To Be or Not To Be

Chapter Three

Rain held her breath. The dementor was hidden in the darkness that had descended minutes earlier, but she could feel the presence well enough as it was. Without Draco in the compartment, in seemed like the others didn't know what to do. After what felt like an eternity一though it couldn't have been more than a few minutes一the Dementor glided out of their compartment and into the next, the effects of its presence slowly fading.

Sighing in relief, Rain broke off a chunk of her chocolate chocolate bar and handed it to Pansy, who ate it silently. Rain chipped off a few more pieces and passed them around to the other slytherins. Without the lights, they struggled to find eachothers hands and Rain ended up tripping a great deal. Eventually, when everyone had a piece and the lights decided to turn back on, she started to nibble at a square of what was left. Within seconds she could feel the movement returning to her body. "Does anybody want to come with me to find Draco?"

There was a series of groans so Rain shrugged and headed into the hallway. Making her way down the row, she glanced into the compartments, looking for the blindingly blonde hair belonging to one Draco Malfoy.

After checking the closest three compartments, she went to the next but stopped when she heard a door slide open with a bang. Looking toward the noise, she smiled when she saw Draco making his way back to their compartment looking rather mortified, though she was sure he'd deny any such accusation.

Without saying a word, she handed him a bite's worth of chocolate before heading back to the compartment, and the group spent the remainder of the trip talking about the dementors and why they were searching the train. It was through this conversation that Rain heard the story behind the imprisonment of the man named Sirius Black and she found it to be more than a little disturbing. If the man who managed to get out of Azkaban did kill all those people before he got arrested, then he was bound to be worse after twelve years of imprisonment with dementors.

Eventually the train came into a stop that Rain assumed to be Hogsmeade station. Nature didn't seem to be into a swamp. There was a half giant which She guessed was the guy named Hagrid, calling for all the first years to gather round. Briefly, she wondered if she was supposed to follow suit but the sound of her name being called soon brought the answer. She turned to see a silhouette, her brother, waving in her direction. With a sigh, she wound her way through the masses until she got the the man she was looking for. "So what do we do now?" She asked, trying to ignore the water streaming from her now completely soaked hair and robes. "If you say we have to hike to the castle, I might just have to murder you."

Chris laughed and pointed at the horseless carriages waiting a little ways away from the station where students tried to squeeze in with their friends. Rain chuckled. No doubt the clean wooden floors would soon be covered in mud. "We'll be taking one of those but I have the job of getting you to another professor's office when we get to the castle so we need to hurry and find a carriage before they're all packed." He glanced at his sister with a raised eyebrow. "Any friends you want to ride with because I'd suggest you find them now."

Rain shrugged. "I don't really care if anyone comes with us. I already told them I'd see them in the great hall for the feast." She then looked at the sky, forgetting for a moment that the world was still being pelted with what could easily have been ice water. She cursed when a drop landed directly in her eye. "Why don't we get out of the rain? I may have its name, but that doesn't mean that I like to drown in it."

"Then, let's go." Chris dragged her to the next empty stagecoach, and the two made their way toward the castle in the distance. Rain spent the time trying to get her brother to tell her which class he was going to teach but he kept changing the subject. "So, now that the actually sorting ceremony is coming up, what house do you want to be in?" He asked casually after ignoring Rain's most recent round of questioning. The girl gave an exaggerated groan and and started tapping on the glass, choosing to give Chris the same treatment that he had given her. Chris shrugged and went back to twiddling his thumbs. "You know," He started after a moment. "I've already told you that you'll find out at the feast, so why do you keep pushing me to tell you now. It should be a surprise to you like it will be for everyone else." Rain huffed, in no mood to care if she sounded childish. She had to act the part of a grownup more than enough to know that it wasn't as great as kids gave it credit for.

She groaned as her brother continued to talk. "Besides that, the game would lose its fun if I told you now." Seeing the look of frustration on his sister's face caused Chris to chuckle. "Just be patient a little while longer child. You'll find the knowledge you seek soon enough. Maybe if you speak to you Divination professor, you'll find out before I have to spell it out for you." He smiled brightly as he added an afterthought. "Of course, you could just leave her tower with the prophecy of your death haunting your dreams,if you take her seriously. Professor Trelawney taught when I went to school and it was one of the easiest classes I had. Predict someone's mass misfortune and you won't have to worry about the OWLs and NEWTs when the time comes."

"And that's the kind of class you signed me up for?" Rain looked up at her brother with a mixture of surprise and humor. "If anyone needs help expanding their imagination, it's you. Your pranks have always been rather predictable."

Chris opened his mouth to deny the words, but stopped when he felt the stagecoach come to a stop. He sighed. "Just try your best in all your classes. I don't want to have to explain to the man who happens to be my employer, why my sister went and pisses off one of her teachers on the first day. You're lucky to be good at potions. Snape's is the easiest class to fail in if you aren't in slytherin."

Rain snorted, jumping out of the carriage. "And I'll bet your house saved your butt a number of times with him alone." She called as she moved to the side. "Last I checked, any situation where you got within a five meter radius of a cauldron ended up in the house nearly burning to the ground. First year level included."

"At least I could play quidditch. I was the best beater around."

Rolling her eyes, Rain made her way up the steps. "Hey dewberry, are you done with you masculinity contest, yet?" She asked after a moment. "Because, if not, I'm going ahead."

As her brother hurried after her, Rain kept walking, trying to ignore the looks from the returning students. They didn't recognise her and somehow that made it okay to stare at her like she was an animal on display. Just that thought was enough to double the nerves she'd been feeling about the whole school idea. "Let's just get this over with. The sooner I have a house, the sooner I can sink into the background or go to sleep."

Chris grinned. "I take it, you've fell off your sugar rush? If you want I could give you a little push. I happen to be quite an expert at stupify if I do say so myself." Rain glared at him, wishing looks could kill.

Sadly enough, a few minutes later Chris was still there in all his wickedly smiling glory, as they stood in front of a door she could only assume belonged to the professor he'd mentioned before. Chris knocked and a woman's voice called for them to enter. When Rain got inside her eyes immediately focused on the two students and two adults standing in the small office.

One of the womenーthe one wearing emerald green robesーnodded to them before turning her attention to the lady flitting about one of the students. "What does he need?" The green clad one asked sharply. Rain turned his gaze to the boy. Amusement at the situation threatened to show itself in the form of laughing, but she held it at bay. The last thing the boy needed was a girl he didn't know to burst out due to his embarrassment. "Bed rest? Should he perhaps spend tonight in the hospital wing?"

The boy jumped up. "I'm fine!" He shouted.

Rain turned away and started filling her head with random thoughts in an attempt to stay out of their business.

A little while later the boy left and lady green glasses, as Rain had taken to calling the woman, told Chris to grab an old wooden stool from the corner, and instructed Rain to sit down, taking an ancient hat from her desk.

She then turned to Chris with a few more directions. "Make sure to get the sorting hat and the stool to Dumbledore the first years go in." She warned, at last signaling the end of their discussion.

Rain tensed, waiting for the sensation of the hat descending. Soon enough, she felt the weight of the relic. The hat began talking, which she quickly found to be more like muttering to himself inside her mind than actual talking. She twiddled her thumbs and held back the temptation to start humming a really annoying disney song when she came to the realization that at that moment, it really did feel like a small world afterall.

At long last, the word she'd been anxiously awaiting fell from the mouth of the tattered old hat.

Gryffindor.