Forgotten Memories

Y/N’s eyes widened and her eyebrows rose, “You… you’re Harry Potter?” She asked in disbelief.

        Harry nodded slowly, “Yes.” He said, shifting his eyes from side to side. Y/N’s jaw had been open in shock since he had said his name.

        Looking at him, she stuttered out a question, “Do… do you have” not being able to finish her sentence due to being so flustered.

        Harry worked out what she was talking about and sighed, “Yeah.” Lifting up his fringe, he showed her the lightning shaped scar.

        She looked at his scar with amazement. That was the scar she had spent a good portion of her summer learning about. He was in all of the history books she read. He was mentioned in books about the Dark Lord's rise and fall, the history of the magical world, books about important historical figures and a plethora of others. To be meeting him in person was crazy. “Woah.” Y/N just gaped at him after saying those words. She was astonished that the Harry Potter seemed just like her—a regular kid.

        Harry just awkwardly rocked back and forth as the giant yelled something about no more than four children per boat. Y/N realised that she was probably making Harry uncomfortable and apologised. As they both boarded a boat, Y/N, Harry, were joined by two other kids. One of the kids being Hermione from the train and a ginger boy named Ron. The boys’ full name was Ronald Weasley. Y/N figured that Ron, George, and Fred were related.

Over the course of the entire ride, Y/N learned that Ron was, in fact, related to Fred and George. She also learned that Hermione was also a Muggle-born witch. While Hermione can be a know-it-all and annoying, Y/N felt slightly more at ease knowing that there was another Muggle-born she could get to know—even though Harry’s practically a Muggle-born himself, he still had parents who had magic and had magical lineage, whereas neither her nor Hermione had magical lineage or magic parents. It felt more... genuine?

        Y/N also got to get her first look at the world that would be her home for the next 9 months. The castle was huge and magnificent; it looked so welcoming with light shining out of every window. The surrounding land was lush and full of nature—though it was dark out, so Y/N didn’t get the greatest view of the forest. But because of the night being dimly lit by the moonlight, Y/N could get a few glimpses of what lay in the forest. She saw a wolf and what looked like a… dodo bird? She thought those went extinct, but perhaps the magical world was just hoarding all the supposedly extinct animals.

All of the boats entered the boathouse and the giant that was leading in a bigger boat with a lantern got out of his boat and yelled, “Everyone out and onto the dock! Make sure you’ve got all yer belongings that you had on when you entered the boats!”

Once the giant checked all of the boats and made sure no stragglers were left behind, he led all of the new first-years up a few flights of stone stairs and stopped them at huge oak door that was decorated with black metal hinges and giant screws that kept the hinges connected to the door frame. The lockset was also in the sleek black colour and was lower on the door than the hinges.

Harry walked up to the front with Ron, squeezing his scrawny and tiny body through the crowd while dragging the tall, lanky ginger with him, getting a few glares along the way. Y/N quickly followed behind the two boys through the gaps and the narrow path that their pushing left; quickly apologising to the people she bumped into on the way. Whispering to herself under her breath, Y/N finally caught up to the two boys at the front. Harry was whispering something about the giant, whose name was Hagrid, apparently, to Ron. Y/N didn’t quite catch what Harry said, but she heard that it was something along the lines of ‘He’s the reason I’m here.’

Hagrid cleared his throat and faced the sea of eleven year olds. “Yer all new, so yer all expected to be on yer best behaviour. Don’t go ‘round causing bunches o’ trouble.” He then turned so his back was facing the first years and knocked on the door three times. The door opened and revealed McGonagall in all her emerald-robed glory. Hagrid spoke up again, this time to Professor McGonagall, “’Ere are the firs’ years, Professor.”

“Thank you, Hagrid. I can handle them from here, you go inside.” McGonagall said with a small smile. She then turned to face the first years. Her smile became a stern look as she began to speak to the crowd of children, “Welcome to Hogwarts: School of Witchcraft and Wizardry!” She said as she opened the huge oak doors wide.  The Entrance Hall was extremely big. Y/N reckoned that you could probably fit the entirety of the rose maze at Riddle's home in it—wait, why is she thinking of those strange dreams? Forget it. The walls of the hall were made of cracked stone and were lined with torches that you would assume to be from a castle founded in the Dark Ages. The ceiling was so high that you could probably fit two thousand Y/Ns from top to bottom, granted she's eleven years old and most children her age are on average just about 4 '7". The staircase that went up to other floors was made of gorgeous marble that looked almost too pretty to be stepped on.

Professor McGonagall led them up the flight of stairs and past a door that was bigger than the first door that the students had encountered when exiting the boathouse and entering the castle. Y/N heard voices coming from behind the door, and it seemed like Harry did too, as he had made a curious face at the noises being made from the people in the room that was behind the ginormous oak door. McGonagall brought the children to a room away from the door and stopped. All the first years stared at her as she began speaking, Y/N paid the closest attention to McGonagall—she didn’t want to disrespect her non-biological mother figure!

“The beginning-of-term banquet will start soon, but before your first steps into the Great Hall are taken, there is something you all must know. Your seats will be taken only after you are sorted into your houses. The Sorting ceremony is imperative to your life here at Hogwarts. During your years here your house will be like your family at Hogwarts. Your classes will be taken with your housemates, sleep in the dormitories and spend your time in your house's common rooms.”

“The four houses of Hogwarts are called Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and Slytherin. Every house has its own history that you will learn about in your time here, and each has pushed outstanding witches and wizards into the world. While you are here at Hogwarts, your triumphs will earn your house points, and any rule-breaking will lose house points. At the end of each year, the house with the most cumulative points will win the House Cup, a great honour. I hope you all will be a credit to whatever house you are sorted into. The Sorting Ceremony is to take place shortly in front of the rest of the school. I advise you to smarten yourselves up while waiting.”

McGonagall gave a stern look to a kid whose cloak was fastened right under his left ear, and to Ron, who had dust on his nose. Y/N gave McGonagall a reverent look and beamed when she saw McGonagall crack the tiniest smile at her look of awe. Y/N turned to Harry and Ron. Harry was frantically flattening his hair and trying to make himself look presentable while Ron was confused as to why McGonagall gave him a disapproving look. “Ron, you have smudged dust on your nose.” Y/N said with a smirk as she saw Ron’s eyes widen. “Let me get it for you.” She sighed with an empathetic look, raising her hands to his face and gently rubbing the dirt off of his nose. Ronald blushed as her soft hands held his face with such care and cleaned the smudged dirt off of his nose.

“You good there, Ron? You’re going a little red.” Y/N teased at him as his eyes widened once again and he looked away trying to hide his face from her view. Suddenly Harry gasped and multiple people in the hall screamed. Y/N and Ron looked towards the commotion, her hands slipping away from Ron’s face as they looked at twenty ghosts who streamed through the back wall. They were all a pearly white colour and were transparent, they all glided across the air conversing within their own respective groups and not even giving a single glance to the first years. They all seemed to be in a heated debate about someone named ‘Peeves’ and giving him too many ‘second chances’ to count. Soon after, a ghost in a ruff and tights noticed the students standing and waiting.

“I say, what are you all doing here?” The ghost in the ruff says cutting himself off, Y/N hadn’t heard the conversation the ghosts were having other than small bits and pieces, so she couldn’t really tell why he was so shocked. Y/N was daydreaming about lying in bed and falling asleep. Nobody answered the ghost.

Suddenly, the second ghost enthusiastically said “New students!” He smiled and looked around at them, “About to be sorted, I suppose?” he questioned at them, and a few of the people in the crowd nodded slowly, including Y/N, who beamed at the friendly seeming ghost and happily nodded, rather than the spooked nods the kids around her gave. The friendly ghost chuckled and said something Y/N didn’t quite catch, as she started daydreaming again and thinking back to why she thought about Riddle’s rose maze when she first saw the Entrance Hall. She was baffled as to why her first thought was not to compare the enormousness of the hall to something she knew in real life, but to a dreamland maze that only appeared in those hauntingly vivid memory dreams. She always felt so real in those dreams, like she had lived through them in her life, when she hadn’t. It spooked her, so why was her mind drifting off to sleeping and seeing what happens next? Why was she wishing to go back; to continue dreaming of Riddle, Trey, and Che’nya?

Y/N shook her head as McGonagall appeared again. The ghosts that were drifting idly while the happy ghost spoke, one-by-one floated away through an opposite wall to the first years. “Now,” McGonagall said, “form a single-file line and follow me.” All of the first years moved into a line and followed McGonagall. Y/N ended up behind Ron, who was behind Harry. McGonagall lead the students to a pair of double doors that led into the Great Hall. As Y/N entered, her eyes glistened with delight and amazement; it looked so enchanting, with lit candles floating just under a starry night sky—which looked as if Van Gogh painted it himself—that sparkled with constellations. It looked as though the moon had been pulled from space and brought into the hall; it looked so close yet so far, with all its fullness and bright, cool light that contrasted perfectly with the warm lighting that the candles provided.

In the hall four long tables resided, each with its own fill of students. The tables were set with golden plates and goblets that shined under the candlelight, creating a glittery effect. At the front of the hall was another long table full of what Y/N presumed to be the professors of Hogwarts, all sitting together. The first years were led to right in front of where the teachers’ platform was, and then McGonagall stopped moving. They were facing the student body with the professors behind them. Y/N didn’t mind the staring faces, and she even smiled and waved when she saw George and Fred – as well as Lee Jordan. She heard Hermione whisper to someone that the night sky was just a bewitchment and that she had read it in Hogwarts: A History. Y/N had read it in Hogwarts: A History, too, but she was still just as enchanted with it as everyone else, knowledge didn’t change the fact that it felt so surreal to see such a beautiful thing with her own eyes. Y/N watched intently as McGonagall placed a wooden stool down and put a torn and patched up pointy wizard hat on the stool. The entire hall was watching the hat with great intensity, and the hall was blanketed in complete silence for a few seconds. The hat jerked and a rip near the bottom of the hat opened and started to sing:

‘Oh, you may not think I’m pretty,

 But don’t judge on what you see,

 I’ll eat myself if you can find

A smarter hat than me.

You can keep your bowlers black,

Your top hats sleek and tall,

For I’m the Hogwarts Sorting Hat

And I can cap them all.

There’s nothing hidden in your head

The Sorting Hat can’t see,

So try me on and I will tell you

Where you ought to be.

You might belong in Gryffindor,

Where dwell the brave at heart,

Their daring, nerve and chivalry

Set Gryffindors apart;

You might belong in Hufflepuff

Where they are just and loyal,

Those patient Hufflepuffs are true

And unafraid of toil;

Or yet in wise old Ravenclaw,

If you’ve a ready mind,

Where those of wit and learning,

Will always find their kind;

Or perhaps in Slytherin

You’ll make your real friends,

Those cunning folk use any means

To achieve their ends.

So put me on!

Don’t be afraid!

And don’t get in a flap!

 You’re in safe hands (though I have none)

For I’m a Thinking Cap!’

The entire hall erupted into applause the moment the Sorting Hat finished its song. Y/N giggled as she heard Ron complain about Fred saying that you’d have to fight a troll to get sorted rather than just put on an old hat. Professor McGonagall took a single step forward with a roll of parchment in her hands.

“When I call your name, you will put on the hat and sit on the stool to be sorted into your house.”

A bunch of names were called before Y/N’s name was called, though she was called closer to the start of the ceremony rather than the end, as they were called by the first letter of the students' last names and hers started with H.

She slowly walked to the stool, all the adrenaline and excitement she had up until now had bubbled up and then fizzled out, her walk to the stool felt as if it were in slow motion; her hands were shaking, her mind was racing, and her heart was beating out of her chest, going a thousand miles per hour.

‘What if the hat doesn’t sort me and it turns out that I’m actually just magicless?’ ‘What if I get sorted into a house full of people who hate me?’ ‘What if no one likes me because of my house and I never get to talk to anyone again.’ ‘WHAT IF I BECOME A SOCIAL OUTCAST?’

Suffice to say, she was panicking. She had heard things about each house from George and Fred, as well as in the books she read the summer before the start of term. A lot of people have a strong prejudice against the Slytherin house, and most people in Slytherin, according to Fred, are jerks who would love nothing more than to “pummel all Mudbloods into the ground” as Fred put it.

She reaches the stool and shakily takes her seat. McGonagall gives her a comforting smile before putting the hat onto her head and covering her vision in complete and utter darkness.

‘Ah, I see, I see. A wonder indeed, someone who does not belong here.’ The hat said in Y/N’s mind. Her panic doubled—scratch that, it was multiplied by a hundred. What does the hat mean? Why doesn’t she belong here?

‘A whole different world awaits you at the other side of the mirror; a family is awaiting your return, your arrival back home.’ What? What does it mean when it says a family is awaiting her return back home? She’s already where she’s meant to be.

‘Such a peculiar child, your magic isn’t like the rest. It is full of consequences and regrets. Be careful with your power, if you lose control, it could kill you. Your magic is polluted by worries.’ Y/N blanks and her mind stops working. Polluted? Nothing this hat says makes any sense!

‘Your intelligence and integrity is a valuable resource, but your willingness to take the initiative shows bravery and leadership. Your loyalty is unmatched; you’d die before you would betray a friend, giving your life for a place in their heart. Yet you’re sly like a fox and cunning to a great extent, deceiving others often seems to be your forte.’ The hat said, and Y/N could just hear the smirk in his… voice? Is it his voice, seeing as he’s speaking through telepathy?

Y/N finally decided to give her input, ‘If you’re going to speak about me as if I were an object to advertise, will I at least get a say in where I am to spend the next seven years of my life?’

The hat sighed in her mind and spoke once again, ‘I suppose it would only be fair, seeing as your future is grim, yet uncertain.’

Y/N gave up trying to understand what the hat meant, ‘I would like to be put into a house that you know will not judge me for my blood status and will not become social suicide in the coming years.’

The hat took a minute and thought about it, before speaking—outside of her mind—and announcing…

.

..

…

….

“Better be… RAVENCLAW!”