of ceilings and talking hats
The muffled noise of the huge student body could be heard through the wooden doors they stood infront of. The torches all around them enveloped the hallway in warm dancing lights and made the high ceiling seem like an endless black sky.
Sam tilted his head back, taking in his surroundings, the architecture of the castle was so distinctively british, that he was once again really glad, he got to attend hogwarts and not the american wizarding school of Ilvermory like his father used to. He couldn't imagine their building to be quite as grand, even if their father assured them otherwise.
But really no castle could possibly be more imposing than Hogwarts.
The big, gothic style staircase seemed just as marvellous as the arches, which indicated the beginning of the ceiling and went lost in the darkness. Sam was already excited to explore the castle and its grounds during the daylight. It was obviously beautiful and quite cozy at night, but he was also sure there would be some corridors he'd rather not take alone in the dark.
He was usually not particularly fond of architecture, but this masterpiece of construction made his eleven year old brain really excited about everything that he was going to live through in here.
He noticed it was quite cold though. It had been a warm summer day, but after the sun had set the temperatures had gradually begun to sink and such a huge old stone castle obviously wasn't heated. Sams next thought was, that he really hoped they made use of warming charms every now and then, especially in winter. Otherwise he would have to learn and then resume to walk around with his own personal heated bubble all the time.
The felt himself shiver a litlle bit, even though he wasn't sure, rather it was actually of the cold or just his nerves catching up with his body. It might as well be both.
He stepped from one foot to the other and nervously fiddled with his hands, a look around him let him know that the others were equally as nervous.
'I heard the ceiling of the Great Hall was enchanted to looks like an open sky. You suppose this one is also enchanted?' Yunho next to him had his head tilted back, looking around open mouthed. Sam could relate, by now he was wondering how his brother could forget to mention the sheer size of the castle. He did talk about a few parts of it, like the great hall and its ceiling, the Gryffindor tower or the astronomy tower, but he made it sound like the rest of the castle was nothing special. Sam begged to differ.
'Apparently it's a bit like Dumbledores mood board. He likes to make it 'pretend rain' when he is in a bad mood and on Halloween it's filled with flying pumpkins.' Rather odd if you asked Sam, pumpkins had no business flying around, even in the wizarding world. But then again, odd seemed to be Dumbledores main character trait according to Dean. But Sam had always tried to not let the weird stories of his brother overshadow facts like Dumbledores great defeat against Grindelwald or his ex-position as the chief warlock of the wizengamot, just to name two of his many great accomplishments. (Maybe Sam was a bit of a nerd like his brother always claimed, but he wanted to be prepaired, and researching about his future school and head master seemed like a basic necessity in his opinion.)
'That sounds epic, I love Halloween!' Yunho sounded positively delighted. Good for him. Sam hated Halloween, his whole life is a ginormous single Halloween party. But he certainly would not take this joy from his new, hopefully, friend.
Just then the constant noise from the other side of the door abruptly stopped. Everyone around him seemed to straighten up all of a sudden and Sam caught himself probably looking like a deer in the headlights. A tiny deer. A fawn. On shaking stick legs. Standing in front of pair of ridiculously big doors, in a ridiculously big castle, about to enter the great hall and be stared at by everyone- okay Sam. That's enough. He's faced a different monster what felt like everyday in the summer. He could deal with a bunch of kids, all older than him but that was besides the point here.
'Are you not nervous?' Yunhos question almost made him laugh. His dad would be proud of him, he trained the Winchester poker face quite a lot with his youngest. 'No, no, I am. You can't belive how much.' And he really couldn't believe it himself, he was literally trained to hunt monsters since he could think. How do social events like this get to him so much? Nothing should be scarier than a raging Wendigo. Maybe he's just transferring his fear onto everyday scenarious now, since monsters are apparently not scary enough anymore. Great.
The doors were pushed open by a politely smiling Professor Mcgonagall, 'now come on in.' She indicated them to follow her and together they entered to Great Hall. And great it truly was.
The ceiling did indeed open into a vast nightsky, filled with star constellations. A few meters over their heads were lit up candles just floating all over the place. The tables were overloaded with food of all sizes and shapes, while heavy silverware took up the little remaining space on the tables.
Mcgonagall walked down the broadest aisle, which divided the four long tables. The first years hastily followed her under the encouraging applause of all the other students, who seemed to remember well enough how it felt to be in their stead.
Sam tried to take a closer look onto the uniforms of the sitting students and could indentify the two houses sitting left and right to their path, being Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws. Which meant Slytherins and Gryffindors were sitting on the outer sides. He faintly saw some green on the uniforms to his far left and so he let his gaze sweep over to the right, trying to find some familiar faces in the growd. And he was succesful, Dean and Ron were one of the fewer students standing up, clapping enthusiastically.
Dean grinned at him, giving two thumbs up, making Sam smile back at him before he turned his gaze forward again. They had reached the front of the hall.
There at the very back, on a higher space, sat the teachers, looking down on them in varying degrees of fondness. Hagrid stuck out like a sore thump, for obvious reasons but also because he was clapping by far the loudest, much to the displeasure of his seating neighbours, according to the look on their faces.
In the very middle of them sat Dumbledore. Sam had seen pictures and the real life Dumbledore looked like he just stepped out of them. Long beard, pointed hat, long robes littered with stars and moons, on a background of various shades of blue and purple. He looked like a proper wizard out of a childrens book, while he clapped politely, looking at them through twinkling eyes.
A few meters in the front of the teachers table stood a modest podium. That's a lie. It wasn't modest in any way. It seemed to be made out of massive gold with a huge, of course golden, owl sitting atop of it with widely spread wings. It was quite clear to Sam which person, of the ones currently present, possesed such an extravagant style.
And lastly a few meters in front of this big shiny owl, stood a small wooden chair with an old, battered hat on it.
Sam knew it was the sorting hat and Sam knew it would start to sing any second now. Which it promptly did. Sam also knew, that this dusty hat really liked to hear itself talk. Admittedly, it only got to talk once a year from what he heard, so one couldn't even blame it really.
But even if Dean and him often had divided opinions about what was of interest and what not, in this part Dean was right for once: the song was unnecessary long and plain boring, causing Sam and probably everyone else around to zoom out.Instead he looked around some more. And indeed, the students sat at the table chattered silently, stared at nothing particular with empty eyes or observed the food in front of their noses longingly.
Upon closer observation Sam saw, that the big fire basins, lighting up the space even more from the side, were actually hold by winged creatures. The assigned house mascots, alternating between lion, eagle, badger and serpent. They all stood proudly above their heads.
On the very right side, next to the Gryffindor table, was a single huge fireplace with the Hogwarts crest caved into the stone above it. Belated Sam realized he wasn't freezing anymore either. Wether it was because of the commical amound of candles or just the many people in the room or maybe even magic, remained unbeknownst to him though.
The applause of everyone else shook Sam out of his haze and he quickly turned towards the chair again. Professor Mcgonagall had positioned herself next to it, holding the hat in one and the scroll with their names in the other hand.
From here on it only meant to wait, his last name put him rather far down on the list and he nervously waited for his turn, turning towards Dean every now and then.
'Davies, Lana!' A tall, slim girl stepped forward upon hearing her name. She tried to look calm, but she failed rather poorly. At least Sam, who stood close enough, could see the slight tremble in her fingers as she hold tight onto the surface of the chair. After a couple seconds the hat called out loudly: 'SLYTHERIN!' The table on the far left cheered loudly. She was the first one this evening to be sorted into Slytherin. Sam looked closely at her face, searching for any sign of disappointment in her features, but couldn't find any. She simply jumped of the chair and gladly joined her new house mates.
A bunch of other names were called before it was Yunhos turn: 'Jeong, Yunho!' With a last smile and a quick 'whish me luck', Yunho pushed past him towards the chair. And for the first time during the sorting Sam actually cared for the result. He was kind of hoping for Gryffindor, it being most likely the house he would end up in. But he also knew that Yunho would probably prefer Slytherin, like his mum. Everyone liked it when the same house was shared within the family, he wanted to follow Deans footsteps as well after all.
Still his shoulders dropped a bit, as the hat called out once again: 'SLYTHERIN!' At least Yunho seemed happy with that, he shot him a big grin before making his way over to the Slytherin table.
Maybe they could be friends no matter which house Sam would end up in, friendship didn't have to be limited by their houses, it would only be a bit hard if they ended up not sharing any classes.
But unknown to Sam at that moment all his worries were completely in vain, for many names later his was called. 'Winchester, Samuel!'
His legs felt like jelly as he parted from the two remaining students who still stood by his side. He sat down on the chair and the hat was placed on his head, pushing his unruly hair down over his eyes.
A voice in his head started to speak up, 'Well...this is uncommon.' It stated. And what was that supposed to mean? Sam felt vastly uncomfortable, through a few strands of his hair he could see the whole Great Hall fixing their eyes on him. The chair was hard and at an awkward height, where he couldn't quite reach the floor with his feet. The silence of the hat was awfully long Sam decided and whispered a small 'hello?' 'You're much like your brother...', it finally continued. 'Well that was a good sign, right?' Sam wondered, still silently hoping for Gryffindor. '...but you have something in you. Something vicious. Deep embedded in your blood, in the darkest parts of your inner self...' Before Sam could dwell on that or ask what for gods sake that was supposed to mean, the hat announced: 'SLYTHERIN!' and it was ripped of of him.
His heart sank, he blinked a few times and instinctively turned into the direction where he knew Dean was sitting. His brother, seemingly prepared to errupt into loud cheers, stood motionless among the sitting Gryffindors. His face looked as shocked as he felt, wide eyes which then quickly turned into questioning confusion. This was probably the last house his brother would have ever pictured him in. Mcgonagall interrupted their silent exchange, 'please go on', she gestured to the Slytherin table. Sam stood and hesitantly made his way to the table furthest away from his brother.
At least the Slytherins seemed happy to have him and Yunhos face was positively beaming.
He indicated Sam to come sit next to him and as he reached him he pulled him down by his shoulders.
'Come here, sit next to me. Isn't this cool? We're in the same house! Who would have thought?' Certainly not Sam. And he really tried he did, but he couldn't put a convincing smile on his face. 'Yeah...', he just mumbled. Yunho sensed his lack of enthusiasm quickly though: 'You wanted to be with your brother right?' Sams gaze was directed downwards, he swallowed heavily and nodded. He wouldn't cry over this, he wasn't a baby anymore, dammit! 'It's okay to be sad about it, I completely get it. I would have been sad, if I didn't end up in my mums house and she isn't even here anymore.' He put one arm around Sams shoulder, 'but you know what? You at least have me, we will take care of each other and I'm sure you and your brother will meet up whenever you can.'
And he would have actually managed to make Sam feel better if it weren't for the words the hat had uttered to him, in the privacy of his own head so only he could hear them. About a darkness lingering inside him.