As with the last chapter, parts of this (namely the train ride and sorting) borrow heavily from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.
Chapter 4: Moving Forwards
"Why is there a snowy owl in your office?" Raven asked. Nero sighed.
"I don't know how she got here," Nero said, "but she arrived ten minutes ago carrying a letter." Raven looked at him as if he was crazy. "I'm not joking, Natalya. Here." Nero passed her the sealed envelope that had been tied to the owl's leg. The back of it was labeled only with a name: Otto Malpense. There was no return address (or sending address, for that matter). Raven raised her eyebrows.
"Do you think he knows about this?" she asked.
"I have no idea," Nero said, "but he isn't finding out about it from me. Not after the escape attempt last week." Otto was one of his more cunning students, and that level of cunning combined with this level of bizarre was not a good sign. The envelope could contain all sorts of things that would lead Otto to attempt another escape, and H.I.V.E.'s security and cleanup budget was already tight.
...
"Are we sure this is a good idea?" Robin asked as Harry carefully set up a Bunsen burner beneath his cauldron.
"We've got a fume hood, we've double-checked both the ingredient and theory books to make sure we know what we're doing, and this is the easiest and least dangerous potion in the book," Penny said as she set out ingredients. "If I can't do this, we've wasted some ingredients and time. If I can, it's proof of concept that I can do any potion whose recipe doesn't call for a wand, which would be dead useful. Did you know they have a cure for the common cold? Blood-replenishing potions? An instant sedative? Incredibly effective numbing agents? Working truth serum? The possibilities are endless."
"Don't try the Pepperup," Harry warned. "The theory book mentions 'an incredibly narrow therapeutic band for muggles.'"
"But still!" Penny said. "We can treat injuries and commit acts of redistribution much more easily!" Harry rolled his eyes; Penny had stumbled across the euphemism of "redistribution" for stealing a while ago and had fallen in love with it.
"If you blow up the orphanage and Mrs. McReedy gets mad at you, it's not my fault," Robin said as she got as far away from the pair's experiment as she could. She knew they thought it wasn't going to blow up, but her past experience with Harry's gift told her that nothing was known for certain, at least for very long.
The neighborhood park, with its sad swings and dead grass, was pretty far away from the shed at the back of St. Sebastian's. She'd go over there with her brother and maybe some of the others and have a nice afternoon there instead of worrying about whether the shed would catch fire or explode (again).
...
"We were so close to succeeding," Shelby grumbled as she scrubbed down the lab tables in H.I.V.E.'s Biology department. The (suspiciously red and brown) stains stubbornly refused to come out of the tables' wooden legs.
"We were nowhere close to succeeding," Otto said. "The submarine dock was fake. Our EMP was fake. Everything we were counting on was fake."
"The plant wasn't fake," Laura said.
"We weren't planning on the plant attacking everyone," Otto pointed out. "We didn't even know Violet existed until it got loose." We also didn't know yesterday morning that Nero is connected to Wing's mother… somehow, Otto thought but didn't say; Wing had asked him not to tell the girls until he was certain the connection existed and what it was.
Their plan had failed, and Otto didn't see any of the others he had thought up and discarded succeeding in its place; H.I.V.E. was in control of too many variables for him to succeed right now. He couldn't get back to St. Sebastian's - he couldn't get back to Harry - despite his best efforts and best planning, but his allies couldn't return home, either. They were all stuck here together, watching and waiting for something, anything to slip up and let them leave, and his new friends needed him. Not as much as the kids at St. Sebastian's needed him, but they needed him nonetheless.
Otto had never been good at ignoring allies in need.
...
"Do you have everything?" Robert asked as he and Harry walked through King's Cross station.
"You watched me pack my trunk, Robert," Harry said.
"Wand?"
"In my trunk."
"Knife?"
"In my pocket, just in case," Harry said. Otto had given him that knife; he wasn't going to lose it.
"Ticket?"
"In my other pocket."
"Do you know how to get onto the platform?" Harry froze; Hagrid had forgotten to mention that. Robert checked the time. "We've got ninety minutes until the train leaves, so let's wait for someone else to find it." Harry and Robert settled back, and, within minutes, a woman carrying a barn owl in a large cage and a girl with hair that shifted from brown to pink as she moved through the crowd walked up to the barrier between Platforms Nine and Ten and… slipped into it. Robert raised an eyebrow, and Harry sighed.
"Of course I need to pass through the barrier," Harry muttered as he walked up to the barrier. After a moment, he opened his eyes to see a platform filled with people in funny clothing and a scarlet steam engine. Carefully, with a cap pulled down over his forehead so no one could see his scar, Harry boarded the train and started looking for an empty compartment. Instead, he found a bushy-haired girl and a round-faced boy.
"Have you seen a toad?" the girl asked in a rather bossy tone of voice. "Neville's lost one."
"I haven't," Harry said. "I just got onto the train."
"Would you like to share a compartment with us?" the girl asked. "I found an empty one because my parents dropped me off early - we weren't sure if the Express would leave at eleven exactly or if I'd need some buffer time - they aren't magic, nobody in my family's magic at all, it was ever such a surprise when I got my letter, but I was ever so pleased, of course. I mean, it's the very best school of witchcraft there is - that's mentioned several times in A History of Magic and Hogwarts, a History - I'm Hermione Granger, by the way." In Harry's opinion, Hermione was the sort of obscure name he'd expect from a pureblood, but he had seen far stranger things in the past month than a muggleborn named Hermione. "Who are you?"
"I'm Harry," Harry said. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Hermione." Hermione gasped.
"You're Harry Potter!" she said. "I know all about you - I got a few books for background reading, and you're in Modern Magical History and The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts and Great Wizarding Events of the Twentieth Century."
"I know," Harry said; he and Penny had had a good laugh about their guesses to Harry's life after his parents died. "Great Wizarding Events was decent, but Callaway's histories - all of them - had very... interesting guesses about me now. Including that I, an eleven-year-old preteen who didn't know what magic was until about a month ago, am six feet tall and have masteries in five subjects. So, what house do you think you'll be in?" If Hermione consciously noticed the abrupt shift in subject, it didn't bother her at all as she launched into her answer.
"I've been asking around, and I hope I'll be in Gryffindor, it sounds like the best; after all, Headmaster Dumbledore was in it, though I suppose Ravenclaw wouldn't be too bad - I like learning, and they have their own private library, which would be nice - but I really think that-"
...
"Did Dora get onto the train safely?" Mary Mitchell asked as she and Andromeda sat in the cafe in King's Cross Station and watched the late arrivals rush for the Hogwarts Express. Andromeda nodded.
"She tripped on the first stair and almost crushed Vera's cage, but otherwise, it went off without a hitch," Andromeda said. "There was nothing to worry about, really; there haven't been any attacks on the platform since the war ended."
"Thank heaven for small mercies," Mary said. "Those were terrifying. Remember my first year?".
"That was one of the nastier ones." Andromeda shuddered. "Oh, look at the Fawleys' outfits this year!" Mary glanced to see a black-haired man, girl, and boy in neon robes raced towards the barrier between Platforms Nine and Ten. "I thought Alfred had more taste than that."
"Fawley's always loved bright colors and outlandish fashions," Mary said. "At least his robes have both sleeves this time."
"True. So," Andromeda sipped her tea, "how's Laura? Still making magic with computers?"
"I assume so." Andromeda raised an eyebrow. "Laura… Laura's continuing her education away from home and is not allowed to contact me. I think she's fine, but…"
"You only know something's gone wrong when the body comes home," Andromeda said.
"Exactly," Mary said. "I thought that particular bit of paranoia was behind me, especially since Laura took to technology so well, but… How's the firm? We haven't talked about that recently." Andromeda sighed.
"Like everything else, it has its ups and downs," Andromeda said. "We're mostly dealing with estates nowadays; most of the advocacy and criminal work stopped a few years after the war. We're still trying to get a trial for Sirius-"
"Still?" Mary asked. "They haven't even held a trial? Not that I trust the Wizengamot to hold a fair trial, but they haven't even made an attempt at a kangaroo court?"
"I'm afraid not," Andromeda said as she checked her watch. "I need to get going; I have a meeting in an hour. Here's to your problem being solved without bloodshed."
"And to yours being solved," Mary said as Andromeda found an empty corner and apparated away.
...
As the Sorting Hat was placed onto Harry's head, the entire hall fell silent; the quiet whispers of older students as the first years were sorted vanished entirely. For Harry, the undivided attention was more than a little unnerving.
"Hmm," a small voice in Harry's ear said, and Harry jumped. "Difficult, very difficult. Plenty of courage, I see. Not a bad mind either; no, far from it… There's talent, oh my goodness, yes - and a nice thirst to prove yourself, now that's interesting… So where shall I put you?" Harry considered the question; from his and Penny's readings of Hogwarts, a History, he was probably meant to be a Slytherin, but the dark looks cast on the green table (not to mention from the people seated at said table) discouraged him from that. Next up was probably Hufflepuff - he was hardworking and diligent, maybe not in the way Helga had intended, but it was the thought that counted, right? But he could learn so much in Ravenclaw, and he had so much to learn about the wizarding world…
"So much to learn, eh?" the small voice said. "That's Slytherin ambition right there… You could be great, you know, it's all here in your head, and Slytherin will help you on the way to greatness, no doubt about that…" Harry thought back to his trip to Ollivanders; great didn't necessarily mean good here, and he didn't particularly want to be evil right now. "No? Well, if you're sure - there's a path to greatness too in RAVENCLAW!" After a moment of stunned silence, the bronze and blue table erupted into cheers. Harry raced to it and the relative obscurity of a crowd as quickly as possible.
As soon as "Zabini, Blaise" had become a Slytherin and McGonagall had rolled up her scroll and taken the Sorting Hat away, Albus Dumbledore got to his feet. He beamed at the mass of students in front of him, arms opened wide as if nothing could have pleased him more than to see them all here. "Welcome!" he said. "Welcome to a new year at Hogwarts! Before we begin our banquet, I would like to say a few words. And here they are: Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak!" Dumbledore paused as the students wondered where this was going. "Thank you!" He sat back down. Everybody clapped and cheered; Harry didn't know whether to laugh or not.
The question of whether the Headmaster was a bit mad was erased from Harry's mind as the empty golden dishes in front of him filled with food: roast beef and roast chicken, pork chops and lamb chops, sausages, bacon, steak, boiled potatoes and roast potatoes, fries, Yorkshire pudding, peppermint humbugs for some unknown reason, peas, carrots, gravy and ketchup… It all looked delicious, and the Pumpkin Pasties from the train felt like they were forever ago. Harry loaded his plate with his favorites and tucked in.
After Harry had finished eating, the last traces of dessert disappeared, and Dumbledore stood again. The hall fell silent. "Just a few more words now that we are all fed and watered. I have a few start-of-term notices to give you. First years should note that the forest on the grounds is forbidden to all pupils. And a few of our older students would do well to remember that as well." Dumbledore winked at the Gryffindor table. "I have also been asked by Mr. Filch, the caretaker, to remind you all that no magic should be used between classes in the corridors. Quidditch trials will be held in the second week of the term. Anyone intetested in playing for their house teams should contact Madam Hooch." Dumbledore paused. "And finally, I must tell you that this year, the third-floor corridor on the right-hand side is out of bounds to everyone who does not wish to die a very painful death."
Harry laughed before he realized that the headmaster was completely serious. Then he started thinking; what was in the third-floor corridor on the right-hand side? Why was it here if it was so dangerous? Was there anything keeping him from finding out the mysterious dangers of the third-floor corridor? And if there wasn't, what was to stop him from trying?
Liked it? Hated it? Review and let me know! Next chapter is where things really start to get interesting at Hogwarts and H.I.V.E.