“Bye, Father!” I called as the figure of my father grew smaller and smaller. The Hogwarts Express picked up speed and soon I couldn’t see him anymore.

Cautiously weaving through the train with Blaise, Anja and Alex, it didn’t take us long to realise that all the compartments were full except one with just a first-year girl inside.

Naturally, we sat down in that compartment.

I sat down opposite the girl. She had dirty-blond hair and was reading a magazine I had never heard of called The Quibbler.

I decided to try and make conversation with her.

“Hello,” I began. “Are you a first-year?”

It was a stupid question. She was obviously younger than all four of us and I knew she wasn’t in my year group.

She jumped and looked over the top of her magazine. “Oh, hello. Yes. I’m a first-year. My name is Luna. Luna Lovegood. What are your names?”

“Well, I’m Jade Evans, this is Blaise Zabini, that’s Anja Pansé and that’s Alex Johnson.” I introduced the four of us.

She smiled. “Jade. What a lovely name. Did you know that a telltale sign of a Crumple-Horned Snorkack is jade? It’s a kind of greenstone, too. It’s very pretty.”

I frowned. “What exactly is a Crumple-Horned Snorkack?”

She handed me her copy of The Quibbler and turned the page.

Silently, I read the article.

It was quite an interesting article, but it was clearly fiction. I wondered where she had gotten this thing from.

I turned to the back and read:

EDITOR: XENOPHILIUS LOVEGOOD

Xenophilius Lovegood must be her father.

I could tell from Luna’s expression that her father had managed to convince her that this was all real.

I resolved not to destroy her fantasies.

Handing back her magazine, I told her, “That’s very interesting, Luna. I had never heard of Crumple-Horned Snorkacks before you showed me this.”

She looked pleased. “I’m glad you like it, my father is the editor.”

I had been right.

If her father was a wizard, was her mother too?

“Oh, so are you a pure-blood?” I asked.

She nodded sadly. “Yes. But my mother died two years ago, when I was nine.”

Poor Luna. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

Alex, who was sitting next to Luna, glanced over at her. “Luna, what house do you expect you’ll be in?”

She looked thoughtful for a moment. “Well, both my parents were in Ravenclaw, so I suppose I will be, too. But I wouldn’t be too surprised or worried if I got Slytherin, either. Not all Slytherins are evil, you know,” she said, very seriously.

I nodded at her. I knew a lot of non-Slytherins had hate towards us because ‘there was never a Dark wizard or witch who wasn’t in Slytherin’, which was completely untrue.

“What houses are you all in?” she asked.

“Alex is a Ravenclaw and the rest of us are Slytherins,” Blaise said.

After talking for a short while longer, we all got changed into our school robes.

A long while later, we reached Hogsmeade Station and got off.

“Good luck, Luna!” I called to Luna as she followed Hagrid to the boats.

She turned around, nodded once, waved and then was lost amid the crowd of first-years getting into the boats.

We second-years had to get into carriages pulled by odd-looking horse-like creatures.

I made no comment on their prescence, guessing that they were just another type of magical creature I didn’t know of.

As I sat down in the carriage next to Alex, I whispered to him, “Hope she gets Slytherin.”

“Or Ravenclaw,” he reminded me.

I shook my head. “No, Slytherin.”

“Ravenclaw.”

“Slytherin.”

“Ravenclaw.”

“Slytherin.”

“Ravenclaw.”

This pointless argument continued for the rest of our trip to the school.

As for what Blaise and Anja were doing; well, they were just smirking at us for the whole trip.

I said goodbye to Alex, with one last ‘Slytherin’, then we went to go sit in the Great Hall.

Luna was around the middle of the line of first-years who were about to be Sorted.

The Sorting, but I only started paying attention when some people had already been Sorted.

“Corner, Michael!”

“RAVENCLAW!”

“Creevey, Colin!”

“GRYFFINDOR!”

I must have fallen asleep right about then, because I couldn’t remember anything after that except for a rather odd dream in which a snake was about to attack Dumbledore when Father told me I was a Parselmouth.

I had been having dreams similar to this since the night that I discovered I was a Parselmouth.

Just when Father said, “This means, Jade, that you are a Parselmouth”, Blaise shook me awake.

“Jade! Wake up! They’re almost up to Luna!”

I sat up.

“Lovegood, Luna!”

The hat took ages and ages to decide – just over four minutes.

I liked to think it was deciding between Slytherin and Ravenclaw. The two houses I had thought I might like to be in.

“RAVENCLAW!”

She smiled and went to go sit next to Alex. I sighed and glanced over at him. He raised his eyebrows at me in an ‘I told you so’ gesture.

‘Whatever’, I mouthed and turned back to the Sorting.

“Smith, Zechariah!”

“HUFFLEPUFF!”

“Thomas, Sam!”

I figured this was Dean’s brother, since they looked quite similar.

“GRYFFINDOR!”

He ran off to go sit next to Dean, Seamus, Pavarti and Lavender.

“Weasley, Ginevra!”

The girl who I had seen at Flourish and Blotts was, as I had thought, Ron’s sister.

“GRYFFINDOR!”

She ran to the Gryffindor table and sat next to Hermione. Ron and Harry were nowhere to be seen.

Dumbledore stepped up to the front to give his announcements.

“…and anyone wishing to try out for their house’s Quidditch team will need to contact Madam Hooch. That is all; you may eat!”

The tryouts! Of course. I had almost forgotten.

I looked down the table at Draco. He met my eye and I nodded.

Then I smirked and mouthed ‘Hermione’. He glared and turned away.

I had made a promise to Draco, though, I wasn’t going to break it.