The Sorting

The tall witch introduced herself as Professor McGonagall and led the first-year students into an empty chamber off the entrance hall. Danica could hear the drone of hundreds of voices coming from a doorway to the right and concluded that the rest of the school must be in there.

"Welcome to Hogwarts," said Professor McGonagall. "The start-of-term banquet will begin shortly, but before you take your seats in the Great Hall, you will be sorted into your houses. The Sorting is a very important ceremony because, while you are here, your house will be something like your family within Hogwarts. You will have classes with the rest of your house, sleep in your house dormitory, and spend free time in your house common room."

"The four houses are called Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and Slytherin. Each house has its own noble history and each has produced outstanding witches and wizards. The Sorting Ceremony will take place in a few minutes in front of the whole school. I suggest that you smarten yourselves and I will return when we are ready for you." The professor left the chamber and all of the kids started to whisper quietly amongst each other.

Danica smoothed down her hair and straightened her plain black robes when Pansy said to her, "I'm nervous, should I be?"

Danica chuckled to herself and replied with, "I wouldn't be; It's not like a test or anything."

Professor McGonagall came back into the chamber to place the first years in a straight line. Danica somehow got separated by her friends and was behind some boy who was shaking so much from his nerves. Danica rolled her eyes at how he was behaving in front of everybody.

The line started moving and the first years made their way into the Great Hall. Thousands of candles were suspended midair above four long tables, where the rest of the students were sitting. At the top of the hall was another long table, where the teachers were seated. Professor McGonagall led the first years up there so that they came to a halt facing the rest of the students with the teachers behind them. Danica, among many other students, looked up at the ceiling to see that it was velvety black and dotted with stars. She heard a girl behind her in line whisper, "It's bewitched to look like the sky outside. I read about it in Hogwarts, A History."

At that time, Professor McGonagall placed a four-legged stool in front of the line of first-years. On top of the stool was a frayed and extremely old wizard's hat. Danica knew what that was: the Sorting Hat. It would determine her fate for the next seven years. The hat twitched and a line near the brim opened wide like a mouth and the hat began to sing a song.

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After it's rather interesting song, everyone in the hall burst into applause, then it got silent. Professor McGonagall stepped forward, now holding a long roll of parchment.

"When I call your name, you will put on the hat and sit on the stool to be sorted," she said. "Abbot, Hannah!"

A pink-faced girl with blonde pigtails stumbled out of line and put on the hat. There was a moment's pause -

"HUFFLEPUFF!" shouted the hat.

The table to the right cheered and clapped when she went to sit down at the Hufflepuff table. The next girl to be sorted was a Hufflepuff too, and Danica scoffed at them, remembering Draco's comment about Hufflepuffs.

"Boot, Terry!" was called and a cocky boy with dark hair walked up to the stool and was the first person to be placed in Ravenclaw.

"Bulstrode, Millicent!"
"SLYTHERIN!"

"Clearwater, Juliet!"
"RAVENCLAW!"

Danica lost track of who was being sorted in which houses while she was mentally preparing herself to be sorted. Random thoughts began entering her head: what if she isn't cunning or ambitious enough to be a Slytherin? Realistically she should be one since everyone in her blood-line had been a Slytherin.

"Granger, Hermione" was called and the girl in line behind Danica bounded up to the hat and was sorted in Gryffindor.

Daphne Greengrass followed Hermione in the sorting line and became a Slytherin; Danica could already envision Pansy's reaction to that.

"Lestrange, Danica!" was called out by Professor McGonagall. A lot of people, both students and teachers, stared at her. Everyone in the wizarding world could recognize her surname, thanks to her parents.

She confidently walked up to the stool, sat down, and put the Sorting Hat on. A voice inside the hat said, " Hmmm, I see much ambition in you, but what I also see is a knack for intelligence. Could that just be cunning traits, hmm, possibly?"

"What is this I see now? I see a different side to you, one of which that has the certain skills needed to excel in RAVENCLAW!"

Danica felt her eyes widen and her face form a shocked expression. There was a moment of silence before that same cocky boy, Terry Boot, got the Ravenclaw table clapping for Danica. As she was making her way over, she was thinking to herself how she is a Ravenclaw, out of all the houses? Her family was going to be so angry with her, but what if her parents ever found out? Danica didn't want to know.

The boy who was in front of Danica in the line was called next and his name was Neville Longbottom. Danica had for sure never met him, but the name sounded very familiar. He was sorted into Gryffindor (which was a surprise to most people) and the next boy was sorted into Hufflepuff. Then it was Draco's turn.

He sauntered up to the Sorting Hat, not displaying his slight levels of nervousness about his cousin's sorting. He didn't want the same thing to happen to him and ruin the reputation of their family anymore.

But the second that the Sorting Hat touched his head, Draco was declared as a Slytherin. He smirked, mainly at Danica to show her that he was the true Slytherin out of the two of them.

With Danica, she couldn't think straight. Draco was a Slytherin but not her? They were basically siblings and did the same things and were taught the same way. She was even more distraught that Pansy was a Slytherin, along with Theodore Nott. After the last student was sorted (into Slytherin, of course), the dishes in front of everyone became piled high with food. Roast beef, pork chops, peas, carrots, boiled potatoes, and also Yorkshire pudding. Danica thought that the feast would elevate her mood, but it didn't, and some kids near her noticed.

"Hey, don't feel so bad, at least you aren't a Slytherin," said a dark-skinned boy sitting near Danica.

She looked over at him slowly, giving him the death glare. Then the cocky Ravenclaw Terry Boot responded with, "I don't think that made her happy, mate."

"Yeah, you think?" Danica said harshly to them.

Those boys took the hint and stopped talking to Danica and she sat eating her roast beef alone. A quiet girl with dark brown hair moved over by Danica to reach the mashed potatoes and stayed right next to her.

"Hi," the girl spoke quietly. "Looks like we are going to be sharing a dorm."

"That's not likely," responded Danica. "After the feast, I'm going straight to Dumbledore's office and requesting a house change. If that doesn't work, my uncle has an important role in the Ministry and he will make it happen."

The girl seemed disappointed, but said, "Oh, ok good luck. And by the way, I'm Juliet, not that you will need to know my name anymore."

"Danica Lestrange."

Danica held out her hand for Juliet to shake and waited for a shocked or surprised reaction, but it didn't happen. Juliet just shook her hand like nothing had happened.

Danica looked at Juliet for a minute before Juliet said, "Is there something wrong?"

"Oh, nothing. It's just that most people I meet assume the worst about me. Because of my last name. Wait a minute, are you a muggleborn?" Danica.

"Yeah, and so is my older sister, Penelope, she is a prefect," Juliet waved at an older girl sitting further down the Ravenclaw table. "She was gifted with magical blood and I ended up gifted as well. My parents named us both after characters from muggle literature and I guess that's how we ended up as Ravenclaws."

"Mhmm, I've never met anyone muggleborn. But you don't seem that bad," Danica said truthfully. She had always been interested in why muggles were so bad, but when she questioned her uncle, he always had the same answer: pure-blood wizards are superior to all other magical beings.

"Hey Jules, are you going to eat all of those potatoes?" said a tan girl with messy, curly hair. "I'm going to sit over here now since it's been ten minutes and Goldstein has already bothered me too much."

She looked over at Danica and sat on the other side of Juliet.

"Who's your friend?" the tan girl asked Juliet.

"Lia, meet Danica Lestrange. Danica, meet my friend Lia Swallows, who I met at King's Cross." Juliet introduced the two girls to each other and they shook hands.

"Hey, so Lestrange. You don't happen to be related to-" Lia was interrupted by Danica.

"Yes, death eaters are my parents. And no, I'm not one of them, I hardly remember 'em," Danica said lazily. Every time someone questioned her about if her parents were Bellatrix and Roldolphus Lestrange, Danica gave them the same response. In fact, she didn't even want to "follow in their footsteps", she just wanted to make her own life and not to live in the dark shadow of her parents.

"That's cool. Say, thoughts on these mashed potatoes," Lia said that sparked a conversation between the three Ravenclaws. Danica learned that Lia's parents had attended Hogwarts and her dad was a muggleborn wizard. In Lia's words, "I get the best of both worlds; the magical world and the muggle world." Danica enjoyed their discussion and felt like she could let her personality loose in their presence.

She felt a whole new side of herself start to emerge.

So, yeah, if you couldn't tell from my cast list Danica is a Ravenclaw! I just wanted some more recognition for the Ravenclaw house & I thought that it would make for an interesting plot.