Belonging in Slytherin

Belonging In Slytherin, Chapter 1

I wish Bert were here, thought Ethelina Hawley, as she waited for the Hogwarts train. She had never spent much time apart from her twin, but here she was, all alone, with him already at his own new, non-magical school. Her parents were here, but it wasn't the same. She gripped her wand in her pocket anxiously. Eight inches, oak and unicorn hair, flexible yet tough, Ollivander had called it. And currently, she couldn't do a thing with it.

That wouldn't bother Bert. He was probably the happiest person Ethelina knew. When she was gloomy, he would cheer her up. When she was bored, he'd help her find something to do - usually involving him making a perfect model or clay house or kite, and her ended up plastered in paper and glue with a shapeless blob to show for her time. And now she'd have to be gloomy and bored for a whole term.

They'd been sitting in the treehouse when her letter had arrived. She'd known what it was immediately - their mother had been going on about it for weeks - and pulled it off the owl's leg, thanked the owl, and shoved it in her pocket.

"Aren't you going to read it?" Bert had asked curiously.

"No. I know what it's going to say."

Bert frowned. "But you don't know what books you need or..."

"I don't know and I don't care. If you can't go to Hogwarts, I want to go to St Jude's with you. There's nothing squibs can do that wizards can't, so I could do all your lessons."

Bert grinned. "That's right, remind me, I'm useless."

"You are NOT useless. I can't do any more magic than you right now."

"Yeah, but you will within a few weeks. And by the end of your time at Hogwarts, you'll be great." Bert looked serious. "Don't throw the gift away just because other people don't have it... I have to use what I've got, and so do you."

"You'd better write to me," Ethelina warned him.

Bert grinned and pulled a brand-new fountain pen out of his pocket. "You bet! I can't wait to start using this. Look, you unscrew it, and that bit there holds the ink..."

In her pocket now, next to her wand, Ethelina now had an identical fountain pen. Their mother's parents had taken them to a muggle shop to buy it, riding escalators and paying with pieces of paper. They'd said having something Bert would also be using would keep the twins close. Even Grandma Hawley, who Ethelina had expected to sneer, had said it was a good idea. She also had her parents' old house scarves in her trunk, one black-and-yellow and one brown-and-blue. She hoped she'd get to wear one or the other.

"Go on, Eth," her father urged. "Get on the train. Go and meet people."

Her mum hugged her close and kissed the top of her head. "Be a good girl, and tell us how you do."

She climbed aboard the Hogwarts Express and suddenly felt a little lost. Then a shout alerted her. Her elder cousin Ed was waving to her from a compartment. "Eth! Come and join us, don't stand around like a new bug!" With a grin she went to join him. Like Ed, most of his friends were wearing the red-and-gold scarves of Gryffindor, although a couple were from Hufflepuff.

"Chaps, this is my cousin Ethelina," Ed announced. "No hexing her, she's a Hawley!" They all laughed. Eth sat shyly down and started rummaging through her pockets for her new diary and pen.

"What's that?" a burly Hufflepuff asked.

"It's a pen," Eth said proudly. "My brother had to get one for his school, and so I got one too. It's kind of like a quill for muggles."

"Cool!" said the Hufflepuff excitedly.

"You're such a dope, Toby," Ed said dismissively. "Have you really never seen one before?"

Toby shook his head. "Maybe they'll show me some in Muggle Studies..." He turned to Ethelina. "Erm, how come your brother needs one?"

Ethelina stopped writing. "He's a squib," she told him. Everyone in the carriage stopped their own conversations.

Toby smiled kindly. "I see. Listen, Ethelina... I'd be careful who you said that to until you got to know them a bit better. Just at first."

"I'm not ashamed of Bert! I wish I'd been allowed to go with him!"

"Don't be a prat," Ed told her. "Toby likes everyone. But if you say that in front of some people, you'll regret it."

"I won't! I'm not going to be ashamed of my twin."

"You know," said a blonde girl in a red-and-gold scarf, "I think Gryffindor's going to get another Hawley."

*******

The trip across the lake was scary, but Ethelina kept reminding herself that it wouldn't do for the school to lose lots of first-years before they'd even got to Hogwarts, so the little boats must be perfectly safe. And it couldn't be any scarier than the train she and Bert had been on with their grandparents. Muggles braved those every day.

Her parents had already explained the Sorting to her. It sounded good fun, although Eth did wonder how often the Sorting Hat got washed, and hoped no-one before her in the intake had got nits. A portly ghost of a monk floated alongside them all, making cheerful comments. Eventually, "Hawley, Ethelina!" was shouted out, and it was Eth's turn to put the hat on.

"Hmm," it said. "You could go anywhere, couldn't you?"

"I'd like to be in Hufflepuff," Eth thought. It was as though she could hear both sets of thoughts. "My twin's a squib, you see... I think people in Hufflepuff would understand that."

"Ah. But wouldn't you rather be in Ravenclaw? Give that good brain some extra stretching?"

"Nooo... I can do my work as well in Hufflepuff as I can in Ravenclaw, but I doubt Ravenclaws are an interested in squibs."

"This bothers you a lot."

"All the time..." Without putting it into words, Ethelina remembered the time an acquaintance of the family hadn't let his children play with Bert, as though they might somehow catch his inability to do magic, and the times other children teased him. Bert hadn't cried; Ethelina had, with rage.

"You think you can get the Hufflepuffs to see things your way? To help you?"

"Yes, they're so tolerant. My dad was one, you know."

"I think your house should be... yes... SLYTHERIN!"

Stunned, Ethelina took off the hat, and walked towards a table full of cheering students. Across the hall she could see Ed looking shocked. In the other direction, she noticed Toby giving her a watery smile.

"Hawley, Hawley..." a beautiful brunette was saying. "Hmm. Virtually pureblood. You, new bug-" Ethelina looked at her "-just the one muggle great-grandparent, right?"

"Huh? Erm, yes. Yes, just the one."

"Close enough," said a boy with a prefect's badge. "Not perfect, but too distant to be classed as a halfblood."

Eth helped herself to some food and started picking at it. A slightly older girl patted her arm. "Don't worry about them," she said. "The Hat always knows which house someone's suited to." She looked at the others. "The hat doesn't put lame ducks in Slytherin. If she's here, she's good enough."

"That," said the brunette girl, "remains to be seen. Are you a good girl, new bug?"

"I suppose so," Ethelina replied.

The brunette laughed. "I like you, little bug. I won't squash you today. She supposes she's good! That means she's not sure but won't own up. Always seem a good girl, but remember, you never have to be one."

As the brunette's attention was distracted by booing loudly at a new Gryffindor, the slightly older girl whispered to Eth again. "You've made a good start there. Bellatrix can be cruel. Don't get her angry. I'm Viola Beanacre. Pleased to meet you."

"Pleased to meet you too, Viola."

Oh heavens! she thought. How am I going to explain this to my parents?