dragonfly || d.m. [✔]

how to be invisible,

 Sacrifices are not made for love, love is such that if you have love, you don't need anything else.
—

a r i a  s t u n n i n g s

As I walk into my new school, Hogwarts, chaos hits my sensitive ears and I am taken aback by the noise. 

My black hood and cloak, protecting me as always, flies around slightly due to the sharp winter winds. My eyes flee from one stranger to another.

I watch the students milling around me. Some laugh and joke, others bask in popularity, but my eyes linger the longest upon those who hang around in the shadows, eyes wide with fear — perhaps, they can be my friends.

But of course, being invisible is quite a challenge for new transfer students like me. Instead, I am the victim of stares and curious exchanges in the hall — if only I could cast a simple Disillusionment Charm upon myself, how wonderful would that be?

"New girl?" a stern looking woman, probably a professor, questions me.

I nod quietly.

Her face breaks into a smile and I am more at ease. "Aria Stunnings! We are most glad to have you here. I'm Professor McGonagall and the Transfiguration teacher," she tells me.

"Good morning, Professor," I wish her, as I have been taught to in Beauxbatons. 

"Manners, Ms Stunnings." Madame Maxime's voice screams in my head, it rings on and on, and collides with the noise in the hallway and I wish I could cover up my ears. But I can't — I am trapped in a maze called Manners.

"We wouldn't want another whipping like yesterday, now would we?" Her voice is still in my ears, and I can hear the noise of the whip on my back as clear as it was yeserday. Only, it wasn't. It was a week ago.

She smiled pleasantly and said, "Follow me and let's get you sorted, Ms Stunnings." This school isn't going to be like that — Aunt Couldings promised. It isn't, it isn't, it isn't. I will never have to face Madame Maxime and Beauxbatons again. 

I nod once again, my hood still covering my face as always. I only hope that no one asks me to remove it, but then again, my aunt wrote to the school saying that I shouldn't remove it. 

Shouldn't, not don't need to.

The professor gestured towards a rather shabby-looking wooden stool on which there sat a tattered black hat. It looked like someone had just picked it off the garbage. 

"The Sorting Hat," McGonagall introduced. "The hat is going to sort you into your Hogwarts house."

Did she just tell me that a mere hat was going to determine my personality? At Beauxbatons, we didn't have a sorting, or even houses for that matter. 

I'm not mere, the hat spoke. The founders of Hogwarts created me. How can I ever be mere? 

Uh- , I was clueless about having a conversation with a hat. Having a conversation with people was a struggle enough, but a hat? 

The hat chuckled, Which house?

Any? , I ventured.

Hufflepuff ... no, you're not kind enough ... Gryffindor? , it paused, But you are not quite brave enough. Slytherin ... nah, you'll bring misery to that house ... , the hat went on, and I could hear giggles engulfing the room as I wait for my final verdict. It feels like I'm going to prison and not to my 'house' which apparently, is supposed to be my family. And what's more is that, I felt pretty useless. Why did the hat keep saying that I wasn't enough? So what if I wasn't the epitome of kindness or bravery? 

Ravenclaw is the only option left, but you aren't smart enough either . . . , the hat trailed off. I lost it. I wrenched the hat off my head and shouted at it, "I know I'm not enough, you don't have to let everyone know! I know I'm useless, okay? I don't need a house!"

Every single student in the hall was staring at me like I'd committed murder. I didn't like the spotlight. Although running away seemed like the best option ever, I didn't want to seem weak. I whispered to McGonagall, "Professor, where am I to sit?"

The teacher fixed at me, a look of extreme disrespect and disdain — ever so different from the one she had given me when I had first arrived. "Sit there," she said, pointing to a small, black bench at a corner of the room. "You have no house," she continued, "So you will sit there, always."

I nod, trying to become invisible.. But as I sat down on the stool in front of me, I knew it wouldn't work — it couldn't. I'd caught the whole school's interest in that Sorting Hat episode. And what was worse is that I was a transfer student from Beauxbatons, not the friendliest school around. I messed up so bad, and it was just my first day.

What kind of chaos would I rack up here in a few months, or would they expel me like Beauxbatons? 

Then, the only wizarding school left for me to go to would be Durmstrang and I did not need to go to an all-boys school. 

As I hang my head as low as possible, a boy sitting nearby passes me some food. "I think you ought to eat," he says, his voice low and breathy, "The food's okay-ish."

I accept it wordlessly, still trying to become invisible. Invisibility is of the utmost importance, especially now that people won't forget me easily.

It's almost like my dependable black cloak isn't quite so dependable anymore for it doesn't seem to help my visible-ness.

"Eat," the boy whispers again, "I didn't drug it."

I look down and I see that I am still holding the piece of bread the boy gave me. I nod.

A bit sad, isn't it? How outcasts belong to the same class? The boy was an outcast too, I later learnt. There's always a system of division, and in this case, it's other people's opinions.