I looked up from Prefects Who Gained Power, distracted once again by my fellow housemates. The Ravenclaw compartment on the Hogwarts Express was the rowdiest of all of the them, which I lean red from looking in on the other houses.
Shifting in my soft, royal blue chair I wished desperately for the times where they had separate compartments that anyone could sit, and where there wasn’t enough room to challenge monkeys for their place in the Muggle thing called a “zoo”. I tried to regain entry in my book, but gave up once a blue and yellow scarf hit me in the face.
Stewing, I slammed my book shut and thrust the slim volume in my bag.
“Ravenclaw for the cup! Ravenclaw for the cup!” my housemates chanted. The Ravenclaw Quidditch team stood in the center of the train compartment, invoking house spirit. Blech.
I rolled my eyes. Ravenclaw was supposed to be quiet, dignified, and wise. Nothing in the rules of Ravenclaw said that we were allowed to jump around yelling like our robes were on fire and we were too draft to put them out with our wand.
These people make the Slytherins almost seem human, I thought. Not human, because they’ll never be, but close to it. And the Slytherins absolutely worshiped their Quidditch team. They followed all of the players around like they would be attacked if not. Which, they probably would be, left along with the other houses.
At that moment, Dorcas Chang, our number one Chaser saw me acting like a real Ravenclaw and not whatever she thought one was. She dashed up to me, her Muggle clothes clashing horribly with the Ravenclaw scarf around her neck.
“Hey, Weasley!” she said. “Show some house and Quidditch spirit!” The compartment quieted down when they realized their star player was gone from the center. “Don’t you want us to beat Gryffindor this year?”
I felt as if my face was as red as my hair. Not from fear or embarrassment, but from pure anger, the kind you want to bottle and brew into a potion. I looked from the debris on the floor and to my housemates who were loose and free and not being serious at all. There were so many things wrong with that house and what it was supposed to stand for that I cracked.
“Do I?” I told her. My voice was high and singsongy, and everyone could tell that I was a dormant volcano break pattern. “I do not care about Quidditch—“ there was a gasp,”or house pride.”
I stood from my seat and leaned closer to Chang. “Ravenclaw is supposed to help you succeed! And what are we doing here? Oh, that’s right. Throwing a party.” My voice dripped with both sarcasm and disgust.
When I was younger and read fiction, I often wondered what the phrases “being hysterical”, and “losing control of your body” even meant. Well, now I knew.
“This is not what Ravenclaw is supposed to be,” I snapped. All of my housemates were edging away slowly from me, probably afraid that I would stun them or something. “If I knew this was how you hooligans acted I would’ve let the Sorting Hat do what he like— and put me in Slytherin! That’s right, he wanted to put me in a different house! And believe me— I wish I wouldn’t have interfered! I was supposed to be in Slytherin, not with you miserable excuse for human beings!”
I stood there, slowly breathing in and out. I enjoyed the look of shook on their faces. It was several seconds, though, before I realized what they were shocked about.
I stumbled out of the compartment and into the space between our car and the Hufflepuff one. I braced my back against the metal wall and felt the vibrations of the Hogwarts Express go through my body. Maybe it was the weakness of my legs, or the movements of the train, but never less, I slid down to sit on the dirty floor.
“They don’t understand,” I whispered. “Why don’t they understand that working hard from a very young age is the only way to get what you want?”
Don’t cry, I told myself. Don’t you dare cry.
But the first tear was already sliding down my cheek.
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