Andromeda was utterly terrified of the thought of facing Bella in that huge hall, sitting at one of those roughly hewn wooden tables that was not Slytherin. She could imagine Bella's pinched white face turning around, those heavy eyelids fluttering as she peered down at her younger sister, flames practically shooting from her nostrils. Slytherin is the best, she often had said back home, Slytherin is for the Blacks. And now Andie had ruined it all.
"If she truly loves you, she should be happy for you," a third-year named Pamela Greengrass had loftily responded to the conundrum. Ravenclaw was a tightly knit house, in which everyone knew everyone and their business (sort of like a certain family Andie could name at the moment).
Oliver, too, had gotten into Ravenclaw, and he now sat straight across from Andie, hungrily eyeing a plate of chicken three platters down from him. He had shrugged when Andie presented the problem, utterly unknowing.
Nadine Foster patted Andie on the hand reassuringly. "I don't like your sister very much," she confided, "but I don't think she'd be so horrible as to completely explode at her sister for getting into a different house then her."
Andie gulped. They didn't know Bella very well.
After the feast, a Ravenclaw prefect (a skinny, tall, and slumped boy named Jerimiah) led the first years to the common room, which was a large, slightly chilly room papered in blue and white wallpaper with bronze-fabric upholstered squishy chairs scattered among book shelves and several low walnut wood tables. Paper balls of light floated in and around the area, lowering or raising the accommodate the reader's height, and blue curtains covered the high windows. It was still raining outside.
It was so, so lovely Andie felt she would cry. Briefly, she thought back to descriptions of the Slytherin common room Bella had regaled back to the family during the summer: a cold dungeon draped with green and silver fabric on the walls that still did almost nothing to conceal the bricks beneath. High-backed chairs made from dark wood, with a rich green rug rolled out in front of the impressive fireplace and high ceilings will low-hanging silver metal chandeliers. Bella proudly called it "elegant" and "majestic", but Andie didn't think it sounded very comfortable at all.
"Classes will start next Monday," the prefect explained, citing the calender pinned to the wall behind them, next to brass coat hangers a few students had already slumped their coats over. At break feast that morning, they would also receive their schedules and be allowed a brief break to collect their supplies needed for that day. After that, they would have to stick to the times written out on their schedules.
"To the right are the girls dorms," the prefect pointed, "and to the left, the boys. You are not allowed into the opposite gender's quarters, and are expected to be asleep by midnight." Students began to file into the doors that led to the dormitories, and Andie said good-night to Oliver, waving as she stepped into the corridor lined with more wooden doors. A brass plaque on each said which year belonged to it, and Andie turned to her left, walking to the end of the hallway to enter the room marked "FIRST YEARS".
&&&
"I have Transfiguration first, what about you?" Sophia Jorbil breathlessly asked over the table. Andie glanced down at her schedule.
"Yes, same here. Taught by Professor Dumbledore, whoever he is." She bit into her toast, and wiped her upper lip free of marmalade before continuing. "History of Magic next."
Oliver groaned. "Angelina says that is the most boring class ever. Supposedly the teacher, Professor Binns, died two years ago and came back as a ghost, but even that didn't help his cause!"
Nadine leaned over him to reach the boiled eggs. "Hello, first years!" she cheerily exclaimed. "I couldn't help but over here that! And you are wrong! History of Magic is the most fascinating class of them all!"
An Asian girl next Nadine rolled her eyes. "Don't listen to her," she stage-whispered. "She's insane. Jerimiah and I had plans to assassinate Binns back in second-year, but he died before we had the chance." She stole a strawberry off Nadine's plate.
"Beverly!" Nadine exclaimed, turning back to her friends as the first-years turned away, slightly shaken.
"We're going to die," Andie murmured, staring wide-eyed at the jar of orange marmalade in front of her.
&&&
Bella carefully wrote her name down onto the corner of the parchment, nibbling absent-mindedly on her quill before she realized what she was doing, and spit out the feathery remnants. Nathaniel rolled his eyes as she tried to suppress her slight chokes, and turned the page to his novel. Bella glared at him, and raised his hands to his lips, whispering, "Shhh. It's getting to the good part; Wilhelmina is about to tell Veronica how she feels."
Bella raised the cover, narrowing her eyes as she read aloud, "Frolics With Faeries: The Spicy Tale Based On The True Story Of One Witch's Love For The Other." She snapped it back down. "What sort of trash are you reading?" she hissed, her dark eyes darting around angrily.
"It's good," Nathaniel whined as Thalassa whipped her head around.
"Quit exploiting my gender and shut up, class is about to start!" she snapped, poking at Nathaniel's...novel.
Bella began to hurriedly take notes, but soon her mind began to wander, as it usually did during History of Magic. She had considered writing a letter to her parents to explain just what had happened concerning Andie's Sorting, but soon thought better of it. A letter was written automatically, anyway.
She still felt angry at herself for this happening. Thalassa had written it off as "no big deal", and Nathaniel had compared it to a long story focusing on some fight he and his little sister had when he was seven or so and wanted to play with a doll of hers. Bella had patiently listened to the story, nodded along when appropriate, and slammed his index finger inside her potions textbook.
They didn't understand. Blacks stayed together no matter what.
&&&
Sophia jabbered excitedly as the three of them turned the corner, rushing to History of Magic. "Wow, when he turned that vase into a flamingo...wow! Wasn't it the neatest thing you've ever seen?"
"Merlin's Beard, Sophia, shut up," Oliver murmured, exasperated. He looked back down at the map of the school Nadine had helpfully scrawled for them the previous night. "Uh...I think we turn left up here..."
"I hope this works better then when we missed that step in the staircase," Andie grumbled. Oliver rolled his eyes.
"It wasn't my fault!" he maintained, folding the map back up and placing it in his sack. "Straight ahead, look."
The three of them darted inside, dreading whatever it was the next class period would bring. Andie twirled her head to giggle to a snide remark Sophia had said in response to Oliver's groans at her Transfiguration obsession, and bumped into -
Bella.
"Andromeda," Bella said, raising an eyebrow. "Hello."
Andie felt her mouth grow dry. "Hi, Bella," she stammered, acutely aware of her sister's dark eyes glancing up and down at her. A dark-haired boy next to her crammed his book into his school sack, and stuck out his hand, while the blonde girl behind him attempting to write down the last of the notes before Binns erased them from the board glanced at Andie and smiled.
"I'm Nathaniel Montague, pleasure to meet you, sister-of-Bella's," the boy loudly said. "I've heard about you (Bella has been in quite a slump lately, concerning your Sorting), and I would like to introduce myself before Bella lies about me and I would like to assure you that I like Ravenclaw, contrary to popular belief concerning Slytherins, so how do you do?"
Sohpia and Oliver looked on, slightly frozen.
Andie gulped, then slowly held out her hand. "Hi," she said softly, shy. "Um."
Bella broke out into a smile. "Andie, take good notes," she gruffly said, then turned to the blonde girl. "We're going to be late, Thalassa," she prodded, and then turned back to Nathaniel. "Don't touch my little sister, pervert," she said, poking him in the ribs with her elbow. "We've got to go to Arithmacy."
The older students rushed out of the classroom, and Andie sank down to her seat, and folded her hands.
"Well, that was my sister Bellatrix," Andie said matter-of-factly, "and she is not angry at me."
Her two friends merely gaped.