Chapter 4

The Sorting

Note: The second half of this chapter is a normal, boring sorting ceremony. Please read the first half, but if you don't want to read through the tedious ceremony then you can skip straight to the author's notes at the end, where I will have a summary of the changes to the sort (assume that anyone not mentioned is in their usual house)

Draco woke Harry up as the train pulled into Hogsmeade station.

"Firs' years, firs' years this way."

Draco traced the voice to a huge hairy man who was nine feet tall if he was an inch.

"Right then, I'm Rubeus Hagrid, Keeper of the Grounds an' Keys at Hogwarts. Yeh better keep an eye on me if yeh wanna get ter Hogwarts."

"Like we could lose sight of him," Draco heard Ron mutter under his breath.

The entire group of first years followed Hagrid to the boats.

"Hurry it up, don' have all day yeh know. Four to a boat."

The four friends got into a boat together.

"Everyone in?" Hagrid called from the boat he occupied alone. "Right, then – FORWARD!" The boats all started to move on their own. On the ride over, Draco noticed a chubby boy searching desperately through his boat for something. Eventually, however, Draco grew bored with the boy's search and turned his attention to Hogwarts, which was drawing ever nearer. Eventually, the boats docked in an underground harbour in a dark tunnel.

As Draco got out, he could hear the boy asking people if they had seen his toad. The boy looked overjoyed as Hagrid reached into one of the boats and pulled out a toad. He grabbed the toad and clutched it as if his life depended on it.

Again they followed Hagrid, this time up to the castle doors. Hagrid banged on the door three times with such force that when it opened Draco half expected it to collapse. Instead it remained on its hinges and opened to show a tall, black-haired witch in emerald robes.

The witch, who the student quickly learned was Professor McGonagall, led them into a small empty chamber, where she explained to them about Hogwarts, the Sorting, the houses and the house cup.

McGonagall shortly left, leaving the first years to wonder about the Sorting. "How do you think they do it," Draco heard Toad-boy ask a dirty-blonde haired witch who seemed to be younger than the others.

"No idea. My father refused to tell me. He said something about a 'Fidelity Charm,' or some such thing. He hinted something about my head, so I'm guessing it involves a Crumple-Horned Snorkack. They can read minds, you know." Draco wasn't sure why, but he could swear he heard Harry mutter something like 'this isn't right.'

Draco walked up to the girl. "Excuse me," he said. She turned to face him, and he could see her protuberant pale blue eyes and her Butterbeer bottle cap necklace.

"You're Draco Malfoy," she told him.

"Thank you, I knew that."

"I'm Luna Lovegood," she told him.

"Well, Luna, I couldn't help overhearing your conversation, and what exactly is a Crumple-Horned Snorkack?"

"Well, I've never seen one myself, but my father says that they're magnificent beasts."

"My friend looked over at you and said that something was wrong."

"Well, he was right. I was surprised when I got my letter this year, I thought it would be coming next year – my eleventh birthday isn't until the fifth, you know." She took her wand out from behind her ear and twirled it around a bit before putting it back. "Must be those Kalfords causing mischief. They need to rearrange official documents like most beings need to eat."

Draco nodded at this exceptionally odd statement, then walked back over to his friends. McGonagall soon came back into the chamber. "Move along now, the Sorting Ceremony's about to begin. Now form a line and follow me." McGonagall led then into the massive Great Hall. Draco looked around, taking in the splendour of the hall. Everything from the ceiling, which emulated the sky, to the thousands of floating candles practically, screamed "Difficult Charms." The charm to levitate the candles wasn't difficult, but the charm to keep items floating in mid-air was another story. McGonagall pulled a stool and an old wizard's hat seemingly out of nowhere.

"Do we have to pull a rabbit out of it," a tall black boy, obviously Muggleborn, asked his sandy-haired friend.

"Nah," his friend replied in a heavy Scottish accent. "That's just a Muggle misconception. Don't really care about rabbits, they're not even allowed as Familiars."

"Then what do-"the boy was interrupted when the hat sitting on the stool burst into song. Draco didn't pay much attention to the song, picking up only the description of the houses (Gryffindor: brave, Hufflepuff: loyal, Ravenclaw: smart, Slytherin: ambitious) and that they had to put the hat on.

Draco started paying attention again as McGonagall stepped forward holding a long roll of parchment. "When I call your name, you will put the hat on and sit on the stool to be sorted," she said before calling the first student. "Abbott, Hannah!"

McGonagall placed the hat on the head of a blonde-haired girl with pigtails. After a moment, it shouted out "HUFFLEPUFF!"

"Bones, Susan!"

"HUFFLEPUFF!"

"Boot, Terry!"

"RAVENCLAW"

Draco was beginning to lose interest. He only looked up again as he noticed the last girl called had been Bulstrode, which meant that C was coming soon.

"Crabbe, Vincent!"

Crabbe hadn't even reached the stool when the hat shouted out in what seemed like disgust "SLYTHERIN!"

"Dursley, Dudley!"

Draco noticed Harry flinch and figured this could be interesting.

"HUFFLEPUFF!" Nope, just another bloody Hufflepuff.

"That was my cousin," Harry whispered to Draco. "I thought he was- "

"A Squib?"

"No, he's my cousin from my mother's side. My mother's Muggleborn, like Hermione. I thought he would be a Muggle."

"Quiet, Potter," Draco said, seeing a familiar head of bushy brown hair over the crowd, "Herms is up."

The hat sat on Hermione's head for about a minute before shouting out "GRYFFINDOR!" Draco stopped paying attention, looking up just in time to see Toad-boy sorted into Gryffindor. "Lovegood, Luna." Draco watched as the odd young girl became a Gryffindor and "MacDougal, Morag" became a Slytherin.

"Malfoy, Draco." At last, the moment of truth had come. Draco walked up to McGonagall, sat down on the stool, and had the hat placed on his head.

"Ah, a Malfoy. Well, it's been a while since I've sorted one of you. You know, Slytherin was your dad's old house. Hmm, this is interesting. A familiar not allowed by the school – a snake, no less – and the gift of Salazar. Oh, and what's this? Yes, a Slytherin in every way. Not an arrogant pureblood enthusiast, but it couldn't hurt too much," the hat told Draco.

"Father's old house? From what I've heard, that's as good a reason as any for me to resist. I don't care about my family's legacy, only that Crabbe is in that house and he's willing to kill me for surviving the attack."

"But there's so much, you'd do well in Slytherin, there's no doubt."

"If I survived a night in the same room as Crabbe, maybe."

"Very well, then. It's a distant second, but if you insist then I'll have to go with some of the bravery you've shown in the past. GRYFFINDOR!"

Draco went over to the long table, where he sat beside Hermione and waited for the Sorting to finish. He didn't really pay too much attention, only vaguely noticing when Harry sat on his other side.

Eventually, the list came around to "Weasley, Ronald!" The hat sat on Ron's head for nearly five minutes before finally sending him off to Slytherin. Draco noticed a shocked look on the faces of the twins as well as Percy. Finally, the Sorting ended with Blaise being sent to Ravenclaw.

---DM---

Yeah, the chapter was kind of boring, but it had to be done. Of course, I couldn't have given you the big surprise of the chapter (Luna) in the last preview, as I was keeping that one completely secret, and the rest was pretty much just the Sorting.

Since anything else I say will spoil some of this for those who skipped the actual sorting, here is the list of changes/additions

Dudley Dursley: Hufflepuff

Luna Lovegood: Gryffindor

Draco Malfoy: Gryffindor

Ronald Weasley: Slytherin

Blaise Zabini: Ravenclaw

Now then, Dudley will not, I repeat NOT be important in this story in any way. He's just there because I strongly believe that Dumbledore's 'last' was saying that Dudley would be spared from 'that world' if Petunia took Harry in. Since in this continuity Petunia's 'kindness' was not needed, the offer was never extended and Dudley's presence in Hogwarts is a reminder of the unexpected consequences of changes, nothing more.

Now you're wondering why I changed Luna's year for this one. Well, I just felt like it. I had some plot-twists planned out, and they just work best if Luna is in the same year as the other main characters.

I have a slight correction to make. When I said in the last chapter that Crabbe wasn't evil enough to attempt 'that' yet, the first time we met this boy he was trying to plant a Basilisk in a pet shop. He's definitely evil enough to try anything, but he's ELEVEN, for God's sake. Even if the thought had crossed his mind, the plumbing isn't hooked up properly yet.

You know you want it, so it's here: CHAPTER PREVIEW

---DM---

The Baron looked oddly at Harry. "Have we met before?"

"N-no sir."

"You just seem so... familiar. Like someone who sat at my table about twenty years ago. What's your name, boy?"

"H-Harry Potter."

"Potter, is it?" The Baron looked somewhat surprised. "Well, that would explain it."

"That can't be, I was always told my parents had been Gryffindors."

The Baron just laughed. "James Potter a Gryffindor? Right, and the stuttering fool they've brought in for Defence is the bleedin' Dark Lord!"

---DM---

Irony, thy name is the Draco Malfoy Series. Miss it and you'll regret it for the rest of your life. I guarantee it.

Not a guarantee.