Contest entry: The Sorting Hat
My foot was dead. Delicately, I uncurled it from underneath the hard wooden bench. As soon as the First Years piled in, we were deftly sat down at the back of the room and told to wait. There seemed to be an awful lot of waiting going on, ever since my letter arrived over the summer. Waiting in Diagon Alley, waiting in the train – until now, yet more waiting! I hated not being able to do anything about it. I hated being treated like a kid.
I let my mind wonder as my turn at the Sorting Hat was far yet to come. I wondered if Xya was okay. I wondered how they transported the animals. I hoped they didn’t keep them with the owls, because Xya hated owls. She would never admit she was afraid of them (being the proud cat), but she was.
I stiffened as surprise gripped me by two trembling hands. My thoughts quickly collapsed like a deck of cards. “Stop!” I exclaimed, as I shot Olivia a look of annoyance. “Why did you - - “ I hissed; at which she abruptly stopped shaking me and pointed towards the front of the room.
“Sorry." she whimpered. "It's your turn!" As I looked upon her in scrutiny. Then I looked up into Professor McGonagall’s exasperated gaze.
“Perhaps a special invitation is required, Miss Lestrange.” with which there was an anticipated gasp around the room. I felt my lips transform into a coy smile.
“I repeat,” the old hag spelled out with evidently diminishing patience. “Lestrange - Veronica Lestrange to the sorting hat if you may.” McGonagall said again, on cue of which I rose.
My cloak went up with a swish! behind me, and for a dark moment lingered above the ground. Quickly, my boots rapped the slight old marble beneath them, and I was conscious that every set of eyes in the room; were on me. I knew my name caused stirance within the Wizarding World. Letting the material settle around the solid stool, I let my head become yet another exhibit within the infamous hat’s case. It was surprisingly warm, and tickled a strand of hair loose from where it gripped it in place.
“Hmmm, what a familiar feel. Why of course! Another Black! Slytherin has become much the tradition...”
“But isn’t that the bad house,” I thought for the hat. I wondered if it could hear me, “And what do you mean, Black?”
“My child. So many thoughts!” and then out loud “So difficult to read!” causing mutterings around the hall.
“Perhaps I am a Ravenclaw,”
“Thoughts darker than that swirl your mind my dear. You would do well with the green...”
“Lord Voldemort was a Slytherin,” I thought without thinking, not directing it at the hat in particular before attempting to withdraw my thought.
The hat cackled for the hall to hear, chuckling at the inside joke that only we knew of, and that it alone found worth of it's eerie laugh. Perplexed glances were exchanged around the room, when I thought I heard the hat mutter. Was it only to me? I found difficulty distinguishing my mind's thoughts from the physicallity of sound that entered my thoughts, “a rapture...” however it was long unheard over the loud cheers of relief and for some, excitement - for the sorting hat has had it's final say.
Slytherin house it is.
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