Chapter Four: Welcome, once again, to our Prestigious School! (Or 'Spotted Dick is not what you may think it is!')
Harry's head poked from the sea of magical folk: it felt weird to tower above the majority of people. Ah there he was – Ron Weasley, who had got another inch since the World Cup, waved to his friend. His family was nowhere to be seen, which was great – Potter did not wish to be asked unwanted questions. Only once Harry approached him, the redhead realized how much his black-haired friend changed. Nevertheless, he shook Harry's hand firmly and smiled.
"Potter, don't tell me it's the result of the growth spurt."
"But it is, Ronnie, honestly."
Harry's eyes started twinkling slightly.
"Mate, you really spend to much time with this old fossil. No offense: he is the rescuer of the Wizarding World, Cavalier of Merlin, Supreme Mugwump blablabla, but he seems crazy sometimes!" Ron said.
"Every genius is crazy.."
"Ouch, now I'm the shortest one!" a familiar voice exclaimed behind them, interrupting their friendly exchange.
Ron and Harry turned around to see Draco Malfoy himself in flesh before them – the scion of the Noble House of Malfoy, the Ponce, the Blond Git Supreme, the Moste Handsome Skinny Boy, etcetera.
Indeed, he was dwarfed, when he stood next to his two best friends, even with his 6 feet height. Draco jumped up, hanging on two tall boys' necks.
"Bring your Master to his Palace, oh my faithful stallions!" he shouted in an annoying high-pitched voice.
The trio burst in laugher, and the stallions jocosely complied, taking their blond master to the last compartment in the first carriage.
Harry sat on the bench to the left from the entrance while his two friend occupied the opposite one.
"So, how did you spend the rest of the Summer, guys?" he asked.
Draco lightly hit Ron's side with his right elbow, nodding towards the green-eyed wizard.
"See, he is trying to postpone the unwanted questioning about his sudden 'Growth Spurt'" he added air quotes in the end.
"But we are not as dim-witted as he thinks we are, are we?" Ron asked.
"My friend, we are not dim-witted at all – quite the opposite, we are some of the best specimen of the Pure Blood!" the blond lifted up his right index finger dramatically.
"Ok, stop this nonsense already, mates." Harry said.
"Now the scar-head is asking for mercy! Shall we forgive him the last and only time?" Draco questioned Ron.
"Maybe, but he needs to start talking right this instance."
They turned their gazes at Potter, who sighed in defeat.
"Alright, here is the story – I spent the whole Summer in Black Manor. Period."
"And?" Draco asked, gesturing for Harry to continue.
"And it's all not true, but I can't tell you what really happened." Harry truly was a little bit sad that he couldn't tell his friends about the time he spent in Godric's Hollow.
"Dumbledore again?" Malfoy asked understandingly.
"Yes. He asked me to not tell anyone what I've been doing during the August, even if given an unbreakable vow." Harry replied.
Ron whistled admiringly.
"The last month must have been the hell in all its hellish glory for you, mate." he said.
"It was."
The train began moving, releasing a lot of steam.
"Now let me know how you spent your last Summer days – I'm sure you had much more delightful time." Harry changed the subject, at least partly.
"Mine were utterly uneventful – sleep, eat, study, kick the twins' skinny freckled asses. If I didn't have Luna in my life, I would die out of boredom there.." Ron stated.
"At least there was somebody to kick in the ass, snog and squeeze for you, Ronniekinns – I spent all August in the manor of our French relatives – they are so madly annoying! Draco, what do you think about your cousin Jacqueline? She will be the perfect wife for you!" Draco complained, mimicking his aunt believably.
"Khem. I return my words back then, guys. Surely I have had much better Summer... Oh, Ron, where is Luna, by the way?" Harry said.
"The last time I saw her, she was with Ginny and some other third year girls. Why?"
"It's boring here without her, that's why."
Harry and Ron were having a party of magical chess with Draco as a commentator, when Daphne Greengrass entered the compartment.
Draco and Ron started smiling stupidly, but were stopped immediately by the violent gaze of her azure eyes. She may have a fancy for our hero, being very patient and gentle with him, but certainly she would never take any nonsense from his two best friends, or anyone else.
Her gaze softened greatly once she turned it to Harry.
"Merlin, she is Goddess." Potter thought, admiring her incredible cold beauty.
He was absolutely right – indeed, though just fourteen at the moment, she was too perfect to be just a mere mortal. Her luscious plump lips, smooth long legs, graceful curves and hair as dark as the starless night sky, and eyes, eyes!
At this moment, Harry understood finally that he was one lucky son of a bitch to ignite interest in so voluptuous women. Right, Daphne was a woman – his tongue couldn't turn to call her a girl any more.
She smiled broadly at him, revealing her even white teeth. Daphne was positively surprised to see the object of her dreams turning into a fine man.
But let us stop describing Harry's change in height or it will turn into a running joke.
"You look most excellent, Harry."
"Thank you, Daphne. I must say, your extraordinary beauty will shadow the whole female halve of Hogwarts."
"Even me, honey dear?" an elegant feminine voice asked.
Ginny Weasley stood there, reclining on the doorway with her right shoulder, legs crossed, sweet smile on her face.
Draco and Ron moved their eyes from one member of the Hogwarts Great Love Triangle to another. It seemed as if there was a can of popcorn, they would start to munch it (popcorn, not can), enjoying the show that was unwrapping in front of them. The redhead obviously didn't care that one of the actors was his younger sister – oi, it made all just much more exciting!
The brunette sharply spun around. Stares clashed, fists clenched, hexes flashing on the wand tips, ready to harm.
"Weasley, you have five seconds to leave this compartment." Daphne said. She was calm outwardly, but only because the fiery storm of emotions inside of her was squeezed in the iron gloves of her will.
"Really? And what if I don't?" Ginny teased, inclining her head a little to the side. She played with her Dragon Heartstring Ebony wand, loosely twirling it in her right hand – a habit she inherited from Tom.
"I will help you to leave with great pleasure." Daphne threatened.
Ginny's crimson eyes darkened. In her rage she resembled a Valkyrie from ancient myths – equally glorious and dangerous.
"I certainly would love to see you try, Greengrass." She replied frostily.
The vying girls didn't notice that Harry and his two friends had a wordless conversation, using slight gestures, nods and looks. The trio finally nodded to each other and executed their hastily-made plan – Harry, being more powerful magically, cast wordless 'Stupefy' at Ginny, while Draco and Ron aimed at Daphne's back.
The girls didn't know what hit them – they sprawled on the floor, unconscious.
"I'll take Gin to her compartment." Ron said and picked up his little sister with his large strong hands. He slowly started to walk to wherever Ginny's compartment was.
Draco looked straight at Harry's emerald eyes.
"I won't touch her – still want my hands nicely intact to feel around some girl, you know." the blond wizard told seriously.
Harry carefully picked up the insensible girl and carried her away.
Fortunately, the rest of the Hogwarts Trip was spent without any casus.
The weather was a complete mess – cold, wet and windy. The friends reached the horseless carriages as fast as they physically could, occupying the closest one.
Harry was delighted that it wasn't his first year – rain and thunder wasn't the best kind of weather for the trip on boats.
The Hogwarts, in all its massive illuminating glory, was coming closer and closer to them – years were passing, but the view was as stunning as the first time he saw it.
The students entered the Entrance Hall – Peeves, the Hogwarts Poltergeist, already waiting for them here.
"Fancy a nice cool shower? Wheeeeeeee!"
He started throwing water-filled balloons at them, cackling madly.
Harry, Ron and Draco simply disillusioned themselves and silently proceeded to the Feast.
"Hahahahaha! I have enough to freshen everyone, little squirts!"
A large red balloon fell on the heads of some unlucky third years, covering them in ice cold water.
Some girls screamed in horror and quickly plunged into the Great Hall.
The poltergeist eventually made a critical mistake – he made Ginny's luxurious dark red hair wet.
The girl burnt him with the stare of her intensely red eyes, freezing him in place.
"You? No-no-no-no-no! Don't punish me!" he shouted in horror in his high-pitched voice and flew away, escaping from her wrath.
Students already freaked out because of Ginny's crimson eyes, but seeing the usually intrepid poltergeist run away, squeezing his tail between his legs, raised the fear of her to the skies and above. Everyone started circumventing her on ten feet at least, but she didn't mind. The beautiful and tall redhead swiftly dried her hair with a wordless 'No Sudus' – the advanced water-evaporating charm that required a great deal of self-control, to not evaporate anything else – human body is mostly water too, and walked to the Great Hall.
The Great Hall welcomed the entire student body with its warm gentle embrace that made everyone feel absolutely safe. The trio occupied their usual place at the Slytherin table – the corner that was closer to the entrance, where, excluding them, only first years sat traditionally.
Now, coming to Hogwarts for the fourth time and consequently becoming more older, Harry was a little bit less excited to be here on the Sorting and the Welcome Feast that followed it – slowly but surely, all this was becoming a routine.
He looked discreetly at Ginny, then Daphne, checking how they were – the girls drilled each other heads with piercing stares, which promised an ocean, a sea and a lake with a sandy beach of pain, but otherwise were perfectly intact.
The fifth table, for staff, had two empty seats – one, between Albus' chair and where Snape was sitting, was obviously McGonagall's, the other was meant for the new Defence Professor. His mentor was deep in thoughts as always before the Sorting: the old man's chin was resting on his connected fingertips, his eyes unfocused, his mind on some different, far away plane.
A loud thunderclap boomed through the Hall, reminding everyone that the life wasn't a candy and the weather was still crappy.
Professor McGonagall brought a herd of first years inside. She approached the three-legged stool with the Hat atop of it and turned around, pulling out a list of their names on the parchment. Before the aged witch started to call out their names, beginning the Sorting, the Hat began singing the song it prepared for this year's Welcome Feast.
"It takes an auto-truck of weed to write the story, folk.
So please consider to review my silly story, TALK.
For you I made a silly rhyme again,
This time about the writers that do not have shame.
Some writers try to put a silly muggle song instead of rhyme (No way!),
Some put some kind of shitty Prophecy to kill our time (Impossible!),
Some shamelessly prefer to copy-paste the Hogwarts Sorting Song (How preposterous!),
Some even make the Sorting Hat start talking Parseltongue (Oh Merlin!).
The others, just like me, or me like them,
Prefer to Warp and Twist the Sorting Song
Again, again, again...
Now you may think that story's turning into shit,
Because the Time Warp and my problem of the insufficient weed.
But, Ho! Do not be sad! There is a complete bomb
That'll crack your clever heads just like a kick from steed,
With Snape atop of it, or, maybe, some another git.
Until next time, my faithful friends,
Do not be bought by silly frigging trends.
The students replied with a huge wave of ovations which thundered throughout the Great Hall for a little bit more than a minute.
Then the Sorting started.
"Ackerley, Stewart!" "Ravenclaw!"
The house of blue and bronze applauded the still trembling boy.
"Baddock, Malcolm!" "Slytherin!"
The slytherin part of student body burst in cheering in unison, showing the rest of the school how to welcome a newbie for real.
The process continued for about half an hour and all the four Houses got nearly equal number of firsties.
Finally, the Sorting ended and the headmaster stood up from his large chair, opening his arms widely and thus showing them that he welcomed his every single student no matter who he or she was.
"I have only two words for you before the Feast – 'Tuck in'"
As soon as he finished his nine-word 'speech', the various kinds of food appeared on the plates. Everything edible was instantly attacked by the hungry horde of students.
"Oi, Spotted Dick, look!" Ron exclaimed excitedly, pointing his index finger at the treat.
While Harry knew what his friend meant, Draco, being the scion of Noble house, did not.
"You are such a pervert, Ronald - it certainly doesn't look like man bits, moron." The blond said, his comment triggering a burst of uncontrollable laugher from the entire Slytherin table, even Daphne couldn't stop a smile cracking her beautiful face.
Ron stared at his friend incredulously.
"Mate, you don't know what Spotted Dick is?"
Harry, who successfully fought off the urge to laugh before the last question, started to howl madly, tears leaking from his eyes.
After the hunger of student body was sated, the food disappeared.
Dumbledore got on his feet again.
"Khm-khm. Is everyone well-fed and lazily sleepy now?" there were a positive jangle of agreement from the younger generation. "Excellent! As always, there are a few notices that I have to give out, so I must ask for your precious attention."
"Our esteemed caretaker, Mr Filch has notified me that the list of items, prohibited on the Hogwarts grounds, has been extended to include Screaming Yo-yos, Fanged Frisbees and Ever-Bashing Boomerangs. You may find the full list of four hundred and thirty-seven items in Mr Filch's office, Room 234, Ground Floor."
"Forbidden Forest is as forbidden as always, and the village of Hogsmeade is out of bounds to all the students below third year."
"The next piece of news might be unpleasant for you – the inter-house Quidditch Cup is canceled for current year." A chain of surprised gasps followed this statement.
"But don't you be so sad – the reason for such thing is the great and important event that our school will proudly host this year. Dear students, it's a great pleasure for me to inform you that the..."
There was a loud bang of thunderclap again, and the double doors of the Hall opened roughly, making every head turn towards the hero of occasion.
"No way!" Draco whispered, looking at the person who stood at the entrance and was evidently a man, leaning on a long staff, dressed in a long black cloak, which was wet because of the storm that still was raging outside.
The man started making his way towards the staff table, lowering his hood and shaking his mane of dark grey hair. Every time he made a step forward with his right leg a dull clunk echoed throughout the Great Hall. He shook Dumbledore's hand and quietly said something to him.
Another flash of lightning revealed the face of stranger.
"Bloody Hell!" Harry whispered, stunned by what he glimpsed.
His expression was a perfect two-words explanation of the condition in which the grizzled wizard was - the man seemed as if he was scrolled in a meat grinder: half of his nose was missing, his mouth looked like a diagonal gash, every inch of his skin was scarred, and he had artificial right leg, to boot.
But the most disturbing feature of this man was his eyes – one small, dark and sheen, the other large, round, unblinking and bright blue. The latter was moving on its own constantly, seemingly not dependent on his counterpart.
After a quick exchange of words between two old wizards, they sat down. The strange man occupied the place on Dumbledore's right side and started to eat, poking the food with a small knife, which he pulled out of the pocket.
"May I introduce our new professor of Defence Against the Dark Arts – Alastor Moody!" At first only Albus and Hagrid were clapping, but Harry swiftly followed his mentor's example, his friends and four certain girls (one blonde, one red, two brunette – black and brown) supported him and, a little bit later, the rest of the great hall politely applauded.
Dumbledore slightly nodded and smiled at Harry, proud for his pupil's dignity.
He continued his speech.
"As I was saying, our great school will be hosting a great event this year -" here he stopped for a moment for the sake of drama "- the Tri-Wizard Tournament!"
There was an almost tangible silence, which was abruptly ripped to shreds by the loud cheering of students.
Albus explained the origins and rules of the Tournament then – everyone, well almost everyone, was drinking in every word of the old wizard.
"The Heads of Beauxbatons and Durmstrang will be arriving with their candidates in October, and the selection of the three champions will take place at Hallowe'en. The Goblet of Fire, the impartial judge, will decide who are the most worthy to compete for the Cup, the Immortal Glory, and a thousand galleons!"
There was a noise of activity from the Gryffindor table – Weasley twins were already planning how they could bypass the 'Only Seventeen and Up' age restriction.
"Once again, I must ask you all to extend every courtesy to our foreign guests while they are with us, and give all the help you can to our Hogwarts Champion. 'Tempus' Oh, it's almost one AM now! Go to bed, all of you!"
The students started getting on their feet and leaving the Hall.
That night Harry slept like a baby, getting a feeling once again that it was one of the last calm nights in his life.
"CONSTANT VIGILANCE!" their new Defence professor roared suddenly.
It was Friday afternoon Slytherin-Gryffindor double Defence Against the Dark Arts Class, and by the first fifteen minutes of it, Harry had made one conclusion already – their new teacher was as utterly paranoid as he was completely ugly.
"Granger!" Alastor called the cold girl with long brown hair bound in ponytail.
The girl calmly stood up.
"Trying to hide some filthy dark secrets, aren't you?" he shouted, apparently the concept of tact was foreign to him.
"This question has nothing to do with the subject, professor." she replied, her eyes burning madly.
"This is one of the darkest things in all the Wizarding World so don't you try to turn the arrows at me with some subject nonsense, girl!" he boomed, his vibrant right eye moving spinning in its socket so fast that it literally blurred.
Hermione was dangerously close to just making a roasted steak out of the grizzled man, but Harry stopped them both, standing up and casting a loud clapping noise.
CLAP!
"Professor, while I agree with you about this being the dark magic and one of the most dangerous of its many kinds, I am sure that our headmaster will gladly explain the reason Ms Granger remains a student of our finest institution if you ask him directly." he said looking directly into professor's eyes.
"Bah! Potter, you are truly the Dumbledore's apprentice! You seem to know well how to speak in this all-fancy way." Alastor replied. "Let us all see if you willpower as great as your speaking skills are, boy. Do you accept the challenge of fighting off my Imperius?"
"On the condition that you will vow that you won't tell anybody about Hermione's.. condition, if I win." he suggested.
"Alright, but if you loose, I will make you dance a waltz with a female mountain troll and make the information about your bushy haired know-it-all friend public!"
"Deal"
'Imperio!' the ex-auror cast.
The feeling of loosing all the responsibility, care, love, conscience wrapped around his mind.
"C'mon, jump on your left foot, Harry! It's so easy.. Just do as I ask – there is no reason to resist.." a sweet voice reverberated in his head.
"I.. will.. NOT!" Potter roared the last word aloud, shrugging off the Unforgivable.
Ron and Draco wore bored expressions on their faces – they would never believe that their friend who survived Killing Curse could not resist the 'mere' Imperio. Daphne started to fancy the green-eyed wizard even more than before. Hermione hid her surprise quickly: probably she found some logical explanation already. Moody was grinning madly - a fearsome sight: those who were unprepared could faint out of horror upon seeing his twisted lip-less smile. The rest of class was thunderstruck.
"Outstanding, Potter! Never before have I met such young wizard dismiss 'Imperio' like it is an annoying insect! Fifty points to Slytherin! And, as I promised – I solemnly swear to not tell anything about Hermione Granger special condition or the reason for it!"
The bright flash of magic sealed the vow.
"You have seen the Imperius Curse a few moments ago. Let me show you the remaining two. Any volunteers?HAHAHA! Just some very old Pureblood joke."
AN: Dear readers, thank you all for your reviews – I am most delighted!
Hm.. sounds gay no?
Dumbledore's feast speech: I know it is partly (mostly) copied from the canon, but the fanged frisbees and ever-bashing boomerangs sound so funny!
About Daphne: I know, she is awkward, but I try to portray her this way – there is no way that such a solitary and asocial person may be a master of arranging her own personal life. She just doesn't have enough empirical experience.
Fleur: the quarter veela will enter into the life of Harry Potter – she is the last one though. No Narcissa or Bellatrix, sorry! Each one is old enough to be his mother or even great-aunt, for God's sake!
Ginnymort: I am planning to make the confrontations between Daphne and Ginny and Fleur quite frequent – any suggestions (reasons, places, level of violence) would be great.
I plan to write the next sorting song in some exotic way, probably it will be a collection of 3-4 tankas. They are lyrical, not rhymed, but have a great potential for my antics.
Oh, here's the most simple example of tanka.
There is no weed,
So I am so sad again.
Give me a gun,
And leave me alone:
I will pull the trigger now.
AN(02.10.2011): fixed some little mistakes. Stupid built-in editor of FFN turns half of my hard work into shit. REVIEW!=)