Chapter 6: Home
"A home is not a mere transient shelter: its essences lies in its permanence, in its capacity for accretion and solidification, in its quality of representing, in all its details, the personalities of the people who live in it."
-H.L Mencken
The door opened immediately and a witch in emerald-green robes with black hair pulled back into a severe-looking bun stood in the light. She had a face as severe-looking as the bun, and Harry's first impression was that she was not someone to cross.
"The Firs' years, Professor McGonagall," Hagrid said.
She pulled the doors wide and gestured them in. The entrance hall was so big that the Dursley's entire house would have been lost in it. Torches, like those in Gringotts, burned along the walls and the ceiling was lost in shadows somewhere far above. A magnificent staircase of polished marble led to upper floors.
McGongall led them across the flag-stones. Harry heard the hashed murmured of hundreds of voices from a set of doors to the right. Apparently the rest of the school was already in attendance, but she led them past the doors to a smallish chamber.
"Welcome to Hogwarts," McGonagall said as they crowded somewhat more closely together than they might have otherwise. "The start-of-term banquet will commence shortly; but before you take your seats in the Great Hall you must be Sorted into your houses…"
She continued to deliver what sounded to Harry like an extremely well-rehearsed speech. Considering how antiquated Diagon Alley and the train were, Harry would not have been surprised to discover it had been the same speech that greeted the very first class of students.
"The four houses are Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and Slytherin. Each is named for one of the four Founders of Hogwarts, has its own Noble history, and has produced outstanding wizards and witches…"
Harry glanced over to find Padma standing next to him. "Do you think—"
"Shh," Hermione hissed, staring at McGonagall with a rapt expression. "It's the traditional Welcome to Hogwarts speech! This is the very same speech penned by Rowena Ravenclaw to greet the very first class of students. I read about it in Hogwarts, a History."
"The Sorting will commence if a few moments. I suggest that you do your best to smarten yourselves up as much as you can while you are waiting." Her gaze lingered on Neville's cloak which was fastened near one ear, and Ron's dirt-smudged nose. "I will return when we are ready for you. Please wait quietly."
She left the chamber.
"How exactly do they sort us into houses?" he whispered to Ron who had been standing behind him and trying to keep Harry between himself and Hermione who was now correcting Neville's cloak, but would undoubtedly have turned on his dirt-smudged nose had she seen the other boy first.
"Some sort of test, I think. Fred said it hurts a lot, but he might have been joking…I hope."
A test? In front of the whole school? But he didn't know any magic yet—what one earth would he have to do? He hadn't expected something like this the moment they arrived. Harry looked around anxiously and saw that everyone else looked terrified, too. No one was talking much except Hermione Granger, who now whispering very fast about all the spells she'd learned and wondering which one she'd need to an increasingly panic-struck Neville Longbottom.
"It'll be all right, Harry," Allie said as she brushed past him.
"Allie, what—"
"Relax," she smirked at him.
"Relax?" he repeated, not caring at all for how his voice squeaked.
"It can't be anything too bad," she said reasonably. "People have been coming here for almost a thousand years. If it really were painful, don't you think they'd have put an end to it by now?" She glanced at Hermione, "And unlike Granger most of the people coming her don't really know any practical magic yet, so that's off the table." She raised her voice, "and since people clearly survive to graduate I doubt any of us will be wrestling a troll."
Padma snickered as Ron's ears turned red. "Twins?" she asked.
Ron nodded.
"Twins?" Harry asked. "You mean Parvati?"
Padma shook her head. "Ron's twin brothers, Fred and George, are prankers. Troll-wrestling is just the kind of thing they'd come up with."
"Oh, so you knew Ron already?" Harry asked. It hadn't seemed like it on the train.
Padma shrugged. "Most of us in pureblood families know each other already, Harry, even if only in passing."
Professor McGonagall returned, and the ghosts that had shown up to argue about whether or not to give some being named 'Peeves' a second chance slowly trickled out of the room through the walls, floors, and in one case, a student.
"Form a line," Professor McGonagall told them, "And follow me."
Feeling oddly as though his legs had turned to lead, Harry got into line behind a boy with sandy hair, with Ron behind him; until Padma and Ron squeezed into the line ahead of and behind him. They were lead out of the chamber, across the entrance hall, and through a set of large double doors into the Great Hall.
Harry had never dreamed of such a place. The long hall was lit by thousands upon thousands of candles, all hovering in mid-air over four long tables where the rest of the students sat. A fifth table on a small dais over-looking the student tables was reserved for the staff. Each table had a snow-white table-cloth trimmed in two colors that Harry guessed must be used to tell the houses apart. Gold platters and crystal goblets gleamed and glittered on the tables and stone walls—polished to glass-like smoothness—gleamed a gentle honey-like color in the candle-light.
The faces of the students, Harry saw as McGonagall led them up to the dais, glowed like lamps in the candle-light, and to avoid looking at them he stared up at the ceiling. It was like someone had draped it in purple velvet so dark it was almost black, and then charmed little lights in it to glow like stars; and for a moment, that's exactly what he thought had happened. Then he heard Hermione whisper: "It's charmed to look like the sky outside. I read about it in Hogwarts, a History."
McGonagall placed a stool in front of the staff table, and set a wide-brimmed, exceedingly battered-looking hat on it. It was old and frayed with many patches that had been patched-over in turn, and really quite dirty. If his Aunt Petunia saw it in her house, Harry thought, she'd probably have a heart attack.
Then its brim ripped open and it began to sing. Harry tried to keep up with the song—something about caps and hats and the four houses—but he was too busy trying to take it in. Seeing Diagon alley had been an odd experience, but he hadn't really seen any magic as he thought it would be like. The Patil's dishes and the invisible barrier to Platform 9&¾ had been like something out of the rare glimpses he got of movies that the Dursleys watched on the telly. Allie's apartment had been magical, but he'd been too busy waking up and not a little scared for what he'd seen to really sink in. But a singing hat? A hat that was somehow going to tell him what house he was in? That had to be magic. And not an awe-inspiring, scary piece of magic, or something out of a movie, but more…real somehow.
McGonagall strode forward with a long roll of parchment, "When I call your name you will place your hat on your heard and sit on the stool to be sorted." She looked down at the parchment, "Abbot, Hannah!"
A pink-faced girl with blond pig-tails stumbled out of the line. The hat fell past her eyes and for a moment nothing happened. Then the brim of the hat opened and it shouted: "HUFFLEPUFF!"
The table with black and yellow borders on their tablecloth erupted in cheers, and Hannah replaced the hat on the stool before jumping down to join them where she was soon joined by: "Bones, Susan".
Terry Boot was sent to Ravenclaw—blue and bronze borders—where he was joined a moment later by Mandy Brocklehurst; and then 'Brown, Lavender' became the first new Gryffindor and was cheered to her new House by a table with red and gold trim.
Harry noticed that it took longer with some people than with others; Seamus Finnigan spent almost a minute under the hat before being sent to Gryffindor, and Hermione spent even longer on the small stool before joining him. Ron was clearly dismayed by this, but he kept his displeasure down to a groan. Draco Malfoy was the fasted Sorted, being sent to Slytherin before the Hat even touched his head.
Harry watched as "Moon, Nott, and Parkinson" went up, two boys and a girl. Moon became Huflepuff, but the other two joined Slytherin and then it was Padma's turn and she was made a Ravenclaw. That almost settled the issue of which house he wanted to be in for Harry. He wanted to be with his new-found friends and it was clear that Allie wasn't going to be sorted until the end; but then Parvati, after a moment, was placed in Gryffindor and Perks, Sally-Ann took her turn under the hat, and then it was…
"Potter, Harry!"
Harry stepped forward before he realized he was moving and the hall hushed into furious whispers as he took his place on the stool and lowered the hat over his eyes
"Hmm," a voice said in his ear. "Difficult, very difficult. Not a bad mind, I see, and you've got a good deal of courage. Loyalty too, at least to some people, and a thirst to prove yourself."
"Um…who are you?" Harry asked.
"I'm the Sorting Hat, didn't you listen my song? No, I can see that you were too busy looking around. That's all right, magic takes some getting used to if you aren't familiar with it. It's my job to place you in your House."
"Oh," Harry said.
"Now, where to put you, hmmm. I daresay that you'd be good for Ravenclaw. It'd do a world of good for those intellectuals who live in the Tower of Ivory and Silver to have to deal with someone more apt to the practical workings of magic. But as good as you would be for them I doubt the same could be said of them for you.
"You'd do well enough in Gryffindor, oh yes. Plenty of courage. There's Talent oh my goodness, yes—and a thirst to prove yourself, interesting, perhaps Sly—"
"Not Slytherin," Harry whispered, thinking of Malfoy. Ravenclaw or Gryffindor sounded good.
"No?" the Hat asked. "Why ever not? You could be great, you know, and Slytherin will certainly help you on that path—"
"I don't want to be great," Harry said. "I don't want to be famous. I just want to have friends and be allowed to be me."
The Hat fell silent. "I see," it said at last. "In that case neither Slytherin nor Gryffindor will suit you well."
"What?" Harry blurted out loud.
"One will be expecting you to work towards greatness," the Hat told him. "The other…the other will push you towards it. No, if that is how you feel about it then there is only one place for you. HUFFLEPUFF!"
It took Harry a moment to realize that this last had actually been said aloud, and he hopped off the stool and placed the Hat on it before walking down toward the Hufflepuff table as the entire hall watched in dead silence. Just before he reached the table it suddenly exploded into applause and a girl he recognized as being sorted earlier waved him over. A boy about Allie's age stood and shook his arm vigorously as he approached and Harry found a seat next between him and the Fat Friar who patted his arm and left it feeling like he'd dunked it in ice water.
Meanwhile: Thomas, Dean—a black boy even taller than Ron—had gone to the Gryffindor table while Turpin, Lisa had joined Padma at the Ravenclaw table. And then it was Ron's turn. His freckles shown against pale skin that had taken on a faintly green cast, and a second latter he stumbled away to join his brothers at the Gryffindor table. Finally Blaise Zabini was made a Slytherin, and only Allie was left.
McGonagall looked at her list and then up at Allie and pursed her lips.
Dumbledore stood, "Hogwarts prides itself in offering the best magical education there is," he said solemnly. "Rarely do we send students off to transfer to other schools, even more rarely do we accept them. This year we have a new student who is some years older than the other first years; a student who has had the rare opportunity to undergo an intensive period of study in a particularly obscure, but no less fascinating, branch of magic. She now joins us to further her own magical education and share some of her knowledge with us. Our last Sortie is Miss Elissa Blackthorn."
Allie took a seat on the stool and placed the Sorting Hat on her head.
Harry wondered what the Hat was saying to her, but no sooner had he thought the question than Allie spoke.
"If you want to know something, Sorting Hat, the polite thing to do is ask."
"That may be," the Sorting Hat said aloud from its perch atop her head. "But Sorting is dependent on what's inside of you, what makes up your character. I have to discover what you are made of—"
"Sugar, and spice, and everything nice," Allie replied dryly. "It says so on the label."
The entire school tittered.
"Ms. Blackthorn," Dumbledore said from where he'd reclaimed his throne-like chair. "Will you kindly let the Sorting Hat sort you?"
"You want me to take down my magical defenses, lower my shields, and lay my mind bare so that some thousand-year-old magical construct—that smells like it hasn't been washed in almost as long—can go traipsing through my mind without even a 'please'?" Allie asked.
The hall tittered again.
Dumbledore rubbed his forehead, "Please."
Harry watched Allie sigh and pull out a locket from her robes. She fiddled with it for a moment, then let it hang against her chest. "One word, Hat," she said loudly, "and I'll drop you in a tub full of bleach."
The Sorting Hat said, "Understood," then seemed to scrunch up. It scrunched up more. Several stitches popped, a patch fell off, a seam partially separated, and it shuddered before gasping out: "Slytherin!"
Allie fiddled with the locket again and tucked it back inside her robes, then stood and returned the hat to the stool. "Bleach," she repeated warningly, then bounced down to the Slytherin table.
The hall was silent.
"She can't do that," the girl hissed from the other side of the table.
"Looks like she did it anyway," Harry observed. "Harry Potter."
"Susan Bones," the girl supplied.
Padma, who was sitting almost directly behind Harry at the Ravenclaw table, twisted in her seat to look at them. "You never met Allie, Sue? She's like that, " she said. "Take it from me, if she says she'll do something the only reason she won't follow through is because she literally unable to."
"Don't call me 'Sue'," Susan said.
"Then remember that I—"
"—don't like being called 'Pad'," both girls finished together and chuckled at what was evidently a long-standing joke.
Albus Dumbledore stood again. "All of you older students will recognize that Professor Quirrell has reclaimed his post as Professor of Defense Against the Dark Arts. Now, I had some words to say to you, and here they are: Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak!
"Thank you."
He sat back down as everyone clapped and cheered.
Harry glanced at the boy sitting next to him, "Is he mad?" he asked.
"Mad? He's a genius!" the boy said. "Cedric Diggory," he introduced himself. "Dumbledore is the greatest wizard there is," he continued. "But the greatest of minds are only very rarely normal—or stable, for that matter—ones, so he is a bit mad, yes. Potatoes, Harry?"
Harry's mouth fell open. The dishes in front of him were now piled with food. He had never seen so many things he liked to eat on one table: roast beef and roast chicken, lamb chops and pork chops, sausages, bacon and steak, potatoes (broiled, friend, and mashed), fries, Yorkshire pudding, peas, carrots, gravy (at least three kinds), ketchup, and, for some strange reason, peppermint humbugs.
"That does look good," the ghost on his other side said sadly, watching as Harry piled his plate with some of everything except the peppermints.
"Can't you—?"
"I haven't eaten in centuries," said the ghost. "I don't need to, of course, but one does miss it," he sighed, rubbing his thick middle. "I don't think I've introduced myself? I am Friar Huberd, though most know me as 'the Fat Friar'." He looked down through his rather over-sized girth, "an accurate, though not terribly flattering sobriquet, I fear."
"Friar Huberd is the Resident Ghost of Hufflepuff Sett," Cedric explained.
"Pleased to meet you," Harry told the ghost.
"So—new Hufflepuffs!" the ghost went on, "I expect you will all do your best and help us win the house championship this year? We haven't quite set the record for longest stretch without winning it—we merely tied that at the end of last year—but I still remember the run of ill-luck in the sixteenth century. Now the Slytherins, they have won the Cup six years in a row! The Bloody Baron's becoming almost unbearable—he's the Slytherin ghost."
Harry looked over at the Slytherin table and saw a horrible ghost sitting there, with blank staring eyes, a gaunt face, and robes stained with silver blood. He was sitting right next to Malfoy, who, Harry was pleased to see, didn't look too happy with the arrangement. Allie sat on the other side of the ghost and did not seemed at all bothered with her companion, and appeared to actually be conversing with it more than her fellow students.
"How did he get covered in blood?" Seamus asked.
"I've never asked," the Friar replied. "It isn't something that can be politely done. Asking how one dies. It's a very personal experience. Now, everybody knows about Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington, the Resident Ghost of Gryffindor Tower. He moans about it quite frequently. He had an unfortunate encounter with an inept executioner with a dull axe—actually, it was a back-country woodsman and the axe was better suited for taking limbs off trees than heads off necks, but you didn't hear that from me—almost five hundred years ago."
Harry nodded and glanced across to the Gryffindor table. Parvati was eating in the manner he had grown accustomed to; just as voracious, though more neatly, than Ron appeared to be. Between them was a ghost with a very large ruff. Ron asked the ghost something and it grabbed its head and lifted. The head fell to one side, held on by a scrap of incorporeal skin, and giving a very good glimpse of the internal workings of the human neck, though oddly rendered in black-and-white after the pearly grey of the ghost's exterior.
As everyone finished, the remains of the food faded from the plates leaving them sparkling clean as before. A moment later the deserts appeared. Blocks of ice cream in every flavor you could think of—and quite a few that you couldn't—apple pies, treacle tarts, chocolate éclairs and jam doughnuts, trifle, strawberries, Jell-O, rice pudding…
As Harry helped himself to a treacle tart, the talk turned to their families.
"I'm half-and-half," Susan said. "The Bones have been around for a long time, but unlike some other families we've never cared if someone was magic-born, half-born, or muggle-born." She grinned, "The family has an album of photos of reactions of those muggles marrying in, you can't legally tell them about magic until they're married into it," she explained for the muggleborns at the table, "So it comes as a bit of a shock."
The others laughed.
"It was for me," a boy a little taller than Harry said. "Justin Finch-Fletchy," he added. "A bit of a shock doesn't do it justice. Didn't believe the first letter, we thought it was someone having a go at us. We're pretty well off and you wouldn't believe some of the stuff people send us. The next morning an owl delivers my letter right into my eggs. Mum starts screaming and Cook is trying to chase it out while Dad calls pest control…it was a right mess. Utter chaos. And then we read the thing…
"It took me ages to convince my parents to let me come. I was down for Eton, see?"
There was more laughter as Harry and Hannah Abbott, who had been the first person sorted, tried to explain to Ernie Macmillan and Samantha Roper how significant Eton was. In the end it was Justin who came back to their conversation and straightened Ernie out. "It's the equivalent of Hogwarts in the muggle world, Mate," he explained. "Absolutely the best there is. There are other schools, of course, there have to be considering the number of people in the muggle world, but Eton is right at the top."
Tuning out Wayne Hopkins' and Cedric's conversation on classes he turned to look at the High Table again. Hagrid was drinking deeply from his goblet. Professor McGonagall was talking to Professor Dumbledore. Professor Quirrell, in his absurd turban, was talking to a teacher with greasy black hair, a hooked nose, and sallow skin who he took a moment to recognize as the other teacher he'd met in Diagon Alley.
It happened very suddenly. Professor Snape looked past Quirrell's turban straight into Harry's eyes—and a sharp, hot pain shot across the scar on Harry's forehead.
"Ouch!" Harry clapped a hand to his head.
"What is it?" Cedric.
"N-nothing."
Cedric frowned slightly, but didn't say anything.
The pain had faded as quickly as it had come. Harder to shake was the feeling Harry had gotten from the teacher's look—a feeling that he didn't much care for Harry.
"I met Professor Quirrell in Diagon Alley," he told Cedric. "He seemed…really nervous. What are the other teachers like?"
"Nervous? Quirrell?" Cedric asked. "He was covering for Professor Burbage last year and wasn't here the year before last, took some sort of sabbatical…" he craned his head towards the high table. "I don't recall him being nervous." After a moment he shrugged and turned back to Harry.
"The short fellow is Professor Flitwick, he teaches charms and is Head of Ravenclaw. Used to be some sort of dueling champion in his youth, if I recall correctly. He's fun, energetic, and quick-witted. The witch next to Professor Dumbledore is Professor McGonagall."
"Deputy Headmistress," Harry said.
"Right, she's responsible for sending out everyone's letters," Cedric said. "She teaches transfiguration and is Head of Gryffindor. She's fair, but strict. Of course, her subject can be a bit dangerous. Not at the level you'll be learning at right now but advanced transfigurations can have very unpleasant side-effects if you do them wrong.
"Since you already know Quirrell, the man next to him is Professor Snape, he's head of Slytherin and teaches Potions but he doesn't want to—everyone knows he's after Quirrell's job. Knows an awful lot about the Dark Arts…" Cedric said. "He's smart, but his teaching style…leaves something to be desired."
"Oh," Harry said. The man sitting at the high table looked like the man he suddenly remembered meeting in Diagon Alley, but that Professor Snape had seemed helpful, not particularly sociable, perhaps, but very…intense, Harry decided. This one seemed very upset and unable to do more than scowl, maybe because he hadn't gotten the Defense Against the Dark Arts job? And why did Professor Snape make his scar hurt now when he hadn't when they'd met in Diagon Alley?
"…and Arithmancy respectively, both are third-year electives. The short, stout witch in grey is Professor Sprout who teaches Herbology and is our Head of House. Next to her, continuing towards the center, are Professors Sinistra and Hooch. Sinistra teaches Astronoy, while Professor Hooch is our flying instructor and referees the inter-house Quidditch games."
"Flying instructor?" Harry asked. Wizards and Witches drove airplanes? He suppose magic was as good reason as any for how the large metal constructs managed to stay in the air, though how they managed to keep the mundanes from knowing he had no idea.
"Brooms, of course," Cedric said. "A lot of magic-born wizards and witches come here thinking they already know how to fly but there are usually two or three who've been doing it wrong the whole time." He nodded back at the table, "the wizard with the peg leg, hook for a left hand, and the eyepatch is Professor Kettleburn and he teaches Care of Magical Creatures, another elective. It looks like Professors Burbage and Trelawny didn't make it down, they teach the other two electives, Muggle Studies and Divination. As I said, Burbage was gone last year, Quirrell taught her post, though honestly MS is something of a joke though what the joke is depends on whether you are muggle-born or magic-born. I can't say that Trelawny's absence is unusual, she almost never shows herself out of the North Tower. Binns, who teaches History of Magic is a ghost so I'm not surprised he isn't here either. I'm not sure where Burbage is though…"
Harry thanked Cedric, but all he felt was like he'd been left with more questions than answers. He silently observed the high table for the rest of the meal, but Professor Snape never looked at him again and at length the desserts disappeared and Dumbledore climbed to his feet again. The hall fell silent.
"Just a few words now that you're all few and watered. First years should note that the forest on the grounds is forbidden to all pupils. And a few of our older students would do well to remember that as well." Dumbledore's twinkling eyes flashed in the direction of the Gryffindor table.
"I have also been asked by Mr. Filch, the caretaker, to remind you all that no magic should be used between classes in the corridors.
"Quidditch trials will be held in the second week of the term. Anyone interested in playing for their house teams should contact Madam Hooch.
"And finally, I must tell you that this year, the third-floor corridor on the right-hand side is out of bounds to everyone who does not wish to die a very painful death."
Harry laughed, but he was one of the few that did.
"He's not serious," Harry muttered.
Susan frowned, "He doesn't appear to be joking."
Cedric nodded. "It is odd," he agreed, "He usually gives us a reason why we're not allowed to go somewhere. The forest's full of dangerous beasts—everyone knows that. I wonder if he told the Prefects anything."
"And now, before we go to bed, let us sing the school song!" cried Dumbledore. Harry noticed that the other teachers' smiles had become rather fixed.
Dumbledore gave his wand a flick and a ribbon shot out of it. It rose into the air high above the tables and twisted itself into words.
"Everyone pick their favorite tune, and off we go!"
The Hall bellowed as students and teachers took off in a couple of hundred different tunes. Some took it at a rapid pace, trying to get through it in a rush. Others, like Harry, struggled along and tried not to let their chosen tune get mixed up in somebody else's. Finally there were only the Weasley twins were left singing a slow, somber funeral march. Dumbledore smiled, his eyes twinkling merrily away as he conducted the last few lines with his wand, and when the duo had finished, he was one of the ones who clapped the loudest.
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A fifth-year Prefect named Eric Bryce led them through a bewildering maze of corridors and passages and stairways until Harry was thoroughly confused and left with the feeling that they had looped on themselves at least twice—and became positive of it after they passed by a large painting of a bowl of fruit no less than three times—before being left at a dead end in front of a painting.
"This is the Campfire," Bryce said, indicating the painting of a small clearing in a forest at night. People filled the clearing, some dressed in forest tones, others in bright colors, some danced, while others played instruments, and a great many of them feasted and drank. In the center was a roaring bonfire.
"Gryffindor and Ravenclaw both have towers, and Slytherin commons is somewhere in the dungeons under the lake," Bryce said. "We Hufflepuffs have the Sett. Now, there are passages leading from the common room to many different parts of the school. Getting out is easy, but unless you know each one's secret, you can't get back in. All of those passages will only open for someone wearing the Hufflepuff badge and then only if they know how to open that entrance."
"What are the secrets then?" Wayne Hopkins, who was even shorter than Harry, asked.
Bryce smiled. "This is the main entrance," he said without answering Wayne's question. "The secret for this one is that there is no secret. You just walk into the painting and you're in the Hufflepuff commons. Try not to get lost in the forest." He turned and stepped up into the painting and disappeared.
Harry exchanged a look with Justin, then hesitantly stepped up to the painting and reached out. The painting was solid under his fingers.
"Well?" Susan asked.
"Seems solid," Harry said.
"Solid, right," Ernie said. "I've seen a looking-glass like this once; they only come across as solid if you act like they are. Harry, it's just like Platform 9&¾, just walk into it like it isn't there."
Harry nodded and stepped into the painting and found himself in a forest, dark trees stood on either side of him, their branches blocking out the stars above but he could see a campfire burning merrily in a clearing ahead of him. He took another step, and then another, the clearing didn't seem to get any closer but four steps later he emerged in a room that was low-ceilinged and warm. The walls were a soft golden-colored wood that curved out from the floor and then in until they weren't walls but the ceiling. A dark reddish-brown wood served as floors and circular beams. A great stone fireplace took up most of one wall, and a multitude of circular passages led off in different directions, some with stairs going down and others with stairs going up. The room was filled with comfortable and sturdy-looking couches and armchairs that occupied the center of the room with tables that ranged from seating one or two, up to a monster capable of seating two dozen, against the walls.
"I see you made it all right," Bryce said. "Everyone here? Good. As you noticed there's no password on that door. We assume if you know how to find it, and how it works, then you are supposed to be here."
Harry nodded in understanding.
"Finding it can be a little tricky, but if you get lost any other Hufflepuff or the Fat Friar will be glad to help you on your way, either to here or to any class you need to get to. Same goes for most of the ghosts, but let me warn you, Peeves is worth two dead-ends and a trick staircase if you ask him for help." Bryce waved around the room. "The internal geography can be a bit confusing. Hogwarts likes to rearrange itself without warning, but you'll get the hang of it in a couple of weeks. The teachers understand and most of them won't punish you if you're a little late for the first few lessons.
"Feel free to explore during your free time. Hogwarts has loads of secret passages and chambers, and I don't think that even Headmaster Dumbledore knows everything about this place. The burrows that make up the sett," Bryce gestured towards a few of the corridors, "are an easy way of getting around, but they don't go everywhere. Also, they are really twisted around and like to rearrange themselves just as much as the rest of Hogwarts so it can end up taking longer to get into them, come here, and then use them to get to your next class than it would be to get to your next class through the more public corridors."
He pointed towards another pair of corridors, "Through there you'll find practice rooms, a couple of potion labs, and a library. The practice rooms and labs have a list of what spells and potions you can work on by yourself, which ones you can work on with a partner, and which ones need an older student to watch you. The list updates by what your year is and what you're covering in class. Just tap it with your wand to find out what you are allowed to work on. If the list says you can't do something, don't try to do it."
Bryce paused to let that sink in. "Okay, library. Common sense rules. There isn't anything spectacular on the shelves—I've been to the Ravenclaw Commons once and they have a library that is almost as grand as the Hogwarts Library—but there are a lot of the more common reference materials you'll be needing, as well as the more commonly checked out materials. If you use something, put it back. There is also a separate exchange shelf. If you take a book from that shelf it's yours to keep, but you are expected to leave a book on the shelf in return for someone else.
"Announcements for clubs, Quidditch try-outs, and the like, will be posted on the bulletin board." He indicated a cork board next to the entrance passage. "Now, girl dorms are to the left, boys on the right, your dorm will have your year on it," Bryce gestured towards two more passages.
Harry and the other boys followed a corridor that spiraled to the right but didn't seem to change in elevation or cross on itself. Circular doors were set into the walls, each with a plaque listing not only the years, but the names of the residents. At the end of the corridor they found a door marked 'First Years'. Their room was, like apparently most everything in Hufflepuff, circular. There were six four-poster beds with thick black and yellow velvet hangings. Each had a trunk at its foot, a bedside cabinet with a big brass alarm clock, a wardrobe, and a chest of drawers. Above each of the nightstands was a small circular window, and a second door led to a bathroom.
Tired from the journey and meal each was barely able to pull on their pajamas and get into bed before falling asleep.