Chapter 7
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The door swings open at once. A tall, black haired witch in emerald-green robes stands there. She has a very stern face and Harriet's first thought is that this is not someone to cross.
"The firs' years, Professor McGonagall," says Hagrid.
"Thank you Hagrid. I will take them from here."
She pulls the door wide. The entrance hall is so big you could have fit the whole of the Dursleys' house in it. The stone walls are lit with flaming torches like the ones in the Gringotts tunnels, the ceiling is too high to make out, and a magnificent marble staircase facing them leads to the upper floors.
They follow Professor McGonagall across the flagged stone floor. Harriet can hear the drone of hundreds of voices from a doorway to the right – the rest of the school must already be here – but Professor McGonagall shows the first years into a small, empty chamber off the hall. They crowd in, standing rather closer together than they would usually do, most peering about nervously.
"Welcome to Hogwarts," says Professor McGonagall. "The start-of-term banquet will begin shortly, but before you take your seats in the Great Hall, you will be sorted into your Houses. The Sorting is a very important ceremony because, while you are here, your House will be something like your family within Hogwarts. You will have classes with the rest of your House, sleep in your House dormitory, and spend free time in your House common room."
"The four Houses are called Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and Slytherin. Each house has its own noble history and each has produced outstanding Witches and Wizards. While you are at Hogwarts, your triumphs will earn your House points, while any rule-breaking will lose House points. At the end of the year, the House with the most points is awarded the House Cup, a great honor. I hope each of you will be a credit to whichever House becomes yours."
"The Sorting Ceremony will take place in a few minutes in front of the rest of the school. I suggest you all smarten yourselves up as much as you can while you are waiting."
Her eyes lingered for a moment on Neville's cloak, which was fastened under his left ear, and on Ron's smudged nose. Harriet uses a little shadow manipulation to smooth her hair.
"I shall return when we are ready for you," says Professor McGonagall. "Please wait quietly."
She left the chamber. Neville swallowed.
"How exactly do they sort us into Houses? None of the books I got mentioned it." Harriet asks Ron.
"Some sort of test, I think. Fred said it hurts a lot, but I think he was joking."
Harriet's heart gives a jolt of surprise. A test? In front of the whole school? But she and the Muggleborns like Granger only know the theory at best – what on earth will she have to do? She supposes she is lucky that she at least read if not memorized the course books. Looking around, she notices everyone else looks terrified. No one is talking much except Hermione Granger, who is whispering very fast about all the spells she'd learned and wondering which one she'll need. Harriet listened in case the Sorting was a test. At least she won't have to take a school report home saying she'd turned her teacher's wig blue. She keeps her eyes fixed on the door. Any second now, Professor McGonagall will come back and lead her to the ceremony.
Then something happens that makes Neville jump about a foot in the air – several people behind them scream.
"What the - ?"
Several people around Harriet gasp. About twenty Ghosts have just streamed through the back wall. Pearly-white and slightly transparent, they glide across the room talking to one another and hardly glancing at the first years. They seem to be arguing. What looks like a fat little monk is saying: "Forgive and forget, I say, we ought to give him a second chance –"
"My dear Friar, haven't we given Peeves all the chances he deserves? He gives us all a bad name and you know, he's not really even a Ghost – I say, what are you all doing here?"
A Ghost wearing a ruff and tights has suddenly noticed the first years.
"Unless you died yesterday, you know full well we are waiting for the Sorting Ceremony that no one has given us the details for. Now proceed to the Great Hall before you give someone frostbite with your presence." Harriet replies while boosting her aura to a little over triple passive levels and attempting to direct it towards the Ghosts. Just as the last Ghost leaves, Professor McGonagall enters to confusion at why the Ghosts are not telling the first years which House they represent.
"Now, form a line," Professor McGonagall tells the first years, "and follow me."
Suppressing her aura to half passive levels, Harriet got into line behind a boy with sandy hair, with Ron behind her, and they walked out of the chamber, back across the hall, and through a pair of double doors into the Great Hall.
Harriet had never imagined such a strange and splendid place, even after living in the Potter Manor. It is lit by thousands and thousands of candles that are floating in midair over four long tables, where the rest of the students are sitting. These tables are laid with glittering golden plates and goblets. At the top of the hall is another long table where the teachers are sitting. Professor McGonagall leads the first years up here, so that they come to a halt in a line facing the other students, with the teachers behind them. The hundreds of faces staring at them look like pale lanterns in the flickering candlelight. Dotted here and there among the students, the Ghosts shine misty silver. Harriet glances upward and notices an enchantment on the velvety black ceiling dotted with stars. She hears Hermione whisper, "It's bewitched to look like the sky outside. I read about it in Hogwarts: A History."
It would be hard to believe there is a ceiling there at all, and that the Great Hall doesn't simply open on to the heavens, if Harriet couldn't see the magic itself.
Harriet quickly looks down again as Professor McGonagall silently places a four-legged stool in front of the first years. On top of the stool she puts a pointed Wizard's hat. This hat is patched and frayed and extremely dirty. Aunt Petunia wouldn't have let it in the house.
Maybe we have to try and get a rabbit out of it, Harriet thinks wildly - she noticed it had some type of magic on it, but not the specific type, since everyone in the hall is now staring at the hat, she stares too. For a few seconds, there is complete silence. Then the hat twitches. A rip near the brim opens wide like a mouth – and the hat begins to sing:
"Oh, you may not think I'm pretty,
But don't judge on what you see,
I'll eat myself if you can find
A smarter hat than me.
You can keep your bowlers black,
Your top hats sleek and tall,
For I'm the Hogwarts Sorting Hat
And I can cap them all.
There's nothing hidden in your head
The Sorting Hat can't see,
So try me on and I will tell you
Where you ought to be.
You might belong in Gryffindor,
Where dwell the brave at heart,
Their daring, nerve, and chivalry
Set Gryffindors apart;
You might belong in Hufflepuff,
Where they are just and loyal,
Those patient Hufflepuffs are true
And unafraid of toil;
Or yet in wise old Ravenclaw,
If you've a ready mind,
Where those of wit and learning,
Will always find their kind;
Or perhaps in Slytherin
You'll make your real friends,
Those cunning folk use any means
To achieve their ends.
So put me on!Don't be afraid!
And don't get in a flap!
You're in safe hands (though I have none)
For I'm a Thinking Cap!"
The whole hall bursts into applause as the hat finishes its song. It bows to each of the four tables and then becomes quite still again.
"So we've just got to try on the hat!" Ron whispers to Harriet. "I'll kill Fred, he was going on about wrestling a Troll."
Harriet smiles in amusement. She can't tell how anyone would believe wrestling a Troll was a test for eleven and twelve year olds. The hat seems to be asking rather a lot though, many first years don't look brave or quick-witted or any of it at the moment. If only the hat had mentioned a House for people who felt a bit queasy, sorting would be a lot easier.
Professor McGonagall now steps forward holding a long roll of parchment.
"When I call your name, you will put on the hat and sit on the stool to be sorted," she says. "Abbott, Hannah!"
A pink-faced girl with blonde pigtails stumbles out of line, puts on the hat, which falls right down over her eyes, and sits down. A moment's pause –
"HUFFLEPUFF!" shouts the hat.
The table on the right cheers and claps as Hannah goes to sit down at the Hufflepuff table. Harriet sees the Ghost of the Fat Friar waving merrily at her.
"Bones, Susan!"
"HUFFLEPUFF!" shouts the hat again, and Susan scuttles off to sit next to Hannah.
"Boot, Terry!"
"RAVENCLAW!"
The table second from the left claps this time; several Ravenclaws stand up to shake hands with Terry as he joins them.
"Brocklehurst, Mandy" goes to Ravenclaw too, but "Brown, Lavender" becomes the first new Gryffindor, and the table on the far left explodes with cheers; Harriet could see Ron's twin brothers catcalling.
"Bulstrode, Millicent" then becomes a Slytherin. Perhaps it is Harriet's imagination, after all she'd heard about Slytherin, but she thinks they look like an unpleasant lot….and for some reason looking at them makes her hungrier.
"Finch-Fletchley, Justin!"
"HUFFLEPUFF!"
Sometimes, Harriet notices, the hat shouts out the House at once, but at others it takes a little while to decide. "Finnigan, Seamus," the sandy-haired boy next to Harriet in the line, sat on the stool for almost a whole minute before the hat declared him a Gryffindor.
"Granger, Hermione!"
Hermione almost runs to the stool and jams the hat eagerly on her head.
"GRYFFINDOR!" shouts the hat. Ron groans.
When Neville is called, he falls over on his way to the stool. The hat takes a long time to decide with Neville. When it finally shouts, "GRYFFINDOR," Neville runs off still wearing it, and has to jog back amid gales of laughter to give it to "MacDougal, Morag."
Malfoy swaggers forward when his name is called and gets his wish at once: the hat has barely touched his head when it screams, "SLYTHERIN!"
Malfoy goes to join his friends Crabbe and Goyle, looking pleased with himself.
There aren't many people left now.
"Moon"…, "Nott"…, "Parkinson"…, then "Perks, Sally-Anne"…, and then, at last –
"Potter, Harriet!"
As Harriet steps forward, whispers suddenly break out like little hissing fires all over the hall.
"Potter, did she say?"
"The Harriet Potter?"
The last thing Harriet sees before the hat drops over her eyes is the hall full of people craning to get a good look at her. Next second she is looking at the black inside of the hat. She waited.
"Hmm," says a small voice in her ear. "Difficult. Very difficult. Gryffindor's blood. A thirst for knowledge that Rowena herself would envy. Perhaps a shade too much loyalty, a healthy chunk of cunning stolen from Slytherin's last Heir….So where shall I put you?"
Harriet chuckles at the hat's words and thinks; the school will be Gryffindor red if you put me in Slytherin.
"Please don't redecorate the school in blood." Begs the small voice. "If you're sure – better be GRYFFINDOR!"
Harriet hears the hat shout the last word to the whole hall. She takes off the hat and walks calmly toward the Gryffindor table. Rolling her eyes, she notices she is getting the loudest cheer yet. Percy the Prefect gets up and shakes her hand vigorously, while the Weasley twins yelled, "We got Potter! We got Potter!" Harriet sits down opposite the Ghost in the ruff she'd seen earlier. The Ghost pats her arm, giving Harriet a slight feeling of having plunged it into a bucket of icy water.
She can see the High Table properly now. At the end nearest her sits Hagrid, who catches her eye and gives her the thumbs up. Harriet grins back. And there, in the center of the High Table, in a large gold chair, sits Albus Dumbledore. Harriet recognizes him at once from the card she'd gotten out of the Chocolate Frog on the train. Dumbledore's silver hair is the only thing in the whole hall that shines as brightly as the Ghosts. Harriet spots a nervous Professor in a turban as well. The Professor had been at the Leaky Cauldron during her second trip to Diagon Alley.
And now there are only four people left to be sorted. "Thomas, Dean," a black boy even taller than Ron, joins Harriet at the Gryffindor table. "Turpin, Lisa," becomes a Ravenclaw and then it is Ron's turn. He is pale green by now. Harriet crosses her fingers under the table and a second later the hat has shouted, "GRYFFINDOR!"
Harriet claps loudly with the rest as Ron collapses into the chair next to her.
"Well done, Ron, excellent," says Percy Weasley pompously across Harriet as "Zabini, Blaise," is made a Slytherin. Professor McGonagall rolls up her scroll and takes the Sorting Hat away.
Harriet looks down at her empty gold plate. She doesn't really need food, but she is very hungry. The pumpkin pasties and other snacks seem ages ago.
Albus Dumbledore has gotten to his feet. He is beaming at the students, his arms opened wide, as if nothing could please him more than to see them all here.
"Welcome!" he says. "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!"
"Thank you!"
He sits back down. Everybody claps and cheers. Harriet isn't sure whether to laugh or not.
"He seems a bit mad." She comments to Percy uncertainly.
"Mad?" says Percy airily. "He's a genius! Best wizard in the world! But he is a bit mad, yes. Potatoes, Harriet?"
Harriet's mouth falls open. The dishes in front of her are now piled with food. She has never seen so many things she liked to eat on one table: roast beef, roast chicken, pork chops, sausages, bacon and steak, boiled potatoes, roast potatoes, fries, Yorkshire pudding, peas, carrots, gravy, ketchup, and, for some strange reason, peppermint humbugs.
The Dursleys had never exactly starved Harriet, but she'd never been allowed to eat as much as she liked. Dudley had always taken anything that Harriet really wanted, even if it made him sick. Harriet piles her plate with a bit of everything except the peppermints and began to eat. It is all delicious, but doesn't help the hunger she is feeling any.
"That does look good," says the Ghost in the ruff sadly, watching Harriet cut up her steak.
"How long has it been?"
"I haven't eaten for nearly five hundred years," says the Ghost. "I don't need to, of course, but one does miss it. I don't think I've introduced myself? Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington at your service. Resident Ghost of Gryffindor Tower."
"I know who you are!" Ron says suddenly. "My brothers told me about you – you're Nearly Headless Nick!"
"I would prefer you to call me Sir Nicholas de Mimsy –"the Ghost begins stiffly, but sandy-haired Seamus Finnigan interrupts.
"Nearly Headless? How can you be nearly headless?"
Sir Nicholas looks extremely miffed, as if their little chat isn't going at all the way he wanted.
"Like this," he says irritably. He seizes his left ear and pulls. His whole head swings off his neck and falls to his shoulder as id it is on a hinge. Someone had obviously tried to behead him, but not done it properly. Looking pleased at the stunned looks on most of their faces, Nearly Headless Nick flips his head back onto his neck, coughs, and says, "So – new Gryffindors! I hope you're going to help us win the House Championship this year? Gryffindors have never gone so long without winning. Slytherins have got the Cup six years in a row! The Bloody Baron's becoming almost unbearable – he's the Slytherin Ghost."
Harriet looks over at the Slytherin table and sees a horrible Ghost sitting there, with blank staring eyes, a gaunt face, and robes stained with silver blood. He was right next to Malfoy who, Harriet is pleased to see, doesn't look too pleased with the seating arrangements.
"How did he get covered in blood?" Seamus asks with great interest.
"I've never asked," Nearly Headless Nick says delicately.
When everyone has eaten as much as they can, the remains of the food fade from the plates, leaving them sparkling clean as before. A moment later the desserts appear. Blocks of ice cream in every flavor you can think of, apple pies, treacle tarts, chocolate éclairs and jam doughnuts, trifle, strawberries, Jell-O, rice pudding. . .
As Harriet helps herself to a treacle tart, the talk turns to their families.
"I'm half-and-half," Seamus says. "Me dad's a Muggle. Mum didn't tell him she was a Witch 'til after they were married. Bit of a nasty shock for him."
The others laugh.
"What about you, Neville?" Ron says.
"Well, my gran brought me up and she's a witch." Neville says, "but the family thought I was all-Muggle for ages. My Great Uncle Algie kept trying to catch me off guard and force some magic out of me – he pushed me off the end of Blackpool pier once, I nearly drowned – but nothing happened until I was eight. Great Uncle Algie came round for dinner, and he was hanging me out of an upstairs window by the ankle when my Great Auntie Enid offered him a meringue and he accidentally let go. But I bounced – all the way down the garden and into the road. They were all really pleased, Gran was crying she was so happy. And you should have seen their faces when I got in here – they thought I might not be magic enough to come, you see. Great Uncle Algie was so pleased he bought me my toad."
On Harriet's other side, Percy Weasley and Hermione are talking about lessons ("I do hope they start right away, there's so much to learn, I'm particularly interested in Transfiguration, you know, turning something into something else, of course, it's supposed to be very difficult –"; "You'll be starting small, just matches into needles and that sort of thing –").
Harriet, who is starting to feel warm and sleepy, looks up at the High Table again. Hagrid is drinking deeply from his goblet. Professor McGonagall is talking to Professor Dumbledore. The Professor in the turban is talking to a teacher with greasy black hair, a hooked nose, and sallow skin.
It happens very suddenly. The hook-nosed teacher looks past the turban straight into Harriet's eyes – and the strongest hunger pains yet double her over.
"Ouch!" Harriet claps both hands to her stomach.
"What is it?" Percy asks.
"N-nothing."
The pain is gone nearly as quickly as it came. Harder to shake off was the hunger Harriet got from the teacher's look.
"Who's the greasy-haired teacher talking to the turban?" she asks Percy.
"The turban is Professor Quirrell. No wonder he's looking so nervous, that's Professor Snape. He teaches Potions, but he doesn't want to – everyone knows he's after Quirrell's job. Knows an awful lot about the Dark Arts, Snape."
Harriet watches Snape for a while, but Snape doesn't look at her again.
At last, the desserts too disappear, and Professor Dumbledore gets to his feet again. The hall falls silent.
"Ahem – 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's twinkling eyes flash in the direction of the Weasley twins.
"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 interested in playing for their House teams should contact Madam Hooch."
"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."
Harriet chuckled, but she is one of the few who do.
"He's not serious? Doesn't matter when I'm technically dead already." She mutters to Percy.
"Must be," Percy says, frowning at Dumbledore. "It's odd, because he usually gives us a reason why we're not allowed to go somewhere – the forest's full of dangerous beasts, everyone knows that. I do think he might have told us Prefects at least. And what do you mean you're already dead?"
"I'm a Royal Banshee as of an hour after I received my Hogwarts letter." Harriet casually replies while focused on Dumbledore's speech.
"And now, before we go to bed, let us sing the school song!" Dumbledore cries. Harriet notices that the other teachers' smiles become rather fixed.
Dumbledore gives his wand a little flick, as if he is trying to get a fly off the end, and a long golden ribbon flies out of it, which rises high above the tables and twists itself, snakelike, into words.
"Everyone pick their favorite tune," Dumbledore says, "and off we go!"
And the school bellows to a shadowy accompaniment:
"Hogwarts, Hogwarts, Hoggy Warty Hogwarts,
Teach us something please,
Whether we be old and bald
Or young with scabby knees,
Our heads could do with filling
With some interesting stuff,
For now they're bare and full of air,
Dead flies and bits of fluff,
So teach us things worth knowing,
Bring back what we've forgot,
Just do your best, we'll do the rest,
And learn until our brains all rot."
Everybody finishes the song at different times. At last, only Harriet and the Weasley twins are left singing along to a very slow funeral march while shadows loom over them. Dumbledore conducts their last few lines with his wand and when they are finished, he is one of those who clap loudest.
"Ah, music," he says, wiping his eyes. "A magic beyond all we do here! And now, bedtime. Off you trot!"
The Gryffindor first years follow Percy through the chattering crowds, out of the Great Hall, and up the marble staircase. If she wasn't a Banshee, Harriet would have been too sleepy to be surprised at the moving portraits and hidden doorways along the route. They climb more staircases, yawning and dragging their feet, and Harriet is just wondering how much farther they have to go when they come to a sudden halt.
A bundle of walking sticks is floating in midair ahead of them, and as Percy takes a step toward them they start throwing themselves at him only to bounce off a shadow shield.
"Not sure which of you created the shield, but this is Peeves," Percy whispers to the first years. "A Poltergeist." He raises his voice, "Peeves – show yourself."
A loud, rude sound, like air being let out of a balloon, answers.
"Do you want me to go to the Bloody Baron?"
There is a pop. And a little man with wicked, dark eyes and a wide mouth appears, floating cross-legged in the air, clutching the walking sticks.
"Oooooooh!" he says, with an evil cackle. "Ickle Firsties! What fun!"
He swoops suddenly at them and straight into another shadow wall with a crunch. Only Harriet doesn't duck… or wince at the crunch.
"Go away, Peeves, or the Baron'll hear about this, I mean it!" Percy barks.
Peeves sticks out his tongue and vanishes, dropping the walking sticks above Neville's head. They hear him zooming away, rattling coats of armor as he passes.
"You want to watch out for Peeves," Percy says, as they set off again. "The Bloody Baron's the only one who can control him, he won't even listen to us Prefects. Here we are."
At the very end of the corridor hung a portrait of a very fat woman in a pink silk dress.
"Password?" she says.
"Caput Draconis," Percy says, and the portrait swings forward to reveal a round hole in the wall. They all scramble through it – Neville needs a leg up – and find themselves in the Gryffindor common room, a cozy, round room full of squashy armchairs.
Percy directs the girls through one door to their dormitory and the boys through another. At the top of a spiral staircase – they are obviously in one of the towers – they find their beds: seven four posters hung with deep red, velvet curtains. The other girls' trunks have already been brought up. Too tired to talk much, the other girls pull on their pajamas and fall into bed.
"Is it just me, or does it seem like the Headmaster doesn't realize this is a school?" Harriet asks while the other girls quietly gossip.
"It's not just you. You should get some sleep before classes tomorrow. I'm going to find a teacher to help with some personal business." Harriet says before shadow traveling out of the dormitory.
AN: Thanks for reading and please review