Ashley couldn’t answer, she didn’t even hear him. Her ears had gone deaf to his question, to her familiar’s worrying, and to everything else around her. Her attention focused solely on Kyra as she was sorted into Gryffindor. The Potter Heiress ducked her head and stared at her clenched fists in her lap. An onslaught of memories cruelly assaulted her. Flashes of a belt whipping down on her, of the slaps and hits she had to endure, and of the degrading insults that had once reduced her self-worth and confidence to dust. The feeling of being treated as nothing less than a disappointment, the feeling of being unwanted and unable to do anything right, it all came crashing down on her.