Chapter Text
It was three am in the morning, at least thats what it said on the dark cuckoo clock on the wall opposite my bed. Seriously that clock was childish, I’d have to ask my mother to change it later.
I sighed, it way too early to start dressing and preparing for school. Mother had already helped me pack my suitcase the other day, I made sure to fill it with magazines and sweets to keep me entertained and she had insisted on mundane things like wand polish, which I grudgingly also included.
Initially, I believed I'd be going to Durmstrang for schooling, my father always did complain about the Hogwarts curriculum and the sorts the institute had began accepting.
But my mother had a soft spot for it, it was where they had met apparently, although the meeting must have been brief as my mother was already in her seventh year when my father had just started his first.
It was always my mother making the final decision in our household and so Hogwarts it was, although my father certainly put up a fight about the affair, there was a lot of slamming of doors and general hostility before they made the final decision.
I was naturally apprehensive at first, knowing the institution was a bit more ‘misguided’ then its former days, but reassured by the fact that many of my social circle would be joining me there. Some of them included Daphne Greengrass, Milicent Bulstrode, Theodore Nott and Draco Malfoy.
Our families have known eachother for generations. Our parents were friends and we attended all sorts of traditional festivals, balls and rituals together with the other families.
My mother had even said one time, that I was sure to be married to Draco Malfoy one of these days. Of course, the idea made me squirm in disgust at this early age, but my mother said I would grow into it and I guess me and him get on just fine as mates so it wouldn’t be too bad. Plus, he was from a respectable pureblood family, which my father always said was rare these days.
The pixies in my stomach made it hard to go back to sleep and thoughts about how tomorrow would go were spinning through my head like an enchanted broom. My parents had already set such high expectations: this is where my life would begin and I'd start becoming all grown and sophisticated. The urgency of getting to sleep had dwelled upon me, I tried to shut my eyes then, I didn't want to keep yawning when on the train with my friends.
Trouble is, when you think about going to sleep, it actually stops you from sleeping. I gave up and left my bed and began rummaging through my wardrobe looking for something to wear. I was worried that my mother would see what I'd put together and put it away. She's the grown up and has sounder judgement, but I still want to find things for myself. My mother's the editor of the fashion column of witch weekly, so she knew a lot about fashion I guess. Of course, like any respectable pureblood wife, she wouldn't work, but it was one of her past times and she enjoyed it. It certainly helped for when she hosted balls, we'd always match which was nice. Maybe if I chose something really good I wouldn’t need to change it.
I knew I'd only be wearing my outfit for a brief period before we had to change into robes after we got off the Hogwarts express, but I still wanted to impress my friends. I pulled out a black puffy skirt and a white long sleeved shirt made with sliver cobwebs. It was an outfit I'd chosen when mother and I went shopping with the Greengrasses this summer. Daphne had bought the same thing and my mother had criticised her later saying she was a little copy cat or something related to that, although I personally didn't really mind if we matched on the train, probably not something to tell her. I remembered Little Astoria busy lecturing us on the unethical nature of some fabrics whilst we were ther, she was an eccentric child really. I looked around for anything else I could 'prepare'.
Next I tried to read my textbooks, it all looked a bit hard in general and I wondered how I'd get to grips with it so quickly. But I tried to reassure myself, Millicent’s sister had already taught us some handy hexes over the holidays, so I should have no struggles, right?
Then I'd discovered something even more potent than a sleeping potion: a history of magic textbook. Just leafing through it made my eyelids feel as heavy as mountains.
—//—
Apparently, I had fallen asleep on the ground, with the open textbooks surrounding me, because it was now seven o'clock, and my mother was shaking my shoulders firmly in an effort to wake me up. the hard leather cover of my herbology textbook kept poking at my back. The cuckoo bird was flapping around my room and squaking irritatingly.
"Pansy get up it's time for school, why are you here and not in your bed?"asked mother, putting my books away back in my cauldron. She was already all dressed up, in her black and silver lined robe and her pointy witch's hat, shaking her head dramatically at the state of my room.
"I couldn't sleep all night," I yawned.
"Cover your mouth when you yawn Pansy, its unseemly, and don't make a habit of staying up late, you'll get bags under your eyes," she replied, placing her thumbs to just under where my eyes were and lifting my head up, her perfectly manicured nails felt slightly painful under my chin.
I gazed into her eyes, a startling blue. My eyes were a normal brown like my father's and I always envied hers, though they were a bit frightening when they were solely focusing on you. "Behave while you're there won't you?"
I groaned, she'd asked this a lot of me this week, and again promised I would. I wasn’t particularly a ‘quiet lady’ type and my mother always scolded this about me, but I thought there must be different ways of being a witch and I guess I was outspoken.
"As a pureblood if you don't act sensibly how can we ever trust some of the others to do so."
I nodded. I've never met anyone who wasn't a pureblood or at least a halfblood before but I'd imagined they'd be a lot likely the Weasleys, a family we'd run into a few times particularly in diagon alley, a favourite place for anyone in wizarding Britian to shop. Those lot were practically begging to be muggles, they were clumsy and obnoxious and unrefined. While we'd walk into blott's all nice and politely nodding to the owners and all, the Weasley clan would barge in, making a racket and laughing too loudly and generally being nuisances.
A few times they take up the lines haggling like they had no self-respect. The twins in particular were ones to watch out for, always hanging around gambol and japes joke shop, they were a bad sort. I shivered to think that I'd be facing muggleborns and idiots like the Weasleys and didn't appreciate mother for bringing them up, at least we'd be safe from them in Slytherin.
As expected, mother had already decided on a purple frock, I put my chosen clothes to the side a bit solemnly. Apparently, the outfit was sent to her by witch weekly exclusively and she wanted me to 'showcase' it for her. It was part of a particular Zabini’s childrens collection, didn't my mother always complain about all the children that woman had and how she was sure 'none were from the same father' (not sure how that works), why couldn't they model it?
But i tried get those sorts of thoughts out of my head, I should be grateful really, her giving me this great responsibility, and stop brooding pathetically about it. I twirled around in the thing in front of the mirror, which is always what you should do after trying on a new dress, and then I went downstairs for good. I wouldn't see my house for a month, I looked through it one more time, ready to miss it.
Then, wearing my best pair of dragon hide boots, I walked out the door. It would have been nice to wear what I'd chosen but this was for sure much better. My mother just apparated us there, saying it was ridiculous that the ministry was getting so strict with safety and all that rubbish. It was true all sorts of magic was being classified as ‘unsafe’ or ‘dark’, when it was just our traditions, really a shame.
This method of transport always made me feel a bit nauseous but I was mostly used to it overall. As we appeared in the station I began to see some familiar faces. We embraced before I got onto to the train and then I waved to them from my carriage, sat with Millicent and Daphne. Daphne was wearing the cobweb shirt we had bought together and I was a little upset we didn't match.
"Nice dress Pansy!" smiled Daphne, I swelled with pride over it, my mum did have excellent taste after all. We got our own carriage of course, Daphne was determined we sit where our mothers did when they were first going to Hogwarts in the 60's or whatever ancient time they'd grown up in. It was hard to find as they'd apparently changed the seat designs from when our parents were at school.
I luckily hogged the seat next to the window, I looked outside to see my parents again, they were speaking to each other and they couldn't see me. Daphne beside me was politely waving to hers, who also seemed to have lost where she was on the train.
I noticed little Astoria looking around for her older sister but she clearly didn't see us, moving her head back and forth desparately. It annoyed me and I stuck my neck out, my mother looked perplexed and my father looked anxious, as I tried to wave them over.
"Goodbye mother and father !" I shouted from my window, to which my mothers eyes widened, and she shifted as if I was not her child and I'd mistaken her for someome else, she could be silly like that sometimes. She was probably going through rule 38 on her pureblood ladies ettiquette book, something about how proper ladies didn't raise their voices. But I wouldn't be seeing them for a month and if I hadn't caught their attention like that, they wouldn't have seen me as the train started to depart.
Millicent joined in right away, her parents unlike mine seemed to find it funny rather than scandalous, Daphne was a little bit more reluctant, but I could tell she enjoyed it when we started. We all started screaming all we wanted out of the windows, our parents would have killed us if we were in reach. In fact, I expect there will be howlers later. This wasn't ladylike behaviour at all, but something about being away from my parents' reach felt exciting, I felt guilty as I should only miss them but I suppose I want to become more my own person. The train whistled and smoked before beginning to chug away.
Soon our parents were way out of view and we'd quietened down, Professor McGonagal had instructed us to get our heads out of the window and exposed us to a tedious lecture, and I swear to merlin she'd sneered at us. Millicent's older sister already told us she was biased towards Slytherins and I was already starting to believe it. Apparently she was injured by a Slytherin playing quidditch or something like that and there it was: her villain origin story.
We talked about our expectations for school. I for one was looking forward most to herbology, it was the closest thing to care of magical creatures we'd have in first year, but of course I wouldn't admit to such a swotty thing in front of my friends. Instead I mentioned that potions would be with Severus, an old family friend which would make the subject easier for us all.
My friends had all nodded, we were all expecting to be in Slytherin together, although I must admit Millicent had some horribly Hufflepuff tendencies, especially when it came to her cat, a Siamese that clung to her like the plague ever since she bought it from the menagerie a few years ago.
"Hullo," said a small female voice outside our carriage. "Um, excuse me have you seen a toad?"
I rolled my eyes looking back towards my friends before pulling back our curtain. It was a girl with bushy unkempt hair and muddy brown eyes. She was wearing jeans and a T-shirt that marked her as a muggle or a muggle-lover of some sort.
"No," I said, hopefully sternly and I used my wand to close the curtain up again, just to shove it in her face. I could hear an offended scoff from outside as the girl stormed away. I was slightly nervous as well, first time I'd seen anyone like that in close proximity, horrifying.
"Wow Pansy! You can already do a spell," gasped Daphne, trying to distract from the sickening situation.
"My mother uses that spell all the time, I just copied it."
I looked down at my wand proudly. It was a family heirloom, handcrafted by a Selwyn ancestor on my mother's side. Anyway, that was a horrible shock, I know that there were those kinds at Hogwarts but didn't expect to encounter one right away.
Soon the train arrived at our destination and we departed, many of the students were whispering about a chosen one being in our year or something like that. Draco had been talking about him all last month, already boring me over the details. Apparently, he had met the guy in Madame Malkin's over the summer, but now even Daphne, who usually kept to herself was curious to spot the boy wonder. I for one, didn't give a damn. Wizarding societies fixation on peculiar male halfbloods would be its downfall, at least thats what my father had said.
We got into boats, led by Hagrid, an ugly old giant who was apparently our groundskeeper. From here on the black lake, we tried to spot the Slytherin Dorms, which our parents had told us were semi submerged into the body of water.
It was a futile task but it gave us something to distract from the horrible creature, garbling in barely comprehensible English. I tried to remind myself there would be better things in Slytherin, more insurance against that sort,
We got to the castle and there was a brief lecture by the entrance, by the deputy Professor McGonagall, then Dumbledore. All the usual rules that people broke anyway, at least thats what Millicent's sister had assured us of, something about a third floor too, really boring useless stuff really. Then an explanation of how the houses worked, I guess for the benefit of those undesirables and then a song from the hat I found tedious and that utterly discredited Slytherin.
Draco tried to introduce himself to the scar head and was quickly rejected, apparently the boy preferred weasels and I had to comfort my blonde friend. Potter had to be a lunatic to choose Weasley over anything, and I promised Malfoy there'd be many opportunities to hex the orphan later.
Naturally, Daphne and Millicent were sorted into Slytherin, I was going to Slytherin too I was sure, but we had to go through all these other irrelevant people first.
The bushy haired girl from the train was up and walked down there whispering to herself as she went.
"What a weirdo," whispered a boy called Adrian Pucey and I nodded looking back up. She seemed flustered about the whole affair. "You can spot what she is really clearly you know."
I assumed he meant muggleborn and I had to agree, she looked a bit clueless in some ways, and with no recognisable name, she was most likely one of those.
"I say she's going to Ravenclaw," suggested Marcus, to his group of friends, who had been betting on every student going up to be sorted, purely out of boredom I guess, it must have been tedious witnessing the sorting year after year.
"Nah, with that bad hair? Gryffindor," replied Terrence Higgs smirking across the table.
"Bet a galleon on it?"
"You bet a galleon on it?" Terrence put his galleon in the centre of the table and leaned intimidatingly (I presume) towards his friend.
They both nodded to each other, and I was intrigued to see the result of their bet, the girl was certainly eccentric.
They looked over to see the results and so did we all, the hat was taking its precious time, apparently it’s called a hat stall when it does that. Well I sure hope it hurried this all up. Other Slytherins started betting too putting their shining coins in designated piles for each house, including Millicent, which I thought was a bit irresponsible of her, as she only had two galleons and she’d used it all, on Hufflepuff too. Foolish really, it was definitely Ravenclaw.
“I’ll put one on Slytherin, how about that?”smirked some boy, older, I didn’t know his name. After a few moments, the rag finally the hat finally spoke up.
"Slytherin!" it announced, and we all went silent, that Granger girl at the front went incredibly pale.
Was the hat on something? I thought, well it had sorted out everyone else just fine.
"Wait, what?"choked out Malfoy next to me.
I shrugged in disbelief.