CHAPTER 5:

IS THAT A SINGING HAT?

After disembarking from the train, Harry, along with the other first years, were led by a gigantic, bearded man by the name of Hagrid down to the edge of the lake, and to some small boats. He took one with Ron, Hermione, and Neville. Hermione was still looking a little askance at him, but he didn't care. Besides, they were wizards and witches? What was 'normal' in their lives?

The boats set off by themselves. Harry had devoured a book called Hogwarts: A History, and had heard that a giant squid, along with a tribe of merpeople and other magical creatures, made the lake their home. It'd be interesting to meet a mermaid. He should see if he could fish that liquid breathing suit out of storage at Aperture, go on an expedition. As unpleasant as that experience had been, the suit still worked.

The first view of Hogwarts was, he would admit, quite magical. The castle silhouetted against the night sky, lights twinkling. There were gasps of awe. He allowed a rather wide grin to come over his face, like his great-aunt would sometimes get over one of her little surprises. Maybe not as adventure-filled as Aperture, but Hogwarts looked as if it would make a damn good shot at it.

After the boats were docked, they were led through various passageways and up stairs, where Hagrid eventually left them in the care of Professor McGonagall, who had come from some doors. She had then told them about the Houses, and that they would be sorted into each one. She told them to make themselves a bit more presentable in the meantime, and left for a few minutes.

Ron claimed that the sorting process was something that hurt a lot, according to one of the twins. Harry doubted that, though as he watched Hermione muttering spells under her breath, seeing what needed to tested, he remembered what she said. "Wait, you said your uncle's name was Barney, right? Was he Barney Calhoun?"

"Yes. My mother's brother…well, half-brother," Hermione said. "Why?"

"Oh, I remember him, that's all. He was nice." He would have said more, had it not been for the screams. A cluster of ghosts came through. Had it been anywhere but Hogwarts, he would have thought holograms. And was it him, or did the ghost in the ruff look and sound a bit like an Elizabethan John Cleese(1)?

Shortly after that, McGonagall came back, and ushered the students through into the Great Hall. Magnificent, large, with the candles floating above the students (he hoped the enchantments included not dripping hot wax all over the students), and a ceiling that looked like the sky outside, a fact Hermione was eager to tell him, and anyone within whisper range.

And then, McGonagall brought out a stool with a rather battered, ancient-looking hat. Harry wondered what was happening, until a rip near the brim opened up like a mouth, and it began to sing.

A singing hat, Harry thought almost dully. That is a singing hat. And that song's not a touch on the Turret Choir.

Still, the Sorting Hat did give some good information with its song: you just had to put it on, and it would decide where you should go. After the song finished to applause from the school, Ron muttered, "I'm going to kill Fred. He said something about wrestling a troll."

"That should have set off your Rubbish Meter," Harry murmured back.

The Sorting (Harry felt it deserved a capital letter by now) began. Sometimes, the Hat shouted the House out instantly, and other times, it would deliberate. It wasn't long before Harry's name, or at least a variation of it, was called out by McGonagall. "Evans-Potter, Harry!"

Harry was acutely aware of the stares as he made his way to the stool. Calming himself (this was far less arduous than anything GLaDOS had cooked up), he walked over to the stool, and allowed the Hat to be placed on his head.

"Hmm, very interesting. And rather difficult, too. You have oodles of bravery, dealing with your great-aunt, and great loyalty to her and your family, strange though it is. A thirst for knowledge, and an ambition, a desire to prove yourself as someone other than the Boy Who Lived. And a refreshingly unconventional mind too. So, where shall I put you?"

Harry thought, I want to learn everything I can. I mean, I know I'll have friends in the other Houses. But I've decided a long time ago. I want to be known for my achievements in school, not as the Boy Who Lived. I wanna be in Ravenclaw.

"Oh, is that right? Are you sure? Your valour, your loyalty, and your ambition would stand you in good stead in the other Houses. Ah, but I see you have already made up your mind. Such resolve… Are you sure? Then better be…RAVENCLAW!"

A burst of applause, and Harry went over to the table with blue and silver decorations. He found himself sitting near a couple of older girls, who introduced themselves as Cho Chang and Marietta Edgecomb. He was sitting opposite the ones who had been Sorted earlier, including a boy called Terry Boot, and a more sullen one by the name of Michael Corner. A ghost of a beautiful, if lugubrious, young woman stood nearby, and gave him a small smile. This, he would later learn, was the Grey Lady, the Ravenclaw House ghost.

Soon, it was Hermione's turn. For a time, she lingered, only for the Hat to declare 'RAVENCLAW!' She gave it a look after putting it down, shrugged, and moved over to the table, sitting next to Harry. He found it odd that she sat near him, given her reaction to learning that GLaDOS was his great-aunt, but maybe his praise of her uncle helped her overcome her misgivings.

Poor, clumsy Neville was under the Hat for a long time as well, but was eventually declared a Gryffindor. Harry applauded loudly: the poor boy seemed like he needed some praise. Malfoy went to Slytherin almost as soon as the Hat touched his head. Harry looked over there, and noticed more than a few people looking at him appraisingly. A few were glaring at him.

His gaze went over to the High Table, and he looked at the teachers there. There were many extraordinary figures there, including a short man who Cho Chang said was their Head of House, Professor Filius Flitwick. There was also a young man in a turban with a nervous demeanour, holding forth in conversation with a man with dark lank hair, piercing dark eyes, and a prominent nose. The latter man seemed to notice Harry's scrutiny, and glared. But mixed into that glare seemed to be some sort of appraisal.

"Marietta," Harry asked, "who are those two teachers? The guy in the turban and the man speaking to him?"

The older girl peered at them. "I've only heard of the guy in the turban, I don't know him that well. He's Professor Quirrell, our old Muggle Studies teacher. He was away on sabbatical last year, my first year, so I've only heard of him. Don't know why he's wearing that turban, though, but I heard he got scared out of his wits while preparing for his teaching role this year, in Defence Against the Dark Arts. The other one is Professor Snape. He teaches Potions, he's very strict, and quick to take points off any Gryffindor who so much as sneezes around him. He favours the Slytherins, whom he is the Head of House. He's less like that towards Ravenclaws, though, but don't annoy him if you can help it. He can get pretty vicious."

One Sorting of note was that of twin Indian girls, the Patils. Padma went into Ravenclaw, and Parvati went into Gryffindor. Harry had to wonder at that. Then again, twins didn't necessarily mean identical personalities, despite his impression of the Weasley twins.

Not long afterwards, Ron got Sorted, going into Gryffindor. And he was amongst the last, and once a Blaise Zabini was Sorted into Slytherin, Dumbledore stood. "Welcome, welcome one and all to a new year at Hogwarts! Before the feast, I would like to say a few words. And here they are: Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak! Thank you."

Harry reflected that that was one of the oddest things he had heard since he had heard one of Cave Johnson's old recordings. This seemed to be a cue, though, for the tables to suddenly become laden with food of all kinds.

"Is he a bit barmy?" Hermione asked.

"Aren't all geniuses?" Harry responded.

Terry Boot peered at Harry as they ate. "So you're Harry Potter?"

"Harry Evans," Harry corrected him. "I was born Harry Potter, but I was raised by my great-aunt. She's barmier than Dumbledore. Please don't do that whole fanboy thing. It's weird, and disturbing, given how my parents died that night."

"Hey, we'd be more curious as to how you survived," Cho said. "The Killing Curse is supposed to be unstoppable, unless you dodge or put something solid between you and it."

"Dumbledore reckons my parents might have found some obscure ritual," Harry said with a shrug. "Unfortunately, we can't ask them."

"Must've been really obscure," Cho speculated. "Then again, my father used to work with the Unspeakables. Supposedly, so did your mother. She might've found something in the Department of Mysteries. That's what he reckoned."

"So where did you live all this time?" Michael Corner asked.

"Aperture Science." He noticed only a few people seemed to recognise the name.

"Hang on," Michael Corner said with a frown. "Isn't that a Muggle research lab? Where some thinking computer scared everyone out?"

"Yeah. My great-aunt can be scary when she wants to be, which is a lot of the time."

"Your great-aunt is a computer?"

"It's a long story," Harry said.

They finished their meals in short order, discussing some small aspects of their lives as they did so. Dumbledore then made some announcements. Harry filed away the warning about the forest automatically, along with the thing about Filch and his forbidden items list. He hoped that, after this year, the Portal Gun and the Gels wouldn't be added to that list. He did find Quidditch intriguing, and while he didn't have a broom, he made a mental note to track down Madam Hooch and ask whether he could try out, or at least see if first years could.

It was Dumbledore's final announcement that was odd. And intriguing. He told them that the third-floor corridor on the right-hand side was forbidden, and should be avoided to ensure one didn't die a most dreadful death. To Harry, that at least bore some small investigation, if only to figure out why. If it looked too dangerous, then he would retreat forthwith.

And then, Dumbledore announced the school song. Harry noticed the smiles on a couple of the teachers becoming fixed, and he soon understood why. Never had he heard such a cacophonic refrain since that time Wheatley accidentally infected the Turret Choir with a rather nasty virus. And not a computer virus, either, but a nanomachine virus that attacked key components of some of Aperture Science's products speakers. Harry and Chell thought the resulting attempts the Turret Choir made at singing, while discordant and loud, were utterly hilarious.

Eventually, the song stopped, save for the Weasley twins singing it to a rather mournful dirge. After they were finished, Dumbledore dismissed them.

As they made their way to the Ravenclaw Common Room, Harry said to Hermione, "Ready to start learning?"

She actually smiled. "I'm always ready."

As the teachers got ready to meet their charges, Filius Flitwick found himself walking with Severus Snape. While normally he didn't like doing so, it seemed that Snape wanted to talk to him. "So, it seems that Potter has been Sorted into your House, Filius," Snape remarked.

"Indeed. Has Albus told you of where he has been?"

"He told me privately, but I know he intended to tell the rest of you in due course. Apparently that bitch of an aunt of his sent him to America. He's spent his life in a Muggle laboratory, albeit as the ward of one of their employees. An employee who had her mind put into a computer, of all things." Snape all but scoffed. "I thought Dumbledore had finally gone senile when he said that. Fawkes saw fit to rebuke me when I said that: apparently he had a bad experience there involving a Muggle fire suppression system."

"A computer? I didn't think Muggles had the ability to do such a thing as putting a person's mind into a computer."

"Aperture Science does a lot of things that are considered impossible, apparently. I've done my research. It was started by someone who seems like the Squib offspring of Xenophilus Lovegood and Sybil Trelawney, both mad and forward-looking, but with far better business acumen. Which wasn't much, apparently: Cave Johnson fell prey to corporate espionage. And silicosis from lunar soil(2)."

"Oh." On reflection, it sounded like a nasty way to go.

"Indeed. Dumbledore claims that he is highly inquisitive, though. But the proof of the pudding is in the eating. Which reminds me, I'll have to remind the House Elves of my allergies once again."

As Snape swept off with his typically melodramatic swish of his cloak, Flitwick mused on Harry. Now that he and the promising Muggleborn girl Hermione Granger had been Sorted into his House, he now had two promising students in it. It was Harry who would prove to be an unusual one, though. If what Snape said was correct, then he was living in interesting times. What sort of interesting, though, he didn't know for sure…

CHAPTER 5 ANNOTATIONS:

The Sorting! And Harry and Hermione are in Ravenclaw!

I thought it would be interesting to show Cho Chang and Marietta Edgecomb, particularly the latter before she ran afoul of Hermione's curse in The Order of the Phoenix.

jgkitarel: Luna and Harry will be fast friends, with Harry taking her talk of non-existent creatures in his stride.

desireejones99: Ron will be Ron. As Harry is in Ravenclaw, there'll be less of him in this story, but he will still be Harry's friend, as well as Hermione's. Given that Ron likes chess, though, I think Harry might be able to persuade him to solve a few portal-based puzzles. I can see Ron doing that.

vukovinik: Glad you liked it. I needed a good name to fit in with Aperture's weird system of nomenclature, and thought that that would be a great name.

Jostanos: Yes, he has the same wand as in canon. Not that it won't stop him from potentially using the Portal Gun as a second wand, as you mentioned…

Lord-Marauder-2013: I stated it outright in the annotations for the previous chapter: Hermione's uncle is Barney Calhoun, the security guard character from the Half-Life series.

LM13: It'll be hard to include that line, but I will endeavour to do so further down the track. It's a great line.

Conu: Sad but true, huh?

1. Well, it was John Cleese who played Nearly Headless Nick in the films…

2. While the disease that Cave Johnson perishes of is never specified, save that lunar rocks caused it, there is some evidence that long-term exposure to lunar dust could cause something like silicosis.