ALOHOMORA | CEDRIC DIGGORY

Prologue

Hogwarts | 1st September 1992

Cedric Diggory and his friends froze mid-conversation, as did pretty much the rest of the school. Congratulations of the newly-joining first-years paused at all House tables. The Great Hall seemed to have stopped breathing for a moment; the echo of Professor McGonagall's voice bouncing off the walls became more pronounced than ever.

"Grindelwald, Ellis!" was still ringing through everyone's ears.

Then necks began to crane; whispers spread amongst the student body like wildfire. Only one other person had garnered such a dramatic reaction at a Sorting Ceremony.

A small girl stepped up to the podium, her pale golden locks in a waterfall braid dangling behind her back looking somewhat familiar. Cedric wondered—

"SLYTHERIN!"

If anyone had noticed that the aged and tattered magical headwear was still clutched in Professor McGonagall's hand and hovering above the girl's head by more than an inch when it had indeed shouted the name of the House turning out more Dark witches and wizards History ever bothered to record, they did not say. They simply watched, rather dumbfounded, as the she wandered off to the Slytherin table, her head hung low the entire way.

The silence was broken by the clapping of a single pair of hands. Cedric looked up. Professor Dumbledore, Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, was applauding the declaration with a kind smile—the way he would have done for any other student. As the staff copied, Cedric and some of the Hufflepuffs followed suit. Perhaps some Ravenclaws did too, but it was a feeble effort overall, for the Great Hall roared to life once more when "Holmes, Thelma" was made a Gryffindor.