Exchanging One Life for Another

Chapter 1 | The Sorting Ceremony

Words: 1416

AN: Credit to Pinterest for the cover photo. I found generic pictures of girls that look how I picture the OC characters that will be a part of the story and then did some amateur editing on them.

Eloise(Left) Lucy(Middle) Mae(Right)

Lucy stood in the boat and started rocking it from side to side. She was quickly rewarded with two dramatic squeals from her friends Eloise and Mae. Lucy looked back to see the two of them holding onto each other, laughing at Lucy's attempt to scare them. The two boys who were in the back of the boat held onto the sides of it, letting out a few noises of concern. They didn't seem too happy about Lucy's behavior. Once she stopped rocking the boat, both boys glared up at her.

"You stupid girls. What if the boat tipped over?" One of the boys snapped, straightening his tie.

"Then I guess we'd have to swim across." Eloise said. She smirked at the boys and flipped her silver-blonde veela hair over her shoulder, making both of them blush.

"Then we'd get to meet the giant squid." Mae said and started gushing about how cute she thought aquatic creatures were, her hair slowly turning to a bright lemon yellow color, when suddenly the boat hit the doc. This caused Lucy, who hadn't sat back down yet, to fall over the side. She hit her head on her way down, but thanks to Eloise's quick reflexes, she'd only got half a leg and some of her robe wet. Lucy's state of shock from the fall didn't last long; she was brought back down to earth when two identical voices began to howl with laughter. She turned around to see two red headed boys holding one another up from laughing so hard, occasionally glancing at Lucy and then immediately being sent into another fit of laughter.

"I MEANT TO DO THAT!" Lucy yelled at them and stomped her dry foot down into the water.

"You meant to fall into the lake?" One asked, stifling his laughter.

"Yes, as a matter of fact, I did." The two boys straightened and made their faces neutral.

"Why would you do that?" The other asked.

"Well I... I... thought it was a lovely night for a swim, and... and I decided I didn't want to wait to put on my wetsuit, so I just went for it." Lucy could tell that she was just feeding into their amusement, but she didn't mind, she thought the whole situation was quite funny as well.

"Well, Gred, what do you say we join her?"

"I say a dip in the lake sounds quite nice, Forge."

"Off we go." They said together and were now trudging into the lake towards Lucy who was trying very hard to contain a smile. They splashed their way up to her not minding the stares from the other first years who were waiting for instructions on the docks.

"I'm Fred. This is my brother George," Fred gestured to his twin who smiled and held a hand out for Lucy to shake. "What's your name?"

"Lucy... Sallow." Lucy said eyeing the twins curiously. "Wait, you're Weasley's!" Fred and George gave each other a nervous look and quietly confirmed Lucy's statement. "Your dad works at the ministry, right? He observes muggles and what not, doesn't he? That must be fascinating having someone around who can tell you about the muggle world, I've always thought they were quite silly, it's a wonder how they get so much done without magic." Lucy was smiling brightly at them. Slowly the worry vanished from their faces and was replaced with a smile. They both pushed out a relieved chuckle.

"You're right, it's a wonder how they even manage to get the news without magic." Fred said laughing, the other two joined in, but the fun was cut short when the door to the castle swung open drawing over their attention along with the rest of the first years.

"Welcome students, to Hogw— what do you three think you're doing?" A tall lady in a dark blue robe and greying hair glared down at Lucy and the twins over her thin spectacles, noticing that the three of them were nearly knee deep in the lake.

"We were just checking the lake, professor," Lucy said, reaching a hand down to touch the water and coming back up and examining it. "Yup, that's water." She earned another fit of giggles for this from Eloise and Mae who had safely made it to dry land.

"Get out of there, right now." The lady, who later introduced herself as Professor McGonagall, said with a stern look. With a flick of the wand, she had dried the three of them off and began her speech while leading all the children into the school.

The inside of the Great Hall was amazing to say the least. The ceiling mirrored the night sky, four long tables took over the room, all with color coded students, and at the very front was a long line of professors. Fred and George pulled Lucy's attention away from her surroundings by coming up on either side of her.

"What house do you reckon you'll be in?" Fred asked.

"Probably Slytherin... but I'd honestly be happy with any house I get into."

"Slytherin? Yuck! You're way too funny to be in that house." George started

"Yeah, and that's where all the bad witches and wizards go."

"Not to mention, you're rather fascinated by muggles,"

"As opposed to being disgusted by them." Fred finished.

"You're not wrong," Lucy looked at her feet solemnly. "But they're not all bad. There has to be a few decent people in that house. Who knows, maybe I'll be one of them." Their attention was taken again, this time by the sorting hat. It gave a long speech about the houses and when it had finished, Professor McGonagall pulled out a list and began to read names from it.

"Eloise Lebeux" McGonagall called out. Eloise strutted up to the stool where the sorting hat debated about whether to put her in Gryffindor or Ravenclaw. After a good 30 seconds, the sorting hats booming voice echoed throughout the great hall.

"GRYFFINDOR!" A thunderous roar of clapping followed as Eloise made her way to the Gryffindor table.

"Blake Witherbee" the boy who had scolded Lucy earlier on the boats stepped up. It wasn't much of a shock to her when he was placed in Ravenclaw. The Weasley twins were next, and again, no shock when they were both placed in Gryffindor, only to be greeted by two more red headed boys, that Lucy assumed were their brothers. A few others went and soon only four students were left to be sorted.

"Maebelle Wren." Mae's hair turned a bright red color to match her cheeks as she went up. Before the hat was even on her head, it shouted Hufflepuff. She had a shy smile on her face as she walked to the Hufflepuff table and was pleasantly greeted by an older boy who made Mae's hair turn into a neon pink when he kissed her hand.

"Lucelia Sallow." Lucy's attention was brought back to the sorting and she awkwardly waddled up to the stool, earning a few laughs from the students as well as Dumbledore himself. The hat was placed on her head and began thinking out loud."Hmm... definitely not a Ravenclaw," It said and Lucy sent a glare at Fred, George, and Eloise who were snickering. "Too much of a coward to be in Gryffindor," Now the twins were full on laughing and Eloise put her head down to hide her face after making a loud snorting noise."Dude. I know I'm a coward, but you don't have to call me out like that in front of the whole school... cockwomble.""Hmmm, that confirms it. I'll put you in... SLYTHERIN!" Lucy made her way over to the Slytherin table while Fred and George booed at her. She merely responded by sticking her tongue out at them. The rest of the sorting finished quickly and everyone began to dig in to the feast that lay before them. The rest of dinner had been pretty uneventful and soon Lucy was following a Slytherin prefect down to the dungeons and heading to her dorm as soon as possible.Lucy laid down in her bed, staring out the window where several sea creatures were swimming around. A few merpeople even swam along sending glares inside at her. After a few minutes of making faces at the mercreatures, she had been lulled to sleep from the quiet swishing of water and the occasional bubbles floating to the surface far above the window.

AN: I know I said this last time I published this episode, but I really want to try updating every other week. I'll put up all the chapters I currently Have finished though.