CHAPTER 3: ROCK, SCISSORS AND PAPER
The bus landed. The new batch of kids was ceremoniously received by a pair of prefects who took them to the Great Hall, where they had to wait for their ritual sorting.
The mood was subdued despite the festive occasion. A witch in brown glasses and black robes came to the speaking podium.
"Good evening. Welcome back and welcome. I am professor McGonagall, the new deputy headmistress. I'm sure most of you already know that professor Dumbledore is now the new headmaster, following the unexpected and untimely death of professor Nigelle."
She stepped aside to let professor Dumbledore say a few words. In the world of magic the headmaster was something of a minor celebrity. James barely recalled having met him and his parents only had nice things to say.
"Thank you professor McGonagall. Good evening. Earlier this year we tragically lost our beloved headmaster, professor Nigelle."
There was a good deal of sobbing at the house tables. The Slytherin one especially.
"Truly he was one of the finest headmasters that has ever served here."
Sure he looked 200.
"And he shall forever be remembered as one of the greatest wizards Hogwarts has ever seen."
Could he really be 200?
Sirius huffed.
"Will you listen to that!"
"What?" said James.
" 'He shall forever be 'remembered' as one of the greatest wizards Hogwarts has ever seen.' !"
"Yeah? I guess he was a great wizard then."
"You would have to think that because that's how he is going to be 'remembered', isn't it?"
"Isn't that a good thing? Wasn't he a great wizard?"
"Dumbledore clearly didn't think so."
"But he literally just said he does think so."
Professor Dumbledore's brief words were followed by a silent minute. There was a portrait of the former headmaster beside the speaking podium which explained why so many older girls were weeping. A perfect skunk streak ran through his black hair. He had such piercing stalker eyes that James for a moment thought he was being watched. But it was only a Mona Lisa trick. Professor Nigelle wasn't watching anybody because the portrait was just as dead as him.
When the silent minute was over professor McGonagall came back.
"Before we press on with the rest of the news, can I just say, it is so wonderful to see all the new faces. Such lovely faces, all your little lovely faces, lovely."
Her face didn't seem to mean a word of it.
"Professor Brandon was fired because he kept sniffing the hair on all the little girls. Also his speech impediment simply got too bad. He now resides in Sunset Home."
The wonderful news put everybody in a better mood.
"Which means we have a new defence against the dark arts teacher. Please welcome professor Eton Powers. I have a good feeling you will all like him."
Then she muttered, while stepping aside:
"I know the librarian certainly does…"
An overenthusiastic wizard in a blue velvet suit and neck frill swaggered to the speaking podium. He wore big trendy glasses and his smile exposed a set of horrible teeth.
"Grrrovy baby! Yeah! Oh be-have! Professor McGonagall, do I make you randy? Do I? Judo CHOP! Looking forward to getting to know you all. It's going to be smashing, baby! Grrr!"
Then he took a seat at the staff table.
"Professor Powers everybody," said professor McGonagall, returning. "And now, the thing you've all been waiting for."
At last the food!
"The sorting song. The sorting hat everybody clap clap."
Nobody actually clapped. One person tried to get some clapping going but failed.
McGonagall brought a stool to the front and put an old hat there. It scrunched its face and began to sing:
Sorty, sorty
Sorty, sorty
Sorty, sorty
Sorty, sorty
Professor McGonagall hurried to slap it, shake it and turn it inside out and check it for moths.
"Looks like The Boston Tea Party threw it in the wash again. To think I survived seven years of them without acquiring a single grey hair, a miracle."
She banged the hat some more. James looked at Dumbledore at the staff table.
Was he really 200?
He glanced at Sirius who stood beside him lost in thoughts. And it struck him, that from a purely objective standpoint, he was super pretty. Girls kept looking at him, and whispering...
He was going to be so popular. Popularity was going to be served to him on a silver tray, chewed down for him and forced down his throat with a feeding tube. All because he didn't have to wear big dorky glasses.
Damn it, James thought. Slytherins weren't supposed to be pretty! They were all supposed to look like cave trolls and have personalities to match! The idea of having a rival that was more popular than him, the thought of it was unbearable.
IF, however, on the OTHER hands...
...they were BOTH Gryffindors...
In his fantasy, Sirius was wearing sunglasses. A bunch of girls were clinging to him and he said: "Can you take some of these girls off me? They're just too many!"
And James replied: "Okay!"
The fantasy was abruptly cut short by a screaming McGonagall.
"JEZEBEL ARACHNID!"
A girl who had the face of somebody who had surely kicked many puppies ran up to the dais. James nudged Sirius hard and urgently.
"Rock, scissors and paper. Best of three."
"What?"
"Rock, scissors and paper, best of three!"
"What does the winner get?"
"If I win, you have to think intense thoughts to the hat and beg to be a Gryffindor."
The proposition made Sirius curve a smug smile.
"And if I win?"
"Then I will have to think intense thoughts to the hat and beg to be a Gryffindor."
"If I win, you have to think intense thoughts to the hat and beg to be a Slytherin."
James snorted. "You're on!"
But on the inside, he was weeping from horror and dread. In his fantasy professor McGonagall forced a tight hat over his head. It cried: SLYTHERIN! Hot tears welled down his cheeks. A pair of prefect trolls handcuffed him and dragged him kicking and screaming to their nasty and smelly hole. So, so dark! Snakes! Snakes everywhere! Mutants with glowing lamp eyes sitting in their wet corners and hissing at him. His skin breaking out in green boils.
"NOOO!"
The fantasy was abruptly cut short by his own pulling of his own hair.
"Did we say best of three?" Sirius asked.
They rolled up their sleeves.
Theme from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.
Close up on their squinting eyes.
One. Two. Three.
James rock. Sirius paper. Sirius smirked. James regretted his foolishness. What was he thinking? Of course he should have realized that Sirius was going to use dark witchcraft to win. If he won a second time it was only going to confirm that he was just as dishonest and evil as the rest of them and James wasn't going to beg to any hat.
One, two, three!
James rock, Sirius rock.
Sweat beads broke out on their faces. James felt physically sick and Sirius looked it. If he wanted to back out now James wasn't going to be too hard on him for it.
Round three.
One. Two. Three.
James scissors, Sirius paper.
"YES!"
"It's a draw. Oh well-"
"Best of four?" James often didn't know when to stop.
"Why? You're not going to live up to your word so why should I?"
The dirty mind reader!
"Yes I will! Pinky swear?"
Why oh why could he not just shut up? He wished Sirius would just say no. Of course he was going to say no. If he was as smart as he thought he was, he'd say no. It really looked like he was going to say no, so James said:
"But if you're too chicken to do it, look, it's fine. Honestly."
"You are eager for the pinky swear aren't you?"
"Look, all I said was, I don't blame you for not wanting to have your ass kicked."
"You're getting your ass kicked. Let's do the pinky swear."
Sirius removed his mum's earring and pricked his fingers without even wincing. Blood trickled out. He passed the bloody needle to James, who was bloodshy and needlechallenged.
He sucked it up, pricked himself and returned the earring. Sirius sucked the blood off- clearly just to be provocative- and stuck it under his hair. They then hooked their pinkies and began to recite the oath:
"I swear by this my pinky that if I lose at rock, scissors and paper I shall beg the hat to sort me in the enemy house. Should I not honour the pinky swear, may my skin break out in a thousand boils, may vultures peck my eyes out, may my limbs fall off and give birth to an aggressive race of parasitic worms and may my butt grow a third cheek with teeth. Amen."
They could feel the magic of the swear radiate through their bodies from their hot and sticky pinkies. If they didn't honour the pinky swear it was literally going to bite them in the back.
They unhooked their pinkies once they had cooled down and self-healed, now ready for the final and decisive round.
They rolled up their sleeves even more.
One…
Time stood still.
...two…
They couldn't even look.
...three.
James paper.
He looked down.
Sirius rock.
"GET IINNN!" James punched the air victoriously while Sirius just sort of stared emptily at his losing rock.
Then McGonagall had to come down and fetch him to the sorting stool because she had been calling his name a few times already.
"Mr Black? You're supposed to come up when your name is called."
She put her hand on his back and took him to the dais.
"Ok good luck!" James shouted after him. "And remember, beggars CAN be choosers!"
Sirius glared back at him and mouthed something very rude.
McGonagall pulled the hat over Sirius's head. It leered.
"Sooo," said the hat, "Hmmm. Yeeessss. Hmmmm. Yeeeesss. Ohh yeesss!"
Just like his former counsellor.
"Really? No! They what?"
"I haven't even thought anything yet."
"Threw away your Transistor Crystal Radio Star? Money you made yourself? Threw it to the infernal poodles?"
It was true. His parents had thrown his TCRS to the infernal poodles simply for asking who Lenin was.
"But your parents were Slytherins before you, and their parents before them, because Baguette Magique did away with the purist faction after the Croissant Revolution. And now you want to bring dishonour to your bloodline over a radio? Well if you are sure. GRYFFINDOR!""
Sirius was received with cheers and open arms by his new house peers, and he quickly became immersed in conversation with some blokes in band T-shirts.
Meanwhile James had to wait at least 300 hours for his turn. And when at last his turn came he was sorted before the hat even touched him. What remained of the sorting flew by and so did the rest of the evening.
When the dessert buffet vanished McGonagall announced that it was time to go to bed. Two prefects escorted the newbies to their tower.
"This is the Corpulent Madame," said prefect Donna Fisher. "She is our portrait guard. The password is: Donna e mobile."
And lo, the Corpulent Madame went up like a door. Donna Fisher led the girls one way and prefect Dave Taylor led the chaps down another. Their first stop was dormitory L, where he counted four chaps from the group and wished them a good night.
The remaining four were assigned dormitory M.