This chapter brought to you by the generosity of my friends in the #potterstuck channel of a tiny HPfic discord I'm in. Specifically, thanks to Gwen for letting me borrow some of her word choice for the hat's dialogue, and Rose and Jasmine for beta reading the chapter. Thanks to everyone else in the channel for constantly being there so that I could spitball ideas and lines back and forth.

-tipsyGnolastic [TG] started pestering tentacleTherapist [TT]-

TG: hey rose, just wonderin how it went

"Bones, Susan!"

TG: ynow how all that first day stuff went

"Boot, Terry!"

TG: and the dave stuff

"Brocklehurst, Mandy!"

TG: did you tell him i said hi :o

"Brown, Lavender!"

TG: heloooo

"Bulstrode, Milicent!"

TG: oh duh it's the first day they probably have like some

"Corner, Michael!"

TG: bomb ass first day activities

"Cornfoot, Stephen!"

TG: like full on cool orientation

"Crabbe, Vincent!"

TG: so you probably won't see this

"Davis, Tracey!"

TG: for however long that takes

"Entwhistle, Kevin!"

TG: oh yeah before I go!

"Finch-Fletchley, Justin!"

TG: i talked to jake

"Finnigan, Seamus!"

TG: and he said that it was a jolly good spankin idea to go to england

"Goldstein, Anthony!"

TG: wot wot and all that

"Goyle, Gregory!"

TG: spiify good idea :D

"Granger, Dave!"

TG: nice to be validated by my boss is all im sayin

Dave stepped forward, and moved towards the stool at the front of the room.

TG: ESPECIALLY becous now ya girl is on an ALL EXPENSES PAID BUSINESS TRIP

The hat was placed atop Dave's head, and scrunched itself in consternation.

TG: to see you! and dirk and dave and also to sell some skaiatech to wizards

"HUFFLEPUFF!" shouted the hat. Dave got up and joined his new housemates, carefully avoiding looking at the Gryffindor table.

TG: this whole plan does revolve around me being allowed to sell to the wizards of course. idk how wizard import laws work lol

Dirk stared, his eyes not leaving Dave.

TG: skaianet has like. one lawyer

"Granger, Hermione!"

TG: whoop

Hermione tried her best to calmly walk to the stool, but she kept shooting glances at Dave the whole time she was walking. She sat down on the stool.

TG: N E ways omg how did Dirk and Dave's meeting up go?

The hat, once on Hermione's head, only took a moment to yell "HUFFLEPUFF!"

TG: im sure it went great ;o:

Hermione ran over to her brother, and they embraced. Dirk stared harder.

TG: i know i was super happy to meet you, at least

"D'ya have any idea where you're going yet?" asked Ron.

TG: *sniff* family is like. one of the best blessings we have

"I think so," said Rose. "We'll see if it gets me anywhere."

TG: i know i said all this before but im so incredibly sorry that i was a shit mom the first go around

"Jones, Megan!"

TG: really. it's on me for getting lost in the void in my head, trying to live up to that image of 'cool scientist lady' that i dont really even vibe with

"Li, Sue!"

TG: tryna live up to my daughters expectations of what a mom should be while utterly failing at both that and just being myself

"Longbottom, Neville!"

TG: fuck it. imma be roxy lalonde

"MacDougal, Morag!"

TG: grade-a badass bitch and guardian

"Macmillan, Ernest!"

TG: i mean this is all speculation abt what your mom was like but she was me so i feel entitled to speculate lol

"Malfoy, Draco!"

TG: le sigh

"Moon, Lily!"

TG: when you see this

"Nott, Theodore!"

TG: just, like. idk what im even saying

"Parkinson, Pansy!"

TG: please know that i love you? i mean i hope you know that already lol

"Patil, Padma!"

TG: ugh im bad at words

"Patil, Parvati!"

TG: anyway. have a wonderful first day of school sweaty ;0

"Perks, Sally-Anne!"

TG: you'll do great!

"Potter, Rose!"

-tipsyGnolastic [TG] ceased pestering tentacleTherapist [TT]-

Rose stepped forward, ignoring the whispers of the crowd. The hat was waiting for her, and she placed it delicately on her head.

"Ms. Lalonde," said a small voice in Rose's ear. "I was under the impression I would be sorting a Potter today."

You are, thought Rose. Legally speaking.

"You were never much for the legality of things, were you?" said the hat. "The destruction of two universes at once involved the vandalism of an uncountable amount of private property. That's illegal, you know."

Hilarious, thought Rose. Just give me a House and be done with it.

"Well, you've certainly got the brains for Ravenclaw, if your too-brief stint with magic in your last life is any indication. And the heroics for Gryffindor - to try and save the multiverse on your own? Very brave."

It didn't work, said Rose.

"You don't know that," said the hat. "Anyhow, you're quite loyal - your brother was just here, was he not? Sorted into Hufflepuff?"

I would have thought he'd be a shoo-in for Gryffindor.

"Ah, confidentiality, I'm afraid," said the hat. "If you want to know about that, you'd have to ask him. Yes, you are loyal, but you've got more of something else in you. You're willing to tear down anything to achieve your goals. You played the Game, not for entertainment, but to defy the boundaries of life and death within its rules. After the Game cost the life of your mother, you decided to tear it down with raw power and reshape the universe as you would. Ambition, that's who you are. Aut viam inveniam aut faciam, hmm?"

I think, if we're being honest, both of us knew where this was going from the moment Malfoy opened his stupid mouth on the train.

"I'm so glad you agree that you truly belong in SLYTHERIN!"

Silence. Utter silence from across the room, churning and boiling like waves of nothing at all.

Then someone from the Hufflepuff table clapped. Dave. Then Hermione joined in, and then the entire Hufflepuff table was clapping, to the point where some very confused onlookers from other houses joined in. Dirk, Rose was pleased to note, was one of them.

Ron was clapping too, but he seemed... confused. Something in his expression, his eyebrows, maybe, held a look of uncertainty within it.

Rose took the hat off, set it back on the stool, and flashed Ron a thumbs up before moving to sit as obnoxiously close to Malfoy as possible.

"What," gritted Malfoy, "do you think you're doing, Potter?"

"Calling your bluff," said Rose.

"Thomas, Dean!" shouted Professor McGonagall, and once the boy was sorted, she followed it with "Turpin, Lisa!" before finally ending on "Weasley, Ronald!"

Ron walked nervously to the hat.

The whole room sat in silence as the hat conversed with Weasley. What, thought most students, was taking him so long? Everyone knew, of course, that the Weasleys were nearly entirely Gryffindors. The delay seemed to genuinely worry Professor McGonagall. She stepped closer, and opened her mouth, forming the word "Ronald" before the hat yelled "SLYTHERIN!"

If the room had been shocked and confused before, the atmosphere seemed almost oppressive now.

Ron took off the hat, looked around the room with an expression of pure shock, and began to stumble his way over to where Rose sat at the Slytherin table.

Someone, from the other side of the room, stood up. "Bullshit!" yelled a boy with red hair. Presumably this was one of Ron's many brothers.

"This is bullshit!" he yelled. "No! This cannot be how he was sorted!"

"Percy Weasley, please, calm down-" tried McGonagall.

"Ron!" shouted Percy. "Ron, there's been a mistake, hasn't there been?" He seemed almost desperate.

Ron tried to avoid eye contact with the Gryffindor boy, his head down, grimacing.

"Ron!" The boy looked, not angry, but frightened. "Ron, please!"

Dirk, who had been sitting next to Percy, stood up, put a hand on his shoulder, and Percy seemed to slump. Then Dirk looked over to where Rose was sitting. He nodded, and whispered something to Percy, who shook his head, and then the two sat down.

Ron finally sat down next to Rose just in time for the sorting of "Zabini, Blaise!"

"Oh, Merlin, what have I done?" whispered Ron. "I didn't expect Percy... oh no, what's Mum going to think... oh God..."

"Hey," said Rose. "You're fine. The hat put you here because it's going to be the best place for you." Rose had no idea if this was true. She was, in fact, talking mostly out of her ass, but it seemed like the right thing to say.

"Typical Weasleys," sneered Malfoy from across the table. "The moment one of their own breaks from the pattern they seemed dogged to drag them right back down to their level."

Ron flushed bright red.

"Malfoy, I'm trying to remember how our last conversation ended," said Rose. "Did I ever end up describing to you how good I am at poking holes in things?"

Outwardly, Malfoy rolled his eyes, but he stopped talking at that point.

A man with a long, white beard, who Rose mentally dubbed "Wizardy Herbert" for the sake of looking nearly identical to Roxy's shitty wizard JPEGs, albeit at a higher resolution, stood up from the head of the table.

"Welcome!" said Herbert. "Welcome to a new year at Hogwarts! Before we begin our banquet, I would like to say a few words. And here they are: Ágnoia! Syngení̱s! Kakorrhaphía! Echthrós! Thank you!"

Everyone clapped enthusiastically. Perhaps, in various scattered parts of the room, students in Ancient Runes recognized those Greek words to be roughly translatable as "ignorance, relatives, failure, and the enemy" in that order, but if they did, they thought nothing of it. Dumbledore had pulled weirder shit than this, after all. According to rumor, one year his words of wisdom were delivered to every student by a flock of carrier pigeons, rather than spoken aloud. Carrier pigeons and not owls, mind you, because owls would be too much sense for Albus Dumbledore.

In any case, Rose only spoke English, enough German to read Freud and Jung, and (when uninfected) tiny bits of the ancient calls of the Horrorterrors of the Furthest Ring, and thus did not know what the hell Dumbledore was saying.

"Who was that guy?" asked Rose, helping herself to a leg of chicken that had appeared on the table.

Ron and Malfoy both looked at her, stunned. "You don't know who Dumbledore is?" asked Ron.

"Why, should I?" asked Rose, after taking a bite. Damn. Compliments to the chef.

"You must know who he is," said Malfoy, exasperated. "His name was on your Hogwarts letter."

Now she remembered. "He's the headmaster, but he has a bunch of other silly-sounding titles, right? What is it with wizards and made-up words like "mugwump"?"

Ron and Malfoy both looked at her askance. "Rose," said Ron. "Mugwump is a real word; the Muggles use it too."

"What? No."

"It's slang," said Malfoy. "It means someone who's not involved in party politics. The Supreme Mugwump is the position you're thinking of, Potter, and the holder of said seat is meant to be the impartial leader of the ICW, but, of course, everyone knows of Dumbledore's notorious slant towards helping The Light. I learned this from my father, of course."

"That's not a thing," stated Ron. "That's not a group, The Light. You made that up."

"No, I didn't."

"Yes, you did."

Rose, as a (former?) Seer of Light, was feeling deeply embarrassed, not that she'd let the bickering Ron or Malfoy know that. The Seer of Light is meant to know the best method to success, the most important knowledge, and what to tell people so that victory would be granted to the most people possible. Rose's powers, of course, hadn't functioned very well in over eleven years, and now she was sitting at a table with two eleven-year-olds who knew the definition of a North American English slang word that she had genuinely thought was some more made up wizard bullshit, like "galleon" as a currency.

"Well," she said, finally, stopping the two boys' escalating argument, "it's interesting that he's able to balance politics with being the headmaster of a school."

Draco snorted. "Dumbledore barely does any politics nowadays," he said. "Which is good for my father, of course."

"Keep talking about your father, Malfoy, and we'll see how much good your politics gets you," said Ron, his face red.

"Settle down," said Rose. "Ron, you've barely eaten. Your blood sugar is low from all the sweets we got on the train, you're crashing and getting too angry. Let's just-eat, and continue this conversation later."

"Oh, I bet you will, Potter," said Malfoy. "I bet you're all about conversations."

"You eat too," said Rose.

Malfoy ate.

The rest of dinner, aside from a brief, uneventful meeting with a fairly brusque ghost covered in blood and Rose experiencing an inexplicable headache upon making eye contact with a teacher in a turban, was delicious and fulfilling.

Finally, desert vanished itself, and Mr. Mugwump (fuck that word) himself stood up.

"Ahem - just a few more words now that we are all fed and watered. I have a few start-of-term notices to give you. First years should note that the forest on the grounds is forbidden to all pupils. And a few of our older students would do well to remember that as well."

Dumbledore seemed to glance in the direction of Dirk.

"I have also been asked by Mr. Filch, the caretaker, to remind you all that no magic should be used between classes in the corridors. Quidditch trials will be held in the second week of the term. Anyone interested in playing for their House teams should contact Madam Hooch."

"What's Quidditch?" Rose whispered in Ron's ear. He looked affronted.

"And finally, I must tell you that this year, the third-floor corridor on the right-hand side is out of bounds to everyone who does not wish to die a very painful death."

"Huh," muttered Malfoy.

"Huh?" asked Rose. "Is that normal for magic schools?"

"No," said Ron. "I mean, I think it's not. Fred n' George always tell me about all their death-defying this-and-thats but they probably made most of it up, in hindsight."

"Huh," concluded Rose.

"And now, before we go to bed, let us sing the school song!" cried Mugwump.

They did.

As the chattering crowds of students began to make their way to their dormitories, Rose noticed Dirk hanging back at his table.

"I'll catch up later, Ron," said Rose. Ron looked uncertain, but Malfoy rolled his eyes and took him along towards the Slytherin dormitories.

"Aren't you supposed to be leading the Gryffindors to bed?" asked Rose.

"There are two Prefects for a reason," said Dirk. "Besides, Percy Weasley begged me to let him lead the kids, and I kinda took the Prefect slot he'd been gunning for, so I let him do it for me. And also, we need to talk."

"Dirk," said Rose.

"Did you know?" asked Dirk.

"No," said Rose. "I found out on the train, only minutes before we arrived. There wasn't any time to talk to you."

"Okay," said Dirk.

"Dirk," said Rose.

"I'm not upset at you," said Dirk.

"Don't be upset at Dave, either," said Rose.

"Why shouldn't I be?"

"Roxy said he might just literally have not figured out how to use Pesterchum," said Rose. Both of them knew it was a lie.

"You really didn't know at all?" asked Dirk.

"I really, really didn't know," said Rose. "But Dirk-"

"Save it."

"Dirk!"

"Sorry, I'm," he sighed. "I'm not in a good place right now."

"There was no way you could have known," said Rose. "You didn't abandon him or anything. And besides, the Grangers, from the brief interaction I had with one of them, seem like very nice people."

Behind Dirk's stupid anime shades, Rose thought she could detect a deep, tragic-irony-laden sadness. Because of course a Strider would somehow get irony involved in the tragic misplacement of a relative. Of course.

"Listen," said Rose. "If he wants to talk to you, he will."

"I'm just... taken aback at the fact that I've somehow fucked up my relationship with my biological son so much that he refuses to speak to me, to the point of hiding behind you to avoid me seeing him (which, by the way, I did see you two do, I just couldn't tell who you were hiding until his name got called), before I've even had a chance to meet him. Nice job, there, Strider. Fucking class act you are."

Rose didn't say anything.

Dirk sighed deeply.

"Slytherin dorms are in the dungeons," he finally said. "If you turn around now and make a left from the Great Hall you should be able to catch up with them."

"Dirk," said Rose.

"Go," said Dirk. "Go find your friends."

Rose went.

You did, in fact, catch a reference to the song Leviathan, The Girl in there. Thanks to a friend for introducing that song to me before I wrote this chapter.