I stumbled up from where I stood and looked around. I had landed in front of the Great Staircase. Jamie, Cassidy, and Laurie were all standing at the top with a bunch of other students, looking down at me. It appeared that I had fallen down from where they stood. It definitely felt like that.

"I'm ok," I mumbled. "Just tripped"

Professor McGonagall dismissed it with a wave of her hand.

"All First Years follow me."

I waited at the foot of the stairs until Jamie, Cassidy, and Laurie caught up.

"What the hell?" Jamie mumbled as we followed behind everyone.

"No idea."

Professor McGonagall led us into the Great Hall, which looked a lot like how it did in the movie. The teacher's table was set up at the front. There sat Dumbledore, Snape, Sprout, and all the other Professors, except for McGonagall, of course.

"Must be the first one."

By the table sat the Sorting Hat. Professor McGonagall lined up all the first years in front of it.

"Wonder where Harry Potter is," I said as she started explaining the Sorting Hat. The other three stopped and looked around.

"Strange, I don't see him," said Laurie. "In fact," she pointed out, "I don't see any of the major characters."

Jamie tried to look around the crowd. "No Ron, no Hermione, none of the Weasleys-"

"But there's Malfoy, and Neville, and Nearly Headless Nick-"

"And all the teachers are here-"

All together: "Weird."

"McCarthy, Riyo," Professor McGonagall called out. Evidently, the Sorting ceremony had started without us noticing.

I walked up to the Sorting Hat and threw in on my head. Might as well get this over with, I thought.

Hi there! said the Sorting Hat to me. How ya doin'?

I sat there in shock. What did you just say to me?

Something wrong? All I did was ask you how you were doing.

Since when did the Sorting Hat talk like that?

Why can't I talk like that?

Well, it just seems a little strange haw you recite poetry and at the same time greet people by saying "HI!"

Poetry? I gave that up ages ago. Got tired of it. Never really liked it anyway. Was all Dumbledore's idea, anyway. Now lets see what house you should be in. Hmmmwhat the heck? You shouldn't be here! You're not even a witch.

I know that! I'm half elf half-cat demon.

Well duh. What else would you be?

You can tell?

Are you doubting me?

No, I just didn't know you could tell. My friends and I some how ended up here and we have no clue how or why. Would you know anything about that?

Oh, so you're not from around here. Well, in that case, you should be in-

"SHADONDEN!"

The whole hall fell silent. A few gasps came from the teacher's table. Dumbledore cleared his throat.

"Excuse me, but do you mind repeating what you just said? I'm not sure we all heard you correctly."

"I said Shadonden," the hat snapped. "Didn't you hear be the first time? Oh, and the same to all the other McCarthy's."

Dumbledore cleared his throat again. "Please, I believe you have over looked the fact that there is no Shadonden house."

"Hey, I get to chose house they go into, right? If I say they go into Shadonden, they go into Shadonden. If you don't have it, oh well, too bad for you."

Dumbledore sighed. "Very well then, the McCarthy's will go into Shadonden. Professor Quirrell, you may be the head of Shadonden. I guess Peeves will have to be the Shadonden ghost. Professor McGonagall, carry on with the sorting."

I took off the hat and walked back to Jamie, Cassidy and Laurie. Professor McGonagall nodded and called out the next name.

"McCarthy, Laurie-wait, oops, forgot, all the McCarthy's, my bad. Jaime-wait, her too. Cass-oh, another one. Here! McAllen, Ian."

I winced at her grammar. First of all, we were supposedly in Britain, and I doubted many people her spoke like that. Second of all, we were in Harry Potter. Nobody there spoke like that. What the hell was going on here?

"What am I supposed to do now?" I asked.

"No idea," replied Jamie.

Someone from behind cleared his or her throat. We turned around. Somehow Professor Quirrell had managed to sneak behind us.

"This way, girls." His stutter seemed to have disappeared.

"Huh?"

"Your house table has arrived."

I noticed that a fifth table had been added on the end next to the Griffindor table.

"Oh." I started walking towards it.

"You too," he snapped at the other three.

"But we haven't been sorted yet."

"You heard what the Hat said. All McCarthy's in Shadonden."

"We're all

Quirrell led us to it, as if we were likely to get lost crossing the great hall. I had a bad feeling that being the head of Shadonden was the last thing he wanted to be. He pointed to the bench.

"Sit."

As if we were supposed to do anything else to the bench. We sat. Then again, who knew? The Sorting Hat had given up poetry, Professor McGonagall was using American slang, and Quirrell was bossing students around. What next?