Chapter 3
Harry woke bright and early to find black leather shoes on his chair. Apparently the mysterious house elves thought it was necessary to have new shoes as well as new clothes. Harry did realise that the shoes he had at the moment were falling apart.
He slipped out of bed, changed out of his pyjamas and wore the same muggle clothes as yesterday. He strapped on his wand holster and slipped in his wand. He would have to figure out how the holster actually worked later on, but for now it was more important to get ready. In the room was his trunk filled with all his belongings and his owl (unnamed) hooting happily in the corner. Harry swiftly picked up and wrapped his soldiers in the dirty shirt that was hanging dry and stiff on the edge of his bed and placed them gently at the top of the trunk, as well as his pyjamas from last night. He noticed that the house elves had taken another liberty and placed two more sets of pyjamas into his trunk. Harry smiled to himself. He then shut the trunk and closed the golden clasps.
He wrote out another small thank you note.
Dear House Elves,
I thank you graciously for the shoes and other pyjamas, also for bringing up my trunk. You have made me very happy! And done your job exceedingly well.
I wish you all the best, and my offer still stands, and will always stand as long as I live. You know how to find me.
Sincerely,
Harry J. Potter.
Then he got up and hauled his trunk down the stairs. Hagrid was waiting at the bar counter, nursing his butter beer slowly. Harry tapped him gently on the shoulder and he turned to the boy with a large smile. Harry saw him say,
Well... We'd best be off to the train station. I'm going to have to drop you off because I have business at Hogwarts but I can take you to the station.
Then Hagrid grabbed Harry's arm and said something whilst looking away. He kept on looking away! Without warning Harry was swept away in the blink of an eye to arrive hidden behind a wall next to the train station. Hagrid passed him a ticket and said,
Good luck, kid, I'll see you at the feast.
Then he disappeared as quickly as he had come.
Harry spent a few moments balancing himself by leaning against the steady surface of the wall, but with his luck he would be lucky for it not to collapse right then and there. After many heavy breaths and lowering nausea Harry stepped out into the busy muggle crowd of the train station. He looked down at his ticket.
LONDON to HOGWARTS
One way ticket.
PLATFORM 9¾
Harry stared in disbelief before thinking You've got to be kidding me. They just had to make this trip impossible at every turn. Harry rolled his eyes before he looked for Platform 9, assuming Platform 9¾ would be nearby. He soon found it. And was disappointed.
He stood between the Platforms 9 and 10 willing himself to discover the answer. Harry stared at the brick wall of Platform 10 in quiet desperation as he wished for the answer to come to him.
Like magic it did.
In the form of a red headed family.
Harry stepped out of the limelight with ease as he watched a conversation between the members of a boisterous red headed family. It looked like a very loud conversation, as the main matriarch, dubbed Mol-ee spoke with a very wide an open mouth. Harry theorised that this alleged sound changed somehow with different width of mouths, and Harry decided one day to use volume as the measurement of his theory, because that was the general measurement of sound itself. So, he attributed quiet to small thin mouth movements and loud to large wide mouth movements.
It was just one of the many theories he was working on based on this mysterious sound that lived in a world that he did not.
Mol-ee spoke with huge movements and Harry was slightly shocked. Wasn't there some statute of secrecy that stopped wizards from revealing everything wizardy to muggles. At least that's what Harry thought he had read last night. Harry brushed off his concerns and focused more on how these wizards planned to get to the real train station.
Harry tried not to gape as they just ran through the barrier.
Then he shrugged as he remembered that everything in this new world was crazy. Including the simple thing of train travel.
Once the majority of red heads were through Harry then tried himself, holding his heavy trunk close to himself. He disappeared through the barrier only to arrive safe and sound on the other side, surrounded by wizards.
It was a jolting experience.
Harry looked around, observing, but kept himself in the shadows. He marked the elegant Hogwarts Express with a glance of admiration. It was a beautiful train. Slim and steel.
Harry stopped himself from falling in love for a third time in as many days.
He spied around the station, looking at people, how they dressed, how they stood, how their faces changed. Then, just as he had finished observing and was about to walk on board the train he saw the people he desperately didn't want to see.
His family.
The Potters stood there, fussing over their real son. The one they didn't abandon to the Dursleys. The saviour of the wizarding world apparently. Harry kept his expression blank and was determined to board the train without hassle.
Then the other boy met Harry's eyes and his resolve melted.
It was like looking into a broken mirror. The other boy looked like him... was him in a way. Except he had a better life. He had brown eyes instead of green. Brown like chocolate instead of green like the Killing Curse. He had a small lightning bolt scar on his forehead. He wore fancy muggle clothes instead of precious ones gifted by unknown House Elves. He looked taller too. Plumper. Less... starved. And the look in his eyes wasn't dead and blank and a trickster oblivious. The look in his eyes was excited and nervous and full of love for his parents.
Ed-werd.
He wasn't deaf either. He was in that world that Harry wasn't. He had a pass to enter that party. Harry hadn't been invited. He was in the world where his parents cared about him, they cared and loved him so much they sent away his other brother.
They looked so similar and yet were so different.
The two twins were lost in a staring contest across the platform. At first no one realised. No one cared. No one noticed the two slowly walking, drifting, towards each other as if attracted by magnets. But then the Potters did, as there son slowly walked away to the middle of the platform. Then the other people did too. They cleared a path for the two boys who hadn't seen each other in so long.
Those two boys looked into the universes of each others eyes. They explored each others souls with those eyes, used them as windows to heart break and truth. Although they couldn't see what the other was thinking and they couldn't understand the others memories, they couldn't see into each others minds, they were somehow connected. Those boys met in the middle of the platform. Every eye on them. They didn't move their hands from their sides or their bodies or even hug.
They just stared.
Ed-werd finally spoke and Harry could read his lips crystal clear,
Hello brother. I've missed you.
Harry rolled his eyes and Ed-werd giggled.
It was settled.
They were still brothers.
The Potters came forward to the two boys, hearts warming at the exchange. As soon as Harry saw them his eyes deadened and he stared off blankly. Lil-ee wept internally at this. Jeymz's eyes narrowed in suspicion.
Ed-werd understood.
Harry could forgive him but not his parents.
They were brothers and that was different to the breakable bonds of parenthood.
They were brothers and that was something unbreakable. No matter who the other became or liked or loved they would be brothers. There would always be a bond between them. No matter if the other died or lived they would still be brothers. No matter if the other killed or saved. Nice or mean. Good or bad. Griffindor or Slytherin. Happy or sad. Open or closed. Honest or lying. Guilty or innocent.
They would still be brothers because life wasn't black or white. Good and evil didn't really exist. No one knew if their opinion was really correct. And the only thing either of them knew for sure in that moment was...
They were brothers.
That was how it was supposed to be.
Harry turned away, stepped on the train, and found an empty compartment for himself. He left Ed-werd alone on the platform. They may have been brothers but that wasn't going to make Harry change his plan to strike from the shadows. The last thing he needed or wanted was a public family reunion.
He stared out the window.
Trying to remember every inch of his brothers face.
It. Was. Just. Like. His.
Harry sighed and closed his eyes, blackness closing him in a warm hug. The only sense he had was the feeling of the seat beneath him, the cold window pane against his cheek, the saliva in his mouth being swept gracefully by his tongue as he licked a wobbly tooth.
He wasn't sleeping. No. Just thinking.
Already his plans had been changed. What he needed to do was keep to himself, avoid suspicion and people's eyes. Avoid curiosity. Simply be like any other first year when in truth he was plotting masterfully.
Harry can't remember when he started to become so manipulative.
Probably when he was forced into a cupboard, hours alone and trapped, and had to think about his life and how to survive. He probably gained years mentally. It might have been when he had to dream of what he would want if he could get out of there. What he had wanted was freedom, and cunning and the power to effect the world to his whim. Harry had then thought strategy with his soldiers, sending them imaginary telekinetic thoughts with writing of what he should do. He had spent many hours reading through strategy books and had deemed the best approach to strike from the shadows, manipulate away from suspicion and most of all avoid curiosity.
Right then, at Hogwarts, seemed like the perfect place to test these strategies.
A young girl appeared in the corner of his eye. She had slipped into the carriage unnoticed by him. He cursed himself for his obliviousness and turned to her, giving her a cool expression. She was short and gently freckled with a large head of thick brown hair. She looked bookish, and at that moment was actually carrying Hogwarts: A History tucked under her arm. She said
Hi. I'm Hur-mayh-uh-nee Greyn-jer. A boy has lost a toad, have you seen it?
Harry shook his head and she sighed. Hur-mayh-uh-nee quickly left the carriage compartment and Harry went back to looking out the window.
The rest of the trip passed with no one entering the carriage. He changed an hour before they arrived, into his new school robes and simply stared out the window contemplating his plans for Hogwarts. He had his plan, a general plan, but once he got there he would have to start evaluating the people in his house. Finding weaknesses and strengths. But most of all staying under the radar. Then he would manipulate from behind the scenes until the house was in his control, whether they knew it or not.
The train stopped and all the students left for Hogwarts. Outside it was night, the sky was a blanket of darkness filled with small twinkling stars. There was a heavy mist in the air and Harry used this to stay in the shadows. He stayed out of people eyes to make sure no one tried to talk to him. His plan was to be sorted quickly, get to his table, sit alone, and lose people's attention.
Hagrid gave Harry a single nod and then said,
You get the boat over there.
He pointed to an empty boat. Harry took a moment to stare blankly at him before he sat down. The boat was small and frail, but Harry was even smaller and frailer. He easily fit, with room for another 3 small Harrys. He looked down at the rolling waves of the ocean, let himself be lulled by the boat, let the rain soak into his skin, let the elements control him for a while.
Harry felt the boat lurch as another person sat inside. She was short and stout. Blonde haired with a bright orange outfit, barely noticeable, under her robes. She wore rainbow glasses and radish ear rings. She smiled at him and said,
I'm Loo-nuh Luhv-goo-d. Your nar-ghuls are beautiful.
Harry didn't respond and she continued to smile. The boat left the dock and the two travelled in silence. She looked away and out into the blackness as if it were a sunny day. But Harry looked out at sunny days as if they were blackness so he couldn't really complain. Loo-nuh seemed to drift in the still air, as if she were floating. She would sway ever so slightly.
Harry was as still as a rock. Even the force of the ocean couldn't make him break his posture. He tried to sink back into the boat, to be invisible to this new girl, but it was painfully clear that she had noticed him and somehow taken a liking to him. He was already messing up the plan. The boats soon arrived and the strange non-conversation they were having ended. She gave him a wave and he gave her a contrite nod, and they went their separate ways to other sides of the first years.
Harry would have to look out for her in future.
They travelled through the grand castle of Hogwarts, through the halls, following a strict lady that he didn't catch the name of. Her hair was wound up tight, her glasses shrewd and her dress stiff. He would have thought she was a force to be reckoned with if she wasn't wearing a black witches hat. In Harry's mind she looked like someone out of a story book.
He assumed she was talking about Hogwarts but he didn't understand any of it because she talked while she walked. The Dursleys had never been so energetic. It was starting to get on his nerves that everyone felt they had to face away from him when they spoke. He supposed he couldn't blame him.
No one knew he was deaf.
And he intended to keep it that way.
Everyone placed down their trunks and other carriers outside big brown arching doors. Harry did the same and then the sternish lady turned to address them. Face on. Finally.
Inside here is the Great Hall. Where you will eat for the next seven years whilst you are at Hogwarts. Inside will be the sorting, where you are sorted into your houses. Once these doors open you are to form a line next to the stage, beside the steps, and wait for your name to be called. Once it is called you will sit on the stool provided, be sorted, and walked over to your House table. After that pree-fekts will show you to your House chambers.
Then she turned and pushed open the grand arching doors. The first years moved like a wave and Harry was swept along with it. Inside was a huge hall the size of a church. There were five long wooden tables, four placed vertically along the hall and one shorter table at the end, this table is where the teachers sat. Different students with different coloured ties and emblems on their robes sat at each table. There was red and gold, green and silver, yellow and black, and blue and bronze.
Most looked at the first years with smiling faces, other were saying... something.
There was something wrong with the ceiling. It looked... like the night sky. Exactly like the night sky. Harry worried that they would be rained on because of how similar it looked. Other first years pointed and smiled toothy grins but Harry just walked in line with them, face a mask, being ignored by everyone.
He could live with that.
He could definitely live with that.
Harry looked about with curiosity to see what would be sorting him. What was on the stool as the sternish lady had explained. Soon he was close enough to see, his feet had pushed him this far, the wave had turned into a steady river of legs and...
It was a hat.
And a manky hat at that.
There on the prophecised amazing stool was the hat. It was dark and grubby. It looked old and worn. It was a wizards hat and was pointy, but the ends were frayed. Harry was only slightly disappointed that a hat would seal his fate.
And then it started to sing.
At least Harry thinks that's what happened because he had no clue what it was saying.
Humans could be difficult to lip read. Goblins had different shaped mouths but it was possible. THIS HAT DIDN'T EVEN HAVE A MOUTH! It was just... a tear in the fabric... It was freaky and there was no possible way for Harry to understand. It didn't even have a tongue! Tongues were important for lip reading... as were lips.
Harry sighed and settled on the fact that he just wasn't going to be able to understand this hat. He had no clue how it worked and no clue what it was saying. The universe certainly liked to toy with him.
Then the hat stopped and the sternish lady started to call out names. At least the hat wasn't the one to do it. The first years lined up in an orderly fashion. Some looked cocky, others nervous. Harry noticed that the idiotic blonde kid from the robes shop looked especially cocky. Was that a good thing Harry didn't know? He was simply quiet (mainly because he couldn't talk), blank faced and inconspicuous.
Harry tried to memorise as many names as he could. There was Han-uh Ab-uht, Ron Wee-zuh-lee, Hur-mayh-uh-nee Greyn-jer, Dray-koh Mal-foi and Soo-zuhn bohns. Then his brother's name was called.
Ed-werd Potter.
Harry looked around to see people staring in disbelief. Oh right. His brother was the fabled Chosen One of the world, it was strange how they didn't use his first name in the books. It was as if they were trying to stop him being well known. Well, they sure didn't do a good job of it since a man at the Leaky Cauldron asked if he was Ed-werd Potter.
Ed-werd seemed to notice this attention and turned a bright red in embarrassment. He sat on the stool and after a whole minute the hat said... something. Really Harry didn't know. He knew the names of the houses, thanks to book reading the previous day, so he knew that Ed-werd was going to Griffindor. But that hat still wasn't making sense.
Then his name was called,
Harry Potter.
Harry walked calmly over to the hat, and sat on the stool. The last thing he saw before the hat plopped down on his head was the hall in chaos, confused looks, obvious whispering, disbelieving stares. And after that reaction from the hall, Harry was determined more than ever to have everyone forget his name.
After a few moments of nothingness and the only sense being touch, his hands on the stool below him. Harry realised that in that moment he was deaf and blind. He saw only darkness. Then bright flaming golden letters appeared in front of him that read,
My apologies Mr. Potter. I was not aware you were deaf. To communicate with me project your thoughts into words into the blackness in front of your eyes.
The letters faded, and Harry wrote his answer in flaming green letters,
Your apology is accepted. Who are you and what is going on?
I am the Sorting Hat. I decide which House students are placed in. This is your sorting.
Okay.
You have great things destined for you Harry Potter.
Harry nodded... in his own head. It was a weird experience to say the least.
These things can be accomplished in many houses but you will do best in Slytherin.
Place me where you wish.
Ah... One with the intelligence to know what I chose is right. You are smarter than your brother, young one. In a moment I will shout out Slytherin and you should go to the table with people dressed in green and silver. I apologise that you could not read my lips before. Would you like me to repeat the school song perhaps?
Will it take long?
Only a few minutes... Although the school may suspect something else... I can read it to you later, and explain some other things you have missed, if you like. Simply meet me outside the Headmaster's office whenever you wish. Are you ready?
Yes.
Then the hat was pulled off his head and he looked around the hall dazed. The house of green and silver, where would that be? Ah. The house in shock that isn't bothering to clap. Never mind.
Harry scooted off the stool and walked blankly over to that house. He sat alone at the end of the table in an effort to be invisible. It worked well and in a few minutes the table returned to their chat and settled that the new first year wasn't important.
The only sorting he paid attention to was the one of Loo-nuh Luhv-goo-d. It took a total of four minutes, the longest sorting of all the first years. Everyone wished they could have listened in on the conversation going on in that girls head.
