𝐶𝑅𝑈𝐶𝐼𝑂

𝟬𝟬𝟲

Everything that drowned me,
taught me how to swim.

-Jenim Dibie

~•~

Alexa's blood ran cold. As the sorting hat was lifted off her head, the loud applause reached her ears. Alexa gracefully walked down the steps and to the gryffindor table, sitting next to Eloise. Her face held indifference to everybody who saw her, but behind the indifference was fear. Alexa sat on her hands, and forced herself to watch the sorting. She vaguely remembered clapping for the new Gryffindors, and only snapped out of it when she heard "Snape, Clarrisa".

The whole hall went silent before it burst into whispers. Professor Snape's face was blank, but Alexa could see a slight smirk on his mouth. The sorting hat debated over Clarissa for about a minute before yelling out "GRYFFINDOR!"

The hall went silent once again, and Alexa found herself observing their reactions. The Slytherins looked disgusted, the Ravenclaws looked confused, the Hufflepuffs were bored, and the Gryffindors were also disgusted. Alexa looked up at the teachers table and had to fight back a laugh. Professor Snape looked horrified.

After a gruelling minute, Clarrisa walked down to the Gryffindor table, and sat on the other side of Alexa. Slowly, the sorting started back up again, with only occasional glances at Clarrisa.

Eventually, the sorting finished with "Zabini, Blaise" who got sorted into Slytherin. Professor McGonagall rolled up the scroll and took the sorting hat away.

Albus Dumbledore had gotten to his feet. He was beaming to the students, and opening his arms wide, as if nothing could have pleased him more than seeing all the students there.

"Welcome!" he said. "Welcome to a new year at Hogwarts! Before we begin our banquet, I would like to say a few words. And here they are: Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak!"

He sat back down. Everybody clapped and cheered. Alexa scrunched her nose in confusion at his speech, but forgot about it when she saw all the food appear at the table. She had never seen so much food in all her life.

She filled her plate with food, and just looking at it made her want to throw up, so instead she wandlessly vanished it as everybody else ate.

"Hey can you pass the salt please?" A girl across from Alexa asked. She recognized her as the blonde from the boat.

Alexa passed her the salt, and decided to converse with the girl "My name's Alexa Merlin, what's yours?"

"Sierra Finley." The blonde haired girl; Sierra responded.

"Oh are we doing introductions?!" Eloise asked brightly. "My name is Eloise Lupin, and sitting right next to me is my new best friend."

"You're new best friend is Nearly Headless Nick?!" Alexa wondered incredulously.

"No, it's you." Eloise replied, while shaking her head. Alexa just stared at her, before forcing a smile on her face.

"Great, now to make more friends. I still have to make one more friend." Eloise chirped brightly. "Hey moody girl sitting next to Lexi, wanna be my friend?"

"Go to hell Lupin." Clarrisa grumbled back, while picking at her food.

"Well I suppose you can't win them all." Sierra started, but Eloise was having none of it.

"Oh hell no, if i want someone to be my friend, they better be it, otherwise I'll pester them so much they'll wish for death." Eloise replied firmly. Clarissa looked slightly horrified, but also disbelieving.