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Chapter Sixty-Three—Dawn of a New Era

Acanthus Parkinson walked easily through the train, ignoring the way it swayed as it rounded a sharp bend in the tracks. She had spent some time with her Slytherin friends catching up on their families' doings and their summer holidays, but now she wanted to be with Jonathan and the other people who would be inhabiting his compartment.

This was the year that everything changed, even if most people had no reason to realize it yet.

She came to what she knew was the right compartment, and listened for a second, but she couldn't hear anything except the sharp explosion of what sounded like Exploding Snap cards. She knocked briskly on the door, and it slid open.

"Come in, Acanthus!"

Jonathan greeted her with a blinding smile. Acanthus smiled back. He was such a nice boy. It was a pity that she couldn't marry someone who was simply nice, or he would have been her choice. But a Parkinson spouse had to have other qualities.

Instead, her gaze skipped over the Weasley twins, and Cedric, and the bushy-haired girl sitting next to Jonathan, and the blonde firstie on his other side, and locked on the boy—well, the being—she'd come to see.

Harry Potter looked up at her with a small smile. He was a firstie, too, apparently, or he'd chosen to look like one. Acanthus approved. She thought he looked even smaller and more helpless than her sister Pansy, and that was pretty good.

"Hullo, Acanthus."

"Hullo, Harry." Acanthus took the seat across from Harry and ignored the way the little girls stared at her and Cedric frowned, probably silently encouraging her to be nicer to the other occupants of the compartment. "So do you know which House you're going into?"

Harry smiled and shrugged his shoulders. "You never really know until you get there, right? That's why it's an adventure."

"I know what House I'm going to be in," announced the bushy-haired girl, as though someone had asked her. "Gryffindor. It's the best House. It's the House where all the best people go. And the bravest."

Acanthus couldn't help sneering, but Jonathan was the one who took the lead, his voice mild. "But that's not true if you think about it, Granger. I mean, yes, my godfather and my parents were in Gryffindor, and they're good people. But so was Headmaster Dumbledore, and he went mad and had to be locked up in St. Mungo's for spreading all sorts of lies and seeing delusions. Is that really the kind of House you want to belong to?"

Granger hesitated for a long moment. Acanthus settled back. She was willing to let the others handle the girl as long as they did handle her and didn't let her spout off that Gryffindor-prone nonsense.

"I didn't think about that," Granger finally admitted. Acanthus bit her lip to stop the obvious retort. "But—you can't judge a House by just some of the people in it, right? So you can't say that all Gryffindors are unreasonable because Headmaster Dumbledore turned out to be?"

"That's right." Harry granted Granger a bright smile Acanthus didn't think she deserved, but she kept quiet. It was Harry's right if he wanted to offer it to her. "But then you have to think the same way about Slytherin, and Ravenclaw, and any of the other Houses, not just Gryffindor. You can't say that you don't want to be in Slytherin because it only produces Dark wizards."

"But it produced You-Know-Who!"

"Who is now seeking peace with the Light and the wizards and witches that he fought." Acanthus couldn't keep silent any longer, but at least Jonathan and Harry weren't frowning at her the way they would have if this was a major faux pas. "I think you have to look at plenty of other things to see what formed someone, Granger. Circumstances. Blood. Money. Family. Interests. You can't pin it all on their House."

Granger studied her with eyes that, Acanthus was relieved to see, weren't unintelligent, just focused on too few things right now. "But blood would play into the prejudices of the pure-blood majority, wouldn't it?"

Acanthus shrugged. "I only mean that you need to look at it. Someone who comes from a prominent family might be embarrassed if you can find their secrets, while someone who is on their own or Muggleborn might not care at all. And blood prejudice is a fact of life here. It's something you need to take into account."

"Not a fact of life for much longer," Harry said, which made Jonathan smile and Cedric look at him in respect. The two first-year girls just looked confused.

Acanthus had had enough of talking to Granger for right now. She turned to the blonde girl with a smile. "And who are you? And what House do you think you'll be in?"

"Oh." The girl shrugged a little. "My name's Hannah Abbott. I think probably Hufflepuff. That's where my father was."

Acanthus nodded. She recognized the last name. "Well, Hufflepuff is a much more dynamic House than I always thought." She smiled at Jonathan, who smiled back and refused to rise to the bait.

"What did you think about it?"

There went Granger again. Acanthus sighed a little. "You know that the reputation of Hufflepuff is that they're a lot of duffers?"

"Oh. But that's not true, of course."

"Of course not. Just like it's not true that all Slytherins are evil Dark wizards plotting to help Voldemort."

Cedric jerked, Abbott gasped, and Granger looked a little surprised. "Why did you say his name? All the books I read about the war said everyone was too afraid to say his name, and I don't think that's changed even if he's seeking peace with some people now."

"The name isn't really the important thing, though, is it?" Harry asked in a musing tone. "I mean, his politics have to be important, because they've shaped so much of our world for the past few generations, but what he calls himself doesn't matter that much. People let a name come to represent all their prejudices."

"I think it does matter," Granger said firmly. "If no one was afraid of him, or if everyone is afraid of him, then it does."

Harry gave the girl a smile whose fondness Acanthus frankly didn't understand, until she realized that Harry must have known her from other lives. "Maybe you're right."

Luckily, their conversation turned in other directions then. Acanthus was glad. She was thinking about what it meant that Harry hadn't known her from other worlds, that this was the first one he had lived in where she had ever existed, if he was telling her the truth.

But that only firmed her resolve to be brave and useful and strong and unique. If the universe hasn't ever created me before, then let me dazzle it now.

"HUFFLEPUFF!"

Harry smiled as he clapped and watched Hannah Abbott walk over to the Hufflepuff table with a huge smile on her face. That was where she belonged, according to most of his lives. Harry could only think of two where she hadn't been, and one of them was his seventh life, which had frankly been weird enough that Hannah Abbott being in Slytherin hadn't made him blink.

"Granger, Hermione!"

Harry also smiled as he watched Hermione run forwards to sit under the Hat. Memories washed through him, of times she had annoyed him and helped him and hugged him and betrayed him, and the memories of his second life, when he had been her. Like Sirius and Remus and his parents, he could never hate her, no matter what she had been in a particular universe. He had known her too long.

"RAVENCLAW!"

Harry grinned as he clapped. It seemed that Acanthus's words, and other people's words, had made a difference on the train this time. Hermione being in some other House than Gryffindor wasn't as rare as Hannah being somewhere other than Hufflepuff, but it was rarer than he would have thought.

He watched in interest as Neville and Draco went up. Draco had an older sister here, Lucianna Malfoy, who was already in Slytherin, of course, and watching her younger brother with narrowed eyes. Neville didn't have any other siblings, or at least none that were older. Harry had to admit that a younger brother or sister might have escaped his notice here.

Neville's Sorting took as long as it usually did. He had been in every single House in all the worlds Harry had visited, and only once had it been a mistake. This time, the Hat finally declared him for Gryffindor, and Neville managed to leave the Hat behind when he stood up from the stool. He still had a tremulous smile on his face as he went to join his new House, but not as bad as it had been.

Having his family alive is good for him.

Draco went into Slytherin, of course, one of those times the Hat barely touched him before it declared him. Harry frowned a little. Yes, he could understand the Hat's quick decisions at times, but Draco had thrived more in those worlds where he wasn't in the House his family expected him to be in.

So far, though, the Malfoys had done nothing but follow Voldemort's promise of peace, so Harry supposed he didn't have license to do something about that yet.

He waited patiently through a few other people, more than usual since Voldemort's war hadn't killed off so many families, and then came the announcement, "Potter, Harry!"

He got a lot of attention. His father was still a well-known Auror, and of course lots of people knew Jonathan. But Harry could see the glints in the eyes of some of the children, and knew that his allies had spread the word around a bit.

He sighed as he walked up and sat under the Hat. Yes, all right, they were just children and he needed to be patient with them, but sometimes he wondered if anyone knew the meaning of the word discretion anymore.

"I know what it means very well, Mr. Potter."

After all these years, Harry no longer started when the Sorting Hat talked to him, although its conversation was still abrupt in a way that almost nothing felt like anymore. "Hello," he thought back. "I know you do, and I'm grateful for you never telling anyone else what I am."

"I never did approve of your decision to hide yourself, I see, in any other world," the Hat went on conversationally. "I'm glad to know that all the other versions of myself are at least as sensible as that."

Harry shrugged a little. The Sorting Hat had told him that he could only exist to his full potential if he let others know about all his power, but he hadn't agreed then and he didn't really agree now. "I suspect I know where I'm going this time around, but with Jonathan in Hufflepuff, I did wonder that…"

"No. You are incredibly loyal, of course, but only conditionally and always with other versions of people in mind. You would never hesitate to do something like you did to Albus if you believed they deserved it."

All they had to do was not attack people who mattered to him, Harry thought, like Albus had attacked Jonathan, and they would be all right.

The Sorting Hat's laughter echoed silently in his ears, while all around them, the people in the Great Hall muttered and shifted. Harry supposed they had thought he would either go right into Hufflepuff with his brother or straight to Gryffindor, the way anyone with Potter blood had for years. "Do they know that?"

"It's not the sort of thing I advertise when people think of me as an eleven-year-old."

"True enough. SLYTHERIN!"

Harry slipped the Hat off his head and gave it over a startled-looking Professor Vector, the Deputy Headmistress now that Minerva was Head. Acanthus had already started to clap, but the sound got lost as the Weasley twins released fireworks they must have prepared for the occasion.

"Mr. Weasley! Mr. Weasley!"

Minerva was shouting from the Head Table even though she wasn't Gryffindor's Head of House in this universe, and honestly, it was so much like coming home that Harry had to hide his grin in his sleeve as he walked towards the Slytherin table.

"I don't know what to make of your brother going to Slytherin."

Jonathan glanced up. One of his new Housemates, Hannah Abbott, was leaning towards him with her eyes very wide. Jonathan shrugged a little. "I don't know what you mean by that."

"I mean, he seemed so nice on the train. But now he's in Slytherin, and I know what my father told me about them."

"You talked with Acanthus on the train, and she didn't eat your head." Jonathan scooped up a spoonful of mashed potatoes and dumped it on Abbott's plate, and she smiled at him, a little tremulously.

"I know. But she wasn't very nice, either. Was your brother lying so that he could get people to trust him?"

Jonathan rolled his eyes so that Abbott could see him, and leaned forwards over the table. "Listen, Miss Abbott, I don't mean to be rude. But my brother is one of the kindest people in the world, and I love him a lot. So I don't want to hear that kind of thing, okay? Of course he wasn't lying. Not all Slytherins are evil."

"But my father said—"

"Do you let your father make friends for you?" Jonathan gentled his voice a little bit when Abbott stared at him and looked frightened. He had to remind himself that she was just a normal eleven-year-old, not like Harry who was so much more and different. "Listen, just don't pick on my brother, okay? He's fine."

"I wasn't picking on him, though. I was just saying. And my father said that Slytherins pick on Hufflepuffs."

"Things are going to be different this year," Jonathan said, "I think they're already different. Because I've been in Hufflepuff for two years, you know, and I have three friends in Slytherin. Four, now that my brother is there."

"Really? The two Weasley boys and the prickly girl who was in the compartment?"

Jonathan chuckled. He supposed that describing Acanthus as "prickly" was probably fair. "Yes. And I think that I'll probably be friends with her little sister who was Sorted into Slytherin, too." Not that Pansy looked much like Acanthus, being so small and pale. But friends had to help each other. "We all learn from each other."

"Like a study group?"

Jonathan caught Cedric's eye across the table. Cedric was saying, without words, that he didn't think it would be a good idea to let Abbott know about all their secrets right now. Then again, Jonathan hadn't had any intention of that. "Right. But we can help you with your homework if you want, just Cedric and me."

Abbott nodded. "I'll try not to say bad things about Slytherins unless they say bad things about me, honest I won't, but I think—it would be intimidating to do homework in front of them."

Jonathan let that one go. He felt intimidated by Fred and George himself sometimes, who were so clever, and Acanthus with her sharp tongue. He did do homework with Cedric when they were by themselves.

And he was sure that Abbott would come around eventually. Harry wasn't going to leave people in the dark forever.

"M-Master of Death."

Harry sighed a little. Pansy's voice was small and trembling, and she was trying to curtsey to him without drawing attention. They were in a corner of the Slytherin common room that was out of the way, and some people had come up and tried to talk to Harry to get to know him, but Acanthus's glare had chased them all away.

To make matters worse, Acanthus was nodding in approval at the way Pansy curtsied. That wasn't useful in trying to make her less scared of Harry. Harry reached out and gently helped her back to her feet.

"You don't need to curtsey or bow to me," he said.

"Not both," Acanthus agreed before Pansy could say anything. "But one or the other."

"Neither," Harry stressed, and looked Acanthus in the eye when she started to raise her voice in a protest. He didn't particularly care for trampling over the wills of people who wanted to ally with him, but he would do it to keep them from trampling other people. "I'm the one who ought to be able to pick how people greet me, right?"

"Why, though?" a sixth-year Slytherin interjected. She was a tall girl with ginger hair, which was so unusual in someone who wasn't a Weasley that Harry wondered if she was a Prewett cousin. "Why would anyone care about greeting you in the first place? You have no power. And if you did, then you should know there are better people to connect with than the lowly Parkinsons over here."

It was such a replay of his first life and meeting Draco on the train that Harry almost laughed. He turned around and faced the ginger-haired girl. "I already know them. I remember my friends." He dropped just a little of his guard and flashed his power into the air like a fish's fin briefly lifting from the water.

The girl took a long step back, eyes wide. Draco, meanwhile, was strutting over towards them, his nose so far in the air that Harry thought he probably knew what the inside of his own nostrils looked like. "Sometimes, Prewett, you have no manners," he said, and extended his hand to Harry. "We haven't formally met. Draco Malfoy. I've heard all about you from my father, of course."

Harry held back another laugh as he shook Draco's hand. He always sounded like that, too. "Thanks, Draco. Nice to meet you. Harry Potter, now that we're formally meeting."

"Who are you?" someone breathed from a corner of the common room.

Harry turned to them with his eyes wide open. "You didn't hear? Harry Potter. I could do something about recommending you potions or spells if your ears don't work that well."

That got him a glower. Harry grinned at the boy and then leaned back in his chair. Pansy looked better now that the focus was off her, but she was still gazing at him almost worshipfully.

Well, Harry had wanted to come here. Now he had to handle his House, and try to ensure that the peace he and Voldemort were winning would last more than one generation.