Chapter4
Chapter Four
Hogwarts first-years would normally travel to the school by crossing the lake in boats. Harry supposed it made the experience more ‘magical’. This year, however, there was no way to differentiate them from the rest of the population. Hagrid lined them all up by height and put the smaller students in boats, and the tallest in the carriages.
Harry stepped into a boat with four other students, Neville Longbottom, a girl he vaguely recognized from the train, and another girl he didn’t recognize at all. They were all strangers now anyway, so it didn’t matter.
The boats sailed across the lake on their own accord. Several gasped when the giant squid raised itself to glimpse them before plunging back into the depths of the lake. A wolf howled mournfully somewhere in the distance.
“Blimey,” whispered Neville in the seat next to Harry, as the castle came into view.
Harry took in the castle, whole and undamaged as it was, while images of past battles superimposed themselves on to the scene in front of him. He envisioned crumbling stonework, smoke and fire. He blinked and the vision cleared.
“You alright, mate?” Neville asked. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
Harry’s throat felt dry, but he forced a smile onto his face.
“All good,” Harry answered. “Where do you reckon we are?”
“No idea,” replied Neville, “I’m almost convinced I’m dreaming. Pinch me, would you?”
Harry obliged and Neville flinched.
“Not a dream.”
Harry shook his head as the boats ahead of them began to dock.
“Guess we’re about to find out.”
-X-
Entering the great hall, Harry was overwhelmed once more by memories from his past. A knot formed in his stomach as the echoing wails of families grieving lost loved ones intermingled with the joyful chatter of young people, and he found himself unable to move.
He had not returned to Hogwarts often following his final battle with Voldemort. Only making a handful of appearances for formal events when the school was preparing to reopen. Though it had been his first real home, it had never felt very welcoming after the war. He’d lost too much. There had been too many ghosts.
He was shocked out of his memories when the Grey Lady glided through him, leaving him shivering as an icy sensation washed over his body. A hand gripped his shoulder, and he lashed out, knocking it away.
“Come on, Potter,” said a voice as the hand returned, this time blocking him as he tried to swat at it again. “You’ve got to move. People are starting to notice.”
Harry blinked his eyes. He’d crouched down and had been covering his ears. The hand moved to his upper arm, gripping tight to help him to his feet. Little by little, Harry returned to the present. He could hear a low buzz of conversation around him. Draco was at his side directing them toward one of the long tables.
“It’s a lot to take in, isn’t it?” Malfoy said softly as they sat down. He pulled out his flask, took a drink and passed it to Harry. Tom 27’s head was poking up above Draco’s collar where he had slithered up Draco’s arm to take in the sights. “I haven’t been back since the war.”
House colors had been removed and the staff was directing the students to sit on the benches in the order they had walked through the door. Nobody remembered which house they were in anyway, so the staff had opted not to bother with it. All around Ravenclaws were sitting with Hufflepuffs and Gryffindor’s with Slytherins.
Harry sat at a table with his peers and tried to rally as conversations went on around him.
Draco kept his hand on his neck, concealing the curious purple snake. He hissed at it to get back in his robes.
“What do they want with us?” Ron asked the group. “Is this a prison?
“I hope not,” Hannah Abbott shuddered.
When everyone was seated, headmaster Dumbledore rose to address the school.
“Welcome to Hogwarts,” the headmaster began. “My name is Professor Dumbledore, and I am the headmaster of this school. By now most of you have likely realized that we have a rather strange situation on our hands. There is no need to be afraid. You are all where you are supposed to be, and you are safe here. Under ordinary circumstances, this is the part when we would hold the sorting ceremony and follow up with the welcoming feast. This year those events will be postponed until tomorrow while the staff make necessary preparations. I must, however, ask that you stay in this room until you are released. This is for your safety, as portions of the castle and grounds are off limits due to an infestation of aggressive moose. But enough of my chit chat. Eat. Drink. Mingle!”
Large trays of sandwiches and pumpkin juice appeared on each of the tables.
“Aggressive moose?” Harry mouthed to Draco, who snorted.
“It’s Dumbledore,” Draco replied, rolling his eyes and reaching for some pumpkin juice. “What did you expect?”
“Sandwiches!” shouted Ron.
“It could be a trap.”
“They’re sandwiches.”
“Have you never heard of poison?”
“I heard somebody say there were wizards here,” Hermione hissed in a panicked whisper. “What if they put something in the sandwiches? We could turn into frogs, or worse!”
Ron ended up trying the first sandwich, and when nothing happened to him everybody else took one.
While they were eating, more ghosts came pouring through the walls. Apparently, the portraits had told them the students had all been obliviated, and the ghosts were curious. Nearly Headless Nick gawked openly. He introduced himself to all he encountered and showed them how he had gotten the name. The Bloody Baron hovered, glowering silently, near the Slytherin table. Peeves the Poltergeist had somehow gotten his hands on water balloons.
Goyle was skeptical, insisting ghosts were not real. The ghosts were offended and took turns trying to scare him until Professor Snape ordered them to stop.
As it got later, the staff vanished the tables and conjured hundreds of sleeping bags. To further efforts to keep the students safe and contained, the entire school spent the night in the Great Hall.
-X-
Harry and Draco lay awake in neighboring sleeping bags.
“This is bad, Potter,” Draco whispered, after pretending to be asleep while Professors Snape, Sprout, and Flitwick stood over them.
The professors were amused that The Harry Potter had unknowingly befriended a Death Eater’s son, and were taking bets on what would happen when Draco’s father found out. Sprout believed the friendship wouldn’t survive the sorting. Flitwick gave them a year. Snape put money on the boys graduating Hogwarts and moving in together, with Harry becoming Minister of Magic and Draco becoming the next dark lord.
“They’ll meet for drinks every night,” Snape had mused. “And plot to take over the world.”
“I’ll say,” Harry whispered back. “Snape is gonna win the bet.”
“We’re not gonna take over the world.”
“We could, if we wanted to.”
“Potter! Take this seriously. Thanks to you, we don’t know what will happen next.”
They had been granted their re-do in order to change things, but they had intended to be analytical about which things they wanted to change.
“YOLO,” Harry replied. Draco maneuvered in his sleeping bag so that he could kick him. “Ouch. Hey!”
If they had stuck to the script from the previous timeline, as they had initially discussed, they could have predicted when certain things might happen. Harry’s impulsive actions on the train had caused that opportunity to slip through their fingers.
“This changes everything.”
“So now you do want to take over the world?”
“You talked the hat out of putting you in Slytherin. I demanded that it put me there. They usually sort us before we have the chance to talk to the other students. Every wizarding child comes here knowing what house his or her family members were in, right?”
“Right.”
“Most of us are biased toward our family traditions.”
Harry knew from experience that the Sorting Hat took each student’s opinion into consideration. In theory, the sorting hat could see deep into a person’s head. What would happen though if those people did not have any preconceived notions about the value of a particular house? While he could not imagine any of the Weasley’s going anywhere but Gryffindor, or any of the Slytherins going anywhere but Slytherin, anything could happen now.
Already, Lavender Brown had paired off with Daphne Greengrass a few sleeping bags down and the two girls were whispering animatedly, ranking the ghosts by how fashionable their clothing was. Neville Longbottom and Theodore Nott were competitively trying to out-compliment the sandwiches. Ron had only eaten one sandwich, and Hermione had wandered off to explore the castle, having snuck out of the great hall with Hannah Abbott. The two girls had been returned by Hagrid, who had found them wandering the corridors.
These events would not have been particularly strange to anyone else, but Harry knew his friends well and Ron liked food like Hermione liked rules. If things had changed so much already, the time-traveling twosome might be in over their heads.
-X-
Peter Pettigrew was discovered, bound, in a compartment on the Hogwarts Express holding Hermione Granger’s wand. He claimed a group of First Years and a cat had assaulted him. Naturally, nobody remembered a thing. The Daily Prophet started printing headlines the very next day.
-X-
The following morning at breakfast, everybody, including the teaching staff, was issued a name badge they were required to wear at all times. The name badges of the older students were attached to colored lanyards indicating their house, and could be used as a ‘Point Me’ spell if a student should become lost. Badges for unsorted students hung from black lanyards. Until these badges were issued, student wearing robes of all colors mingled together with students still dressed in street clothes.
Once the badges were issued, students began to gather at tables grouped by their lanyard colors. Soon only the unsorted first year students mingled between tables.
Professor McGonagall called the students with black lanyards to the front of the hall, where there was a battered old hat.
“Your attention please, students, the sorting of the First Years is about to begin,” the woman declared. “My name is Professor McGonagall. For those of you who don’t know, Hogwarts is a school for witchcraft and wizardry. If you are here, it is because you have demonstrated the potential to learn magic. Hogwarts has four houses, which we will be sorting our First Years into at this time. First Years, please check your name badges. You will be called to try on the sorting hat. The hat will tell you where you belong.”
Huge banners appeared over each table. The familiar red and gold lion for Gryffindor. The green and silver snake for Slytherin. The blue and white eagle for Ravenclaw. The black and yellow badger for Hufflepuff.
“Your lanyard color will change and your house shield will appear on your name badge once you have been sorted. Prefects are standing by to lead you to your house tables,” McGonagall continued. The confused prefects attempted to smile reassuringly as they waved to the First Years.
The sorting hat began to sing. It wasn’t the same song it had sung before Harry’s first year. This one contained more details about each house and encouraging words for conquering challenges together.
Once the sorting began, and the changes quickly became evident, Harry and Draco glanced at one another. Wordlessly, Draco passed Harry the flask he’d kept on his person since their arrival. Harry took a drink and watched the damage unfurl.
Millicent Bulstrode, formerly a Slytherin, became the first big surprise of the sorting when the hat declared her a Hufflepuff. They thought that might be the end of it when Vincent Crabbe, one of Draco’s old cronies was sorted into Slytherin where he was supposed to be. Then two more former Slytherins, Gregory Goyle and Tracy Davis, were sorted into Gryffindor.
The flask was back in Draco’s hands at this point, and if anybody were using legilimency all they would hear from either of them would be a string of creative expletives.
The biggest shock for Harry came when Hermione Granger -previously one of Harry’s best friends, and fellow Gryffindor- went to Ravenclaw. As if that wasn’t enough, Neville Longbottom, who had literally killed the chunk of Voldemort’s soul that lived in his pet snake with the sword of Gryffindor, was sorted into Hufflepuff.
-X-
When it was Draco’s turn to sit under the hat, he stood up a little straighter and walked purposefully to the front, confident nobody in the Great Hall could tell he was holding his breath. He sat down on the stool and Professor McGonagall placed the sorting hat on his head.
He remembered his first sorting. He’d been thinking ‘Slytherin!’ so hard the hat had made the call near instantaneously. There’d been no question. No debate. Draco and the hat had been in agreement.
Now he sat quietly and waited for the hat to make its decision.
“Welcome back, Mr. Malfoy,” The hat said into his head.
“Fuck,” Draco thought, cranking up his occlumency shields at the hat’s words. He hadn’t considered that the hat would learn his secret so quickly. He really should have. Then, realizing he’d cursed at a powerful magical artifact, he apologized. “Sorry, sir.”
He couldn’t stop the hat from seeing his thoughts, but he did need to keep people like Dumbledore and Snape out of his head.
The hat chuckled.
“I remember your first sorting. You made your preference very clear and we hardly spent any time together.”
“Sorry.”
“There’s no need to apologize,” the hat replied. “You knew what you wanted, and demanded it. That is a very Slytherin trait.”
Draco waited.
“But now you’re not so confident,” said the hat. “Many of your fundamental beliefs have changed, and you’re not sure where you fit.”
“Can I be a Hufflepuff now?” Draco asked. “Maybe a Ravenclaw? Anything but Slytherin.”
“You do know a thing or two about loyalty,” the hat commended, “and you’re certainly smart enough. However, I have something else in mind for you and Mr. Potter.”
“Slytherin!” Roared the hat.
-X-
When it was finally Harry’s turn, he stumbled a bit as he approached the hat and sat down. When Professor McGonagall placed the hat on his head it began to speak.
“Hello again, Mr. Potter.”
Harry startled, because having an extra voice in his head would never not be weird. The hat chuckled, and Harry wanted to feed it to the giant squid.
“That’s not very nice,” said the hat. “Then again, it also wouldn’t be the first time somebody’s attempted to dispose of me in that manner.”
“Somebody actually fed you to the giant squid?”
“It’s happened twice,” said the hat. “I prefer it to other means of destruction. I’ve been burned, stabbed, shredded, sat on, shot at, cursed, and fed to various beasts. Anywhooo, I see we have another time traveler in our midst. I wonder if perhaps you might have had something to do with this mass memory-loss phenomenon.”
Harry turned his occlumency shields up as high as he was able and the hat laughed.
“Wise move. There are some here who would very much like to know what’s going on inside that head of yours, but they won’t be hearing it from me. I’m a powerful magical object and I happen to be on your side. Now, where should I put you? I told you last time you would do well in Slytherin, and I can see you have a better perspective of what that means now. However, as I informed Mr. Malfoy when he begged me to put him somewhere else, I have plans for the two of you. So, with that in mind, better be GRYFFINDOR!”
The hat shouted the last word out loud and there was a smattering of applause from the surrounding tables, but no more than any of the other First Years had received. Harry smiled. Nobody here remembered who he was, and he appreciated the anonymity. He high-fived Gregory and Tracy and settled in to cheer for the remaining First Years.
Finally, once Weasley went to Gryffindor and Zabini to Slytherin, McGonagall made an announcement that the hat would be available to all students who wanted to learn more about their forgotten personalities.
-X-
“There will be no classes today.” Dumbledore told them after breakfast. “Please take this time to familiarize yourselves with the castle. Finally, I must reiterate that it is not safe for students to wander the halls or the grounds alone due to those aggressive moose. If you must travel the halls, please do so in groups.”
The Head of each House gathered their students and showed them to their common rooms.
Gryffindor Tower was still behind the portrait of the fat lady. Inside it was exactly as Harry had last seen it and he glanced longingly at the high-backed chairs by the fire where he, Ron and Hermione had plotted some of their most daring deeds.
Before leaving them to get settled, Professor McGonagall agreed to answer a few questions.
“Who are you people?”
“What do you mean ‘Magic’ is real?”
“When will we eat again?”
“Where are my parents?”
“What’s the deal with these ‘aggressive moose’?”
Professor McGonagall then directed their attention to the new bulletin board in the common room with several bits of parchment affixed to it, explaining that each first year had been assigned an older student to be their mentor.
-X-
The house-elves had already placed their things in the dorms. Crookshanks was curled up on Harry’s bed. He’d left a new rat on Ron’s pillow. Ron was unappreciative of the gesture and the rat wasn’t thrilled either.
There was a large chalkboard on the back of the door listing the entire first year class schedule. It was Monday. They were missing Charms with the Hufflepuffs right now, and would normally have Herbology and Transfiguration after lunch.
Harry’s dormmates were Ron Weasley, Gregory Goyle, Seamus Finnigan and Dean Thomas. It wasn’t much different than the time before, but switching Neville for Greg had changed the vibe.
Seamus somehow set his bed curtains on fire and Harry used a water charm to put them out. He’d done it instinctively without considering that they wouldn’t have a charms class until Tuesday afternoon, and according to the syllabus they wouldn’t cover water charms until February.
“Nice!” Ron reached over to give Harry a high-five. “Where’d you learn that?”
A few of Harry’s school books lay scattered across his bed, and he read the titles as he searched for a good lie.
“I read about it in The Standard Book of Spells,” Harry said, holding up the book by Miranda Goshawk. “It’s not a big deal. I saw fire. I didn’t want to die. End of story.”
The others seemed to accept Harry’s explanation, and began brainstorming names for Ron’s new rat.
-X-
Hundreds of owls arrived during lunch carrying letters from concerned parents, and issues of The Daily Prophet depicting a sobbing Peter Pettigrew on the front page.
The students had free time until supper, where they would finally experience the Hogwarts welcome feast.
Harry had never seen the staff work so hard to make the students comfortable. His personal experience with assorted people and creatures trying to kill him every year had very much been a ‘him problem’. He wouldn’t blame that on anybody else.
However, First Years were typically left to their own devices. He remembered trying to navigate the castle with Ron during his first year and getting lost many times with the moving staircases and the doors that were actually walls pretending to be doors. This was a normal Hogwarts experience. The professors had taken house points for being late to class. Ron and he had figured it out eventually.
-X-
By the time the Gryffindors arrived at the feast, having taken the wrong staircase several times, and then having to stop and help some Hufflepuffs pull Neville out of a sinking step, the smells coming from the Great Hall had them salivating. The feast was set out and most of the other students were already seated. The whole group sat down on an empty bench at the Gryffindor table near the staff table and began loading their plates with food.
The atmosphere in the Great Hall was weird. At the Gryffindor table everyone was in good spirits, while the Slytherins sat in silence eyeing one another suspiciously. The Ravenclaws seemed confused and the Hufflepuffs looked uncomfortable. The professors at the staff table were openly passing around a bottle of wine. Draco spotted Harry sit down and was headed over.
“What do you think their problem is?” Neville asked, noticing the Slytherins from his seat next to Ron. “Can somebody pass the gravy?”
“No idea,” Goyle replied. He’d received a letter at lunch, and had been tight-lipped about it.
“They’ve all received letters from their parents telling them not to talk to anybody until they’ve visited home,” Draco drawled, holding his plate. He stood next to Dean, “scoot over, would you?”
Dean obliged and Draco sat between him and Susan Bones. Several older Gryffindor students, including Harry’s new mentor Todd, were keeping an eye on the interaction.
“It’s bloody exhausting. I should have been a Ravenclaw.”
A few of the older Gryffindors snorted when they heard this. Draco glared at them.
An older Hufflepuff Harry recognized as Cedric Diggory stepped up behind Neville and whispered something in his ear.
“Cedric says we’re supposed to eat at our house tables,” Neville reported to the group, frowning.
“Why?” Lavender Brown wanted to know. An older girl quietly explained.
“Cedric can mind his own business,” Ron replied. The other First Years nodded.
“He’s my mentor,” Neville replied, “he’s just trying to help.”
“Pull up a seat or get lost, Diggory,” called one of the Weasley twins.
Cedric gamely took a seat between Millicent Bulstrode and Ernie McMillan and asked somebody to pass the stuffing.
-X-
Up at the staff table, Professor Sprout admitted defeat and paid up. Meanwhile Snape glared at his own table, and Flitwick laughed so hard he knocked over his goblet and Professor McGonagall turned to scowl at him.
“Please,” sighed McGonagall, “I give it til Christmas.”
Professor Trelawny nearly ruined the mood by backing Flitwick, but specifying that the friendship would end because one of the boys died. Luckily, the professors were used to her unfortunate predictions.
“Damn it, Sybil,” Snape groaned. “Can we not go one year without death predictions at the welcome feast?”
“The eye sees what it sees,” Trelawny replied, daintily sipping from her goblet.
“Last year you predicted I was going to have a potions accident and blow myself up.”
“If I recall correctly, young man, you had a potions accident last year and blew your arm off,” Madame Pomfrey piped up. The professors all whooped at this.
“I called that one first,” Professor Sprout exclaimed.
“I called the body part,” said Professor McGonagall, a smug grin on her face.
The women reached across Snape and Flitwick to high-five each other. They’d won a lot of money on that bet.
“But,” Snape demanded, “did I die?”
Professor Trelawny smiled serenely and tapped Snape on the nose. “Keep proving my point, dear. Boop.”
-X-
“…and she booped him,” Draco murmured to Harry as conversations went on around them. Tom 27, concealed mostly by Draco’s hair, was curled around his ear. They’d been distracted by the staff table.
“Trelawny’s predicting my death again,” Harry laughed. “I could have put money on that one.”
“It could be my death,” Draco argued. “She doesn’t specify.”
“Please,” Harry snorted.
“It could happen. My personality can be very abrasive. I have enemies, you know!”
“Relax. I’m sure lots of people want to kill you. You don’t have to convince me.”
-X-
The feast was unlike any they’d ever attended at Hogwarts. Gryffindor had apparently adopted a bunch of Hufflepuffs and a Slytherin. More students from other houses started mingling as they finished eating. Everyone seemed to be having a good time except for the Slytherins, the majority of whom still weren’t talking. If the feast was anything to go by, it was going to be an interesting year.