“I TOLD YOU,” one of them yelled. “I told you she wasn’t English.”
I held my hands up. “Whoa, whoa, whoa. I am English,” I explained. “Not everyone in England has met the Queen.”
Their little heads looked up at me, their eyes all wide.
“What do you do, then?” Chocolate-smeared girl asked.
Whinnie nudged me to show she was trying not to laugh. Russ, on the other side of me, withheld a snigger.
“I don’t know. The same as you guys, I guess. We live our lives.”
“Is that ALL?” she demanded.
“Isn’t that all any of us do?”
“Not me,” she announced. “I’m going to Disneyland.”
There isn’t much you can say to that.
Kevin stepped into the circle, still applauding Melody and her mates – oh, and Kyle, who’d been asked to be a “backing dancer” again – as they climbed over the logs back to their places. Kyle shuffled in between Russ and me.
“Dude, I’m so jealous, I could kill you,” Russ said. “Melody is fiiiiiine.”
Kyle shifted uncomfortably and I stared ahead, pretending to listen to Kevin moan on about the ceremony of The Sorting. Kyle nudged the chocolate girl with his foot and she turned around. “Hey, Jenna, you like the dancing?” he asked.
She shrugged. “It was okay, I guess,” she said. “You looked kind of creepy up there though.”
Whinnie and I burst into hysterical giggles.
“Creepy? Right… That’s, erm, not good.”
Kevin clapped his hands, sensing he didn’t have our undivided attention. “And without further ado,” he said, “let’s start The Sorting. Now, we don’t like to group you by age at Mountain Hideaway Camp, as we feel you can learn so much from people both older and younger than you. So we’ll be sorting you into teams based on the questionnaires we sent out.” He beckoned to Mum. “Rosie, if you will?”
Mum walked out into the circle, carrying a big oversized hat.
“No way,” I whispered. “That actually isn’t a…”
“A sorting hat?” Russ answered, grinning at my reaction. “Oh, yeah, they use an actual sorting hat. I better not get put in Ravenclaw this year.”
“What?” I felt my eyes bulge. “They even use the Harry Potter houses?”
Russ nodded. “Yeah, the kids love it.”
I looked down at the children congregating on my feet. I could almost hear the vibrations of excitement chill through their bodies.
“As always,” Kevin said, “we’ll sort the staff first.”
I instantly panicked and grabbed Whinnie and Kyle on either side of me. “They’re sorting…us? Too? They’re using the sorting hat on us now?!”
Kyle answered. “Yeah, we all get put into four groups. It makes the timetable easier to sort out.”
“But – I never got a questionnaire! How do they know where to sort us? We’re going to get sorted like, right NOW?”
Kyle gave me a weird look. “Yes…why are you freaking out?”
Two kids on my ankles looked up at me. I lowered my voice to a whisper.
“You don’t understand. I…I…don’t want to get sorted. I’m too scared. I’ve never even joined Pottermore for this very reason.” Also, it wouldn’t have felt right, being sorted on my own, without Mum doing it too…
Another weird look – this time from Kyle, and Whinnie and Russ.
“Why not?”
“Because.” I threw my hands up, not knowing how it wasn’t obvious to everyone else. “Because…what if I don’t get into Gryffindor?”
They all cracked up.
“It’s not funny. It’s always been a genuine anxiety of mine.”
Kevin pulled out a list and called a name loudly: “WAYNE?”
It was Watersports. He was called Wayne? He bashed knuckles with the guy next to him, pushed back his bleach-blond curtains and walked into the circle. The buzz from the kids thrummed harder, almost like they were generating their own electricity. Mum lifted up the battered hat and ceremoniously plopped it onto his head.
“Hufflepuff,” she yelled. Just the word “Hufflepuff” sparked the children off. They clapped and cheered and generally freaked out from the thrill of it all. Wayne – obviously unbothered by the fact that he’d now never get to share a dorm with The Harry Potter – shuffled to where Mum pointed.
Kevin looked down at his list. “Russ?” he called.
“Ahh, man.” Russ levered himself up off the log. He grinned down at the children under him. “I hope you get into my house y’all.”
He stepped over them and approached the circle. I was worried for him. I was terrified for myself. Mum would put me into Gryffindor, surely? She’ll remember…she must remember. One of my hands grabbed Whinnie, the other grabbed Kyle’s T-shirt. He looked down at my hand but I didn’t care. Russ looked pretty gorgeous in the dark, his black hair absorbing all the light from the fire. He waved at Mum before she dropped the hat onto him.
She was quiet for a moment, all dramatic.
“Dumbledore’s Army!” she yelled.
Everyone cheered… Apart from me who yelled: “What the actual fuck?”
I covered my mouth the moment I said it, but there was a hiss of giggles below me and Kyle threw me a desperate look.
“She cussed! Amber cussed!”
“Ummmmmmmmmm,” one said, their little American accent changing more octaves than Mariah Carey.
“I didn’t cuss,” I said, frantically wracking my brains for an excuse. “I said…umm…FECK, I said ‘feck’. It’s an English word. You don’t have it here.”
It seemed to work, they settled, and all started saying “feck”.
Russ was siphoned off to another bit of the circle and another camp counsellor walked up to meet their fate.
“Gryffindor,” Mum called. It got the biggest cheer. I wondered how many distraught kids would be crying tonight, gutted they didn’t make it into Gryffindor. I would probably be one of them.
“What the hell is Dumbledore’s Army?” I hissed at Kyle, as someone was announced Ravenclaw. “That’s not a Harry Potter house.”
“I know,” he hissed back. “Your mum changed it after last year. She got rid of Slytherin and replaced it because none of the kids wanted to be in there.”
At that moment, I hated her. Irrational? YES OF COURSE. But, but…Harry Potter was our thing! Why wasn’t she being true to the books? We’d loved them so dearly together. What was she playing at?
“What?” My outraged whisper wasn’t very whispery. “What’s wrong with Slytherin?”
“Umm… Well, nobody good belonged there, did they?”
“Are you stupid? Loads of good people were in Slytherin. Snape was in Slytherin, and he was a hero!”
How could Mum do this? She’d got me into the Harry Potter books in the first place. She’d tuck me up, smooth back my hair and tell me it was like Hermione’s, and read a chapter aloud to me every night. We’d queued together at midnight when the last one came out. Yes, she’d been swaying and tripped over and dented my wizard hat, but she’d still done it. We were obsessed, the both of us. Christ, the very existence of the drunken house-elf Winky had explained more to me about what was going on at home than anything else. How could she change it?
And what the actual FECK was Dumbledore’s Army for a replacement? It didn’t even make sense.
Melody’s name was called. She gently pushed off the grasping hands of children fawning on her after her performance, and stood in the middle of the circle without a hint of self-consciousness.
Mum lowered the hat onto Melody’s head.
“Gryffindor,” she shouted.
“Are you fecking kidding me?” I muttered. Well, I thought I muttered, but lots of people turned in my direction. Melody shrugged and smiled, as everyone but me cheered. My blood, which was already hot from a long day in the sun, bubbled over like when you boil pasta too hard in a pan. How could she? How could Mum put someone like Melody in Gryffindor? Melody didn’t deserve to be in Gryffindor. She wasn’t BRAVE – and no, wearing hot pants that hot-pant-y does not classify as “brave”. She wouldn’t have even got into Hogwarts. She would’ve been a Squib – a very pretty Squib or something.