Remember: smiles over scowls, please.
Disclaimer: Yah. I don't own anything. Except for Izzy and Joan.
Chapter Two.
Hestia Jones and Alice Wilkes were trying to get me to tell them who I fancied while we sat and I sipped pumpkin juice pretending not to hear them. I wasn't particularly close to them, but they were nice enough, and while I had to sit with the Hufflepuff table, they didn't make for poor company other than their obsession with the opposite gender.
"You must fancy someone Izzy!" Alice declared loudly. Her dark brown hair was pulled up, revealing her heart-shaped face and wide eyes.
"Nope, not a one." I hadn't had a serious boyfriend since Davy Gudgeon in fourth year, and when he left Hogwarts at the end of that year, he decided that I wasn't really good enough for 'long term'. Shame; Davy was brilliant for the eyes, beautiful for a guy. The past two years after him had been first-dates and snogging sessions but nothing more interesting than that, and certainly no 'love'.
"You're so boring." Hestia teased, poking my ribs.
"I have to agree with Hestia on this one, even I fancy someone, and I haven't dated since . . . was it third year?" Alice grinned.
Hestia nodded eagerly. "He was so handsome though. A real catch. Why'd you break up with him anyway?"
"He was such a bore!" She mocked a pretentious yawn.
"Mm, yes, and who would it be that you fancy ever-so-much, Alice?"
She crossed her arms. "Like I'm going to tell you that! You won't even admit that you fancy someone to begin with."
I thought that it could've been Sirius Black, because all the girls loved Sirius Black, but I hadn't seen her stare at him with moon eyes and flushed cheeks. I hoped it was someone decent; Alice seemed like the type who could catch a broken heart like anyone else could get a bit of a cough.
I was going to respond, maybe even with something witty if I felt up to it, but the sorting ceremony began and I felt inclined to pay close attention. After all, my little sister was going to be finding out her house and I was quite excited. She would probably be a Hufflepuff like myself—oh, or better yet, a Gryffindor! How cute!
The first years walked up to the hat as they were called, each one nervous or grinning or skipping, all wild with joy. When I was a first year, I had walked so slowly. My shoes had padded on the veined marble, the floating candles bathed everything in gold and tawny. When I finally made it up to the hat, I had nearly shrieked when it spoke in my head, little whispers that made me shiver. It prodded around in my head a bit before proclaiming my house—it never doubted, or if it did, it never said anything to me. I felt sure that it would be the same way for Joan.
"Joan Milne!"
I clapped my hands together and giggled, whirling around to get a better look at her.
She held her head high and walked proudly. Her hair crossed the border into blonde, where my own stayed very light brown. She had a small smile on her face, a bit of a frenzied blush, but she was calmer than I could ever be, even as a sixth year to her first. She was so small, still a child to me.
Joan sat down on the bench, her feet stamped firmly onto one of the bottom rungs. She placed the sorting hat onto her head, and it drooped over her ears, looking as if at any moment it would slip down and hide her whole face. I tried to read her lips, her eyes, but I couldn't get to her thoughts like I wanted to. I leaned, desperate to know what she would become.
She looked so happy. I was relieved that she wasn't nervous as I had been when I was discovering my house.
Gryffindor, of course, that's what she would be. She was much more brilliant that I was, more playful, peskier, brave, fiery. She would certainly be—"Slytherin!"
Oh. Wait. Really?
My jaw dropped. I fought very hard not stand up and shout, 'What? What do you mean Slytherin? This girl's an angel, a prodigy. She's no Slytherin!'
There must've been a mix-up. Slytherin was for bullies, conmen, and people who only cared about themselves. Joan was . . . well, she wasn't that at all. There must've been a mix-up. Joan cared about everyone, and she was a darling. Everyone loved her.
Joan was grinning and she leapt off of the bench, delicately placing the hat where she had been sitting. She practically skipped to the Slytherin table. Had I missed something there? Had she ever told me about her enduring love for all that was evil?
Alice was staring at me in apprehension. "Erm, Izzy. You've gone quite pale, is there a problem?"
I wanted to shake her by the shoulders—of course there was a problem! She had seen firsthand what Slytherin did to people; Lily and Severus, even. He had been so close to her, and now they no longer looked at one another, let alone spoke. Everyone knew about them! One day I woke up and there it was, right in my face, no more Severus and Lily. Because he was a Slytherin and obviously very despicable in nature.
I gulped down nearly half my glass of pumpkin juice. It hurt my throat, pressing up against the walls of my esophagus, but I ignored it. "No problem at all, Alice." I coughed.
I tried to find Joan after the ceremony—and I did. I wanted to ask her, demand why she had been put into that house because it certainly wasn't because she was evil.
She was laughing and running in front of me, arm in arm with some other little girl who was also drifting with the Slytherin crowd.
I reached out my arm and then yanked it back. I slowed my pace, letting myself be taken up by the crowd. I felt guilty, all of a sudden, for wanting her to do something she hadn't wanted to do. Or wanting her to be something she wasn't. I was certain, so certain she would be in a decent house. But she hadn't been. And . . . and then I felt certain that she would come to regret being in Slytherin, because she wasn't like them, and they didn't like outsiders.
"Isla! Izzy!"
Instead of waiting to find out who it was who wanted to bother me, I scurried away to the Hufflepuff dormitories, suddenly very tired and very not-friendly.