Lexi Layyer my only weakness*hp fanfic*

The London Eye Cautostrophe

Is it just me who thinks the Christmas season is the best thing ever?

I’ve always loved it, and coming home for the holiday. Of course, my real home is Hogwarts, and has been ever since I first received my letter of acceptance, but it’s nice to come back to the Leaky Cauldron and my room on the top floor. It’s nice to see Mum and (‘Uncle’) Tom the landlord and Alex, too, who’s on a Christmas break from training to be an Auror at the Ministry.

Because my big brother has returned, Mum’s in one of those moods where you can tell her absolutely anything and she’ll smile and laugh breezily and plant a huge lipstick-y kiss on your cheek. She’s always like this when Alex’s home, and so I am too.

I’ve always adored my brother. He’s the closest you will ever come to finding the perfect guy – when he was at Hogwarts, literally every single girl had a huge crush on him. I always had to be wary of the friends I made because, especially when I was younger, quite a few of them were just trying to get to Alex.

He was Captain of his Quidditch team, and then Head Boy, too. “Just like your father,” Mum would coo proudly.

It didn’t help that Alex was sorted into Gryffindor, either.

“…Oh, how wonderful!” Mum exclaimed when she got his letter home after his first week at Hogwarts, “he’s been sorted into Gryffindor, just like Jack! He’s just like his father! Oh, I’m so proud!”

I’d been nine at the time, and peered over her shoulder at the letter curiously. “Gryffindor,” I murmured dreamily, trying the word out for myself. “Maybe I’ll be in Gryffindor too.”

Mum had snatched the letter away and folded it before stuffing it in her pockets, eyes narrowed at me. “It’s rude to read over someone’s shoulder, darling.”

Her expression softened at my bewildered expression and she sighed, rubbing her temples. “Don’t get your hopes up about being in Gryffindor, sweetheart,” she murmured slowly. “You should set your hopes on other Houses, like… Hufflepuff, like me, or Slytherin.”

“Slytherin?” I exclaimed, wrinkling my nose. “Alex said in his letter that the people in Slytherin are horrible.”

“Slytherins are famed for their cunning and craftiness,” Mum kept on. “Not for being evil, necessarily. Just most people in Slytherin turn bad, but that’s nothing to do with what they’re like at eleven-years-old. If you’re in Slytherin you shouldn’t be disheartened.”

I couldn’t understand. “But why do you think I’m going to be in Slytherin, Mum?”

She opened her mouth and then closed it, before sighing again. “Oh, I don’t know,” she murmured in a small voice. “It might just be in your blood, your family history.”

“But why would it be in mine and not Alex’s…?” I’d begun, but she’d muttered something about cleaning some dishes and had briskly marched away.

As it turned out, I wasn’t sorted into Slytherin. But not Gryffindor, either. Not even Hufflepuff, like Mum – but Ravenclaw, a House all of my own. “This is the House for all the really clever people,” Michael Corner had grinned at me on our first day.

I’d almost bursted with self-pride and written a letter five pages long to Mum proclaiming the good news. Sure, I wasn’t in Gryffindor, but look! I’d been sorted into the Ravenclaw House, the one I’d heard her say so many times that she’d always wished she’d been sorted into!

It took her a week or so to reply – she credited my sorting into Ravenclaw as a ‘surprise’, but ‘she should have known – your father was very clever. Also, I hope you haven’t ripped or torn any of your school uniform already, do you know how much that all cost?If only you’d been born a boy like your brother, then you could have had Alex’s old things, it all would have been so much easier.’