WARNING FOR THIS CHAPTER: People die, and Hogwarts now sucks. In fact, you will find the body count rising steadily higher as the chapters go on, so I'm not going to put this warning up over and over. Just expect it from now on.
CHAPTER THREE
SLYTHERIN'S SCHOOL
o
The sticky summer breeze hit Harry as he stepped off the Hogwarts Express and found himself in a flood of students. It was so crowded that, for a few panicked seconds, he couldn't step anywhere without stepping on someone else's foot. His head was still spinning from his encounter with the Skull Masks. They hadn't entered his compartment, thank Merlin, but the very air in it had gone cold and still when they had passed by, or at least it had felt that way to Harry.
At the same time, he couldn't help but envy them, couldn't help but imagine how empowering it would be to have the ability to make a whole train go silent in trepidation. Shaking the thought out of his head, he followed the high screechy voice in the distance.
"FIRST YEARS! GET OVER HERE, FIRST YEARS!"
A large crowd of pale-faced first years had assembled around a spindly woman with hawkish yellow eyes, bony arms, and fraying golden hair, who also looked like she hadn't bathed in about a century. Someone brushed past Harry's arm and he flinched, but it was only Neville, who was pushing through the crowd and tapping people on the shoulder to ask if they'd seen his toad. Harry snorted, wondering why Neville bothered, also noting that he was still wet from Malfoy's rebounding water spell.
A few seconds later, he realized that the chatter among the first years had slowed to a gradual stop as more and more people noticed what was happening near the front. The woman with the hawkish yellow eyes had raised a toad high above her head.
"To whom," she said, her voice suddenly saccharine sweet, "does this toad belong?" There was something off about the way she said it, something warped, but Harry couldn't put his finger on what it was.
"Trevor!" Neville shouted, running forward, an expression of exultant joy washing over his features. Then he stumbled, horrorstruck, and fell to his knees.
The woman had begun to squeeze the toad. Its eyes bulged madly as it struggled and squirmed, desperate to escape her iron grip. Her fingers were so tight around its throat that it could not even let out a croak. Soon, the toad went limp, and the woman opened her slime-covered—or was that the toad's blood?—hand. The dead toad fell to the muddy ground with a sickening plop.
There was complete and utter silence.
"Disgusting things," hissed the woman, wiping her hands daintily on her stained dress. "Not in my school, those creatures. Not in my school, half-blood creatures and blood-traitors." She started muttering, running her dirty hands through her hair, her pupils dilated.
Neville was sobbing openly. Someone helped him to his feet—a red-haired boy with dirt on his nose—and snapped something to him, and the sobs eased at once.
"I am the gamekeeper," the woman was saying, and her voice, if possible, was even higher than before. "I am a pureblood, direct descendant of the pure, holy Peverell line—oh, everyone'll deny it, but it's true, I swear it's true…" She went off into another insanity-fueled muttering spree.
Harry couldn't believe he'd already found someone madder than his mother, and it hadn't even been five minutes since he'd gotten off the train. Some of the students were snickering, some were whimpering, Neville among them. Harry heard a hissed conversation a few feet behind him, and tensed when he recognized one of the speakers.
"What's she on about? She isn't even pureblooded, Theo," Draco Malfoy was saying to a skinny, dark-haired boy. "Father told me about her. Norta Arweeda, a bastard daughter of some minor, distant Black. Barking mad, too. No wonder she's the gamekeeper. Apparently the old one was worse, a great big half-breed oaf."
"You'd know a lot about the Blacks being barking mad, wouldn't you, Draco?" said a girl with a square jaw and thick arms. "Isn't your mother a Black?"
"Bulstrode, I will shred you…"
Arweeda turned and abruptly began to walk down a dark, winding path, still muttering to herself. The first years all looked at each other, silently asking whether to follow or not, but then someone at the front decided to go after her, and soon all of them were carefully stepping around and over the rocks that littered the path.
Finally, the road straightened, and Harry—and most of the first years, for that matter—let out a gasp when Hogwarts came into view. It loomed over them, blocking out the sky, the backdrop of a glittering black lake in front of it, its many dark turrets and towers blending into the night.
"I dunno if it looks like a castle or a prison," the red-haired boy who had helped Neville mumbled under his breath.
Harry edged closer to him as they reached the shore of the lake, joining him and Neville in one of the waiting boats. A sandy-haired boy settled into the last spot. "I'm Seamus Finnigan," he said as their boat jerked forward and began to glide across the lake, holding a hand out to Harry, who shook it.
"Ron Weasley," said the red-haired boy, shaking Harry's hand too.
Neville just gave a choked sob.
Seamus leaned towards them. "Do… do you know what it's like inside that place? Did you see those students with the bronze masks on the train? Most terrifying thing I've seen in me life. Me Mum doesn't want me to go here, she wanted to leave the country and everything when I got the letter. We have family in New Zealand, you see."
"Can't do that," said Ron darkly. "You-Know-Who has the country under lockdown. My parents tried everything, after what… after what happened to my brothers Bill and Charlie."
"What happened?" asked Seamus, leaning even closer. "What did they do to your brothers?"
Ron's lip trembled, and Harry, who knew they had been executed at Hogwarts, spoke up, trying to rescue Ron from answering. "Do you see that? Down there, in the water?"
Something huge, something black, was gliding underneath the surface of the lake, large enough to make their boat shudder as it passed. Neville, right on cue, let out a little yelp.
"It—it could be a sea serpent, or a giant squid," said Ron, grateful for the distraction, leaning out the side of the boat.
"Oi, be careful!" barked Seamus as the boat began to tilt sideways. "Or we'll fall into the water and be a snack for whatever that is!"
Ron steadied himself, embarrassed, and Harry gazed up at the castle, unable to look away. Many lights shone through the windows, but the very air around the castle seemed darker, as if the night was extra potent around the school's edges.
After passing through an underground tunnel guarded by ivy, they arrived at a gloomy shore within the cliff the castle stood on, and all the boats jerked to a stop. Harry climbed out, and then turned around to help a hiccupping Neville get his leg over the side of the boat. The pebbles were wet and slippery, and Harry nearly lost his balance for one horrible moment.
Arweeda, not even looking back to see if they'd all made it, stepped up to a large oak door and knocked on it three times. It opened at once, and a stocky, handsome man with carefully styled dark hair stood behind it, wearing what could have been a top hat—or was that a bowler? Harry widened his eyes. The man held a bejeweled silver cane, but he didn't seem to need it for health-related reasons, considering that he stood straight and walked with no limp that Harry could see.
"They're here, Deputy Headmaster Dolohov, sir." Arweeda's voice trembled as she bowed her head.
"Get out of here, filthy half-blood," said Professor Dolohov, in a perfectly pleasant tone, sounding so much like he'd just politely thanked Arweeda that it took Harry a few seconds to realize what he had actually said. He had a light, low, and smooth voice, like simmering butter, and he struck Harry as the sort of man who was always the center of attention at gatherings, the sort of man who ensured everyone heard him even when he whispered.
Arweeda bowed again and scurried away, heading deeper into the dark tunnel, leaving the first years alone with the man. He stepped back, giving them room to get inside, and when they were all accounted for, the great oak doors closed themselves with a forbidding click.
Harry suddenly felt very trapped. The first years were in a long marbled corridor lined with flickering torches, which did little to brighten the place. Dolohov, without saying a word, led them into a side room, and as a result nobody spoke, unsure if they were allowed to make any noise.
"I want you all lined up in several neat rows." Now Dolohov's voice was as sharp as a whip, and they all jerked into movement, frantic to follow his orders as he paced at the front of the room, impatiently thwacking his cane on the ground while he waited for them to assemble themselves. "Good." His voice was pleasant again, and Harry relaxed a bit, letting his shoulders uncurl from their taut position.
"I am your Deputy Headmaster and your Charms and Curses professor, Antonin Dolohov. You are at Hogwarts, and in seven years, you will emerge from this school as brilliant, hardened warriors, prepared to fight for the Dark Lord's noble cause, whether it be on the battlefield or in the political arena. Those deemed unworthy will die within these walls, or in obscurity once they leave."
With every few words he spoke, Dolohov smacked his cane against the ground, and the resulting thuds echoed especially loudly through the silent room.
Nobody moved.
He continued in the same calm, matter-of-fact tone, clearly unaware—or perhaps, perfectly aware—that his speech terrified all of the eleven-year-olds in the room to the bone. "Some of you, due to your traitorous family name or impure blood, are already unworthy, and will be treated as such. However, those of you who wish to move beyond the shackles your families have placed on you will be welcome among the Dark Lord's forces… if you choose to submit yourself. We value blood, but we value talent, and loyalty to the Dark Lord, above all else. Prove yourself, and your half-blood or blood-traitor status will be naught but a bad memory." Dolohov paused and cocked his head to the side, considering an errant thought fluttering for his attention. "Of course, Mudbloods are far too dirty-blooded to be accepted among the Dark Lord's ranks, but since we don't allow filth like them at Hogwarts, mentioning them is quite pointless, isn't it?"
He laughed, and to Harry his laugh resembled sunlight filtering in through a dark, grimy window, warped and scattered. Harry felt his heart stutter and quiet, as if it was sentient and capable of fear, afraid to beat too loudly in case that awful man heard it in the silence and turned on him like a serpent struck at prey.
He knew, of course, from reading parts of the book on the Dark Lord's rise this summer, what exactly his regime had done to Muggleborns. He'd forcibly gathered all of those who lived in the wizarding world, hundreds of those who had held onto hope and had not gone into hiding, in one big prison-like antechamber, and told them they would be tried for the crime of stealing magic from worthier wizards. But instead of being called to a courtroom and a fair trial within it, rain began to fall from the ceiling, and it had not been water. No, it was a hellish liquid that slowly and agonizingly ate the flesh of the Muggleborns, scraped their skin off until they resembled nothing but lumps of red muscle and organs, flayed alive, treated like cattle in both life and death. Harry suspected his mother had escaped from this gruesome fate only due to Snape's warning, and he was sure that she was one of the hundred or so adult Muggleborns in Britain left intact, or as intact as someone crazy as her could be.
As for the Muggleborns—usually children—who still lived in Muggle society and knew nothing of their magical status, Harry had read that the Dark Lord considered finding them and hunting them an enjoyable sport, an amusing way to spend his scarce free time. He liked to suck their magic out and absorb it into himself before he killed them, saying that in doing so, he reclaimed the magic that had always belonged to him, not the Muggle children who had stolen it.
Harry pondered if the Dark Lord really, truly believed in all of that with his whole heart, or if he was just a madman who would say anything to explain himself as long as he could continue to kill and conquer.
Dolohov smacked his cane on the ground one last time, then ushered them out of the room. When they crossed the threshold, several of them gasped. Harry looked around for a moment, wondering why, then noticed that most people's gazes were transfixed downwards at their robes. He glanced at his own just in time to see his tie turn silver and green.
"There were once four Houses at Hogwarts," drawled Dolohov, leading them down the corridor, his blasted cane still making that Merlin-damned thudding noise, "but now there is only Slytherin, the wisest and greatest of all the four Founders."
Harry's mouth dropped open as they stepped into the Great Hall, all other thoughts temporarily driven out of his mind. For one mad moment, he was blinded by bright lights and thought he was on a busy Muggle street, then realized that the lights were countless candles hovering high above four great long tables. The ceiling above them was domed and pitch black, reflecting the starless night above Hogwarts.
And at the front, behind a long table where the staff members sat, was an enormous, forbidding, looming statue of a man, carved into the very front wall of the Great Hall. He was ancient, draped in sweeping robes of stone, with monkeyish features and a long, thin beard.
The huge silver words engraved into the wall behind his head read SALAZAR SLYTHERIN, FOUNDER OF HOGWARTS.
"Sit down at one of the tables, wherever there is space," hissed Dolohov, lifting his cane and using it to point distractedly at the four great tables in turn. "The Judgement Ceremony is about to begin."
The first years all moved at once, too afraid to argue or ask questions, scrambling when they reached the tables in a frantic attempt to find an open spot. There were a few moments of confusion in which several first years sat on older students, but Harry avoided most of the chaos by sticking with Ron, Neville, and Seamus, and eventually found himself seated at the middle-left table, where he noticed the atmosphere was particularly glum.
In wake of all the clamor, the Great Hall fell silent again. Harry craned his neck, looking around, trying to drink everything in. All of the four tables, including his own, were headed by a group of Skulls who sat at the back end of each table. But these Skulls didn't all have bronze masks like the ones who had walked through the train, though there were plenty of those visible as well. Some of the Skulls had silver and gold masks, and Harry wondered if there was a ranking system amongst them, and that the youngest and most inexperienced Bronze Skulls were stuck with the duty of checking the train compartments.
Hell, if the Bronze Skulls had inspired so much terror in the students simply by walking around the train, Harry shuddered to think of what the Silver and Gold Skulls were capable of.
A first year boy who was sitting a few seats away dragged Harry out of his musing by saying, "What Judgement Ceremony? If we're not going to be Sorted into Houses, then what's that old hat for?"
"Quiet, it's starting, and I don't want to miss the name," hissed a red-haired boy wearing old robes and glasses on Harry's left side. There were heavy circles under his eyes and, as Harry watched, he rubbed his forehead as if trying to soothe a knot in his brain.
Harry stared where everyone else was staring. There was a lone stool at the front of hall, near the staff table, and upon it sat a tiny, frayed, limp, singed hat. Harry had never seen anything so defeated, so utterly ruined, in his entire life.
Harry leaned towards Ron, who was on his right side. "What… what is it, do you know?"
"The Sorting Hat," explained Ron through teeth gritted in grim anticipation. "It used to sort us into Houses. But the Dark Lord corrupted it, I think, don't know what he did. Now, each year, at each Welcoming Feast, it yells out the name of one student from a family who hasn't yet pledged its allegiance to the Dark Lord." Ron spat out the last three words.
Harry still didn't understand any of this. "But what happens if the hat yells out your name, if you get picked?"
"You have to put the hat on, and—" Ron began.
"DANIEL ABBOTT!" the hat screamed.
There was a ripple up and down Harry's table. A pink-faced girl with blonde pigtails who sat near Harry, within a tight clique of first year girls, burst into hysterical sobs. "Hannah, Hannah, I'm so sorry," cooed one of the girls around Hannah, rubbing her shoulder and looking more relieved for herself than sorry for Hannah.
There was a strangled shout from the table to Harry's right. A boy with hair as blond as Hannah's stood up, tears running down his cheeks. He looked around, meeting the faces of his sympathetic but resigned peers, silently pleading with his eyes for someone, anyone, to rescue him from this hell.
"Please," he choked out, stumbling to the ground, his eyes wheeling madly. "I—I can't die—I have a little—I have a little sister—I'm her only family left! Please, oh God, oh God oh GOD—" His rambling cut off at once; he had frozen the moment he noticed a commotion at the back of his table where the Skulls were holding court.
One of the Bronze Skulls stood up and stalked towards Daniel, his shiny shoes clacking loudly in the silence with each step, and Harry was reminded at once of a cool, collected predator stalking its cowering gazelle prey. Daniel let out a strangled scream and tried to run, but the Skull was upon him in seconds. He grabbed Daniel by the neck, and turned his whole body to face the staff table. Daniel staggered with him, wriggling in vain to pull himself free, his feet scrabbling for purchase on the floor.
Harry held back a gasp as he took in the sight of the Skull. Because the mask he wore stuck to his skin, it was easy to see that he had a hideous, deformed, flattened face, like someone had taken a hammer to it and pounded at it until it didn't resemble anything remotely human anymore.
"Fuck, it's Sebastian Nott," said a fourth-year boy at Harry's table. "Abbott is dead, he's fucking dead already, he ought to just kill himself now to spare himself the pain—"
Sebastian's face split into a morbid smile, or at least it looked like one—his face was so messed up that it was difficult for Harry to discern exactly what expression he was making.
"Don't worry, Abbott." Sebastian's voice was low and warm, with a slight quality of hoarseness. It conjured up images in Harry's mind of blazing hot, oozing, bubbling magma, deadly to the touch. "I'll take care of your sister. Where is she, Abbott, hmm? Point her out for me, won't you?"
"I'll—I'll never tell you, you monster, you filth, you ugly—"
Something in Sebastian broke, a final fragile thread of sanity snapped, and Daniel began to choke and sputter as Sebastian closed his fist on his throat. "Don't—call—me—ugly," he snarled, incandescent with rage. Daniel's face began to turn blue, and he grabbed desperately at his captor's hand, trying to pry it off so he could breathe.
Hannah lost her head and rushed forward, escaping the grip of the girl who had been comforting her. "Let him go!" she wailed, covering her face with her hands to avoid meeting Sebastian's dead, pale eyes.
Sebastian did as she asked, turning on Hannah with his usual savage smile firmly back in place, and Daniel fell to the floor like a marionette with its strings cut, gasping for breath.
Harry looked at the staff table, biting his lip. They can't let this happen, can they? How can they let this happen? An obscenely huge man, the Headmaster Thorfinn Rowle—Harry remembered his name on the Hogwarts letter—sat in the center of the high table. As Harry watched him, he leaned forward, the rolls of his fat draping over the wood, obviously amused—and perhaps even delighted—at the proceedings. A few of the professors were snickering, enjoying the show, while others seemed bored. Snape, Harry noticed with a start, was among those who looked like they were about to fall asleep from the sheer routine nature of it all. Dolohov stood near the hat's stool, tapping his watch with one spindly finger as though he were impatient to get all this over with.
"Headmaster Rowle, these blood-traitors never go quietly when they're picked from the hat. They always squeal and cry and beg, and it's all so very boring. I find myself snoring." Sebastian slinked forward, his eyes never leaving the trembling figure of Hannah Abbott. "If I may… suggest something, sir?"
Headmaster Rowle laughed, setting his jowls aquiver, and clapped his hands together like a child eagerly waiting to hear his favorite funny story. "Yes, Mr. Nott, do tell us. You always have the best suggestions! One of these days, I'm going to make you in charge of the Judgement Ceremony instead of this dirty old hat!"
The Skulls at all four tables chuckled, and some of them went even further than that in their approval, whooping and stamping their feet while shouting his name, pounding their fists on the table. Dolohov rolled his eyes and leaned more heavily on his cane, but his gaze on Sebastian was tender. It didn't look like anyone was going to come to the Abbotts' rescue, not even the students who seemed sympathetic. Nobody, it seemed, wanted to face Sebastian's wrath.
Unbidden, a surge of envy struck at Harry. How must it feel, to hold so much influence, to garner so much fear and respect? Sebastian and the Skulls ruled the school, and Harry wanted that irresistible, captivating power, the ability to send people to their knees screaming and crying when they saw him in a rage. He yearned for it, ached for it—
"Why doesn't anybody say anything?" Neville wailed to Ron.
Like Harry, Ron startled, forcing himself to look away from the scene. "Look, he's going to die anyway; the hat called out his name. He wouldn't have gotten his sister in trouble if he hadn't made a scene."
Harry was appalled by the callous tone in Ron's voice. He seemed irritated, but beneath that irritation was a great resignation. He had expected something like this to happen, had probably heard stories of the morbid affairs at Hogwarts from his numerous older brothers, or at least the brothers who were still alive.
"Well, sir," began Sebastian, drawing Harry's attention once again, "since dear Daniel here said that he and Hannah are the only members of their family left, I think we should end the Abbott line cleanly. We need to be neat about this." He nodded very seriously at the professors, then gave them a little bow.
Does that mean he's going to let them go? Harry thought for one wild second.
Sebastian seized one of Hannah's pigtails and dragged her close, pulling her until his chest was flush against her back. Daniel stirred at his feet and lifted his head, but collapsed again in a fit of wheezes when Sebastian gave him a swift kick to the belly. He took out his wand and pointed it at Hannah's head, caressing her hair with his other hand.
As Harry watched, Sebastian murmured sweet nothings in Hannah's ear, his lips so close to her skin that it looked like he was about to kiss her. "Avada Kedavra."
Harry's head throbbed, his stomach reeled, the starless ceiling above him seemed to spin, the world flipped on its axis, and he knew he was going to throw up, could feel his lunch rising—
Hannah went limp in Sebastian's arms, the light gone from her eyes. Daniel let out a scream and tried to curl in on himself, but Sebastian would not even give him the small pleasure of mourning in peace. He grabbed Daniel's collar and pulled him to his feet. For one long second, he let Daniel drink in the sight of Hannah's blank, tear-stained face, then dropped her to the floor and kicked her body aside.
"Don't try to interfere in the Judgement Ceremony, Abbott," said Sebastian in a gentle, fatherly sort of voice, and now it was Daniel's turn to get his hair caressed. He wasn't fighting back; he must have gone into shock. "If you'd just gone quietly, your sister would still be alive, you know." Letting the other boy lean on him, Sebastian led him to the stool where the Sorting Hat lay, limp as Hannah's body. He grabbed the hat, then gestured for Daniel to sit down, completing the picture of politeness by bowing halfway like a servant guiding his master to a seat.
The irony of it all made Harry sick.
Daniel sat and buried his head in his hands, lost in his sobs. "Hannah, I'm sorry, I'm so, so sorry, Hannah, please forgive me..."
Sebastian placed the Sorting Hat on Daniel's head, and grinned as it began to burn. The flame consumed Daniel from top down, turning his clothes, his skin, his entire body to ash, and it was almost a mercy that it happened so fast, not giving him any time to scream or feel pain. A second later, there was the only the hat and the stool, but no more Daniel.
"That," said an unimpressed Dolohov as Sebastian strolled back to his seat amid delirious cheers from the Skulls and tremulous silence from everyone else, "took far longer than it needed to. Headmaster, might I remind you not to allow such frivolities during the Judgement Ceremony? Let the hat scream the name, let the student burn, but don't encourage such a gaudy show."
"You never let me have any fun," chuckled Rowle, waving a dismissive hand at his deputy. "I need to work up my appetite, you know." Half the professors howled at this joke along with him, as if the very idea of Headmaster Rowle needing to work up his appetite was absurd. After wiping tears of mirth from his eyes, Rowle snapped his fingers, and food appeared on the plates.
Harry found that, unlike Headmaster Rowle, he no longer had much of an appetite. Ron was busy shoveling food into his face, but Neville was clutching his mouth like he expected to be sick all over the table any minute now.
The other red-haired boy, the one with the glasses who looked like a fourth year to Harry, said to one of his friends, "Thank Merlin it wasn't one of us."
"It's only a matter of time a Weasley gets picked, Percy," said his friend, a girl with curly dark hair.
"Our family's been through enough," Percy snapped back at her.
"I want to go home, I want to go home, I want to go home," Neville said in monotone, his eyes wide and teary.
Ron stopped eating for a moment to glare at him. "You can't go home, Neville. None of us can truly go home, even if we do get holiday leave. We're stuck here until we die or graduate. Don't you get it? This is normal here."
"How do you know it's normal? You're a first year like the rest of us," said Harry, still unable to believe anything that had happened so far. It was the only way he could keep his lunch in his stomach.
A first year girl and her brother had just died. Nobody even seemed to care except for the first years, all of whom looked utterly stunned and several of whom were crying, including the girl at his table who had been the last to touch Hannah. None of the older students had even raised an eyebrow when it had all gone down; in fact, from the conversations Harry was overhearing, they seemed to resent Daniel Abbott for taking up so much time and being foolish enough to get his sister killed along with him. They'd all just watched the show with morbid fascination and some mild sympathy, and now they were having a damn feast. Did they have a feast every time someone died at this place?
"I know it's normal because my brothers were killed!" yelled Ron, his face purpling rapidly. "Someone dies every other week here!"
"Quiet, Ron. Don't waste your breath trying to convince him. He'll find out soon enough," hissed Percy. "And if you're too loud, you'll attract the Skulls' attention. Fred and George already piss them off, and they're looking for a reason to come for us."
Harry looked back down at his plate, but the sight of the food was enough to make his stomach roil. He turned around, trying to see how the people at other tables were reacting, then gave a start when he spotted Draco Malfoy sitting a mere table away.
He was hunched in on himself, paler than usual and his gray eyes wide as saucers, looking just as sick as Harry felt. But still beautiful, Harry's traitorous mind piped up, his gaze drawn inexplicably to Draco's angled features and his feather-soft, white-blond hair, which gleamed golden in the candlelight.
The dark-haired boy that Draco had spoken to earlier on the way to the castle—Theo or Ted or something—tapped him on the shoulder and whispered something in his ear, and Draco's blank, shell-shocked expression changed at once, rippling into a calm mask. A Skull near him told a joke and Draco's resulting laugh, bright as ringing bells, was loud enough for Harry to hear it from his seat.
Harry turned away in disgust. Minutes passed, then half an hour, then an hour. The feast seemed to drag on, and he never managed to muster up the slightest bit of hunger, but at last the dessert disappeared off the plates sometime before ten o'clock.
The chatter faded from the Great Hall. Percy, Ron, and the rest pinned their gazes on the Skulls sitting at the end of their table, and Harry focused on them as well, waiting with bated breath.
The Skulls at all four tables stood up in one massive wave, their backs snapping straight, their arms flush against their sides, their eyes alight with a fervor unlike anything Harry had ever seen before. In those repulsive masks, they resembled the soldiers of a vast beast army, unrivaled in their might, their mission, and their inhumanity.
Everybody stood up after the Skulls did, completing the wave of moment. Nobody spoke, not even a hapless first year, too afraid to disturb an atmosphere so close to the edge of collapse. Harry felt as though he were taking part in some sacred ritual, a precise dance during which anyone could misstep at any moment.
The Skulls from all four tables marched forward, converging at the back of the Great Hall, and the rest of students surged after them in neat rows, moving just as stiffly as their masked leaders. Harry kept looking straight ahead with a rigid neck as he walked behind Percy, his feet pounding on the ground in tandem with his beating heart.
The Skulls led them right out of the Great Hall and down a dizzying spiraling staircase, past paintings with shivering, cowering inhabitants, past false floors and false walls, past yawning dark doorways. Harry didn't know where they were going, except that they were going down, or where they were going to be sleeping; the Dark Lord had destroyed the Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, and Ravenclaw common rooms when he attacked the school, leaving only Slytherin's intact, and it was doubtful that Slytherin's common room could hold all thousand students at the school.
The part of the castle they were in now had no portraits and no doors, just never-ending winding stone tunnels. Harry noticed the floor was tilting downwards, and was sure they were deep underground now.
Finally, descending from yet another tight spiral staircase, they arrived in the center of a gigantic circular room—a room big enough to hold hundreds of students—with four enormous stone doors marking North, South, East, and West. It took a few minutes for all of Hogwarts' students to walk down the stairs and line up, and Harry itched the back of his neck impatiently.
He took a moment to study the symbols on the four doors. A shiny black skull emblazoned the North door, and a glittering silver serpent decorated the West one. How well that fit, serpent and skull. The East and South doors, however, were unmarked.
Four Skulls slipped out of their spots in the ranks and took up post at each of the four doors, but the rest of them went into the skull-marked North door. They probably all lived there together in murderous harmony.
"Elite students," shouted the Skull guarding the West door, "in here!"
Harry saw Draco Malfoy, his dark-haired friend, and the other first year students he'd been sitting with at dinner all stumble towards the shouting Skull, trailing meekly behind a large group of older students who walked with much more of a spring in their step than someone like Percy Weasley or Daniel Abbott had.
"The rest of you! Get a move on!" said the Skull, closing the serpent-marked West door when the "elite students" were all safely inside.
Harry watched carefully as the girls broke away from the boys and slipped into the East door. The boys, on the other hand, filed into the South door a dozen at time, causing a bottleneck effect. After a few anxious minutes of waiting for the line to lessen, Harry emerged into an immense square room crammed wall to wall with hundreds of bunk beds. Since he'd been near the end of the line, it was already full of hundreds of boys, and many of the beds that did not already have a boy lounging on them had already been claimed with luggage—the luggage of the boys still waiting in the line outside, most likely. The magic of Hogwarts must have moved the suitcases of returning students to their beds from the train, Harry supposed.
The atmosphere here was far lighter, far more celebratory. Paper airplanes carrying messages fluttered through the air, sometimes smacking into bedposts or faces. People were talking animatedly, muttering profanities about the Skulls, and even laughing. Harry guessed it was because none of the Skulls had come inside with them, and they were finally free and unmonitored for the first time that night. Nobody seemed to care that they were all squashed like sardines in a can, like pigs in a pen.
There's no space to move, or breathe, or think, thought Harry with a sinking feeling, realizing that there were only about three feet of walking space between each ratty bunk bed.
"First years!" shouted a tall seventh-year with dreadlocks, pointing his wand to his mouth and using a spell to make his voice loud enough for everyone in the huge room to hear him. "First years! Your luggage is against the back wall because you haven't claimed a bed yet! Find a bunk that's not taken—and that means there's no luggage or anything else on it! It'll be your bed for the next seven years!"
Harry made his way to the back with great difficulty, navigating through the bunk beds and the overwhelming number of boys who thought it acceptable to stand in and block the little amount of free space there was. He found and grabbed his luggage, turned to find a free bed with a long sigh, and was unsurprised to find none in the immediate vicinity. After saying "excuse me" and "sorry" and "coming through" about a hundred times each, Harry finally spotted an unclaimed top bunk in the left corner of the room.
"Best be careful about that one, mate," said a boy on a bunk Harry was passing on his way to the left corner.
Harry stopped abruptly, causing several people behind him to bump into him and swear. "What's wrong with it?"
"Are you going for that left corner bed, the top bunk?" the boy asked.
"Yeah," said Harry, nodding slowly.
"It's cursed, that top bunk. Nobody's who's ever slept in it has lived through all seven years at Hogwarts," explained the boy, shaking his head. "Bill Weasley had that bed when he was here, and he was executed when his parents tried to fight You-Know-Who. Caleb McLaggen took it next, and he was killed by a Skull he challenged to a fight. Then it was Louis Flannery's bed, and well… he threw himself off the Astronomy tower last year."
"That's superstitious nonsense," said Harry, though he was sweating a bit. "And there aren't many free bunks left. I don't see any."
"Your funeral, not mine," said the boy with a shrug, closing his curtains in Harry's face.
Harry swallowed and made his way to the bed. He refused to let scary stories intimidate him. It was just an ordinary bed, and he would prove it to everyone who thought otherwise. He left his luggage by the bed and looked around, wondering where he should change.
"Oi! First year! Bathroom's on the right side, if you have to go! But everything's communal, everything!" a boy a few beds away guffawed at him.
Harry groaned, saw that all the boys were changing into their bedclothes in full view of everyone else, and climbed up the ladder after extricating his pajamas from his luggage. He would rather die than undress in front of anyone, and spent a few unproductive minutes struggling into his pajamas on the narrow top bunk under the cover of his sheets, managing to smack his head on the low ceiling twice in the process. Then he lay down, trying to make himself as comfortable as he could in the scratchy and thin blankets. There was a suspicious stain near his pillow that looked like blood, but no, no, no, he was not going to believe in that stupid story.
Harry closed his eyes and enjoyed a few minutes of peace, using them to mull over everything that had happened that day. The Abbotts' murders, the Skulls, the unsympathetic professors. People had mentioned these topics—Harry could hear their conversations pretty clearly in the complete lack of privacy that was the boys' dormitory—but they had not dwelled on any of them. The students seemed to have moved on, as though atrocities occurred so often that they were no longer shaken by anything.
Then, disturbing Harry's thoughts as thoroughly as a rampaging elephant would have managed to disturb the dormitory, the fourth-year boy who slept in the bunk beneath Harry's began to noisily kiss his boyfriend, making unpleasant squelching sounds in addition to causing the entire bed to creak and bounce.
Harry groaned again and buried his head in his pillow, knowing his face was turning red and fervently thankful nobody could see it.
"YOU TWO! Stop snogging already! There's an innocent first year above you!"
"Shut up, he appreciates it! He's in the cursed bunk, so he'll be dead by next year and won't ever get to snog anyone—"
"WILL YOU ALL SHUT UP, SOME OF US ARE TRYING TO READ!"
"OI! If you want peace and quiet in the damn dormitory, go suck a Skull's or Elite's cock and jump into bed with them—they're the ones who get the nice private bedrooms, not us, the 'dirty-blooded traitorous plebeians'—"
"STOP TALKING ABOUT SUCKING COCKS, THERE'S A FIRST YEAR LISTENING TO US!"
Harry wasn't sure how he was ever going to fall asleep in this head-pounding din, but finally, despite the loud chatter of hundreds of boys, the whizzing paper airplanes, and the blazing lights overhead, he managed to drift off. And when he dreamed, he dreamed of sitting under the Sorting Hat in front of an audience of jeering Skulls and burning, burning, burning. Draco Malfoy stood among them and laughed as Harry turned to ash, his eyes beautiful and cruel.
Author's Note: To clarify a few things... fear not, Hagrid is NOT dead. He just isn't at Hogwarts anymore. Also, because Muggleborns are not allowed at Hogwarts and a lot of them are hunted down, Hermione will not be a character. She may have survived Voldemort's purge and might make an appearance in later years... I haven't decided yet.
Also, JK Rowling stated in an interview that there are a thousand students at Hogwarts (even though realistically that doesn't make much sense to me...), so that's what I'm using. Subtracting the Muggleborn students that no longer attend and adding the once-homeschooled students that are forced to attend because Hogwarts education is now mandatory, I feel like the total evens out back to a thousand.
And yes, as you will discover next chapter, all of the professors have been replaced by Voldemort's puppets and Death Eaters.
Not sure what my update schedule is going to be now that school is starting, but I should be able to update at least every weekend for now. :)
Thank you for reviewing! I really appreciate it! Please let me know what you think and if you would like to see this story continued.
-ArissAvion
