musical mood: the kids aren't alright - fall out boy

" And with the black banners raised
As the crooked smiles fade
Former heroes who quit too late
Who just wanna fill up the trophy case again "

Malfoy and his friends never returned back to the compartment, which Cass took as a sign that Harry Potter either befriended them, or grew so fed up he killed them, just as he did You-Know-Who. Knowing how annoying Malfoy was, Cass assumed the latter was more likely, and wouldn't blame him for it.

By the time the train stopped, the sun had gone down, and the moon and stars illuminated the outline of Hogwarts castle. A large man called Hagrid helped the students off the Hogwarts Express, separated the first years from the others, and guided them to a row of small paddle boats, that could only seat about five people.

A girl with dark hair and chocolate skin was so preoccupied with staring up at the magnificent castle, she nearly fell into the water as she struggled her way onto the boat, and Cass made note to avoid joining her, and potentially having her flip the boat over in the middle of the Black Lake.

She made a beeline towards the nearest empty boat she could find, and took a seat in the back left corner, and was quickly joined by two other first years. To her pleasure, neither of the girls seemed to notice Cass, and continued their conversation without attempting to rope her in.

"You see, Ana, my sister is a Gryffindor, so I'm hoping to be sorted into Gryffindor too." The girl with curly black hair that stuck up into an afro, explained to the other, who was nodding intently. "But both our parents were Hufflepuffs, and they really want me to be one. But Hufflepuff seems kind of boring, doesn't it? I mean, their mascot is a badger."

Cass snorted, unable to stop herself, but quickly covered it up with a cough, as the boat started to magically drift off into the lake.

"Huff-el-puff." The other girl, Ana, with short red hair and enough freckles to rival Cass's, sounded out the house name, her accent thick and foreign. "That is a funny word. I hope to be in whatever house you are, Naia."

Ana's english, while understandable, was obviously a second language. She spoke slowly, clearly translating every phrase in her head, and seemed to struggle with pronunciations through her accent. It was an eastern European one, but Cass couldn't pinpoint the country.

Cass found herself instantly intrigued with this Ana character. What was a foreigner doing at Hogwarts?

As if her thoughts had been spoken aloud, Naia turned and looked at her for the first time. "Oh, hi there! Sorry, I didn't see you."

So much for going unnoticed. Cass thought to herself, though not as glumly as it might've seemed. On a first glance, this Naia girl had a bright, genuine smile that almost instantly reminded Cass of Connor, and it was hard to be pissed off while thinking of him.

"Hello." Cass nodded, attempting a small smile.

"I'm Naia Johnson. This is Ana, erm, sorry, how do you say your last name again?" Naia looked apologetically at Ana, though she didn't seem bothered.

"Vasiliev."

Yep, definitely eastern European.

"I'm Cassiopeia." She didn't say her last name, just in case. "Pleasure to meet you two."

The boat ride continued without anything of note happening. Naia and Ana carried on a conversation about some annoying boys they had to sit with on the train, and Cass took deep breaths, trying to settle her rising heart rate as they grew closer and closer to the castle.

Once inside, a stern looking woman called Professor McGonagall gave them a short speech, before they were to enter the Great Hall. Something about houses and points, the words flew in one ear and out of the other to Cass, who's nerves were finally catching up to her.

This was it. The sorting, where her future would be decided. The peers she interacted with the most for the next seven years, the people who would influence her the most, was just minutes away from being decided. Apparently, the house you were sorted into would represent your personality - what if Cass didn't fit into any of them? What if they realised that she was boring, in every aspect of the word, without a single defining feature, and sent her back home?

Did misanthropic count as a personality trait?

McGonagall opened the massive doors, and brought the first years into the Great Hall, where the rest of the students were already seated down four long tables. Two girls to Cass's left were whispering excitedly about the ceiling, but her eyes were fixed on the symbol behind the Professor's table, centred in the middle. The crest of the four Hogwarts houses.

Bartemius Crouch hadn't gone to Hogwarts; he was French, and attended Beauxbatons. However, Cass' mother Diana had, as did her brother Barty. Both, of course, were dead now, and Bartemius didn't like to talk about them, so Cass had no idea which houses they were in.

Slytherin for Barty, she assumed. Almost every dark wizard was a Slytherin, and Barty was about as dark as it got. It was the only explanation for how he would've gotten mixed up with the Death Eater crowd as well; having blood supremacists in your dorm for seven years ought to mess with your morals.

Diana was another case entirely. Cass knew next to nothing about her mother, who had died of a brain tumour when she was just over a year old, only shortly after Barty had been found dead in his Azkaban cell. Perhaps the shock of her son's death had been the thing to end her.

Diana couldn't have been a Slytherin - she was muggleborn, after all. Cass knew this because Bartemius had gotten disowned from his pureblood family for eloping with her, and hadn't spoken to his parents in France in over 30 years.

Maybe Hufflepuff? They tended to have the most muggleborns, it seemed.

No way in Merlin was Cass going to be in Hufflepuff. That was less likely than Malfoy being a Gryffindor.

"Abbott, Hannah!"

McGonagall's voice rang through the Great Hall, holding a scroll in one hand and the Sorting Hat in another. A small, wooden stool was in front of her, which Hannah Abbott scampered her way up to.

The brown hat was placed on her head, and the Great Hall went completely silent in anticipation. There wasn't a single sound, not a cough or a breath or a whisper, as the eyes of hundreds of students watched the first sorting.

"HUFFLEPUFF!"

Hannah Abbott's face lit up as the hall burst into applause, and she ran off to the table with the yellow banner.

"Boot, Terry!"

Cass felt her breath catch in her throat as Terry Boot was sorted into Ravenclaw. She was soon.

After about five other students got sorted, the inevitable came.

"Crouch, Cassiopeia!"

Her body went onto autopilot, stepping up towards the stool with trembling legs and a racing heart, so fast she thought it might explode and she'd die on the spot. The eyes of everyone in the Great Hall on her were hard to ignore, and she vigorously rubbed the scar under her eye as she felt it burn up, like a physical manifestation of her anxiety.

She didn't notice the fabric of the sorting hat hit her head, until its deep voice filled her mind.

I thought I'd seen the last Crouch in, what was it, '73? Yes, your brother, he was a complicated case, much like you.

Cass flinched. It felt as though the hat was physically sorting through her brain, poking about at her most personal thoughts and emotions, the aspects of herself she buried so deep, she often forgot about them. Cass felt the concrete wall she'd spent years building up collapse as the hat dug deeper and deeper, and it took everything in her to not rip the stupid thing off her head and chuck it across the room.

You're scared, Cassiopeia, I can tell. That's a good thing, perhaps. It shows you aren't completely void. No, you've got a lot underneath, don't you? I don't come across many kids with minds as guarded as yours. A good mind too, I see. Lots of ambition as well. Perhaps you'd do well in Slytherin. No, that's not right. If not Slytherin, better be...

"RAVENCLAW!"

She let out a breath she didn't realise she had been holding, as the Ravenclaw table burst into applause.

Ravenclaw. That was good. That made sense. She'd be well off in Ravenclaw. She was smart, if not a bit condescending, but so was every other Ravenclaw. She'd fit right in.

"Davis, Tracey!" was called up as Cass took a seat next to a girl named Bethany Burke, who had been sorted just shortly before. She recognized her - Cass had met her and her family once before, many years ago. She doubted Bethany would recall, but Cass' interactions with other wizards were so finite, she remembered them all.

She contemplated introducing herself, but one look at the expression on Bethany's face stopped her. Her pink lips were pursed in a straight line, her eyebrows furrowed together, and her entire face a bright red. Cass couldn't tell if Bethany was going to yell, or burst into tears.

The next first year to get sorted into Ravenclaw was Naia Johnson, one of the girls from the boat. Apparently, she remembered Cass too, because she looked straight at her and smiled as she sat down across from her.

"It's you again! Hi!"

"Hi." Cass nodded.

Naia turned her attention to Bethany. "You're Bethany, right? I heard your name during the sorting."

"Unfortunately."

Naia frowned, seemingly unsure of what to say to that.

As the sorting continued, and Cass grew bored, she started scanning the Great Hall, searching for familiar faces. The Weasley from the train was sat near the front of the Gryffindor table, looking completely out of place amongst the younger students. Even from a distance, his Prefect's badge was clearly visible, the light reflecting off of it nearly blinding.

Bloody arsepiece.

Henry Nott, surprisingly, was in Ravenclaw, seated a few places down from Naia. Almost every Nott she could think of had been in Slytherin. Cho Chang, an absolute beauty at just 12 years old, was sat next to him. Cedric Diggory, yet another child of Baretmius's acquaintances, at the Hufflepuff table...staring right at Cass.

She blinked, assuming she was hallucinating. But no, there he was, his eyes fixed on her, not wavering when she stared back with raised eyebrows.

His father, Amos Diggory, worked in the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures in the Ministry. During the summers, sometimes he would accompany Amos to work, and Cass would do the same with Bartemius, and they'd run into each other while wandering around the Ministry finding things to do.

Merlin, it had been ages since she had seen Cedric, yet he seemingly remembered her?

Cass gave him a small wave, hoping her confusion didn't show.

Cedric looked as though he were about to wave back, but the next name McGonagall called forced Cass to rip her eyes away and stare up at the sorting in pure mortification.

"Longbottom, Neville!"

All the blood drained from her face, as a chubby round faced boy stepped up to McGonagall. Cass felt physically ill, the mere sight of the boy making her nauseous, yet she couldn't look away. Her dark brown eyes were fixed on Neville Longbottom, unable to move, even when he made eye contact with her from where he sat on the wooden stool.

The pair stared at each other as moments of silence went by, both looking equally petrified by the sight of their counterpart. Only when the sorting hat called out, "GRYFFINDOR!", was Cass able to tear her gaze away, and began vigorously rubbing her scar.

She wanted to bang her head against the table. How could she be so stupid? It hadn't once occurred to her that the child of Frank and Alice Longbottom would be at Hogwarts with her - let alone in the same year as her. Neville being in Gryffindor was a small mercy, but she couldn't avoid him for seven years. Could she? How do you ignore someone, when your brother practically orphaned them? Sure, Frank and Alice were alive, but were they living?

"You alright?" Naia waved a hand in front of Cass' face, snapping her out of her thoughts. Naia's eyes were wide with concert, but Bethany was staring at her with a knowing smirk.

"Yeah." Cass nodded absentmindedly, as Draco Malfoy was called up to the sorting. His arms were folded across his chest, and he wore a smug smile, as if he hadn't a worry in the world. He probably didn't - all the Malfoy's had been in Slytherin, as far back as when Hogwarts was founded. There was no way Draco would end up anywhere else.

The hat had barely touched his scalp when it called out, "SLYTHERIN!", and he practically strutted to the cheering green table.

Theodore Nott followed Malfoy, also getting sorted into Slytherin. While Malfoy was beaming, Cass saw his brother Henry frowning from the Ravenclaw table.

Next came Padma Patil. The hat took longer on her, but ended up placing her in Ravenclaw. She sat down next to Cass as the cheers died down, however she looked oddly melancholy.

"My sister won't be in Ravenclaw." Padma explained, though no one had prompted her.

"What?" Naia raised an eyebrow, but Padma didn't have the chance to respond, before McGonagall called out the name "Patil, Parvati!"

A near identical version of Padma stepped up to the stool, with a confident yet humble smile. There were subtle differences between the two - Parvati had a slimmer face, Padma had larger eyes, but overall they were clearly twins.

"Don't worry, I'm sure she'll be in Ravenclaw." Naia reached over and patted Padma on her shoulder.

"GRYFFINDOR!"

"Told you." Padma sighed, as everyone stared at her with wide eyes.

"How did you know that?" Bethany sputtered out, though only got a shrug in response.

"Potter, Harry!"

The Great Hall went silent, as all eyes turned towards the boy walking up to the hat. People watched in awe, in shock, in admiration.

But Cass watched in disbelief, that this was the Harry Potter.

As a child, hearing story after story about The Boy Who Lived, the boy who defeated You Know Who, a specific image was formed of him. Harry Potter was invincible, big and strong, a Hercules type figure. But the boy in front of Cass couldn't be further from that.

Potter was skinny, too skinny. He appeared almost malnourished. He wore thin, silver glasses, and his black hair was messy and overgrown, contrasting his tiny face. This was The Boy Who Lived? It took everything in Cass not to laugh as she glanced over at Malfoy, who was shooting daggers with his glare as Potter sat down on the stool.

Clearly, the two hadn't gotten along as Malfoy had hoped.

A minute or so passed of pure silence, before the sorting hat roared "GRYFFINDOR!"

The Gryffindor table erupted into cheers, and a pair of redhead twins actually jumped from their seats, chanting "We got Potter!"

Cass slumped in her seat, for some reason disappointed. Gryffindor got Harry Potter, and all Ravenclaw got was the girl with the dead death eater brother.