Bree's Dad gave her the usual warnings when he dropped her off at the station. Don't set things on fire, don't do anything that will make your teachers summon us to your school, and, for the love of god, don't do anything that will upset your Aunt Lisa, that woman is terrifying. Okay, so that last one was new, but the rest was pretty basic.
On the train Bree ran into Harry and Ginny.
"Where are Ron and Hermione?" Bree asked.
"The prefect carriage." Harry answered.
"Damn. Not only is Hermione a stickler for the rules, she now as the authority to back it up." Bree muttered.
"Come on," Ginny said, "we need to find a compartment."
"Right," said Harry, picking up Hedwig's cage in one hand and the handle of his trunk in the other. Bree got her rolling trunk in one hand, Muffin's carrier in the other, and Aries and Apollo were perched on her shoulders. They struggled off down the corridor, peering through the glass-paneled doors into the compartments they passed, which were already full. A lot of people stared back at them with great interest and that several of them nudged their neighbors and pointed them out. After they had met this behavior in five consecutive carriages Bree remembered what had happened in June. People were still talking about it. That and the fact the Daily Prophet had been telling its readers all summer about how horrible Harry's relatives were.
In the very last carriage they met Neville Longbottom his round face shining with the effort of pulling his trunk along and maintaining a one-handed grip on his struggling toad, Trevor.
"Hi, Harry" he panted. "Hi, Ginny… everywhere's full… I can't find a seat…"
"What are you talking about?" said Ginny, who had squeezed past Neville to peer into the compartment behind him. "There's room in this one, there's only Loony Lovegood in here —"
Neville mumbled something about not wanting to disturb anyone.
"Don't be silly," said Ginny, laughing, "she's all right."
She slid the door open and pulled her trunk inside. Harry and Neville followed.
"Hi, Luna," said Ginny, "is it okay if we take these seats?"
The girl beside the window looked up. She had straggly, waist-length, dirty blonde hair, very pale eyebrows and protuberant eyes that gave her a permanently surprised look. The girl gave off an aura of distinct dottiness. Perhaps it was the fact that she had stuck her wand behind her left ear for safekeeping, or that she had chosen to wear a necklace of Butterbeer corks, or that she was reading a magazine upside-down. Her eyes ranged over Neville and came to rest on Harry. She nodded.
"Thanks," said Ginny, smiling at her.
Harry and Neville stowed the trunks and Hedwig's cage in the luggage rack and sat down.
Luna watched them over her upside-down magazine, which was called The Quibbler. She did not seem to need to blink as much as normal humans. She stared and stared at Harry, who had taken the seat opposite her and now wished he hadn't.
Neville chuckled. Luna turned her pale eyes on him instead.
"And I don't know who you are."
"I'm nobody," said Neville hurriedly.
"No you're not," said Ginny sharply. "Neville Longbottom - Luna Lovegood. Luna's in my year, but in Ravenclaw."
"Wit beyond measure is man's greatest treasure," said Luna in a singsong voice.
She raised her upside-down magazine high enough to hide her face and fell silent. Harry and Neville looked at each other with their eyebrows raised. Ginny suppressed a giggle.
The train rattled onwards, speeding them out into open country. It was an odd, unsettled sort of day; one moment the carriage was full of sunlight and the next they were passing beneath ominously grey clouds.
"Guess what I got for my birthday?" said Neville.
"Another Remembrall?" said Harry, remembering the marble-like device Neville's grandmother had sent him in an effort to improve his abysmal memory.
"No," said Neville. "I could do with one, though, I lost the old one ages ago… no, look at this…"
He dug the hand that was not keeping a firm grip on Trevor into his schoolbag and after a little bit of rummaging pulled out what appeared to be a small grey cactus in a pot, except that it was covered with what looked like boils rather than spines.
"Mimbulus mimbletonia," he said proudly.
Harry stared at the thing. It was pulsating slightly, giving it the rather sinister look of some diseased internal organ.
"It's really, really rare," said Neville, beaming. "I don't know if there's one in the greenhouse at Hogwarts, even. I can't wait to show it to Professor Sprout. My Great Uncle Algie got it for me in Assyria. I'm going to see if I can breed from it."
"Does it - er - do anything?" he asked.
"Loads of stuff!" said Neville proudly. "It's got an amazing defensive mechanism. Here, hold Trevor for me…"
He dumped the toad into Harry's lap and took a quill from his schoolbag. Luna Lovegood's popping eyes appeared over the top of her upside-down magazine again, to watch what Neville was doing. Neville held the Mimbulus mimbletonia up t o his eyes, his tongue between his teeth, chose his spot, and gave the plant a sharp prod with the tip of his quill.
Liquid squirted from every boil on the plant; thick, stinking, dark green jets of it. They hit the ceiling, the windows, and spattered Luna Lovegood's magazine; Ginny, who had flung her arms up in front of her face just in time, merely looked as though she was wearing a slimy green hat. Bree had also put her hands in front of her face and her hair and arms were covered in green slime. Harry, whose hands had been busy preventing Trevor's escape, received a faceful.
Neville, whose face and torso were also drenched, shook his head to get the worst out of his eyes.
"S - sorry," he gasped. "I haven't tried that before… didn't realize it would be quite so… don't worry, though, Stinksap's not poisonous," he added nervously, as Harry spat a mouthful on to the floor. Bree was twitching
At that precise moment the door of their compartment slid open.
"Oh… hello, Harry," said a nervous voice. "Um… bad time?" It was Cho Chang and Cedric Diggory.
"Neville." Bree said flatly. "You have five seconds to run, then I'm going to come kill you." Neville stared blankly.
"Three seconds. Run stupid, run!" Bree shouted, a malicious gleam in her eye. Neville ran out of the compartment and down the hall.
"You're not real going to-" Ginny began to ask. She wasn't able to finish because Bree had ran after Neville while screaming "I'm going to kill you!"
"We had better go after her before she hurts him." said Cedric.
Five minutes later and Cedric and Harry could be found on the floor, each trying to hold on to one of Bree's legs while Ginny and Cho tried to free Neville from Bree, who had managed to grab one of the unfortunate boy's ankles when Cedric and Harry had tackled her and was now gnawing on it as Luna looked on.
"What's going on here?" a new voice asked. It was Fred.
"Bree's trying to kill Neville." Harry shouted.
"We can see that. Why?" George asked.
"And what are you covered in?" Lee added.
"Stinksap. It's the whole reason that she wants to kill Neville." Ginny yelled.
"She's gnawed through my pants! She's gnawed through my pants!" Neville exclaimed. Fred and George grabbed Bree and pulled her off Neville who immediately went to hide behind Ginny. Bree thrashed in the twins grip, George cast scourgify and the Stinksap vanished. Fred drenched Bree with aguamenti. Bree stopped thrashing and shook water out of her hair.
"You done trying to kill Neville?" George asked.
"Yeah." Bree sighed. "And Fred."
"What?" Fred inquired.
"Stop groping me." Bree said. Fred turned red, let go of her, and jumped away. George glared.
Ron and Hermione did not turn up for nearly an hour, by which time the food trolley had already gone by. Everyone had finished their pumpkin pasties and were busy swapping Chocolate Frog Cards when the compartment door slid open and they walked in, accompanied by Crookshanks and a shrilly hooting Pigwidgeon in his cage.
"I'm starving," said Ron, stowing Pigwidgeon next to Hedwig, grabbing a Chocolate Frog from Harry and throwing himself into the seat next to him. He ripped open the wrapper, bit off the frog's head and leaned back with his eyes closed as though he had had a very exhausting morning.
"Well, there are two fifth-year prefects from each house," said Hermione, looking thoroughly disgruntled as she took her seat. "Boy and girl from each."
"And guess who's a Slytherin prefect?" said Ron, still with his eyes closed.
"Malfoy," replied Harry at once, certain his worst fear would be confirmed.
"Course," said Ron bitterly, stuffing the rest of the Frog into his mouth and taking another.
"And that complete cow Pansy Parkinson," said Hermione viciously. "How she got to be a prefect when she's thicker than a concussed troll…"
"Who's Hufflepuff?" Harry asked.
"Ernie Macmillan and Hannah Abbott," said Ron thickly.
"And Anthony Goldstein and Padma Patil for Ravenclaw," said Hermione.
"You went to the Yule Ball with Padma Patil," said a vague voice.
Everyone turned to look at Luna Lovegood, who was gazing unblinkingly at Ron over the top of The Quibbler. He swallowed his mouthful of Frog.
"Yeah, I know I did," he said, looking mildly surprised.
"She didn't enjoy it very much," Luna informed him. "She doesn't think you treated her very well, because you wouldn't dance with her. I don't think I'd have minded," she added thoughtfully, "I don't like dancing very much."
She retreated behind The Quibbler again. Ron stared at the cover with his mouth hanging open for a few seconds, then looked around at Ginny for some kind of explanation, but Ginny had stuffed her knuckles in her mouth to stop herself giggling. Ron shook his head, bemused, then checked his watch.
"We're supposed to patrol the corridors every so often," he told Harry and Neville, "and we can give out punishments if people are misbehaving. I can't wait to get Crabbe and Goyle for something."
"You're not supposed to abuse your position, Ron!" said Hermione sharply.
"Yeah, right, because Malfoy won't abuse it at all," said Ron sarcastically.
"So you're going to descend to his level?"
"No, I'm just going to make sure I get his mates before he gets mine."
"I'll make Goyle do lines, it'll kill him, he hates writing," said Ron happily. He lowered his voice to Goyle's low grunt and, screwing up his face in a look of pained concentration, mimed writing in midair. "I… must… not… look… like… a… baboon's… backside."
Everyone laughed, but nobody laughed harder than Luna Lovegood. She let out a scream of mirth that caused Hedwig to wake up and flap her wings indignantly and Crookshanks to leap up into the luggage rack, hissing. Luna laughed so hard her magazine slipped out of her grasp, slid down her legs and on to the floor.
"That was funny!"
Her prominent eyes swam with tears as she gasped for breath, staring at Ron. Utterly nonplussed, he looked around at the others, who were now laughing at the expression on Ron's face and at the ludicrously prolonged laughter of Luna Lovegood, who was rocking backwards and forwards, clutching her sides.
"Are you taking the mickey?" said Ron, frowning at her.
"Baboon's… backside!" she choked, holding her ribs.
Everyone else was watching Luna laughing, but Bree glanced at the magazine on the floor, noticed something that made her grab it. Upside-down it had been hard to tell what the picture on the front was, but Bree now realized it was a fairly bad cartoon of Cornelius Fudge. One of Fudge's hands was clenched around a bag of gold; the other hand was throttling a goblin. The cartoon was captioned: How Far Will Fudge Go to Gain Gringotts? Beneath this were listed the titles of other articles inside the magazine.
Corruption in the Quidditch League:
How the Tornados are Taking Control
Secrets of the Ancient Runes Revealed
"Can I have a look at this?" Bree asked Luna.
She nodded, still gazing at Ron, breathless with laughter. Bree opened the magazine and scanned the index. She found the page, and turned to the article.
Cornelius Fudge, the Minister for Magic, denied that he had any plans to take over the running of the Wizarding Bank, Gringotts, when he was elected Minister for Magic five years ago. Fudge has always insisted that he wants nothing more than to 'co-operate peacefully' with the guardians of our gold.
BUT DOES HE?
Sources close to the Minister have recently disclosed that Fudge's dearest ambition is to seize control of the goblin gold supplies and that he will not hesitate to use force if need be.
"It wouldn't be the first time, either," said a Ministry insider. "Cornelius 'Goblin-Crusher' Fudge, that's what his friends call him. If you could hear him when he thinks no one's listening, oh, he's always talking about the goblins he's had done in; he's had them drowned, he's had them dropped off buildings, he's had them poisoned, he's had them cooked in pies…"
Bree flicked through the rest of the magazine. Pausing every few pages, she read: an accusation that the Tutshill Tornados were winning the Quidditch League by a combination of blackmail, illegal broom-tampering and torture; an interview with a wizard who claimed to have flown to the moon on a Cleansweep Six and brought back a bag of moon frogs to prove it; and an article on ancient runes which at least explained why Luna had been reading The Quibbler upside-down. According to the magazine, if you turned the runes on their heads they revealed a spell to make your enemy's ears turn into kumquats
"Anything good in there?" asked George as Bree closed the magazine.
"Of course not," said Hermione scathingly, before Bree could answer. "The Quibbler's rubbish, everyone knows that."
"Excuse me," said Luna; her voice had suddenly lost its dreamy quality. "My father's the editor."
"I - oh," said Hermione, looking embarrassed. "Well, it's got some interesting… I mean, it's quite…"
"I'll have it back, thank you," said Luna coldly, and leaning forwards she snatched it out of Bree's hands. Riffling through it to page fifty-seven, she turned it resolutely upside-down again and disappeared behind it, just as the compartment door opened for the third time.
Harry looked around; he had expected this, but that did not make the sight of Draco Malfoy smirking at him from between his cronies Crabbe and Goyle any more enjoyable.
"What do you want?" Bree said in a bored tone, before Malfoy could open his mouth.
"Manners, Smith, or I'll have to give you a detention," drawled Malfoy, whose sleek blond hair and pointed chin were just like his fathers. "You see, I, unlike you, have been made a prefect, which means that I, unlike you, have the power to hand out punishments."
"And?" Bree asked, still bored.
"I can make your life miserable!" Malfoy exclaimed.
Bree grinned. "And I can make your life hell on earth. You still owe me Malfoy. Never forget that." she said.
Draco backed off.
The weather remained undecided as they traveled further and further north. Rain spattered the windows in a half-hearted way, then the sun put in a feeble appearance before clouds drifted over it once more. When darkness fell and lamps came on inside the carriages, Luna rolled up The Quibbler, put it carefully away in her bag and took to staring at everyone in the compartment instead.
Harry was sitting with his forehead pressed against the train window, trying to get a first distant glimpse of Hogwarts, but it was a moonless night and the rain-streaked window was grimy.
"We'd better change," said Hermione at last, and all of them opened their trunks with difficulty and pulled on their school robes. She and Ron pinned their prefect badges carefully to their chests. Ron checked his reflection in the black window. Bree was wearing the usual Gryffindor uniform.
"What happened to the "Smith Academy" uniform?" Fred asked.
"Who knows, it might make a comeback in the future." Bree stated.
At last, the train began to slow down and they heard the usual racket up and down it as everybody scrambled to get their luggage and pets assembled, ready to get off. As Ron and Hermione were supposed to supervise all this, they disappeared from the carriage again, leaving Harry and the others to look after Crookshanks and Pigwidgeon.
"I'll carry that owl, if you like, " said Luna to Harry, reaching out for Pigwidgeon as Neville stowed Trevor carefully in an inside pocket.
"Oh - er - thanks, " said Harry, handing her the cage and hoisting Hedwig's more securely into his arms.
They shuffled out of the compartment feeling the first sting of the night air on their faces as they joined the crowd in the corridor. Slowly, they moved towards the doors. The familiar call of "firs'-years over 'ere… firs'-years…" was there as not.
But it did not come. Instead, a quite different voice, a brisk female one, was calling out, "First years line up over here, please! All first-years to me!" A lantern came swinging towards Bree and by its light she saw the prominent chin and severe haircut of Professor Grubbly-Plank, the witch who had taken over Hagrid's Care of Magical Creatures lessons for a while the previous year.
Bree got separated from her friends because of the crowd and the darkness. She allowed herself to be shunted forwards on to the dark rain-washed road outside Hogsmeade Station.
Here stood the hundred or so horseless stagecoaches that always took the students above first year up to the castle. Bree glanced quickly at them, turned away to keep a lookout for Fred and George, then did a double-take.
The coaches were no longer horseless. There were creatures standing between the carriage shafts. If she had had to give them a name, she supposed he would have called them horses, though there was something reptilian about them, too. They were completely fleshless, their black coats clinging to their skeletons, of which every bone was visible. Their heads were dragonish, and their pupil-less eyes white and staring. Wings sprouted from each wither - vast, black leathery wings that looked as though they ought to belong to giant bats. Standing still and quiet in the gathering gloom, the creatures looked eerie and sinister. Bree could not understand why the coaches were being pulled by these horrible horses when they were quite capable of moving along by themselves.
Harry had materialized from the crowd. "Where's Pig?" said Ron's voice, right behind Harry.
"That Luna girl was carrying him," said Harry, turning quickly, eager to consult Ron about Hagrid. "Where d'you reckon -"
"- Hagrid is? I dunno," said Ron, sounding worried. "He'd better be okay…"
A short distance away, Draco Malfoy, followed by a small gang of cronies including Crabbe, Goyle and Pansy Parkinson, was pushing some timid-looking second-years out of the way so that he and his friends could get a coach to themselves. Seconds later, Hermione emerged panting from the crowd.
"Malfoy was being absolutely foul to a first-year back there. I swear I'm going to report him, he's only had his badge three minutes and he's using it to bully people worse than ever." Hermione stated.
"What a git." Fred said as he and George emerged from the crowd.
"Where's Crookshanks?" Hermione asked.
"Ginny's got him," said Harry. "There she is…"
Ginny had just emerged from the crowd, clutching a squirming Crookshanks.
"Thanks," said Hermione, relieving Ginny of the cat. "Come on, let's get a carriage together before they all fill up…"
"I haven't got Pig yet!" Ron said, but Hermione was already heading off towards the nearest unoccupied coach. Harry remained behind with Ron.
"What are those things?" Bree asked George, nodding at the horrible horses as the other students surged past them.
"What things?"
"Those horse -"
Luna appeared holding Pigwidgeon's cage in her arms; the tiny owl was twittering excitedly as usual.
"Here you are," she said. "He's a sweet little owl, isn't he?"
"Er… yeah… he's all right," said Ron gruffly.
"Well, come on then, let's get in… what were you saying, Bree?" George asked.
"I was saying, what are those horse things?" Bree said, as they made for the carriage in which Hermione and Ginny were already sitting.
"What horse things?"
"The horse things pulling the carriages!" said Bree impatiently. They were, after all, about three feet from the nearest one; it was watching them with empty white eyes. George, however, gave Bree a perplexed look.
"What are you talking about?"
"I'm talking about - look!"
Bree grabbed George's arm and wheeled him about so that he was face to face with the winged horse. George stared straight at it for a second, then looked back at Bree.
"What am I supposed to be looking at?"
"At the - there! Harnessed to the coach! It's right there in front"
But as George continued to look bemused, a strange thought occurred to Bree.
"Can't… can't you see them?"
"See what?"
"Can't you see what's pulling the carriages?"
George looked seriously alarmed now.
"Are you feeling all right, Bree?"
"I… yeah…"
Bree felt utterly bewildered. The horse was there in front of her, gleaming solidly in the dim light issuing from the station windows behind them, vapour rising from its nostrils in the chilly night air. Yet, unless George was faking - and it was a very feeble joke if he was - George could not see it at all.
"Shall we get in, then?" said George uncertainly, looking at Bree as though worried about her.
"Yeah," said Bree. "Yeah, go on…"
"It's all right," said a dreamy voice from beside Bree as George vanished into the coach's dark interior.
"You're not going mad or anything. I can see them, too."
"Can you?" said Bree desperately, turning to Luna. She could see the bat-winged horses reflected in her wide silvery eyes.
"Oh, yes," said Luna, "I've been able to see them ever since my first day here. They've always pulled the carriages. Don't worry. You're just as sane as I am"
Smiling faintly, she climbed into the musty interior of the carriage after George. Bree followed her.
Rattling and swaying, the carriages moved in convoy up the road. When they passed between the tall stone pillars topped with winged boars on either side of the gates to the school grounds, Harry leaned forwards to try and see whether there were any lights on in Hagrid's cabin by the Forbidden Forest, but the grounds were in complete darkness. Hogwarts Castle, however, loomed ever closer: a towering mass of turrets, jet black against the dark sky, here and there a window blazing fiery bright above them.
The carriages jingled to a halt near the stone steps leading up to the oak front doors and Harry got out of the carriage first. He turned again to look for lit windows down by the Forest, but there was definitely no sign of life within Hagrids cabin.
The Entrance Hall was ablaze with torches and echoing with footsteps as the students crossed the flagged stone floor for the double doors to the right, leading to the Great Hall and the start-of-term feast.
The four long house tables in the Great Hall were filling up under the starless black ceiling, which was just like the sky they could glimpse through the high windows. Candles floated in midair all along the tables, illuminating the silvery ghosts who were dotted about the Hall and the faces of the students talking eagerly, exchanging summer news, shouting greetings at friends from other houses, eyeing one another's new haircuts and robes. Again, Bree noticed people putting their heads together to whisper as they passed. She flipped them off.
Luna drifted away from them at the Ravenclaw table. The moment they reached Gryffindors, Ginny was hailed by some fellow fourth-years and left to sit with them; Harry, Ron, Hermione and Neville found seats together about halfway down the table between Nearly Headless Nick, the Gryffindor house ghost, and Parvati Patil and Lavender Brown, the last two of whom gave Harry and Bree airy, overly-friendly greetings that made Bree quite sure they had stopped talking about them a split second before. Harry had more important things to worry about, however: he was looking over the students' heads to the staff table that ran along the top wall of the Hall.
"He's not there."
Ron and Hermione scanned the staff table too, though there was no real need; Hagrid's size made him instantly obvious in any lineup.
"He can't have left," said Ron, sounding slightly anxious.
"Of course he hasn't," said Harry firmly.
"You don't think he's… hurt, or anything, do you?" said Hermione uneasily.
"No," said Harry at once.
"But where is he, then?" Fred asked.
There was a pause, then Harry said very quietly, so that Neville, Parvati and Lavender could not hear, "Maybe he's not back yet. You know - from his mission - the thing he was doing over the summer for Dumbledore.'
"Yeah… yeah, that'll be it," said Ron, sounding reassured, but Hermione bit her lip, looking up and down the staff table as though hoping for some conclusive explanation of Hagrid's absence.
"Who's that?" she said sharply, pointing towards the middle of the staff table.
Bree looked up. She first saw Professor Dumbledore, sitting in his high-backed golden chair at the center of the long staff table, wearing deep-purple robes scattered with silvery stars and a matching hat. Dumbledore's head was inclined towards the woman sitting next to him, who was talking into his ear. She looked like a with short, curly, mouse-brown hair in which she had placed a horrible pink Alice band that matched the fluffy pink cardigan she wore over her robes.
"Oh my god. Kill it. Kill it with fire." Bree muttered to Fred and George. The twins snickered.
"Must be our new defense teacher." George said.
Professor Grubbly-Plank who had just appeared behind the staff table; she worked her way along to the very end and took the seat that ought to have been Hagrids. That meant the first-years must have crossed the lake and reached the castle, and sure enough, a few seconds later, the doors from the Entrance Hall opened. A long line of scared-looking first-years entered, led by Professor McGonagall, who was carrying a stool on which sat an ancient wizard's hat, heavily patched and darned with a wide rip near the frayed brim.
The buzz of talk in the Great Hall faded away. The first-years lined up in front of the staff table facing the rest of the students, and Professor McGonagall placed the stool carefully in front of them, then stood back.
The first-years' faces glowed palely in the candlelight. A small boy right in the middle of the row looked as though he was trembling. The whole school waited with bated breath. Then the rip near the hat's brim opened wide like a mouth and the Sorting Hat burst into song:
In times of old when I was new,
And Hogwarts barely started,
The founders of our noble school,
Thought never to be parted,
United by a common goal,
They had the selfsame yearning,
To make the world's best magic school,
And pass along their learning.
"Together we will build and teach!"
The four good friends decided,
And never did they dream,
That they might some day be divided,
For were there such friends anywhere,
As Slytherin and Gryffindor?
Unless it was the second pair
Of Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw?
So how could it have gone so wrong?
How could such friendships fail?
Why, I was there and so can tell,
The whole sad, sorry tale.
Said Slytherin, "We'll teach just those whose
Ancestry is purest."
Said Ravenclaw, "We'll teach those whose
Intelligence is surest."
Said Gryffindor, "We'll teach all those
With brave deeds to their name."
Said Hufflepuff, "I'll teach the lot,
And treat them just the same."
These differences caused little strife,
When first they came to light,
For each of the four founders had
A house in which they might
Take only those they wanted,
So, for instance, Slytherin
Took only pure-blood wizards
Of great cunning, just like him,
And only those of sharpest mind
Were taught by Ravenclaw
While the bravest and the boldest
Went to daring Gryffindor.
Good Hufflepuff, she took the rest,
And taught them all she knew,
Thus the houses and their founders
Retained friendships firm and true.
So Hogwarts worked in harmony
For several happy years,
But then discord crept among us
Feeding on our faults and fears.
The houses that, like pillars four,
Had once held up our school,
Now turned upon each other and,
Divided, sought to rule.
And for a while it seemed the school
Must meet an early end,
What with dueling and with fighting
And the clash of friend on friend
And at last there came a morning
When old Slytherin departed
And though the fighting then died out
He left us quite downhearted.
And never since the founders four
Were whittled down to three
Have the houses been united
As they once were meant to be.
And now the Sorting Hat is here
And you all know the score:
I sort you into houses
Because that is what I'm for,
But this year I'll go further,
Listen closely to my song:
Though condemned I am to split you
Still I worry that it's wrong,
Though I must fulfill my duty
And must quarter every year
Still I wonder whether Sorting
May not bring the end I fear.
Oh, know the perils, read the signs,
The warning history shows,
For our Hogwarts is in danger
From external, deadly foes
And we must unite inside her
Or we'll crumble from within
I have told you, I have warned you…
Let the Sorting now begin.
The Hat became motionless once more; applause broke out, though it was punctured with muttering and whispers. All across the Great Hall students were exchanging remarks with their neighbors.
"Branched out a bit this year, hasn't it?" said Ron, his eyebrows raised.
"Too right it has," said Harry.
The Sorting Hat usually confined itself to describing the different qualities looked for by each of the four Hogwarts houses and its own role in Sorting them. Harry could not remember it ever trying to give the school advice before.
"I wonder if it's ever given warnings before?" said Hermione, sounding slightly anxious.
"Yes, indeed," said Nearly Headless Nick knowledgeably, leaning across Neville towards her (Neville winced; it was very uncomfortable to have a ghost lean through you). "The Hat feels itself honor-bound to give the school due warning whenever it feels –"
But Professor McGonagall, who was waiting to read out the list of first-years' names, was giving the whispering students the sort of look that scorches. Nearly Headless Nick placed a see-through finger to his lips and sat primly upright again as the muttering came to an abrupt end.
With a last frowning look that swept the four house tables, Professor McGonagall lowered her eyes to her long piece of parchment and called out the first name.
"Abercrombie, Euan."
The terrified-looking boy from earlier stumbled forwards and put the Hat on his head; it was only prevented from falling right down to his shoulders by his very prominent ears. The Hat considered for a moment, then the rip near the brim opened again and shouted:
"Gryffindor!"
"I'm going to have so much fun with that one." Bree stated.
"Can't you be nice?" Hermione asked.
"I can, but I'm not going to be." Bree answered.
Gryffindor clapped house as Euan Abercrombie staggered to their table and sat down, looking as though he would like very much to sink through the floor and never be looked at again.
Slowly, the long line of first-years thinned. In the pauses between the names and the Sorting Hat's decisions, Ron's stomach was rumbling loudly. Finally, "Zeller, Rose" was Sorted into Hufflepuff, and Professor McGonagall picked up the Hat and stool and marched them away as Professor Dumbledore rose to his feet.
"To our newcomers," said Dumbledore in a ringing voice, his arms stretched wide and a beaming smile on his lips, "welcome! To our old hands - welcome back! There is a time for speechmaking, but this is not it. Tuck in!"
There was an appreciative laugh and an outbreak of applause as Dumbledore sat down neatly and threw his long beard over his shoulder so as to keep it out of the way of his plate - for food had appeared so that the five long tables were groaning under joints and pies and dishes of vegetables, bread and sauces and flagons of pumpkin juice.
"Excellent," said Ron, with a kind of groan of longing, and he seized the nearest plate of chops and began piling them on to his plate, watched wistfully by Nearly Headless Nick.
"What were you saying before the Sorting?" Hermione asked the ghost. "About the Hat giving warnings?"
"Oh, yes," said Nick, who seemed glad of a reason to turn away from Ron, who was now eating roast potatoes with almost indecent enthusiasm. "Yes, I have heard the Hat give several warnings before, always at times when it detects periods of great danger for the school. And always, of course, its advice is the same: stand together, be strong from within."
"Ow kunnit nofe skusin danger ifzat?" said Ron.
His mouth was so full Harry thought it was quite an achievement for him to make any noise at all.
"I beg your pardon?" said Nearly Headless Nick politely, while Hermione looked revolted. Ron gave an enormous swallow and said, "How can it know if the school's in danger if it's a Hat?"
"I have no idea," said Nearly Headless Nick. "Of course, it lives in Dumbledore's office, so I daresay it picks things up there."
"And it wants all the houses to be friends?" said Harry, looking over at the Slytherin table, where Draco Malfoy was holding court. "Fat chance."
"Well, now, you shouldn't take that attitude," said Nick reprovingly. "Peaceful cooperation, that's the key. We ghosts, though we belong to separate houses, maintain links of friendship. In spite of the competitiveness between Gryffindor and Slytherin, I would never dream of seeking an argument with the Bloody Baron."
"Only because you're terrified of him," said Ron.
Nearly Headless Nick looked highly affronted.
"Terrified? I hope I, Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington, have never been guilty of cowardice in my life! The noble blood that runs in my veins -"
"What blood?" asked Ron. "Surely you haven't still got -?"
"Its a figure of speech!" said Nearly Headless Nick, now so annoyed his head was trembling ominously on his partially severed neck. "I assume I am still allowed to enjoy the use of whichever words I like, even if the pleasures of eating and drinking are denied me! But I am quite used to students poking fun at my death, I assure you!"
"Nick, he wasn't really laughing at you!" said Hermione, throwing a furious look at Ron.
Unfortunately, Ron's mouth was packed to exploding point again and all he could manage was
"Node iddum eentup sechew," which Nick did not seem to think constituted an adequate apology.
Rising into the air, he straightened his feathered hat and swept away from them to the other end of the table, coming to rest between the Creevey brothers, Colin and Dennis.
"Well done, Ron," snapped Hermione.
"What?" said Ron indignantly, having managed, finally, to swallow his food. "I'm not allowed to ask a simple question?"
"Oh, forget it," said Hermione irritably, and the pair of them spent the rest of the meal in huffy silence.
When all the students had finished eating and the noise level in the Hall was starting to creep upwards again, Dumbledore got to his feet once more. Talking ceased immediately as all turned to lace the Headmaster. Harry was feeling pleasantly drowsy now. His four-poster bed was waiting somewhere above, wonderfully warm and soft…
"Well, now that we are all digesting another magnificent feast, I beg a few moments of your attention for the usual start-of-term notices," said Dumbledore. "First-years ought to know that the Forest in the grounds is out-of-bounds to students - and a few of our older students ought to know by now, too."
"Mr. Filch, the caretaker, has asked me, for what he tells me is the four-hundred-and-sixty second time, to remind you all that magic is not permitted in corridors between classes, nor are a number of other things, all of which can be checked on the extensive list now fastened to Mr. Filch's office door.
"I am very much looking forward to getting to know you all and I'm sure we'll be very good friends!"
Students exchanged looks at this; some of them were barely concealing grins.
"I'll be her friend as long as I don't have to borrow that cardigan," Parvati whispered to Lavender, and both of them lapsed into silent giggles.
Professor Umbridge cleared her throat again ("hem, hem"), but when she continued, some of the breathiness had vanished from her voice. She sounded much more businesslike and now her words had a dull learned-by-heart sound to them.
"The Ministry of Magic has always considered the education of young witches and wizards to be of vital importance. The rare gifts with which you were born may come to nothing if not nurtured and honed by careful instruction. The ancient skills unique to the wizarding community must be passed down the generations lest we lose them for ever. The treasure trove of magical knowledge amassed by our ancestors must be guarded, replenished and polished by those who have been called to the noble profession of teaching."
Professor Umbridge paused here and made a little bow to her fellow staff members, none of whom bowed back to her. Professor McGonagall's dark eyebrows had contracted so that she looked positively hawk like, and Bree distinctly saw her exchange a significant glance with Professor Sprout as Umbridge gave another little "hem, hem" and went on with her speech.
"Every headmaster and headmistress of Hogwarts has brought something new to the weighty task of governing this historic school, and that is as it should be, for without progress there will be stagnation and decay. There again, progress for progress's sake must be discouraged, for our tried and tested traditions often require no tinkering. A balance, then, between old and new, between permanence and change, between tradition and innovation…"
And that's about where Bree stopped listening, having come to understand exactly what Umbridge stood for. Tradition= Wizards are superior The quiet that always filled the Hall when Dumbledore was speaking was breaking up as students put their heads together, whispering and giggling. Over on the Ravenclaw table Cho Chang was chatting animatedly with her friends. A few seats along from Cho, Luna Lovegood had got out The Quibbler again.
Meanwhile, at the Hufflepuff table Ernie Macmillan was one of the few still staring at Professor Umbridge, but he was glassy-eyed and Bree was sure he was only pretending to listen in an attempt to live up to the new prefect's badge gleaming on his chest.
Professor Umbridge did not seem to notice the restlessness of her audience. A full-scale riot could have broken out under her nose and she would have ploughed on with her speech. The teachers, however, were still listening very attentively, and Hermione seemed to be drinking in every word Umbridge spoke, though, judging by her expression, they were not at all to her taste.
"… because some changes will be for the better, while others will come, in the fullness of time, to be recognized as errors of judgment. Meanwhile, some old habits will be retained, and rightly so, whereas others, outmoded and outworn, must be abandoned. Let us move forward, then, into a new era of openness, effectiveness and accountability, intent on preserving what ought to be preserved, perfecting what needs to be perfected, and pruning wherever we find practices that ought to be prohibited."
She sat down. Dumbledore clapped. The staff followed his lead, though several of them brought their hands together only once or twice before stopping. A few students joined in, but most had been taken unawares by the end of the speech, not having listened to more than a few words of it, and before they could start applauding properly, Dumbledore had stood up again.
"Thank you very much, Professor Umbridge, that was most illuminating," he said, bowing to her. "Now, as I was saying, Quidditch tryouts will be held…"
"Yes, it certainly was illuminating," said Hermione in a low voice.
"You're not telling me you enjoyed it?" Ron said quietly, turning a glazed face towards Hermione. "That was about the dullest speech I've ever heard, and I grew up with Percy."
"I said illuminating, not enjoyable," said Hermione. "It explained a lot.'
"Did it?" said Harry in surprise. "Sounded like a load of waffle to me."
"There was some important stuff hidden in the waffle," said Hermione grimly.
"Was there?" said Ron blankly.
"How about: 'progress for progress's sake must be discouraged'? How about: 'pruning wherever we find practices that ought to be prohibited'?"
"Well, what does that mean?" said Ron impatiently.
"It means things are going to get bad." Bree muttered.
There was a great clattering and banging all around them; Dumbledore had obviously just dismissed the school, because everyone was standing up ready to leave the Hall. Hermione jumped up, looking flustered.
"Ron, we're supposed to show the first-years where to go!"
"Oh yeah," said Ron, who had obviously forgotten. "Hey - hey, you lot! Midgets!"
"Ron!"
"Well, they are, they're titchy…"
"I know, but you can't call them midgets! - First-years!" Hermione called commandingly along the table. "This way, please!"
A group of new students walked shyly up the gap between the Gryffindor and Hufflepuff tables, all of them trying hard not to lead the group.
Harry smiled at them. A blond boy next to Euan Abercrombie looked petrified; he nudged Euan and whispered something in his ear.
Euan Abercrombie looked equally frightened and stole a horrified look at Harry. The smile fell off his face. Yeah, Bree was going to have a lot of fun with those two.
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