Disclaimer: Hp stuff belongs to JKR, obviously. The swordfish reference is a homage to Terry Pratchett and his wonderful 'Night Watch', while 'lies before breakfast' rightfully belong to J. D. Salinger and his 'Franny Zooey'.
Author notes: I want to thank my lovely Huffie betta, Joanna/Hedgehog, who hunted up all my grammar mistakes, added the dreadful definite articles where needed, and MADE me write Luna with more care. And much more :)

I don't envy the Ravenclaws their intelligence, researching skills or knowledge. I don't envy them their renown as future scientists. What I do envy them are single rooms. The bastards have their own rooms, with one bed inside, and their own working space. It's not that I mind sharing. What bothers me much more is being shared with. Why on Earth do I need to see the hairy legs of Ellie Ribentrop show under her too-short nightgown; why, oh why do I have to know what kind of knickers Felicity Hartwell wears? Or when the other girls get their periods?

I don't think Hufflepuffs will ever grasp the concept of privacy.

Besides, if I lived in a single room, I wouldn't have to hide my teddy bears in a trunk in order to avoid pitiful looks or 'Oh, how cute that is!' comments. Yes, I do possess two or three teddy bears. No, I don't hide dynamite inside. So?

The worst time of day in a Puffie dormitory is probably morning or night. During the day the dorm tends to be pretty deserted, since everybody is in the common room or wherever they go to have their friendly chats and games of Exploding Snap. Then you can find some privacy in the dorms. But in the evening everyone is preparing for bed, whispering, sharing secrets, and, all in all, engaging in all kinds of sociable and utterly scary activities of the sort.

Mornings are even worse, if you ask me. You get up, still dazed from sleep and overall pissed off because you had to get up in the first place - and the first thing you have to face is a cheerful 'Good morning'. No matter that you have ignored these people for years, no matter that you've done your best to make them ignore you in return - they'll still wish you a cheerful good morning, for chrissake.

The day after my infamous encounter with the Nott-Riley gang was Saturday, and, what's more, it was the first Hogsmeade weekend that year. I had overslept on purpose, hoping my loyal, hardworking and whatnot dorm mates (I usually call them doormats, actually) would already be up and going (and, first of all, absent) when I got up.

"Weirden? Hey, Weirden? What happened to you?"

I had difficulties opening my eyes, as I usually do before I pour some coffee into my system. However, feeling my way to the washbasin and stumbling over my trunk, I felt there was something more to the feeling than usual. My left eye felt especially difficult to control. Squinting into the mirror, I saw it was nicely swollen, which could be more or less applied to the whole left side of my face as well. A pretty purplish-yellow bruise had formed on the side of my jaw.

I turned to see Felicity Hartwell look at me with concern (completely unwanted and unwelcome, of course) as she brushed her thin, blond hair. It was too early in the day for me to think of an utilizable excuse.

"A drunken brawl," I peeped, then coughed. Some warm, strong coffee was what I needed at the moment, not an inquisitive roommate. "A drunken brawl," I repeated, this time in a more or less normal voice. "There was this drinking contest at the Hog's Head last night, you see." I splashed my face with cold water and started coming to my senses. "Terry Boot and I were the last ones standing, as usual, and my sister was the judge. I wish she had been fair at least, if not partial to me, but..." I was splashing my face again, feeling more awake with every minute. "You see, I think she fancies Terry Boot, actually. Anyway, she judged in his favour and I couldn't stand for it, of course, and I started swearing quite nastily at her... And then Lenny Stableforth jumped to her defence - you know Lenny, don't you? Well, he yelled at me, and I leapt at him, and then Dean Thomas joined for some reason... And I can't remember clearly what happened next, but... Anyway, the next thing I knew, I was lying in this ditch feeling as if the Knight Bus had run me over about three times, and a stray was licking my face, and..."

It's amazing what crap I can come up with when I'm in a bad mood, but at least it had made me fully awake. Still, I prefer coffee to cold water when it comes to waking up.

"Oh, Weirden." By the time I had finished, Felicity was standing right next to me, staring at my honourable wounds and touching my jaw bruise with the tip of her fingers. Some people never learn. Hadn't I known for sure that she liked boys (you collect all sorts of useless information when you lie sleepless for nights), I'd have probably got extremely paranoid.

"Really, what happened? Did someone pick on you? We should go to Professor Sprout!"

We? We? When on Earth have I done something together with Felicity Hartwell? Why should I start now and what right did she have to assume I would want to?

"No."

I turned away and tried to find two clean socks that matched, which wasn't an easy task. You would think a nice, snappish reply would be enough to drive any helpful soul away.

"But, if someone did this to you, we sure have to inform the teachers!"

Her voice was becoming more insistent by the second.

"Look, " I said, looking right into her eyes, as much as I was capable of such a task with my left eye practically closed. "The matter is private. I don't want anyone interfering. Stop prying, all right? No trespassing. Access denied. Out of function. All that crap. Nice day today. Why don't you go find your little friends and run off to Hogsmeade to buy some awful, sugary lollies?"

Felicity's eyes had hardened a bit, and she squared her shoulders. One day she might grow up to be a teacher, and children would refer to her as 'strict, but fair'. I hate the phrase with all my heart.

"You might think this concerns only yourself, Weirden," she said. "But has it occurred to you that it isn't so? If someone bullied you, he has to be caught and disciplined. So that this won't happen to other students as well."

Oh, she did have a point there - or at least you might think so if you are an easygoing, optimistic bastard. A realist like myself might tell you that the teachers, and especially the headmaster, sure knew what was going on in their school. I wasn't the first one to be bullied, dammit, although the consequences usually weren't this obvious. I wouldn't be the last one either. For some reason, that behaviour was apparently tolerated. Everybody was either too cowardly or too uninterested to stop it, or both.

Besides, telling on the Slytherins would have equalled signing my own death warrant.

On the other hand, how do you explain something like this to Felicity Hartwell? If her kid was some day kidnapped and if the kidnappers threatened to kill the kid if she informed the police, I bet the first thing she'd do would be to call the police. Some people believe in handling their own problems. Some other people, on the contrary, are suckers that believe in state, institutions and such.

"Felicity, my friend," I said in my best reasonable voice, trying to drop in a hint of a threat. The effect was somewhat spoiled by the fact that I was in my undergarments, though. "I don't want to go into details. If I did, I'd have to kill you afterwards and feed the body to the newts. Anyway, what happened was: I picked a fight. My bad. I should have known better and all that crap, but I'm impulsive, emotional, prone to anger, and similar things you can read in the Teenage Witch personality tests. Anyway, I picked the bloody fight, I got beaten up. End of story. Aggressive behaviour is, for some reason, frowned upon in some circles. If you inform the teachers, I'll probably get expelled. Get it?"

"Oh," she said intelligently. And then, "Oh."

Exploiting the Puffie loyalty and protectiveness isn't a very nice thing to do, but, then again, I've never said I was a very nice person. At least I could be sure of one thing: Felicity wouldn't tell if it meant my expulsion and such. Even if she didn't agree with what I had done.

She left the room soon afterwards and left me on my own to finish finding clean clothes and getting dressed. The dorm was big, airy and well-lit, and I hated its guts. Sitting alone in there felt like, well, sitting alone at a football stadium. I mean, you don't mind being alone or anything, but somehow you are aware that the state is unnatural, and that there should be more people there (even if they are smelly or wave fan scarves or something).

Of course I didn't want to talk to Felicity Hartwell , not her of all people, but when she actually left, I felt somehow... cheated. And I hated myself for the feeling. I opened my trunk (having unlocked all four locks for the fifth time that morning), took out my favourite teddy, and put it back instantly, deciding it was a weakling's behaviour.

This did not stop me from stuffing it into my bag when the cynical side of me wasn't looking.

The more pressing matter was - my face. The well-known fact is that you can't heal your own wounds, just like you can't take yourself by the hair and lift yourself into the air. It just doesn't work, that's a fact. Going to the hospital wing was, of course, out of the question - it would be impossible to avoid the Spanish Inquisition disguised behind the motherly behaviour of Madam Pomfrey. I could, of course, hide till Monday and hope the bruises would fade in the meantime, but this hope was utterly unrealistic, really...

In the end I stole some of Felicity's powder, which helped just a tad and started off to find some breakfast, and, more importantly, lots of coffee.

"Briggs. What on Earth has happened to you?"

With my luck, I had to run into Snape, of all people. The Great Hall was otherwise mostly deserted, and there weren't any other teachers. Snape was, it seemed, a late sleeper like myself. Not that I had any sort of kindred-souls feeling for him because of the fact.

"Oh, sir..." I sighed deeply, preparing to lie my arse off. "I've been auto destructive again. This depression of my really sucks, pardon my language, and... Well, to put it mildly, I'm having suicidal thoughts on a regular basis and... I just can't seem to find a purpose in this world, if you know what I mean. A kind of deeper meaning. It all seems so bleak and unimportant and... and..." I sniffed.

Pouring your tender heart to Snape is probably the best way to get rid of him.

"Then I suggest you go find yourself a therapist, miss." Irony in his voice was unmistakable, as he sneered at me. More fool me, for thinking I could trick Snape that easily. "Ten points from Hufflepuff for lying before breakfast. You don't need a therapist, you need an alarm clock. Now, the truth."

Only the truth was the only thing I couldn't tell, especially not to him. Now I had to think of a better lie - a tale that would justify not only my bruises, but also the previous fib of mine.

"Well?"

I did my best to look embarrassed.

"Actually it was a broomstick accident," I muttered. "I lost control even before I was mounted properly."

I was still studying the floor and intentionally twisting the end of my robe. Although I couldn't see Snape's face, I guess he was rolling his eyes or some such. I know I would have, had the situation been reversed. On the other hand, Snape had been teaching me for five years and, although he never paid much attention to Puffies, he could probably tell that my behaviour at the moment wasn't very Weirden-like. Too humble and meek, for one.

"Yes, I know we get flying lessons in our first year, sir," I said, raising my head and looking straight at him, mentally sacrificing another ten points for talking back. Only, I figured, he might let me go if I irritate him enough and waste enough of his precious time. "But it was Elen's broom, and she had charmed it, darn it, and I had taken it without her permission, and so-."

"Five points for rudeness, Briggs. Now stop bothering me."

Somewhat less than an hour had passed since my encounter with Snape. I was lingering in front of the portrait of the Senile Alchemist and hoped one of the Ravenclaws would show up and be absentminded or good-natured enough to let me in. Understandably, I didn't know the password, but I needed to get into their common room anyway, all in hope that Elen hadn't gone off to Hogsmeade yet. Due to late night reading or snogging or whatever, Claws tend to be the last ones to get up and such, and my sis was certainly one of the worst ones. Coming to think of it, it probably runs in the family.

"It isn't swordfish by any chance?" I addressed the portrait. For some reason, most of the passwords in this world tend to be swordfish.

The old man shook his head and focused on me, as much as he was capable of focusing at all.

"I could slip you through, my lady," he began, and I felt a futile burst of hope. "If... if you defeat me in an honourable game of chess."

I just shrugged.

"No, thanks. Someone is due to show up sooner or later."

You don't want to play chess against a Ravenclaw, even if he is a centuries-old alchemist that can't remember his own name. Trust me on this.

The reason I was there was, well, quite unreasonable. I've never been a moaning, whining kid. When I fell from a tree I never ran to Mum, crying - I climbed the tree again as soon as the first rush of pain went by. But I was fourteen, alone, and in a bad mood. I just sort of wanted to talk to my older sister, is all.

"Flamel's integer," someone murmured just by my ear. I recognized the dreamy voice of Luna Lovegood even before I turned around.

"Mind me passing through?" I asked her.

She stared at me, or better, through me, for a moment, then tilted her head to one side, watching the portrait opening. I was wondering whether she had forgotten about me already, when, finally, she nodded once.

Luna was a year above me and I felt some sort of strange sympathy mixed with pity for her. Loony and Weirden. We were in the same boat, sort of. I might have tried to actually talk to her sometimes, if only it wasn't for her annoying habit of staring right through your head and talking rubbish. On second notion, she was quite irritating when you spent more than three minutes in her company, but compared to most of her housemates she was a fluffy, white teddy-bear.

"You are Weirden," she pointed out. "Your sister doesn't like you coming here."

I was about to say something sarcastic about my sister's taste in people, but Luna just chattered on as we stepped through the portrait and walked down the short corridor towards their common room.

"My sweetheart says it's the Hogsmeade weekend," she said vaguely, and I wondered what was going on in her head; a concept of topic would probably be too much to expect from her. "I had forgotten. He says we should go and sit in a pub. I'm not really fond of pubs, but neither is he, so that should be all right. You can come with us if you dislike pubs."

"Um..." I said, frantically trying to think of a polite excuse. "You see, I..." My lying potential seemed to have been spent, for that morning at least. "Er, thanks, I have to study," I said lamely, and hurried to change the topic. "So, if you're going to Hogsmeade, why are you coming back to the common room?"

"Oh, I forgot to put the earrings on. The ones that go with my necklace."

Considering her necklace, the earrings she had in mind were probably made of beer-bottle corks too. I'm not overly interested in clothing and such girly things; on the other hand, not noticing Luna's fashion sense would probably mean you've spent your life in a coal mine on one of Pluto's satellites or something. I am always the one to value one's sense of individuality; to dress like Luna does, you need some courage, and I have to respect that. So, I can understand corks, radishes, that kind of stuff. Yet, she would do better to take care of her socks. I, at least, took some pains to find two matching pieces.

On the other hand, even Loony Lovegood had someone to go to Hogsmeade with.

"Hey, Elen! Here's your Weird Sister!"

Ravenclaws... stunningly clever and witty, as always. That pun must have been years old.

I stood at the entrance of the Ravenclaw common room, observing all the well-known - and yet fascinating - things that were going on in there. Did these people never get tired of playing chess?

Elen walked up to me, closely followed by Mandy Brocklehurst, her permanent shadow. For a change, they were giggling.

"I thought I told you not to come here," was the first thing Elen said as soon as she was out of the others' hearing range. She spoke hurriedly and her voice was hushed, as if she hoped to avoid being noticed with me. "Next time I'll tell the Alchemist not to let you in, no matter what."

"Thanks for asking." I rolled my eyes and smiled sweetly. "I'm feeling better. Nice day today. Good day to you too. I can't decide which of my favourite sarcastic lines I should use at the moment. I could think about it a bit and then come back and tell you."

Mandy giggled. Honestly, I think she's quite glad whenever someone puts Elen down, even a little bit. Having this in mind, why the hell would I want a best friend at all?

Elen just glared at me for a moment, but I could see she was sort of sorry. She would never let it show, of course, especially not in front of Mandy and the rest of the chess gang, but I was almost sure a kind of remorse was there, deep down. Maybe remorse is too strong a word, though. Pangs of conscience?

Whatever it was, I wondered if I should be as mean as to use it for my own obscure goals: drawing some concern or empathy from my own sister, world dominance, and such. My cunning plans were, however, spoiled by Terry Boot:

"El? You going to chat the whole day with your weirdo sibling or are you playing? I mean it's your turn and all."

I glanced in his direction and realized I had wronged Ravenclaws gravely. I had been talking general stuff. I had been talking stereotypes. Nerdy, bespectacled Ravenclaws playing chess the whole day. Yes, my arse.

They were actually playing risk.

Nerds of the world, forgive me, for I have sinned!

Terry's words seemed to have brought Elen back to immediate reality, and even the vaguest hint of sisterly feelings disappeared from her eyes - as far as I could tell, at least. Who was I compared to Terry Boot, anyway?

"Coming!" she called to him. "Look, kid..."

She never used my real name in front of people; it was too, well, weird. I had decided to keep it for that very reason, actually.

"What happened to your eye?"

That was Mandy.

"What?" Elen inspected me closer, and her lips tightened. I'm sure she'd have stomped her leg had Terry and Mandy not been present. "What have you done now?"

Felicity Hartwell had automatically assumed I was a victim of a vicious attack or something. Elen's logic went the other way around: she was sure that, whatever had happened to me, it was all my fault. She hadn't stopped once to consider an alternative.

I hate it when people assume things about me in the first place, even if they are right.

"Hey, there's Loony again!" That was Terry's voice. I turned to see Luna coming down the stairs that led to the dorms. "Hello, Loony," Terry continued. "I thought you had lost your big-bottle earrings. Corkscrews would be much more useful, I've always said. But I guess they'd get borrowed much more often, then, wouldn't they? Whenever someone is too drunk to remember the bottle-opening spell. Tin-openers would be nice, too. Think about that, would you?"

Luna drifted through the common room, her face completely serene, with no sign that she had heard Terry at all.

Elen turned towards the boy, arched an eyebrow, and said nothing. I still can't figure out whether she was reprimanding him for taunting Luna or simply expressing jealousy. I was half turned away, but of the corner of my eye I saw a couple of heads turning towards Terry in protest - probably because he was distracting their genial little minds from their respective strategy games. Someone - I think it was Patil - even murmured something on the lines with 'Can't I have my morning moment of introversion without someone trying to be witty?' Terry just grinned and shrugged.

"I think I could heal that, Weirden."

Mandy again. I think her intentions were basically good, although she used every opportunity to use my name in front of Elen, who was obviously irritated by that. However, I wasn't in the mood for accepting charity, even a well-intended one. Elen's degrading question about what I had done as well as the overwhelming Ravenclaw witticisms were just too much for me, I guess.

"So?" my sister enquired impatiently. "What was it now?"

I glared into her eyes for a moment and said, as loud as I could, "I ran into a door!" Then I turned on my heel and stormed off.

She was treating me like an idiot. And I had earned these ugly bruises defending her bloody honour yesterday! What a fool I was!

"Weirden, wait. Weirden!"

Now she was probably sorry, but I had no intentions whatsoever of stopping.

Luna was standing a couple of yards down the corridor, for some reason waiting for me. I stalked past, but she fell into step with me.

"I don't like your sister's earrings," she said matter-of-factly.

"I don't like my sister's attitude."

"Still, it must be nice to have a sister. I would like to have a sister."

"No, you wouldn't. Trust me." I rolled my eyes in exasperation. "Tell me, Luna, how do you survive the company of your housemates on daily basis? I always get the impression that every single one of them is a complete jerk."

"I think Rowena Ravenclaw was nice," she said vaguely. "Stop for a moment."

I did so, without thinking. Luna raised her wand, touched it gently to the left side of my face and muttered a spell before I could protest. It felt strange, but not unpleasant, tickling for a few moments, and the pain was no more.

"It's gone," she proclaimed. "Now you look nice again."

The fact was, I never looked nice, but maybe, just maybe, Luna wasn't such a bad character. At least she didn't hate me on sight. Perhaps I could talk to her. Now, don't misunderstand me, I had no desire to open up to a girl I barely knew, or anything. It was just that... Oh, I guess I only wanted to talk about what had happened to me. Not to whine or complain, just retell the bloody event and get rid of all the frustration I felt.

"Know what happened to me yesterday? A bunch of Slytherin guys ganged up on me," I said and chuckled quite uneasily. "And I, of course, couldn't keep my mouth shut, and they were offending Elen, which pushed me over the edge, really, and..."

I turned in search of some reaction and saw she wasn't there any more. A yard or two down a side corridor, she was strolling calmly, as if I had never existed, and, as far as I could see, she was ambling towards two guys who were standing at a corner. She walked up to one of them and kissed him lightly on the cheek. I recognized the guy as Blaise Zabini, a clueless geek who was a laughing stock to most of the students. Luna had found an appropriate boyfriend, it seemed. The other one was Theodore Nott, of all people. The guy who had first defended me, then laughed at me, then shunned me in the worst way. I had no wish to talk to either of them.

Having turned around and started walking away, I heard a voice that was obviously talking about me. Luna's voice.

"That's Weirden Briggs, I think she has an aversion to Terry Boot as well. I said she could come with us."

Why on Earth did she suppose I would want to do anything of the sort? I mean, how would you have felt if you actually decided to talk to someone - a think you don't do, as a rule - and she ignored you just like that? And then she talked about you as if you weren't even present.

"No, thanks," I yelled, without waiting for the others' answer. "I'll just go find some dynamite to play with."

As soon as I had reached a corridor that wasn't frequented by many, I stopped, dried the tears from my eyes, and kicked the wall. The tears of anger, mind. I don't cry as such. Sometimes I just can't control that stupid salty water caused by anger alone. So there.

I was sure of one thing: I wasn't about to engage in a long session of whining and self-pity. That's for sissies. I don't do such. Anger, on the other hand, is completely all right. Anger is acceptable. Anger is an emotion for the strong.

Having had a satisfying brawl with the wall and after deciding I was just going to bruise my fists and toes if I continued, I let myself relax a bit. What was I going to do now? Go back to the common room, write my Potions essay, and have a pleasant chat with the first and second years? No way... Tunnelling usually worked for me in situations like this, but I felt sick to death of tunnelling too. Running mindlessly around, exploring the stupid passageways, avoiding booby traps? I didn't need physical exercise, I needed to sit down and think.

The broom closet on the third floor wasn't an exceptionally comfortable place, but at least it was Mrs. Norris-free most of the time, so I sat down and unpacked my bag. My teddy bear - I had totally forgotten about it. I wasn't about to cuddle it, of course (that was for sissies, too), but I thought of a better use for it. Transfigured into a pillow, it at least made my arse feel more comfortable.

My backpack is a strange place (and I say place intentionally). Have you seen Mary Poppins? Remember that fabulous handbag of hers? The one where she keeps things like a wall-mirror and a coat hanger? Well, my backpack must belong to the same sort, although I had bought it in a normal Muggle shop. If you looked deep enough, you could find various useless stuff there. A sandwich, for example, half-eaten and very very old. It must have been the one Mum gave me before I took the Hogwarts Express, and that had been over a month before. The smell was proof number one. I put the thing back, hoping that maybe a civilization would develop there if I let it lie long enough.

The next thing I found was my knife, the same one I had intended to use on the Slytherins. I didn't have much use for it now, unless I intended to slit my wrists or something. Which I didn't. That's for weaklings.

Having fished out a deck of cards, I instantly felt slightly better. Nice, normal Muggle cards. With pictures that didn't move, for a change. As you can see, I had grown terribly tired of the wizarding world. Petty squabbles. Elitism without any foundation in reality. Stupid house rivalries.

In the Muggle world people at least fought about big things, and they didn't do it as openly and as universally as here. Did they? I was exaggerating, perhaps, but the fact was - prejudices seemed to blossom in the wizarding world. I was infested with some of those same prejudices myself, but at least I was aware of it. Elen wasn't. No one was.

I started to open a game of patience. It had always helped me calm down.

Wondering and pondering over things is never a good thing to do; what is the point, after all? Sometimes, however, you can't help it. I guess my pondering time had finally arrived.

Until that day I couldn't have cared less that people didn't like me. After all, I've never tried to be likable. If you aren't so by nature, you probably have to work on it. I didn't, and, furthermore, I despised the people who did. Mandy Brocklehurst, for instance. She probably hadn't been such a bad character initially, but then she started working on her popularity. I knew I wasn't capable of such.

On the other hand, for the first time in many years, I felt bad sitting on my own. Not that I desired any specific company, just...Well, it would have felt good to know somebody actually cared. My own sister, for one.

To be completely honest, she probably did, in a way; only, I was too proud to try and make her show it. Ravenclaws, by default, didn't show their emotions. Only, default is, by default, an extremely dumb thing. Everyone's judgment on you was, at least partly, based on the stupid house you belonged to. Even your own opinion about yourself was somewhat influenced by the stereotype of your damn house.

I watched a card I had just turned over. Where in the name of hell was I supposed to put a seven of spades?

And what kind of Hufflepuff was I anyway? I was loyal, you must give me that. If only I had had someone to be loyal to. I was loyal to my sister who didn't give a friggin damn about the fact. Besides, Gryffs were loyal too. You can't be brave and noble without being loyal to your friends. Even Slytherins were loyal to their families and their house.

What were the other things? Fairness? I didn't know if I possessed any. Judging people by intelligence is probably as wrong as judging them by their bloodline. Helpfulness? I couldn't remember actually helping anyone with anything, not that they have asked. What else? Diligence? I was as hardworking as your next person, basically. My grades were all right, and I was very good at some subjects. Only, in my case, it had been stubbornness more often than industriousness. And a Claw could be as hardworking as any Puffie. Even Slyths had to work hard if they wanted to achieve their goals and fulfil their supposed ambitions.

I turned another card - ace of hearts, luckily. Maybe it was going to work, after all. Or... not. The two of hearts was nowhere to be seen, for one, and I was sort of stuck already.

Since I obviously didn't possess all that many of usual Hufflepuff characteristics, it made me wonder what traits and qualities I did have.

Besides from being antisocial, well... I was stubborn, cheeky, and assertive most of the time. I knew how to threaten, how to make people respect me or fear me or whatever. I was proud, that was for sure, proud and highly individualistic. I didn't have any problems with fighting dirty. And I was very very good at lying, when I put my mind to it.

All of which made me speculate if, had my father been a wizard, the Hat might have sorted me into Slytherin. And, had it done so, would I have been any happier?

Maybe I could understand the Slytherin people better than Puffs? How the hell should I know that when I didn't even know any Slyths, not really. Maybe I would have fitted in, in a way, not that I particularly wanted to. That Nott guy, for instance, seemed quite cool - or it had been so until he remembered my mostly nonexistent bloodline. Freak. But, had my father been anything but a pure Muggle, maybe I would have been treated differently. Perhaps... but I couldn't know that.

I didn't reach any conclusions.

The patience did not work out for me.