"Who are you?" Snape said as one eyebrow rose. "No students are supposed to be here yet." Without letting her answer, he grabbed her shoulder and propelled her off in the direction he had come from. "Just for the record books," Snape snapped, "Who are you?"
"Audrey," she snapped.
"Don't get smart! Audrey what?"
"Hadley."
Snape gave her a suspicious look. "Never heard of Hadley."
Audrey had learned that her mother's maiden name seemed to turn some heads so she decided to give it a try. "Maybe Benton would ring a bell."
That got his attention all right. He suddenly let go of her and rubbed his right hand. "You don't happen to be Margaret's daughter do you?" he asked her with a sideways glance.
"As it happens, I am."
Snape stopped, looked at a knight and said, "Cheerios." The knight moved aside to reveal a passageway. Stairs started winding their way up the passage. Snape pushed her up on the top step. Before she knew it, she stood in front of a door. Snape opened it, shoved her inside and slammed the door.
Audrey found herself in a high ceilinged room. On the right, she saw a couple of cabinets, a table with a globe, and a weird looking bird. On her left, she saw even more cabinets and on top of one of them stood an old decrepit looking hat. Audrey then looked straight ahead. There was a huge old desk with an old man sitting behind it. She thought, 'Why did he send me to see this old man?'
"Ah," the old man said, "I know exactly what you're thinking."
"You do?"
"You're thinking, what's so important about the old man?" She gasped. He continued, "Allow me to introduce myself. I am Albus Dumbledore."
Audrey thought to herself, 'So this is the wizard my mother admires.' "I'm Au—"
"Audrey Benton Hadley. I know...Now that introductions are over, are you ready to be sorted?"
"Sure."
Dumbledore rose and walked toward the cabinet with the old hat on it. He picked it up, grabbed a stool and told her to sit down. She gave him a weird look but complied. He placed the hat on her head and stepped back. Audrey thought, 'How is a hat going to sort me?'
"Hmm," the hat murmured. Audrey jumped. "Didn't expect me to talk, did you? You were just wondering how a hat could sort you. I'll tell you how. I'm a magical hat. So what house do you want to be in?"
Audrey wondered aloud, "Well, the only house I've heard of is Slytherin."
"No, no," the hat said, shaking her back and forth, "You're not right for Slytherin. I believe you have a lot of courage. A lion's heart. You'll be in...Griffindor!"
Dumbledore gently removed the hat from her head and said, "Are you ready to take the tests now?"
Audrey glanced up and said, "I've never heard of Griffindor."
"I don't understand why. Your mother was in that house."
She sighed and rose, "Where do I go?"
"Just wait outside. Professor Snape will be with you shortly," Dumbledore said as he turned around.
Audrey walked down the stairs and into the hall. She waited about five minutes for Snape to come. She approached him. Snape curtly said, "This way."
Audrey followed him down the hall, up many flights of stairs, and into a small room.
"This is where you'll take the tests. You have all day and all the materials you will need are here. Good luck." He pushed her into the room and slammed the door.
She stood inside the room and inspected her surroundings. There were two tables. One, had a huge stack of papers and the other had cauldron and some potion ingredients. She decided to tackle the potion making first. Walking over to the second table, she spotted a small stack of papers. On the first sheet it had the name of the potion, ingredients, and directions of how to make it. She carefully read the directions and started to make the first potion.
It was two o'clock when she finally got done cleaning up after making the potions. They had put really hard potions in the test. Wearily, she sat down at the first table and gazed at the big stack of papers still to go. She said aloud, "I've got to finish this. I've got to show that I'm not a slacker just because I went to Bogars for five years."
Little did she know that she was actually being watched and listened to. Nor did she know that Snape made his writing section so hard at the end that it was designed that only a genius would finish it.
Another three hours later, Audrey had just finished the Transfiguration test. There were still about fifteen pages to go and then she'd be done. But the thing was she couldn't figure out what else there was to be tested on. She glanced at the heading on the top. It said "Potions." She groaned. She knew that she was good at potions, but she had had enough. Still, she picked up the paper and started to read the directions. The first section was five pages long and was all fill in the blank. She finished it in about an hour. She thought most of it was easy. The next five pages were true and false. The catch was that if it was false, you had to change them to make them true. Also, about eighty percent of them were false. Audrey finished this section in another hour.
By seven o'clock, she was tired. She had been working on the test since ten in the morning. The only reason she was able to go on was her determination to show them that she was smart enough to go to Hogwarts. She raised her tired eyes to look at the next paper. It was an essay. Then, she glanced at the next and the next paper. That's when she realized it. The last five pages were all essays. Extremely fatigued, she started to write the essays.
It was nine o'clock and she was on the last paragraph of the last essay. Her dulled mind thought, 'They literally meant what they said about it being all day. I've go to finish this last paragraph. She laid her head on her arm and stared to write...She wrote all but the ending for the last sentence, falling asleep.