Chapter 8-The Sorting Ceremony
After the boat rider, Harry and his fellow first years were greeted by: Professor McGonagall at the large front doors and Hagrid said, "The first years Professor McGonagall," in which the stern witch that re-introduced the wizarding world to Harry states, "Thank you Hagrid," while letting him threw. Once Hagrid had left, McGonagall led the group to a side room and instructed, "Please remain here until you are called."
While the fledgling wizard waited, the room they were in was visited by: the Hogwarts Ghosts and they were having an argument over whether or not they should give a second chance to an entity called: Peeves. It was a three on one argument as one ghost who's a rotund friar was saying, "Forgive and forget, give him a second chance," while the grey lady was saying, "We've giving him enough chances and he'll never change, it is not wise to give him so many chances," as a more pompous one states, "She is correct my dear friend and Peeves will simply use his chances to cause more chaos, not really learning anything from his actions," before they notice via the observations of the final Pirate Ghost, that they had an audience and greeted the new students.
Later Professor McGonagall returned and said, "We are ready for your now," but before the students could move she held them back saying, "But there are a few words I wish to speak to all of you about your life in Hogwarts," as she went into her detailed speech of: Rules, reward system, etc. Once she finished, she then led the group down the center of a false sky roofed Hall, adorned with 5 tables (4 seating students and 1 seating the staff) and came to rest at the foot of the staff table, where the brothers met the twinkling eyes of their headmaster: Albus Dumbledore, who seem to be appraising them with a frown at their confident expressions.
P.o.v. change few minutes early:
As the first years walk down center of the Great Hall, the Headmaster watched on with a fleeting thought of, 'Ah, the next crop of impressionably youths, ripe for the molding and mine to command,' keeping a look out for his current weapon project: Harry Potter, hoping to find a shy and under-confident boy, only for his thoughts to come to a screeching halt, as he watched 2 twin like boys confidently walk towards the staff table and stop. Once the boys stopped infront of the staff table, Dumbledore then more time to observe them, with their confident expressions and out going ability to make what looked like friends for the girls standing close to them, caused him to frown and think, 'this can't happen, Harry is meant to die, he cannot have any attachments that will want them to live,' as thought of the Prophecy, before he was forced to pay attention to other again as his Deputy Headmistress spoke up.
Back to normal P.O.V.
The boys attention was ripped from the looking at the Headmaster to looking a Professor McGonagall as she calls out, "Now as I call your name, you will come up here and place the sorting hat on your head, and you'll sorted into your houses," gesturing to a hat, while Harry and his friends heard a low grumble of, "Oh I'll kill Fred and George, they said that we had to battle a troll," in the background, but they shrugged and thought, 'Really Ron we're new to this, Troll battling would be a bit advance for us, don't you think?' before a childhood friend of Susan's named: Hannah Abbot was called, and was sorted into: Hufflepuff the house of Loyalty.
After another couple of "A" names, it came time for the "B"s and Susan herself was called to the front, where she was placed into: Hufflepuff with her friend, then the sorting continued until they hit Hermiones name and she was sort into Ravenclaw the house of Wisdom. A longer time later, as Professor McGonagall got to the "P"s and called: John to the stool, where the hat took forever and I mean it took 3 hours before it yelled, "He goes into all houses," and then said, "He has equal attributes of all the Hogwarts founders and therefore is in all houses," John to this as a method in which would allow him to sitting at any House table and choose to sit next to Susan and Hannah, after John was Harry whom had the same result, but choose to sit with Hermione and a newly introduced: Padma Patil, as the remaining staff and especially: Severus Snape, to watch with unsavory expressions.
While shocked at the occurrence happening twice in a row, Minevra was able to compose herself to finish the Sorting, and finished with: Blaise Zabini sorted into Slytherin. Once the sorting ceremony was finished, Dumbledore while still a bit pale, thinking furiously on how to work this occurrence into his plans, made his way to the podium to deliver his start of term speech, which had the background noise of Ronald Weasley at Gryffindor table groaning about not been able to eat yet, which was ignored and then another noise flooded the room as Dumbledore then explained that a corridor was out of bounds to all of those who had not wished for a painful death, which was the sound of both: Harry and John smacking their heads into the Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw tables respectively.
Once Dumbledore had finished his announcements, he then said, "Let the feast begin," causing the table to groan under pressure of the food that appeared on the golden serving plates and the students dug into their favourite foods with gusto, though Ron however had foregone the use of manners and cutlery, and was simple using his hands to shovel everything in his reach into his mouth, much to the disgust of those around him. During tea, conversations began to spring around the hall, friends catching up with other friends, talking about their summer and the first years got to more formally introduce themselves.
As the tea conversations continued, Dumbledore was now watching over the students and using a subtle probe of legitimens, to read what his students were talking about, before he decided to probe Harry Potter, to see what he needs to do to control. When he looked at the boy, he started his probe and immediately found himself mentally shoved into a castle wall-like mentally barrier, which seemed to shimmer with pixels of color, before been dropped into a maze of stone brick walls and corridors (Think of Yugi and Atems mindscape).
Thinking, 'Potters defenses should not be this good!' as Dumbledore looked around at the complex maze of confusion in confusion, before thinking, 'I am the great Dumbledore and the next Merlin, these defenses are nothing to me,' as he then flared magic to shatter the defenses, but only managed to scratch the brickwork and this caused alarms to sound. At the sounds of the alarm, Dumbledore looked around and found himself now trapped in a cage, as a purple clad mage like figure (it the dark magician) descended from the above platform.
Knowing he was caught, Dumbledore pulled himself out of Harry's mind to find his Deputy looking at him with an unreadable expression, with her eyes dancing with fury, but neither said anything and upon looking at the time, he realized it was time for curfew. With curfew it was time to send the students to bed and went to the podium to give his send off speech, finishing with, "Now it time for bed, off you trot."