Draco Malfoy and the last Chanter

Chapter 4: Sorting her out

When we arrived at Hogwarts, the first years weren’t there. They would come when they really had to come. There was a little feast, not as big as the normal one, but quite big. Dumbledore got up from his chair and said, in a loud clear voice:

“We have come here a few weeks early for a reason I cannot tell you, but I will say that there will be no normal classes yet, so you will be in class playing games or revising over last years work. This year, there is one new person for fifth year, and this is Lucy Chanter. There is also a new teacher in the staff, Mr. Worths, that will be showing Defense Against the Dark Arts these two weeks. Now we will sort Lucy out in a house.”

I saw as Professor McGonagall took the stool and the housing hat, ant placed it on Lucy’s head. Eternal minutes passed, people started shifting in their chairs, and some also coughed, but stayed in silence. Even the professors were starting to get impatient. And all of a sudden, the hat shouted:

“GRYFFINDOR!!”

There came a loud cheer from the Gryffindor table, and I couldn’t seem to not be disappointed that she wasn’t in Slytherin. The rest of the houses looked the same, especially the boys.

As she went and sat down, next to Hermione and Lavender, all the boys looked at her with drowsy smiles and happy faces. The girls were smiling too, but in a different way, in a welcoming way. She smiled back and started chatting with Hermione and Lavender. When we all finished our mini-feast, each of us went to our common rooms. The Slytherin prefect leaded us to our portrait, a big round man with a hateful grin. The prefect told him:

“Shefarines”, and the portrait opened, showing a black room with a burning fire in the middle. Green velvet sofas with cushions surrounded the fire, and a little table with games.

I went to my bed and found my trunk already up there. I lay on my bed and looked at the ceiling. I felt weird. My heart was like leaping across the room, and my tummy was like if a thousand pixies were fluttering inside my stomach. And I don’t know why, I couldn’t get off my mind Lucy Chanter. Those eyes, her hair, her smile… It was like hypnotizing.

To get my mind off things, I took my timetable to see what I had tomorrow. Defense against the Dark Arts with Gryffindor. It only helped slightly thinking I would see Lucy.