Envy gazed intently at the barrier between platforms nine and ten. Supposedly, it was possible to to walk straight through it and emerge on the wizard platform. Frowning, he reached out a hand and touched the bricks.
It passed through.
Smirking, Envy pushed his trolley through the barrier and onto a loud, steamy platform full of parents and students saying good-byes while their owls, cats, or toads tried to catch their attention. The source of the fog was a large red steam engine with 'Hogwarts Express' embossed on its side.
Envy pushed his trolley forward until it was right up next to the train, then, with quite a bit of effort, hoisted his trunk up and pushed it through the door. Looking around and seeing nowhere to put the cart, he shrugged and left it where it stood while he climbed in.
Most of the other kids had yet to board—it was a quarter past ten—so it didn't take him long to find an empty compartment. Unfortunately, he was soon joined by a blond kid with a pointed chin. And what appeared to be a pair of gorilla bodyguards.
The brat started to babble—something about pure blood and slithering. Envy wasn't paying attention, because he simply didn't care. He was jerked out of his thoughts, however, when the boy snapped at him.
"Hey! Are you listening to me? I asked you what house you think you'll be in."
"Ah." Envy tapped his chin. "Was I listening? No, I really don't care what you have to say."
The boy growled. "Did you even hear my name?"
"Nope," he said cheerfully. "And I don't care! Now, get out of my compartment."
"And why should I?" he sneered.
"It wasn't a request." He cracked his knuckles threateningly, and the kid became paler than he already was. He didn't need to be told a third time to get out. Though he was a bit disappointed that they hadn't put up a fight, Envy smirked out the window, allowing his hair to grow out to its usual length.
The next half hour passed mostly in boredom. He watched a bunch of red-heads come running through the barrier, the odd one out being a boy with black hair. The only exciting part of this small period of time was when he saw a kid with a giant tarantula and went to go see it. If he was correct, the boy's name was 'Lee', but he didn't care much.
The rest of the train ride passed fairly quick. Halfway through he bought food from the trolley using some money McGonagall had given him and whiled away the time by examining the strange treats both with his taste and with his eyes, and when they had almost arrived at Hogwarts he changed into his school robes.
Soon enough, they had arrived at Hogwarts. It had long since gone dark outside, but the light from the lamps on the station were good enough to see by.
"Firs' years! Firs' years over here!"
Envy stepped off the the train, leaving his trunk behind as a voice over the intercom had said, and easily spotted the source of the calls—a very tall, very broad man who was holding up a lantern. He put Envy in mind of a slightly larger, more intelligent version of Sloth.
"All right there, Harry?" he said to someone near the front. Envy snorted—that was favoritism if he ever saw it.
"C'mon, follow me!" The man ushered them along, with more shouts of, "This way!"
The path they walked along was steep and narrow, so they almost had to slip down in single file.
"Yeh'll get yer firs' sight o' Hogwarts in a sec, jus' round this bend here," the man called.
Now, while Envy didn't want to admit it, he was quite impressed with the castle. It could only be described as incredible, with its high towers adding to its enormous size-it was much larger than Central HQ.
A few minutes later, the former homunculus found himself gliding across a lake in a boat with three other brats. Hogwarts was soon out of sight, and Envy spent a great deal of his remaining time on the vessel impatiently tapping his fingers on the side of the boat and peering into the water below. He frowned once when he saw a long tentacle, but it was gone a moment later.
They eventually reached a dark underground harbor, the only light being the large man's lantern. The soon-to-be-students followed him along a passageway which sloped up, and they soon came up under the shadow of the castle. The giant was followed the last few yards to a the structure and up some steps to a large oak door. A few loud knocks later and it was opened by McGonagall.
"The firs' years, Professor McGonagall."
"Thank you, Hagrid. I will take them from here."
Ah, so that was his name.
McGonagall pulled the door wider, and Envy was one of the first to enter.
The entrance hall was enormous—quite befitting of the castle it belonged to. The place was lit by torches, and the ceiling was too high to make out. A large marble staircase led to higher floors.
They followed McGonagall across the stone floor—the sound of voices, presumably the older students, was muffled by a set of doors—and they were led into a smaller chamber. "Welcome to Hogwarts," McGonagall began, continuing on a speech about the houses and the Sorting Ceremony. Envy had no choice but to listen, as he knew nothing about either subject. Perhaps he should have allowed the blond brat to stay in his compartment . . . eh, whatever.
They were told to "Wait quietly until the rest of the school was ready for them", though not in those exact words, and McGonagall left them to their own devices. Instead of remaining quiet, the brats started chattering away at each other, trying to figure out how they were to be Sorted. One idiotic redhead mentioned something about it hurting—Envy snorted at that. Humans usually didn't harm their young.
The murmuring continued for a minute before several screams emitted from the back. Envy looked up from where he was contemplating what house he might be put in and was startled to see about twenty pearly white beings floating through the wall—probably ghosts. It wasn't hard to believe that such things existed after all that had happened. The picture of Agrippa on his Chocolate Frog card had moved, and there were broomsticks in Diagon Alley that could, apparently, fly.
The ghosts—for that was indeed what they were, if their argument was anything to go by, something about "Peeves" and "He's not really even a ghost"—stopped and talked briefly to the first years before being interrupted and sent on their way by McGonagall when she returned.
"Now form a line," McGonagall told the first years, "and follow me."
At last, they were allowed through the double doors and into the Great Hall. It was lit by a multitude of candles floating over the four long tables that took up a lot of the room. The surfaces seemed covered in glittering gold dishes and utensils, and at the very end of the hall was another long table where the teachers sat.
"It's bewitched to look like the sky outside. I read about it in Hogwarts, A History."
Envy spared a glance to the girl who said that—bushy hair, large front teeth—then looked around, trying to figure out what she had been talking about. The most plausible possibility being the ceiling, he tipped his head back and looked at it. And he was right, the ceiling looked almost as if it were the sky.
Looking down again, he watched as McGonagall placed a stool in front of the first years and put a pointed hat on top of it. It was dirty, patched, and frayed, and Envy was sure that the worst clean freaks would scream at the sight of it.
He stared at it along with the rest of the school, and a moment later, it twitched and a rip near the brim of the hat opened—and then it started to sing. Envy stared at it in utter astonishment. He knew he really shouldn't be surprised at this point, considering magic and the Alphonse Elric, but a singing hat was absurd. Of course, he couldn't be sure about whether or not there was a soul bound to the hat. If so, he almost felt sorry for the poor guy. Almost.
When the hat finally stopped singing, the whole hall burst into applause, and McGonagall stepped forward with a long scroll. "When I call your name, you will put on the hat and sit on the stool to be sorted. Abbot, Hannah!"
A girl approached the stool timidly and sat on it, and McGonagall dropped the hat on her head. "HUFFLEPUFF!" the hat roared a moment later. The sorting continued in this fashion, then finally, "Novus, Envy!"
He strolled up to the stool with confidence, although he didn't particularly like being stared at by such a large audience, sat down, and allowed the hat to fall on his head and cover his eyes.
"Ah, what an interesting child you are," said a small voice. Envy didn't jump—back in his world, Pride talked to him out of nowhere sometimes, so he was used to it. "But not a hard choice. Sly and cunning, not particularly loyal. Bold, a trait of Gryffindor, but that is not the house for you. Very clever, but Ravenclaw is not your fit. SLYTHERIN!" Envy plucked the hat from his head and padded down to the cheering table with green and silver banners. A couple of older students cleared a space for him and where he sat down, and the Sorting continued.
"Potter, Harry!"
The hall fell silent, then whispers swept through the room. Envy snorted—what was so interesting about a scrawny little kid?
When Potter was sorted into Gryffindor, the table with red and gold banners hanging over it burst into cheers, and two identical redheads—the stupid boy's brothers?—started shouting, "We got Potter! We got Potter!"
Envy still didn't understand why the hall was so excited by the kid.
The Sorting ended at last when "Zabini, Blaise!" was sorted into Slytherin.
The feast was interesting-the food appeared on the table by magic, and Dumbledore started it with the words, "Nitwit, Blubber, Oddment, Tweak!", causing Envy to wonder if the geezer had a screw loose.
By the time the feast was over, Envy was feeling a bit befuddled by all the food he had consumed, something which he did not appreciate—he preferred to be alert at all times.
The students made their way down to the Slytherin dormitories. The common room was long and low with rough stone walls. High-backed black chairs were scattered about, as well as a few sofas, and round green lanterns hung from the ceiling by chains. Small tables sat beside a few of the chairs, and a portion of the room was illuminated by a roaring fire under an elaborately carved mantle.
It was also underground, like Father's lair. Home sweet home.
"First year dorms for boys are over there," called an older student, pointing to a door. Envy was pretty sure he was a prefect, whatever that was. "Go down the hall, fourth door on the left will be yours." Another prefect, female this time, told the girls where to go, but Envy didn't stick around to listen.
The dorm room was nice, with a green carpet and beds that seemed to enclose you in their folds. A couple months ago, Envy wouldn't have cared for such things. Now, however, he couldn't help feeling slightly pleased with the luxurious living area.
And it was with similar thoughts in mind that Envy drifted into the depths of sleep.
'-'
Full Name: Envy Novus
Birthday: 7 May 1980
Wand: Hawthorn and Dragon Heartstring, ten and a quarter inches, flexible.
House: Slytherin.
Parents: Connor Novus (half-blood) and Lucy Novus (muggle).
I see no reason not to put the names of Envy's 'parents'. *shrug* Not much Envy dialogue in this chapter. It saddens me, but that's just how it happened.
You may have noticed that a few of the lines (Hagrid calling for first years and McGonagall's lines) were quoted directly from the book. If so, congratulations. If not, whatever.
(Why wouldn't Envy be interested in a giant tarantula? I know that much more exciting things have happened in his life, but he is in a child's body and has a bit of a child's mind.)
Ugh, this chapter gave me such a hard time. You see, I hate having to use the book for reference all the time. I'm also a perfectionist about canon happenings. The latter conflicted with the former, and I kept having to look into the book to find people's exact lines and figure out what random words (i.e. Sorting) had to be capitalized. And then I had to grab the second book so I could see the description of the common room, even though I could just look up pictures from Pottermore on the internet. *sigh*
And now: I totally forgot last chapter that I was going to have Envy attempt to enter Knockturn Alley, so it'll happen in the second book instead. Yes, this will (hopefully) go through all seven books. No, I will not make them overly long. I won't go into detail about some parts because I don't want this series to be really long and annoying for people to read when they find it after it's finished. The only reason I went into detail about these last few chapters is that they are the set up and are not things that you, the readers, were familiar with up until you read them.
(I don't blame you if you didn't read all of that, it came out much longer than I meant it to be.)
Also, I decided that the dorms would be fancy. Slytherin was a blood purist, he probably liked luxury.
You may thank Robin Rani for this chapter. If my older sister hadn't kept pestering me for more, this probably would not have come to you today.
-The Leaf on Italy's Head