Through the gates, flanked with statues of winged boars, and up the sweeping drive the carriages trundled, swaying dangerously in what was fast becoming a gale. We could see Hogwarts coming nearer, its many lighted windows blurred and shimmering behind the thick curtain of rain. Lightning flashed across the sky as our 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. We jumped down from our carriage and dashed up the steps too, looking up only when we were safely inside the cavernous, torch-lit entrance hall, with its magnificent marble staircase.
"Blimey," said Ron, shaking his head and sending water everywhere, "if that keeps up the lake's going to overflow. I'm soak — ARRGH!"
A large, red, water-filled balloon had dropped from out of the ceiling onto Ron's head and exploded. Drenched and sputtering, Ron staggered sideways into Harry, just as a second water bomb dropped onto my head, showering Hermione and I. People all around us shrieked and started pushing one another in their efforts to get out of the line of fire. I looked up, and saw, floating twenty feet above us, Peeves the Poltergeist, a little man in a bell-covered hat and orange bow tie, his wide, malicious face contorted with concentration as he took aim again.
"PEEVES!" yelled an angry voice. "Peeves, come down here at ONCE!" Professor 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 Professor 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 Professor 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 Professor McGonagall sharply to the bedraggled crowd. "Into the Great Hall, come on!"
"Why is he still allowed to stay here?" I said bitterly to Demelza and Amy.
"How would we be able to get rid of him?" the latter asked.
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 in here.
We walked past the Slytherins, the Ravenclaws, and the Hufflepuffs, and sat down with the rest of the Gryffindors at the far side of the Hall, next to Nearly Headless Nick, the Gryffindor ghost. Pearly white and semitransparent, Nick was dressed tonight in his usual doublet, but with a particularly large ruff, which served the dual purpose of looking extra-festive, and insuring that his head didn't wobble too much on his partially severed neck.
"Good evening," he said, beaming at them.
"Says who?" said Harry. "Hope they hurry up with the Sorting. I'm starving."
I then watched Harry have an interaction with Colin Creevey, who told him that his brother Dennis was starting and that he should keep his fingers crossed for Gryffindor. Colin had always been a big fanboy of Harry, and just wouldn't understand that Harry didn't like the attention, and found it annoying. I was considering taking Colin aside at some point this year and giving him the brutal truth.
"Where's the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher?" said Hermione, who was looking up at the teachers. We had never yet had a Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher who had lasted more than three terms. The best by far had been Professor Lupin, who had resigned last year. We looked up and down the staff table. There was definitely no new face there. "Maybe they couldn't get anyone!" said Hermione, looking anxious.
"Relax Hermione, of course they would have, they're probably just late!" I said
Tiny little Professor Flitwick, the Charms teacher, was sitting on a large pile of cushions beside Professor Sprout, the Herbology teacher, whose hat was askew over her flyaway gray hair. She was talking to Professor Sinistra of the Astronomy department. On Professor Sinistra's other side was the sallow-faced, hook-nosed, greasy-haired Potions master, Snape.
"I can see the way you're looking at Snape" said Demelza "do try and stay out of trouble with him this year will you?"
"How can I when he's so provocative?" I replied
"Almost everyone else can. There's no reason why you can't too. I know he's a git but I don't let him get to me"
"I don't know how people do it"
On Snape's other side was an empty seat, probably Professor 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. We glanced up at the ceiling too. It was enchanted to look like the sky outside, and we 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," Ron moaned, "I could eat a hippogriff"
The first years entered.
"Bloody hell" Amy said, they look like they've swam across the lake!"
She wasn't wrong, they were all drenched from head to foot, shivering in a combination of cold and nerves- all of them except the smallest of the lot, a boy with mousy hair, who was wrapped in what Harry recognized as Hagrid's moleskin overcoat. The coat was so big 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.
Professor McGonagall now placed a three-legged stool on the ground before the first years and, on top of it, an extremely old, 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 fen. 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 Harry, clapping along wit
h 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."
Professor 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"
I tuned out from this, as I didn't think there would be anyone noteworthy in the new first years. That was until McGonagall called out: "Crouch, Ritchie"
A boy on the taller side for a first year walked up to the stool. He was mixed race, but blonde at the same time. He had rather large hands and feet, and his hair stuck upwards at the sides.
"Gryffindor!" yelled the hat.
"You reckon he's related to Barty?" said Demelza
"Yeah, he looks fairly similar, aside from his skin tone" I replied
"Perhaps Barty's wife is black or mixed race herself" added Amy.
Colin's brother Dennis joined us in Gryffindor as expected.
"Dennis! Dennis! See that boy down there? The one with the black hair and glasses? See him? Know who he is, Dennis?" said Colin
I shook my head exasperatedly as Harry stared very hard at the sorting hat.
"You have to commend him for being able to ignore it" Amy said
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 Professor McGonagall passed the L's.
"Oh hurry up," Ron moaned, massaging his stomach.
"Now, Ron, the Sorting's much more important than food," said Nearly Headless Nick as "Madley, Laura!" became a Hufflepuff. "
'Course it is, if you're dead," snapped Ron.
"I do hope this year's batch of Gryffindors are up to scratch," said 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 in a row.
"Pritchard, Graham!"
"SLYTHERIN!"
"Quirke, Orla!"
"RAVENCLAW!"
"Wormwood, Matilda!"
This last name had a very peculiar effect. Almost immediately, the hall stopped talking, and was silent for a moment as a girl walked up to the stool.
"Ravenclaw!" called the hat, but the Ravenclaw table did not clap like they had their other new recruits, instead, the Muggle borns started whispering to everyone else on their table, and then, slowly, so did those of the other houses. I turned to Hermione, who was biting her lip.
"It can't be..." she breathed
