Filomena
Disclaimer: I own nothing you recognise
Ms. F Jefferson-Cho
The first bedroom
48 Topeka Street
North-Pasadena, California
The letter had come a month before and even now, it seems very unreal, for all of us. I’m sitting in a compartment with Jack, Gretel and Alistair on our way to ‘Hogwarts’ , a school for magic. I mean magic isn’t exactly something I’ve never witnessed but it still feels surreal. “I don’t think you should want to be in Hufflepuff just because yellow is your favourite colour,” Gretel’s voice snaps me out of the reverie I’d been in for the past hour.
The train stops about an hour later and everyone files out of their compartments. We get off the train and stand there rather confused, none of us are sure where we’re meant to go, until we hear someone calling “firs years,” apparently we were meant to get to the school—which looks more like a castle—by going across the lake in boats.
A giant man leads us into the castle and leaves us in a corridor until a woman—professor McGonagall—lines all the first-years into two neat lines and leads us into the room, making us wait, everyone looking at the old hat on a stool as if waiting for something. And then to the shock of just about every first-year the hat opens what seems to be its mouth and begins to sing.
Oh you way not thing 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 you’re 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!”
“When I call your name, come forward and place the sorting hat on your head,” Professor McGonagall tells us, she opens a scroll and begins to read the names on the scroll.
“Albet, Hannah”
“HUFFLEPUFF!”
The girl sits down at the table second from the left, the people sitting there all applauding.
“Bartholomew Barnaby, Alistair,” Alistair’s eyes widen in fear, as he takes slow, shaking steps towards the stool and hat.
“HUFFLEPUFF!” the hat declares and Alistair sits down at the same table across from the girl.
“Bones, Susan”
“HUFFLEPUFF!”
“Boot, Terry”
“RAVENCLAW!”
“Brocklest, Mandy”
“RAVENCLAW!”
“Brown, Lavender”
“GRYFFINDOR!”
“Bulstrode, Millicent”
“SLYTHERIN!”
“Cobbler, Gretel”
SLYTHERIN!” Gretel looks very nervous as she sits down at the table on the far right.
“Finch-Fletchley, Justin”
“HUFFLEPUFF!”
“Finnigan, Seamus”
“GRYFFINDOR!”
“Granger, Hermione”
“GRYFFINDOR!”
“Jefferson-Cho, Filomena” I almost start panicking when I sit on the stool and as soon as the hat’s on my head I can hear a voice, “Let’s see, I sense courage, loyalty too, but the mind, no question, should be. RAVENCLAW!” The hat shouts the last word and I jump before putting the hat back on the stool and going to sit at the table second from the right.
“Longbottom, Neville”
“GRYFFINDOR!”
“Macdougal, Morag”
“RAVENCLAW!”
“Malfoy, Draco”
“SLYTHERIN!”
I can see Jack looking more and more worried the more the crowd thinned, still there must’ve been at least another dozen names before Professor McGonagal calls his name and he’s placed in Gryffindor, so much for all of us being together. Once the sorting’s finished the headmaster stands up, says literal gibberish before the empty plates and goblets fill and everyone happily eats.
I’m not going to bore you with the rest of this so to give you a quick sum-up of the rest of the night. After the feast Dumbledore inform us “the forest next to the castle is forbidden, the third floor corridor on the right hand side is off limits to all who do not wish to die a most painful death, no magic in the corridors between classes and quidditch trials will be held the second week of the term” (I did have to ask someone what that was) then everyone heads back to their dorms and I find out in order to get into the common room I have to answer a riddle, but the part of that really bothering me is that I found out some people have chosen to sleep in the hall because the riddle was too difficult to answer. Although plenty of people have made friends that way so worth it? We’re getting out schedules tomorrow at breakfast, right before classes and I met my four new roommates (Padma, Mandy, Morag and Lisa) and we figured out the whole shared space situation, they seem nice.