A.N.: I apparently had yet another numbering issue. What was previously listed as Chapter 11 was actually Chapter 12; the actual Chapter 12 is this one. I've moved and adjusted things to reflect this.

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Recca Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, Chapter Twelve

An Appreciation Omake/Sequel

By Aleh

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The door promptly swung open, revealing a somewhat tall, black-haired witch in green robes. She wore an expression that Recca supposed would be adequate for intimidating untrained children, but to Recca, whose standards of intimidation were based on the best efforts of trained assassins, only made her look like she desperately needed to get laid.

"The firs' years, Professor McGonagall."

"Thank you, Hagrid. I will take them from here."

They made their way through the castle, many of the students wide-eyed at the scenery. Recca spent the time catalogueing potential escape routes. They eventually reached a small chamber off the hall. Again, the majority of the students crowded in. Four held back this time, Mikan having noted that Hotaru wasn't crowding in with the others and overcoming her childish curiosity to join her.

After the, in Recca's opinion, overly sexually-deprived professor gave a blatantly rehearsed speech, she took a moment to glance at all some of the more blatant ways in which various kids were less than perfectly groomed. Perfectly aware that the impression he would give wouldn't depend on such trivial things as whether his cloak was fastened perfectly, Recca just shrugged and leaned back against a convenient wall.

Instructing the students to wait until it was time for them to be sorted, Professor McGonagall turned and left the chamber. Things were quiet for a few moments before a few ghosts passed through the back wall of the chamber. Several people reacted in shock, gasping or screaming at the sight.

The ghosts seemed to be arguing. One, dressed like a monk, was saying: "Forgive and forget, I say, we ought to give him a second chance --"

"My dear Friar, haven't we fiven Peeves all the chances he deserves? He gives us all a bad name and you know he's not even really a ghost --"

And with that, the ghost, who was wearing a ruff and tights, noticed the first years... and, specifically, one of their number. "He's here! He's here! Run! Run for your afterlives!" he screamed, running through the wall in the opposite direction. The other ghosts, in various states of panic, quickly followed.

Recca blinked. "Way to overreact, eh, Minato?" he asked, taking a moment to pet Mike, who had somehow found his way to Recca's shoulder.

Eyebrow twitching, Hotaru pulled a trout from somewhere and promptly slapped him with it. "It's your fault, Recca!"

"Yeah, yeah, I know," Recca retorted, staring at the fish and catching it as Hotaru moved to throw it over her shoulder. "By the way, how did you just do that?"

Hotaru frowned. "My accidental magic has apparently manifested as the ability to conjure a fish whenever I want one. I was hoping you might know why."

"You can do this at will?" Recca asked, idly skewering the still-flapping fish on a thin wooden stick and conjuring a flame in his other hand.

"Yes," the black-haired girl agreed, pointedly ignoring the way their classmates were staring.

Recca shrugged his shoulders and concentrated, the flame intensifying. He threw the flame to the ground and let it burn on the stone floor, feeding it with his chakra. After a moment, he nodded his head and held the skewer over his impromptu campfire. "I've heard of weirder," he admitted. "Besides, it suits you -- bringing new life into the world, that is. Have you tried anything other than fish?"

Hotaru idly nodded. "Yes, but-"

Recca's attention was drawn away by Professor McGonagall's return. "What is the meaning of this?" she asked, apparently shocked out of her normal, stern disposition by the sight that greeted her.

Recca blinked and retracted the chakra that was maintaining his cooking fire. Looking around, he idly noticed a swordfish flapping at Hotaru's feet. One spell later, that was no longer a problem. "Sword?" he asked, figuring that was what Hotaru had been trying to demonstrate.

"Long," she confirmed.

Recca nodded. It hadn't exactly been a small swordfish. Wistfully giving the trout-on-a-skewer in his hand a momentary glance, he casually tossed it to his nekomata companion. Mike made quick work of it.

"That better?" he asked the professor.

"Err... yes," she answered, visibly regaining her composture. "Now form a line and follow me."

And thus they walked out of the chamber, across the hall, and into the Great Hall.

Recca was singularly unimpressed by the levitating candles and the blatant waste of precious metals (really, gold plates and cups?). The ceiling, black and dotted with stars, created the impression of blatant magical showmanship -- all flash and little substance.

Recca's reaction to this was, however, not universally shared. He idly noticed Mikan staring at it and Hermione whispering, "It's bewitched to look like the sky outside. I read about it in Hogwarts, A History."

Idly promising himself to ensure that those sections of it above certain people allowed inclement weather to pass through as well as light at some point, Recca noticed Professor McGonagall put a stool in front of his class. When she proceeded to put a ragged hat of the sort that seemed popular amongst wizards on top of it, Recca just covered his face with his palm and sighed.

For a moment, there was silence... and then the hat began to sing.

"Prank?" Minato whispered to his friend, ignoring the off-tune singing and holding his hands in the characteristic seal for kage bunshin.

"Sur..." Recca began to reply, but trailed off as the hat began the third stanza of its song.

"So try me on and I will..." the hat sang before being lifted off the stool and held several meters off the ground.

"Care to clarify on that?" Recca asked, once again covered by a corona of blue chakra and holding his shotgun-like weapon extended in one hand, aimed at the sphere containing the Sorting Hat.

Several people looked like they wanted to move to stop the homocidal schoolboy. A few even tried despite the paralyzing pressure.

As they moved to do so, however, the pressure around them grew exponentially. Many of them even began to see visions of their own deaths, incredibly gory ends to their lives.

At the head table, an elderly man with a long, grey beard vomited.

Within the golden bubble of energy, the hat shouted in outrage. "What is the meaning of this?"

"Tell me," Recca pleasantly asked, "do you get off on raping children?" A white glow began to build up at the tip of his weapon as he spoke.

That brought the hat up short. "Raping?" it gasped. "How dare you?!"

"There's nothing hidden in your head the Sorting Hat can't see," Recca sardonically quoted. "Invasion or alteration of the contents of a person's mind absent a specific court order or clear, legal, and informed consent is defined as a form of rape under the Mental Invasion Act, 1991... and pidgeonholeing children into stereotyped categories based on psychological constructs of dubious validity is most certainly not one of the allowable reasons for a court order."

Recca's delivery of that last speech, a clear, factual statement of the highly condemning information, was only met by further outrage from the hat.

"I'll have you know that I've been sorting students for over a thousand years!"

"The claim that you've been raping children for a thousand years is most decidedly not an argument in favor of sparing you, Hat."

For a moment, it looked like the hat was going to again shout out in indignation. Amazingly, however, it paused in the middle of opening its flap for an outraged retort, visibly glanced at the building ominous glow, and gulped. "That... that law... you said it was passed earlier this year, didn't you?"

"Do you think I care about the legalities of the situation when dealing with rapists?"

Several people throughout the room threw up at the surge in pressure that accompanied that statement. Momentarily concerned, Recca quickly glanced back to the few people present who he actually cared about. Seeing them completely unaffected but making no move to interfere, he turned back and resumed the confrontation. "So, do you have anything to say for yourself?"

The hat slumped, a gesture which looked decidedly odd coming from a pointed hat. "You aren't going to let me maintain any of my mystique, are you?"

Recca raised an eyebrow. "Mystique? In this sort of situation?"

"I suppose not," the hat answered, glancing to the staff table for support only to notice the professors in various states of... decoration. "Most people don't know this, I can't really see into someone's mind unless they give me permission. The best I can really do is to sort of look around the edges and get a feel for their personality and feelings. If they're tricky, I can sort of talk with them, too..."

The glow around the barrels of Recca's weapon quickly faded as the green-haired dealer of mass destruction lowered it to his side. "I see. So you're a living, magic MMPI. Well, just bloody say that next time."

"And what of the mystique of the ceremony or the grand traditions that have defined Hogwarts for the last thousand years?"

"Screw 'em. By the way, you had better not be lying to me, Hat." With those last words, Recca quickly raised his weapon again, making the point far more susinctly than he could have through words.

"I'm not! I'm not!"

"I see. By the way, you have my permission to look into my mind when you sort me. There are things I want you to see."

They would, after all, make the point far more efficiently than anything else Recca could do.

It was with that thought that Recca briefly gestured, sending that hat back to its former resting place on its stool, and moved to resume his position amongst his fellow students, his weapon vanishing in a swirl of what observers could only concieve of as golden darkness. "Well," Recca remarked, releasing the flood of killing intent that had held the entire school paralyzed, "shall we start the ceremony now?"

Of course, he also took the opportunity to sign to Minato that he was all for pranking the Hell out of the ceremony. The fact that he wasn't about to go blowing the Sorting Hat up didn't mean that he wasn't willing to throw in a few harmless pranks.

It was with that thought that both of them exchanged a brief look, smirked, and discreetly placed their hands in a familiar, cross-shaped seal.