It Looks Like a Lie

Train and Airplane Nosies Included

All thoughts about Nico's last name leave my head as I focus on not letting my jaw hang open, a tough job considering the room we walk into. The Great Hall is, well, a great hall. There are five tables filled with either students or teachers and four of them appear to be colour coded. There's red, yellow, blue, and green, in that order. The air is filled with floating candles that have to be some kind of safely hazard, and to top it all off there's the ceiling. Zeus above, the ceiling is amazing. Forget about the Sistine chapel, this is where it's at. The night sky hangs above us in perfect clarity letting everyone watch as the clouds drift by or a shooting star appears. Sure it's no Olympus, but it's still really impressive for mortals, magic or not.

A witch with her hair in a tight bun and completely decked out in emerald green stands at the head of the fifth table. The hall comes to a hush when she makes a motion with her hand, having an old, brown, wizard hat be brought out and placed on a three legged stool by Mr. Flitwick. A line of smaller students, standing along the far wall, stare at the ratty head gear with anticipation.

The whole room is silent until a seam in the hat opens wide and it starts to scream. Or maybe it's singing, but I wouldn't start calling it Euterpe anytime soon. Once it's finished, everyone claps politely and then they go quite again.

"When I call your name, please come forward and be sorted. We shall start with the transfers." Maybe Nico's cover story actually had some truth to it. "Nico di Angelo," Mr. Flitwick calls.

Scattered whispers break out, mainly coming from the green table, as Nico walks to the front with a bored look. He sits on the stool and the hat is placed in his head, covering his eyes. He doesn't move except for the clenching of his jaw. Three minutes tick by before the hat screams "Slytherin!" and the hat is plucked off his head as the same green table starts clapping and cheering. Even from where I stand, I can tell that he's uncomfortable will all the attention. The applause dies down once he's taken a seat away from most of his house mates.

The same teacher announces my name. I take a seat and the hat is placed on my head.

"Now where to put you?"a voice hums in my head.

"Who are you?" I think back, trying to refrain from ripping the hat from my head, which I suspect has something to do with this blatant disrespect for my privacy.

"I'm the sorting hat, now shush, I'm trying to think." it does give me time to say, think? anything else before it continues. "Slytherin is out of the question, better be...Hufflepuff," It yells the last part out loud, setting off an explosion of noise from the yellow table. It's a little overwhelming.

It doesn't help that people start introducing themselves as soon as I sit down. I can't pay attention to the rest of the sorting because at the same time the first boy is sorted into Ravenclaw, a Hufflepuff girl is telling me that her name is Hannah Albott, she's an 8th year (which I don't understand because Hecate only mentioned seven grades) and that I can come to her if I have any problems. When she's done, a guy named Ernie something grabs my hand and starts shaking it vigorously. It's all a blur after that. Kids get sorted, names are thrown at me then promptly forgotten, and I end up with even more questions than I had when I sat down. By the time the last person it put in Gryffindor, my head is buzzing trying to keep up with everything,

I get a break when the green robed teacher stands up again, bringing peace to the hall and my growing head ache. I'm usually fine with people, but even all of this is a little much. I must let my confusion show because the guy next to me bumps my shoulder to get my attention. "That's Professor Mcgonagall, she's head mistress this year," he explains.

"This year?" Nico didn't say it was a revolving job, but that does explain why the head master isn't the eccentric one that he mentioned.

"Yeah," he whispers so that we don't interrupt the speech the  head mistress is giving, "the two head masters before her died almost within a year of each other, though I don't know if you can really count the previous one, or any of last year since the school was over run by You Know Who's followers." he gets this far away look, remembering, for a moment before he snaps back to the present. "They even had to add an extra 8th year so that everyone could make it up without a war going on." Well that's one mystery solved.