8Author's Notes:
This story is a companion piece for The Marriage Decree by Delilah Wise.
If you have not read that fanfiction, I would not recommend reading this fanfiction as it will make very little sense to you. I also do not recommend reading The Marriage Decree, as it is a gargantuan work that I have been writing for seven years and consists of over 900,000 words. Plus, I am not entirely fond of the first sixty chapters, as they were written four years ago, and I hope my writing has improved since then.
Welcome to Chapter 1!
I know there is a lot of backstory at the beginning, but I needed to write a recap before jumping into Sophie's Hogwarts Years.
These chapters will be shorter than TMD. They will also align with TMD, so I won't jump to Sophie's second year while TMD is still in her first year.
At the age of six, Sophie Adair had experienced so many strange and curious happenings around her that she concluded she was a witch. At first, she was devastated; this was just another thing making her stand out from all the idiots at school. They already bullied her for being raised by a single father and being an insufferable know-it-all. If anyone ever found out, it was sure to be a disaster, so Sophie never told a soul, not even her father.
Then just before her ninth birthday, her cousin, Hermione Granger, came to the same conclusion. Hermione told Sophie all about the wizarding world, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, the Ministry for Magic and Diagon Alley. Sophie's self-confidence skyrocketed, knowing that there was a whole community of people just like her, where she was sure to fit in.
Slowly, Hermione, and her husband, Draco Malfoy, introduced her to the wizarding world and all of their friends. They accepted Sophie, and she found that her weirdness was commonplace; she no longer stood out. Until she made her first-ever friend, Elizabeth Montgomery, a pureblood girl who knew hardly anything about the muggle world. However, Elizabeth was eager to learn, so they exchanged addresses and promised to owl each other letters, explaining the intricacies of their native worlds. The two girls soon became best friends, telling each other everything. Until Elizabeth announced in one letter that her French cousin, Florian Montgomery, would join them at Hogwarts in September. Sophie became so jealous she ignored her friend for a whole month. How was Sophie supposed to compete with a cousin for the title of best friend?
The dynamics of her friendship with Elizabeth turned out to be the least of her worries. On the first of September, Sophie instantly got on the wrong side of a Slytherin prefect after threatening to curse him for calling her a mudblood. At the time, Sophie hadn't known he was a prefect, although she doubts it would have changed her actions. Thankfully, her father had been there to stop her from performing magic in the middle of muggle Kings Cross, an expellable offence.
On the Hogwarts Express, Florian had immediately brought up Sophie's mother, despite being told not to by Elizabeth. Sophie had brushed the question aside, refusing to answer his curiosities. She didn't want the other Hogwarts students to know that Gwenog Jones, the famous Quidditch player, was her mother. Especially since her mother abandoned her at birth, only to return nine years later, pretending to be the perfect mum. Thankfully, Elizabeth changed the topic by telling Sophie about her summer holidays.
However, the distraction was short-lived when a small, large boy burst into their compartment. He begged them to buy him some sweets after his older brother refused. Sophie had agreed out of curiosity. Afterwards, she followed the boy back to his own compartment, where she discovered his older brother was the Slytherin prefect from earlier. He bullied first-years and his own family. After being bullied most of her life, Sophie refused to stand by and let it happen at Hogwarts. She walked into their compartment, cursed the prefect, and ordered the boy to come with her to her compartment. It turns out the boy, Gaius Broadmoor, took her act as one of friendship and proclaimed the four of them to now be friends.
Sophie was apprehensive initially, but she had promised her father that she would try to make friends. He would be impressed if she could tell him in her first letter home that she had made two more on the train ride to school. It also meant Sophie could save time once lessons had started trying to make friends. It wasn't until Sophie, Gaius, Elizabeth and Florian were all sorted into Ravenclaw that she thought maybe the four of them were destined to be friends.
After the tour of Ravenclaw Tower, the first-years were left to settle into their dormitories. Luckily, Sophie and Elizabeth were sharing (along with a small girl named Lucile) because Sophie had already gotten into an argument with Nancy Nevis. She seemed to be the kind of girl Sophie would have avoided in the Muggle world. In their dormitory, Sophie learned that Lucile was a muggleborn. When she'd seemed surprised Sophie and Elizabeth had been friends for two years already, Sophie took pity and offered the girl their friendship. Surely four friends wouldn't be too many?
Later that night, Florian and Gaius introduced them to the two other first-year Ravenclaw boys (Leonard Poole and Harrison Finlay). Sophie began to feel overwhelmed by the number of people she was expected to befriend. Elizabeth was already sitting between Florian and Leonard on the couch, eager to get to know the two new boys. Sophie sits on the floor beside Harrison and introduces Lucile. The first-years shake each other's hands with a smile as the conversation turns to their upcoming lessons. However, Sophie can't focus on what anyone is saying as she tries to formulate her answer. When all eyes fall on her, Sophie quickly says she's looking forward to Charms the most because she's heard Professor Flitwick is a brilliant professor. She then excuses herself with a fake yawn and bids the group goodnight before racing to her dormitory. How embarrassing? She couldn't even formulate an engaging answer. She bets they're laughing at her right now.
Sophie changes into her pyjamas and brushes her teeth in the adjoining bathroom before diving into her new, four-poster bed and drawing the blue curtains around her. A few minutes later, Sophie hears their door open and footsteps walking over to her bed.
"Sophie?" Elizabeth softly calls her name, checking if she's awake.
"Yes?"
Elizabeth peeks between the curtains and asks, "Can I come in?"
"Sure." Sophie sits up, crossing her legs so Elizabeth can sit opposite.
Elizabeth climbs onto Sophie's bed, pulling the curtains back to hide them. "Are you okay, Sophie?" She asks, brows furrowed with concern.
Not wanting to lie, Sophie looks down at her hands in her lap and admits, "I'm just not used to socialising with so many people. It makes me nervous."
"Oh, I thought you just didn't like one of them," Elizabeth laughs. "If you want, you can sit next to me next time, and if you get nervous, I'll help you," she offers.
"Really?" Sophie's eyes tear up, not used to this level of kindness from other children.
"Of course, you're my best friend, I want to help you." Elizabeth smiles, taking her hand. "I love people and can't talk enough for the both of us."
Sophie laughs, squeezing her friend's hand in thanks.
"Tomorrow, we'll go to breakfast with the boys and Lucile. It'll be easier to talk when there's food to distract us," Elizabeth suggests.
"Okay, thank you, Elizabeth."
"Are you actually tired? Or did you just say that?" Elizabeth asks.
"I really am tired. I couldn't sleep well last night," Sophie explains.
"Then I'll leave you to sleep. I'll tell you everything about our new friends tomorrow."
Elizabeth climbs back out of Sophie's bed, ensuring the curtains are drawn correctly before leaving. Sophie falls asleep quickly with a soft smile, glad to have such a good friend looking out for her.
On their first Saturday at Hogwarts, the girls in Sophie's dormitory were awoken abruptly early by the squawks of a forgotten Athena.
"Sophie!" Lucile complains, burying her head beneath her pillow to block out the noise.
"Athena!" Sophie almost falls out of bed in her attempts to soothe her owl. "Do you want to stretch your wings?" She carries the cage over to the nearest window, cracking it open wide enough for Athena to soar straight out as soon as her cage is opened.
"It's cold!" Elizabeth mumbles, tugging her blanket up to her chin, as a chilled wind flows through her curtains.
"Sorry," Sophie slams the window shut. "I should have let her out last night."
"Can you do a heating charm?" Elizabeth asks.
"I can light a fire in the fireplace?" Sophie suggests.
"Really? I was joking." Elizabeth sits up, opening her curtains.
"Well, I've never done it before, but I could try." Sophie shrugs, grabbing her wand from the drawer of her bedside table. Pointing it at the wood already in the fireplace, she clearly speaks, "Incendio". However, only a spark shoots out of her wand, hitting the carpet and burning a giant black singe mark into the blue fibres.
Lucile scurries to the end of her bed to peer at the singe. "That's not good."
"Will I get into trouble?" Sophie asks, replacing her wand in her drawer as panic begins to control her.
"No, we'll just hide it with that rug," Elizabeth assures Sophie, climbing out of bed. "Help me."
Sophie and Elizabeth pull the large blue rug over to cover the burn.
"See, they'll never know," Elizabeth claims, hands on her hips as she inspects the rooms. "Do you think we can decorate our dormitory ourselves?"
"Why? What do you want to change?" Lucile asks, scanning the room herself.
"Well, there's so much wasted space from having our beds on three different walls. If Sophie and I had our bed on her wall, you could move your bed up to the window, and we could have some comfortable seating and bookshelves over where your bed is now. Then you're no longer near the bathroom," Elizabeth suggests.
"And how do you expect us to move these beds and furniture ourselves?" Lucile asks. "No offence, Sophie, but I don't want you performing any more magic until we start our lessons."
Sophie blushes in embarrassment.
"We can ask Alannis," Elizabeth mentions. "She seems nice."
Lucile thinks for a moment before nodding in agreement, "Fine, but not now. It's too early, and I'm starving."
Elizabeth squeals, jumping in excitement, "We'll receive our timetables at breakfast."
The three girls quickly dress for the day ahead in jeans and jumpers before heading into the common room, where they find Harrison Finlay sitting at one of the desks, scribbling away.
"Morning, Harrison; what are you doing?" Elizabeth asks, skipping over to his desk.
"Nothing!" Immediately, he rolls up his parchment before sighing, "A letter to mother. I'll finish it later."
Sophie catches Elizabeth's eye and is glad they're both confused by his reaction.
"Are the rest of the boys awake?" Elizabeth asks. "We're going down to breakfast."
A grin forms across Harrison's face. "They weren't twenty minutes ago, but I can wake them up for you." Harrison quietly races towards the boy's dormitories.
While the girls lounge across a couch, chatting about their plans for the day, they hear multiple screams from the boys' dormitory.
"What do you think Harrison did?" Sophie ponders.
"We'll find out soon enough," Lucile laughs.
Ten minutes later, the four first-year Ravenclaw boys exit their dormitory, dressed and ready for the day, except their hair is damp and sticking at odd ends.
"Did you tell him to do this?" Florian asks his cousin.
"No, we had no part in his prank," Elizabeth assures. "But if Harrison threw water over your head to wake you, it's rather funny."
"It's not," Leonard mumbles.
"They got me back." Harrison grins, gesturing at his own damp hair.
"I was promised breakfast for my troubles," Gaius pouts.
Thank you so much for reading.
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