Lucinda sat on her bed, clutching her duvet. All she could do was stare at the group of girls chattering away, like a lacewing fly on the wall. They’d been sitting like that for almost an hour, huddled together and chatting. She’d recognized Emma Vanity immediately, sat in the center, smiling with kind eyes at the girl to her right. How couldn’t you? She might as well be royalty. And she was her roommate.
When the Sorting Hat had sat on her head, she’d heard silence. Silence for what felt like an eternity, but may have only been single second. And, then a voice.
“Ah, I see now. Yes... You did well hiding it, but not as well as you’d like to think. Yes, there can be no doubt! You’ll be grateful for this later, my dear.”
Then, it had bellowed, and now, here she was, in the Slytherin girls’ dormitory, wondering if it were possible to take up a grudge against a hat.
On and on the girls chatted, and the sight made Lucinda shrivel up inside. She almost wished she’d never turned 11, that she was home with Mum and Dad, or over Uncle Maxim’s playing with his cats... Anywhere but here, with the daunting task of somehow befriending a socialite. She glanced back at Emma and realized she wasn’t the only one glancing. Emma was now openly staring. Openly staring at her. But, no, not with reproach, not with disdain. Only concern.
“Are you feeling all right?”
Considering the eye contact (which she was sure was beginning to approach excessive and creepy,) Lucinda assumed it must be her she was talking to. She cleared her throat, tried to speak, and failing that, settled on nodding.
“Yes.” She was shocked by her own voice, and released the death grip on her sheets. This was going better than expected. No thanks to her, of course.
“Did you want to come over here? We were just talking about our upcoming classes. Which class are you looking forward to?”
The eyes of the rest of the gaggle of girls varied in their compassion, but Emma seemed unperturbed. So, Lucinda did all that she could do. She swallowed, scooted forward, and said the most embarrassing thing she could have said.
And then they laughed. They really did. Maybe not hysterically, but they did laugh. All of them. Even Emma Vanity.
And, so, they opened a space in their circle, and Lucinda took her place.
On second thought, maybe Uncle Maxim and the cats could wait.