Isla smiled, although she was sure Nettie was just humoring her. She doubted the older girl was really honored, but who knew? She might be! Isla nodded. Yes, a pre sixth year. That had been what Nettie had said, right? She looked a little confused, though, and a few seconds later, so did Isla. "You used to be a prefect? Why'd you get fired?" she asked. "Did it have something to do with melting that cauldron?"

After that, they were moving on to talking about the Hogwarts houses again. "It does? So I can ask it for a certain house, and it'll listen to me?" she asked. That was super weird in a totally cool kind of way! Isla could certainly say she'd never talked to a hat before. "I better make sure of Gryffindor then." She didn't want to ask for something she'd live to regret.

She just nodded when Nettie explained what she'd done to melt the cauldron. Isla wasn't even sure of her ability to pour water into a cauldron, so who was she to talk? She looked over at her mom, who'd been chatting away with her little sister about something. "I guess this is the one then," she said, referring to the cauldron they'd been looking at. "How do we haul it out of here?"