Disclaimer: I do not own anything related to the Harry Potter universe. It is the property of Joanne Rowling. The only things that belong to me, are the original characters and stories that I have written.
All the first years followed along after Professor McGonagall like little ducklings when she led them into a small side room of the Hogwarts entrance hall. Harry had spotted a pair of large ornate doors from behind he heard a veritable wall of noise. He was ninety-nine percent sure that was the door that led to the Great Hall.
In the small side room, the deputy headmistress had met his gaze and smiled an almost imperceptible smile before she began her well-rehearsed introductions.
"Greetings students, my name is Minerva McGonagall and I am the deputy headmistress and Transfiguration professor here at Hogwarts. In but a few moments, you are about to embark upon your seven-year-long journey here in these hallowed halls. Before that journey can start, however, you must be sorted into one of the four houses," said Professor McGonagall before pausing for a breath.
A moment late she continued, "They are Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and Slytherin. During your stay here at Hogwarts, this house will be a sort of family to you. You will have classes with your house, you will eat with your house, and you will spend your free time in your house's common room. Your achievements will reward your house with points and any rule-breaking will lose them. At the end of the year, the house with the most points is awarded-"
Harry, who knew what was coming, started zoning out. His eyes began drifting to the other students in their little hall. Most of the faces were complete unknowns to him and he made a fun little game out of trying to pair them with the names he remembered.
There was a pug-faced girl with brown hair who tried her best to look calm and collected but was failing miserably. He suspected that she was Pansy Parkinson.
His eyes next fell on a pair of Indian twin girls, that had to be the Patil sisters – Padma and Parvati.
Draco and his goons were off sulking in a corner of the room, the boy's face held none of the previous bravado. Instead, his face still looked a bit puffy, even though he had obviously got help from one of the upper years. His nose was whole again and there was no trace of the blood from earlier on his clothes.
Ron elbowed Harry in the ribs and pointed towards the door, "Come on mate, it's time to go."
They followed along as the professor led them into the Great Hall of Hogwarts. The movies hadn't done it justice, was all Harry could conclude when he got his first glimpse of it. It was at least thrice the size of the one he had seen once upon a time on the big picture. The four humongous house tables were barely filled to a quarter of their maximum capacity, even though there were some three to four hundred students seated in the hall.
There were thousands upon thousands of floating candles that bathed the room in their soft light. He continued his gaze upwards and spotted the enchanted ceiling, it was beyond anything Harry had ever seen. It wasn't like looking at the sky through a gigantic window, it felt more like the hall had no roof at all.
All the little ducklings had come to a stop about halfway through the Great Hall, while the professor continued onward toward the raised platform at the end of the room. In front of the long table, the teachers were seated at, she placed a small wooden stool and then the sorting hat upon it. The brim of the hat opened and it began to sing.
Harry thought the song was quite nice and as the hat stilled once more after its singing was finished, he clapped along with everyone else. Next to him Ron was complaining about Fred and George and describing the quite gruesome ways he was going to hurt them in their sleep. "They told me we had to fight a troll," Ron whispered.
When the hall quieted once again Professor McGonagall stepped forward with a roll of parchment in her hands. "When I call your name, you will come forward, take a seat and place the hat upon your head," she said commandingly.
The sorting began with, "Abbott, Hannah!" going to Hufflepuff and continued with Susan Bones. Harry kept a small amount of his attention on the sorting, just to see if anything would be different, but they were halfway to his name and the list hadn't deviated from his memories at all.
Hermione went to Gryffindor and Ron groaned, Harry elbowed him in the side. Neville, the poor boy, fell over on his way to be sorted. Then the hat took quite a while to sort him, after the hat called out "Gryffindor!" he forgot to remove the hat from his head to his embarrassment and everyone else's merriment.
"Perks, Sally-Anne," was the last to be sorted before it finally became his turn.
As she read the next name on the list, the Professor glanced his way, and he smiled in return. "Potter, Harry," she read aloud.
As he walked his way forward to his sorting, frenzied movements broke out among the student population, people were standing in their seats to get a look at him and he heard their whispers all around him.
"That can't be Harry Potter!"
"…no glasses?"
"Where's the scar"
"Definitely Potter hair though, they say it's an old curse upon their family." That last one actually made him snort, who came up with all of these ridiculous rumours?
As the black inside of the hat enveloped his vision he saw one last glimpse of the hall, where it felt like every pair of eyes in the hall were staring straight at him. Then his vision was obscured by the hat and all the noise in the hall disappeared as well.
"Well, isn't this interesting," the Sorting Hat began. "You've lived once before have you, not unheard of, definitely a rare one though." It said to itself.
"You're only the second reincarnated person I've sorted in my many years," the hat finally spoke to him. "The wonders of magic will never cease to amaze me…"
"The second?" Harry asked, with not a small amount of excitement in his voice. There might be someone out there in a similar position as him, he would have to-
"Several hundred years have passed since I sorted them," the hat interrupted his planning.
That was unfortunate, he so wished he had someone he could discuss the truth of things with.
"I can't tell you who they were, because I keep the secrets of all the students I sort, otherwise I would have made sure quite a few children never left these halls. Young Tom Riddle comes to mind, he-" the hat's voice froze in the middle of its sentence. "As you hear, I can't even begin to tell you about information that you already know. Sometimes I curse that Godric made me with secrecy in mind," the hat lamented.
"What I can tell you though, is that you will learn about the other reincarnate I speak of in your Magical History books. They made quite the impression upon our world if it is any consolation."
That thought made Harry a little happier, at least the other person had taken their second chance at life and made the best out of it.
"Well then, shall we find where you belong?" The hat questioned. "Slytherin? No, you have a good deal of cunning in you, but no ambition to speak of. You would not do well in the Salazar's house."
"Neither would Ravenclaw suit you. You have a taste for learning, but not in the way the members of Rowena's house do. It doesn't help that you would have driven half the house mad by the time your second year begins" chuckled the Sorting Hat.
"Hufflepuff maybe, hmm… Yes, Helga's hidey-hole would do you well. They value family and loyalty as you do, and you would find true friendship in that house. Not only those who want to benefit from your fortune and fame."
"Or shall it be Gryffindor perhaps? To face death as you did, straight-backed and staring it in the face. Oh, that takes incredible courage, few I've ever sorted have bravery like that. In the same way that the Harry of your memories would do well in Gryffindor, so would you," said the hat. "Perhaps even more so."
"Difficult, very difficult. Perhaps you've got a preference?" The Sorting Hat queried. "Oh, you do, better be GRYFFINDOR" the last word the hat shouted out loud into the hall and whatever had silenced the world around them broke.
The rest of the hall applauded politely but the Gryffindor table cheered and hollered and the Weasley twins broke out into a ridiculous dance while chanting "We got Potter," over and over.
As Harry made his way down the Gryffindor table several people clapped him on the back and shook his hands. He took a seat across from Hermione and Neville and greeted them with a nod. They seemed a bit overwhelmed with the over-the-top celebrations that were occurring all over their table due to his sorting.
Harry heard Professor McGonagall try many times, unsuccessfully, to quieten the Gryffindor students down again. In the end, she had to use her wand to send out a loud cannon blast before the hall returned to some semblance of order. She glared at the Gryffindor students for almost a minute, as if daring them to cause another ruckus, before restarting the sorting ceremony.
Ron was sorted into Gryffindor and Blaise Zabini ended the sorting by going to Slytherin. As the red-haired boy took a seat next to him, Harry couldn't remember if the sorting went exactly as in his memories, but the characters relevant to the story from his memories ended up where they were supposed to.
While Professor McGonagall was putting away the stool and the Sorting Hat, the headmaster stood up. Every eye in the hall quickly turned to the white-haired old man at the centre of the faculty table. Albus Dumbledore raised a hand and the room turned silent in an instant.
"Welcome! New students to Hogwarts," said the headmaster, "and a warm welcome back to our returning students."
"I have a few announcements to make, but I fear that if I were to keep you from your food for much longer, I'd have a riot on my hands." The headmaster laughed a little at his own words. "So for now, let me leave you with this: Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak!"
Headmaster Dumbledore theatrically clapped his hands and suddenly the tables were filled to the brim with all the food Harry could imagine. On second thought, more like all the British food he could imagine. There wasn't any pizza or pasta, no hamburgers or barbecue and nothing that came close to curry or wok. He definitely needed to get the house elves some cookbooks for Christmas.
Well, there was no need to complain yet, there were still hundreds of dishes and it all looked perfectly prepared. But eating only British cuisine for seven years, without any imported dishes from the rest of the world? That would be so boring, he was attending a magical school for Merlin's sake.
Harry loaded his plate with pork chops, mashed potatoes, carrots and peas, and gravy – loads of gravy. As he ate, he fielded questions from left and right. About how his looks differed from what people 'knew', where he grew up, and how much magic he knew. It only went on for a few minutes until one of the older prefects thankfully told people to leave him be.
After the debacle finally came to an end, he could finally pay attention to his year mates seated around him.
"— muggle-born, my parents and I were ever so surprised when Professor McGonagall turned up on our doorstep," he heard Hermione finish.
"I c-can see how that w-would be q-quite the surprise." Neville stuttered out.
"How about you Ron?" asked Hermione.
The tips of Ron's ears turned a little bit red at being the centre of attention. "I think our entire family is magical… No wait, mum has a squib cousin that's an accountant or something like that. We don't really talk about him though."
"Why not?" Harry asked.
"He's a complete and utter nutter from what I've heard dad say. Believes in some guy named Jay-Zeus and thinks all magical people are evil." Ron explained, and Harry had to bite his tongue not to laugh out loud. "They had to force him to sign a magical contract so he couldn't expose the magical world, though that was a long time ago when mum and dad were still at Hogwarts. Almost became quite the scandal."
"O-Oh, yes, that would have been q-quite the scandal," poor Neville stuttered.
"How about your family, Neville?" asked Hermione.
"I grew up with my g-grandparents and according to gran, the Longbottoms have been magical since the vikings ruled half of England. Though grandpa always said to take everything she said with a p-pinch of salt," answered Neville.
"What happened – Ouch!" Ron had been about to ask one of those questions you just do not ask, so Harry poked him hard in the ribs. "Why'd you do that for?" The redhead glared at Harry.
"You were about to let your mouth outrun your brain again Ronald," Harry whispered back.
It took a few moments of furious thinking before realization dawned on Ron's face, and when it did, his entire face turned scarlet. "Sorry Neville," he apologized quickly.
"S' all right, my parents were lost in the war," Neville muttered quietly while staring down at the table.
They all sat in a sort of uncomfortable silence for a few moments before Hermione rallied, and started asking them about the coursework. What they thought their favourite classes were going to be and how much of their schoolbooks they had read.
"I of course have read all of our assigned books from start to finish," Hermione declared proudly.
Ron and Neville looked a bit sick at that, as if they had missed something important. Harry chuckled and decided to take pity on them.
"Hermione, do you know what my headmaster angrily told my parents when I arrived at the first year of school, already being able to read and calculate beyond my years?" Harry questioned.
Hermione looked at him weirdly. "How am I supposed to know that?"
"She told my parents, and I quote, 'You do know that we don't expect children to come here fully educated, that is the point of a school after all, to teach.' Now my parents hadn't taught me much, I'd learned most of it on my own, much like you." Harry explained.
The point clearly hadn't sunk in, because Hermione's only response was snappy and consisted only of one word. "And?"
Harry took a moment to ponder his answer. "Hermione, you are sitting in a magical castle," he swept his hand in a wide gesture in front of them. "You are here in this magical castle to learn how to wield magic."
"So?" she interjected.
"The teachers here are masters of their craft and have most likely been so for longer than you or I have been alive. What you can learn from a book pales in comparison to what the teachers here will teach you." Harry paused to re-organize his thoughts.
"If you want to learn things from books, read books that are not in our curriculum. Otherwise, you will spend every class already knowing everything you're ordinarily supposed to learn that day. Take it from someone who's already done that, it gets boring quickly, and you'll have a hard time making friends. I, myself, have started to look into enchanting, it seems terribly exciting."
Hermione seemed uncertain at his monologue, until he got to the part about making friends. When she heard that, something seemed to click and Harry thought she could relate. If he was correct, she was a lonely child, and she was that way because of her intellect, which intimidated other children.
"I'd be happy to let you read my notes about enchanting, I'm afraid they don't contain a lot yet, but I'm going to receive a list of recommended books soon. We can learn together if you wish?" Harry was hoping she'd grab the olive branch.
She smiled a small uncertain smile, "If you are sure?" He nodded in the affirmative. "I think I'd like that very much. Maybe we could meet up tomorrow?."
He smiled brightly, "Great! But before we do any studying, we're all going exploring. We're in a humongous magical castle for Merlin's sake. Do you realize how many secrets there must be here?" Hermione, Neville, and Ron all laughed at his enthusiasm.
They filled the time until dessert with small talk of all nature. From the smallest details about the magical world to the purpose of aeroplanes. Neville seemed scared at the thought of flying inside a huge metal contraption, especially when Hermione explained that they rarely crashed, and it was the muggle method of transportation that killed the least amount of people. Ron asked, a little dumbly, why they just didn't invent brooms. The two raised in the normal world shared a chuckle at his comment.
It was when Harry was halfway through consuming his treacle tart that he noticed Neville looking at him oddly. "You all right Neville?" He asked.
Neville instantly lowered his gaze, "It is just s-something you said earlier that I was wondering about."
"Shoot," Harry replied as he swallowed another piece of dessert.
Neville twitched nervously as he began speaking, "W-Well you talked about your parents as if they were alive. Do you have a portrait of them or is that just something else that the books have gotten wrong about you."
"Oh, I see what you mean. No my birth parents – Lily and James – are dead. I was adopted by my aunt and her husband, and it happened when I was so young, I've always just called them mum and dad. I can't even remember the Potters to be honest." Harry replied.
Neville hastily apologized, "Sorry."
Harry tried his best to placate the apologizing boy but was interrupted by all the food disappearing from the table. At the same time, the older students started to shush the younger ones. The four budding friends followed everyone's gazes to the front of the hall, where Headmaster Dumbledore was standing.
"I hope the feast was to everyone's liking," began Albus Dumbledore. "Soon you will be allowed to leave for your beds, I just have a few start-of-term announcements, if you will allow me." It seemed that everyone was holding their breaths, so strong was the headmaster's presence.
"Thank you," the headmaster nodded his head lightly. "First, I would like to welcome back to staff Quirinus Quirrell, he has returned from his sabbatical and will from now on teach you how to defend yourselves against the dark arts." A smattering of applause arose in the hall before quickly tapering out.
"You will find in the coming days, on the boards in your common rooms, information regarding the Quidditch tryouts. If you are interested in playing, contact Madam Hooch."
"The forbidden forest is, despite what a certain pair of twins try to claim, forbidden for all students."
"Our caretaker, Mr Filch, has asked me to remind everyone that there is to be no magic done in the corridors between your classes. You can also find the full list of forbidden items posted on the door to his office."
"And lastly," here the headmaster's tone turned grave. "The third-floor corridor on the right-hand side is off limits, to anyone who does not wish to die the most painful of deaths."
"Now that the announcements are over," Dumbledore's voice returned to its normal cheerful tone. "It's time to sing the school song."
"Cover your ears, everyone," Harry spoke quickly to his friends.
As the four friends held their hands over their ears, the hall descended into the worst music they had ever heard, directed by the headmaster himself. Atrocious was too kind of a word for the torture they were enduring.
Ron's brothers sang the longest, long after everyone else had finished. The headmaster shed a tear and thanked them, before ordering the students to bed.
Harry told his friends to do their best to memorize the way they followed behind Percy to the common room. They would need to know their way to the Great Hall if they were to do some exploring tomorrow.
They came to a stop in front of a portrait of a very fat woman in an eye-scratching pink dress who asked Percy for the password. "Caput Draconis," Harry told his friends to remember that as well.
When they'd passed through the hole behind the portrait, into a cosy room with sofas and soft armchairs. It was decorated in soft red and gold colours and had a very large fireplace at one end. At the other end were two circular staircases, leading both up and down.
The female prefect guided the girls up one stairwell, while Percy led Harry, Ron, Neville, and the other boys up the other. The dorm was in one of the towers, and therefore circular, with beds arrayed against the walls. Their luggage had already been brought up and placed by a bed each, and on the bed by Harry's trunk, Minerva was snoozing.
Everyone talked a few words as they dressed for bed, but as soon as their heads hit their pillows, they fell asleep.
Harry had woken first the next morning, followed by Hermione. They had waited in the common room for Neville to drag Ron to the land of the living, before setting off on the start of their adventure.
As they ate breakfast, Professor McGonagall approached them with their timetables. "You're down for breakfast early," she commented.
"Yep! We're off to explore the castle as soon as we are finished with our food." Harry smiled at her.
"You have today free even though it's a Monday," said the Professor. "Harry, how about Saturday in my office for our afternoon tea? I have the photographs and the list from Filius."
"That sounds great, what time shall I be there?"
"Be there at three and we should have plenty of time for our chat," she said before striding off down the table to another group of newly arrived students.
"What's that all about?" Ron questioned with his mouth full of food.
Harry quirked an eyebrow at him. "Sorry," Ron swallowed and asked again. Hermione and Neville also looked inquisitively at him.
"When the Professor introduced me and my family to the magical world she promised me a few pictures of my birth parents. I have very few of my mother and none of my father." He explained. "She also promised to ask Professor Flitwick for a list of books he would recommend to someone who wants to learn enchanting." At the end of his words, he looked at Hermione.
"So we need to wait for Saturday before we can start learning how to enchant?" Hermione seemed a bit put out by that.
"Probably a few days more, I'll have to owl-order the books and I have no idea how many days that is going to take," replied Harry.
The rest of their breakfast was light on conversation and more concentrated on the food they were consuming. As soon as they all had finished, they wandered out into the entrance hall and up the staircase. They had a full day of wondrous exploration in a magical castle before them.
If you liked it, Review & Favourite.
Tell me what you liked, or what you didn't, if you find any grammatical or spelling errors, please point them out. I'm not entirely satisfied by this chapter, but I don't know how to fix it.
Thank you for reading!