Down Under, Down Under

Yes reviewers I am from New Zealand! Lovely guesses ain't there sometimes? I thought it would be amusing if I put me and my friends—all of whom love Harry Potter into a fan fiction for Harry Potter. It saves time waiting for the Sixth Book, I assure you. I also know this is definitely NOT going to happen in the seventh!

The Sorting Ceremony

Faye exited the train threatening Zeta and Jay to behave themselves or else she'd put them in detention, closely followed by the trio and Draco Malfoy. As Faye had predicted, there were Pegasus' waiting for them carrying beautiful white carriages. Pegasus' looked much like horses, the only difference was unlike the unicorn that just had a horn, and they only had wings, beautiful white wings. The seven of them, including Malfoy, found a carriage together, Malfoy only following because somehow Jay had managed to chain him to her arm once again, unnoticed by Faye and Hermione.

With a sudden lurch, the carriages were pulled into action and launched into the air, dangling dangerously behind the Pegasus'. Hermione screamed and held on to the side where the window was, Ron was holding his stomach as though he was about to throw up. Harry however, felt it was much like the ride he'd taken on the Theastrals but bumpier, and remembered vaguely that he had never been on an aeroplane, the Dursleys always leaving him at home.

"Isn't this fun!" Exclaimed Jay happily, "Oooh it's snowing too! We're going to have some air turbulence!"

"Turbulence? Some turbulence?" Hermione gasped, "We're dangling from Pegasus' and you're saying we might have some turbulence?"

"Don't worry there is a charm on the carriages to ensure they don't fall out of the sky—although sometimes the charms can backfire, once or twice carriages have dislodged from their Pegasus'," Faye told them knowingly, "but oh well. It'll be interesting to see where you four get sorted. Mind you don't get sorted into our third house Kakariki, there's not a witch or wizard who went bad who wasn't in Kakariki!"

"You mean it's like the Slytherin House at our old school?" Harry asked curiously, "What other houses are there?"

"There are three houses," Faye told Harry calmly, "one is known as Rata, for the bold and the brave, daring. We're powerful people with intelligence. Then there is Kowhai, strictly for intelligent people. Knowledgeable as such, but it also takes people with good qualities, and everything. Kakariki however likes those with ambition and pure-blood magic, so that's why these two idiots were sorted into Rata." Faye said indicating her friends, "Though you'll be stuck to find a spell they can't do."

"You notice there's a mountain troll outside my window," Zeta said looking outside, "he doesn't seem too happy."

"There is no mountain troll outside our window," Faye said annoyed, "stop trying to scare the new exchange students with your wild stories. Mountain trolls hardly come near the school, they may attack muggle climbers once in a while, but that's the extent of it."

Harry, Ron and Hermione all let out an enormous sigh of relief when the carriage came to a sudden halt.

It was then they got their first glimpse of the castle where they would be spending the school year—their Seventh year of education would be taking place in this castle and they would have to get used to it and it's inhabitants quickly. The castle looked much like Hogwarts, the only difference was that it was made out of marble and it was floating on clouds above the mountains. The carriages had parked themselves on a concrete bridge leading up to the castle.

Today the sky was bright blue and it wasn't snowing seeing as they were high up above the clouds rather than where they were when they were riding in the carriages. The trio, plus their new friends, and Draco (who was still attached to Jay though they hadn't been noticed yet) made their way into the castle.

"Rimutaka's huge!" Ron exclaimed, (in my description I neglected to mention that the castle was also twice as huge as Hogwarts itself.) "How're we supposed to find our way around?"

"Well, you could always ask the ghosts for direction," Zeta suggested, "there's one ghost you want to avoid. He's got no sense of direction at all. He keeps getting lost. His name's Gilbert De Rye. He's great for entertainment when you're bored though."

"Are you sure this isn't cock and bull Zeta?" Harry asked narrowing his eyes suspiciously.

"She is telling the truth this time," Faye told him reassuringly, "we do have many ghosts within the castle. One's chosen to haunt the old Transfiguration classroom on the fourth floor. We had to move the class it was so miserable."

All the time the group were making their way up the concrete bridge when they came to view the castle up close.

"Exchange students this way!" Called one of the Professors, she had auburn coloured hair and brown eyes; she was tall and had a look as though you didn't want to mess with her when she was pissed off. Harry guessed she was the Deputy Headmistress or close to, whether or not he could get his head around it was another matter.

The lot of them followed the Professor.

The hall quieted down as the Headmistress, a woman who looked as though she was in her thirties stood up. She had long black hair tied back in a ponytail, and deep brown eyes to match her skin colour. Harry, behind all the first years looked up at their Headmistress. She smiled.

"Let the Sorting begin. But before it does, let me warn you that we will have four exchange students from England being Sorted into one of our three houses each."

She sat down again, then the Sorting Hat (OCC: I couldn't think of anything else, I actually considered Sorting Socks like Jay suggested in her cock and bull story in the last chapter. I decided it was a bit far-fetched and unhygienic.) Began with a song just like the Hogwarts hat did.

Years ago

When I was brand new

There were three founders

All anew

Each wanted one thing

So they created the school

All together as one

To train you all

For each of the different qualities

Each house owns

Cunning Kakariki, colour of the English green,

Set about his mission

Willing to teach

Those with great ambition

With only the purest of blood

To enter under his services

Yet his opposite Rata, with the colour red to her name,

Took those who were brave, bold and daring

With great loyalty to their name.

Last of the three was yellow Kowhai,

Who intended to make all things new,

With intelligence to rival all,

And loyalty she knew

So each made the school

And each began to teach

Now enjoying it all

And left it when they realised their time

And placed me to Sort you all.

The whole school clapped loudly, but Harry frowned. There were some huge gaps in the song and huge information missing. Surely there was a fourth house? Maybe it was just hidden. Hogwarts Slytherin House may have survived after Slytherin himself had left them, but it was possible the same thing had happened here, though the house itself had been forgotten.

"Potter, Harry," the Professor they had heard outside called after Sorting Draco Malfoy into Kakariki.

Harry winded his way through the tables and up to the Sorting Hat. He sat down and let himself be sorted.

"I see you've already been Sorted into Gryffindor. Not the house I would've chosen if I was my counterpart. You would be wise to be in Kakariki, but no. I sense great bravery and ambition, with loyalty tied in, you will be in RATA!"

The last word was shouted out. Harry went to join Hermione and his new friends in the Rata house (thankfully Draco had been separated from Jay by this time) and then Ron was also sorted into Rata.

Finally the Headmistress stood up.

"For those of you who do not know me, I am Professor Renatta, and I'm going to be giving you the start of term notices before you head off to bed. It seems two of our students after our recent attacks have decided to upgrade our Security around the school. I believe they have put a Permanent Sticking Charm on the doors—but we've recently discovered that you can walk through them. These charms seemed to have been placed on all the classroom doors and on the common room doors too. Secondly, there has been a replacement in the Astronomy Tower, where there is now a glass Elevator. You press the red button to go up, and twice our staff pressed the green button which meant it takes us right down to the bottom floor and if you're not careful to the bottom of the mountain," Professor Renatta took a deep breath in her wave of explanations about changes in the school.

"I told you there was a glass Elevator!" Jay hissed down the table to the trio and her two friends.

"Next on our list we have recently found our Divination Tower which had been discovered in the middle of the Sahara Desert. The study of Divination can now continue to take place once again. Also, the stands for the Qudditch Pitch seems to be invisible, so we're trying to work out how to get them back to normal before the Qudditch season resumes at Christmas. You can still sit on the seats but you cannot see them. And finally we have a new Astronomy Professor known as Professor Robb, who seems to be delighted with the glass elevator as he cannot climb up stairs. Thank you for your time and patience, now you can go up to bed."

The trio and their new friends immediately left the hall and followed the paths Jay, Zeta and Faye took. Orian was ahead of them, singing some song or rather under his breath.

Exhausted they arrived at the Rata common room and all collapsed into their beds.

AUTHORS NOTES: This was a long chapter and I just had to fit in all of the Headmistresses' speech. If anyone has been waiting a while for this chapter I apologise. I've just had a school formal, I danced heaps! Loved the songs, it was superb. Next chapter is the classes. Oh, and the teachers are based on real people. Mainly my teachers at school. Professor Robb is actually my Computer teacher . . . ssh!