Chapter Seven: Into the Great Hall

The door opened. In the fast movement my eyes stayed right in front of me so that I saw nothing but a waist covered in a vivid green material. I looked up into the stern old face of a tall woman. She was looking over us under her pointed witch's hat, as if scanning us for some reason. Then she gave a nod and said in a voice just as firm, "Thank you, Rubeus." "Always my pleasure t' do so, professor." And with a wink to us all, he set off from us.

This new teacher led us into a great cavern. It would have been a cavern if it hadn't been inside the castle. It was so spacious, and so big, that it could have fit maybe a whole field in it, and the ceiling was so far up that we could've stuck an oak tree in there and the tip of its peak wouldn't have even touched it. On each wall there were a row of doors, but there was one that she took us to. It was a large, wooden set of double doors that reached almost halfway up the wall – beyond them we could hear the faint sound of a thousand people talking and laughing. The professor halted us in front of these doors, and turned to face us.

"Welcome to Hogwarts. I'm sure that most of you have heard of this institution before, either from your parents or elsewhere. It is a school entirely devoted to teaching the many skills and arts of magic, and everything else involved within that circumference of your future. It is where you will be doing your studies for the next seven years, and as it is important that you fully understand what you are coming up to, you must listen to what I, Professor McGonagall, tell you today." She paused, then continued, "In the Great Hall, you will all be individually picked and chosen into one of four Houses. These are Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff, and Slytherin." There was some mumbling, and McGonagall waited for it to subside (it did so very quickly under her glare) before beginning again. "You will stay in these Houses for the rest of your lives here at Hogwarts, so it is encouraged that you form a kind of family tie with the people you live with. This is not only within your specified House, it must also be with the other Houses regardless of coming House competitions, which is something else. Every year we hold a competition for the House Cup that lasts through the whole annum. The winner has its base on having the most House points of all the Houses. You get House points by excelling in your subjects, outside of classes, and doing special tasks or errands, it all depends, really, the message is to behave exceptionally well and it won't be doubted that your House will come out the winner."

She took a breath, flaring her nostrils slightly. "Now, if you will stay here like obedient children, I shall be back in a short while." She walked from us and entered the room with the double doors via a smaller door by it. Instantly, everybody started their chatting again.

My nana gave me the exact same speech as that, Jim said. His thoughts felt a bit downcast. I turned to look at him and said, "Stop feeling sad, you're making me feel a little put out." He raised his eye brows. You could feel my homesickness? "Probably."

Hey…which House do you think you'll be in? "Honestly, I hope it isn't Gryffindor."

He didn't say anything to that. Obviously he knew the story that followed the Rastricks when it came to Hogwarts. To break the tension I had caused, I said cheerily, "But hey, wouldn't it be interesting to be in Hogwarts anyway? No matter what House you're in, you still have the same priorities around like everybody else. What would be different?"

I had a feeling that someone nearby had been about to retort to that, but McGonagall came in time to stop whoever it was. "Follow me, please," she said, and the doors opened.

A rush of noise whooshed out, but it abruptly stopped. Every head in the Great Hall had turned, and every eye was upon us. Jim immediately piled all his nervousness on top of me, but I pushed the pile away. There was no way that I was going to feel nervous in front of everybody here.

McGonagall had begun to make her way down the Hall. As we followed in silence, I took time to look around and see what we were parading in.

The Hall was huge, maybe as big as the entrance hall we had come into. It was lit up by hundreds of floating candles suspended above four incredibly long tables, each occupied greatly by students wearing the black uniforms Hogwarts was accustomed to, and all of them were watching us walk down the aisle with curious, thoughtful looks on their faces. I shivered under their gaze, and decided to avoid it altogether. I looked up again.

Above the candles, stars shone dazzlingly in a sky that was dotted here and there with thin, wispy clouds. Pop had told me about this – the ceiling had been enchanted to imitate what the sky was like outside. It was an ancient piece of magic, so it showed a tint of how old the school really was in a way.

The students weren't the only people filling the Hall. Everywhere

Up ahead, there was a raised, wooden platform. On that platform was a fifth table, this one occupied by adults dressed in the ordinary way wizards and witches usually went, robes and all. Out of the whole Hall, they had the best spot, for they could see over the whole room and easily keep watch over us all. It was freaky, really.

At first I paid no attention to that table. But when McGonagall eventually brought us to line up in front of the platform, I started taking notice. There were a few witches, watching with probing eyes as we struggled not to collapse under our stress. There was Hagrid, easily visible down one end of the table. There was an empty spot which I took to be McGonagall's…a nervous looking wizard whom I doubted would've looked entirely in place if he was to have been down here with us…and strangely there was a man who looked almost like a Muggle, with an ordinary t-shirt on with Ripcurl on the front, and a modern-Muggle crew cut. For a moment I wondered if he had gotten lost whilst wondering around the Hogwarts surroundings, but surely the teachers wouldn't have let him sit up at their table if so…

I noticed two people at the same time. One of them was Albus Dumbledore, the Headmaster of Hogwarts, sitting right in the middle of the table and looking right into my eyes that I gave a barely audible gasp. He really freaked me out then, and for one horrible second I felt like…I don't know. The feeling went away before I could administer what it had wanted me to do. Whatever it had been, it had been something horrible. Dumbledore continued not realizing what had just gone through my head, watching me for some time more. He was old, but he didn't look frail like most white-haired, long-bearded wizards in my time. He seemed to be bursting with invisible joy, and although nobody could see it everybody could feel it. His eyes – apparently the same colour as his robes – sent light blue Christmas lights my way, and I found myself looking down at the floor to avoid it.

The other person was one of the teachers, and he was a sight for eyes yearning to be made twitch. I didn't need to look under the tabletop to know that he was dressed all in black, I could tell by the black tunic, black cloak…even black hair and…black eyes. They too were staring like all the rest, but up this close I could see the hardness in them, like this teacher was something else although it was sure that it was nothing positive. Like the Headmaster, his gaze was on me. Actually, looking up at all the matured faces above us, they were all looking at me. Trying my hardest not to be conspicuous, I slowly sank deeper behind the others and took refuge behind a tall redheaded boy.

It took me a minute to realize that there was suddenly a stool on the stage, that a frayed old pointed hat was placed upon it, and McGonagall was holding a scroll and talking.

"Now when I call out your name, you will come up to this chair and put on this hat. You will be Sorted into your Houses, then you will step off and find a seat at your allocated House table."

And so the Sorting was begun. She started with "Leila Duntroon!" A jittery looking girl went up and sat on the stool looking at us all. McGonagall put the hat on her head, and the thing bellowed so unexpectantly – even though Pop had told me the story before – that I received a bit of a fright…or maybe it had been Jim's, I wasn't too sure.

"Hufflepuff!" The table to the left gave a cheer and some applause. Leila took the hat off and positively skipped to her new House as if relieved she had been put into the dud house.

"Daniel Errow" went into the House next to Hufflepuff on the right, which was Ravenclaw, and "Cornelia Gapplegate" went into Hufflepuff as well.

"Fritz Fronswick" was the first person to go into Slytherin, the table to the far left. And on went the list…Gryffindor…again…Slytherin…Gryffindor…Slytherin…Hufflepuff, Slytherin…Ravenclaw…Ravenclaw…Hufflepuff…Slytherin…there had to be at least forty of us, the Sorting was a rather long process.

Amid the hoots and back-slapping, I found myself thinking, Please put me into Slytherin! Please put me into Slytherin! I swear I won't mind any teasing, I'll cop it all. Just don't put me into Gryffindor!

"Gryffindor!" The whole Hall went quieter than before when McGonagall had first called my name out. It was my turn, and the hat had made the decision already. It had put the curse on me, exactly what I had feared.

It was exactly what everyone had feared as well, judging by the looks on their faces. Even the teachers were squirming not to start talking amongst themselves. I couldn't do much of anything, sighing and taking the hat off before walking over to the Gryffindor table. There were no cheers, but there were no offences made as well and I was glad for that. I sat down, and immediately both people sitting on my either side moved away as far as they could so that I was given a wide berth.

I wished for Pop so badly that I thought for a second that I was going to cry again.

I didn't hear the next name, but I heard the hat shout, "Gryffindor!" and my House was cheering for –

Jim. There he was, walking down from the platform towards us, looking intensely relieved. I'm in Gryffindor! My whole family's been in Gryffindor! He sounded pretty pleased with himself. He made to come sit in the space beside me, but just as he was going to an older boy called to him from the more upper end of the table, "Hey, Jim! Jim, boy, come sit with us."

Jim froze. Then, giving me an apologetic look, he walked off, and I was left alone.

I couldn't help wanting to fume. That nasty prat, only taking Jim away so that I was even more of a social reject than I already was. That was it, coming to Hogwarts was a huge mistake.

We had dinner in the means of food appearing out of nowhere (well, it came from somewhere of course but for the meantime it was nowhere), real gourmet stuff that I wasn't used to like roasts, real mashed potatoes and not the lumpy stuff I always made, trifle and ribs and bits of kidney, and something I had never tasted before: orange juice.

After we all had eaten as much as we could hold, Dumbledore stood at his seat and smiled at us cheerily.

"To our more older students and, particularly, staff,"(he winked),"yes it is another year at this wonderful school, the first thing I shall say is to welcome you all back. Hopefully you will all enjoy your future school days as much as you most certainly have done the previous year. And to all our new students who have joined us in their first year, I bid you the most very special welcome of all. There is no doubt that you will enjoy yourselves whilst living and learning here at Hogwarts, you see we try to make it fun sometimes, and although we are not sure if we are doing things right we are sure that you will enjoy your time here anyway. There are just some little issues to be faced here that can void your luxury just the tiniest bit…"

His voice was like Pop's. Despite his age he sounded unscarred by anything…whilst it was old-sounding and scratchy in some places, he sounded very much alive, and still a far way off from the misfortunes of elderly hood.

"The majority of us here at Hogwarts – or should I say the sensible ones here at Hogwarts – all know that the Forbidden Forest that stretches on our land is absolutely out of bounds for all students, and under no circumstances are any of you to enter it unless accompanied by a prefect, Head Boy, Girl, or teacher, and for a very decent reason such as collecting certain plants and herbs for a potion, which should not be required to do as we have all necessary ingredients here for any potion you can tackle. So, to keep it short, keep out of the forest! And by special request, as done every year by our loyal caretaker Argus Filch, the following items of mass destruction are now banned from the school hallways: exploding candy, slippery dips, temporary mutilation capsules and any manner of spell-resistant products that may cause most displeasure. That will be all, school starts tomorrow as you all should know so it's important that we all get a good night's sleep in preparation. Have a great year, everyone…"

The Great Hall was beginning to empty, leaving the brown stools warm from people sitting on them for so long. I kept up with the people from my House, pushing to the front as a boy's voice called, "First years, to the front, please. Come on, then, we haven't got all night to get to the dorm, so hurry, please."

The dark-skinned prefect ("Gregory Bunks, but it's 'Prefect' to you guys") led us from the Great Hall straight to what seemed to be a thousand flights of stairs, reaching so high up this part of the castle that the square of ceiling up at the very top seemed to be nothing but a tiny blot of paint on a huge portrait. As we climbed them they kept vibrating as if they were floating, and a couple of times they changed direction while we were on them so that we had to grab the railing for balance before waiting for them to switch back to where we wanted to go. Numerous paintings, tapestries and cupboards lined the walls of corridors we went through, and I remembered Pop telling me about the secret passageways to elsewhere.

Finally, after about fifteen minutes of walking, we reached a corridor somewhere high up in the castle, probably in a tower. There on the wall hung a large portrait – in the light of the torches on the walls we could see the moving picture of a very fat woman wearing a frilly pink dress. Her painted eyes scanned over us slowly, checking out her new charges of the tower.

"Password?" she asked.

"Canis Shubunkin," Greg recited, and the portrait swung open slowly. Stepping through it, we came into a large room filled with cushiony chairs, with a fireplace, and two staircases at opposite sides of the room. There was nobody else there, the older students must've been told to stay out until the new kids had settled in properly for the night.

"Right, this is the Gryffindor common room. The password to get in here is easy enough, it just means 'dog goldfish' in old folk's language. Boys' headquarters are up the left staircase, that's the dorms and the bathrooms, and girls' are up the right. Alright, now, everyone okay with everything? Nobody homesick already? It's okay to say if you are."

A girl next to me – a tall, thin girl with short brown hair – burst out into tears and raised her hand.

Greg nodded and said, "Melody, huh? Alright, everybody else to bed now, I hope you all have a fantastic first day tomorrow. You'll find your luggage upstairs, okay? Goodnight!"

I was going up the stairs, downhearted, when I heard a voiceless sound in my head.

Goodnight, Kora. I looked around at the other staircase just in time to see Jim wave and disappear into his tower.

I went to bed a little more lightened than before. It was a circular dorm, with wooden four poster beds with curtain hangings, and wardrobes just at your bedside, and your luggage at the foot of everything. Not surprisingly, Torque was sitting on the window sill glaring at me – it had probably sparked up too much of a commotion to be kept with the owls in the Owlery. I found my bed second from the window, and fixed a roost for Torque on the top of my wardrobe before changing and getting into bed.

I knew what the other girls in the room were thinking as they lay shivering with fright in their beds. Oh, God, I'm in the same room as Kora Rastrick! Better keep my wand nearby, just in case she tries to kill me or anything…gasp! Did I pack my garlic? How am I supposed to ward her off now?

Something like that, anyway. I drew the curtains around my bed and hugged myself as tightly as I could. The same feelings that had plagued me in the Great Hall had returned – I found myself wanting Pop, that somehow he would magically appear in the castle and take me away…it was just a thought. Moreover, I wondered how he was coping without me. He had at least one more week till he had to go back to work. How was he cooking for himself? Could he do his own laundry? In all the years that I had been with him I had never seen him do these things. Perhaps we had a house elf and I didn't know about it. I knew that back in our house he was worrying about me too, and that made me feel a tiny bit better. I stared up at the ceiling of my four poster bed and tried to look forward to the following day.