"Hightower, Cassandra!"
Professor Winterborn's voice rang through the Great Hall. Cassandra stepped forward from the pack of first-years, her white-gold hair arranged in two French braids, not a single strand out of place. Her brand-new uniform was immaculate – she'd checked everything twice on the platform, much to her father's amusement.
Stand up straight. Shoulders back. Chin level. Walk with purpose. Her mother's stern instructions echoed in her head as she approached the wooden stool. The Sorting Hat looked old and dirty. She fought the urge to flinch as Winterborn placed it on her head.
"Ah, a Hightower!" the Hat's voice whispered in her mind. "What a treat. Haven’t had one of you since…oh, must have been the early 1900s! Let's see... my, what an organized little mind you have. Alles in ordnung as they say – ah! Apologies, lapsed into German there for a moment...hard to stay in English since two other languages are rattling about in here. Remarkable work, my compliments to your tutors."
Cassandra sat rigid, hands folded neatly in her lap. Please don't take too long. Everyone's watching.
"Worried about appearances, are we? But there's so much else here... Such drive for knowledge, an ambition to understand everything... A natural puzzle-solver, always looking for patterns..."
Ravenclaw would be most suitable, Cassandra thought in a rehearsed patter. Papa says our family has a long tradition-
"Oh, it's not about tradition, young lady. It's about that brilliant, systematic mind of yours. The way you've already memorized large swaths of 'Hogwarts: A History' and created your own cross-referenced study system for the first-year curriculum while most of your fellows don’t even know what a syllabus is yet...hm, yes, make it RAVENCLAW!"
The blue-and-bronze table provided polite applause. Cassandra lifted the hat carefully, placed it exactly as she'd found it, and walked with measured steps to her new house table. She'd practiced this walk at home too, wanting to appear dignified but not haughty.
Samantha Herrington, Ravenclaw prefect, a fifth-year girl with warm brown eyes, smiled and gestured to an empty spot. "Welcome to Ravenclaw, Cassandra."
"Thank you very much," Cassandra replied. She sat down, smoothing her skirt, and stared at the table.
The Ravenclaw common room felt familiar – the royal blue carpet, the central open fireplace, the stars painted on the domed ceiling, the tall arched windows all in white marble. It reminded her of Father's library, though their ceiling at home wasn't enchanted. She'd read about the Ravenclaw Tower enchantments in "Hogwarts: A History" and also checked it against "Architectural Charms of Great Britain and Ireland."
Her fellow first-year girls huddled together, whispering and giggling, discussing where they were from, already forming friendships. The boys had gone off somewhere, Cassandra didn’t notice or care where. She stood apart, examining the bookshelves. She'd already spotted three volumes she hadn't read yet – a promising start.
"Hi! I'm Margaret Clearwater!" A small girl with auburn pigtails bounded up. "But everyone calls me Maggie. We're in the same dormitory, so we should be friends! I’m from London, where are you from?"
Cassandra turned, startled by the enthusiasm, her heart suddenly pounding in her chest. "Hello. I am Cassandra Hightower. I am pleased to make your acquaintance." She extended her hand formally, the way she'd been taught.
Maggie's smile faltered slightly but she shook Cassandra's hand. "Do you want to come sit with us? We're talking about what classes we're most excited about!"
"Thank you for the invitation," Cassandra replied. "But I would like to review the first chapter of each textbook again before tomorrow's class scheduling. It wouldn't do to be unprepared."
"Oh... um, alright." Maggie stepped back, uncertain. "Maybe... maybe another time?"
Cassandra nodded stiffly, already turning back to the bookshelf and trying to concentrate on where she had left. She heard Maggie's footsteps retreat, followed by whispers from the group of girls.
"She's awfully intense, isn’t she?"
"Well, of course! Did you see the way she marched up to the Sorting Hat?"
“Do you think she’s just putting it on, or is she really like that all the time?”
"I heard her father’s some big shot at the Ministry..."
Cassandra scrunched up her shoulders against the remarks. She pulled out "Fundamental Forces in Transfiguration" and settled into a far window seat, trying to ignore the hollow feeling in her chest that her heart had caused after it had finally slowed down. She didn't know how to be any different – didn't know how to be friendly and giggly like the other girls. Everything had to be sorted, had to be proper. That was how she was raised. It was what was expected of her.
The common room gradually emptied as students headed to their dormitories. Cassandra stayed until the last possible moment, watching and memorizing the star patterns on the ceiling. It would help her if she had Astronomy this term. The first day of classes would be in three days. She had to be prepared.
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Upstairs in the first-year girls’ dormitory, Cassandra stared at her trunk, paralyzed. At home, Harrison, their butler, would have already unpacked everything. Miss Pembroke, her governess, would have laid out her nightclothes. Tinky, one of their house-elves, would have turned down the bed for her and placed a warming pan.
Here, there was no Harrison, no Miss Pembroke, no Tinky. Just her, a trunk that seemed impossibly heavy, and a bed tucked against one of the tall, arched windows that lined the outer wall of the round tower.
The dormitory was undeniably beautiful, the moonlight streaming through the windows and casting soft silver patterns on the stone floor. Each bed was set snugly against a window, a little alcove surrounded by blue curtains that faced inward toward the room. It was airy—so airy that Cassandra could feel the chill even through the warming charms in the walls.
But the space felt far too open, too exposed. At home, her room had thick velvet drapes and a fire crackling in the hearth, everything cocooning her in warmth and familiarity. Here, the high ceilings and windows made her feel tiny.
She glanced around. The other girls were chattering as they unpacked, laughter echoing off the curved walls. They pulled out photos, decorations, and little trinkets, personalizing the spaces around their beds.
One girl—Alice something?—was showing off a small stuffed pegasus that pranced and whisked its tail, little sparkling rainbows trailing from its wings. The others cooed in delight, gathering around to watch, their faces lit with joy as if all the warmth of the room was for them, and Cassandra was left out in the cold.
Cassandra looked down, trying to swallow past a lump in her throat. What would they think of her things? She felt exposed. Her hands trembled slightly as she reached for the latch.
"Do you need help?" Maggie asked tentatively.
"No, thank you," Cassandra replied without thinking. "I'm quite capable." But she wasn't, not really. She'd never had to unpack her own trunk before. Never had to make her own bed. Never shared living space with anyone except when visiting her cousin Cecilia in Mayfair, and even then, those were separate adjoining rooms with a shared sitting room.
She forced herself to kneel down and open her trunk, grateful that Harrison had packed everything in labeled compartments. She began removing items, folding and placing them in her dresser drawers with painstaking care. Everything had to be in its correct place.
"Is that... is that silver?" someone gasped, spotting Cassandra's hairbrush set (three brushes, the smallest had unicorn hair bristles).
She turned to see Maggie staring, wide-eyed. Two other girls had walked up behind her, friendly curiosity written on their faces.
“Yes,” Cassandra replied. “It is my grandmother’s.” She returned to her task, hoping to signal disinterest.
"And that perfume bottle – is that crystal?"
"Venetian. Papa brought it back from Italy for my…tenth birthday." She had a dreadful feeling that she was inadvertently bragging.
“May I smell some?” Maggie asked excitedly.
“N-no!” Cassandra stammered, clutching the bottle protectively. “I mean… I’m terribly sorry, no.” Her cheeks flushed with embarrassment. She knew her refusal sounded unfriendly, but the thought of someone else handling it made her stomach twist.
All the questions made her horribly uncomfortable. At home, her things were normal. Here she felt like an animal in a menagerie, and her dormmates were poking at her through the cage bars.
The other girls whispered amongst themselves, their attention drifting to her trunk again. “Merlin,” one of them murmured, pointing. “Her nightgown is silk!”
Cassandra snatched up her nightclothes, her hands trembling, and bolted to her bed. She yanked the curtains closed, sealing herself off from curious eyes. She changed quickly inside her little cocoon, her eyes burning with humiliation. She sat on the center of her bed for a moment, clutching her nightgown and listening, hoping and praying they would lose interest and leave her alone.
The enormous window pressed against the other side of her bed. It stretched high above her head, letting the silver light of the moon pour in onto the pale sheets. She hated it. It made the bed feel like a stage—open to the night, the stars, and anyone who might look in from the outside. She knew logically that no one could easily look in from the outside, not at this altitude, but that did little to comfort her.
With a shiver, she leaned across the bed and reached for the window curtains, pulling them shut with a quick, jerky motion. The heavy fabric fell into place, blocking the unwelcome sky and leaving her in darkness. The space felt smaller now, more contained, but it didn’t bring the relief she hoped for. Instead, it felt stifling, like a cage.
Cassandra bit her lip, willing herself not to cry.
"Goodnight," she said meekly to the room at large, hoping to dissolve the tension.
A few mumbled "goodnights" came back, then the normal rustle of girls getting ready for bed resumed.
Cassandra waited for an agonizingly long time until the steady rhythm of her dormmates’ breathing told her they were all asleep. She peeked her head out to make sure that the coast was clear, then slipped her feet into her slippers. Only then did she dare to pull out her wand, casting a dim Lumos to light her trunk.
She laid out her uniform for tomorrow (checked twice for ironing) and hung it from the end of her dresser. Then she placed her wand parallel to her textbooks on the bedside table before climbing back under the covers and drawing the curtains closed.
The sheets were rough compared to her Egyptian Nile cotton ones at home, but complaining wouldn’t solve anything. It would also be unladylike.
She lay in bed, staring up at the canopy, her mind trying to organize tomorrow's schedule. The top of Ravenclaw Tower was dead silent, broken only by the occasional stirring of her fellow first-years. The silence was scary, so unlike home, where Tinky’s gentle humming or Miss Pembroke’s soft footsteps in the hall always made her feel safe. Even the bed felt wrong – no warming pan had been slipped between the sheets, no lavender sachet tucked under her pillow.
Everything was different, strange, cold, and lonely.
She was where she belonged—Ravenclaw, just like Papa had always said she would be. She would make him proud, and Mother, too. She would make Grandmama proud. She had to.
For the first time in her life, she wished she wasn’t the daughter of a duke. She wished she could giggle about stuffed pegasi and silly charms instead of quoting textbooks and worrying. She wished she knew how to be eleven, instead of eleven going on eighty.
Cassandra curled up tightly under the rough blankets, pressing her face into the pillow as the ache in her chest grew heavier. She told herself it didn’t matter, that she didn’t care what the others thought. But the truth whispered back, softly and heartlessly: despite all the tutoring and all the books and all the effort, she didn’t know how to belong here.
Her pillow was soaked beneath her cheek by the time her breathing evened out into sleep. But that, she thought fiercely as she flipped it over to the dry side, was nobody’s business but her own.