"SLYTHERIN" The sorting hat announced, shocking the Weasleys, Draco, Harry any many Gryffindors."Wait! This must be a mistake." Percy stood up from his table, the Gryffindor table was a noisy mess, no one had ever expected a Weasley to be ever sorted in Slytherin.
"Mr. Weasley, please retain your silence." McGonagall said looking at Percy fiercely, "There aren"t any mistakes at all." She said but she still was unsure of what was wrong so she looked at Dumbledore for answers.
Percy, clenching his fist looked at Ginny who was a bit shaken up by the revelation. The Slytherins who had been annoyed by the antics of the Weasley were smirking. Fred and George were similarly worried for their sister like Percy and last but not least Ron got the biggest shock of them all as he was just stuck there with his mouth wide open, while Harry and Hermione were trying to calm him down.
Dumbledore looked at Ginny through his half-moon gla.s.ses and at the hat, as he sighed, "There"s nothing wrong with the sorting hat, Professor McGonagall please continue the ceremony."
McGonagall nodded and sent Ginny towards the Slytherin table, even though she wanted to say something, she knew there wasn"t anything else she could"ve done. Unlike the other students, Ginny walked up towards the Slytherin table silently as there wasn"t even a single person who cheered for her.
Ginny wanted to cry due to the sudden change of her expectation, the one thing she feared the most had come to life, she wasn"t a Gryffindor like her family but a Slytherin. There hasn"t been a Weasley who was in Slytherin, ever. (Don"t know if it"s true but I couldn"t find anyone who was in there.)
As Ginny was walking towards the Slytherin table silently, suddenly she heard a clap. She looked to see who it was and it was none other than Draco. One by one the students started clapping following Draco, not caring anymore. They would rather please Draco than mess with a first year. Even though there wasn"t any cheer of any sort, the clap was still louder than ever. Daphne looked at Ginny who was stuck there looking at them and sighed, she cleared the seat next to her and signaled her to come over there.
Draco who was beside Daphne let out a simple smile, Ginny nervously walked over to them and sat in the empty spot, thanking Daphne. Snape snorted while the rest of the teachers had a little smile on their face none the less. A couple of Slytherin"s were jealous wondering why a Weasley would get the special favor of Draco but they couldn"t do anything about it. The ceremony continued and other than a handful of students, none of them really caught the interest of Draco.
After Dumbledore"s regular speech, it was finally the time for the feast. Draco sat eating and chatting with his friends, Ginny, on the other hand, was silent as she just played with her food rather than eating it. Draco had felt a bit of sympathy for Ginny as she was suddenly in Slytherin due to some reason, and he was sure she would have a lot of trouble in the future as well. Draco wasn"t close to her at all so other than a little help he wasn"t interested in taking care of her full time. At the time, Draco noticed a couple of gazes at him which made him feel a bit weird, these days his sensitivity had increased a lot, even though he wouldn"t feel weird about the gazes most of the time since it was getting pretty normal these days but gazes with certain intent in them was clearly distinctive.
He looked around, to find the Weasleys staring at him, their sister being in Slytherin, Draco didn"t find it weird at all that they would be concerned about her. He looked around the Ravenclaw table to found a girl staring at him, she had straggly, waist-length, dirty blonde hair, very pale eyebrows, and protuberant eyes that gave her a permanently surprised look, She had an aura of "distinct dottiness" that made her seem a bit weird as she kept staring at him with a look of interest. The way she looked at him, was different than the way the other girls were looking at him as if he was some sort of exotic animal. Draco realized that she was none other than Luna Lovegood, he had forgotten that she was admitted to Hogwarts this year as well like Ginny.
Draco awkwardly waved at her wondering what was going through her head while she slowly waved back as well. Not figuring what was wrong with her, Draco decided to avoid her for now.
"So Draco, is it true?"
"What is?"
"You were ignoring our whole conversation, weren"t you?" Millicent said, "We were talking about you-know-who, was he behind the whole thing that happened?"
Draco shook his head, "I don"t know, that"s what Pius said but it could be anything."
"It"s really creepy how he is still influencing our lives." Blaise said, "They don"t call him a Dark Lord for nothing."
"Well, that"s not really important now is it." Pansy interrupted, "The thing is over and we are free, let"s not talk about you-know-who or anyone else for today, frankly I am quite tired of it."
"She is right, you know." Theodore said yawning, "All this talk makes me less hungry so let"s talk about other things, by the way how was your guy"s vacation."
"Mine was simple as always." Blaise said, "I didn"t go any place since mother decided that it wasn"t safe."
"Your mother?"
"Oh yeah! She wanted me to apologize to you for her absence in the whole fiasco. Even though the whole thing was an important movement for us pure-bloods we couldn"t be present." Blaise said, "Mother doesn"t like to partic.i.p.ate in this sort of stuff."
"It"s okay." Draco said shaking his head, "As long as we have your support it"s fine, isn"t it?"
While they were having their conversation, Ginny on the side was kind of surprised they were discussing politics so openly, especially the things with You-know-who. She was already uncomfortable being here with the Slytherin students looking at her weirdly from time to time and this whole scenario made her even more uncomfortable.
"You need to get used to it." Suddenly the girl beside her said, "It"s Daphne Greengra.s.s."
"Ginevra Weasley, you can call me Ginny." She said awkwardly with a smile.
Daphne sipped her gla.s.s of juice as she sighed, "Its really interesting that a Weasley would be in Slytherin, even though it"s not that surprising at the same time."
"What do you mean?"
"Well whether you admit it or not, you"re a pureblood so it"s not surprising that you would be in Slytherin but the fact that there has never been a Weasley in Slytherin before makes it even more fascinating," Daphne said.
"That"s not what I meant." Ginny shook her head, "I was asking why it was so interesting or--fascinating?"
"Well, a Weasley can finally see our world with their own eyes." Daphne said a strange smile, "The world that your family claims to hate so much and-- now their daughter is a part of that world-- or maybe will you give up and go home? That would be really disappointing though."