Ron was still grumpy when the Hogwarts Express slowed down at last and finally stopped in the pitch-darkness of Hogsmeade station.
As the train doors opened, there was a rumble of thunder overhead. Hermione and I bundled up our pets in our cloaks and Ron left his dress robes over Pigwidgeon as we left the train, heads bent and eyes narrowed against the downpour. The rain was now coming down so thick and fast that it was as though buckets of ice-cold water were being emptied repeatedly over our heads.
What had Hogwarts ever done to Zeus?
"I think I'm gonna die," I said.
"What?" Ron yelled over the rain.
"I think I'm gonna die!" I shouted.
"You sank a funny guy?"
"I... THINK... I'M... GONNA... DIE!" I bellowed at him.
"WHAT?"
"UGH!" I groaned. "GET SOME HEARING AIDS, RON!"
"WHAT?"
"NOTHING!"
"Hi, Hagrid!" Harry yelled. I turned in time to see a gigantic silhouette at the far end of the platform.
"All righ', Harry?" Hagrid bellowed back, waving. "See yeh at the feast if we don' drown!"
"He can hear better than you," I told Ron, "And he's got all that hair."
"WHAT?"
I was beginning to think he was doing this on purpose.
"Oooh, I wouldn't fancy crossing the lake in this weather," said Hermione fervently, shivering as we inched slowly along the dark platform with the rest of the crowd. A hundred horseless carriages stood waiting for us outside the station. We climbed gratefully into one of them, the door shut with a snap, and a few moments later, with a great lurch, the long procession of carriages was rumbling and splashing its way up the track toward Hogwarts Castle.
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. Leaning against the window, I could see Hogwarts coming nearer, its many lighted windows blurred and shimmering behind the thick curtain of rain. Lightning flashed across the sky as the 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. Harry, Ron, Hermione, and I jumped down from the carriage and dashed up the steps too.
"Blimey," said Ron, shaking his head and sending water everywhere, "if that keeps up the lake's going to overflow. I'm already 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 — narrowly missing Hermione and I, it burst at Harry's feet, drenching his shoes.
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 them, 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. Hermione and I both stabilized McGonagall.
"Peeves, get down here NOW!" she barked, 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!"
We slipped and slid across the entrance hall and through the double doors on the right, Ron muttering furiously under his breath as he pushed his sopping hair off his face.
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 the students.
"It's much warmer in here," I said contentedly as 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. We were 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, taking off his sneakers and emptying them of water. "Hope they hurry up with the Sorting. I'm
starving."
"Hiya, Harry!" a highly excited, breathless voice called down the table. It was Colin Creevey, who idolized Harry. Hermione had told me that during second year, he'd stalked Harry with a camera, trying to get his picture.
"Hi, Colin," said Harry warily.
"Harry, guess what? Guess what, Harry? My brother's starting! My brother Dennis!"
"Er — good," said Harry.
"He's really excited!" said Colin, practically bouncing up and down in his seat. "I just hope he's in Gryffindor! Keep your fingers crossed, eh, Harry?"
"Er — yeah, all right," said Harry. He turned back to Hermione, Ron, and Nearly Headless Nick. "Brothers and sisters usually go in the same Houses, don't they?" he said. He was judging by the Weasleys, all seven of whom had been put into Gryffindor.
"Oh no, not necessarily," said Hermione. "Parvati Patil's twin's in Ravenclaw, and they're identical. You'd think they'd be together, wouldn't you?"
"Well, it depends upon their personalities," I said. "Siblings weren't always sorted together at Ilvermorny, either, because they have different personalities."
"I suppose you're right..." Hermione said, her gaze drifting up to the Staff table. "Where's the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher?"
I looked up at the the teachers. Sure enough, the seat Professor Lupin had sat in last year was empty.
"Maybe they couldn't get anyone?" I asked.
"Oh hurry up," Ron moaned, "I could eat a hippogriff."
The words were no sooner out of his mouth than the doors of the Great Hall opened and silence fell. Professor McGonagall was leading a long line of first years up to the top of the Hall.
If Harry, Ron, Hermione, and I were wet, it was nothing to how these first years looked. They appeared to have swum across the lake instead of sailed. All of them were shivering with a combination of cold and nerves as they filed along the staff table and came to a halt in a line facing the rest of the school — 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. When he had lined up with his terrified-looking peers, he caught Colin Creevey's eye, gave a double thumbs up, and mouthed, I fell in the lake! He looked positively delighted about it.
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 planTo educate young sorcerersThus Hogwarts School began.Now each of these four foundersFormed their own house, for eachDid value different virtuesIn the ones they had to teach.By Gryffindor, the bravest werePrized far beyond the rest;For Ravenclaw, the cleverestWould always be the best;For Hufflepuff, hard workers wereMost worthy of admission;And power-hungry SlytherinLoved those of great ambition.While still alive they did divideTheir favorites from the throng,Yet how to pick the worthy onesWhen they were dead and gone?'Twas Gryffindor who found the way,He whipped me off his headThe founders put some brains in meSo I could choose instead!Now slip me snug about your ears,I've never yet been wrong,I'll have a look inside your mindAnd 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 with 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."
"That's not super boring," I said. "Songwriting is fun."
"Says the girl who wrote the Gryffindor fight song."
"Yeah, I had fun. Granted, the brass band accompaniments were kind of hard, mainly because I'm more of a strings person, but, hey, I got through it."
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."
"Ackerley, Stewart!"
A boy walked forward, visibly trembling from head to foot, picked up the Sorting Hat, put it on, and sat down on the stool.
"RAVENCLAW!" shouted the hat.
Stewart Ackerley took off the hat and hurried into a seat at the Ravenclaw table, where everyone was applauding him.
"Baddock, Malcolm!"
"SLYTHERIN!"
The table on the other side of the hall erupted with cheers. I could see Malfoy clapping as Baddock joined the Slytherins. Fred and George hissed Malcolm Baddock as he sat down.
"Branstone, Eleanor!"
"HUFFLEPUFF!"
"Cauldwell, Owen!"
"HUFFLEPUFF!"
"Creevey, Dennis!"
Tiny Dennis Creevey staggered forward, tripping over Hagrid's moleskin, just as Hagrid himself sidled into the Hall through a door behind the teachers' table.
"GRYFFINDOR!" the hat shouted.
Hagrid clapped along with the Gryffindors as Dennis Creevey, beaming widely, took off the hat, placed it back on the stool, and hurried over to join his brother.
"Colin, I fell in!" he said shrilly, throwing himself into an empty seat. "It was brilliant! And something in the water grabbed me and pushed me back in the boat!"
"Cool!" said Colin, just as excitedly. "It was probably the giant squid, Dennis!"
"Wow!" said Dennis, as though nobody in their wildest dreams could hope for more than being thrown into a storm-tossed, fathoms-deep lake, and pushed out of it again by a giant sea monster. I shook my head, sure that the boy would change his opinion if he'd seen half of the monsters I'd dealt with.
"Dennis! Dennis! See that boy down there? The one with the black hair and glasses? See him? Know who he is, Dennis?"
Harry looked away, staring very hard at the Sorting Hat, now Sorting Emma Dobbs. I smirked and nudged him, remembering how Hermione had told me about Colin's obsession with Harry two years ago and finding it likely that Dennis would be the exact same way.
"Shut up," he muttered.
"I didn't say anything," I replied. "I just thought--"
"Don't even do that."
I snickered and turned to watch as the Sorting continued.
"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.
"Ron," I said. "I know you're hangry, but don't be rude."
"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?"
"We won't," I promised. "Not if the Quidditch team has anything to say about it."
Nick shook his head as if he knew something I didn't.
"Pritchard, Graham!"
"SLYTHERIN!"
"Quirke, Orla!"
"RAVENCLAW!"
And finally, with "Whitby, Kevin!" ("HUFFLEPUFF!"), the Sorting ended. Professor McGonagall picked up the hat and the stool and carried them away.
"About time," said Ron, seizing his knife and fork and looking expectantly at his golden plate. Professor Dumbledore had gotten to his feet. He was smiling around at the students, his arms opened wide in welcome.
"I have only two words to say to you," he told them, his deep voice echoing around the Hall. "Tuck in."
"Hear, hear!" said Harry and Ron loudly as the empty dishes filled magically.
Nearly Headless Nick watched mournfully as Harry, Ron, Hermione, and I loaded our own plates.
"Aaah, 'at's be'er," said Ron, with his mouth full of mashed potato.
"Ron, swallow your food," I said.
"You're lucky there's a feast at all tonight, you know," said Nearly Headless Nick. "There was trouble in the kitchens earlier."
"Why? Wha' 'appened?" said Harry, through a sizable chunk of steak.
"Harry, don't talk with your mouth full," I said.
"Sorry." There was a loud gulp as Harry swallowed his food. "What happened?"
"Peeves, of course," said Nearly Headless Nick, shaking his head, which wobbled dangerously. He pulled his ruff a little higher up on his neck. "The usual argument, you know. He wanted to attend the feast — well, it's quite out of the question, you know what he's like, utterly uncivilized, can't see a plate of food without throwing it. We held a ghost's council — the Fat Friar was all for giving him the chance — but most wisely, in my opinion, the Bloody Baron put his foot down."
"Yeah, we thought Peeves seemed hacked off about something," said Ron darkly.
"So what did he do in the kitchens?" I asked, reaching for my goblet to take a sip.
"Oh the usual," said Nearly Headless Nick, shrugging. "Wreaked havoc and mayhem. Pots and pans everywhere. Place swimming in soup. Terrified the house-elves out of their wits —"
Clang.
Hermione had knocked over her golden goblet. Pumpkin juice spread steadily over the tablecloth, staining several feet of white linen orange, but Hermione paid no attention.
"There are house-elves here?" Hermione demanded, staring horror-struck at Nearly Headless Nick. "Here at Hogwarts?"
"Certainly," said Nearly Headless Nick, looking surprised at her reaction. "The largest number in any dwelling in Britain, I believe. Over a hundred."
"I've never seen one!" said Hermione. "Ash, have you--"
"Cagney told me there were house-elves here," I said apologetically. "I thought you knew."
"Well, they hardly ever leave the kitchen by day, do they?" said Nearly Headless Nick. "They come out at night to do a bit of cleaning ... see to the fires and so on... I mean, you're not supposed to see them, are you? That's the mark of a good house-elf, isn't it, that you don't know it's there?"
Hermione stared at him.
"But they get paid?" she said. "They get holidays, don't they? And — and sick leave, and pensions, and everything?"
Nearly Headless Nick chortled so much that his ruff slipped and his head flopped off, dangling on the inch or so of ghostly skin and muscle that still attached it to his neck.
"Sick leave and pensions?" he said, pushing his head back onto his shoulders and securing it once more with his ruff. "House-elves don't want sick leave and pensions!"
Hermione looked down at her hardly touched plate of food, then put her knife and fork down upon it and pushed it away from her.
"Oh c'mon, 'Er-my-knee," said Ron, accidentally spraying Harry with bits of Yorkshire pudding. "Oops — sorry, 'Arry —"
"Ron!" I snapped. "Swallow your food!"
"O'ay, mum." He swallowed. "Hermione, you won't get them sick leave by starving yourself!"
"Slave labor," said Hermione, breathing hard through her nose. "That's what made this dinner. Slave labor."
And she refused to eat another bite.
To the person in the comments who said they hoped Cedric, Sirius, and Lupin would live:
Enjoy and comment for more!
~~~~Kingfisher~~~~