Catch The Snitch

Monday, September 1, 2003, The Great Hall

"Katherine Cromwell!"

Katie huffed that they'd used her legal name for the sorting. Of course they would. Normally she wouldn't answer to Katherine because she didn't like how formal-sounding it was, but this was neither the time nor the place to complain about it.

She was nervous, not because she was being sorted per se, but because nearly everyone in the hall was staring at her. She'd never had this much attention before. Not even when she'd been put in a silver cage in St. Mungo's the night she'd been infected with partial lycanthropy, or when they did it again on her second full moon, just to be sure that she wouldn't transform into a wolf and pose a risk to others.

Shakily, she stepped forward. En route to the stool, she spared a quick glance to her mum, who was seated at the head table. Her mum had begun teaching music at the school just the year prior.

As she settled onto the stool, the Sorting Hat was placed on her head, and her eyes rolled upward as she looked up at the front part of its brim, even though there wasn't anything particularly interesting for her to see there.

"Well, aren't you a bright young witch?", the Hat observed. "I see you've already got a knack for potion-making as well...and you want to make a name for yourself. Slytherin has produced more potion-masters than any other house, you know..."

Katie bit her lower lip and shook her head. "No! They'll eat me alive because I'm...not fully human," she protested. "It's bad enough that I'm not a pure-blood to them, but to be nearly a werewolf...if that ever got out..."

"I doubt they would eat you alive," the Hat replied, apparently interpreting her concern literally. "And, rest assured, you're no less human than any other witch or wizard. But I suppose you're right, some do cling to their prejudices, even today. If not Slytherin, then the obvious place for you would be..."

"Ravenclaw!", the Hat shouted.

Katie was relieved to be placed in Ravenclaw, as her mother had been, but she was also put-off by the fact that the Hat didn't give her the option to decline Ravenclaw either, the way it had for Slytherin. She supposed the Hat must've been certain that she wouldn't be happy in either Gryffindor or Hufflepuff for some reason.

The Hat was lifted from her head. She hopped down, then flashed a grin to her mum, before running off to the Ravenclaw table, which was cheering for her.


**********

At the end of the feast, the prefects stood up first and told the first-years to follow them to their houses. But Katie needed to do something first! She excitedly ran up behind the head table, where her mum was sitting, and hugged her.

One of the prefects had noticed Katie running towards the head table, and lagged behind the other prefects for Katie's sake.

"I know!", Katie said. "This is so cool!" She let go of the hug, and glanced to the Slytherin table with its green tapestries. She considered mentioning that the Hat had first tried to tempt her to accept Slytherin, but she was afraid that her mum might think she wasn't a true Ravenclaw because she'd declined another house first, or that she might've made a bad decision by second-guessing the Hat, or that she'd expressly picked Ravenclaw just because her mum was a Ravenclaw. She was conflicted because she hadn't had time to really think through what it meant to decline a house. It had been a very eventful day and her mind was racing like a kid's on Christmas morning.

She decided she could always mention it later, after she had more time to consider the pros and cons. She felt that mentioning it now could only tarnish what was otherwise a happy moment.

She glanced to the one remaining Ravenclaw prefect. "I should go before the last prefect loses their patience," she said. "I'd hate to miss the start of the orientation. I'll see you in music class? I love you."

With that, she hopped off the dais and sprinted off.

There were more girls in Katie's dorm than windows. Katie and one other girl had strategically positioned their desks back-to-back in front of the grated window they shared, to take advantage of the natural light it provided, though most days so far this week had been overcast. The window was slightly cracked open to let in some fresh air, though it was raining outside, and the patter of rain against the panes created a calming atmosphere.

Her headboard conveniently had a built-in bookshelf. Aside from her school books, it was also holding some books she'd apparently checked out from the library, or perhaps they were borrowed from the stacks in the Ravenclaw common room.

Attached to the wall above her bed-side table was a moon phase calendar, and Wednesday, September 10 would be the next full moon.

Katie was reclined on her bed, propped up by a small pile of pillows, and dressed casually and with socked feet. Her charms textbook was in her lap. Her black kitten, Jinx, was curled up beside her, and her wand was laying on her other side, as if she'd recently been practicing wand movements.

She was alone in the room.

Hearing the knock, she looked up across the room to see her mother. "Mum!", she called out as she set her book aside and sat up, tucking her feet beneath her.

Katie scooped up Jinx and cuddled him in her arms.

"I think most of my classes will be fun once they get going," Katie was happy to report. "Though so far, we've mostly been slogging through safety orientations, going over basic things that anyone who's not muggle-born should already know. 'Don't point your wand at other students', 'Don't add anything to someone else's brewing without their knowledge', 'Never attempt to eat anything that has been transfigured, because it will eventually return to its original form, which could be fatal', and so on. I think history of magic is going to be boring though, because there's no safety orientation--there's nothing practical to it, just memorization. Astronomy will be all right for the most part, at least it has a practical component."

She sighed. "I'm going to miss some astronomy lessons, obviously. There's a full moon next week and it's the first time our class is going up to the top of the tower to use our telescopes. I'm not sure what excuse I'm going to give people yet." She glanced toward her neighbor's bed, the one whose desk was pushed up against her own. "I feel like I should let some friends know the truth, eventually, after I've come to trust them. But it's nobody else's business."