AND NOW ONTO THE SORTING!
The train ride was brilliant.
Madeleine spent most of it jumping compartments, determined to meet as many people as humanly possible before the Sorting. For the most part she stuck to those where the students were obviously younger--first, second, third, a handful of fourth years--and any house but Slytherin. It wasn't so much that she already hated them, but more that she'd heard stories from enough people to nudge her away from them. And the jeers of the upper-level Slytherins certainly hadn't done anything to help that image.
"If I get into Slytherin," one boy confided, "I'm going home. I'd much rather be a Hufflepuff than go into that house of snakes."
At the station in Hogsmeade, they'd been met by a veritable mountain of a man (Hagrid; Madeleine's mother had told her about him several times before) who had ushered them all into boats for their first trip across the lake. Madeleine had heard all about it from Corey, who had told her exactly what she had to expect, but no matter how she'd heard about it, there had been nothing to prepare her for that first sight of Hogwarts across the lake.
It was magical.
They'd been ushered into line by one of the professors, hushed and shhed and quieted several times, but Madeleine was being uncharacteristically quiet, straining her neck to see the gigantic doors ahead of them. She knew that beyond them had to be the Great Hall, had to be the Hat her mum had told her about. She felt as though something was eating her from the inside, setting her on edge, even though she wasn't scared at all. Just--anxious. Excited. Terrified.