Thin Pages

The Sorting Hat

In this chapter: Harry and his classmates get sorted into their houses, and some surprising news comes out about where Harry could have gone instead of Gryffindor.

Ginny walked away from the clocktower courtyard, the sound of Hermione reading growing fainter as she went. She went down the stairs to where she knew Umbridge's office to be. Luckily, Umbridge wasn't anywhere in sight, although she was probably watching somewhere. She half expected the door to be locked and her boyfriend trapped in there with her brother and his best friend. When she opened the door, she also fully expected wands out or a full on duel. Luckily that's not what she was met with.

"I'm not sticking up for Potter!" that one Slytherin boy Ginny didn't know said to Malfoy. "I'm just saying, if you wanted to be on his good side, there were better ways to go about it!"

"Oh shut the hell up, Blaise!" Malfoy yelled back, and Ginny learned that the boy's name was Blaise. She did not expect that the two people arguing would be the Slytherins while Harry and Ron watched with amused looks.

"Seriously, can we get back to reading?" Hannah Abbott asked timidly.

"Hannah's right-" Harry started.

"You shut up too, Potter!" Malfoy turned on Harry. "I stand by what I said, you keep bad company. Weasels and Mudbloods..." Malfoy let out a scoff. All amusement left her brother and his friend's faces. The next second wands were pulled, Ginny felt her own hand fly to her wand on instinct for the insult to her friend, but she calmed herself. Behind the chaos, Michael was hitting his head with his book over and over, Hannah was practically hiding behind hers, and... who was that other girl who was staying far away? Must have been that girl in the reading group who Michael identified as Lisa Turpin.

This was now much more of what she had expected when she opened the door. Not wanting to see anyone get hexed or cursed, at least not right at that moment, Ginny used her perfected Umbridge impression.

"Hem, hem!"

Most of them jumped nearly a foot in the air, except Harry. She could never scare him with her Umbridge impression, it was annoying.

"Ginny!" Ron exclaimed. "You nearly scared the piss out of me! What are you doing here?"

"Yes, what are you doing here?" Malfoy spat. Ginny ignored him, and saw that his Slytherin friend was looking her up and down, which was creepy. Looking away from the Slytherin examining her, she turned to her brother.

"I wanna talk to Michael." she said simply. Ron's face fell into a scowl, and Ginny just barely managed not to roll her eyes. Michael, however, looked thrilled as he practically ran out of the room and into the hall.

"Hey Gin," he said kissing her cheek. She gave him a small smile.

"I've been looking up and down this bloody castle looking for your reading group, I probably know it as well as Fred and George now," she said knowing this to not be true at all. "How's the reading going?"

Michael raised an eyebrow. "You went all around the castle to ask me this?"

"You're with Harry and Malfoy, and my brother." she pointed out. "I needed to make sure you were still alive. And anyway, after all of the work I went through I wasn't going to give up anytime soon."

He chuckled weakly. "I suppose it could be worse. All of us agree we'd like to be finished as soon as possible, so we're trying to get through it."

Ginny nodded. "That's good."

"Yeah, I just wish your brother..." he trailed off. "Never mind."

"No, what's my brother doing?" Ginny questioned.