It's a bit amazing how several hours of close quarters could change a relationship. He and Draco had achieved 'friend' status by the time the sun had fallen over the green and gold horizon and they were warned that they'd be arriving at Hogsmead Station in twenty minutes. Pulling shut the curtain that had appeared on the little window on the door, all four boys got out their robes and began undressing.
Once in their uniforms, they sat and waited.
When Draco sat down this time, he sat next to Harry instead of across from him and they talked about sorting—something they'd been avoiding the entire ride to keep themselves from getting nervous. Well, Harry wasn't really nervous, mostly it was Draco. Draco feared the small chance that he'd end up in anything but Slytherin. Apparently he felt that he needed to uphold the family legacy and join the den of snakes. He then immediately turned back to Harry and told Harry to stuff his own family legacies and that he better not be sorted into Gryffindor. It had pulled a genuine laugh out of Harry and he rolled his eyes and promised Draco to placate the blonde.
When they finally arrived and exited the scarlet train onto the slick cobblestone platform, they stood together for a moment before they were joined by four more students of their year. There were two girls and two boys. Harry was introduced by Draco while Crabbe and Goyle towered behind them like human shields. The first girl was a tan girl with a sharp black bob and slightly pinched facial expression, her name was Pansy Parkinson. The second girl was a pretty and fair blonde who looked like Draco's hand crafted counterpart, her name was Daphne Greengrass. A tall and thin boy with honey colored hair and brown eyes was introduced as Theodore Nott, but Theo for short. The last first year was Blaise Zabini, smooth mocha skin and high cheek bones. They had all been polite enough to Harry, though he did notice the brief flash of disdain on the faces of the Parkinson girl and Zabini.
Harry wasn't able to say anything to the others in greeting because as soon as he opened his mouth a thunderous voice crackled across the sea of students, summoning all of the first years towards the end of the platform where Hagrid could be seen towering over the students.
All of the first years where led down a worn path through the trees in a line like little ducklings. The mental image amused both Harry and his companion, who he could feel paying attention now that Harry wasn't stuck on a train. Draco walked by his side the whole way down the path and to the side of a lake where a fleet of little boats were waiting.
What caught everyone's attention, though, was the huge ancient castle on the other side of the lake dotted with glowing windows that looked like a scatter of floating lanterns, luring you in with the promise of warmth and shelter. The overall scene of the glassy lake, bright moon casting silver ribbons over the water's surface, and the fantastical castle in the background made for a breathtaking sight.
Harry was physically pulled out of his thoughts by a pale hand wrapped around his wrist as he was led over to one of the boats that already held Crabbe and Goyle. Half of the boats were filled by the time Harry and Draco stepped in and sat on the hard wooden bench seat. Once everyone was situated in a boat, a few drifted forward into the water and the others followed a few at a time so that they were more of a cluster than a straight line.
They were pulled by an invisible force straight into a cave under Hogwarts and when their boats pulled up to the dock, they all climbed out carefully and were led inside by a severe-looking witch who announced that she was the transfiguration professor, Minerva McGonagall. She briefly explained the sorting process and what they were to do once they went through the large door behind her. As she did this, Harry caught a few of the whispers floating around between the other first years.
"Did you hear? Apparently Harry Potter is here!" One voice whispered before the other scoffed quietly under his breath.
"No way! I heard a couple of bloody Death Eaters found him and he croaked a few years back but the Ministry's been hiding it to cover up for their cock up." The other replied and Harry had to keep his face blank in an effort not to let a sneer overtake his face. Everyone just loves to speculate!
"I would've known if that happened, my dad works for the Ministry! So he must be here, which one do you think he is?" Harry mentally cringed listening to the pair behind him. Malfoy, most likely having heard just as much as Harry, finally had enough and whipped around to glare at the two behind them.
"Mister Weasley, Mister Finnegan, is there a reason you're not listening to the information I'm so generously offering to make sure you don't make a fool of yourselves in front of the entire school? No? Well, then perhaps you should wait another minute longer for me to lead you in, get you sorted, and to your respective tables so that you might get the chance to eat and socialize." When Harry glanced behind him at the two first years, one with a shock of red hair and the other with short brown hair and spatters of freckles, both looked thoroughly cowed as they hung their head a little.
Draco glared at them for a moment longer, before turning back towards the front with a scowl on his face. Harry nudged the blonde with his elbow and flashed a smile when he looked up. Draco huffed a sigh and rolled his eyes, but Harry spotted a lifting at the corner of his lips that hid nothing. The next moment, the large wooden doors were opening and McGonagall led them in a single file line between the two middle tables to the front of a huge dining hall. The upperclassmen all looked at the spectacle the first years made and either cooed or complained about how they keep getting smaller and smaller every year.
At the end of the room in front of the long table that seemed to hold the staff, a lone stool was place between the staff table and the student tables. Atop the stool sat a hat, a ragged and torn brown leather hat. When they stopped in front of the stool and the hat came to life with a song about the different houses, Draco, who was in front of Harry in the line, turned to get his attention and was pointing at the staff table.
"That's Sev, my Godfather." Draco whispered, Harry followed where he was pointing with his eyes and met the sneering glare of an intense man dressed all in black. Remembering what Draco had said about the man and his hatred for his father, Harry wasn't at all surprised by the obvious hatred in the gaze. The sins of the father and all that.
Well, if Snape was just going to act like a petulant child then he wasn't worth Harry's time. The first name was called and one by one, students were sorted and sent to their respective tables. When Draco was called, no one was surprised to hear the loud 'SLYTHERIN!' that came the moment the hat touched his head.
"Harry Potter!" McGonagall called and the hall fell dead silent. Harry stepped out of the line and quickly made his way up to the stool. It seemed like everybody but Harry was holding their breaths as the sorting hat was placed on his head and fell over his eyes like it had with many other students. In the darkness, Harry became aware of the odd sensation of prodding fingers through his mind.
"Oh my. . . What an extraordinary situation we have here! 'Master of Death.' What a pleasure it is to sort you, Harry! Now, as for the sorting. . ." Harry waited silently, his companion had already told him about the hat and its oath of secrecy and confidentiality.
"Yes, a serpent is what you are, through and through, but your thirst for knowledge is just as strong. Both houses would serve you well, but which road do you wish to take? Neutrality or Domination? Knowledge or Power?" The hat deliberated, sounding equally split. So Harry decided to pitch in his two cents.
'Knowledge is Power. There are more routes to success than the fast one. Best place me in—'
"RAVENCLAW!" The hat bellowed. When the dining hall came back into view, it seemed that people were surprised, but not angry and ready to mob. McGonagall had already called for the next student before Harry had even sat down among the other first year Ravenclaws. The clapping was an appropriate amount and cut off before the next student sat on the stool.
"Welcome to Ravenclaw!" The boy to his right said with a wide smile. The boy had thick curly golden hair, light hazel eyes, and rather simple/aesthetically pleasing features that weren't hard to look at. Harry smiled politely in return with a slight dip of his head in a silent thanks. "My name is Anthony Goldstein." He went on to introduce the other Ravenclaws around the table.
"This is Padma Patil, Michael Corner, Terry Boot, and Hermione Granger." Harry greeted them and they all seemed friendly enough; not exactly friendly, actually, but more . . . approachable.
While the others went back to watching the sorting ceremony, Harry looked over that the table next to the Ravenclaw table. It only took a moment to spot the white blonde hair among the table of black and green robes. Draco had already been looking at Harry, so when their eyes met Harry just smiled and turned back to the ceremony. At least with the Ravenclaw table being right next to the Slytherin one, Harry could easily talk to Draco during meals, or even just switch tables and sit by the blonde. It's not like they'd force students to sit only at their house tables.
By the end of the ceremony, Ravenclaw had gained four more students: Sue Li, Mandy Brocklehurst, Morag MacDougal, and Lisa Turpin. The girls were polite, though Morag turned her nose up a bit at the others, and when the feast began conversation was rather easy among all of the first years. Harry was thoroughly interrogated by the others, including a few curious upperclassmen. Harry was vague and evasive enough to get through all of their questions without actually giving them much of anything in terms of information on him.
After the meal, the seventh year prefects led the first years to the Ravenclaw dorms located on the fifth floor on the west side of Hogwarts. At the entrance to the common room, it was explained to them that they would have to answer a riddle in order to get in or wait until someone who could answer the riddle came along.
The inside of the common room was decorated in rich auburn stained wood furniture with blue velvet upholstery and huge windows framed by silk royal blue drapes and packed bookcases. The area was clean and comfortable, simple and elegant. Harry could definitely see himself spending quite a bit of time there.
Anthony Goldstein, who seemed to be the friendliest and most eager out of all of them—with Hermione Granger as a close second—walked with Harry into their shared room, which held four equally spaced out beds with silk drapes that matched the larger ones in the common room hanging from the four poster twin sized beds.
Harry found his trunk at the foot of a bed on the right hand side of the room closest to the large widow with a plush royal blue velvet seat under it. Anthony's bed was next to his, with Michael Corner across from Harry and Terry Boot next to Michael. Along with their possessions and pets, they each found a time table on their beds. They had four classes a day with breaks and meals in between aside from the two days that they had five classes to fit in that hour of Astronomy and Flying once a week and the triple Potions was his only class on Friday.
The other two boys walked into the room with both of their heads bent together as they talked, Harry didn't spare them another glance as he put things away and settled in and he's pretty sure that Anthony was doing the same, but the blonde boy called out an absent greeting as he dug through his trunk. Harry didn't hear a reply, but he did hear shoes lightly thudding against hardwood floors move closer to him and stop a few feet behind him. Harry didn't look until someone loudly cleared their throat. The blank look Harry gave Michael and Terry spoke loud enough about how he was busy and not thrilled to be interrupted.
The Michael boy's face was twisted up in a smile that looked more like a sneer than anything.
"Let's see it then!" Michael proclaimed and waited expectantly. Harry raised an eyebrow and caught the flicker of Michael's eyes to his forehead before they slid back to his eyes. Ah, so they want to see the scar? The immortalized curse scar that everyone seemed itching to get a peek at. Harry's curly hair was just long enough on top to hide the mark.
It's not like he hides it on purpose, he honestly doesn't care. What he does care about though, is being treated like a road side attraction or circus act for all to 'ooo' and 'ah' at.
Instead of deigning such a ridiculous demand with a response, Harry just turned around and continued placing things in the drawer of his bedside table. That was not the response Michael had wanted, apparently. A bruising hand shot out and grabbed Harry's upper arm and roughly spun him around to face the angry Ravenclaw. Harry's face remained expressionless as the brunet got very close to his face.
"Look at me when I'm talking to you Half-blood!" Michael spat and before Harry could do or say anything, he was being pulled out of the painful grip and shoved behind Anthony's taller form.
"I suggest you walk away, Corner. I haven't known you for more than a few hours or so, but I doubt you're dumb enough to try to harass someone who has everyone's eyes on them." The calm, cold tone of Anthony's voice surprised Harry, but only mildly. Harry was feeling rather tired of the situation already and just wanted to go back to organizing his stuff. If his idiotic dorm mate wanted to risk himself being on the receiving end of a rather nasty wandless curse, then so be it.
The two boys engaged in a silent battle of wills as they stared each other down and Harry absently noticed for himself that Anthony was actually a bit taller than him. To be fair, years of malnutrition would take its toll no matter how many nutrition potions he took or extra meals he ate to supplement the scraps he got from the Dursleys.
Harry was dragged from that train of thought when the tension snapped like a rubber band between the two in front of them and Michael sneered as he turned his nose up at them and stomped over to his own bed, Terry trailing nervously behind him.
Anthony deflated a little and turned around to face Harry, but because Anthony had shoved Harry behind him and there wasn't much space between where Harry had been standing when Michael walked up and the bed, Anthony ended up very close to Harry when he turned around. Anthony immediately flushed and took a tentative step back to give Harry room. Harry was still unfazed, though. When you've already died twice in your life, became good friends with Death, achieved immortality and survived a decade of Dursleys, not much gets to you.
"Sorry about Michael, he's just a blood-supremacist prick. Thinks that his parentage gives him the right to decide who is worth being treated as a human and who isn't." Anthony amended with a hateful glare towards the other side of the room where they both knew Michael could hear every word. "Personally, I think he's just overcompensating for a weak magical core due to generations of inbreeding." Anthony hissed, still glowering at Michael.
Anthony was suddenly shocked out of his mental cursing of a certain boy when a smooth and melodic laughter filled his ears. He snapped his head back to the boy in front of him and saw a brilliant smile that had his mind whiting out for a moment. Joyous, genuine laughter bubbled out of the same boy he'd seen maintain a cool and distant composure the entire night and Anthony felt immensely proud at being the one to cause it.
Something . . . something about Harry Potter was magnetic. Even when that arctic gaze spoke very clearly that you were not even worth a second of his time, it was hard not to seek his attention. Anthony was never particularly a follower—not even his own parents could get him to do something unless he believed in it on his own. That's why he never understood Death Eaters, he just couldn't understand any form of blind, unconditional faith. But with Harry it was . . . it was different, he was different.
The Goldstein line has always been quite sensitive to magic; that is not to say that they were more powerful than the average witch or wizard, that had nothing to do with the gift to sense magic and magical signatures. Anthony had inherited the gift from his grandmother and had become quite good at sensing magic and discerning all types of information from someone's magical signature.
Michael, for example, had a magic insidious in nature, malicious intent hidden behind a seemingly pleasant exterior. Terry's was wavering and unpredictable with an underlying heat while Padma's was a low thrum that was hard to get a good read on and pulled back whenever he or anyone else approached. Hermione's was a high and enthusiastic chittering, like a bird, and didn't hesitate to feel out her surroundings. In the very short time that Anthony had known his housemates, he'd only been able to skim the surface of those four before his attention was swallowed up by Harry.
When Harry first sat down next to him in the dining hall, Anthony was completely perplexed. Everyone had a unique signature—even muggles had a tiny flicker of magic that made up what some called the human soul—and that's what first alerted Anthony to the fact that there was something different about Harry. When Harry sat down, Anthony felt absolutely nothing. It was like, in a world composed completely of magic, Harry was a void that held absolutely nothing at all. From all that Anthony knew, it should be impossible.
But then . . . slowly . . . it came out. . .
It was after Anthony had begun talking to Harry and acting pleasantly towards the black-haired boy, magic began to slowly seep out of its confines. And what came out was . . . incomparable! It overloaded all five senses in a battle of sensations.
It felt like cold misting rain against his skin after it had been scrubbed raw and new, while his insides were saturated with an impenetrable warmth. It sounded like the lowest notes of rolling thunder that shook his bones and grounded him at the same time. It smelt like honey-dew-melon and the air before a storm. It left a taste on his tongue, something rich and sweet, like black cherries. Lastly, at the edges of his vision, an aurora borealis worthy show of lights pulsed around Harry, composed mainly of the glacial green that could only be found in Harry's eyes, with brief dashes of reds and blues and pinks and darker greens.
The sensations came gradually and one at a time, building up on each other as time passed. When they all came together, Anthony was distracted for a few minutes, just trying to locate his mind again in the overwhelming presence that was Harry's magic. It wasn't the usual magical wizard posturing that was known to happen when you wanted to throw your adversary off kilter, it was intimidating and invigorating at the same time.
Whether they were sensitive to magic like Anthony or not, Anthony knew that Harry would draw people in. People would unconsciously migrate towards him; if not for his magic alone, then also for the allure Harry had as a person. Harry was undeniably beautiful as it was, raven black hair that gleamed like silk under the light, and flawless alabaster skin set on an angelic face offset by the cold green eyes that were unsettling and hypnotizing at the same time. And in time, those looks would only mature and improve along with the regal air he held around people he didn't know. Anthony had only glimpsed beneath the persona, and what a sight it was to behold.
All of that being said, Anthony knew that Harry would have no trouble finding people who would happily follow him on whatever path he chooses, and Anthony was begrudged to admit that he might become one of them. And, honestly? He couldn't conjure up any sort of feelings of reluctance or apprehension. This will certainly be an interesting experience.
