Chapter Twelve

A/N: Thank you to angelbear94 for reviewing the last chapter.

Selena mirrored the expression on Teddy's face, as the excitement and relief of his Sorting into Gryffindor drained away, leaving only disbelief and horror in its place. It was not because his sister had not become a lion, as he did not care where she went, so long as she was happy. But they were to be separated.

"Professor, that isn't fair!" she heard her brother exclaim, and he had knelt upwards on the bench, so that he could be more easily seen by the teachers, in particularly the woman that he addressed. "You can't split us up, you just can't!"

"Mr. Lupin, please sit down at once." Professor McGonagall returned quickly, her voice relatively calm, yet the note of authority in its volume was unmistakable. But Teddy was too distraught to pay any heed to this fact, and he continued to debate the decision that had been made.

"Please!" he exclaimed, as his eyes began to fill with tears. "The Sorting Hat must have made a mistake! Lena's brave, she really is, she could easily be a Gryffindor! Please, just move her, the Hat's got it wrong!"

"Mr. Lupin, that is enough!" the Scottish woman cried out, and on this occasion, her anger at his defiance was clear even to the boy himself. "The Sorting Hat's decision is final, and you know this. There is nothing that I can do, and even if I could, I probably would not. You have become a Gryffindor, and your sister has become a Hufflepuff. Do you not think that we should give her a chance to be who the Hat thinks she is?"

As Selena caught her brother's eye, she could see his response to that question. Not for a second would he rather be separated from his sister, so that she could become her own person, than have them together, but, with Professor McGonagall's instruction still fresh in his mind, he did not have the courage to argue any further. 'Ironic, for a Gryffindor.' the girl found herself thinking.

"Right." the headmistress sighed, before turning away from Teddy to face his twin. "Miss Lupin, would you like to go and join the Hufflepuff table, please?"

It was only at the woman's veiled order that Selena realised she had not yet risen from the stool, and so she did so quickly, feeling her cheeks flush pink with embarrassment, which remained even as she seated herself down at the table. As she looked up from the wood of the table in front of her, while everyone else turned their attentions to the next child sat on the stool, a cheer erupting as they were welcomed to join the Slytherins, the girl caught the eye of her elder brother. It was a cruel twist of fate that the Gryffindor and Hufflepuff tables were on the far ends of the Great Hall, as it made the distance between the twins seem further than ever.

The Sorting ended quickly enough after that, and the feast finally began, the silence of anticipation filled with the greetings and chattering that always accompanied the first day of term. However, Selena remained silent, eating her way through the small amount of food she had put onto her plate. Despite the fact that it all looked absolutely delicious, the child found that her appetite to eat had diminished just as much as her appetite for friendship was.

"You're Remus Lupin's daughter?" came a sudden question, and the girl turned to see a redheaded boy staring at her. It was clear that he had asked the question, and that he knew her somehow. Vaguely, she recognised the boy, she knew that she had seen him somewhere before, but she was not sure where. Nevertheless, she nodded her head, and he continued. "You look a bit like a picture of him that my grandma has on the mantlepiece. Your mum was in the picture too. You look more like her, I think."

"Everyone says that." Selena pointed out, momentarily forgetting that she did not know who the boy was. After a few moments more of wracking her brain, she still could not recall his identity, and so she decided that she might as well start afresh. "I'm Selena."

"My name's Fred. Fred Weasley." the boy responded, and immediately, the young Lupin recognised him. Most years, she and her brother went to their grandmother, Andromeda, for Christmas, but one year, they had remained with Harry and Ginny, and had visited the Burrow with them. She had met him then, and on a few other occasions as well, but not any time within the last four years. They had both changed a great deal in that time, it seemed.

"It's nice to meet you. Well, again." Selena said, holding out her hand awkwardly for Fred to shake, which he did with a laugh that was only a little less awkward than the action itself.

"Nice to meet you too." he laughed. The smile faded from his face relatively quickly, leaving an expression of curiosity in its place. "What was happening when you were Sorted? Who was that boy?"

"He's my brother." she explained, her voice suddenly a great deal quieter. She spoke slowly at first, making sure that she got the details across, but once she had started speaking, the floodgates opened, and the words came pouring from her mouth like torrents of water through a cracked dam. "Actually, he's my twin brother, so we're really close. We've never been apart, really, and I was really scared about coming to Hogwarts, but he promised me that we'd be together, and that it would be alright. But now we've been split up, and there's nothing we can do about it. He's a Gryffindor and I'm a Hufflepuff, and now, for the next seven years, we're going to be split apart."

"Hey, it's alright. It'll be alright." Fred told her, trying his best to comfort Selena, who was becoming more and more distressed the more she spoke. "You aren't always going to be split up. There'll be some classes that you'll have together, and there's always lunch, evenings, weekends, and the holidays. You'll see him all the time. And when you can't see him, you've always got me. If you want, I mean."

"You want to be my friend?" the girl asked finally, knowing that this was what the boy wanted to ask, and seeing that it would be around ten minutes quicker if she did it herself.

"Yeah." the Weasley child responded, nodding his head. And so, with a handshake, a smile and a conversation that spanned the whole of dinner, Selena discovered that Hogwarts might not be too bad an experience, after all.

A/N: Please review!