Sorting
You strut into the hall, a confident spring in your step and a smile on your lips, looking at all the shocked students like 'and?'
Sure, maybe it is a little ridiculous, an obviously older girl alongside all the kids, heading to the front behind McGonagall to be sorted. But it isn't your fault they expelled you from Ilvermorny for setting your potions master on fire. The man deserved it. Now, your family has moved back to the UK with the intentions of sending you to Hogwarts.
'It'll be good to reconnect with your roots, y/n.'
'Don't complain, y/n. This is for the best.'
Your luscious (insert colour) hair swishes, swinging in time with your steps. who cares about what your parents, or in fact anyone else thinks? It is your mission to cause as much trouble as possible, to wreak as much havoc as you can. If you are to have a reputation, you need an unforgettable first impression, and this is definitely it.
Once your group finally reaches the front of the hall, McGonagall stops you and shushes you as the headmaster begins his speech.
In your opinion, it's pretty boring. something about forests and great danger and a new rather pink DADA professor, who introduces herself with the most obnoxiously high-pitched, grating voice you have ever heard in your life. Her voice reminds you of drinking orange juice after brushing your teeth, or slowly raking your nails down a chalkboard. Everything about her is prim and proper and so fucking pink, it makes you despise her immediately. You have nothing against pink, but on her, it's like squeezing lemons into your eyes.
At last, she finally finishes, and it's time for sorting.
As each shaking kid scuttles their way up to the hat, you let your eyes wonder.
Teenagers mingle around the great chamber, dressed in garments of black and either red, green, gold or blue. Many of them whisper, glancingup at you. You smile. Brilliant. Let them talk.
On the faculty table, there is a bearded giant, a bespectacled dwarf, several witches and wizards garbed like McGonagall, and obviously the ancient headmaster. Your eyes settle on only one teacher.
He’s tall, not as tall as the giant, but still pretty up there. His broad shouldars are cloaked in black, raven hair falling over them. His yees are dark and piercing, and trained directly on you, no doubt sizing you up.
Despite yourself, you blush. He’s obviously a little older, but he cant be more than 40. And damn. This guy is weirdly attractive for a Hogwarts professor.
“Y/N (surname)!”
You start at the sound of your name, and jump quickly onto the stage thing. You can feel the eyes of the entire student body and faculty on you as you take a seat on the stool. The second the hat is placed on your head, the whispers of the people die, and there is only one voice in your head.
You’re a little old, aren’t you?
Yes, you reply. Just a bit
Older and… confident. You have a great many plans for your limited time here. Starting late won’t stop you. There is a strong-willed mind here. You believe rules don’t apply to you and have no qualms with breaking them.
You smirk. Rules have never been my thing.
Very well.
“SLYTHERIN” It bellows out loud, to raucous cheering from the green table.
The house of snakes. The house He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named was in. the house where anything is possible if you put your mind to it, if there is enough determination in your heart, enough ambition in your soul.
Oh, I’m going to fit in well, you think to yourself as you sit down at this new table.
“Hi!” A voice next to you pipes up.
It’s a girl around your age, pretty with blonde curls and coffee-brown eyes. She looks like she should belong in Hufflepuff, with her big smile and bubbly demeanour.
“I’m Odessa.” She chirps, holding out her hand. “Odessa Hawthorne.” You shake it, unsure.
“Odessa?” You say. “That’s a nice name. the female equivalent of Odysseus, if I’m not mistaken?”
“I guess. So, Y/N, what brings you to Hogwarts at such an age?”
You raise an eyebrow, both impressed and taken aback with her boldness. Shrugging, you pick up a fork and swirl it around the plate in front of you, waiting for the food to appear.
“Expelled from Ilvermory.”
“Whoa, so you’re American?”
“Do I sound American?”
“Well,” she looks at the table, her ears growing pink at your sharp response, ”…no.”
You sigh. “I lived in America for a while. Mother and Father came into some money and decided the US was the place for us”
“If you don’t mind me asking, how were you expelled?”
“Set a teacher on fire.”
She blinks a couple of times. “Oh.”
“You set a teacher on fire?” A male voice joins in, his words cut through with laughter.
“Wait, who set a teacher on fire?”
“Y/N! the new girl!”
Soon, the whole of Slytherin table is consumed by this revelation, and you get many slaps on the back. It spreads like wildfire around the hall, like the fire that destroyed your teacher’s favourite robe, (the one with the special and only photograph of his dead wife inside, but nobody needs to know that), and everybody laughs.
“Way to go, Y/N,” another male voice enters the mix, smug and approving with the unmistakeable stench of aristocracy, “elegant way to get kicked out.”
You search for the source of the voice, and find it comes from the mouth of the boy in front of you, a boy with platinum blond, shiny green eyes and perhaps the most arrogant grin you’ve ever seen.
“Malfoy, Draco Malfoy,” he leans over the table, extending his hand, and you shake it like you did for Odessa.
“Pleasure.”
He leans back again, “You’re a woman of few words.”
Your eyes flick up. “What’s the point of talking so much if I can get my message out shortly?”
“I don’t know” he sniffs like a spoiled ass, “perhaps it’s the American butchery of the English language speaking. You did say you come from America, didn’t you?”
“Yeah? I talk fine.”
“Hm”
His attention is averted from you fairly quickly and you roll your eyes.
“Don’t worry Y/N,” Odessa says sweetly besides you, “Draco’s like that with everyone”
Your voice is cold. ‘”I’m not worried.”
She laughs awkwardly and is saved as the food shows up at last. As everyone is tucking in, you glance back up to the teacher’s table, eyes trained on one person who is still looking back at you.
Maybe it’s you imagination, but you think he smirks as your gazes meet.
Well, between you idiot classmates and odd professors, this is going to be one hell of a ride….