Author Notes: First of all let me say that yes there are answers to all of the little information gaps that haven't been worked on yet. But Harry doesn't know them yet so neither do you. Be patient. Also Harry finally goes to Hogwarts this chapter. Someone asked if would be romance in the story. I will say it again. This story will never, EVER have any relationships between Harry and anyone male or female. I hate romance in stories and in real life...
Of course if anyone knows of any good Dark/Evil Harry stories that have no romance and are above 50,000 words a PM would be nice...
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Kings Cross was a stupid place to put the Hogwarts Express at. Really... A muggle train station? What were they thinking... nonetheless he would just have to accept it. As Harry Potter walked towards Platorm 9 and three quarters he saw a family walking past with too many children and shocking red hair. They seemed like wizards but it was actually quite hard to tell until one of them walked past him all but shouting "Platform nine and three quarters this way!". Really, would they stop to think that muggles could hear. Probably not, they were likely Gryffindors. The youngest boy turned around and looked at him as he passed. Harry simply sneered at him and started to walk faster.
When he finally reached the platform he stopped and checked his luggage. As he was doing so the family of red heads walked straight in front of him and one of them actually RAN at the platform!
That was unacceptable. Talk about not drawing attention, were they Mudbloods? Probably, Tom introduced him to that word around a month ago and he found it a good insult to use on anyone. If on an actual Mudblood well... it was true. On a Pureblood it showed that you thought they were acting like a muggleborn.
Once the red haired family had passed (one of them actually was smart enough to casually walk along the side of it and then duck into the wall) he simply walked up to the wall and then slid through it when nobody was looking.
The train station was... packed. Obviously it was quite popular for children to say goodbye to their famiy's. The large red Hogwarts Express was waiting at the station and wasting no time, he got in. Walking down the isles proved that there were too many compartments for the amount of people going to the school. There were quite a lot of empty ones with only a few actually having anyone in them. The people inside seemed to be sitting by unifrom colours alhough there were people with muggle clothing sitting with other people wearing muggle clothes. Houses must more here than even the books could explain.
Harry found a small, dark compartment near the back of the train and sat inside of it. He locked the door and then got out a book he had been interested in for quite some time. The art of brewing by one Severus Snape. He knew Snape was a teacher at the school and obviously he taught potions but from the sounds of the book he was rather anti social. That suited him fine.
* * *
Harry woke up inside of a train... it took him a moment to realize that he was on the Hogwarts Express and exactly what woke him up. Then he heard it.
"Please change into your school robes. We have five minutes to go before we reach Hogsmeade."
As Harry changed he heard voices outside his compartment.
"...Just leave Neville alone Malfoy, he's ten times the wizard you are." shouted a very loud person
"Of course he is, ten times the failure anyway. But I can't waste time on... you. Bye Weasel, Scarface." said another aristocratic, arrogant voice.
Harry thought about this and decided he would need to remember that Neville Longbottom and... Malfoy were enemies. It might be useful one day to know that after all. If he could just sta...
"We have arrived at Hogsmeade, please leave your trunks on the train they will be taken to the castle seperately."
...Leave your belongings on a train? Who would actually do that? Still he couldn't make a scene about it or else they would brand him as a rulebreaker and watch him. Harry decided on the best course of action by simply retrieving all his belongings and shrinking them before placing them in a pocket. Problem solved.
As he left the train he saw a monstrous man standing in the distance waving at the train. Was this guy some sort of half-breed? He planned on leaving a large amount of distance between the... man and himself but when he started to yell something about first years he realized it was sadly going to be impossible.
"Firs' years. Firs' years this way." shouted the man
Harry carefully walked over to the back of the line keeping far away from the man who reminded him of Vernon. The group began to walk. Eventually they reached a lake. Hogwarts castle could be seen from the edge and it was amazing. No, more like breathtaking. It had to be the largest place Harry had ever seen. It was at least a hundred times Larger than the orphanage. Probably a thousand. Maybe even two thousand...
The man told them all to get into a series of small boats lined up against the shore of the lake. Harry got into the boat furthest way from the rest of the students and then watched as three people came towards him. They missed five competely empty boats and then sat inside of his boat. Keeping still Harry got ready to pick up his wand.
"So... may I ask who you are?" asked the smallest boy with the blond hair and the arrogant sneer
Harry thought about the pros and cons of answering. If he answered he would likely be left alone for a longer period of time. If he didn't they would take it as disrespect.
"Harry Potter" Harry replied sounding bored
"Oh really? Well as far as I know you're only a half-blood. That makes you inferior to me. What do you have to say about that?" asked the blond boy who sounded like the "Malfoy" he heard speaking earlier
"Nothing at all" said Harry
"It's good to see that you know your place then." insulted the boy who was definitely Malfoy, he was certainly trying hard to irritate Harry
Harry didn't reply or move other than looking to see how close the boat was to Hogwarts. They were passing through a small tunnel from the looks of it.
"I mean as you probably know your mudblood mother only had what was coming to her so her death really didn't matter now did it?" said Malfoy who was getting very, VERY annoyed now. Nobody simply ignored him.
"No it didn't did it?" replied harry sounding bored. How was a jab at these people he didn't even know going to hurt him? Worst of all they gave his MONEY to Neville damned Longbottom.
Malfoy looked confused, angry and scared at the same time. His indifference to his parents death must have taken Malfoy by surprise then.
Suddenly the boat stopped. They had arrived at Hogwarts. The man up front walked over to the doors and smashed his fist against them. Three times. The doors opened and a stern looking woman beckoned them in.
This room was massive. Truly massive. It would likely fit the orphanage inside of it easily. The woman showed them to a small antechamber on the side of the hall.
"Welcome first years to Hogwarts school of Witchcraft and Wizardry. I am Deputy Headmistress Minerva Mcgonagall. Soon you will be sorted into one of the four Hogwarts houses. The houses are Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw and Slytherin. Each house has produced amazing witches and wizards and I hope you will be a credit to whichever house you will be placed into." said Mcgonagall
Harry almost snorted, she obviously listed the houses in favourite to least favourite order. But he ran out of time to think about it as they were soon lead to the Great Hall. The Sorting Hat that Tom told him about was there nd waiting on a stool up the front. Mcgonagall was up at the front with a list in her hand. The Headmaster got up and walked over whispering something in her ear before handing her a list of scrolls. What could they be for... Surely nothing good if Dumbledore was handing them out. Tom had informed him of the mans mind games and manipulations. There were only about five of them...
"Abbott, Hannah" called Mcgonagall as she read from the list
A small girl with pigtails went up and put the hat on her head. It didn't take long before
"HUFFLEPUFF"
"Bones, Susan"
Again the hat shouted Hufflepuff. Though this girl was handed one of the scrolls as well... interesting.
A boy named Terry Boot was sorted next, he went to Ravenclaw, from the look of him he would fit in perfectly.
Another girl was sorted although she also went to Ravenclaw rather than Hufflepuff. Harry was too busy thinking about the scrolls to catch her name.
Then a rather large girl named Millicent Bulstrode was called out. She looked like a Gryffindor just not so cheery in his opinion. Definitely someone who preffered strength over cunning. So it surprised him when the hat called out "Slytherin" though not after a long debating period of time.
Another boy, definitely a Muggleborn went to the Hufflepuff. Then a horribly cheery boy named Seamus went to Gryffindor. Harry started to lose interest in the sorting but then he heard the name he hated.
"NEVILLE LONGBOTTOM"
Neville swaggered up the Great Hall as though he was the king and he put the hat on. Dumbledore seemed to grow anxious and he even looked rather worried when the hat didn't call out the house Neville was in.
Then it opened it's brim. "HUF-"
For some reason it closed it's mouth, after another five minutes it called out "GRYFFINDOR".
Neville walked back to his seat looking shaken but not before Harry noticed that he was carrying a scroll. There were only two scrolls left actually... he must have missed on of them being handed out while he was thinking about the scrolls! How ironic...
Then he looked up and saw Malfoy walking towards the hat. He barely even sat down before it called out Slytherin.
He lost interest in the sorting again and listened as many more names were called out.
"Moon"
"Nott"
"Parkinson"
"Patil"
"Patil"
"Perks"
Then he heard his name. "Potter, Harry"
As he walked up he saw that nobody was really interested in his sorting. Good. When he reached the Hat Mcgonagall gave him a scroll. Well at least he would know just what the scrolls were soon.
As Harry put the Hat on he heard a voice in his head.
"Well now, Mr Potter I dare say that you are rather different from both your parents. Different in everything. Even your looks now. You seem to have had a hard life from the looks of things. Nonetheless you are very cunning, not brave at all in fact. And you also have a great deal of ambition... No, it can't be. Tom Riddle? Well now I'm not surprised at all that you earned this house I knew it from when you put me on but because of your parents I needed to check."
"SLYTHERIN!"
Harry smirked at Dumbledore's thoughtful face as he left for the Slytherin table. He made sure to sit on the very end which was empty because there simply weren't enough Slytherin students to fill the table. He took note of this as he looked at the rest of the tables. The Ravenclaws were not very numerous, same as the Slytherins but they had spread across the entire table as they had various books and newspapers out to read. The Hufflepuffs were so numerous that they took up their entire table anyway and the Gryffindors while not as numerous as the Hufflepuffs had more people than you would think but they were all simply squashed toghether trying to talk to as many people as possible. The Slytherins were mostly silent and seperated but they still only took up half of the table. By the time he had finished examining the houses the sorting was finished.
Dumbledore made a speech that Harry really didn't care about and therefore ignored and then a large amount of food appeared. It covered the entire table including where he sat luckily. Though it looked nice Harry still pulled a vial of poison testing potion out of his robes that he always kept for this occasion and poured a drop of it onto each food item he collected. When it didn't change colour he let out a breath that he was holding it. The food was fine then. And it was the nicest food he had ever seen after all... time to eat.
* * *
After the feast Harry sat back in his seat, contented with the meal. It was certainly better than his own cooking. And it was even better than Diagon Alley's best. Dumbledore got up again as the dessert left the table. It was clear he was going to make another speech.
It was not very interesting. Although he did listen the part about not entering the Forbidden Forest seemed rather obvious. Although he was rather angry about the no magic in corridors part of the deal when he thought of it, who would know. He would usually be quite a long way away from people so it wasn't as if anyone could inform a teacher. When he mentioned the "stay off the third floor corridor or die the entire hall grew interested. The Slytherins looked as though they would do just that while the Ravenclaws looked inquisitive. The Hufflepuffs looked frightened and the Gryffindors looked as though they would all march there on the spot. Idiot, if he said it was closed for repairs then it would have gone much better for him. He had all but handed the Gryffindors a gold plated, autographed invitation cad to go to the third floor corridor on the right hand side.
"And now for the School Song! Everyone pick a tune and off we go!" cried Dumbledore
All of the Grffindors and Hufflepuffs exploded into song with several of the Ravenclaws also doing the same. The Slytherins stayed silent. The horrible excuse for a song kept going until those idiot red head twins from Gryffindor finished.
"Ah music, a magic beyond all that we do here," said Dumbledore as he wiped his eye which was obviously dry
"And now! Off to bed with you" said Dumbledore
The prefects gathered up all of the students and then they headed towards the dungeons in an orderly silent line, unlike the other houses. After a great many passages in the dungeons most of with about five doors leading off them they reached a deadend. One of many actually. Though the torches were always green in the dungeons this one was a dark green. The prefect spoke up.
"I am Marcus Flint, this is yout dormitory. This is the main Slytherin hideout in this castle. We are all rather reclusive so make sure never to EVER reveal where the room is or the password or I may have to skin you alive. I doubt that you will like that. Never write down the password anywhere and if you can't remember it go set up somewhere else in the castle. The password for this week is bravery." said Flint
Almost all the Slytherins except himself and Nott looked confused. He understood perfectly. Who would guess that Slytherins password was bravery? Not many in his opinion.
As the wall slid open Harry entered the common room. It was quite long and had many alcloves for people to have privacy in. Not bad at all. But he was tired and definitely needed sleep for the week ahead.
"Boy's dormitorys are the stairs to the left and girls to the right. Since the dungeons are so roomy you get one room per person." Flint said
That definitely got rid of one of Harry's fears. Sleeping in a shared room would be horrible. And Tom couldn't come out of the diary in that case. Harry walked down the stairs and took the room furthest away from the stairs. He barely had time to cast a locking spell on the door before he went to sleep.
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Author Notes: Harry is finally at Hogwarts. Sorry for the typos and hopefully the fact that it's almost 3000 words as opposed to my usual 2000 or so makes up for it.
And REMEMBER no ROMANCE!
