Coup de Foudre [Fred Weasley] [1]

⚡️ Chapter 5 ⚡️

Gryffindor? Of all the houses, Gryffindor? When there was Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw, Gryffindor? There was silence in the Great Hall and Professor McGonagall took off the Sorting Hat from her head. Vega squeezed her eyes shut when the bright lights invaded her eyes.

Gaining some courage, Vega pushed herself off of the stool and glanced toward Harry and Ron, both of whom gave her weak smiles. She wondered what they had been thinking. Vega jumped when the Weasley Twins began to clap for the newest Gryffindor member and slowly, the rest of the table joined in.

Vega sat down quietly at the edge of the table, across from Sir Nicholas, a Gryffindor ghost that Dora had told her about, and the one she had seen earlier in the chamber.

"Nice to meet you!" Percy the Prefect said as he reached over to shake her hand. Vega noticed that a lot of people were looking more expectantly at her.

Were they waiting for the Sorting Hat to give its verdict on what kind of person Vega would become? Had she gone to Slytherin; would she have been a bad person? Had they met her before all this, would they not have given her suspicious looks? Was it only because she got into Gryffindor that she was getting this friendly reception?

How could the Sorting Hat think that people who act like this would become her friends? What she meant was that, wouldn't Slytherin be more naturally friendly toward her rather than Gryffindors, who wanted evidence of her innocence before they gave their pronouncement?

Looking around nervously, Vega's eyes fell upon the High Table where the teachers were located. She saw people she recognised (for Dora often used Metamorphmagus abilities when telling Vega stories about her adventures at school), like Professor Sprout, Professor Snape, Professor Vector, Professor Flictwick...

And Hagrid was easy to notice, he gave her a small wave. Something told her he noticed how nervous she was. There was also some teacher Vega hadn't seen before in Dora's stories. He looked very peculiar for he was wearing a large purple turban.

Then, Vega's eyes fell upon the centre of the High Table, where she found Albus Dumbledore sitting in a large gold chair. Dumbledore's silver hair was the only thing in the whole hall that shone as brightly as the ghosts, and he had rather bright blue eyes.

It took a few seconds for Vega to realise that Dumbledore had turned his attention to her, and she almost jumped out of her skin. Dumbledore seemed to have a strange suspiciously sombre expression on his face and Vega could see that he didn't really like her. Why would anyone like her?

"Li, Sue!"

"Ravenclaw!"

"Longbottom, Neville!" Professor McGonagall called and Vega watched as he hurried toward the stool, only to end up tripping over his own feet and falling down.

While many people laughed, Vega remained among those who didn't. She could only imagine how mortifying that must've been. There was severe sense of second-hand embarrassment. The hat took a long time to decide with Neville.

"GRYFFINDOR!" the Sorting Hat shouted and Vega watched as Neville ran off the stool still wearing it, and had to go back amid gales of laughter to give it back.

"MacDougal, Morag!" Professor McGonagall called and Vega scouted over to let Neville sit nearby and she avoided looking at him. She knew now that he knew who she was.

"RAVENCLAW!"

"Macmillan, Ernest!"

"HUFFLEPUFF!"