Our curses and wounds

E I G H T

TW: this chapter will mention blood and gore

Walking through the castle for the first time was overwhelming. After the carriages had come to a halt in front of big oak wood doors, Astra came to the realisation that all of it was much bigger than she had expected.

Looking around, she spotted a forest with a cabin before it, the lights were out with no sign of life. The chilly night air made Astra shiver and when she turned around she saw the skeletal creatures staring at her once again, their blank white eyes gleaming. Hurrying up, she walked toward Pansy who had already joined crowed going up the stone steps into the castle.

The Entrance Hall was ablaze with torches and echoing with footsteps as the students crossed the flagged stone floor for the double doors to the right, leading to an enormous hall with four tables. "This is the Great Hall. Every house has one table where we sit at every meal." Pansy explained over all the students voices.

The four long house tables in the Great Hall were filling up under the starless black ceiling, wich was an exact replica of the sky outside. Such a good replica, that most people would have been tricked into thinking it was real. Astra was trained to be able to tell what was real and what was fake, but even years of agonising training could be fooled by a good magician. Candles floated in midair all along the tables, illuminating silvery creatures dotted about the Hall (she guessed they were ghosts, but since she had only heard textbook descriptions of them, she couldn't be sure) and the faces of student talking eagerly, exchanging summer news, shouting greetings at friends from other houses, eyeing one another's new haircuts and robes.

Slowly the boy, who had managed to keep up with them the entire time, and Pansy drifted towards the green decorated table–most likely Slytherin. "Pansy?" Astra tried to come to a halt, but that wasn't easy between hundreds of students pressing you forward. "Pansy!" Finally the girl turned around. "I have to go to the big table at the front now, to wait for the sorting, or so father said. Save me a seat, yeah?" Pansy could only nod before she was pushed forward and out of Astras field of vision.

When she finally made her ways through the masses settling down, Astra turned around just soon enough to see the doors to the Entrance Halls open. A long line of scared-looking 11 year olds entered, led by an elderly woman in an emerald dress and a strict expression on her face. Astra immediate felt feelings of sympathy for her, people like her were the genuine ones. The ones that actually cared. The woman carried a stool on wich sat a dirty and heavily patched looking wizard's hat. For a second Astra thought it was an old rag in desperate need of a clean. After she realised the true form of the monstrosity, her only thought was that it was not going on her head, at least not before she had washed it a few times.

The buzz of talking voices in the Great Hall faded away. The children lined up in front the table, where all the teachers were sitting, facing the rest of the students. Astra did her best to blend in, wich she had hoped would function better since she was on the smaller side, but it was no use. The old woman placed the stool carefully in front of them, then stood back.

The faces of the students glowed palely in the candlelight. Every pair of eyes seemed to be set onto the front, some were whispering and looking away as soon as she looked their way. On the red decorated table there was one face she recognised. The boy Lucius Malfoy had been fighting with at the ministry was sitting close together with a girl who's hair was screaming for a bit of care and a boy with a knobby nose and hair wich was a brighter shade of red Astra had ever seen before. Astra wasn't even sure if this kind of red hair was humanly possible to be normal.

Astra looked back at the ground. By now she picked up on a test that was supposed to determine what house she would belong to. What test could determine something like that? Duels she could handle, just as she would be able to withstand any fitness tests or riddles. Mazes would be a problem, but as long as she kept her cool everything would be alright.