Soccer and Sorting

"Is someone up for a football game?" Dean added to the conversation while sticking yet another one of his (too many) football posters to his side of the dorm room's wall.

"Football fan much?" Ron said teasingly.

"Ha-ha. Is that a yes or a no?"

"I'm up for a game." Seamus agreed.

After Seamus the rest of the dorm was quick to follow in agreement and together they made their way outside to one of the football fields where a group of pupils were already playing. On the way there, when Harry passed the corner of the school which obscured a part of the school grounds, it was revealed to him how large they actually were.

They stretched all the way to a giant forest in the distance where -he heard Neville tell Dean- the school's cross-country tracks were hidden.

Again he saw what he had before entering the school: Stages, graffiti areas and sport fields. Now he saw a swimming pool, even more and different sports fields, a trampoline and even a climbing wall.

Looking in closer detail, Harry saw that the weren't completely covered in these kind of areas like he first thought. Great chunks of plain, green grass filled up the rest of the school grounds, but were now littered with people, which explained why he didn't notice it earlier.

Not everything seemed to be in top condition, Harry noticed after that. Whereas some stages looked to be high-tech and new, others seemed to be dirty platforms - for example. These variations in facilities didn't stop at the stages. He saw it in every one of them. It didn't put a damper on his awe however.

A ball snapped him out of his observations this time. It hit him in the head right behind his ear.

"Oi!" Ron called him. "What are you staring at? Game's beginning!"

"Hold on, I'm coming!" Harry replied, rubbing the place where the ball had hit him.

The boys joined one of the already playing group of teens. Five minutes passed, and already he was desperately trying to act as if he knew what he was supposed to do, or what was going on. And failing horribly too.

He knew the rules of the game well enough, but strategy was too complicated for him to catch up on in five minutes.

To him it made sense to defend by standing in between the ball and the attacker, but to everyone else it was obvious that you defend by standing in between the goal and the attacker. Where was the sense in that?

And sometimes someone would shout at him to move forwards or back. What did they mean by that?

After another five minutes he finally managed to touch the ball, because someone of the team passed it to him, but it was snatched away by the opposing team almost instantly, because he wasn't able to handle the ball like his teammates.

That's when Neville caught up to him.

"Harry, do you even know what you're doing?" He asked, not unkindly.

He felt his face growing hot. "Is it that obvious?"

Neville laughed. "If you want to stop, I know what we could do?"

He nodded at the half-question half-statement.

Neville jogged away to inform someone of his team that they would be quitting. The person nodded and Neville jogged back to Harry to then lead him to one of the walls which wasn't covered in graffiti, but normal paint.

"Have you ever painted?" Neville asked when they arrived.

"Not since primary school finger painting, if that even counts." He replied while staring at the wall.

It appeared they had really talented artists in the school. His eyes drifted over the colours and shapes. Some paintings were abstract while others were startlingly realistic. You could see that every one of them was made by a different person, all of them having added their personal style to it. All of the different themes blended into one big masterpiece.

"I think most of these are made by Hufflepuffs." Neville sighed, also looking at the wall.

"What's wrong with that?" He asked.

"Wrong? Oh nothing, that's not what I meant." Neville laughed awkwardly and turned his back to Harry in order to take out art supplies that were lying around, provided by the school.

Harry frowned in confusion, but shrugged it off as Neville handed him a brush.

He didn't actually do anything with it, instead walking around the maze of graffiti and painting walls. It was fun to watch and he really didn't want to mess it up by adding one of his own paintings to it. He wasn't lying when he said he had only ever finger painted in primary school.

After an hour he walked back to where Neville had been painting. Perfect timing, as his dorm mate was halfway through cleaning up the supplies.

Harry turned to where the new painting was and his mouth opened instantaneously. The boy had painted a portrait of Harry. With a lot of detail as well. From his raven black hair and round glasses to the familiar lightning-bolt scar on his forehead, the freckles on his nose and the shy smile and expression in his eyes.

"You painted this from memory?" Harry asked in disbelief.

"Yeah, mostly." Neville replied.

"Wow, Neville." He said. He tried to add more but he didn't know what to say. "Just... wow."

The boy said a humble "Thank you." smiling shyly in return.

o0o0o0o0o0o

"Hey, I thought we were heading to dinner?" Dean said puzzled, when the Gryffindor duo had rejoined the rest of their dorm mates and were walking past the cafeteria.

"No, we're heading to the auditorium first. Sorting ceremony is going to happen there." Seamus answered him.

Harry could already see that those two were becoming good friends, the relationship probably being planted when Dean found out Seamus was just as big of a football fan as him.

"Technically, not much happens. We just wait until our name's called and then we get onto the stage to receive our house ties." Seamus continued.

"Why didn't we just receive it with the rest of our uniform?" Dean asked.

"Tradition mostly." Ron shrugged, when Seamus failed to answer.

In the auditorium, Harry took a seat between Neville and Ron. They waited for all of the Hogwarts student body to fill in the auditorium, which it was large enough for to Harry's surprise.

Although, he probably shouldn't have been surprised. The inside of the school was just as impressive as the outside. One room would be full of 19th century architecture like the outside of the school while the next room you walked into would be fully modern or a mix between those, which was strange but worked -most of the time.

The auditorium itself was a perfect example of the 19th century architecture. The student body (which counted to more than a thousand) was seated in comfortable red chairs which were spread out in rows. Pillars supported layers of balconies filled with more rows of chairs, but void of any people -unlike those on the main ground, where pupils were loudly goofing around or fighting over seats. The rows of chairs were raised higher the further back to allow the people farthest from the stage to see it.

The roof was dented into a dome, and decorated with paintings of which he could only see the blurred colours and shapes mixing into each other; the roof being too high up for him to see further detail.

The stage itself was a large ordinary black square in the front of the room, raised above the chairs on the ground floor. The back wall connected to the stage was a large black square of curtain used so people could move to different sides without being noticed by the observers.

The only things modern were the stage lights, sound speakers placed in various places across the room and a microphone attached to a lecture stand at the left side of the stage.

"When I call your name, you come up to the stage to receive your house tie." He recognised Mrs. McGonagall say into the microphone, once everyone was seated and silent.

A long list of freshmen names followed, each of which shook all the teachers' hands before retrieving their tie and sitting back down. It was a long, pointless procedure in Harry's opinion but to all his room mates' - except for Dean- it seemed to be a really important tradition. He tried understanding why, until it started to give him a headache.

"Potter, Harry!" Mrs. McGonagall finally called out.

He walked up to the stage and started shaking all the teachers' hand, making him feel uncomfortable. Partly because all of the attention directed towards him, but also because, again, it seemed they all looked at him in a really strange way.

Or it was his imagination. Probably the latter, he was really hungry after all.

After what felt like ages, the last name was called up. His stomach was now grumbling loudly and his boredom was coming to a climax. He, and most of the other freshmen, had to hold back a groan when headmaster Dumbledore stepped forward.

"Welcome all freshmen, and welcome back everyone else to another magical year of Hogwarts High!" Said Dumbledore, "Before we head to the cafeteria for a lovely start of term feast, I'd like to start with some basic rules - although some older students might do well to hear them again as well." Ron snickered, glancing at two identical redheads which, Harry assumed, were his two prankster brothers he'd referenced to in the dorms.

A few rules were told by Dumbledore, for which he really didn't have the attention span to focus on anymore.

Only when the headmaster said: "I would also like to announce that we are very excited to announce the award-winning Mr. Gilderoy Lockhart is joining our staff this year!" Did he snap back to attention, as suddenly a lot of yelling and clapping erupted from the student body.

"What's going on?" Dean, who had been half asleep, exclaimed.

"That's Gilderoy Lockhart!" Ron yelled above the noise. Dean looked to where Ron was pointing on the stage.

"So?" Said Dean when the noise quieted down.

"Lockhart is the most famous writer that has ever come from Hogwarts. He wrote dozens of award-winning books." Harry heard Seamus explain.

He looked back at the blonde writer who, shockingly enough, was looking directly back at him. It made him feel just that much more uncomfortable than usual and he quickly looked down at his hands.

He sat staring at his hands and holding his breath for only a few seconds, but it felt much longer to Harry. Thankfully the feeling of a set of eyes on him passed, and he dared to look back at the stage, where Mr. Lockhart was standing in line with the teachers again, his eyes on Dumbledore. Harry exhaled.

At last, the ceremony ended and everyone made their way to the cafeteria for dinner. The walk in itself might take about fifteen minutes for most people, but the chaos of moving a large crowd of teenagers made it last at least twice as long. His stomach was not thinking kindly about the sorting ceremony.

He noticed he wasn't the only one, when all the boys immediately started attacking the food already placed on the table. The girls having a bit more self control, looked on with various levels of disgust on their faces, before they too gave in, and started attacking the food one by one.

Harry shook his head. He honestly didn't get the sorting ceremony.

A/N: Yaaay another update on time, and a normal length for once! Don't expect that to happen too often though... :)

I'm a slow writer and school's starting again :(

In fact, I had my first school day today, which is awesome 'cause it's also first Hogwarts school day!

Hmmm, yeah don't really have anything interesting to say anymore.

Next chapter will be uploaded on Monday the 8th of September (my brother's b-day!) and shall be titled: Dinner Time

Happy new school year everybody!

TRIS