Dance of the Knights → 𝘳. 𝘸𝘦𝘢𝘴𝘭𝘦𝘺

ii. an unpleasant welcome

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two

an unpleasant welcome

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A few minutes into the Welcome Feast, Juniper was beginning to wonder whether she was mistaken in declining her mother's offer of a day off.

Missing her family was something she'd thought was impossible on her first day back to Hogwarts. Normally, she was eager to get away from them. But, now? Juniper was comparing them to the most aggravating woman she'd ever laid eyes on.

She had a feeling as soon as she walked in with Blaise. At the High Table sitting next to Dumbledore was a short plump woman with curly brown hair, a wide mouth, and an outfit of all pink. It left the robes Dumbledore was wearing—dark, purple with silvery stars, and a hat to match—less garish somehow.

The woman had a sugary-sweet smile and had her stubby hands resting on the table, primly folded. Right away, Juniper just knew.

"Merlin, her clothes are giving me a migraine," Blaise drawled, carefully sitting next to Juniper in the direct middle of the long table. Juniper figured if anyone had a say, it'd be Blaise. He had the best sense style out of anyone she knew, and that was saying something being in Slytherin.

His clothes were all artfully tailored and never as simple as everyone else's robes of plain black. That night, he was wearing emerald green robes in a shade just dark enough to not get him in trouble for breaking dress code. Complementing his deep ochre skin, they made him look like the definition of luxurious and refined.

"Her smile is going to give me a cavity," said Juniper, covertly smirking at Blaise who snickered in response.

The pink lady stopped talking to Dumbledore when the door to the side room opened.

Everyone in the hall watched as the new first years filed out into the front of the hall while McGonagall placed the wooden stool and the Sorting Hat. Juniper and Blaise narrowed their eyes, carefully analyzing the kids. They all looked terrified, some shivering slightly, faces ghostly under the dim, flickering candlelight.

"Okay. I have Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff, Slytherin," said Juniper, leaning over to whisper to Blaise.

He shook his head at her, incredulously. "You think the first boy is Gryffindor? You're mad. Look at the way he's shaking. Definitely Hufflepuff. Five Sickles more that he vomits all over McGonagall when she puts the hat on him."

"Gryffindors can tremble when they're scared too, it's just different. It looks more like when chihuahuas tremble before they bite you."

"Fine then, suit yourself," Blaise said with a slight eye roll. "I have Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, Slytherin, Hufflepuff, Gryffindor."

Right as he finished speaking, the rip in the Sorting Hat opened up and it burst into song. At first, Juniper was hardly listening. She never did after her first year, it was always the same spiel about Gryffindors being brave, Slytherins being ambitious, etc., etc. It got old after a while.

Only, this time, the words began to sink in part way through.

Oh, know the perils, read the signs,

The warning history shows,

For our Hogwarts is in danger

From external, deadly foes

And we must unite inside her