Living as a Dragon (a Harry Potter side story)

The Sorting Hat

Hogwarts was finally coming into view. Severus and I had been talking the rest of the way, mostly about random stuff. "I wonder what house I'll get sorted into," I wonder aloud as I stared out at the frosted window. "I'm sure you'll get into something to represent how intelligent and cunning you are," he reassured. I started to feel nervous. How are they going to sort us into our houses? How will I make any friends? Will I be with Severus or will I be alone? So many questions that will be answered in just a few minutes. I turn to Severus to see if he felt the same. I didn't really need to ask though because we seemed to be paler then before. So we just stared out the window at the growing sight of the castle.

The train had finally stopped. Severus and I grabbed our trunks and hoisted them towards a man yelling for the first years to go that way. We saw that we didn't take our trunks on the small, rickety boats so we had to leave them there. I looked over to Severus to see him staring at the tallest tower in the castle of Hogwarts. "This castle is massive!" he whispered. I nodded in return. The man ushered us to the boats and we got in the first empty one we could find. The boat swayed as we got in. To be honest, I did not like being in this small, floating log.

All of a sudden, the boat started moving, most likely using magic. I look around to see the red haired girl I saw earlier, the one that must of let off the dung bomb. Along side her was a black haired boy who was laughing and rocking the boat, a boy with glasses and messy hair, one with light brown hair and a one that was quite short. They all were laughing as the black haired boy rocked the boat, except the girl. I looked away and instead turned my attention to Severus. He smiled at me. I smiled back. And we just stared at the bottom of the boat for the rest of the trip.

The Great Hall was huge! Four long tables divided the room with different coloured tapestry showing the houses symbols. Everyone was looking us. I diverted my attention away to the suddenly interesting floor. All the first years had to line up right at the front. I made sure to stay next to Severus so we didn't get separated. I looked up to see that an old, raggedy wizards hat had been brought out on a stool. I looked at it in confusion, nudging Severus with my hand, I made a slight motion with my head over to the odd looking display.

When everyone had finally lined up, a tear near the brim open up into a mouth like shale and started talking! "Well look what we have here, some more first years for me to sort," cheered the hat. A woman strode out to the front with an almost thick bit of parchment. From here, she started calling names. "Atchins, Emily," cried the woman. The girl mumbled something under her breath and started to walk up to the odd hat. The woman picked up the odd choice for sorting and placed it on the head of the terrified looking girl. Almost immediately, the Sorting Hat yelled,"Hufflepuff". A great cheer arose from the yellow coloured house with the symbol of a badger.

And so it went, all exactly the same, someone would go up, have the hat placed on their head, the hat would scream out the name of their house, that house would cheer and the person would go and sit with them. At one point, I saw the black haired boy who was rocking the boat before go up after being called on as,"Black, Sirius". The light haired boy was name,"Lupin, Remus". The short boy was named,"Pettigrew, Peter". The boy with glasses and messy hair was called on as,"Potter, James". And at last, the red haired girl was called up as,"Minayla, Arabella". When the hat was placed on her head, it hesitated for a moment, as if being incapable to make a decision, at last, like the rest of her group, the hat shouted,"GRYFFINDOR". Out of all of these names, not one of them belonged to the green house. The line slowly grew shorter until about half had joined their house.

At last my name was called out. "Skarsblood, Myst," called the lady. My stomach dropped as I made my way over to the Sorting Hat. I felt as if I was trembling but when I quickly looked down at my hands they were rock still. I kept my gaze on the raggedy display after that, determined to not show weakness. When it was placed on my head, I could hear it speaking to me, but no one else seemed to hear it. "Oooooh, now you are interesting, your not human are you?" It questioned but I didn't answer. "You are quite clever so I would put you in Ravenclaw but...there is a certain loyalty about you to stand up for the people you care about, showing that you would do well in Hufflepuff, that could make you very dangerous...what's more is that you are incredibly cunning, just like a Slytherin, all those together would build a very bad enemy to go up against... But I think you'd do best in...." Then in a shout that I'm sure everyone heard,"SLYTHERIN". An outburst of cheers, louder than all the others, erupted from the green house. I strode over to the table, sneaking an encouraging smile at Severus as he stared after me. I didn't sit down though, I ended up standing at the end of the table because the next name I heard was non other than,"Snape, Severus". I watched him strike over as if it were a normal day fir him, but I could see that his face was even paler than usual. The hat was placed on his head for no longer than maybe two seconds that the hat cheered,"SLYTHERIN". I grin at Severus as he approached the table. We sat next to each other, still grinning, as we watched the rest of the first years being sorted. This was going to be an amazing year.