Friendless » Fred Weasley

cxxxiv. the sorting hat's warning

"Did everyone see that Grubbly-Plank woman?" Alicia asked. ''What's she doing back here? Hagrid can't have left, can he?"

"I hope not," Angelina said, frowning. Their carriage was coming close to a stop in front of the Hogwarts's grand gates. "He was a good teacher, a bit odd, but good."

The Entrance Hall was ablaze with torches and echoing with footsteps as the students crossed the flagged stone floor for the double doors to the right, leading to the Great Hall and the start-of-term feast.

The four long house tables in the Great Hall were filling up under the starless black ceiling, which was just like the sky they could glimpse through the high windows. Candles floated in midair all along the tables, illuminating the silvery ghosts who were dotted about the Hall and the faces of the students talking eagerly, exchanging summer news, shouting greetings at friends from other houses, eyeing one another's new haircuts and robes. Tori glanced over at the Hufflepuff table, all of them looking cheery but a bit pesky as well. She understood why.

She immediately glanced in between two Hufflepuffs to see they were sitting apart, leaving space in between. Cedric's spot.

Tori swallowed roughly, blinking a few times and taking her own seat next to Fred and George. McGonagall had just led the first years into the Great Hall, and Tori watched in amusement as they all stared at the grand ceiling above them.

The whole school waited with bated breath. Then the rip near the hat's brim opened wide like a mouth and the Sorting Hat burst into song:

In times of old when I was new

And Hogwarts barely started

The founders of our noble school

Thought never to be parted:

United by a common goal,

They had the selfsame yearning,

To make the world's best magic school

And pass along their learning.

''Together we will build and teach!"

The four good friends decided

And never did they dream that they

Might someday be divided,

For were there such friends anywhere

As Slytherin and Gryffindor?

Unless it was the second pair

Of Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw?

So how could it have gone so wrong?

How could such friendships fail?

Why, I was there and so can tell