David SC: This new adventure is going to be treated as the equivalent of hitting the reset button, meaning that while Aqua will remain a goddess (with stipulations), the other three will return to being normal adventurers. Following that same logic, their outward ages will be the same as when they all first met: Darkness will be 18, Kazuma and Aqua will be 16, and Megumin will be 13. Thanks for the review!

Chapter Three: Oh, They Know

After the boat ride, Kazuma stayed with his friends as they pulled themselves out of the boats, trying not to knock anyone else down in the process. Once Hogwarts' massive front door swung wide open, revealing a long hallway and a witch dressed in what appeared to be a green duplicate of Megumin's outfit, except she wielded a wand instead of a staff. One look at her face and Kazuma could tell she was probably not someone he was going to get along with.

"Follow me, first years," the witch said, already starting to walk as she did. "I am Professor McGonagall, and I would like to welcome you to Hogwarts." Her tone of voice conveyed everything they needed to know: within seconds the rest of the group began moving forward as one, those in the lead staying just a few steps behind.

From there, Professor McGonagall began explaining the House system the woman who brought them here had mentioned earlier. The four names she mentioned sounded vaguely familiar, but Kazuma didn't know which House valued what at the moment. He'd end up somewhere and had no heritage to uphold or anything like that, so it didn't stress him out like some of the others, but he also wanted to be around people he had a chance of liking. Isolation would be tolerable for a while, but eventually it would drive him insane. And when that happened, he'd prefer to have someone he knew he could talk with.

The end of their trek came far too soon. Everyone shuffled into the room in a single shaking mass, all of them some combination of nervous, excited, or both. Kazuma fell into category three.

When he saw the hat, the few bits of Harry Potter he'd half-remembered through surfing the internet started coming back, but while he could stem his surprise at what followed, he could never have seen it coming.

Before anyone had time to react, the Sorting Hat began to sing, drawing a chorus of gasps.

The song it chose went into detail about how Hogwarts was founded; Kazuma wished he had something to write with so he could take notes for reference. At the very least it gave him a refresher on what was going to happen here. And by default, no matter what happened it wouldn't be his worst experience with enchanted clothing, so it had that going for it already.

After a few minutes, the Sorting Hat trailed off and tension began to fill the room once more. Before it became stifling, though, Professor McGonagall pulled out what appeared to be a long sheet of paper and a quill before announcing the first person to be Sorted. "Abercrombie, Euan."

The boy in question made his way to the stool where the Sorting Hat had previously laid, trembling quite a bit as he put it on. From there passed about fifteen seconds or so of total silence, as if to build tension.

Then the hat spoke once more. "GRYFFINDOR!"

Euan took the hat back off and hurried over toward the Gryffindor table as the rest of his House cheered and roared its approval. McGonagall paused for a while to let the cheers die down, but as soon as silence reigned once again, she read the next name on the list. "Aqua."

Aqua stood up and marched over to the hat, putting it on as gently as she could. Then, her face twisted into a bizarre expression and she began spouting off. "Oh crap, the hat is in my brain, the hat is in my brain!"

McGonagall looked like she was about to say something, but before she could muster up the nerve, Aqua's fists clenched and her eyes started storming over. "I don't care what you are, you do not talk to me like that!"

"Well, she's not Ravenclaw, we all know that much," one of the first years next to Kazuma whispered to his friend, which triggered a wave of snickering. At any other time, Kazuma would have at least made a sarcastic remark aimed at them (although he couldn't necessarily say they were wrong), but with his whole shtick at the moment being not to make waves, he remained silent.

The back-and-forth between Aqua and the Sorting Hat continued for far too long, Aqua taking jabs at it every few seconds. Eventually, and Kazuma did mean eventually, it finally got around to making its choice for her. "SLYTHERIN!"

Aqua took the hat off and put it down with barely restrained fury, storming off toward her new life. Slytherin's reaction to receiving her seemed split at best: some cheered about getting her, while others seemed nervous that Slytherin could accept such an obvious dolt. Maybe that reaction would temper itself when Aqua could strut her stuff later, maybe it wouldn't. She'd just have to find out on her own.

The Sorting Hat didn't seem to follow any patterns that Kazuma could discern: sometimes it knew its answer within seconds, others it took a while, and which House it sent the new students to in each case weren't consistent either. While he guessed the thing would be reading his mind after Aqua's display, how it did that remained the question of the hour. Maybe he could learn how to do something like that with some practice: it'd definitely be useful.

With the routine set and a lack of interesting people to watch, Kazuma barely noticed when Darkness' turn arrived. Unlike Aqua, she had the good sense to not get into an audible debate with the Sorting Hat, but that may have been aided by its speedy reaction time. This time, it only took a few seconds before it shouted, "GRYFFINDOR!"

Darkness took off the hat, bowed, and sauntered over toward Gryffindor's table, which was cheering like crazy. Two older boys with identical smirks and flaming red hair decided to introduce themselves right then and there in some over-the-top display, but Kazuma couldn't hear anything they said because he was too far away. Hopefully it wasn't anything meant as a crude joke: Darkness might melt here and now.

Megumin's name popped up almost exactly halfway through, and when it got called she sprinted up to the stool like she'd caught fire or something. The hat took a bit longer to decide on her than it did for Darkness, but she still beat the average by a significant margin. "HUFFLEPUFF!"

As expected, cheering came from their House table as Megumin made her way over. She saw at least a couple of students walk up to greet her, but then she got swallowed by the crowd and he couldn't see her over her peers anymore.

That left Kazuma as the last of the four to be called up: by the time his turn finally arrived less than a dozen students remained to be sorted. While that might mean less pressure to others, for him it meant he'd have to figure out which of his friends, if any, he'd be picking this world's magic up with. He took a deep breath, steadying his nerves the best he could, then put on the Sorting Hat.

If the hat had a distinct personality of any kind, Kazuma didn't know, but that didn't stop it from attempting to strike up a conversation with him the instant it got its bearings. "You're not from around here, aren't you?"

"I'd prefer if you keep that to yourself," Kazuma replied. "I'm not sure what everyone else is going to think about us, but I'd like to take a shot at being normal for once."

"I can't relate, but I wish you the best of luck," said the Sorting Hat. Then, it spent what couldn't be more than a minute but felt like a small eternity taking note of everything it saw in his head. "Hmm… dedicated, willing to help a friend, reasonably intelligent both with books and with people, oh dear Merlin I did not need to see that…"

Its monologuing continued for an uncomfortable stretch of time, Kazuma's face getting redder with every one of his escapades the thing dug up. By the time he approximated sixty seconds had passed, he felt ready to die to escape further embarrassment. The only thing keeping him from that brink came when the hat finally paused to address him directly once more.

"This is quite the conundrum, I can't see a House that wouldn't suit you," the Sorting Hat said. "However, I feel you will be pushed to your limits and learn all there is to know in… RAVENCLAW!"

With the four of them split up as efficiently as possible, Kazuma was left to ponder over how his friends would take this development: Darkness would probably manage, Megumin was a coin toss, and he'd probably have to help Aqua out of an embarrassing situation within the week.

As for him, he could handle having some time apart. He'd survived just fine before he'd met Aqua, Megumin, and Darkness; nothing stopped him from doing so now.

As jaded as he'd become to luxury during his stay in the divine realm, even Kazuma regarded the splendor and volume of the welcome feast with a bit of awe. Most of the food was nothing he hadn't tried before, but as he took his first bites, it became obvious whoever made this knew how to cook. Maybe there were spells here to enhance the flavor of food or at least make cooking easier. He'd have to ask; anyone could appreciate that.

The food came second on his list of desires, though. Above all else, he hoped for an uneventful dinner. While most of the kids at his section of the table engaged in merry conversations with each other, he squashed any he got dragged into before they could get started and more or less kept to himself. Before long, anyone sitting near him got the message that he preferred being left alone, and everything started sailing smoothly.

Then Megumin plopped herself next to him without a word, a plate full of food and a goblet filled with a violently orange liquid, and everything went out the window.

First, the people on either side of the two of them stopped talking. Then the people next to them. On and on the chain reaction went, until the entire table had gone silent and started staring at the girl who'd dared to sit apart from the rest of her House.

Megumin paused mid-chew. "Not… not okay? Is this not okay?"

Right as the other Houses started to catch on to what was happening, a girl wearing some kind of badge tapped her fork against her goblet to get everyone's attention, then began addressing Ravenclaw as a whole. "You all remember what the Sorting Hat just said, right? We need to trust each other and stick together. Someone from another House sitting here shouldn't matter, just enjoy the food!"

Fortunately for the two of them, the rest of Ravenclaw followed her advice. As the rest of the table began to resume talking and eating, Megumin showed Kazuma her goblet, still full of the same liquid as before.

"Pumpkin juice," Megumin said, passing Kazuma her goblet. "It's really good, you should try some."

Kazuma took a minuscule sip, just barely managing to stifle the immediate urge to spit it right back out. If someone had told him that was just liquid sugar, Kazuma would have believed them. "I think I'll stick with water."

"Cool, more for me," Megumin said, draining the rest of her goblet, which proceeded to fill right back up. Kazuma didn't yet know what kind of magic did that, but something told him that it'd be one of the first things Aqua tried to learn.

Roughly a full plate of food later, their meal got interrupted once again. Unlike last time, though, their distraction didn't come in the form of other students, but in an older man in clothing that seemed somewhat standard judging by the people around them. Kazuma might have paid him no mind if Aqua and Darkness hadn't been in tow, but just based on that, he needed to pay attention here.

Once both Kazuma and Megumin were looking at him, he addressed the both of them. "Would you two mind coming with me? I have a few questions for you and your friends. And don't worry, you should be back in time for dessert."

Darkness filled him in. "He's the headmaster of the school. Just come with us."

Long white hair and beard, obvious age, smile on his face that would remind anyone of their grandparents, holding a position of power? This guy already fit just about every "wise old mentor" trope Kazuma could remember at the moment, and for that reason alone underestimating him might quickly prove dangerous. Unfortunately for all of them, just based on them being brought aside this early, Kazuma had a sinking feeling that their plans of blending into the background were doomed to fail no matter what they tried.

Albus Dumbledore had his fair share of flaws, but a lack of common sense wasn't one of them. One student arriving at Hogwarts a few years late was already a cause for concern. Four supposed friends doing so, especially when all of them were different ages, had names that didn't fit any standard convention, and came dressed in clothing that wouldn't fit in either the wizarding or Muggle world, set off alarm bells like nothing else. Coincidence and serendipity were both incredible and unpredictable things, but even they had a limit regarding what they could explain away. Everything simply didn't add up.

Thus, he decided not to waste time after he'd led the four surprise newcomers into a classroom not far from the Great Hall, closed the door, and placed an Imperturbable Charm on it. "Might I ask why you're here?"

"We're here to learn," Kazuma said. "I'd like to discover as much about magic as I can."

"That's not what I meant," Dumbledore replied. "Perhaps you would be better suited if I rephrase the question. None of us even knew you existed until a few hours ago. Could you please explain why?"

A pause followed, like he'd just cast a Killing Curse. The only positive thing about it was that it didn't last long.

"We're dimension travelers," Aqua said. If nothing else, she didn't try to avoid or dance around the subject.

Darkness filled in the rest. "Life back where we came from was starting to get a little stale, so we traveled here in search of a new adventure."

That answer somehow made both an astonishing amount of sense and absolutely no sense whatsoever. If true, it represented a viable reason for no one here knowing their names until a few hours ago, but the idea of alternate dimensions seemed absurd, even by the standards he'd become accustomed to.

Then again, the Resurrection Stone could drag the dead back to the land of the living. Even if such a thing was a one-of-a-kind artifact, perhaps creating a similar one that could do the same to these supposed alternate dimensions was possible. Not likely, but possible.

He refrained from commenting about that at the moment. While the girls seemed to have handled revealing their secret surprisingly well, all things considered, Kazuma's face had gone quite pale, and his mouth seemed stuck between at least three different expressions. "You're not going to tell anyone else about this, are you?"

"Don't worry about it," Dumbledore said. "Unless you choose to reveal your status, that secret won't leave this room."

All four of them nodded, allowing Dumbledore to continue. "Now, as I must assume you arrived recently, chances are you lack the school supplies needed to excel here at Hogwarts. Is that the case?"

Four more nods. "Once the beginning-of-term announcements are complete, I or one of the other faculty members will be able to help you settle that matter. Just meet me in the Great Hall once those announcements are complete."

With that matter settled, he unlocked the door and removed the charm he'd cast on it, the new students making their way back toward the Great Hall as soon as he dismissed them. Alone once more, he allowed himself another minute to think before he had to return for his speech to welcome the student body back to Hogwarts.

While there existed no magical means of crossing from one plane of existence to another here (save the Resurrection Stone), that didn't mean such a thing wasn't possible, simply that it had yet to be discovered if it was. He'd have to keep an eye on any developments regarding that: while the ability to travel to an alternate dimension might prove a boon for wizards, those wizards also included Voldemort and his followers. No telling what they might do if they learned of the existence of alternate dimensions.

As for the four newcomers, he'd watch them closely for a while. While skimming their surface thoughts the best he could seemed to confirm their stories, he didn't know what kind of mental barriers or false thoughts could be created in their dimension of origin, so anything he'd gotten could prove unreliable.

Oh well. He had a whole year ahead of him. That gave him plenty of time to piece together what their presence meant for the future.

Kazuma had just polished off his second wedge of apple pie with ice cream when the headmaster called everyone to attention. Through this, he learned that the man's name was Albus Dumbledore, and Kazuma could guess he'd been here for a while if the cheering resonating from the students meant anything.

Then came a list of several seemingly rote announcements, probably ones that needed to be made every year just as a reminder of sorts. While the "no magic in the corridors" rule rankled something fierce, he'd either get used to it or he'd suck it up and take his punishment if required. Nothing too interesting happened until the very last thing he had to say.

"I would also like to introduce our new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor for the year. Please give a warm welcome to Professor Umbridge, everyone."

The professor in question strode up to where Dumbledore was standing to the tune of some very half-hearted clapping. She was a short woman clad almost entirely in pink, wearing a bow in her curly brown hair that looked like it'd been glued down. In short, she looked like she'd just escaped from the tea party of a particularly demented four-year-old; not a look he expected from someone in a teaching role.

However, as Aqua, Megumin, and Darkness had proved before, judging someone due to their outward appearance seldom worked. Maybe she had more to her than it seemed.

Then she started speaking, and Kazuma retracted everything he'd said to defend her.

Before, Kazuma thought the Sorting Hat took a while to introduce itself. But as soon as Professor Umbridge launched into the most monotonous speech he'd heard in quite some time, he gave it a retroactive apology. While he understood she was probably excited to teach here for one reason or another and wanted to make her intentions as a professor clear, there had to be a faster means of accomplishing that. By what Kazuma guessed was the five-minute mark, he started hoping that one of the other professors would drop this lady a hint that she needed to pick up the pace, and by the ten-minute mark, Kazuma was sorely tempted to drop her that hint himself.

By the time she finally wrapped up, any sense of order had long since evaporated, just about every student in the room talking with friends or staring off into space or doing everything but giving Professor Umbridge their attention. Megumin gazed at the impossibly-high ceiling, Darkness had been brought into a conversation with the twin redheads from earlier (plus a probable friend of theirs), while Aqua, formerly asleep, was being jabbed awake by the blond boy next to her.

Thankfully, that concluded the start-of-term announcements, meaning that while everyone else was being rounded up by House, Kazuma and the others walked over to where Dumbledore was standing. While some of the other professors seemed confused about the turn of events, Dumbledore proceeded to whisper something to Professor McGonagall, causing her to nod. Then, she beckoned to the four of them, her expression stern. "Let's get going, we don't have time to waste."

Kazuma had to agree there. Without hesitation, he began marching alongside Professor McGonagall as she left the room they'd all eaten in, the other three trailing behind them. He may have loathed regular back-to-school shopping for numerous reasons, but shopping for magical items? Sign him up.

He'd just have to hope McGonagall could prove herself capable of restraining Aqua once they started shopping. He was only capable of so much.

Before we get any further, here's my logic behind where each Konosuba character was Sorted.

-Aqua: If being a literal goddess doesn't make her the equivalent of a pureblood, I don't know what does. On top of that, she didn't have the dedication for Hufflepuff, the brains for Ravenclaw, or the bravery for Gryffindor. While she's not very intelligent, I'd still say she's at least a step ahead of Crabbe and Goyle.

-Darkness: She was the easiest one to Sort for me. Blindly rushing to save her friends at all costs, consequences be damned (albeit for a somewhat selfish reason)? Sounds like Gryffindor traits to me, even if they're a bit exaggerated.

-Megumin: Also fairly easy for me. Even if her dedication is ultimately not the smartest one, it's still dedication. Therefore, to Hufflepuff she went.

-Kazuma: He was the hardest one to Sort for me, because he honestly had some of the traits of each House. Eventually, I put him in Ravenclaw just to round out the quartet being in all four Houses. (Plus, while Aqua Luna would be pretty fun, I think that Kazuma Luna will be pretty fun as well.)

For those of you worried, their next chapter won't focus on the shopping trip to Diagon Alley, just because it's been done to death in other fics. While the four of them could get into some interesting hijinks there, the pacing's already slow enough, no need to bog it down more. There might be a few paragraphs detailing the interesting parts, but no more.

In all honesty, this chapter turned out far longer than I anticipated. It was originally supposed to also include a brief introduction to everyone's Housemates, but that's been moved to next chapter (which should be much shorter, although nothing's guaranteed). At the very least, it means I have less planning to do for next time.

Thanks to Shaedy Hoe, 8-bit pirate, and David SC for the last chapter's reviews, as well as everyone who favorited, followed, and continued to read this story! I hope to see you all again next chapter.