Bad Omens

Albus found himself in the Great Hall of Hogwarts among countless students waiting for the Sorting Hat to send them to their houses. In front of them was James, his face turned towards the waiting first-years. What was he doing there? But nobody seemed to be surprised. Suddenly James drew out an old hat, put it on, and crowed into the hall: "Albus is a Slytherin, Albus is a Slytherin!"

Which the crowd welcomed with enthusiastic howling. People seized Albus by his robe and dragged him to the Slytherin table, where Scorpius Malfoy had already taken his seat.

"If you want to be a real Death Eater ..." twanged Malfoy – "But I don't want to be a Death Eater," cried Albus in between, without Malfoy taking any notice – "you have to eat with the Death!"

"With the Death?" Albus asked, shuddering.

"With me," said a handsome, older black-haired boy next to him. "Would you pass me the sauce boat with the Muggle blood in it, please?"

"Who are you?"

"I used to be Tom Riddle, now I'm Lord Voldemort."

Suddenly there were plates of raw meat on the table.

"Eat," said Julian, who was now facing him instead of Malfoy. "Those who don't get to Azkaban, under this Ministry ..."

"The Ministry has everything under control." It wasn't Riddle now, it was Hermione sitting next to him in a red business suit. "You bet your ass. Cheers!"

"Hermione, what are you doing at the Slytherin table?"

"I am devouring Mudbloods," said Riddle, who looked kind of funny in Hermione's red suit. "Delicious, isn't it?", he added in the tone of a very distinguished gourmet. "What's your name?"

And Roy MacAllister, walking along the Slytherin table as if he was not surprised by any of this, whispered to him: "Be honest, nobody should apologize!"

"Er, Potter, Albus Potter."

Now Riddle fixed him with slit red snake eyes and croaked with a hoarse voice: "A Potter? I still have a score to settle with you!"

Albus answered: "You can't hurt me, you're dead!"

"You think so?" Riddle asked. "You think so?" he repeated. "Silly boy!" Suddenly nine tortoiseshell cats were strutting in single file along the edge of the tabletop.

"You see?", Voldemort croaked in triumph. "Not seven, nine! Nine lives the cat has! But you have but one, and that is ending now!" He pulled the wand out of his robe and pointed at Albus who wanted to run away but couldn't, wanted to scream but couldn't.

"Avada ..." Voldemort started the Killing Curse. He gloated over Albus' panic, grinned cruelly and, obviously enjoying the situation, started once more:

"Avada ..."

"Wake up! – Wake up! – Wake up, sleepyhead!"

Albus jerked awake. It was dark outside, and the train was standing in a station. It took Albus a moment to find his way back from his nightmare to reality. A soft rumbling in the corridor told him that the last students were just leaving the train. When he looked up, he saw a girl who might be sixteen years old and wore a Prefect badge. She was beautiful, had blonde curls, full lips, and shining white teeth. She reminded him of his cousin Victoire. Did she have Veela blood, either?

"Where are we?" he asked.

"In Hogsmeade," the girl replied, "but if you keep sitting here, you're going back to London. Leave your luggage here, they'll take it to Hogwarts for all of you. Just get out with the other first-years."

She escorted him to the carriage door and was just about to continue her inspection tour through the train, but then turned around, looked at him, tilting her head to the side with a curious glance and asked: "Potter?"

He wasn't surprised. Everyone in the wizarding world knew his father Harry Potter, and Albus looked quite like him. He had even his green eyes. He nodded: "Albus Potter."

"My name is Patricia Higrave. Nice to meet you, although I don't think we'll have much to do with one another at Hogwarts."

"Why?", Albus asked and felt like biting his tongue, because he suddenly knew the answer which came promptly:

"Given your background, you'll probably end up in Gryffindor, but I'm a Slytherin."

Not this again!

Did James cast a curse on him? From the moment he had started this Slytherin balderdash again this morning in the car, Slytherin kept stalking him, even into his – now slowly fading – nightmare. Time to come home. To Gryffindor!

He shivered when he stepped out onto the platform, because it was very cold for the season. In the faint light of the lanterns, struggling hard against the vapour clouds of the locomotive, he saw that the other first-years had already gathered and were being counted by a Prefect. After Albus had joined them and been counted, too, the Prefect, raising his thumb, gave the signal that all were present, and the huge man with a tousled ice-grey beard and mane whom the signal was addressed to gestured the students to follow him.

This had to be Hagrid – who else was ten feet tall? Albus wondered whether he should say hello to him to introduce himself. Hagrid was friends with his parents, but by hazard Albus had never met him. Yet it seemed to be important to Hagrid to present himself to the first-years with dignity and authority, perhaps he would not feel comfortable getting involved in a private conversation.

The lively chatter had ceased and given way to a kind of devotional silence. When approaching the landing stage, they saw from afar, for the first time in their lives, the castle on the top of its cliff, magically illuminated, majestically rising up to the dark blue night sky:

Hogwarts!

Hogwarts was much more than just a castle and a school, it was the soul of the British wizarding world. Every wizard and every witch had gone through this school, this was the place to make friends whose friendship lasted a lifetime, to unleash feuds that would continue for generations, this was the place where, with a little luck, you could find your future wife or husband, and the house where the Sorting Hat sent you was your second family. Once having become a Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, or Slytherin, you would remain a member of your house for life, and you could always count on the help of older alumni, even if their school days had been much earlier than your own and you had never met them at Hogwarts. The downside, however, was that the rivalry between the houses and their former students never ended. His dad had told Albus that there were departments in the Ministry that were made up entirely of former members of just one house, and there was not a single one in which Gryffindors worked with Slytherins.

Nevertheless, there was a strong tie between them all, which even spanned the enmity between Gryffindors and Slytherins: They were all wizards, they had all enjoyed the same education, they were all Hogwarts students to the core. The world of British wizards and witches was small: In the Muggle world, all of them together could at best have populated a small town. It was sometimes tiresome to live in this small world where everyone knew everyone and where you had to deal with the same people again and again all your life, even with those you didn't like from your school days. And yet they all loved and lived this world. Yes, this world was small, but it was the world where they all were at home.

Since Albus, like in a trance, got into the boat with three other first-years without turning his eyes from the awesome castle, he missed Hagrid's understanding smile, and when the boats glided across the lake, none of the students spoke a word aloud.

"Now we really are wizards," Rose whispered to him, and only now he noticed that she had been sitting next to him in the boat all the time.

"Yeah", he whispered back, still staring up at the majestic castle, as all the other people here, who knew they were gliding towards their destiny.

When the boats had entered the underground harbour and the children had left, Hagrid turned to Albus: "You're back?"

"Yes, of course. Sorry, Hagrid. Nice to meet you in person." Albus reached out his hand, which completely disappeared in Hagrid's enormous paw. Luckily, he didn't really press.

"Sure," murmured the half-giant, "It's an exciting day, one you'll never forget."

Hagrid waved the students to follow him. They clambered up a long passageway leading to the meadow in front of the castle and followed Hagrid to the large front door of the school. Hagrid's knocking droned three times, the portal opened by magic, the students entered. Everything was exactly as his parents had told him. Albus realised that he was participating in a centuries-old ritual.

In the middle of the huge Entrance Hall an old witch with a stern expression and no less sternly knotted grey hair was awaiting them: Professor Minerva McGonagall, the Headmistress. Albus remembered the deep reverence with which his parents had always spoken of her, although his dad had been rebuked by her more than once during his Hogwarts years. Just never undeservedly.

McGonagall guided the newcomers into an adjoining room and prepared them for the Sorting Ceremony. Nothing she said was really new to Albus, but the students from Muggle families who heard it for the first time, Wildfellow for example, were hanging on her lips when she explained the upcoming ceremony and told them who the four houses were and what they were all about.

"Every student," she then explained, "can earn points for their house through outstanding academic, moral or sporting performance. Any misconduct, in particular rule-breaking, will lose your house points. The house that has earned most points at the end of the year will be awarded the House Cup. You'll soon learn," she added – with something that seemed to be a kind of smile slightly curved her lips – "that you get extremely unpopular in your own house if you mess up its score by doing fooleries. – In the Great Hall, everything ought to be ready for your welcome now. Follow me, please."

McGonagall led them back through the Entrance Hall, the size and splendour of which Albus only now realised, into the Great Hall, which was illuminated by thousands and thousands of floating candles. On the ceiling, which at any given time looked like the sky outside, so now like the night sky, countless stars were shining.

The older students were sitting at the four long tables, one for each Hogwarts house. At the top of the Hall they saw the staff table.

While the first-years went forward through the Hall, the many hundreds of curious pairs of eyes of their future schoolmates rested on them. Albus, walking with Rose, was looking for James, but as he had never asked his parents which of the four tables was Gryffindor's, and he was also way too excited, his gaze wandered erratically through the ranks without finding any point worth looking at. Before he could spot James or any other familiar face, they had arrived in front of the staff table, where they had to line up facing the house tables. The highlight of the thousand-year-old welcome ritual was about to take place: A stool was placed so that anyone in the audience could easily see it, and McGonagall, as was the custom since time immemorial, put the old, worn out wizard hat on it.

Yet before the new students were sorted into their houses, tradition required the Sorting Hat to perform his song. Mostly it was a cheerful welcoming poem, but sometimes the hat acted as a warning oracle. Albus remembered what his father had said: The Sorting Hat knows about everything the Headmistress knows. Listen to him carefully! If the Sorting Hat gives warnings, it's a bad omen.

The tattered hat bowed under the applause of students and teachers. The rip that served as his mouth opened. For a moment he enjoyed the expectant silence of the audience, then he started his speech:

"Old-aged hats speaking in rhymes

have no good reputation,

but I pursue since oldest times

the nobelest vocation,

every wizard, every witch

to send to the right breed,

so that the starting life of each

may finally succeed.

Those who brave in deed and word,

daring and much more,

worthy wielding Godric's sword

belong to Gryffindor.

Rowena wanted to unite

the minds inspiring awe.

Therefore are the very bright

at home in Ravenclaw.

'My dear hat', so Helga said,

'please spare me what's extreme!

For those who normal, good and straight –

Hufflepuff's your team!'

'To shield our world,'

spoke Slytherin, 'you needn't just the bright,

nor just the brave, because to win,

you need the WILL to fight.'

Do honour what you herited

and care for what you've found

and show that you have merited

for what they laid the ground.

Many people wondered,

why I am worn to threads:

Well, in many hundred

years, I saw so many deads ..."

The Sorting Hat faltered. The rip quivered. No one dared to speak a word. Finally, he got back his composure and continued:

"Slytherin and Gryffindor

divided in dispute

and more than once resort to war,

the wound is still acute.

Three versus one the founders stood

the one chose separation.

Have not to judge who's bad or good,

but to unite our nation.

Since that evil, gloomy hours

I'm trying to repair

to heal the wizards' world – it's ours! –

how shouldn't I despair?

Sometimes it's just a narrow line,

almost not to find

but suddenly you draw a front

of the frightfullest kind.

Saw many things, evil and wrong,

you know I'm very old.

Never obey the sirens' song,

for silver nor for gold!

Once again you seek your foe,

I know, within this school.

Since of yourself you make a fool,

I'll have to mourn for you!

I know you're peeping for the sword,

despite my warning hint.

I do the fool, knowing my word

will vanish with the wind."

When he had finished, there was silence in the Great Hall. It took several seconds before McGonagall stood up to applaud, followed by the other teachers and the students. They all rose from their seats and gave minutes of applause to the hat, who bowed again, but the sad expression around his mouth didn't cheer up.

One would think he had made a deep impression, and yet – Albus had a good view from his place: While MacAllister thoughtfully glanced over to his Gryffindor colleague who glanced back at him, other Gryffindors and Slytherins stared at each other with suspicion or even hostility. While they were still applauding the Sorting Hat all together, they had already forgotten what he just had said.