Chapter Two: The Sorting of the Houses
Milly looked out of the window of her empty compartment and gasped. 'So this is Hogwarts. Wow. It's surprisingly bigger than I thought. I wonder if it's run just as well as Beauxbatons?' she thought to herself. 'Where in this large school could my father be? What about the students? I wonder what they're like? Are they nice? Or are they like the stuck-ups at Beaux- my old school? She reminded herself. It's my old school now. I go to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. I have to get used to that.'
She looked out of the Hogwarts Express's window and saw a large giant with a frizzy, knotted black beard. His hair, pulled back into a ponytail, was half-hidden under the extra-large brown coat he was wearing. The giant was holding a magically-lit lantern high above his head. It had a dancing red, blue, and yellow flame changing its form from a raven to a badger, then from a snake to a lion, and then back to a raven again. The lantern's flame-creature lit up the giant's facial features and made him look like the kind of person you wouldn't wish to meet at night in a dark alley. (Then again, would you want to meet any kind of giant in any dark alley?)
She gathered up her books and sat still on her seat as the train came to a loud halt. She heard the hundreds of students shouting excitedly, prefects trying to shout instructions over the students; she heard compartment doors open and other doors slam shut. Then she heard the train's whistle blow, giving the signal that it was safe to exit the crowded train and cross the lake only to emerge where it would be even more crowded.
As the students and herself departed from the train, Milly heard loud, bellowing shouts and looked around to see who they belonged to. They were deep and, as she scanned the crowd, Milly realized that it was the giant who was hollering. She listened intently to hear his shouting over the hundreds of students, and was able to make out just enough to understand his instructions. "Firs' years……tra'sferred stu'ents……take boats; yeh others……carriages!"
She squinted her eyes and tried to see the faces of students that were crowding the carriages, boats and the giant. She could make out very little faces of those who were crowding the large giant. There was a girl with an expression of anticipation on her face, brown, frizzy hair and an enormous pile of books in her arms. The girl was talking very fast to two younger girls, both of which were probably in their first year. The young girl on the eager girl's left had an unmistakable look of confusion and annoyance. She had a small black handbag, blonde hair which was twisted into a long braid and draped over shoulder, and a large brown and white rat who kept waddling behind her neck from shoulder to shoulder. The other girl on the right had a very bored expression revealed and her arms were folded over her dazzling blue robe that stretched to her ankles. Her eyes were averted upward and she didn't seem to be listening to the girl with all the books.
Milly shifted the eagle owl in its cage to her other hand. As she boarded a large paddle boat, her gaze lingered toward the students that had arrived quickly by carriages being pulled by large skeletal horse-things with long, bat-like wings. One boy, she noticed, was tall and had flaming red hair and freckles. She looked at the boy that the freckled boy, and the giant, seemed to be talking to. He had dark black hair which, in the night's light, seemed to be even darker than the deep black it already was. The boy was just about as tall as the freckled boy next to him, and wore a pair of black-rimmed glasses.
The boat lurched and one of the girls screamed. Milly grabbed the side of the boat automatically. She held her owl's cage tightly on the bottom of the boat with her feet so it wouldn't tip and hurt the bird. She looked out from the boat and into the murky surface of the water. She scanned it from near the edges of the boat further out into the lake. All was still as could be save the ripples from the wind and paddles. She relaxed a little and glanced at the passengers of the other boats. They seemed like they hadn't heard anything and were very quiet. The passengers aboard this paddle boat were, contrary to the others, chattering about the boat's lurch.
She looked out into the water again and her eyes widened. She could now see long, wide ripples of something moving fast and steadily across the water. Even squinting, she couldn't make out its form, but, by the size and width of the ripples, it seemed very large.
Now, uneasily taking her mind off of the lake and its inhabitants, Milly gazed back toward the shore. Most of the students that were outside were now inside the old stone castle. The girl with the bushy brown hair and the boy with the black hair were inside as well. The giant, however, was awaiting their arrival onshore.
The boat soon hit the light, sandy bank of the lake. Its passengers were led carefully onto the sand and were led into Hogwarts' Great Hall. Most of the riders were either fascinated my the large, grinning giant or terrified of him. A couple of first years in the boat beside Milly's were so freaked out that they jumped out of the boat and ran like there was a overgrown serpent about to bite off their heads if they didn't run. When the couple of those boys entered the Hall, they were drenched from jumping into the dark water of the lake.
After introducing himself as Hagrid, Milly herself was warily escorted to the front doors of the castle of Hogwarts by the giant and to a long, wide table. She sat on one of the stools, set her luggage to the side of her seat. The table was lined with hundreds of shining gold plates and covered foods.
The headmaster shushed the crowd of students, old and new, and announced for everyone to hear, "Welcome to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Before we begin the traditional Sorting Ceremony and feast, I would like to introduce our new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, Professor Darconnel." The new professor stood, a grim look on his face, and scanned the students. He smiled after a moment, and a satisfied expression crossed his grim one, but quickly disappeared. He sat again, and Headmaster Dumbledore continued, "We would like to announce that he has excitedly accepted our request of being our new teacher, despite the past happenings. Just as our first years are new, Professor Darconnel is as well. Give him a chance, shall we? Of course. So! Enough with the dilly-dallying! Let us get on with the Sorting! Professor McGonnogal."
A woman with high cheekbones, gray hair knotted into a tight bun stood, walked hastily to a wooden stool in front of the Professor's table and set down a hat. It was bent, patched, dust-covered, and looked very old. Professor McGonnogal stepped back and partially opened a scroll in her hands. She glanced at the hat, which gave a sudden perk. It straightened itself and looked about the room, studying the new students and the older. The Professor started explaining about the ruddy old hat. "First years and transferred students: This hat will sort you into one of four Houses- Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, Slytherin, or Gryffindor. Which one is chosen for you is chosen. There will be no switching, and no rearranging. The House in which you go is determined on your personality. When I call your name, please step forward and have a seat. I will then place the hat on your head and he will make his decision. When you are sorted, please take your seat at your House table. Now we will begin."
She called the first name from her list. "Ardell, Auriell." A girl with black hair pulled into a bun walked forward and sat on the wooden stool. Professor McGonnogal placed the hat on her head. The hat stirred once more, and Auriell, a slightly worried look on her face, looked up at the wide rim, curious of which House it would join her to. It thought aloud for a moment, the hollered for the whole of the Great Hall to hear, "Hufflepuff!" Auriell immediately looked relieved and went to join the students of her House.
The professor called more and more names, and when she came to Milly, she felt that it had come all too fast. But, nevertheless, "Ridell, Milliscent!" was projected through the crowd of students. Milly stood, walked up to the stool and took her seat. But as professor McGonnogal lifted the hat above her head, it shouted, "SLYTHERIN!" There was an unusual hush between the students suddenly and, just as sudden, a few started whispering to each other. She herself was a little surprised at how fast the hat had made its decision, but then she remembered that being in the Slytherin House had run in the family before-she was just the second generation. But so fast? "Next student, please, Professor!" croaked the hat. He eyed her peculiarly all the way back to the table which she left her things and to the Slytherin table until "Rochelle Waldarnio!" was seated and sorted into Gryffindor House. Rochelle was the last student, and, after the traditional welcome back feast, the prefects led the students to each of their houses.
Milly made friends quick with a boy by the name of Draco Malfoy. Right when she had sat down at the table in their common room after the sorting, he had seated himself beside and had begun to babble. But-and she didn't think he noticed-she hadn't really been paying much attention to him. Not until he mentioned the most strict teacher in the whole school, who hated Gryffindor, Professor Snape, was his favorite teacher, but just because that particular professor "punished Gryffindors real good." When Draco said this, she had turned to him and asked, "What do you have against the Gryffindor House, Draco? Are you jealous of someone in that house, or is it just a competitive boy thing that I don't, and shouldn't, have any clue about?" (She personally thought he was jealous of someone.)
This remark took him a little off guard. But he simply said, "It's a thing" and, to Milly's annoyance, went rambling on and on about one of the times he got to sneak around Nocturne Alley with his father. She was interested in what he looked at, but unfortunately he never said what he was there for. When his bodyguards Crabbe and Goyle (or she thought they were used for bodyguards) arrived from making their own mischief, Draco left with them, making something that Milly thought must be a smile to her, and went into the boys' dormitory to go to bed or set some sort of morning traps for the less harmful Slytherins to fall for when they woke the next day.
Milly, however, did not go to bed. She thought of it too early and wasn't tired in the first place. Not knowing, or caring, if she was allowed, she sneaked out of the common room and went to have a look around the castle. She took her schedule so that she could find the way to her classes the next day without getting lost and ending up late.
It was easy to find where the Herbology class was, and where the Care of Magical Creatures class was as well, since she had seen the hut outside the castle by the forest which according to the schedule is the professor's. But why he lived in a hut and not inside the castle, she could only guess. Almost all of the classes were pretty easy to find, all except for one, and that was potions, which was to be found in the dungeons. It took her almost an hour and a half of wandering-finding the library sometime in there- to discover it. Even when she found where it was, she didn't hang around there long. Something about the potions class being in the dungeons made a slow, freezing chill creep down her spine.
Milly walked slowly and cautiously back to the stairs leading up to Slytherin Tower, now tired from all of the night's walking she had done. She trudged through a new guard watching over the entrance to the tower, a portrait of a pack of lounging wolves that sometimes prowled the dense forest in the background. She spoke the password, "Forbid-curses," before the leader of the pack of wolves allowed the frame to slide to the left and reveal the entrance. She slowly walked up the green-carpeted staircase, ignoring the remarks about being late to bed from the venomous snake picture that hung on the door of the girls' room.
Milly plopped onto her soft, four-poster bed and heaved a sigh of relief. She was back in bed and had not been caught wandering around the halls after curfew. She wondered what would have happened if she had. Would she have gotten a detention. Would she have been expelled, or would she have just been given a first warning? Oh well. She didn't care. She had not been caught, and all that mattered to her at that moment was that she would get some sleep before the morning came. Without even taking off her shoes, she slipped under the covers and fell right to sleep.