The girl who understood

chapter 1

Chapter 1
Green swirls, hell and a smile

"Ophelia, wake up!" My father's knocking on the door woke me. "We're meeting the Weasleys in one hour. Hurry, kids!", he stated while rushing towards Cedric's bedroom. "Get up, boy!", I could hear him say. He had always liked Cedric a little more than he did me. I just knew it. He was his first born son. Him simply existing made Amos Diggory the proudest father on earth.

I slowly got up and searched for some clothes that would suit the occasion; a worn out pair of jeans that used to belong to my mother and a maroon coloured blouse that was covered in tea stains but due to the naturally brownish colour of the piece one could barely see them.

I hurried towards the bathroom but the second I arrived the door was shut right in front of my nose. Furiously turning the doorknob I shouted through the door: "Open up you stinking jellyfish, I need a shower!" "So do I!", Cedric responded. "Well, I don't care. Now open the door!" I had barely finished the sentence when I could hear the muffled sounds of prickling water on the shower curtain. After kicking against the door twice I turned around and headed into the kitchen. Dad was welcoming me with that weird smile. I ignored it and left the kitchen.

30 minutes later I was finally all finished up. After a last reassuring look into the mirror I grabbed my bag and hurried downstairs, where my brother and father were already awaiting me. 'Late as always.', Cedric muttered to himself and I didn't defend myself. We both knew it was his fault I had taken so long. There was no need to point out the obvious.

It took us twenty minutes to get to the place that we were supposed to meet up with the Weasley family. 'Arthur told me they weren't coming alone.', my father stated, leaning against the trunk of an old tree with tangled branches. Of course my brother immediately felt the urge to climb them. 'Who else is coming?', he asked whilst making his way up to the top of the tree. It was moments like this that made me wonder if maybe he should have been sorted into Griffindor all those years ago. Everybody kept saying how the sorting hat made no mistakes and maybe he didn't. Maybe Cedric really was that polite, selfless young boy, that helped his friends and defended total strangers in the halls of Hogwarts. Maybe he did get along well with every teacher at school and he made his father proud everyday by simply being himself. Maybe it was easy for him to be kind to people that looked at him like he was a people pleaser when he really wasn't. So yes, maybe he did belong into Hufflepuff.

However, I certainly couldn't find how I was supposed to belong into Ravenclaw. I wasn't smart, really. Admittedly, I enjoyed reading old books and writing letters but the fact those letters were addressed to the dead was reason enough to think me a lunatic. My grades were average; my father kept saying I wasn't putting enough effort into making my house proud. That thought always stung a little. I wasn't even part of my own family in a way. All of them had been sorted into Hufflepuff within seconds. Cedric, our father, our grandparents, my aunt and uncle; all of them. With one exception. My mother. The day she was sorted into Griffindor was the day she first met my father. They had shared a cabin on the train to Hogwarts and my father had proudly claimed that he was a Hufflepuff. He always told Cedric and I how he adored the sound of her laugh. He had heard it the first time during that train ride. She had confided in him about not having the slightest idea in which house she belonged. 'Let me get to know you, I'll tell you!', was my father's response. As they both got out of the Hogwarts Express he had been entirely sure that she would be sorted into Hufflepuff. It was with big surprise then, that my mother sat down on the Griffindor table that evening, smiling timidly at Amos Diggory, who was examining her sceptically from the Hufflepuff table. He was still convinced that my mother belonged with him. 'That was the only mistake the sorting hat has ever made.', he would say everytime he told us this story. I never told him that I was certain he had made the same mistake twice.