"I don't suppose Ravenclaw would be too bad, but imagine if they put me in Slytherin." (Ron Weasley, HPSS)

"A challenge is all fun and good, but there's something satisfying about a clear cut case." The hat cleared it's throat dramatically, before concluding with a definitive, "Hufflepuff!"

Audrey's heart raced. It was all happening so fast. Unfamiliar hands now guided her by the shoulder to a long table, where fellow Huffelpuff students cheerfully applauded. She sat heavily in the seat offered to her. Some of the students at the table seemed impossibly grown up, in their long robes and confident smiles. Audrey tugged at the collar of her own robe. Her eyes were not stinging. They were not. She hadn't really wanted that badly to be in Ravenclaw, she told herself. Hufflepuff would be fine. And hopefully Sybil would end up in Hufflepuff too. Though she knew Sybil's last name was Snow, and the S names seemed an eternity away.

They were now on Cho Chang (Ravenclaw) and Poppy Caxton (Hufflepuff) and then Rohit Das (also Hufflepuff). A bit later and Roselyn Ew-something happily made her way to Gryffindor. A couple more Gryffindors, and then Arthur Johnson was sorted into Hufflepuff. The boy next to Audrey seemed to know him, because he cheered loudly as Arthur walked over and took his seat at the Hufflepuff table. The boy clapped Arthur on the back and Arthur smiled sheepishly.

As the sorting ceremony went on, with student after student finding their place at the long tables, the room started to feel impossibly hot to Audrey; a trickle of sweat dripped down her neck. No one else seemed that bothered by the lack of air, though. Audrey looked up at the strange ceiling. A moist grey night seemed to stretch above them, with clouds hanging low almost like mist. Audrey took a deep breath, trying to pretend that she was outside. She'd feel better if she were outside.

She'd mostly tuned out of the sorting but she heard the name "Dashiell Lindor" called out, and she quickly returned her attention to the stage of the sorting hat drama. Dashiell (and now she knew his last name) looked much smaller and more nervous than he had appeared on the Hogwarts Express. He walked over to the chair and sat down as if in a trance. The hat perched on his head for a few moments-longer than it had for Audrey- and then it loudly proclaimed "Slytherin!" Already pale, Dashiell seemed to turn several shades paler, if possible, till he seemed to rival the ghosts that Audrey was doing her best to ignore.

The Hufflepuff table was next to the Slytherins, and so Audrey watched with a fixed gaze as Dashiell made his way over there. Audrey noticed with something bordering on horror that there was no cheering coming from the Slytherin table. Dashiell seemed aware of this too; his face slipped into an expression of grim disinterest. Now Audrey started wondering how much of his behavior in the Hogwarts Express had been an act as well.

Audrey frowned and turned to the boy next to her, the one who had greeted Arthur with such enthusiasm. "How come they're not cheering, like, at all?"

The boy was a bit on the pudgy side, with light brown hair in an almost Beatlesesque bob and kind eyes. Audrey decided she liked him. He sighed before replying. "I think, that is I heard... That he's a muggle"

"What's a muggle?" Audrey asked. As the boy explained, Audrey became keenly aware that by even voicing this question she was announcing her own muggle status. Completely new to magic, with magic-less parents. That was her. The sad thing was that she had always thought that her parents were magical in the, you know, non-technical way. But now it turned out that they were muggles. And she was what was apparently termed muggle-born, which was clearly not a desired status among the students at Hogwarts. Well, she had already felt like an outsider. This just made it more official.

"But how did they know that he's a muggle?" Audrey asked after a moment.

The boy grimaced. "This year they circulated a... a list. The Slytherins did, that is. We don't care about that stuff in Hufflepuff. Everyone's welcome."

Audrey watched Dashiell, sitting woodenly at his chair at the Slytherin table, making eye contact with no one while the boys to his right blatantly stared and the girls across the way patently ignored him. She felt anger rise in her gut. "How awful. They're awful."

The boy nodded. "Well, yeah, some of them are pretty bad over there at Slytherin. Not all of them, though. But he's gonna have a tough time, I think."

Audrey seethed, barely aware of the other names being called. (Luna Lovegood, Ravenclaw. Ruth Mina, Gryffindor...) She imagined with great clarity herself standing haughtily, walking over to the Slytherin table and slapping the supercilious look of the face of the girl with the blunt haircut and the snub nose who was whispering to her friend and pointing at Dashiell. Audrey only snapped out of her angry fantasy when she heard "Sybil Snow" announced. Moments later, Sybil was bounding over to the Hufflepuff table, sitting down in the room made for her between her brother and sister...or at least Audrey assumed it was her brother and sister, for they both had the same full features, dark hair, and slightly rounded figures. (The phrase pleasantly plump came to Audreys mind.) Sybil gave Audrey a small smile and wave, and Audrey felt a flicker of hope burn away some of her resentment at the Slytherins.

As Audrey gave herself over to the feast that followed, exhaustion took over, temporarily clouding out any further emotional roller-coastering. It was with heavy feet and a brain too tired to really dwell that she made her way to the Hufflepuff dormitory. She did spare a glance in Dashiell's direction, but couldn't make him out among the blur of retreating Slytherins. Hopefully he'd be okay for the night. Not all the Slytherins could be that bad, all the time, right?

But despite her exhaustion, two hours later Audrey found herself staring at the moonlight making patterns on the wall of the Hufflepuff dormitory room. The designs of silvery white seemed to subtly dance to Lucinda Kindly's soft snoring. Audrey ached and she couldn't say exactly why. There were too many things to choose from.

The moonlight was enough that she could grab for the little bound book she had placed on her bedside table, the one with the cat on the front (and on each page) and for the pen that her mother had given her as a good luck gift. A fountain pen; she was still getting the hang of using it. A little bit of purple ink blotted her knuckle as she wrote.

Dear Cat,

I wish you were here beside me. Nothing makes sense at all and if you were here, at least I could tell you all if it. And you would keep ticking away. I miss your ticking. I can't sleep without it. And without the sounds of screeching tires and car alarms. It's way too quiet here.

I know I can write to you like always. At least there's that, and I thought it was going to be enough but now I doubt it. Maybe I should ask mom to send you to me. I know it won't fix everything, but whatever. It'll be better to be able to see you at the end of a long day.

Okay. That's decided. See you soon.

Love and tick tocks,

Audrey

Her mind finally at peace with a decision made, Audrey fell asleep as the great mahogany grandfather clock in the adjoining hallway gave a single chime announcing the early morning hours.