the origin of everything (the origin of nothing)
Gabriel
Gabriel is a girl in this verse, one with bushy brown hair and buck-teeth. In the other verse that he spends most of his time in, he's a trickster with honey-gold eyes.
What never changes is that he stands apart from the rest of his family.
He knows that the other three have been slinking in and out, hearing the end of this universe approaching. She (not he now, she must remember the appropriate pronouns) is the only one here until the end.
"Abbott, Hannah!" The woman that moves like a cat calls out, brandishing a hat. Gabriel (Hermione, she reminds herself sternly) watches as she gets sorted into Hufflepuff. The next two also go into that house, and soon enough, her name is called.
"Granger, Hermione!"
She walks to the ramshackle stool, and her vision is obstructed by the ratty hat.
"Hm," it hums in her mind, "brave, loyal, intelligent, cunning- you carry the traits of all four founders, Ms. Granger. But your wit and your bravery are above all else."
"Put me," Hermione demands, "Where I can watch, and where I can wait for the end."
"The end of what?"
Hermione smiles, "Everything. Nothing. It's all the same to me, rather."
"Slytherin!"
She sits down primly next to a glowering seventh year. She smiles at him and he flinches.
At last, after Malfoy is sorted into her house, ("You're a mudblood," he sneers. Hermione ignores him and casually sticks him to the bench he's attempting to lounge on. "You don't belong here."
"Do any of us truly belong anywhere?" she asks philosophically, "But I rather think I belong more than someone who cannot keep his mouth shut when it matters."
He flushes. She smirks and turns back to the Sorting) there is a call of "Potter, Harry!"
Death.
Hermione watches.
He is small and pale, almost see-through. His eyes, she notices, are almost the exact shade of the killing curse. Subtle, thy name is not Harry Potter.
The hat is on his head for five minutes. The hall is getting restless, shifting and muttering in their seats, when the hat finally calls out the house.
"Hufflepuff!"
Dead, awestruck silence. Harry looks more amused than anything else, handing back the hat to the teacher that walks like a Hufflepuff house gives him a wide berth as he sits down.
"Potter's a 'Puff?"
"D'you think he''s gonna be resorted?"
"Bloody hell!"
"Gred, Forge, you both owe me a sickle!"
"Damn it!"
The time ticks away as she waits for War- "Zabini, Blaise!"- to be sorted. The hall is still confused about Harry Potter, but Hermione wasn't really surprised.
Death is loyal. Death is hard-working. Death takes everyone, so is Death not the epitome of Hufflepuff? It is not the house of the leftovers, no matter what the hat may sing.
There is a twinge in the air that catches her attention, that drags her away from her thoughts. Blaise is getting upset, angry, violent. Hermione waits for the outburst.
"Gryffin- GET ME OFF THIS KID'S HEAD, BLOODY FUCK! HUFFLEPUFFF! HUFFLEPUFF!" The hat wails, and Blaise grins, sharp-like, and gives the hat back to the professor that walks like a cat and goes to the Hufflepuff table. An even wider berth was given to the two Horsemen, and they smiled at that.
She could guess who the first people in Dumbledore's office would be. She snickered a little and ignored the speech that Dumbledore gave while eyeing the two Hufflepuffs- his fear, worry, anger, and confusion filled the air, and it reeked.
She ignored the looks that the other Slytherins were giving her, and concentrated more on the two Horsemen bent close together, their black hair nearly touching. Unfortunately, they were at the table furthest from Slytherin.
Pity.
The Bloody Baron appeared next to Draco Malfoy, who shrieked and flinched away, and yelled when he realized he couldn't. "Welcome Slytherin students," he said drolly, "May you be prosperous in your new home."
Hermione rolled her eyes and pointedly ignored the sneers as she brought the baked potatoes closer to herself. She wasn't all that hungry.
"Get them off!" A redheaded boy suddenly screamed, "Bloody fuck, off! Get them off!"
There was nothing there.
"Ron," one of the twins sitting at the table asked, "are you alright?"
"Spiders!" He screeched.
Harry wasn't the scene with great amusement. Blaise was picking at his mashed potatoes as he hissed something in Harry's ear.
Hermione made a mental note to figure out the exact date, other than a vague five or so years from now.
(*)(*)(*)
Ron had to be sedated and brought to the Hospital Wing, still screaming- even while being stunned- about spiders.
Nobody was looking at either of the Horsemen.
Hermione made another mental note to find out where the other two were. She thinks that Pestilence may be in France, with all the viruses and contagions that were currently haunting the country. Famine would be harder to track down, but Africa would probably be a good start.
She is jolted out of her thoughts when the Slytherin table stands to leave. She casts another look at the Hufflepuff table, at the two Horsemen that are at the back of the first-year back. They are smiling.
Hermione would guess that they have left an unpleasant surprise behind at their table.
("Blaise," Harry says, fiddling with a block of wood and his wand, struggling to burn a rune into it that wouldn't take his own arm off, "what are we doing?
Blaise snickers, "Watching. Learning. Plotting, darling."
Harry laughs and sticks the block under the table. He kicks it so it skids closer to where the seventh-years are sitting.)
The rune goes off at midnight. The words The clock is running hangs over the teacher's table, and it scares everyone. It's prophetic, in a sense.
The Great Hall is shut down until they can get it down. Hermione is waiting for the moment they actually get bored and decide that havoc is not enough.