And now we finally come to Hogwarts! I'm trying to do the story justice, while also not keeping it entirely canon, so again let me know if you guys have any suggestions for the story!

I'm trying to convey how Gabriel feels about all this, mainly being stuck as a kid again, but he also acts a little childish from time to time, because in the show I think some of what he did was just for fun and no other reason.

Anyway, onto the chapter! This may take a while to upload since I'm in the middle of doing a separate piece or writing camp, as well as summer homework.

Disclaimer: I do not own Supernatural or Harry Potter.

McGonagall had opened the doors when the man brought them up, ushering the first-years up several flights of stairs to an open hall that was barred on the other side with another set of double doors. The sound of chatter and a gleam of candlelight could be heard and seen, and while McGonagall gave her speech Gabriel looked around and admired how the wards were set into the castle stone. It took some talent to create wards like that - he'd done it himself, but ony once, and that house had been destroyed anyway. Whoever had done them would have needed to raise them as the castle was being built, which wasn't a task for the weak.

McGonagall finished her speech and left, the doors opening briefly to show a hall already packed with students. The first-years were left on their own on the hall, already divided into small groups from their time on the train. There was a pale blond boy who was accompanied by two others who looked more like bodyguards than friends, and a small knot of girls all talking excitedly. Ron and Hermione were both shuffling awkwardly, neither knowing what to say, and Gabriel wasn't paying attention.

Someone screamed, and everyone's heads snapped around to see what had happened. A couple first years scrambled away, and Gabriel immediately saw what had happened, and snapped a tight hold over his Grace.

There were ghosts streaming through the walls, silvery and partially see-through. They floated above the crowd of first-years, talking among themselves.

"I say we give him a chance!" A man in friar's robes insisted, conversing with a man in a ruffled collar and Elizabethan-style clothes.

"My dear Friar, haven't we given Peeves all the chances he deserves?"

"He may be a - I say! What are you doing here?" The ghosts had noticed the group in the hall below and had come to a stop, hovering over their heads. No one answered.

"New students!" The friar's ghost said cheerfully. "About to be Sorted, I suppose?" A few people dared to nod, but the doors creaking open again directed everyone's attention once again. McGonagall reappeared in the hall, glancing up at the ghosts as she passed under them.

"If you would all form a line?" The group of eleven-year-olds took several minutes to accomplish such a simple task, jostling and pushing to be in front. McGonagall waited patiently while the sorted themselves, and then led the column of first-years into the hall.

Candles twinkled as they floated, magically suspended underneath the ceiling. The roof opened up to a view of the starry sky outside, and Hermione leaned forward to hiss something in Gabriel and Ron's ears. "It's not really an open ceiling," she told them, "it's just enchanted to look like it. I read it in Hogwarts, a History."

Ron rolled his eyes. Gabriel elbowed him in the ribs, still tense from keeping his power hidden. The ghosts followed as well, silvery forms gaining greater transparency as they floated among the candles. Gabriel took time to wonder why they weren't in color, like all the other ghosts he'd ever seen.

There were four tables packed with students in the hall, and there was an aisle between two of them which the first-years walked along to reach the steps which led up to fifth and final table. What must have been teachers were seated along it, all in robes of varying and bright colors. Seated in the center, on an elaborate gold thronelike chair, was a man who out of everyone in the hall looked most like the stereotypical wizard. With a pointed hat and a long beard which vanished under the table, he seemed to have cultivated the 'old, friendly grandfather' look.

A stool sat at the head of the four tables, on which McGonagall placed an old, tattered hat.

"That thing looks like it's going to give us lice if we wear it," muttered Gabriel. Hermione, who overheard him, looked torn between agreeing and shushing him.

A rip on the brim of the hat opened wide. Gabriel watched in mounting disbelief as it began to sing. Singing hats. This was what his life had come to.

The end of the song was greeted by applause from the student body, while most of the first-years' opinions seemed to agree with Gabriel's; raised eyebrows and are you serious looks directed at one another, mostly between those from Muggle backgrounds.

"When I call your name," McGonagall announced from her position next to the stool after the clapping died down. "You will come up and place the hat on your head. It will then Sort you into one of the four houses."

"So we've just got to try on a hat!" Ron, standing next to Gabriel, relaxed noticeably. "I'll kill Fred, he was going on about wrestling a troll."

"Who's Fred?" Whoever he was, he sounded like the kind of person Gabriel would like to know.

"He's my brother," Ron explained somewhat moodily as "Abbot, Hannah" was called up to the front. "I've got five, and they're all older than me." Gabriel could certainly sympathize with that. "Everyone expects me to do as well as they've done, but when I do it it won't be that big of a deal since they've done it first." The hat yelled out HUFFLEPUFF, but Gabriel wasn't paying attention.

Hermione looked troubled; she of course could hear everything they were saying. "I'm sure you'll do alright," she told Ron, trying to be reassuring.

"Sure," said Ron, looking unconvinced.

Students were called up to be Sorted in a constant stream. Gabriel took the time to look around. On the walls were colored banners, most likely one for each House. There was a red one with a gold lion, next to a blue one with a bronze bird in midflight. On the other wall was a green banner featuring a silver snake, and on the side closest to the staff table hung a yellow banner on which was sewn a black badger.

"Longbottom, Neville!" Gabriel winced as that name was called. The kid would probably spend his whole time here being teased relentlessly for his unfortunate last name. He was sorted into Gryffindor, but accidentally ran off to his table with the Hat still on his head.

"Malfoy, Draco" went to Slytherin before the Hat even touched his head. Gabriel smirked to himself, wondering if anyone here had bothered to learn the meaning of that name.

The list dwindled down from the Ms, and eventually they came to the last few letters. "Potter, Harry!"

The hall went entirely silent as the name was called. Whispers broke out as Gabriel made his way to the front, grinning at McGonagall. She seemed unimpressed, and waited for him to sit down before dropping the hat on his head.

Gabriel waited in the abrupt darkness that followed [the hat was wide enough to drop over his face, and wasn't that embarrassing] when a voice whispered into his ear.

Well, well, well. I haven't seen something like this in a while.

Gabriel jerked in surprise. What the hell?

No no, the hat said, since who else could it be? I'll need to see into your head to sort you properly.

No way!

Don't be difficult about it.

I'm not being difficult! You couldn't handle what goes on in here.

Oh?

Just to spite the hat, Gabriel pushed a wad of memories at it, some of his oldest ones.

The hat was silent for a long time. Then...

I see.

That's all you're going to say?

I have met one of your kind before. Don't be so surprised - The hat could clearly see his emotions - How else do you think the Founders got those wards there?

Oh, so it wasn't them. I was wondering how they'd been built into the stone.

The hat conveyed an affirmative. In any case, I know the exact place for you to go. The best House for you would be-

Hold on! You're not about to say Slytherin, are you?

What, you don't agree?

Of course I do. I know myself better than you do. But no one trusts the Slytherins.

I see your point.The Hat was silent for a few moments, and Gabriel knew the teachers in the hall must have been wondering what was taking so long. Ah, I know! I'll put you in-

"RAVENCLAW!"

The table to Gabriel's immediate left began cheering wildly. Hermione, from what Gabriel could see of her at the Gryffindor table, looked disappointed. Gabriel handed the hat back to McGonagall and made his way to the Ravenclaw table, where he was quickly pulled into a seat with the other first years. The lining on his robes had turned itself a dark blue, matching that of the people sitting around him, and the tie had changed to match. Gabriel watched as the House crest stitched itself onto the cloth over the left side of his chest.

The students were all looking at him curiously, but Gabriel was still looking up at the hat. He watched to see where Ron would go, and when the redhead went to Gryffindor with the rest of his brothers - there was no way that shade of red was anything but hereditary - Gabriel grinned at him and gave him a thumbs up.

As the hall quieted down, the Headmaster raised his glass and smiled. "There is time for speech-making, but it is not now. Tuck in!"

Food appeared on the dishes on the table - turkey and chicken, all sorts of proper dinner food. There were even salads, and here and there on the table a dish of mint humbugs. Gabriel took a handful of them and then put some food on his plate so as not to attract unwelcome attention.

"So you're really Harry Potter?" There were people all over the table leaning closer to talk to him, and Gabriel was sure that someone had switched seats to get closer.

"Yes," said Gabriel, popping a humbug in his mouth.

"And have you really got-"

"If one more person asks me about the scar I got the night my parents were murdered I'm going to leave the hall." Shock rippled across the faces of those who heard him, and those who weren't put off by that were pulled back by more tactful students.

"Welcome to Ravenclaw," one older student offered, shaking Gabriel's hand. "I'm sure you'll do well here."

"Thanks," Gabriel said. "I'm hoping it's as interesting as I think it's going to be."

"Trust me," the student laughed. "There's no shortage of 'interesting' in Ravenclaw."

The dormitory was high in a tower on one side of the school. The door was painted blue with a bronze knocker - eagle, Gabriel realizeed once he took a closer look. As the two 'prefects' who led the first-years there near, the knocker opened its eyes and its beak cracked open as well.

Something came out that stopped the two prefects and Gabriel in their tracks. The harsh syllables are obviously nonsense to the prefects, who are wondering aloud to each other in quiet voices if someone has cursed the knocker, but Gabriel stops because who the hell programmed the knocker to speak Enochian.

Gabriel has run into enough signs to know that his brothers have definitely been here before, but even though his wand says otherwise he doubts that it was Samandiriel. The seraph was too nervous to have done something like this.

While the prefects were discussing the odd riddle, Gabriel looked straight at the eagle knocker and made a subtle slashing motion across his throat.

"Where do Vanished objects go?" The prefects turned back to the door at the new question. The boy cast the girl a glance, but she just shrugged and answered.

Gabriel made sure to linger in the back. As he passed the door, he whispered the answer to the first riddle, the Enochian slipping past his lips despite the limitations of the human voicebox. The knocker's eyes gleamed, and it spat a roll of paper out at Gabriel, who caught it before anyone realized what had happened. He stuffed it into a pocket in his robes, lengthening his stride to catch up with the group that was now splitting into two different lines, one boy lingering nervously.

"Catch up, Harry," said the male prefect, not unkindly. "What is it, Michael?"

The boy shifted uncomfortably. "You said, um, to go to either the girl's or boy's dorm. Um...what if we don't really feel like either?"

Gabriel paused in his path up the stairs. He listened for the prefect's response. What he heard surprised him. "That's quite alright, Michael." The prefect reassured him. "There's a third dorm on a path that splits off from the boy's...it used to be a prefect's dorm, but we've repurposed it for people who aren't one or the other, like you. You can use that one, alright? I'll ask Professor Flitwick to send up a house-elf later and get it ready, but do you think you could spend tonight in the boy's dorm?" There was a pause. Michael must have nodded, because the prefect continued. "Great. I'll show you where it is later, you don't have to remember."

Gabriel heard footsteps, and quickly walked up the stairs so that it didn't look like he had been eavesdropping. When Michael caught up with him, Gabriel didn't say anything, though the other must have known that he'd heard the beginning of the conversation.

Gender was a very tricky thing, and far be it for Gabriel to put someone down over it when his true form was best described, as Castiel had once put it, as a multidimensional wavelength of celestial intent. Or, to put it more simply, a load of sentient supercharged light. His train of thought trailed off so that as they entered the dorm, Gabriel was musing over the few female vessels he'd taken and trying to remember what it had been like. He distinctly remembered smiting someone for not showing proper respect.

"Oi, Potter!" Someone threw a pillow at his head. "Are you listening?" His dorm mates seemed to have relaxed about Gabriel's celebrity status, at least. "I said your bed's over there," said the boy who had thrown the pillow, pointing to one by a window at the end of the row. There were five four-poster beds, draped in blue with bronze trim. Gabriel wondered if all the dorms were on such a strict color scheme.

"Alright then." He saw his trunk at the end of the specified bed, and threw it open, discarding his robes. He dropped the thrown pillow on the bed, not bothering to prop it up with the others.

"Toss my pillow back, would you?"

"It's mine now."

There was some indignant spluttering. "No it's not!"

"You threw it at me, and didn't make an attempt to get it back." Gabriel pointed out. The boy who had thrown it, Terrence something, came over and grabbed it off the bed.

"It's mine," he said unnecessarily, and went back over to his bed. Gabriel reminded himself that he was dealing with children, and not people who were capable of holding an actual debate over even the silliest things.

The bed was quite nice, really. The curtains provided a good changing screen from the other boys [plus one neutral kid]. Gabriel kept them drawn tight as he laid down. He waited until everyone else was asleep [which took ages. They were eleven, for Dad's sake, shouldn't someone have come around to make sure they were going to bed on time?] before bringing up a small string of witch lights, which he attached to the bedframe before bringing out the tiny slip of paper the knocker had given him. No time like the present to figure these things out.

Read and review, please! Let me know what you think!