...

HARRY POTTER IN:

GABRIEL AND THE DUELLING CLUB

Harry Potter, the BOY-WHO-LIVED, makes his way to Hogwarts, the centre of magical learning in Britain.

He knows he's supposed to be famous; a celebrity scion of a famous family.

Yet his knowledge of the Wizarding World is vanishingly small.

How will he manage his ignorance in a vast, strange school, when hundreds of eyes watch him unceasingly?

And how will he seek to achieve his ultimate goal of becoming

THE DUELLIST?

The floo powder glinted dimly in the palm of Harry's hand. What, he vaguely wondered, was it made of? He passed the grey-green granules between his fingers, considering the unfamiliar sensation scraping against his skin. Sand was the most obvious comparison, but sand could be soft as well as coarse. Floo powder, he decided, felt more like he imagined glass, shredded into tiny spheres.

It was only the second time he'd used floo powder. The first had been yesterday, when he'd finally fled to the Order's cottage. Merlin, that had been a terrifying journey, especially after he'd skimmed through Creatures of Land, Deep and Sky. Worse even than Hike's descriptions was the memory of the wild thing, which haunted his imagination to such a degree that he had seen its twisted face often in the corner of his eye, behind every crooked other tree and in low-creeping bush.

But he had found the Order's cottage without issue, and certainly hadn't stayed for supper. He'd found there the same strange masked men (or, at least, he thought they were the same) sitting in the same chairs (those chairs were not particularly strange). They'd acquiesced to his request to use the floo without complaint. Harry had wondered if Eric had had anything to do with that.

They'd even taught him how to use the floo, which itself was a nerve-wracking experience. First was the problem of admitting to a pair of bemasked purebloods that he didn't know how to use the floo. He'd employed the Norway excuse; they seemed to buy it. Then there was the powder's apparent cost. He hadn't forgotten that the Rosier's had disconnected themselves from the floo network to cut costs. Last but not least was the action of using the floo… that is, stepping into a fire.

Harry hadn't really fancied that.

But he'd had no other choice, so he had. Ogden's Square he'd called out; the flames had flared green, the heat had whooshed out of them, and he'd stepped into the fireplace. A feeling of unease had taken his feet from under him, pulling him into a rush of light and noise that had pulled his breath from his lungs in turn. He had seemed to fall through a bright nowhere for a moment, where strange patterns of fire twirled at the corners of his vision, and then arrived all at once.

The very moment Harry'd tumbled onto Diagon's Alley's cobblestones he'd relaxed. Every muscle mellowed - flop, even - as he'd pressed his hands gratefully against the cool, hard surfaces of the pavement beneath his knees, just to feel that they were there. That he was back. Back in Diagon Alley, back where students skulked around Flourish and Blotts, where Florean Fortescue made the (second*) best ice creams in the country… back where he'd witnessed Montague and Kneen duel. Where he'd found his purpose.

He'd taken in the sights gladly, and found Diagon different in the dark. The public hearth behind him lit only the cobbles close by, and cast on his behalf a vast shadow that flickered against the wall of Gambol and Japes Wizarding Joke Shop. Otherwise, light filtered only from the edges of shutters or tight-shut curtains, and more significantly from serenely floating glass baubles in which burned what Harry had guessed were bluebell flames. They were seemingly patrolling the streets, bathing a doorway, an archway, the mouth of an alleyway, in a calm and deep-shadowed light.

No one had been around; midnight's chimes were sounding from the clocktower.

Once he'd recovered, Harry had made his way through the dreamy byways of Diagon at rest at a watchful pace. Not only had he begun to worry about Tom the barman (what would the gentle man say, if he saw Harry with bright auburn hair?) but he also feared for his own balance. Midnight's shadows made deceitful footing, fashioning false lips in the cobbles and concealing real crimps and hitches.

The Diagon entrance to the Leaky Cauldron had opened with a cringe-inducing creak. Harry had felt sweat damping his brow. Surely Tom would hear that, and wonder who was looking to come in so late? But he was too tired to feel too much fear. He'd peaked by the door's edge with the utmost reluctance, expecting to meet the warm brown eyes of Tom the barman. Tom was indeed at the bar - and that'd made Harry's stomach lurch - but he was turned away, talking animatedly to a queer looking man in a dark cowl (were there, he had mused later, cowls other than dark cowls?). He'd looked more like a denizen of Knockturn Alley.

"Ushlessss!" He'd heard Tom slur. There had been humour in his voice, even in insult. "Bohemianshsss, can't shtand up to old Frederick after all the- hiccup - these years!"

"Valentyn the vigourless!" The man spat back in disgust, his English darkly shaded with a harsh Balkan tint. He downed some foul-looking liquor, which glowed fluorescently under its own light. "But, uh, wa'd'ya expect, eh? Weak, all the time, weak. No strength," he shook his head, despairing, "no strength."

The bar was otherwise empty. Harry had easily snuck by the pair. Tom especially had seemed a butterbeer away from collapse. Even in the dark, he'd soon found his old room - still, delightfully, kept just as he'd left it. First he'd fished a cleanser from the bottom of his trunk (briefly checking that all remained where he'd left it) and washed it through his hair.

Then he'd looked into the mirror… and had seen Harold Skarsgard no longer. Dark-haired Harry Potter stared back at him - though thankfully with new, square-rimmed glasses, and rather fetching navy robes. An unbidden yawn had forced itself from his mouth. For the first time in nearly a week, he'd flopped down on the bed of room ten, the Leaky Cauldron.

It had taken him only moments to fall asleep.

The next day had dawned with a painful peck. One moment, he'd been fast asleep. The next, he'd cracked an eye open… Hedwig stared down at him impassively.

"Oh," Harry'd said dumbly. "I'm… sorry?"

Harry didn't want to linger on what followed. But in a sense he'd been glad - for after all that effort, he might've missed the train and he wouldn't be standing where he was, examining the oddity that was floo powder. He gripped the handle of the trunk at his side and felt Tom the barman's eyes on his back.

"Platform nine and three quarters!" Harry said loudly. The fire flashed green; and Harry Potter stepped toward his destiny.

...

...

The same rush seemed to pull him forth into a subtly different brightness. This time he watched the twisting fire,, the flames atop flames atop flames. But he also made sure to hold his breath, and bend his knees for landing.

This time, he was only reduced to a crouch upon landing. Harry blinked the light from his eyes. The flagstones here were broad and square, and sensibly flat. They were very different to Diagon's cobbles - ordered, straight, and perfectly rational.

And then he looked up, and forgot all the minute details of the paving.

A scarlet steam engine was reposed by a packed platform, from whose boiler dreamy white smoke gently curled, drifting like a great tail toward the rear carriages. Platform Nine and Three Quarters was displayed boldly upon a clean white sign hanging above the station. Hogwarts Express, 11 o'clock was written upon another.

He had made it. Something seemed to lift from his chest, something light and bright and beautiful. He'd really made it. He was really going to Hogwarts!

But so were all these other children… Dozens were milling on the platform, chatting to friends, to parents, playing with owls and cats and the very occasional toad. There were a lot of people, each and every one of whom knew his name, the legend… The Boy-Who-Lived.

Harry gripped the handle of his trunk so hard his fingers hurt. "Oh come on, Harry," he muttered to himself. "You've done the hard part."

For a moment his feet seemed to be made of rusted iron - and they would not move. But slowly, slowly, the rust was shaken off, and Harry made his way down the platform. The first few carriages were already full; the platform there was heaving with parents, some of whom were wishing their children tearful goodbyes through the window.

It made Harry's chest clench to see, as though his heart were gripped in a merciless hand. Was that longing? He remembered, when he was very young, feeling sad when he saw the parents of children in the school playground, but as time passed those feelings faded. He'd never really thought about it, but Harry now supposed he'd accepted the absence in his life.

Now it felt like the void had wedged itself open again.

He swung open an empty carriage door about three quarters of the way down, then swung Hedwig's empty cage in. Heaving his trunk up the lip was much more difficult. Worse, he realised that it was subtly vibrating in his hands. The pulse sent his own heart aflutter. Tom the barman had warned of this - particular magical objects, he'd said - like trunks, were apt to react badly to floo travel - or portkeys. But Harry didn't know what portkeys were, so that didn't matter. What did matter was that he'd been told to look out for any vibrations in the grain, and they were there.

They weren't too violent, or it would've shaken itself apart by now… but still, they were there, and that was worrying enough. It was a good thing he'd bought a basic model. How would an expensive trunk have fared through the floo? As he sat on the bench seat of his plush and blissfully empty carriage, he imagined his faithful trunk exploding into splinters. What would happen to his clothes, or his books?

He suddenly decided he was never taking a trunk through the floo again.

Just then, the flutter of wings and a rush of air interrupted his reverie. Hedwig had flown in from the window, and was waddling toward the bird cage. The floo wasn't kind to animals either, so Tom had suggested he let her fly to the platform.

"Good girl," Harry cooed, leaning over to stroke her feathers. Hedwig preened, then started when he proceeded to fish a thin streak of bacon from his robe pocket. He had a lot to make up for, after all. She wolfed it down as much as an owl could, without being a wolf.

She soon settled onto her perch, blinked lethargically, then closed her eyes. Harry smiled fondly and shut the cage. "Sleep tight girl," he whispered, and took out Magical Drafts and Potions. He doubted it'd be his favourite subject, and it certainly had nothing to do with duelling, but it was a required textbook for a required subject. Harry began to read.

First he idly flicked through some of the recipes, noting at once the subject's similarities to cooking. That was not surprising; he'd thought the same the last time he opened the book, at least two weeks ago. Once, he suspected the comparison would've interested him - but after being served meals at the Leaky Cauldron, then at Halt End, he found his tolerance for cooking somewhat dampened. Or at least, his tolerance for the thought of cooking. Perhaps he'd begin to enjoy it again at Hogwarts?

Regardless, he could tell just from the recipes that Potions would be a different animal to muggle cooking. As different as a wolf and an owl. Smiling at his own joke, Harry wondered at some of the ingredients. Eye of newt? Flobberworm mucus? Spine of a lionfish? What even was a flobberworm? And how did you prepare a newt's eye? What was even special about the eye of a newt?

But the ingredients were only half the divergence. The other half lay in the precision of the instructions. One of the recipes demanded an eighth clockwise turn and an eighth anti-clockwise turn thereafter! At least he now knew the reason for the notches on his cauldron…

Growing bored of the recipes, he turned to the beginning. Preface, the first subtitle read. Harry began to read. And read. And read. Frowning, he followed his gut and turned a page. Still the preface. Then another. Still the preface. Merlin, the preface was eight pages! Finally, it ended with the author signing his name off - Arsenius Jigger. Scanning through, Jigger had spent every page of the preface thanking family or friends, discussing the history of potions in vague and academic terms, or casting aspersions against his contemporaries.

Harry sighed. What a waste of time. The same man had written The Essential Defence Against the Dark Arts, and that hadn't been full of nonsense.

Just then, the corridor-side door slid open, revealing two olive-skinned Indian girls. Twins, Harry noted. That was disconcerting. He smiled his best smile, which felt forced upon his face. He wasn't used to other children; Dudley had made sure they didn't really talk to him at primary school.

"Hello," one of them said. Their accent was refined, and entirely English.

"Hello," Harry replied… still smiling. What was he supposed to do? He'd gotten along with Hercules, but he was younger, and they always had something to talk about. And he was nuts. And he could probably get along with a squirrel - or at least talk it to sleep. What was he supposed to talk about here?

"May we join you?"

Harry followed her hand to the opposite bench. "Of course," he said thoughtlessly. Then he cursed his thoughtlessness, then cursed his cursing. He couldn't exactly say no, could he?

The girls settled in, each aiding the other in hoisting their trunks into the overhead storage, then sitting daintily. Harry tried to settle in too, returning to his book… but he couldn't focus. Eyes were watching him. He kept his head buried as long as he could, but eventually could bear it no longer. He glanced up, and met two identical pairs of deep brown years.

"I'm Pavarti," said the girl on the left, smiling with the hint of a grin.

"-and I'm Padma," said the other.

Harry gulped. Harry, he knew he should answer. Should. It was a moment he'd been dreading for a month now, ever since he'd truly understood the legend of the Boy-Who-Lived. How would people his own age look at him? Would he even be able to make friends, real friends? Dudley had destroyed his chances before, would fame do the same?

Perhaps he was being cynical, but the more he read…

"James," Harry answered, flattening his fringe and hating himself. Now he was James, at least for a train journey. He wished he'd never read those books, never read what they'd said about him…

"Nice to meet you James," Parvati said kindly. "Aren't you excited? It's so amazing that we're all here, off to Hogwarts. Hogwarts! Merlin was a student there, and Morgana le Fey, and Maximus Haelstrum, and Glanmore Peakes and -and, well, loads of people really!"

If not for her complexion (which was flushing with her excitement), Harry would've thought her related to Hercules.

Padma pinched her nose and waited for her sister to finish. "Sorry, sorry. She's always like this."

"Am not!"

"Yes you are."

"No I'm not."

"Yes you are."

"No I'm not."

"Yes you are."

Even Padma was getting annoyed now.

Harry let them be and went back to his book, and his guilt.

Soon a sharp whistle sounded, and a great cloud of steam poured above the train, a cloud so large it wafted past Harry's window. The whole structure seemed to be vibrating, like a giant awakening from a long sleep.

"We're moving," Parvati said, almost pressing her face against the glass. "Amazing. Amazing."

The wheels were grinding now, squeaking shrilly, then roaring as they built up speed. Harry felt the sheer weight of tons of steel pushing forward, shunting along as though shoved by a giant.

It was the first time he'd been on a train.

Harry leaned back into the bench and closed his eyes, savouring the visceral surge of excitement. He imagined Hogwarts. Its vast wards, its glistening black lake, its spiralling towers reaching toward the sky. Hogwarts, A History didn't have any pictures… but he saw it clearly.

"We're far from Sringagar, Padma," Harry heard Pavarti murmur.

"Over the hills and far away*." Padma agreed solemnly.

Harry left them to it and returned to his book once more, glancing occasionally at the houses flying by.

After his preface, Jigger had also written an introduction. The discovery had almost made Harry throw the book down and try to extract some sense from Tricks to Ensnare instead. Yet he was soon glad he stayed his hand, as the introduction explained in - usually - plain language the basic principles of potioneering.

And strangely enough, he began by referencing Zeno the Green. Harry didn't know what to think about that, but it certainly made him wince. He'd learnt a lot at Halt End, and yet he'd been undoubtedly stupid to find himself there at all. Had the risk been worth it? On the one hand, he had managed to come away with a Lightspeed (tucked safely away in his robe pocket); on the other, what if it hadn't worked? What if he'd been stuck there or worse, discovered?

Regardless, as the capital petered out into gentle farmland, Harry learned that Jigger considered Zeno the grandfather of potions. While the art was rudimentary in his time, his laws of cropping had provided the potency the ingredients required to meld them together. Apparently, 'melding' - mergere* being the academic term - had been the keystone of Potions for more than two thousand years.

Edward Lyle had told Harry about the difficulties in retaining the potency of magical flora and, though he'd turned out to be a bad man, he had no reason to assume anything he'd said was untrue. Lyle had spoken mostly in practical terms, begetting his experiences as a groundsman. Jigger came at the topic from a theoretical angle, and his knowledge was expansive.

He wrote of the essentia* of flora and fauna, which he also called quiddity. Correct cropping was supposed to retain the essentia while disposing of everything else. Harry suspected that what Jigger called 'everything else' possessed their own associated terms and concepts, but Jigger, as a textbook author, didn't think a First Year student needed to know them. Harry couldn't find it in himself to care, and would let the mystery lay. It certainly wasn't related to duelling.

It was around twelve thirty when Harry was interrupted by the thud of the sliding door. He took his head out of his book to meet the eyes of a smiling, dimpled woman. "Anything off the trolley dears?" she said.

Harry wasn't hungry, but Pavarti dug into her robe pocket, retrieving six shining sickles. "Could we have a packet of Bertie Botts Every-Flavour please?"

He watched in interest as the trolley-lady took the coins and gave her a multi-coloured bag of which, unless his eyes were betraying him, was… jiggling? Padma was looking at the bag dubiously.

"I don't know how you can eat that stuff," she said, her nose wrinkling. "You don't even know what you're eating."

Parvati shrugged. "That's the fun of it." She held the bag out. "Would you like one James?"

Harry looked at the bag. It had, at least, stopped moving. Now it was open, displaying hundreds of little beans of a hundred different colours. Would it be rude to refuse?

"Okay," he said, and took a bean. It was bright yellow.

"-Hopefully not earwax," Parvati giggled.

Earwax? That wasn't even a food… He held the bean carefully between two fingers. It was faintly squishy, and didn't smell of anything. Which, he supposed, was the point…

He took a bite. "Butter," he said in relief.

"Could be worse," Parvati replied. She almost sounded disappointed.

"Could be a lot worse," Padma said. "Half those beans will be horrible."

Parvati rolled her eyes. "That's the point."

"That's my point!"

Harry detected another argument brewing and turned back to his book. Jigger had begun to discuss the usual methods of cropping. Merlin, Harry though, he was so boring. It was like he was writing in monotone. He felt his eyes waver, his gaze wandering around the page. The steady rocking of the Hogwart's Express was pleasant, it made him want to…

He'd fallen asleep twice more before the sky began to darken. Padma had woken him, announcing their proximity to Hogwarts. Harry had read that himself in Hogwarts, A History. They all changed into their school robes, which were plain cut, and dark, but not badly made, and waited quietly. The twins, Harry thought, were probably day-dreaming (or was it evening-dreaming?) of Hogwarts.

Harry certainly was. That, and controlling his nerves. He was finally close to Hogwarts. He'd read and heard so much, had waited so long… What if he messed up? What if he tripped and fell in the lake? What if everyone was looking at him and he lost his voice? Wh-

"We will be reaching Hogwarts in five minutes' time," a voice crackled through the train, derailing his worries. "Please leave your luggage on the train, it will be taken to the school separately."

The Patils' shared a look. Their bronzed skin seemed to be paling, and Padma had grasped her sister's hands. That is, unless they'd swapped seats while he'd slept.

Harry looked through the window. Beyond the darkness he saw forests and distant mountains, lit by a bruised purple sky.

He stood. There was no longer any time for nerves.

Pavarti and Padma followed him into the corridor, where they joined the jostling crowd. Students of all ages surrounded them. All of them were wearing robes, most trimmed with the accoutrements of the four houses - Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and Slytherin. Each maintained the ideals of their founders (their essentia, Harry thought with a small grin). Bravery and courage for Gryffindor, loyalty and hard work for Hufflepuff, cleverness and wisdom for Ravenclaw, and cunning and ambition for Slytherin.

The squealing of brakes announced the slowing, then stopping, of the train. People shuffled toward the exits. Harry found himself separated from the Patils, alone on a tiny, dark platform. Harry could see his breath, and shivered. The older students were walking off somewhere. Was he supposed to follow?

Just then, a lamp came floating out the night, at least six feet in the air. "Firs'-years!" A familiar voice called. "Firs'-years over here! C'mon on now, gather 'round!" Hagrid's smiling face was beaming above the first-year's heads. He was just as massive as Harry remembered; his beetle-like eyes lit up. "All right there 'Arry?

"Follow me, follow me - any more firs'-years? Mind yer step now! Firs'-years follow me!"

They were all led down what seemed to be a winding, narrow path of loose gravel. Trees must've lined each side, it was so dark; the moon's light was definitely flickering between tall branches, so that it flashed like a vast and broken lightbulb as Harry followed the giant man. Nobody spoke anything more than a whisper, if at all. Someone was sniffling, though in the dark he couldn't locate who.

"Yeh'll get yer firs' sight o' Hogwarts in a sec, Hagrid called back, "jus' 'round this bend here."

Sounds of amazement rippled through the crowd.

The narrow path had opened onto the edge of a vast black lake, whose waters reposed, calm and glassy. And in that glass-like surface was reflected a rocky mountain, and perched atop that mountain Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry reached like a muli-pronged dagger into the purple-tinged sky. Gasps were erupting from those around him, but Harry stood stock still and ignored each and every one.

He kept his eyes on the castle in the distance, observing the multitude of its turrets, the vastness of its great towers. In Hogwarts' centre an immense square keep - the size of a muggle skyscraper, it seemed - soared into the heavens like a clenched fist. Everywhere, little points of light flickered from innumerable windows like a second set of stars.

His heart soaring in turn, Harry imagined himself sitting in one of those windows, looking down at the world below. Hogwarts was as different from Halt End as a tenement to an Arabian palace. What secrets awaited there, what hidden places? Would the portraits speak to him? Surely there would be classrooms spare, places he could use his Lightspeed unobserved?

Hagrid's booming voice shook him from his reverie. "No more'n four to a boat!" He called, pointing to a fleet of little boats by the shore.

Their hulls were silver in the moonlight. Harry helped a round-faced, red-haired girl into one. "Thanks," she murmured softly.

Harry followed her in, and was soon joined by an Asian girl with hair like midnight and a gaunt looking boy with peculiar pale eyes. They all shuffled around, trying not to rock the boat when finding a comfortable spot to keep their legs.

"Everyone in?" Hagrid shouted. He filled up a boat himself. "Right then - FORWARD!"

And all at once - all by themselves - the little boats took sail, gliding like swans across the darkly shimmering lake. Everything was silent. Their bows appeared to cut the water without friction, and all the creatures of the night seemed to watch in contemplation as the children of magic made the final stretch of their journey.

Closer and closer they drew, and Hogwarts towered above them. Every foot revealed the magnitude of the castle. There would, Harry knew, be places to steal away, rooms where no man he trodden in years. He would finally get to use his Lightspeed. The glimmer of the moon against the lake caught his eye, drawing his gaze away from the vastness above.

It was then Harry realised with a start, that the lake was no ornament. "Methýdrion," he whispered.

"Carrack-class," the red-haired girl whispered back. They shared a grin, and Harry knew they were sharing the same thought - a mental image of a vast ship emerging from the black water like a Leviathan of legend.

"Heads down!" Hagrid yelled. Harry started, turned… then ducked. The cliff was rapidly approaching and, worryingly, the boats didn't seem to be slowing down. The red-haired girl was frozen still, at least until the boats carried them through a curtain of ivy which hid a broad opening in the cliff face. Harry let out a breath he hadn't known he was holding.

Down a dark tunnel the boats advanced, whose sides were so distant, so black, Harry had to imagine that they were there. Otherwise, they were travelling through a vast nothingness…

Eventually they reached an underground harbour, where the boats neatly docked themselves. Harry clambered out onto pebbled ground that crunched beneath his feet, then held out his arm for the red-haired girl.

She blushed as red as her hair and murmured, "Thanks."

"Oy, you there! Is that your toad?" said Hagrid. He too was helping students out of their boats - sometimes two at a time, one in each hand. He could pick them up like they were made of feathers.

One of the boys who'd been hauled out stumbled toward a slimy green pebble. "Trevor!" he cried, more relieved than happy.

Hagrid held up his massive lamp. "C'mon," he said. "This way."

Bannerless stairs were carved into the raw rock, winding up an inner cliff. The giant took three slippery steps at a time, while Harry and the other students scurried to keep up as quickly as they dared. Where was this leading? Harry felt his feet beginning to ache. Finally, they emerged at least onto damp, dewy grass in the tall shadow of the castle. Harry peered up, but struggled to see the tips of the towers.

"Everyone here? You there, still got yer toad?"

Hagrid led them a short distance to a vast oaken door banded by strange metals. He knocked three times, and each knock hit with a thump that seemed to vibrate Harry's bones.

It swung open immediately. In the doorway a tall, dark-haired witch stood, whose emerald robes were embroidered tastefully in silver. She had, Harry thought, sharp-eyes, which seemed to take in the crowd all at once and yet see each and every one of them. He struggled not to fidget. She seemed like someone he'd wouldn't want to antagonise.

"The firs'-years, Professor McGonagall." Hagrid gestured with a meaty hand, almost hitting the nervous boy, Neville, with a massive fist.

"Thank you, Hagrid. I will take them from here."

She led them across the flagstones of a vast (and strangely) classically decorated hall. The ceiling was so tall it was but a breath of shadow in the heavens, while baroque paintings festooned the walls. Playful nymphs, cunning satyrs and effusive dryads watched, mischief in their gaze.

Professor McGonagall ignored them, and ushered Harry and the rest of the students into a tight antechamber, where they crowded nervously together. A plush red carpet muffled their steps, but failed to dampen the low, heavy murmuring of voices through the right-hand door. That, Harry thought with a lurch, must've been the rest of the school…

"Welcome to Hogwarts," said Professor MchGonagall primly. "The start-of-term banquet will begin shortly, but before you take your seats in the Great Hall, you will be sorted into your houses. The Sorting is a very important ceremony because, while you are here, your house will be like your family within Hogwarts. You will have classes with the rest of your house, sleep in your house dormitory and spend free time in your house common room.

"The four houses are called Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw and Slytherin. Each house has its own noble history and each has produced outstanding witches and wizards. While you are at Hogwarts, your triumphs will earn you your house points while any rule-breaking will lose house points. At the end of the year, the house with the most points is awarded the House Cup, a great honour. I hope each of you will be a credit to whichever house becomes yours.

"The Sorting Ceremony will take place in a few minutes in front of the rest of the school. I suggest you all smarten yourselves up as much as you can while you are waiting."

Her eyes lingered on a few particular students, while Harry struggled not to flatten his hair. A girl with elegant auburn hair (which reminded Harry of his own hair colour as Harold Skarsgard) adjusted the dark-tinted, oval spectacles perched atop her small nose.

"I shall return when we are ready for you," the professor said. "Please wait quietly."

She left a crowded, nervous, and thunderously silent antechamber. Harry swept his gaze over his assembled peers and tried to smother his own nerves. Reassuringly, they all looked just as nervous as him. Parvati and Padma had speculated for what felt like hours about the Sorting. Mostly, it'd been Pavarti spinning increasingly ridiculous tests to scare her sister. Surely, she couldn't be right? Of course, she wasn't right about having to fight a mermaid in the Black Lake… but what if there was something ?

Something brushed his shoulder gently. Harry started; the red-haired girl, who'd stuck to his side all the while, was smiling at him tremulously. "I'm Susan," she said. Her voice was so soft, so quiet, it was like the murmur of a breeze on a still night. And there were tears of fright in her eyes. Was she trying to distract herself?

Harry tried his best to smile back. "Harry."

...

...

The Sorting Hat waited patiently on its stool. It had been waiting centuries; it knew it would wait centuries more. Though this was the most exciting time of year for the Hat, it knew there was no rush. After all, what was there to rush to? No, the Sorting Hat never rushed.

Nor tired, nor grew bored - and though the Sorting Hat occasionally felt a certain anticipation, it never felt excitement either. That it knew for sure, as the Hat had seen excitement as the hawk spied the mouse. And it had smelled fear as the gazelle before the lion; and it had heard hatred as only man could hate man.

It had experienced it all, yet felt it not. Gryffindor in his ageing wisdom had known that, given time, the sentiments, the hopes and fears and childish dreams would've fed into his own hollow soul. The Hat judged that Gryffindor was right. A heart would do that Hat no good.

But still, sometimes it felt, just a modicum, only a hint, a mere whiff of… anticipation. It was feeling it now, now it had sang its song, and now it had sorted Sally-Anne Perks, because it was time for…

"Potter, Harry!"

The Hat watched without eyes as a small, thin boy with a shock of black hair and bright green eyes stepped forward, self-consciously adjusting his square-rimmed glasses. Harry Potter looked just like his father at eleven; but his father had held in trust the lineage of just about every wizarding family in Britain. The boy was thusly well-formed, but just who he would take after remained a mystery. His cheeks were still round with baby fat.

Beyond Potter himself, the Great Hall came alive with whispers. Every pair of eyes was watching, wondering. The Hat especially noted the two Patils exchanging angry looks from the Gryffindor and Ravenclaw tables. The anticipation built.

Harry Potter, the Hat thought, who are you?

The boy picked the Hat up and stuck it on his head.

A spark of invisible light lit around the Hat, illuminating Harry Potter's heart and mind like shadows cast upon the impenetrable soul. James, he heard the boy lie to the Patils, and saw in his mind the shape of purple guilt driven like a spear, and the twisting decay of grey disappointment creeping around his heart. Why wouldn't he tell the truth? Potter had lamented.

But the ease, the Hat thought, the ease with which the lie was spoken, the way his guilt decayed in turn…

The search continued, quickening. Green spindles were floating, trapped grim echoes of hungry nights, a small cupboard under the stairs… "Interesting, very interesting," the Hat said without speaking.

Under its brim, Potter jumped. The Hat felt him try to suppress his panic.

"What d'you mean - interesting ?"

The Hat continued to search. Long, square days of drab brown boredom spun in spirals, tinged by sharp-edged crimson corners. It saw it all; it smelled the isolation, and heard the fear in every beat of the boy's heart. Then, the letters of brilliant blue, singing songs of promise; the sea, the giant Hagrid - the letter in his hand. The Hat let all that hope simmer in his hollow soul, tasting it as the pincerna * supps the food.

Better, even, arrived next. Brilliant red streaks flickered and flamed, pulsing and leaping, and in their heart two men duelled, dancing eternal. Deep-green ambition glittered in shimmering, wide eyes; and the Hat watched Potter's quest unfold. Long days of practice, anxiety, despair, sublimity, fear. Lies , so many lies, all spun together in so many shades the Hat struggled to pick them apart. This, the Hat knew, was more usual in an adult's mind.

And the Hat's anticipation grew.

"Such a difficult choice," it finally crowed. "So very difficult. Not a bad mind - and sharpening every day, yes. And ambition, oh yes. The duellist you will be, yes. But there are many kinds, and Slytherin, I think, will help you nicely to your destiny…"

Potter's mind turned over like the spindle*, logical, precise, and Slytherin. The Hat let itself be the distaff*.

"Not Slytherin," Potter thought aloud (at least to the Hat, which heard all his thoughts). "Slytherin wouldn't do me any good."

The boy pushed drawings of Death Eaters to the front of his mind, their robes frayed with hot hatred.

The Hat was unmoved. "I care not for the affairs of man," it said. "You belong in Slytherin."

Potter frowned. "But you sort them, don't you?" He pushed forth images of other new students who'd already been sorted into Slytherin. "Would they be better off with the Boy-Who-Lived in their house? Their destinies are just as important as mine, aren't they?"

The Hat paused. Adults, it knew, often appealed to the fates of others, but in all his years, students rarely mustered the same maturity. "Where," it said, "would you be put then?"

Rather than reply, the boy summoned a memory that was at once single and many - over a hundred, even. Potter, sitting in his room, on his bed, in a chair, opposite a mirror; repeating, ever repeating, the Giswiften, the old wand movements formed hundreds of years before the Hat was ever thought of.

If the Hat had a true sense of humour it would've laughed.

"Very well," it rumbled. "HUFFLEPUFF!"

A/N:

*After Mr Bellows, of course.

*The most famous line of a traditional British folk song Over the Hills and Far Away . It became famous in the 1990s, when it was the main theme of the long-form television show Sharpe , an adaption of Bernard Cornwells' novels which centred around Richard Sharpe, a working-class soldier first in the Anglo-Mysore war and the Napoleonic Wars. The Patil sisters, of course, would not know the song from this source, as they are witches… and the show was first aired in 1993.

* Mergere is the second-person singular future passive indicative of mergo , and means something like 'to immerse' in Latin.

* Essentia, as I'm sure you can guess, is Latin for essence - to be more specific, the term essence is derived from essentia. Quiddity is a mediaeval scholastic term denoting the same concept. Haecceity is a third term; all of them reference Aristotle's original idea, en eina i - 'the what it was to be'.

*A pincerna is the Latin term for cup-bearer, one employed to taste food and wine at court. In the feudal context, this would be the honour of a high-ranking nobleman. In more ancient tyrannical societies, slaves were more commonly used in this role.

*A spindle is a traditional sewing tool - a wood spike used for spinning fibres together, while distaff is employed to keep the unspun fibres in place.

Harry arrives at Hogwarts and is sorted into... Hufflepuff? Does this mean Harry will be cuddly, angsty and fragile for the rest of this long, long fanfiction?

I'm sure you can already guess. :)

Either way, I'm sorry this has taken a long while to come out. I've had to plan the next arc in detail, and I've got to work a 39 hour work week. As you might've noticed, I've also merged some of the previous chapters in accordance with my new policy of posting longer chapters. The first chapter of All For Lightspeed! has also been revised, specifically the section involving the forest - I've slowed the pace down.

I hope you've enjoyed this chapter, and enjoying the rest of this arc.

Take care and Merry Christmas!

JoustingAlchemy