Obliviate My Rebellion {Book 3}

11. The sorting hat's new song

I didn't tell the others that Harry and Luna were having the same hallucination as me, instead I just sat by the window and watched them begin to trot up the drive. I wondered if maybe it was a side effect.

I mean, I didn't know Luna, and Harry and I weren't very close at the moment. They could both be taking the same pills as me, and I wouldn't know.

“Did everyone see that Grubbly-Plank woman?” asked Ginny. “What’s she doing back here? Hagrid can’t have left, can he?” 

“I’ll be quite glad if he has,” said Luna, “he isn’t a very good teacher, is he?” 

“Yes, he is!” said Harry, Ron and Ginny angrily.

Harry glared at Hermione. She cleared her throat and quickly said, “Erm… yes… he’s very good.” 

Harry stared at me. "Well I do like him, of course. But I also would like to pass my OWLS as well."

“Well, we in Ravenclaw think he’s a bit of a joke,” said Luna, unfazed. 

“You’ve got a rubbish sense of humor then,” Ron snapped, as the wheels below them creaked into motion. 

Luna did not seem perturbed by Ron’s rudeness; on the contrary, she simply watched him for a while as though he were a mildly interesting television program. 

Rattling and swaying, the carriages moved in convoy up the road. When they passed between the tall stone pillars topped with winged boars on either side of the gates to the school grounds, I couldn't help smiling. I was back now, for good.

I got out of the carriage first, and the strange horse-thing nudged at my hand. I reached my hand out to it, and it felt like a skeleton alive under my fingers.

"What are you doing, Rory?" an exaperated voice came from behind. "Have you dissolved into madness without me?"

I jerked my hand back, to see Alia Wilde (like me, she had resigned to changing her name to her birth family) standing before me, hands on her hips. Her curls hang in bunches, smoky eyeliner around her eyes.

Colin Creevy hovered behind her, and I remembered that the two of them were practically dating. I threw my arm around Alia, and we started to walk.

"So Ali-cat, are you dating little Colin yet?"

"God, you sound like my brother." she said, rolling her eyes. "He didn't want me to leave the house all summer, so I rebelled against him."

"Ah, the early teenage years... I don't miss them." I chuckled. "I like your shoes by the way."

Her school shoes were doc martens, with a lot of doodles across them--some with rather rude words on. "Cole said he approves of rebellious shoes, so I went all out."

"I see. Right, well I'll leave you and Colin at it!" I said, patting her on the shoulder before following the others into the hall.

 The four long house tables in the Great Hall were filling up under the starless black ceiling, which was just like the sky they could glimpse through the high windows.

Candles floated in midair all along the tables, illuminating the silvery ghostswho were dotted about the Hall and the faces of the students talking eagerly, exchanging summer news, shouting greetings at friends from other houses, eyeing one another’s new haircuts and robes.

Again, I noticed people putting their heads together to whisper as I passed; I kept my head high and fists clenched, to show people I honestly didn't care.

I sat down next to Gennie and Cole, and ended up a couple seats away from Lavender and Parvati. They gave me overly friendly greetings, highly suggesting that they'd been talking about me before I'd arrived.