Chapter Text
By the time Waverly Earp turns eleven years old and receives her Hogwarts letter, she knows exactly what to expect when she arrives at school. She’s going to be in Ravenclaw, because that’s the smart house. At least, that’s what her sister Wynonna tells her. And because Waverly is a smart girl, it makes sense.
Waverly has accompanied her sister to Diagon Alley for years, but now it was her turn. Her birthday is in mid-August, so part of her gift is a trip to Diagon Alley, where she is allowed to splurge a little on her first school shopping trip. She gazes in awe at the countless interesting titles in Flourish and Blotts and can’t even stand still while being fitted for her robes. She is far too excited.
Gus doesn’t let her get an owl, saying she’s too young and that she can just borrow Wynonna’s if she really needs it. Speaking of Wynonna, she’s taking way too long inside Quality Quidditch Supplies. Waverly knows everyone is supposed to love quidditch, but she doesn’t see anything too exciting inside the store. Well, besides the young red headed girl who looks about her age, gazing at the broomsticks in wonder. They meet eyes and Waverly offers her a smile. The girl returns her smile timidly, and her cheeks tinge red. Before Waverly can approach her, Gus drags her and Wynonna out of the shop and down the street to Ollivander’s.
This is the moment that Waverly has been waiting for. She will finally have a wand of her own. Sure, she can’t use it until she gets to school, but it will be hers. They enter the dusty, old shop and Waverly is surprised to find that it is empty. In the dim lights, she sees an old figure behind the counter smile at her.
“Welcome,” Ollivander says in his gravely voice that sends a chill down Waverly’s spine. “Your first wand, I presume?” He speaks directly to Waverly, and she appreciates that. She nods. People will usually talk to Gus or Wynonna about her, and pretend that she isn’t even there. He waves his wand and a measuring tape floats over to Waverly and starts measuring various parts of her body, from her height to her foot size.
Ollivander disappears to the back and through the shelves of wands. “Another Earp, I see… Maybe we should start with something like your sister has. Pine and phoenix feather, thirteen and a quarter inches, if I’m remembering correctly?”
“Yes sir,” Wynonna replies with pride.
“Ah, here we are.” Ollivander pulls a long box out of the wall. “This one is pine and unicorn, nine inches.” He takes it out of the box and delicately hands it over to Waverly. She stares at it, but feels nothing. When she gives it a wave, nothing happens. Waverly frowns and tries again. A single page turns in the book on Ollivander’s desk, but that’s about it. “Not to worry, let’s try something else. Maybe Pine isn’t the right fit after all sorts …”
Ollivander sets Waverly up with a whole array of various wands to test out, most of which do absolutely nothing when she waves it, with the exception of a yew and phoenix feather wand that sets Wynonna’s sleeve on fire, much to Waverly’s amusement. Waverly has just about given up hope, and a line of other first years is starting to form behind her, including the same red headed girl from Quality Quidditch Supplies. Waverly tries to hide her frustration, but she didn’t think it would be this difficult to find a wand.
“Now there was one young wizard where it took nearly a week for us to find the right wand for him,” Ollivander reminisces. Waverly fidgets and bites her fingernails. What if this means she’s not going to be a good witch? If not a single wand in this shop wants her, how is she supposed to ace all of her classes? “That man grew up to become Minister of Magic for a time. Sometimes it’s the most powerful sorcerers that are the most difficult to place.”
Waverly sighs. It’s almost like he could read her mind.
“Let’s try…. This one.” Ollivander pulls another box off the highest shelf in the shop. He climbs down the ladder and hands it to Waverly. Somehow, this wand feels different. A shiver runs down her spine. “Applewood with a phoenix feather in the core. Ten and a half inches. Give her a try.”
Waverly grasps the wand tight and gives it a wave. Suddenly, she is engulfed in a warm light and a gentle breeze that surrounds her. Ollivander smiles. “Looks like we’ve done it.”
Waverly barely remembers what happens afterward as they pay for her new wand and finish up their shopping with ice cream from Florean Fortescue’s.
Waverly spends the next few weeks waiting in anticipation for September first, and for the school year to begin. Her nightly reading of library books is replaced with her school textbooks. She sleeps with her wand on the nightstand right next to her, and though she can not yet use it, she holds it and feels comforted.
September first comes along and Waverly is up bright and early. She packed her bags the night before and spends most of the morning pestering Wynonna to hurry so they can get on the train. Unfortunately, Wynonna isn’t as excited for school as Waverly is, and they arrive at King’s Cross with only ten minutes to reach Platform Nine and Three Quarters.
Wynonna pushes a trolley with both of their suitcases on it, and Waverly follows her through the wall. They give Gus a hug goodbye and jump on the train to find someplace to sit. Wynonna immediately goes to find her friends, leaving Waverly to fend for herself.
She finds car with a couple of other first years inside and goes to introduce herself. “Hi,” she says excitedly. “I’m Waverly. Can I sit here?”
“Waverly, like, Wynonna Earp’s sister?” one boy asks. Waverly nods hesitantly, and the boy laughs. “If she’s anything like her sister, we’re better off without her,” he says to his friends.
Waverly glares at him. “Well it’s not like I want to sit with you anyway,” she says, and storms out of there.
She gets similar reactions from a few other people afraid of the Earp family name, and begins to feel disheartened. She didn’t think it would be this difficult to make friends, but if they don’t like her sister, then Waverly is sure she wouldn’t like them anyway.
Waverly spots the red headed girl she saw in Diagon Alley. She sits in a cart with four other first years and one empty seat, but doesn’t talk to any of the other kids. The red headed girl looks up and catches her eye. She smiles. Waverly starts to walk over, but another kid pushes her out of the way and takes the last empty seat.
Waverly frowns and walks away. She’s practically given up when she feels a hand on her shoulder. She looks up and sees her sister, towering over here. “Come with me,” Wynonna says, and leads Waverly back to her own compartment to sit with her friends, Dolls and Doc.
“Why are we sitting with your kid sister?” Doc asks with a frown.
“It’s her first train ride,” Wynonna defends. “She can’t sit by herself. If you don’t want to sit with her, you can leave.”
Doc shuts up after that.
Dolls waves to her. Waverly notices the blue and bronze prefect badge on his chest. “Wynonna tells me you think you’ll be in Ravenclaw.” Waverly nods. Dolls grins. “Well, let me be the first to welcome you to the best house.”
They chat amicably through the ride until Waverly falls asleep on Wynonna’s lap. She does appreciate her sister letting her join them, but she wants to make her own friends too.
Wynonna shakes her awake once the sun has set when they’re almost to Hogsmeade station so that Waverly can change into her robes. She gives her sister a hug goodbye when the train stops, and makes her way to find other first years for the boat trip to Hogwarts.
Waverly ends up on the same boat as the first boy who didn’t want to sit with her, as well as the red headed girl that she keeps seeing everywhere. They don’t get a chance to speak, though, because Waverly’s breath is taken away at her first glimpse of the castle.
Wynonna had described it before, but no words could bring justice to the awe inspiring sight before her. The way the lights in all the windows glistened on the reflection of the lake. The ancient halls that tower in front of them were a mystery yet to be explored, and Waverly can’t wait to devour it and learn all the secrets Hogwarts had to offer. She doesn’t realize herself leaning far over the edge of the boat until she falls, headfirst into the lake.
Almost immediately, Waverly hears a splash after her, and feels an arm tightly wrapped around her as she moves back toward the boat. She blinks and sees the red headed girl dragging her to the boat. She pushes Waverly in first and then climbs back in herself.
“T-thanks,” Waverly says through her chattering teeth as she shivers in her drenched robes.
“You’re welcome,” the girl says.
“I’m Waverly.”
“Nicole.”
That’s all they say to each other for the rest of the ride. Mostly because they’re both too cold to form words.
As soon as they’re off the boats, Professor Flitwick scolds them for reckless swimming in the lake, but he mutters a few words and suddenly Waverly’s robes are dry and she feels a magical warmth growing inside of her.
The first years all move to the Great Hall, and Waverly loses sight of Nicole in the crowd. She frowns, but continues on, and listens in as her classmates discuss which house they think they’ll be in. Waverly feels her heart begin to race faster in anticipation of the sorting ceremony. Soon enough, she and the other students file into the Great Hall, surrounded by witches and wizards older than them, their future housemates.
The dull chatter in the hall slowly pitters out when Minerva McGonagall approaches the front of the room carrying a hat, a stool, and a list. The hat bursts into a short song that briefly summarizes all the houses; Waverly assumes it’s for the muggle born students who know nothing about the houses already. After the song, McGonagall begins to read off names and a student will go to the front and sit in front of everyone, until the hat calls out a house. Waverly’s heart races in anticipation as her turn gets nearer and nearer.
“Earp, Waverly,” McGonagall calls out. The hall goes silent once again. There’s an eerie tension, as if there’s some sort of stigma that follows the Earp name. Waverly already knows this, of course, with Wynonna as her sister.
Waverly takes a deep breath and pushes her way through the crowd toward the stool in front of her. She sits down, and McGonagall places the hat atop her head.
“Well, this is an easy one,” the hat murmurs into her ear.
Waverly grins, and says, “Of course, Ravenclaw,” while at the same time, the hat says quietly to her, “Hufflepuff.”
“What?” Waverly asks, shocked. “I’m not a Hufflepuff.”
“Dearie, I can see everything that you are,” the hat whispers. “I know every thought you’ve ever had and all the potential you have. You are a Hufflepuff.”
“But I thought- my sister said all the smart people go into Ravenclaw. I’m smart, right?”
“Waverly Earp, you are brilliant.”
“And I thought Hufflepuff was the good house. I- I don’t think I would live up to that standard.”
“I know you have insecurity in your heart, but that does not mean you are a bad person. You have one of the most genuinely good hearts I have looked into. Far better than your sister’s.”
Waverly can’t help but giggle at the hat comparing her to Wynonna. “Well I could’ve told you that.”
“I’m not trying to change your mind, I just want you to see the light in you,” the hat says. “And I know you can as a Hufflepuff.”
Waverly takes a deep breath. This is not how she thought her time at Hogwarts would go. “Okay.”
She looks up at the crowd. A few people look a little distressed. The hat must have taken longer than she realized. When the hat shouts out, “HUFFLEPUFF!” the hall is filled with a loud cheer, primarily from the Hufflepuff table. Waverly grins and jumps off the stool to join the sea of yellow and black. Almost immediately after she sits down and she’s showered in hugs and pats on the back, McGonagall calls out another name.
“Haught, Nicole.”
Waverly looks up and sees the girl who jumped in the lake after her walk up to the stool. She trembles violently and looks like she might throw up, but almost the moment she sits down and the hat is placed on her head, it calls out, “HUFFLEPUFF!”
The students around her erupt into another loud cheer, and Waverly joins in. Nicole takes the empty seat next to her and they smile at each other.
“Did you get what you thought?” Waverly asks.
“I had no idea what to expect,” Nicole replies. “But I’m happy I’m here.”
“Me too.”
The rest of the sorting goes by in a breeze, and Waverly stuffs her face in the feast after. She hadn’t realized how hungry the train ride made her. Nicole watches her in amusement, but also eats almost as much.
“What class are you excited to take?” Waverly asks her.
“I’m not sure,” Nicole says. “I don’t know too much about the different subjects.”
“Well Transfiguration and Potions are probably the most difficult classes that first years take, but they’re really useful in the future. History of Magic isn’t the most exciting cause my sister says the professor is dead boring, but I was reading the text and it’s actually really interesting. People say charms and herbology are the easy ones but I think they’re vastly underrated. Astronomy’s pretty self-explanatory. And then you’ve got defense against the dark arts where you learn spells and enchantments for protection.”
Nicole stares at her in awe. “Did you just read all the texts before you came here?”
Waverly blushes. “Maybe.”
Nicole laughs. “I should’ve done that. Maybe then I wouldn’t be so lost. I guess that’s what happens when you had no idea magic even existed for eleven years.”
“You don’t have a magic family?” Waverly asks.
Nicole shrugs. “I’m not sure. I was adopted, so I don’t know my family.”
Waverly doesn’t know what to say to that, but she’s saved when the school is dismissed from dinner to return to their dormitories. She and Nicole stick together when the swarm of new Hufflepuffs struggle to find their prefects to show them the common room.
Other houses go up the stairs, but their prefect takes them down to the basement. They walk down a large corridor covered in paintings of food, and keep walking until they turn a corner to find a pile of barrels. He demonstrates how to tap the barrel two from the bottom in the middle row, and a passage opens up. The students crawl in one by one until Nicole and Waverly are the only ones left.
“After you,” Nicole says, and Waverly crawls into her new home for the next seven years.
When she emerges into the common room her first thought is home. The room is bright and the couches look comfortable and the fire crackles peacefully in the corner. The high, round windows look out onto fields outside the castle and Waverly can see the stars.
The prefects usher them into empty dormitories where they find their belongings already up and next to their beds. Waverly finds her suitcase and sits down on her bed. Nicole is across the room from her. She waves, and Waverly smiles. She gets up and saunters across the room to sit on Nicole’s bed.
“This place is so cool,” Nicole sighs, and sits down next to her.
“It’s more than I could’ve imagined,” Waverly admits. And she’s imagined Hogwarts many, many times.
Their roommates all get ready for bed, but Waverly is too filled with excitement to sleep. Instead, she and Nicole return to the common room and stay up talking until they’re too tired to keep their eyes open.
Waverly goes to sleep, ready to conquer Hogwarts, and content knowing that she has a new friend.