Through the gates, flanked with statues of winged boars, and up the sweeping drive, the carriages trundled and swayed dangerously in what was fast becoming a gale. Leaning against the window, Lyla could see Hogwarts coming nearer, its many lighted windows blurred and shimmering behind the thick curtain of rain. Lightning flashed across the sky as their carriage came to a halt before the great oak front doors, which stood at the top of a flight of stone steps. People who had occupied the carriages in front were already hurrying up the stone steps into the castle. Together, the small group of five jumped down from their carriage and dashed up the steps, looking up only when they were safely inside the cavernous, torch-lit entrance hall with its magnificent marble staircase.

"Ugh," said Draco once he, Daphne, and Blaise had caught up to them, "if that keeps up, the lake's going to overflow. I'm soak— ARRGH!"

A large, red, water-filled balloon had dropped from the ceiling onto the pale boy's head and exploded. Drenched and sputtering, Draco staggered sideways into Lyla just as a second water bomb dropped— narrowly missing Hermione, it burst at Arabella's feet, sending a wave of cold water over her sneakers into her socks. People around them shrieked and started pushing one another to escape the line of fire. Lyla looked up and saw, floating twenty feet above them, Peeves the Poltergeist, a little man in a bell-covered hat and orange bow tie, his wide, malicious face contorted with concentration as he aimed again.

"PEEVES!" yelled an angry voice. "Peeves, come down here at ONCE!"

Minerva McGonagall, Deputy Headmistress and head of Gryffindor House had come dashing out of the Great Hall; she skidded on the wet floor and grabbed Hermione around the neck to stop herself from falling.

"Ouch— sorry, Miss Granger—"

"That's all right, Professor," Hermione gasped, massaging her throat.

"Peeves, get down here NOW!" barked McGonagall, straightening her pointed hat and glaring upward through her square-rimmed spectacles.

"Not doing nothing!" cackled Peeves, lobbing a water bomb at several fifth-year girls, who screamed and dived into the Great Hall. "Already wet, aren't they? Little squirts! Wheeeeeeeeee!" And he aimed another bomb at a group of second-years who had just arrived.

"I shall call the headmaster!" shouted McGonagall. "I'm warning you, Peeves—"

Peeves stuck out his tongue, threw the last of his water bombs into the air, and zoomed off up the marble staircase, cackling insanely.

"Well, move along, then!" said McGonagall sharply to the bedraggled crowd. "Into the Great Hall, come on!"

The group of friends slipped and slid across the entrance hall and through the double doors on the right, Draco muttering furiously under his breath as he pushed his sopping hair free of his eyes.

The Great Hall looked its usual splendid self, decorated for the start-of-term feast. Golden plates and goblets gleamed by the light of hundreds and hundreds of candles floating over the tables in midair. The four long House tables were packed with chattering students; at the top of the hall, the staff sat along one side of a fifth table, facing their pupils. It was much warmer here. After bidding Arabella, Ron, and Hermione goodbye, the small group of Slytherins swiftly approached their respective table. The Bloody Baron drifted to where they huddled and eyed the group with empty eyes. He was dressed in his usual chains and bloody clothes, and his presence made Lyla shiver.

"Good evening," he said.

"Says who?" said Theo, taking off his sneakers and emptying them of water. "Hope they hurry up with the Sorting. I'm starving."

The Sorting of the new students into Houses took place at the start of every school year, but by an unlucky combination of circumstances, Lyla hadn't been at one since her own. She was quite looking forward to it. Just then, a highly excited, breathless voice called down the table.

"Hiya, Lyla!"

It was Colin Creevey, a third-year student to whom Lyla and her sister were something of heroes.

"Hi, Colin," said Lyla warily.

"Guess what? Guess what, Lyla? My brother's starting! My brother, Dennis!"

"Er— good," said Lyla, unsure what to say. "

You told Arabella this news already?" asked Daphne with a grin.

"Ooh, yes, of course!" squeaked the boy. "He's really excited! I just hope he's in Gryffindor, you know?! Not that being in another house is bad, but— keep your fingers crossed, eh?"

"Uh— yeah, okay," said Lyla.

When the boy left, she turned to her friends. "Brothers and sisters usually go in the same Houses, don't they?" she asked. "I mean, I know me and Arabella are a weird case, but Astoria and Ginny…."

"Oh no, not necessarily," said Daphne. "Parvati Patil's twin sisters in Ravenclaw, and they're identical."

"Oh," was all Lyla said. She looked up at the staff table and noted that there seemed to be more empty seats than usual. Hagrid, of course, was still fighting his way across the lake with the first years; McGonagall was presumably supervising the drying of the entrance hall floor, but there was another empty chair too, and she couldn't think who else was missing.

"Where's the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher?" said Blaise, who was also looking up at the teachers.

They had yet to have a Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher who had lasted more than a year. Lyla's favorite by far had been Remus Lupin, who had resigned last year. She looked up and down the staff table. There was no new face there.

"Maybe they couldn't get anyone," suggested Daphne, looking anxious.

Lyla continued to scan the table more carefully. Tiny little Flitwick, the Charms teacher, was sitting on a large pile of cushions beside Sprout, the Herbology teacher, whose hat was askew over her flyaway gray hair. She was talking to Sinistra of the Astronomy department. On Sinistra's other side was the sallow-faced, hook-nosed, greasy-haired Potions master, Snape— head of Slytherin House. He was Arabella's least favorite person at Hogwarts and was starting to creep onto Lyla's list as well. On Snape's other side was an empty seat, which she guessed was McGonagall's. Next to it, and in the very center of the table, sat Professor Dumbledore, the headmaster, his sweeping silver hair and beard shining in the candlelight, his magnificent deep green robes embroidered with many stars and moons. The tips of Dumbledore's long, thin fingers were together, and he was resting his chin upon them, staring up at the ceiling through his half-moon spectacles as though lost in thought. Lyla, too, glanced up at the ceiling. It was enchanted to look like the sky outside, and he had never seen it look this stormy. Black and purple clouds were swirling across it, and as another thunderclap sounded outside, a fork of lightning flashed across it.

"Oh, hurry up," Theo moaned, "I'm so hungry I could eat a hippogriff."

The words were no sooner out of his mouth when the doors of the Great Hall opened, and silence fell. McGonagall led a long line of first years up to the top of the hall. If Lyla was wet, it was nothing to how these first-years looked. They appeared to have swum across the lake rather than sailed. All of them were shivering with a combination of cold and nerves as they filed along the staff table and came to a halt in a line facing the rest of the school— all of them except the smallest of the lot, a boy with mousy hair, who was wrapped in what she recognized as Hagrid's moleskin overcoat. The coat was so oversized for him that it looked as though he were draped in a furry black circus tent. His small face protruded from over the collar, looking almost painfully excited. When he had lined up with his terrified-looking peers, he caught Colin Creevey's eye, gave a double thumbs-up, and mouthed, I fell in the lake! He looked positively delighted about it.


Professor McGonagall now placed a three-legged stool on the ground before the first years and, on top of it, an ancient, dirty, patched wizard's hat. The first years stared at it. So did everyone else. For a moment, there was silence. Then a long tear near the brim opened wide like a mouth, and the hat broke into song:

A thousand years or more ago, When I was newly sewn,

There lived four wizards of renown,

Whose names are still well known:

Bold Gryffindor, from wild moor,

Fair Ravenclaw, from glen,

Sweet Hufflepuff, from valley broad,

Shrewd Slytherin, from fin.

They shared a wish, a hope, a dream,

They hatched a daring plan,

To educate young sorcerers,

Thus Hogwarts School began.

Now each of these four founders,

Formed their own House for each

Did value different virtues,

In the ones they had to teach.

By Gryffindor, the bravest were,

Prized far beyond the rest;

For Ravenclaw, the cleverest,

Would always be the best;

For Hufflepuff, hard workers were,

Most worthy of admission;

And power-hungry Slytherin,

Loved those of great ambition.

While still alive, they did divide,

Their favorites from the throng,

Yet how to pick the worthy ones,

When they were dead and gone?

'Twas Gryffindor who found the way,

He whipped me off his head,

The founders put some brains in me,

So I could choose instead!

Now slip me snug about your ears,

I've never yet been wrong,

I'll have a look inside your mind,

And tell where you belong!

The Great Hall rang with applause as the Sorting Hat finished.

"That's not the song it sang when it Sorted us," said Arabella, clapping along with everyone else.

"Sings a different one every year," said Ron. "It's got to be a pretty boring life, hasn't it, being a hat? I suppose it spends all year making up the next one."

McGonagall was now unrolling a large scroll of parchment.

"When I call out your name, you will put on the hat and sit on the stool," she told the first years. "When the hat announces your House, you will go and sit at the appropriate table. Ackerley, Stewart!"

A boy walked forward, visibly trembling from head to foot, picked up the Sorting Hat, put it on, and sat down on the stool.

"RAVENCLAW!" shouted the hat.

Stewart Ackerley took off the hat and hurried into a seat at the Ravenclaw table, where everyone applauded him.

"Baddock, Malcolm!"

"SLYTHERIN!"

The table on the other side of the hall erupted with cheers; Arabella could see Lyla clapping as Baddock joined the Slytherins. Fred and George hissed Malcolm Baddock as he sat down.

"Branstone, Eleanor!"

"HUFFLEPUFF!"

"Cauldwell, Owen!"

"HUFFLEPUFF!"

"Creevey, Dennis!"

Tiny Dennis Creevey staggered forward, tripping over Hagrid's moleskin, just as Hagrid himself sidled into the hall through a door behind the teachers' table. About twice as tall as an ordinary man and at least three times as broad, Hagrid, with his long, wild, tangled black hair and beard, looked slightly alarming— a misleading impression, for Hagrid to close friends was known to possess a very kind nature. He winked at her as he sat down at the end of the staff table and watched Dennis Creevey putting on the Sorting Hat. The rip at the brim opened wide—

"GRYFFINDOR!" the hat shouted.

Hagrid clapped along with the Gryffindors as Dennis Creevey, beaming widely, took off the hat, placed it back on the stool, and hurried over to join his brother.

"Colin, I fell in!" he said shrilly, throwing himself into an empty seat. "It was brilliant! And something in the water grabbed me and pushed me back in the boat!"

"Cool!" said Colin, just as excitedly. "It was probably the giant squid, Dennis!"

"Wow!" said Dennis, as though nobody in their wildest dreams could hope for more than being thrown into a storm-tossed, fathoms-deep lake and pushed out of it again by a giant sea monster.

"Dennis! Dennis! See that girl down there? The one with the black hair and green eyes? See her? Know who he is, Dennis?"

Arabella looked away, staring very hard at the Sorting Hat, now Sorting Emma Dobbs. The Sorting continued; boys and girls with varying degrees of fright on their faces moving one by one to the three-legged stool, the line dwindling slowly as McGonagall passed the L's.

"Oh, I'm so hungry," Ron moaned, massaging his stomach.

"Now, Ron, the Sorting's much more important than food," said Nearly Headless Nick.

"Madley, Laura!"

"HUFFLEPUFF!"

"Course it is if you're dead," snapped Ron.

"I do hope this year's batch of Gryffindors are up to scratch," mused Nearly Headless Nick, applauding as McDonald Natalie joined the Gryffindor table. "We don't want to break our winning streak, do we?"

Gryffindor had won the Inter-House Championship for the last three years.

"Pritchard, Graham!"

"SLYTHERIN!"

"Quirke, Orla!"

"RAVENCLAW!"

"Whitby, Kevin!"

"HUFFLEPUFF!"

And the Sorting ended. McGonagall picked up the hat and the stool and carried them away.

"About time," said Ron, seizing his knife and fork and looking expectantly at his golden plate.

Dumbledore had gotten to his feet. He was smiling around at the students, his arms opened wide in welcome.

"I have only two words to say to you," he told them, his deep voice echoing around the hall. "Tuck in."

"Hear, hear!" said Arabella and Ron loudly as the empty dishes filled magically before their eyes.

Nearly Headless Nick watched mournfully as the students all loaded their plates.

"Aaah, 'at's be'er," said Ron, with his mouth full of mashed potato.

"You're lucky there's a feast at all, you know," said Nearly Headless Nick. "There was trouble in the kitchens earlier."

"Why? Wha' 'appened?" asked Arabella through a sizable chunk of steak.

"Peeves, of course," said Nearly Headless Nick, shaking his head, which wobbled dangerously. He pulled his ruff a little higher up on his neck. "The usual argument, you know. He wanted to attend the feast— well, it's quite out of the question, you know what he's like, utterly uncivilized, can't see a plate of food without throwing it. We held a ghost's council— the Fat Friar was all for giving him the chance— but most wisely, in my opinion, the Bloody Baron put his foot down."

The Bloody Baron was the Slytherin ghost, a gaunt and silent specter covered in silver bloodstains. He was the only person at Hogwarts who could really control Peeves.

"Yeah, we thought Peeves seemed hacked off about something," said Ron darkly. "So what did he do in the kitchens?"

"Oh, the usual," said Nearly Headless Nick, shrugging. "Wreaked havoc and mayhem. Pots and pans everywhere. Place swimming in soup. Terrified the house elves out of their wits—"

Clang!

Hermione had knocked over her golden goblet. Pumpkin juice spread steadily over the tablecloth, staining several feet of white linen orange, but Hermione paid no attention.

"There are house elves here?!" she said, staring, horror-struck, at Nearly Headless Nick. "Here at Hogwarts?"

"Certainly," said Nearly Headless Nick, looking surprised at her reaction. "The largest number in any dwelling in Britain, I believe. Over a hundred."

"I— I've never seen one!" said Hermione.

"Well, they hardly ever leave the kitchen by day, do they?" said Nearly Headless Nick. "They come out at night to do a bit of cleaning.. . see to the fires and so on... I mean, you're not supposed to see them, are you? That's the mark of a good house-elf, isn't it, that you don't know it's there?"

Hermione stared at him.

"But they get paid?" she prompted. "They get holidays, don't they? And— and sick leave, and pensions, and everything?"

Nearly Headless Nick chortled so much that his ruff slipped, and his head flopped off, dangling on the inch or so of ghostly skin and muscle still attached to his neck.

"Sick leave and pensions?" he said, pushing his head back onto his shoulders and securing it once more with his ruff. "House-elves don't want sick leave and pensions!"

Hermione looked down at her hardly-touched plate of food, then put her knife and fork down upon it and pushed it away from her.

"Oh c'mon, 'Er-my-knee," said Ron, accidentally spraying Arabella with bits of Yorkshire pudding. "Oops— sorry—" He swallowed. "You won't get them sick leave by starving yourself!"

"Slave labor," said Hermione, breathing hard through her nose. "That's what made this dinner. Slave labor."

And she refused to eat another bite.

The rain was still drumming heavily against the high, dark glass. Another clap of thunder shook the windows, and the stormy ceiling flashed, illuminating the golden plates as the remains of the first course vanished and were replaced instantly with puddings.

"Treacle tart, Hermione!" said Ron, deliberately wafting its smell toward her. "Spotted dick, look! Chocolate gateau!"

But Hermione gave him a look so reminiscent of McGonagall that he quickly gave up.

When the puddings had been demolished and the last crumbs had faded off the plates, leaving them sparkling clean, Albus Dumbledore got to his feet again. The buzz of chatter filling the hall ceased almost at once so that only the howling wind and pounding rain could be heard.

"So!" said Dumbledore, smiling around at them all. "Now that we are all fed and watered," ("Hmph!" muttered Hermione) "I must once more ask for your attention while I give out a few notices. Mr. Filch, the caretaker, has asked me to tell you that the list of objects forbidden inside the castle has this year been extended to include Screaming Yo-yos, Fanged Frisbees, and Ever-Bashing Boomerangs. The full list comprises some four hundred and thirty-seven items, I believe, and can be viewed in Mr. Filch's office if anybody would like to check it."

The corners of Dumbledore's mouth twitched. He continued, "As ever, I would like to remind you all that the forest on the grounds is out-of-bounds to students, as is the village of Hogsmeade to all below third-year students. And, it is also my painful duty to inform you that the Inter-House Quidditch Cup will not take place this year."

"What?!" Arabella gasped. She looked around at Fred and George, her fellow members of the Quidditch team. They were mouthing soundlessly at Dumbledore, apparently too appalled to speak.

Dumbledore continued, "This is due to an event that will be starting in October, and continuing throughout the school year, taking up much of the teacher's time and energy— but I am sure you will all enjoy it immensely. I have great pleasure in announcing that this year at Hogwarts—"

But at that moment, there was a loud rumble of thunder, and the doors of the Great Hall banged open. A man stood in the doorway, leaning upon a long staff, shrouded in a black traveling cloak. Every head in the Great Hall swiveled toward the stranger, suddenly brightly illuminated by a fork of lightning that flashed across the ceiling. He lowered his hood, shook out a long mane of grizzled, dark gray hair, then began to walk up toward the teachers' table. A dull clunk echoed through the hall on every other step. He reached the end of the top table, turned right, and limped heavily toward Dumbledore. Another flash of lightning crossed the ceiling.

Hermione gasped.

The lightning had thrown the man's face into sharp relief, and it was a face unlike any Arabella had ever seen. It looked as though it had been carved out of weathered wood by someone who had only the vaguest idea of what human faces are supposed to look like and was none too skilled with a chisel. Every inch of skin seemed to be scarred. The mouth looked like a diagonal gash, and a large chunk of the nose was missing. But it was the man's eyes that made him frightening. One of them was small, dark, and beady. The other was large, round as a coin, and a vivid, electric blue. The blue eye was moving ceaselessly, without blinking, and was rolling up, down, and from side to side, quite independently of the normal eye - and then it rolled right over, pointing into the back of the man's head, so that all they could see was whiteness.

The stranger reached Dumbledore. He stretched out a hand that was as badly scarred as his face, and Dumbledore shook it, muttering words Harry couldn't hear. He seemed to be making some inquiry of the stranger, who shook his head unsmilingly and replied in an undertone. Dumbledore nodded and gestured to the empty seat on his right-hand side. The stranger sat down, shook his mane of dark gray hair out of his face, pulled a plate of sausages toward him, raised it to what was left of his nose, and sniffed it. He then took a small knife out of his pocket, speared a sausage on its end, and began eating. His normal eye was fixed upon the sausages, but the blue eye was still darting restlessly around in its socket, taking in the hall and the students.

"May I introduce our new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher?" said Dumbledore brightly into the silence. "Alastor Moody."

It was usual for new staff members to be greeted with applause. Still, none of the staff or students chapped except Dumbledore and Hagrid, who both put their hands together and applauded, but the sound echoed dismally into the silence, and they stopped fairly quickly. Everyone else seemed too transfixed by Moody's bizarre appearance to do more than stare at him.

"Moody?" Arabella muttered to Ron. "Mad-Eye Moody? The one, your dad, went to help this morning?"

"Must be," said Ron in a low, awed voice.

"Wha-what happened to him?" Hermione whispered. "What happened to his face?"

"Dunno," Ron whispered back, watching Moody with fascination.

Moody seemed indifferent to his less-than-warm welcome. Ignoring the jug of pumpkin juice in front of him, he reached again into his traveling cloak, pulled out a hip flask, and took a long swig. As he lifted his arm to drink, his cloak was pulled a few inches from the ground, and Harry saw, below the table, several inches of carved wooden leg ending in a clawed foot.

Dumbledore cleared his throat.

"As I was saying," he said, smiling at the sea of students before him, all of whom were still gazing transfixed at Mad-Eye Moody, "we are to have the honor of hosting a very exciting event over the coming months, an event that has not been held for over a century. It is my very great pleasure to inform you that the Triwizard Tournament will be taking place at Hogwarts this year."


P.S. If you could, if one has the time, please leave

-Long Comments

-Short Comments

-Questions (if any)

-Kind Critisim

General Feedback