After the revelation about Jazz's apparent fame the decision had been made the Jazz would be accompanied to King's Cross Station by only three people. Thus Helen and Toby had taken Jazz to the station accompanied by a fiercely glaring Liu. Or at least a fiercely glaring Liu between bouts of laughter at Toby's mother-henning and Helen's thinly disguised fascination.
"Don't kill anyone unless you can cover it up, don't bully anyone, do your homework." Toby stopped talking when Helen smoothly interjected.
"Keep your sketchbook up. I want to see lots of new sketches on Christmas break, you hear?" Jazz nodded and surreptitiously rolled his eyes as he kept trudging towards the violently scarlet steam engine.
"Make lots of friends, and write at least once a week."
"Yes, Toby." Jazz's voice was completely blank.
"Don't get suspended or expelled."
"Yes, Toby."
"Pay attention to the teachers."
"Yes, Toby", Jazz did roll his eyes this time, "I'm getting on the train now. I'll miss all of you. Bye!" Jazz turned and ran for the train as fast as he could.
"Have fun at school! Love you!" Toby called after him. Jazz grinned and waved at them once more before jumping into the train and heading off in search of a compartment.
Jazz peeked in each compartment as he passed. There weren't any that were empty, most were filled with chattering children of various ages. Jazz was nearing the front of the train and beginning to despair when he found a compartment that could work. There was a boy with sandy brown hair inside quietly reading a book.
"Hi, do you mind if I sit in here?" The boy looked up and took a moment to refocus on the world.
"No, I don't mind, so long as you're quiet. I'm reading." Jazz nodded and slipped into the compartment and settled on the bench opposite the boy, pulling a book out of his satchel.
"Don't you have a trunk?" The boy looked confused at Jazz and his satchel.
"It's shrunken. My brother and sister picked it out, and we're new to magic so they went a little bit overboard. It's got all sorts of stuff done to it." Jazz shrugged as if dismissing the fact that a magical trunk was special at all, even though he was privately very gleeful about that fact.
The boy nodded and went back to his book. Jazz shrugged and opened his own book. They had been quietly reading for about an hour when the compartment door opened again and a rather handsome, aristocratic boy with striking mahogany skin came in.
"There you are, Theo! You're already reading? Budge over, we don't have to talk but I'm sitting with you." All of this was said in one breath and Jazz wondered if that was entirely usual for the new boy.
"Hello, Blaise. It's nice to see you too, yes, I am reading. This is-" the boy, Theo, paused as he seemed to realize something, "I didn't actually get your name."
"I'm Jazz Rogers. Nice to meet you." Jazz grinned at them and marked his book.
"Blaise Zabini, and this dolt is Theo Nott. Nice to meet you, Rogers. What are you reading?" Blaise was glancing between Jazz and Theo.
"A Guide to Medieval Sorcery." Both boys turned to Jazz and waited for his answer.
"Secrets of the Darkest Art. And you can just call me Jazz." There was a long pause where both of the others boys blatantly gaped at Jazz before Blaise turned and yanked the compartment door shut.
"You can't just say that out loud. The dark arts are illegal." Theo's attention was now fully on Jazz and he'd shut his book.
"Ok. I'll keep that in mind. Are we talking now, then?"
"Yes, I suppose we are. You can call me Blaise as well." Jazz grinned as he shoved his book back into his satchel.
"You may call me Theo as well. Are you a muggleborn?"
"No. It's kinda funny actually. I was muggle raised, though. My family adopted me, but we didn't know who my parents were, or what my birth name was even, until my Hogwarts letter came." Jazz shrugged and fought off a laugh at their faces.
"So what's your birth name?" They both spoke at once and Jazz got the idea that this was a common occurrence.
"What's the fun in a mystery if you don't figure it out yourselves?" Jazz tilted his head with a mischievous smirk and watched as their jaws dropped.
"You are so definitely a Slytherin." Blaise sounded awed and frustrated.
"That's one of the school houses, right?" Blaise nodded and Jazz continued, "What are the houses? Like, what's the difference between Slytherin and Hufflepuffle or whatever? The Professor that came to explain things didn't actually explain anything, and two of my siblings took the book that had that that here and I haven't gotten it back."
"Um. There's four houses. Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and Slytherin. They each represent different traits. Slytherin's the best." Theo was hesitant as if he couldn't actually believe that someone wouldn't know that.
"What are the traits? And why's Slytherin the best?"
"Gryffindor is Bravery and Honour. Hufflepuff is Loyalty and Hard Working. Ravenclaw is Creativity and Intelligence. Slytherin is Ambitious and Cunning. Everyone has different opinions on houses though. Theo and I both think that Slytherin is best because our families have been in Slytherin for centuries. It all depends on where you're sorted I suppose. Cross-house friendships aren't common at all." Blaise rattled his spiel off in a flat voice as if expecting Jazz to react poorly.
"Well, I like the sound of Slytherin honestly. I think I'll fit it best. I typically pick a goal and see it through to the end, no matter what's in my way. And the no cross-house friendships thing is stupid. I've never made friends outside of my family, so if I make friends I'll keep them. I don't care what house they're in."
"How do you not have friends outside of your family? How many cousins do you have?"
"Wait, I thought you said you were muggle raised! Don't muggle kids start going to school when they're toddlers?" Blaise sounded just as confused as Theo.
"I don't have any cousins, I just have a lot of siblings. Also, I was homeschooled. Why? How many siblings do you both have?"
"We're both only children. The pureblood families typically make their kids play together, so we've known each other since we were little. How many siblings do you have?" Jazz blinked at Theo incredulously.
"I don't think that I could be an only child. I think I'd be lonely", Jazz paused to take a moment to count on his fingers, "Eleven. I have eleven siblings. And a couple sort-of-pets."
"What's a sort-of-pet?" Blaise asked curiously.
"Animals that aren't really pets but sort of qualify a little bit. We got an owl when we went to Diagon Alley so that I can write to my family, and vice versa. We have chickens for meat and eggs. We have a small flock of ducks because they followed Sally home and no one could say no to her. We have Smile Dog, but he's Jeff's. Ben has a small collection of tiny little turtles, and EJ has rats for his experiments. And I have Fia, but she's my familiar not my pet."
"That's- That's a lot of pets. Draco Malfoy's father has a few albino peacocks, but other than owls, cats, or maybe a toad, I don't think I've heard of anyone having that many animals. What is your familiar then?" Jazz got the sense that Blaise talked a lot more than Theo.
"Fia's a snake. She likes to insult people as creatively as she can without cursing. It kinda scares my brother when she starts hissing random things and then I can't stop laughing. Jeff doesn't really like snakes."
"So your snake speaks English?" Theo's question was hesitant, cautious. Jazz's answering grin was wide, vicious, and slightly manic.
"Nope. I speak Parseltongue." The compartment lapsed into silence at that pronouncement.
Blaise's eyes were wide as he stared at Jazz, and Theo was fidgeting as he looked anywhere but at Jazz.
"That's unusual. Um, how long have you able to talk to snakes?" Blaise was hesitantly curious.
"As long as I can remember. The goblins that did my identity test owled us to say that they think it's from my birth mother. She was a muggleborn. The goblins want to do a heritage test, but my family wants to do a bit more research first." Theo let out a great gust of air, as if he'd been holding his breath.
"Oh. That's a relief actually. The Dark Lord spoke Parseltongue." Theo wasn't looking at Jazz.
"And it's an ability typically considered to be evil. Yeah, I know. I just don't really care what other people think." Jazz grinned at Theo and Blaise.
"I still wouldn't be so open about anything dark though. It's a bad idea. Where are you from? Your accent's weird." Theo cocked his head to the side waiting for Jazz to answer Blaise's question.
"So is yours. Italian, right?" Blaise nodded in surprise and Jazz continued, "Davvero splendido. Ti dovrò parlare di più. I lived in Britain until I was four, then when I was adopted I moved to America. My family travels a lot though, so my accent has bits from all over. Especially since I speak so many languages." (That's splendid. I'll have to talk to you more.)
"Si, mi piacerebbe. È come sentire pezzi di casa. Parli come un naturale. How many languages do you speak?" (Yes, I would like that. It's like feeling pieces of home. You speak like a natural.)
"Twelve, thirteen if you count Parseltongue." Theo and Blaise gaped at Jazz.
"Why? I-just, why?" Theo's confusion was nearly visible.
"Why not?" There was a knock on the compartment door and all three boys jumped. The door opened to reveal a short girl with a head of brown hair so curly that it was threatening to break all three hair ties holding it in a ponytail. Standing next to her was a baby-faced boy with sun bleached brown hair who, despite being a few inches taller than the girl, seemed dwarfed by the unruly entity of her hair.
"Have you seen a toad? Neville's lost his." The girl's voice was imperious, as if she was used to being the smartest in the room, and didn't know how to talk to people as a result. Jazz felt the slightest bit sorry for her, EJ did the same thing and slipped into College Professor mode often. It wasn't a good way to make friends.
"There's a toad under Theo and Blaise's bench. Fia's cuddling with it. What's your name?" Jazz was absolutely going to befriend this girl. She was going to have a hard time at a boarding school otherwise.
"Um. Hermione Granger. This is-this is Neville Longbottom. Neville, you should check." She nudged the nervous boy next to her and he squeaked.
"Are your parents Shakespeare fans? Hermione's from The Winter's Tale, right?" The girl lit up with a small but earnest smile, stepped into the compartment and sat next to Jazz.
"Yes, they're dentists, both of them, but my whole family loves to read. Who's Fia?" As she spoke the nervous boy, Neville, knelt down onto the floor and peered under the bench Blaise and Theo were seated on.
"Um. Is Fia a snake?" Neville sounded like he was about to scream, his voice high pitched and trembling. Theo lost a large amount of color in his face, and Blaise slowly, carefully lifted his feet from the floor and sat on them.
"Yes, she's my familiar. Is it your toad with her?" Hermione whipped her head around to stare at Jazz with wide amber eyes.
"Yes. That's Trevor but-but how do I get him? Your snakes just-"
"I'll get him. Go sit by Hermione, yeah?" Jazz scooted down to the floor reaching under the bench and hissing softly. Neville scrambled onto the seat by Hermione and watched wide eyed. Theo pulled his legs up and sat like Blaise as all four occupants of the compartment benches watched Jazz dig under the bench for a highly venomous snake.
A moment later Fia slithered up Jazz's arm and settled herself on his shoulders and Jazz bounced to his feet. He wiggled himself between Blaise and Theo and held the fat brown toad across the compartment like a peace offering.
"Thank you." Neville carefully took the toad, glancing at Fia warily.
"So what houses are you hoping for?" Jazz was determined to restart the easy conversation from before.
"Gryffindor! They say it's the best house, and that Headmaster Dumbledore was in Gryffindor and all the books I've read say that he's the best wizard that ever lived since Merlin himself!" Hermione was bouncing in her seat with excitement.
"I'm hoping for Gryffindor too. My gran says that I'm supposed to be just like my Dad and that's where he was." Neville stared at the floor. Jazz switched his stare between both of them incredulously.
"Those both seem like horrible reasons. No offense." Hermione jerked her chin up and stared at Jazz challenging and angry, and Neville hunched over slightly.
"Why? Why are they horrible reasons?" Theo asked softly, "They're fairly similar to Blaise's and mine. We're both supposed to follow our families."
"You and Blaise actually never said where you wanted to go, just which house you thought was best." Jazz was shifting awkwardly now, desperately hoping he hadn't just scared off all four of his new friends.
"That's true. So pick apart their reasons. Why are they so horrible?" Blaise was glaring slightly as well, just as challenging as Hermione. Jazz swallowed a lump in his throat before he answered.
"It's just that this is going to be your house for the next seven years. Your classmates, roommates, and potentially friends are decided by this one thing. I just think that you should choose for you, not your families. Your mom and dad aren't going to be at the school or your classes. And Headmaster Dumbledore isn't either. I think you should choose based on where you would be happy, not let anyone else choose."
"Oh." Hermione had stopped glaring and looked thoughtful and Jazz glanced at Blaise through the corner of his eye.
"So what you're saying is to keep our options open, and to go wherever would be best for us not anything else?" Theo clarified.
"Yeah." Jazz was quiet, cautious.
"You are so definitely a Slytherin." Blaise was smiling again and Jazz grinned back.
"Thanks." Jazz looked at Hermione and Neville, waiting for their response.
"I think it's sound advice. I'll keep it in mind. Are you a muggleborn too?" Hermione worried her lower lip between her large front teeth.
"Not technically, no. Muggle raised though. American. I suppose that your muggleborn?"
Hermione stiffened defensively.
"Yes." Her voice was stiff and clipped and Neville tensed protectively.
"I think I'm missing something." Jazz glanced quizzically at Theo and Blaise.
"A lot of wizarding families think that muggleborns aren't real wizards and stuff. And look down on them for it, think that they don't deserve their magic and such. They're called purebloods. The last wizarding war was fought over it." Neville was quiet and he wouldn't look anyone in the eye as he spoke.
"That's awful! I'm sorry you have to deal with that! You let me know if someone gives you a hard time for something as stupid as that, I hate bullying." Hermione nodded slowly at Jazz, her lip wobbling slightly.
"You are remarkably more incensed about this than I thought you would be." Theo observed.
"Prejudice is something my family deals with a lot. One of my brothers is blind, two are ADHD, and Toby stutters because of his Tourettes and he's bipolar. It's something that we all deal with whenever we go out. I don't like bullying." Jazz answered the unasked question and Theo hummed thoughtfully.
From there the conversation became much friendlier. When the snack lady came by they all splurged a little on sweets, sharing them with each other freely, Hermione truly delighting in the fact that Blaise had said that nearly all wizarding sweets were sugar free.
Hermione and Theo became fast friends over a mutual love of books. Blaise, Neville, and Jazz bonded over a mutual possession of strict parental figures, Blaise with his mother, Neville with his Gran, and Jazz had Masky and Liu. Before they knew it the train had pulled into the station.
The sky was dark as the group of five stumbled up the uneven path to the lake. Jazz was perfectly balanced but kept catching Neville or Blaise whenever they fell. Neville was uncoordinated and they all knew it, thus his clumsiness wasn't a surprise. Blaise on the other hand had been the paragon of grace and decorum on the train, and Jazz was curious to see if he was naturally clumsy, or if it was just when he was tired.
When they were informed that it was three to a boat Neville split off briefly to ride with a small group of two girls and a rather mousy boy that he'd apparently known growing up.
Before long the boats were moving and the castle that began to appear through the fog and mist appeared to have jumped right off the pages of a storybook. Before long the boats had docked and the chattering group of children were climbing up the poorly lit winding pathway to the castle steps, Jazz once more practically holding Blaise upright.
The huge man leading the group knocked on the massive oak door as behind him the children shivered. The door swung open to reveal Professor Mcgonagall.
"The Firs' years, Professor Mcgonagall," the man said, and the professor offered a thin lipped smile.
"Thank you, Hagrid. I will take them from here." She led the group further into the massive entrance hall and to a small chamber. Jazz could hear voices from further to the right, the rest of the school must already be here.
Inside the chamber the kids huddled together, both for warmth and security in the face of the unknown. Jazz grinned, there was already so much to put in his first letter home.
"Welcome to Hogwarts," said 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 rulebreaking 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 gaze lingered on a few students, including Jazz, and he smirked at her.
"I shall return when we are ready for you," said Professor Mcgonagall. "Please wait quietly." She left the chamber and quiet talking started. Jazz stood back, content to listen to his friends discuss how exactly the sorting worked. The general consensus seemed to be a sort of test.
Then something happened that made Jazz jump slightly -- several people behind him screamed.
He gasped. So did the people around him. About twenty ghosts had just streamed through the back wall. Pearly-white and slightly transparent, they glided across the room talking to one another and hardly glancing at the first years. They seemed to be arguing. What looked like a fat little monk was 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 had suddenly noticed the first years.
Nobody answered.
"New students!" said the Fat Friar, smiling around at them. "About to be Sorted, I suppose?" A few people nodded mutely.
"Hope to see you in Hufflepuff!" said the Friar. "My old house, you know."
"Move along now," said a sharp voice. "The Sorting Ceremony's about to start." Professor McGonagall had returned. One by one, the ghosts floated away through the opposite wall.
"Now, form a line," Professor McGonagall told the first years, "and follow me."
The group formed a line that ended up being more of a series of clumps of students rather than the single file that the Professor had likely hoped for.
Jazz was awed by the magical ambience of the place, and he truly was excited to draw it. It was lit by thousands and thousands of candles that were floating in midair over four long tables, where the rest of the students were sitting. These tables were laid with glittering golden plates and goblets. At the top of the hall was another long table where the teachers were sitting.
Professor McGonagall led the first years up here, so that they came to a halt in a line facing the other students, with the teachers behind them. The hundreds of faces staring at them looked like pale lanterns in the flickering candlelight. Dotted here and there among the students, the ghosts shone misty silver. Mainly to avoid all the staring eyes, Jazz looked upward and saw a velvety black ceiling dotted with stars.
He heard Hermione whisper, "It's bewitched to look like the sky outside. I read about it in Hogwarts, A History."
It was hard to believe there was a ceiling there at all, and that the Great Hall didn't simply open on to the heavens.
Professor McGonagall silently placed a four-legged stool in front of the first years. On top of the stool she put a pointed wizard's hat. This hat was patched and frayed and extremely dirty. Helen probably would have had a fit. Helen didn't really like dirty things.
After a moment of awkward silence, where all the new students stared at the hat, the hat began to shift in place. A rip near the brim opened wide and the hat began 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 Hufflepuffis 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 burst into applause as the hat finished its song. It bowed to each of the tables and ceased to move.
Professor Mcgonagall now stepped 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 said. "Abbott, Hannah!"
A pink-faced girl with blonde pigtails stumbled out of line, put on the hat, which fell right down over her eyes, and sat down. A moments pause --
"HUFFLEPUFF!" shouted the hat.
The table on the right cheered and clapped as Hannah went to sit down at the Hufflepuff table. Harry saw the ghost of the Fat Friar waving merrily at her.
"Bones, Susan!"
"HUFFLEPUFF!" shouted the hat again, and Susan scuttled off to sit next to Hannah.
"Boot, Terry!"
"RAVENCLAW!"
The table second from the left clapped this time; several Ravenclaws stood up to shake hands with Terry as he joined them.
"Brocklehurst, Mandy" went to Ravenclaw too, but "Brown, Lavender" became the first new Gryffindor, and the table on the far left exploded with cheers.
"Bulstrode, Millicent" then became a Slytherin.
"Finch-Fletchley, Justin!"
"HUFFLEPUFF!"
Sometimes, Jazz noticed, the hat shouted out the house at once, but at others it took a little while to decide. "Finnigan, Seamus," the sandy-haired boy next to Harry in the line, sat on the stool for almost a whole minute before the hat declared him a Gryffindor.
"Granger, Hermione!"
Hermione almost ran to the stool and jammed the hat eagerly on her head.
"RAVENCLAW!" shouted the hat.
When Neville was called he fell over on his way to the stool. The hat took a long time to decide with Neville. When it finally shouted, "GRYFFINDOR," Neville ran off still wearing it, and had to jog back amid gales of laughter to give it to "MacDougal, Morag." Jazz winced slightly and shared a grimace with Blaise and Theo.
A pale, ferrety, sort of boy swaggered forward when his name was called and got his wish at once: the hat had barely touched his head when it screamed, "SLYTHERIN!"
Malfoy went to join his friends Crabbe and Goyle, looking pleased with himself. There weren't many people left now. "Moon" "Nott" "Parkinson" then a pair of twin girls, "Patil" and "Patil" then "Perks, Sally-Anne" and then, at last -- "Potter, Harry!" Jazz crossed his arms and settled back onto his heels determinedly.
"Child, I do in fact see you. Come up and be sorted."
"No," Jazz smiled at her with a sharp edge of challenge, "I told you my proper name, I'll come up when it's my turn and my name is called."
"Holy shit." Blaise muttered next to him, and Jazz caught a wide eyed look from Theo at the Slytherin table. Professor Mcgonagall thinned her lips into a disapproving frown.
"Mr. Potter, you will come up and be sorted. If you truly wish to discard your birth name you will have to inform your teachers of the change to their rosters. For now there has been no such change, and as such it is time for you to be sorted." Jazz's grin turned nasty though he did begin to reel in his aura when he noticed the students near him shifting nervously.
"Legally my name is Jazz Rogers. You can continue to argue that with me, or you can continue the sorting. There are quite a few students behind me, you know. You've already been informed of my proper legal name. Quite unbecoming of a Deputy Headmistress to fixate on one student." Jazz's voice lowered to a murderous purr at the last to sentences and the entire hall stared at him in shock. Professor Mcgonagall let out a small hiss of displeasure and looked back at her parchment.
"Rivers, Oliver," His name was snapped out before Professor Mcgonagall's glaring at Jazz continued. A small boy stumbled up to the stool before going to Ravenclaw.
"Rogers, Jazz." Jazz sauntered up and sat on the stool. The hat was plopped on his head and Jazz's grin grew. A small voice sounded in his head, like a quieter, less painful version of Slendy's psychic projection.
Oh dear. I haven't sorted a Dusk Walker in centuries. You will be quite difficult. Plenty of bravery, but I imagine that the death toll might not be worth it if I placed you in Gryffindor.
'That sounds like fun.'
Definitely not Gryffindor. You tend to have selective loyalty, and your demeanor would scare your housemates if I placed you in Hufflepuff. And while clever, you don't tend to go straight for the books, as a Ravenclaw might.
'Slytherin would advance my goals best.'
A very Slytherin attitude that is. Very well, better be-
"Slytherin!" The entire hall was silently staring as Jazz bounced up, handed the hat to Professor Mcgonagall, and skipped over to the Slytherin table to sit next to Theo. A few minutes later Blaise joined them in Slytherin.
Professor McGonagall rolled up her scroll and took the Sorting Hat away.
Jazz looked down at his empty gold plate. He wasn't very hungry but the other students likely were.
Albus Dumbledore had gotten to his feet. He was beaming at the students, his arms opened wide, as if nothing could have pleased him more than to see them all there.
"Welcome," he said. "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 sat back down. Everybody clapped and cheered. Jazz laughed delighted.
"Did anyone else catch that?" Jazz got odd looks from nearly everyone at Slytherin table.
"Catch what, Potter? The headmaster's insanity? You must've in order to have laughed." The pale boy, Malfoy, scoffed rudely and Jazz smirked.
"It's Rogers. He insulted everyone in the room."
"Want to explain that one?" asked a willowy blond a few seats down, and Theo nodded along.
"Sure. Nitwit is an idiot, typically a reckless one. Blubber is fat, but it's also a way to call someone a crybaby. An oddment is a strange article or a broken thing and is used to refer to a section of a book repeated verbatim. Tweak is to adjust or manipulate. So, Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and Slytherin respectively. The nasty stereotypes that is." By now the food had appeared and Jazz looked around.
The dishes in front of him were now piled with food. He had never seen so many different foods on one table: roast beef, roast chicken, pork chops and lamb chops, sausages, bacon and steak, boiled potatoes, roast potatoes, fries, Yorkshire pudding, peas, carrots, gravy, ketchup, and, for some strange reason, peppermint humbugs.
Blaise stared at Jazz and slowly began filling his plate. Theo did likewise, and the rest of the table slowly followed suit, seemingly in a state of mild shock. The blond girl shook her head at him.
"I have a feeling you are going to make Slytherin House very interesting."
"I'd sure hope so. I, for one, don't want to be bored for the next seven years. Jazz Rogers. Nice to meet you."
"Daphne Greengrass. Likewise." With that Jazz entered a conversation with Blaise and Theo, aware of many eyes watching him. Not that their stares mattered to Jazz.