Start of term 1948-1948
On the Hogwarts Express
Tennessee’s new clothes felt stiff and uncomfortable.
Not that they were new, really. Like all of his belongings, the pants and jacket had belonged to Rhett long before they came into his care. The scratchy wool coat and strictly pleated trousers had barely been touched by the oldest Ogden boy, and Tennessee couldn’t blame him.
But Tennessee wanted to move, to let out all the nervous energy that bubbled up from his stomach to his chest. He wanted to jump and scream and run circles round the small train compartment, but the legs of his trousers were too tight and his coat too stiff for proper panic, so he settled with taking his excess energy out on Agnes.
“Hey, Agnes,” he called to his sister, seated across from him. A flick of his thumb, and his balled up train ticket flew through the air towards her face.
“You think you’ll get sorted into Hufflepuff?”
His voice was lazy and laced with mockery as he reclined in his own seat, propping his feet up on the empty spot next to him. He didn’t know what about Hufflepuffs made them the butt of so many jokes, but he’d heard a student on the platform say something similar to her brother, to the latter’s tearful protests.
“You seem like a Hufflepuff to me.”