Could she take this back now? Could she turn around and get on the train and go back home, where it was safe and she knew exactly what was going on and what she was doing? McGonagall glanced over the edge of the parchment, scanned the first years in line, and Ever decided no, she couldn't, and began making her way up to the stool. Her legs were shaking and she couldn't quite breathe right; her chest felt really tight and her throat was threatening to close up. She almost fell when she got to the stool, but managed to catch herself and sat down, slowly lowering the hat onto her head.
The Sorting Hat spoke.
She could barely hear it. Mostly, it seemed to be mumbling to itself, but she knew that this was the same voice from the song earlier. Now it seemed to be right around her ears.
"Right then," Ever heard it mutter once, and then it fell silent, not completely, but speaking so quietly that she couldn't pick it up. The next ten seconds were the longest of her life.
"GRYFFINDOR!"
Gryffindor. She would be with Lee, and Charlie the prefect, and everything was going to be fine! It took a moment to sink in, and then she was grinning, hopping up from the stool and placing the Sorting Hat gently back there. She could hear the twins whooping, and saw McGonagall shoot a stern glance to the queue of first years before she was heading to the far left table with Lee. He was surrounded by flaming red hair.
"So you've found the rest of the Weasleys," she whispered as she sat down beside him. Charlie winked at her before turning his gaze to the front. She followed his lead. It seemed, now that her own sorting was over with, that names flew by so quickly she could barely keep up with who was sorted where. N, O, and P were gone before she knew it, and the professor was calling for "Weasley, Fred."
"Oi, not another one!" someone shouted from across the room, the green and silver table on the far right. That table laughed, but one glance from Professor McGonagall silenced them as Fred jammed the hat on his head.
"GRYFFINDOR!" it yelled almost immediately. The lopsided grin that Ever was quickly becoming fond of practically broke his face, and she screamed and cheered with the rest of her house as he sauntered down to sit beside her.
"Are you actually Fred, then?" she whispered. He winked at her, but said no more.
"Weasley, George."
"There's two of them?" the same voice from before rang out. Ever put a hand on Fred—George's?—arm when he made to jump up, but craned her head to look for the voice herself.
"Mr. Flint," Professor McGonagall was saying, one thin eyebrow cocked dangerously. "Do you really want to lose your house points before the Sorting is even done with?" The boy didn't reply, so McGonagall nodded to George—Fred?—and though the boy didn't stop glaring at Flint, whoever that was, he threw the hat onto his head.
"GRYFFINDOR!" The Gryffindor table roared, and the boy's twin, whichever twin he was, whooped the loudest of all. He made his way down to the table with a grin that matched his brother's beside her and sat beside his twin, who clapped him on the back. Xavier, Brett was the last to be sorted (into Slytherin) and Professor McGongall took up the stool and the hat, disappearing from the front of the room. A man in the middle of the table, one with a long white beard and hair even longer, stood and looked around the room. Everyone fell silent.
"To our new students, welcome," said the man. "To our old students, welcome back." Though his voice was quiet, it carried across the room. Maybe it was magic. Maybe it was just that the respect this man commanded—simply, pleasantly, but definitely—made noise from the students in the room nonexistant. He spread his hands, and food filled the golden platters in front of them. "Dig in."
"Who is he?" Ever asked, scooping mashed potatos onto her plate.
"That's Dumbledore," said Fred—or, the twin that had been sorted as Fred—through a mouthful of chicken. "He's mad."
"Fred," Charlie began.
"He's not Fred, I am," said the twin that had been sorted as George. The red-head on Charlie's right—Ever hadn't really noticed him before, he'd had his face stuck in a book thicker than A History of Magic until that moment—looked up at the boys increduously.
"The two of you switched around at your own sorting?"
"What's it matter?" George asked, taking a bite of toast spread thick with jam.
"Yeah, we both got sorted into the same house, didn't we?"
"That's hardly the point!" the older brother—Ever scraped around, trying to remember his name out of the two brothers she hadn't met before the sorting...Ron? No, Percy—spluttered, slamming his book shut and dropping it on the bench beside him. "What would Mother say about it?"
"Couldn't imagine," said Fred.
"Should write and let us know," said George. Percy, quite red around the ears now, stabbed at a piece of chicken with his fork, determinedly not looking at either of them.
"Anyway," Lee sighed, cutting into his steak, "Dumbledore is the headmaster of the school."
"He's the headmaster? Shouldn't he have...I don't know, announcements or something then?" Ever asked, twirling spaghetti around her fork and popping it neatly into her mouth.
"He usually saves that stuff until the end of the feast." Bill grabbed another slice of toast from the plate in front of him. "He may be barmy, but that doesn't make him stupid. A hall full of teenagers with empty stomachs who've been on a train all day? He knows we won't listen before supper." The girl nodded, nibbling at the edges of her toast.
The feast went by without a hitch. Somehow, even with hundreds of students seated in the hall, the noise level didn't get very loud. Ever supposed that was a product of the magic, because Fred and George alone yelled and laughed quite frequently with their brothers and Lee Jordan, but nobody seemed to give them a second look. An hour and a half or so passed while the students ate their fill, and Ever tried to piece together words and bits of information that she didn't understand, like transfiguration and apparating—apparently Bill had taken the test for whatever apparition was and had passed it on his first go—and flooing and a variety of other things. When she could get a word in edgewise, she asked, and what Lee and Fred and George couldn't explain, Charlie and Bill were happy to fill her in on. Mostly, though, she was content to sit and listen and eat her chocolate pudding until a light tap on a wine glass caught every student's attention.
Professor Dumbledore was standing at the head of the hall again, his mouth quirked up in a smile that crinkled his eyes behind his half-moon spectacles. He was silent for a moment, scanning the hall to make sure he had everyone's undivided attention.
"First, let me take this opportunity to welcome you again," he said, folding his hands behind his back. "Mr. Filch has asked me to remind all students that the Forbidden Forest is, of course, forbidden." The gulps of the first years—Ever's included, particularly when Fred and George flashed their crooked grins at each other—was almost audible. Professor Dumbledore's eyes crinkled up around the edges, as if he was trying not to smile. "And allow me to introduce you all to our new Defense Against The Dark Arts teacher, Angel Black." He waved his hand to his left, and a man with long white flung over one shoulder in a braid lifted his hand, smiling slightly. The man beside him—a mean looking man with hair as black and looking as greased as oil was—sneered at him, but Professor Black didn't seem to notice. Ever glanced at Bill, who rolled his eyes, holding up one finger mutely—later. She nodded and turned her gaze back to Dumbledore.
"Term starts tomorrow. First years will find their schedules posted on the bulletin boards in their common rooms. Rest well." He did smile then, and lifted one hand in a sweeping motion. Most of the candles were put out, with just a few still lit to guide the way out of the hall.
"He is so cool," Ever whispered as they stood up.
"Yeah," said Charlie, "but you've gotta take him seriously. Gryffindor first years, follow me!"
Again, the twins grabbed onto each other, Fred holding George's hand and George grabbing Ever's. Ever offered her hand to Lee, and he took it a bit shyly but grinned at her all the same. The crowd wasn't thick—there couldn't be more than three hundred students or so—but at least eighty of those were Gryffindors, and it seemed that all of the older kids were fighting their way to the front so they could get to bed.
"Not that it will do them much good," Charlie muttered to the four of them. "The only ones who know the password are the prefects and Bill, and he's down there with Nikki and Vincent." He jerked his thumb over his shoulder. Ever glanced back, but she couldn't see Bill and had no idea who the other two people were.
It took quite a while to get to the top of the staircases, with Charlie instructing them on trick staircases and doors and telling them to remember that the stairs moved around, so you had to watch what you were doing. Paintings decked the halls, and people were moving in them, scratching their noses and chatting together and drinking and smoking cigars and calling out to students they knew! Some smiled and waved at the new students, and others turned up their noses at them.
"Fred...George..." Ever began slowly, tearing her eyes away from the moving portraits, "what would the two of you have done if you were sorted into different houses?" George blinked back at her and turned to look at Fred.
"Well...I dunno."
"But I doubt it would've happened," said Fred.
"And even if it did, the hat sorted us."
"Not our names."
"We would've belonged wherever we went."
"It just knew we belonged together," they chorused. Ever smiled at both of them, while Lee rolled his eyes behind her.
"You two sound like a coupla lovebirds, not twins." Before the twins could retort, Charlie stopped in front of a portrait that depicted a very fat lady in a pretty pink gown.
"Hello, Madame," he said, grinning up at her. Her cheeks flushed a pink that rivalled her dress, and she waved her hand at him.
"Oh, stop it you. Trying to butter me up for the next time you break curfew, I suspect. Password, dear?"
"Bouncing bulb." The Fat Lady inclined her head slightly, and the portrait swung away from the wall to reveal a common room so warm and cozy that Ever felt sleepy just looking at it. There were overstuffed armchairs, tables filled with books and one with a chessboard, the pieces lined up in a position to play.
"Boys' dormitories are up the stairs on your left, girls the same on your right," said Charlie. "Get on up to bed now. Tomorrow will be long, I assure you." He dropped a wink in their direction and started ushering children up the stairs.
"Well...see you tomorrow in class, then?" Ever asked, biting down on her bottom lip. She didn't want to leave them, not yet. They were the only people she knew, and somewhere in the back of her mind she wondered if all of this, the friendship, would be done and over when class started in the morning. The fears were blown away when the three boys smiled sunnily, smiles that she couldn't help returning.
"Yeah, 'course," said the twins in unison, and Lee nodded his agreement. She went off towards the common room with a little wave and climbed the stairs slowly, wondering how she was going to find her dormitory, but the first door she saw was clearly labled "First Years", right at the top of the stairs. Ever took a deep breath, wondering what her roommates would be like, before turning the knob.
"—and it really isn't fair that first years can't have brooms! How else are we meant to try out for Quidditch?" one of the girls, with light brown skin and long black hair down her back, was saying. She was facing away from Ever, so she couldn't see her face at first, but the girl cocked her head and turned when the door creaked rather loudly. The second girl, with darker skin and dark brown eyes to match, smiled a bit shyly. They were the only two in the room, and there were only three beds; Ever was the last one to arrive. She cleared her throat, imagining it would take the edge from her nerves.
"H—hi," she stammered.
"Hello!" said the first girl, smiling brightly. "I'm Alicia and that's Angelina—"
"Oi, I'm perfectly capable of introducing myself, thanks!"
"What's your name?"
"Ever." She was a bit taken aback by how easily Alicia spoke, but found that she liked her nonetheless—or, she liked what she could see of her. Her eyes were kind and her smile was genuine.
"Nice to meet you," said Angelina sweetly. "I think I'm going to turn in though, Li, I'm bushed."
"Me too."
"And me," Ever agreed, feeling she ought to say something as she made her way to the empty bed. The three of them smiled at each other with a touch of awkwardness, and one by one closed the curtains around themselves.