The Sorting

What happened before:

She combed her fingers through her soft locks, tucking the stray pieces behind her ears.

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The doors opened, and Professor McGonagall walked to the front of the room. Since everyone else seemed reluctant to be the first to follow, she slipped around them and led the way, the others following close behind like a flock of stage frightened sheep.

Ruby rolled her eyes pointedly at Draco, who grinned back at her.

'Wizards are sheep.' Ruby decided.

Professor McGonagall set a patched old hat on a stool in front of them. A seam in the hat opened up, and the hat began to sing.

"If with your sorting you disagree,

I'll have to try and make you see,

There's no better place you should be,

I've sorted you into your new family!

You could become a Hufflepuff…"

Ruby listened to the song in interest, and before she knew it, the song was over.

Professor McGonagall brandished a list as she spoke. "When I call your name, come on up to be sorted."

Ruby half-way tuned out most of the sorting in favor of studying the faces of the students and teachers.

"Creevey, Colin!"

A boy with a camera around his neck stepped forward. Ruby finally spotted Hermione and waved her fingertips.

"Gryffindor!"

"Greengrass, Astoria!"

Ruby turned to watch her new friend be sorted.

"Slytherin!"

Ruby clapped along with the rest of the Great Hall at the hat's choice.

"Lovegood, Luna!" was sorted into Ravenclaw immediately after the hat touched her head.

"Ravenwing, Ruby."

Ruby jerked out of her musings, (Why did anyone actually like Lockhart anyway?) stopped staring at Lockhart (he was starting to look unnerved by her frowning gaze) and sat on the stool.

"Miss Ravenwing."

"Mr. Hat."

The hat said something she didn't quite catch, then shouted his answer.

"Ravenclaw!"

"Was there any doubt?" Ruby snickered.

She sat next to Luna Lovegood at the Ravenclaw table as the sorting continued.

"Welcome to Ravenclaw." the boy on Luna's other side said.

"Thanks. I'm," She began

"Ruby Ravenwing." they both said.

The boy laughed. "I heard Professor McGonagall call your name. I'm Adrian Davis, first year, and that's my older brother Roger. He's the Quidditch captain for Ravenclaw." Adrian gestured to a boy a few feet away.

"I'm Luna." The Lovegood girl piped up in a dreamy voice.

"After the moon?" Ruby asked.

"Yes." Luna nodded wisely. "I was born on a full moon."

"I like that, it's cool." Ruby decided. "What were you reading in the boat?"

"A magazine my father owns. We run and publish it ourselves."

"Can I have a copy? If you don't mind, of course."

"Here." Luna shoved an extra in her hands. "I have lots of copies."

Ruby read through it at a fast pace as usual. She was a naturally fast reader.

"The Quibbler. Is it named that because the topics are debatable, thus quibbled over? Or maybe because they don't believe the animals you write about, causing them to quibble with you?"

"We named it for both of those reasons," Luna informed her.

"You're definitely a Ravenclaw, Ruby," Adrian noted. "That was a good hypothesis."

"Do you believe in the crumple-horned snorkacks? Some don't because they're not in any books." Luna wondered aloud, expecting a response.

"I believe there are creatures we have yet to document, so the fact that they're not in any books yet doesn't mean I don't believe in them. In short, yes, I do." Ruby replied truthfully.

Luna hugged her impulsively, not fazed that she'd only met Ruby five minutes ago, and seen her less than thirty.

"Does this mean we're friends?" Ruby asked hesitantly, not used to people acting like this around her. She was more accustomed to people ignoring or even openly hating her.

"Of course!" Luna grinned, hugging her again.

The last child was sorted at that moment, and Professor Dumbledore got to his feet again. The Hall fell silent.

"Ahem – you are all, no doubt, eager to eat, so I'll make my announcements short this year. The forbidden forest is strictly forbidden for all students, no exceptions."

"No, really? It has 'forbidden' in the name." Ruby rolled her eyes.

Luna and Adrian overheard and snickered.

"Do not use your wands in the hallways, for any reason. Anyone who wishes to play quidditch should contact Madam Hooch. Any items from Zonko's joke shop will be confiscated. With that said, dig in!"

Food appeared on all four tables, and Ruby filled her plate with some food. She'd grabbed a piece of meat she'd never eaten before but always wanted to try. Ms. Cole said that steak was too expensive, which is why the only meat they ate was ground beef and turkey, or shredded chicken, and only in soups and stews to make it stretch.

Ruby's new favorite food for all eternity was steak. Hands down.

She snagged another small piece of steak before declaring herself finished.

Everyone finished around the same time, and as the desserts disappeared from the tables, Dumbledore dismissed them to bed.

"First-year Ravenclaws, follow me." A prefect who'd introduced herself as Isabelle Brown (Lavender Brown's sister) directed them out the Great Hall.

They walked part of the way to their dormitory with the Gryffindors before splitting off at the moving staircase.

They quickly arrived outside the Ravenclaw common room, where Isabelle explained how to enter. She answered the riddle provided, and they filed in.

Ruby wasn't sure what she was expecting, but it wasn't this. The room she would spend most of her time in was a large room, with multiple levels. The common room was the first thing you walked into after that were the stairs, which led to a balcony on the second floor. Each floor had a balcony facing over the common room, up to seven floors. Off of each floor were the dorms for each year. First years on floor one, and so on up. What Ruby loved most, however, were the free-standing ceiling-high bookshelves that stood against the common room's walls.

She next studied the first-year girl's dorm and was very pleased to see her trunk in the middle of the room. She would hate to have her very own brand-new things missing.

Ruby choose a bed in the corner, dragging her trunk to the foot of her bed. She opened her trunk, and noticing the diary from Mrs. Oswald on top, she tossed it on her bed before dressing for bed.

She always found writing about her day helped her calm down and process in better. She'd heard talking about it helps to, but had never found someone she trusted enough to tell them everything.

Property of T. M. Riddle.

The title caught her attention again. The last thing she wanted was for someone to find her diary and not be able to give it back, so the first thing she should do, (it was common sense, really.) would be to write that she was the new owner, so they could return it.

Taking out her quill, she wrote the following words:

-This is now the property of Ruby Ravenwing, Hogwarts student, house of Ravenclaw.-