Chapter 6 - The Sorting Feast and lessons begin
"RAVENCLAW!"
I sighed in relief as I heard the Sorting Hat laugh to itself inside my head, the laughter vanishing once I'd let go of it.
I turn to head towards the Ravenclaw table and a stunned hall of students.
It was deathly quiet.
Suddenly a thunderous clap started behind me, Hagrid was the sole participant in this lonely and potentially cripplingly embarrassing applause.
I caught a pair of raised eyebrows on Dumbledore's face which quickly turned to a serious frown and back to jovial whimsy all in a flash, it was a mixed amount of shock from the other teachers. This all in contrast to the faked vacant expression worn by Quirrel, his eyes piercing and alert giving him away, and what I assumed was Snape's permanent scowl.
My scar twinged a bit when passing squirrels gaze, but if he noticed his face remained somewhat gormless.
Slowly Flitwick and Dumbledore joined in which spurred the Ravenclaws to go pretty much loco.
Well as loco as I assume the ravenclaws would.
As I walked over to the table people were gesturing for me to sit next to them and shoving each other to make space, I could hear Fred and George wailing about how they didn't get Potter. There even was a reserved applause from a few Slytherins.
"Ahem-ahem." Said McGonagall sternly, while that was mostly drowned out so she whipped her wand and a loud crack reverberated through the hall silencing everyone.
The next few names went by with little attention as a light murmuring moved up and down the tables at my sorting in Ravenclaw.
Let the shake up begin, I thought gleefully.
The climb up to Ravenclaw tower was one hell of an experience, if not only for the number of ghosts, portraits and the moving staircase but the really, really mind boggling thing that caught my attention was that despite the obvious expansion charms, was the fact there were staircases and alcoves that were entirely non-euclidean, seemingly as and when they wanted to be.
They exited the main staircase on the fourth floor and then at the end of a long corridor took what could only be described as three left turns before taking a set of stairs down and through a set of doors onto a bridge leading to the east wing of the school, after passing through doors to get back inside we ascended two flights of stairs to now be told we were on part of the seventh floor.
By the time we reached the bottom of the tower my head was spinning trying to keep track of it (note to self get that blooming map asap).
"The password changes every time the door shuts" the bored prefect leading us to the common room mumbled.
The eagle knocker spoke "What never breaks and always falls and what always breaks but never falls."
"Anyone?" Drawled the prefect. "Urrrghhh, you will at some point have to do this on your own."
"Hilliard!" A sharp voice rang out. "If you didn't want to be a prefect then why did you accept the badge?"
"Where were you anyways?"
"Pointing a first year puff who got separated from the group towards his common room!" She snapped, almost as shrill as petunia might've, her voice softened. "Don't mind him, unfortunately he was the best out of a bad bunch."
"Whatever Clearwater. It's night and day."
The knocker clunked and the door swung inwards to reveal Ravenclaw tower.
"Welcome to the tower, affectionately called the roost. First years are on the second floor, boys to the right and girls to the left, that will be the dorm you'll be in for all years, don't think too hard about the size of the corridors, the magic will make your head spin, Everyone to meet back here in half an hour, Flitwick loves his little start of year speeches."
Once on the landing for the second floor, I could sense that the corridors seemed to stretch beyond the width of the tower and I assumed it to match the number of students in each year.
I found a door marked Potter and stepped into my very own dorm room.
There was the four poster bed as I expected, adorned with Ravenclaw blues and bronze, a desk of thick oak wood, a mid-sized bookcase (currently empty) and a large wardrobe. The room was circular and was separated up by a small fireplace next to a comfy looking deep blue armchair.
I could see out of a window overlooking the grounds towards the Quidditch pitch.
I sighed as I settled into my armchair in my Hogwarts home for the next seven years.
The next morning after a rushed shower and getting ready I headed down to the common room, where the first years were standing around.
I approached the other first year boys.
"What's going on?"
"One of the prefects are taking us down to the great hall, Anthoney Goldstein, nice to meet you." He spoke in an almost comical, stiff Received Pronunciation. He also offered his hand to shake which I did very briefly.
"Harry, nice to meet you too." I said as politely as I could.
"Don't mind mister hoity-toity, he's upper class muggle." Said the boy to his left. "Terry Boot, and that's Michael Corner, Kevin Entwhistle and Stephen Cornfoot."
Anthony scowled at Terry's comment and opened his mouth but thankfully was spoken over.
"First years, this should be the only time you need a prefect to get from the roost to the great hall, however we will still be around to help you if you get really lost, as should the other prefects, yes even the Slytherin's. I'm Elenor Rosebridge, your seventh year prefect and head girl. Everyone follow me."
While we ate Flitwick was handing out our schedule.
Mondays for both weeks were rough, double history of magic and double herbology.
Tuesdays were DADA, then double charms, the reverse on the second week,
Wednesdays were potions double (huh, in canon the first potions lesson was on a Friday, maybe because I'm not a Gryffindor?) and then the afternoon off for astronomy on Wednesday nights
Thursday week one was charms, transfiguration, herbology and history of magic, week two was double charms and double transfiguration.
Fridays week one double DADA, double Potions and then transfiguration
Week two Fridays double charms, transfiguration and then in the evening astronomy.
Each day except Wednesdays had one free period and lunch, all lessons bar astronomy were done by four expect Fridays which ended at five on the first week of schedule.
Other than that it was a pretty stacked schedule compared to what I expected.
As it came to eight thirty a low bell rang out signalling the end of breakfast and the beginning of our first full day at Hogwarts.
As expected Binns was tantamount to torture, the ghost had one pitch of voice and it was flat. History of magic should be anything but boring, this is the class where we should be finding out where magic came from, when did magic first started being used, a hundred, no, thousands of interesting questions should be answered in these lessons.
But no.
As is canon, goblin rebellions only.
I scribble a list of things I want answered about this subject, guess I'll have to study this one on my own time.
Herbology was a little more hands on, the first fourth five minutes were a standard health and safety briefing, sprout even had us practicing and reciting the correct way to lift heavy things with your knees rather than your back.
The next forty-five minutes was a lecture on Dittany and its uses, the rest of the lesson was her going over what she wanted us to do for homework, she let us go after that.
As expected Quirrel faked his way though his lessons all complete with ridiculous stutter, glad it was just an hour long and wanting to escape the overpowering smell of garlic we all hurried to the dungeons.
Joy of joys, Severus Snape.
Snape sneered at me with such utter contempt that I realised no moment in the books truly captures the hatred this man had kept in his heart for over a decade for James Potter; and the audacity to direct that hatred towards me, or well, Harry.
He must be fuelled by his inability to let go of the past, James and Lily died a decade ago.
"Ah, yes," he said softly, "Harry Potter. Our new – celebrity." He said barely above a whisper.
The class held their breath.
"Sir, I honestly don't think that I deserve that title, it was something that my mother that apparently destroyed Voldemort and saved me. I mean I was just a baby."
The class gasped at my nonchalant use of 'the forbidden name' dun dun dunnnn.
Snape's sneer turned into a look of disbelief for a fraction of a second before the Slytherin mask came back up.
He finished off calling attendance and pressed on. I wasn't planning on letting him.
In all my preparations for the great horcrux hunt I had asked myself time and time again how the hell am I going to deal with Snape. In the books despite being a spy and in the end siding with the 'light' as Dumbledore might put it, he still mercilessly bullies children for a decade as potions Professor and Slytherins head of house. And his obsession, not love, of Lily Potter nee Evans for more than a decade after her death is just plain creepy.
Yes he's a brilliant character, flawed, complex, and a joy to read, but as a person. A complete arsehole who didn't mature past a crippling unrequited infatuation with a girl who chose his bully who had changed his ways and actually matured where he either couldn't or wouldn't.
So obviously faced with the person and not a name on a page, I intended to confuse and mess with him.
"You are here to learn the subtle science and exact art of potion-making," he began. Snape had the gift of keeping a class silent without effort. "As there is little foolish wand-waving here, many of you will hardly believe this is magic. I don't expect you will really understand the beauty of the softly simmering cauldron with its shimmering fumes, the delicate power of liquids that creep through human veins, bewitching the -"
I had my hand up straight in the air.
"Yes Potter?"
"Are there potions that make you fly? Or breathe underwater? Or turn invisible? Or give you superhuman strength? Or-" I was cut off.
"Cease your inane questions at once Potter!" He barked angrily.
"Five points from Gryffindor! Now if you aren't as big a bunch of dunderheads as I usually have to teach, let's get started." He said while waving his wand to summon the board with the instructions on it.
"Sir, I'm a Ravenclaw."
Suffice to say, as he turned purple, which made me sort of nostalgic for the first time I saw Uncle Vernon do the same, I thought to myself that I didn't think he liked me.
As the lesson progressed and he stalked the gaps between potions benches I could see what was meant by greasy hair. Honestly a decent haircut from a barber and a good wash with some styling and removing the permanent scowl and he might not look as cartoonishly-evil. Might even get a date or two if he wasn't pining for a lost 'love'.
He hurled the occasional put down of someone's abilities (it's most people first ever lesson, of course we don't know this.)
At the end of the lesson when I handed in a perfect potion, I could see his face contort in annoyance in another blink and you'd miss it.
He didn't even ask me the three questions he does in canon; nor did he try to use legilimency on me.
I guess I distracted him too well?
So begins my plan to act like a marauder (sans bullying), work like an Evans. For a fleeting moment I almost, almost felt sorry for him.
As for astronomy, that was rote memorisation, with the occasional bit of star charts and using a sort of magical octant designed for stars to locate something like a constellation or planet.
It was the astronomy tower that impressed me with that lesson, it was like a rudimentary observatory that could zoom in on the sky above.
Charms I excelled at thanks to my foray into wandless magic, it took me a little longer to get a feel for how to move my wand with the flow of magic I was used to, however despite not being the first to get it, once I did my spells always seemed to have more 'oomph' behind them.
It was Transfiguration that continued to give me the hardest time.
I knew from my time in the garden of Privet drive that magic is truly powered and shaped by intent, and despite knowing this my hedgehog remained less pincushion and more hog after most attempts. Small wandless transfiguration came easy, but doing it with a wand on a larger scale proved difficult.
I even sought out help from classmates and the 'one brain of Gryffindor' as I'd overheard some older 'Claws call Hermione, I wondered if they'd called her such in canon without them ever knowing.
"Your issue is theory Harry, you need to understand the text first to make it easier to apply the change you want."
Of course Hermione would preach the text to me. But then maybe she was right.
This was why on the first Saturday of my Hogwarts life was spent in the library, which as proven over the last four hours was far too easy to get lost in.
"Urrrgghhh" I moaned half heartedly.
"Fiiiiiineeee."
I wanted to be an animagus damn it, I will excel at this no matter what.
The next day I made my excuses for avoiding the other first year ravenclaws and made my way through the common room door.
Tommy boy had foolishly left one of his little trinkets right here in the castle for me to collect, how kind.
I approached the tapestry of Barnabus the Barmy and his not-quite dancing trolls.
I paced three times asking for the room of hidden things.
The door morphed into place, I slipped through and into Hogwarts' own cave of wonders.
The piles started small and quickly grew to be as high as two stories tall.
With the parchment and superior-to-a-quill ballpoint pen I started mapping out the towers of junk with the occasional landmark item to keep track of it all. Only problem was there was a lot of it.
After doing so for the morning I headed to the great hall for a quick lunch, then after exploring the castle and all its impossibilities and altering corridors and staircases, after a couple of walls only pretending to be doors where there normally would be a door, I made my way to the R.O.R, however I realised there may be a gold mine to be made from the junk in there, I wanted to see what I could reclaim.
After a couple of attempts of wording and rewording my request, the door finally appeared with the request, 'a room full of things I could sell without causing harm to others'
The hope was to show everything of value but wasn't cursed to kill upon touch etc.
The room wasn't as I expected, the layout was like a muggle supermarket, with aisles upon aisles, each with a large sign stating what was in the aisle.
A map of the aisles had also appeared near the exit showing all 144 aisles and what they stored.
Thankfully the one listed as jewellery and gold was only eight aisles away.
Hurrying to the aisle I also passed one for wands, another for cauldrons and even one that was signed for pensives.
The jewellery aisle had a glow I could see from two rows over, when I rounded the corner I imagined a cartoon reaction of money signs popping out of my eyes.
The aisle was stacked with chests upon chests of gold, at an estimate nearly three time the amount of gold in the vault I had access to currently. Unfortunately I had no way to store any of this as of yet, and with all the other stuff I could pilfer from this version of the room, I'd be as far from hurting for money as possible for a long, long time.
On my way back to the exit out of curiosity I went down the pensive aisle.
There were only four pensieves, two that looked to be of standard size, one which was about twice the size, possibly for a larger audience? And one which was only as wide as my hand, a portable one I guess.
Leaving everything where it was I planned to come back with a couple of undetectable extension charmed bags and fill them with treasures.
I also ducked into the aisle full of wands, this aisle had a single shelf on either side each with a vast number of wands, each with a little tag attached listing length, wood type and core. Deciding to set a night aside to sort through these wands for any that may be compatible with myself, I could also bring a couple of close friends to get back up wands.
Once back to the exit I nipped out, walked back and forth to ask for a training room, my training was mainly to make sure I was casting spells with my demiguise wand as well as with my phoenix wand.
After three hours of going over every spell learnt so far with my phoenix wand it was clear. My demiguise wand felt more comfortable with transfigurations and the more delicate of charms learnt so far. My phoenix wand would be good for powerful spells, and demiguise for transfiguration and intricate casting.
I still had a struggle with transfiguration but at least now I had more than a fighting chance with the subject.
The school year began in earnest, and two weeks in the book order for Hermione's birthday arrived in my morning post, Hedwig taking far more bacon than is probably healthy for a snowy owl.
The three books I'd ordered via owl post were, the families of old and their histories in Britain by Narqua Shafiq, a surprisingly unbiased approach to pureblood traditions and culture, I intended to use this as a way to help her learn how to properly navigate the more traditional side of the magical world, the second book was simply titled magic around the world by Matthias Ollivander, who travelled the world observing magic in different communities and exploring wand lore. The last being what are runes? A beginners guide by Wardmaster Daggertooth, one of the only published goblins - that flourish and blotts stock anyway.
As they were gift wrapped I gave them to her with a note reading, one from myself and consider the other two from Ron and Neville as neither probably realised it was her birthday.
Up until the end of the September Neville, Ron and Hermione had something of a tentative friendship that was only really balanced out when I was with them, without me Ron would tend to lean toward antagonistic in how he spoke, Neville who's growth in confidence was being curtailed by Snape's potions classes would shy away from Ron's big dumb Gryffindor tendencies and Hermione would lecture them about whatever her opinion was on the matter at hand.
This started to unravel in the first week of October.
October first was a crisp ,cool Tuesday and on the notice boards in every common room was the missive,
All first years will have flying lessons twice a month starting this month, for Slytherins and Gryffindors this will begin from October 8th and Hufflepuff and Ravenclaws on the 9th.
Then in the second term one extra lesson will be added.
This will update on your schedule accordingly.
Signed Deputy Headmistress and Gryffindor Head of house,
Professor McGonagall
Of course it was a disaster, one that thanks to me not being there, I couldn't mitigate.
Neville had gone up, then down, breaking an ankle earning a night in the infirmary regrowing the broken bone. Then Draco and Ron went up in the air, Draco threw the Remembrall, and despite catching it, Ron ploughed right into McGonagall's office.
Hermione had berated their deplorable behaviour the whole time.
Draco and Ron were both looking at some serious detention time and letter home to parents.
Hermione blamed Ron for much of what happened as he had been goading Draco, and Neville was just an unlucky victim of a dodgy broom. As a result the friendship between the three was in question.
Throughout October this became more and more strained until in charms class on the 31st, the famous Levi-oh-saa scene played out causing Hermione to disappear to cry in the loo.
As the feast opened and the food appeared I began wolfing down my dinner like there was no tomorrow.
I prepared myself mentally for the bonkers plan I was about to enact, and prepared to do a bit of acting to match.
After gulping a goblet of water I let my stomach settle for a while until...
"TROLL! TROLLLLL! TROLL,IN THE DUNGEON. Thoughtyououttaknow."
Quirrel yelled without a hint of stutter, before collapsing in faux faint.
Time to go to work.
A/N :
Hey all, it's been a while since my last upload. I found out I've another baby on the way so life's been busy.
I realised that while the MC feels SI, he's not, he'll make some choices I wouldn't in this fantastical fictitious hypothetical, but anyways, onwards.
