A/N For the people that may come across this, I will claim that updating in June works better since I was inspired by a certain Thomas Sanders to finally kick the can and learn about the wizarding world of Harry Potter. And a healthy spoonful of spite.
I do want to apply some context of how I acknowledge how OC I am making this out to be. In a friend's words " You made the beginning tone a super angsty Gohan." Maybe I'll rewrite the first chapter in the future, who knows? But Out of anything, I am gonna change this fic's title folks. On the to-do list for the better half of my 3 am cluster of brain cells. All I can say for now is I own nothing and not a dime on any of these multi-million properties. Hope for good days all around and a happy pride month to all of you folks.
Tailors and assistants drape bolts of fabrics over Gohan, standing on a stool with hands and faces in his bubble. Hagrid was in the back stumbling to keep up with one of the chief tailors' ramblings "To have a student arrive so late! You're lucky that this year we have material to spare with the cold soon coming in! So many lining up for the first line of coats!"
She glanced at the blushing student in the mirrors trying to stay still, the final pinning coming together.
" Oh well, He is a shorter stature than most boys, not too hefty or thin." The robes and uniforms were sown, pressed, and wrapped.
The trio, boneless and on the verge of collapsing, shoved along outside " The last thin' here we come, and then food for you and me." Gohan groaned at the gurgles coming from his stomach.
They wander to one of the most famous wand shops in Great Britain. Gohan imagines a wondrous build-your-own-wand kind of prestige. Gold and velvet, covering everything and drinks to warm their souls.
Instead a shabby, dusty, bizarre shack of a shop. Packed with endless pinewood shelves of tiny boxes, some of them crammed in one place and pouring over one another. It wasn't as well lit as the others and bloomed with magic that made Gohan curl his toes. An old man with misty eyes and a rail-thin frame stormed towards him and yanked his arm.
" So strange, so curiously strange." He muttered and then smiled with a too-pure brightness of his teeth " Hello again Rubeus, back again so soon for the season." Hagrid gave a nod and then tried sitting in a small waiting chair. Creaking under his weight.
Roanoke made themselves comfortable at Gohan's feet. As the strange man let a measuring tape snake around him, taking notes of the circumference of his head to the width of his feet. " Stick out your dominant hand and try this one." Ollivander opened a torn-up box from a collection in a cabinet, a white long wand. Gohan did as he was told, holding the wand in his left hand. Nothing happened and Ollivander muttered louder and replace a new wand to try, stacking certain failures onto his desk. Each time they burned through a wand, another would be there at the ready. Some would shoot off one or two sparks and then die down. Others quivered and bend out of shape.
"I see you're a challenging customer, quite peculiar. Any other wand not from my shop would bow to your will alone out of fear."
12 wands later, Hagrid was drooling, teetering on the chair's last leg of life. Roanoke entertained themselves by playing with the shag of Hagrid's beard with their claws "Roanoke back away, he might sneeze and knock off all the wands!" Gohan whispered with urgency, which Roanoke paid no mind and continue to bat at the clump of hair. "Roanoke! Stop playing with it." He sneaks to them when Ollivander goes looking for more wands to pull the impish stray away.
They jump out of reach and swat at Gohan's sweater, digging their claws into the looser stitches of yarn. Gohan sighed and tore a fraying piece from the sweater. Then gave it to Roanoke's paws." Checklist for when we have money to spare, buy Roanoke toys."
They ignore it and continue to tear off his sweater like a rag doll, his tail unwinding from his waist. Ollivander came back to a pouting boy, and a cat rolled up in a sweater, looking victoriously pleased.
He inspected the tail Gohan curls around his leg. " May I? I think this might help me find out what I'm missing." Before Gohan could answer, a bristle from his tail was twisted off. A pinch in his nerves put the appendage in seething pain, " Sir... those hairs are very... very sensitive." he growled
"Yes. Yes. I already owled Dumbledore of your situation that I will have your wand delivered. Your magic breathes an older, more ancient air that rips a younger one's lungs... a wand like that can not be rushed. Possibly Hawthorne wood to make it sturdy! No doubt about that, you'll be a powerful healer and...a terrifying spell caster in the future." He said, excitement bubbling in his chest, rolling the hair strand in his fingers.
Gohan stared frozen as the wandmaker quickly shut himself in his workshop. "Weird guy".
He shook Hagrid's gorilla-sized arms. The giant sputtered and wipe the drool off his chin. "We have to go, it's already dusk."
Hagrid glances at the empty hands "No wand?"
Gohan shrugs his shoulders " He said he'll have it delivered to Hogwarts, that my wand needs time to be made."
Hagrid flickered from wonder to soul-bending shock " No way! Not a wand fit ya - in this entire place! You'll make histor' if Ollivander himself is havin' trouble. "
Gohan collects his things, including a Roanoke burrito. " Thrilled to see me make headlines already Hagrid? It's probably just a fluke with the whole not being from around here," he replies, walking out the door.
" I have a feelin' you'll do more than make headlines...You hav' yer tail out." Hagrid said
Gohan didn't give it a passing thought, stretching out the restlessness in his muscles. He'll have it gone soon enough.
Hagrid for all his worth picks up on the switch in Gohan's brows and starts blabbering at first about his school years. The colorful world of magical creatures, to the grounds work he did. Anything to keep Gohan smiling and laughing through the Floo network back to Hogsmeade.
"Hey Hagrid, what time are we supposed to be back?" Gohan asks, flushed and lightheaded from laughing at a bar story Hagrid had told him. " About six-ish."
Gohan looks in horror at the sight of the hands on a grandfather clock, They were almost 15 minutes late for the ceremony!
"Hagrid we need to run, we're late!" The giant glance at his own pocket watch and wiped the sleep in his eyes. They bolted outside the furnace to where they had parked the motorcycle.
Packing in his school things and giving Roanoke a scare from their catnap as they rush to start the bike. Hagrid went full throttle back onto school grounds and haphazardly parking it near his hut.
Gohan vaulted out and let Roanoke into his arms. Speeding to the lantern-lit courtyard, to the entrance of the great hall. Busting the doors open on everyone's dinner. A disheveled boy with a grey feline giving nips to Gohan's arm for acting like a madman, squirming not to be carried anymore.
Dumbledore clapped on Gohan's arrival. "Not a moment too soon, come along so we can sort you."
Hagrid followed suit, footstep echoing to keep up with the boy. " 'am sorry Sir we could have gotten here earlier... we lost track of time." Hagrid yammered apologies
" You 're here, that's all that matters for now."
With their breaths settled, Gohan smoothed the spike-up strands in his face. He put Roanoke on the ground so they could walk beside him to the stage.
A towering chair for him to sit in and a ratty patch -worked hat beside him. " I hope to Dende that, this isn't a cult I've just walk into." McGonagall places it on him.
A voice spoke.
" It's a pleasure on meeting the one-in-billons boy I've been hearing so much about. And the wondrous mind that came with him, plenty of courage blossoming stronger with each day."
" you can read my mind?"
"Absolutely,I am a thinking cap afterall. Keep in mind who and what you read on others in this world. It's a nasty habit to pick up that even the greatest of wizards forget."
" I will keep that in mind, sir." Gohan squeaked
" But that isn't the kind of guidance you and I are meeting for today. My struggle with you, Son Gohan, is in any of these houses, in any of these stories. You find your winning role and play it beautifully. Find friends that would become enchanted by you. Your honest eyes, your pacifist beliefs, and endless bounds of heroism. A child anyone could love."
"I guess I doesn't matter all that much to me, I don't even know if it would be a good idea to make friends,I dont want to make promises I can't keep."
"Wisdom for when your much older! You are in a school ,a friendship no matter how long or short is worth going for! Besides I think in time you'll figure out how to come back here. Tell me what you dream to be."
"I want to be okay. I want to be what my parents raised me to be, back as planned. I want to never forget my mistakes, including the one that dumped me here." Gohan recalled his memories of all the times he could feel a coat of grief and sadness on her shoulders, how tightly she held onto her sons when telling them stories about their father and their friends.
"I want to be a force for good and be what my family needs , they'er my everything. No matter what it takes."
"Why did your father leave you to handle such responsibilities? An entire planet to be entrusted to a child to be on the frontlines, A tad questionable for someone with little offence"
Gohan scoffed at the same question he asked Piccolo after everything had gone back to normal. "That's my father in a nutshell. Everyone tells me how we're so alike but I sometimes I can't even imagine what goes on in his mind, how he just knew who he was with no hang-ups. Even though saying it aloud sounds so foolhardy, I won't doubt him."
He sighs "I could of ask him but I don't want to ruin what he said when he told me goodbye. For months I've been looking out my window feeling like I somehow lost something I didn't know I would needed….. All this power that could blot out a sun and yet I am lost."
The hat listens carefully, then speaks "First thing you need to understand Gohan is to stop driving yourself up the wall for the past. Any child _ any person in a situation they had no way of preparing for, out of their control would have react the same. You made a decision and your father made his decision. A outcome that you are still suffering from.
If you learn anything here is that growing, no matter if your a adult warrior who saves galaxies to a school child is uncertain and some times painful."
The sorting sang, assured "Yes ….change. I think I have the house for you, reserve, clever, sensitive. A boy raised by the unlikeliest of heroes, a nurturing and cunning mind.
I think only you can help and understand. To those who are lost and scared.
They have a harder shell than your beloved Piccolo. And maybe they can teach you a few things about pride and that beastly temper you have. There is much darkness in this world of ours, you'll struggle and fight with the tide but in time thrive."
Gohan sigh with a playful grin " I am guessing you've done this a million times all powerfully magical and whatnot. Besides, this school isn't my entire destiny or something."
The hat chuckles " True. Keep your good heart. Don't doubt it and never discard it for one that can never waver in pain or weep for joy."
Everyone was itching to have the new student belong to their own house, cutting close to a half-hour. The sorting hat clears their voice to announce the verdict. "It was not an easy decision, but I have it! The boy will be in Slytherin!"
The room exploded with clapping and some puzzled faces. Hagrid's words from before came to him about Slytherin, ringing warnings about their kind.
"Mister sorting hat I am not like that at all. Is there a fine print I can look at?... or better yet some more deliberating perhaps?" The hat on his head hmphed at such a request "The fact you think you can negotiate afterward, you are most definitely a Slytherin." Ms. McGonagall removed the hat before Gohan could testify more that he was not. He walked freely to Hagrid baring a happy but pained expression "Congratulations, kid... I really thought you might be a Gryffindor."
"Trust me, I'm as shocked as you."
"But hey if you 're Slytherin yer' bound for greatness. Don't let any sour apples think they can get the better of you." Hagrid guided him to his house table. He sat at the end to get a plate, all of his housemates whispering to each other.
His hearing hadn't matured enough to catch everything but the tone of their voices. They split the table in a three-way; one of greedy joy that saw a fresh opportunity, one conflicted about his presence, and the others indifferent about the subject altogether. Gohan downs a cup of pumpkin juice and chews through valleys of warm food. "I ain't a circus, let me eat in peace ." Ignoring anyone who glanced at him with disgust. On the chime, he followed the wave of students to the dorms. A staircase down to the castle's lower levels, murky and chilling from the evening air. "Come on new kid, down here." they walk to a wall, the older kids whispered a phrase. The bricks slide away to make a doorway.
Lavish greens garnished every fabric, the tapestries to the velveteen couches. A Captain's chambers that could have sunken in davy jones Locker, windows frame the lake with fish swimming by.
A tall boy tapped his shoulder from his wanderlust "Hey that door is the beds for the boys, there's a bed in the far corner with rats coming out of the floorboards that's yours." he smugly chuckled pointing to the farthest door. "Thanks for the info." Gohan cooly answered back. The older boy ruffled the honey blonde hanging from his face, trying to keep his face neutral.
"I am one of the prefects, I'll be walking you to Proffessor snape in the morning before breakfast. So no acting like a toddler on getting ready."
" I am an early riser, it will be no problem at all for me. Is there anything else I should know?"
The perfect gave a dry laugh " Survive and learn quick is all you get in the first year. Welcome to Slytherin."
Gohan thanked him again and went to check on his belongings. He enters a corridor of doors like jail cells to the last one. A spacious room of four-poster beds and torn wallpaper. All the bedding including his were jade and egg creme queen sets. Bookcases and dressers for their things carved in dark oak. "Are schools suppose to be this fancy?"
He laid into the comforter preserving the smell of a new replacement home and whatever magical detergent wizards use. "A real bed all to myself." No worrying if someone unpleasant would come across him in the night.
Roanoke laid down next to him claiming a pillow. Inhaling scents of a lagoon and driftwood, He smoothed the upturn fur on their ears. "Tomorrow. My first school day Ro, My mother would probably be scolding me for being so ill-prepared. "
He looks at the state of his things. He stretches his joints out and starts making his section of the room less cluttered, propping quills and scrolls at his writing desk in the foggy moonlight.
Cracking open his journal and A textbook on Hogwarts's history to have some reading in advance '450 pages, not the longest thing I've been given to read '
A small wish that something from the past within it would help him here in the present. A name, an event, a clue. " Chapter 1 The founder's tale."
20 to 10 the other students scuffle around before a perfect could tell them to shut up and go to bed. The new kid was enraptured by his readings alit with a small sphere of light, crouching beside his bed.
The sour apples Hagrid had reference hadn't told him of the almost mythical power of Salazar Slytherin, and the vast experiments he did with magic. For a children's book sparing the problematic details; he had the full idea this man was blunt about the mixing of blood and the pride he held for his own house.
"By God, it's like old Vegeta gone full-blown tyrant ." he pities the wizards that had to deal with that mess of equal evil and intelligence. He reread the passage of Salazar's graceful tantrum of mixed-bloods being put into Hogwarts, "For a guy so smart, he's a real piece of work. Not even any investigations or facts for that matter to support him. How ridiculously nearsighted at such an old age."
He made quick work to clean himself up for bed, wearing the pajamas Hagrid slipped into his bag. Gohan dug his nails into the history books cover, a burning pain in his chest spoke of something needed be done.
A person like that made these walls and the rooms he would find comfort in. He rips a page out of his notebook and scribbles a cartoony version of the founder. With a thick beard and villainous eyebrows darkened with graphite "Slytherin or not I will do my best and learn everything I can- And be everything you despise." he slips it under the mattress and gives a tiny flick to the doodle Salazar's forehead in spite.
Roanoke perks up at Gohan crawling under the sheets, shifting their pillow. They circle a spot near Gohan's shoulders, feeling the warmth he was radiating to heat up the bed. He focuses on the flow of water encased in four-inch-thick glass and the steady breathing from the other boys. He went deeper into himself and stretch his senses to every living thing on the property. One massive animal that read friendly was in one of the halls above him. He'll ask Hagrid about that later.
Another stranger beacon of energy was close by, a venomous, slumbering, beast. Almost twenty feet underground from the other dorms. The exhaustion in his body and eyes lulled him to sleep with a single thought "Something is alive under the school."
Roanoke through slitted eyes watches their companion clench the sheets, tearing the delicate thread count. They give a soothing touch on the nape of his neck, staying vigilant and close to him into the twilight.