At the very back of the group walked a tall burly boy. Boy was the wrong word for him. It was more fitting to call him a man. Marlene would have pegged him from anything from 18 to 20 years old. What he was doing standing with a bunch of children was beyond her.
They all stopped in front of the sorting stool. The man remained in the back, about a meter away from the children.
Maybe he was some sort of bodyguard? He certainly had the build for it.
For the life of her, she couldn't figure out why. Maybe the Minister's child was attending this year? But Marlene knew that both his kids were well into adulthood. Perhaps the Minister's grandchildren… the way he stood, avoiding eye contact with everyone, was decidedly not the way a bodyguard stood from her experience.
Besides, he was wearing a uniform, but Marlene wasn't actually sure if she'd ever seen him before.
"Stephanie Anvil," Professor McGonagall called.
A tiny blonde child stepped out from the group, shaking with every step. The blond girl moved slowly, contemplating each step she took. Marlene could only presume she was moments away from completely blacking out from nerves.
Merlin, maybe someone should help her…
Marlene glanced at Lily who was also biting her lip. She smiled to herself thinking that Lily was probably thinking the same thing, only replacing that 'someone' with herself.
Finally, Stephanie Anvil managed to clamber onto the sorting stool without anyone's assistance. McGonagall put the wretched sorting hat on her head. Every year it seemed to get more wretched-looking, with a new stray thread or patch added to its collection, but somehow it lived on defying destiny.
"Hufflepuff for sure."
The voice didn't match the hat's gruff tenor; Marlene turned to follow the voice. It belonged to Peter Pettigrew, who was sitting with the rest of the Marauders two seats down from her.
"No ones going to argue with you on that Worm—Petey," replied Sirius with a stage whisper as the hat deliberated. The tiny Stephanie Anvil had started to hyperventilate while clutching the edge of her seat. "I think we can rule Gryffindor out."
Marlene scowled, of course, they were making bets on first years' houses. It would be physically impossible for them not to make fun of children right as they set foot into the castle. Sirius Black turned his eyes from the front, caught Marlene's expression, and grinned.
Her stomach somersaulted. She looked back to the front and her scowl deepened. Git.
"Ravenclaw!"
"Merlin's nuts, we all lost that one," Sirius said over the Ravenclaw table's cheers as Stephanie sat down with them smiling with relief. "We'll start over with the next one."
The crowd settled down and McGonagall called another name.
"Bartholomew Belby."
"Hufflepuff," Peter whispered again.
"Peter you always err on the side of Hufflepuff," James Potter muttered, while a pale boy with a constellation of moles sat under the sorting hat. "I'm not complaining; it means I get your money. Anyways, this one is Gryffindor."
"Gryffindor," Sirius affirmed.
"Gryffindor!" The hat shouted. Marlene cheered with the rest of her house while Bartholomew waved and trotted over to their table.
"How did you know?!" demanded Peter.
"Call it a young boy's intuition," said James.
"His brother was in our house Peter," said Remus Lupin through the clapping. "He graduated two years ago."
"No fair, you had insider knowledge! That's cheating!" complained Peter loudly while the Gryffindor table's cheers died down. Another name was called (Avery Beaumont) and another first-year nervously sat under the hat.
"We never agreed to ban insider knowledge," James responded back more quietly. "Besides, he was in your house as well. That knowledge was public domain."
"Then I'm not playing anymore!"
"Oh come on Peter!" said James soothingly. "We don't have to play for money!"
"Just Chocolate Frogs then?" Peter sniffed.
James and Sirius acquiesce and they continued. Several more names were called and several more first-years suffering with varying degrees of nervousness sat under the hat. Peter continued to guess Hufflepuff for almost everyone.
"Antonin Dolohov."
It was the tall and burly man who had stood in the back. He walked through the ocean of first years, who stumbled out of his way, possibly afraid of being crushed.
"Bloody hell, that's a proper adult man," James whispered under his breath; this time he wasn't the only one talking. Many other people were whispering amongst their friends. Hogwarts hadn't had a transfer in the last 10 years.
"Maybe he was an early bloomer?" Sirius whispered back as Dolohov settled into the stool in a bored manner.
"Maybe his mum slow-cooked him in her womb an extra 10 years," James fired back.
James and Sirius chortled while Peter was positively howling.
McGonagall had to stand on her toes to place the sorting hat on his head. Many people reached their breaking point and started to laugh like Peter. There was a ghost of a smile on Dolohov's lips—as if he were also aware of the situation's absurdity.
"Are we still guessing gents?" inquired Sirius as the hat deliberated. "If we are—Slytherin."
"Just because he looks like a 35-year-old Azkaban narc; you're going to typecast him?" asked James. "But also—Slytherin for sure."
Peter paused a moment, seemingly torn between possibilities—one presumably Hufflepuff—before bending to peer pressure.
"Slytherin," he agreed with a sigh.
"He attended Durmstrang, I think," muttered Remus, finally joining in on their discussion. "We heard about a transfer during the Prefect's meeting."
"And you withheld that information till now?" asked Sirius, clearly hurt.
"Didn't seem particularly important," Remus shrugged and then whispered a barely discernible. "Slytherin for sure."
"Yes, Moony! " James said while Sirius and Peter both also cheered at the corruption of their friend.
"Peter, at least you can feel sure he's not a—"
"HUFFLEPUFF!" The hat shouted.
"Damn you all!" Peter said as the Hufflepuff table exploded into confused cheers.
As the cheers settled down, Marlene watched Antonin settle down amongst the Hufflepuffs, some of whom clapped him on the back. He seemed amused by the reception and then as if guided by a 6th sense, he met her gaze.
She very abruptly tore away from the eye contact; which was a little too intense for a stranger's. Had they met before? He certainly reacted as if he'd already seen her.
Despite her embarrassment, she forced herself to look at him again. He'd already turned away to watch the next first-year being sorted.
Even among peers his own age, he was much taller than those around him. He had close-cropped hair and straight dark eyebrows. There was nothing familiar about him yet, the way he reacted…
She mused that perhaps he fancied her. If he did, eventually her personality should have the proper repelling effect and free him from the burden.
Note: Deeply embarrassing confession, I had the wrong chapter here. I blame ffn since it refuses to let you rename the ACTUAL chapter name with things like "Prologue." I know there is an easier workaround to this but I use Grammarly free as my beta reader. I will not do one iota of work that isn't strictly necessary. Again, please let me know your thoughts and feelings!
