"Welcome, welcome," Dumbledore stood at the head table, smiling broadly. "I'm glad to see most of you once again. There are a few whose transfers I sorely wish I had been given a chance to process. The paperwork was sent to you and everything." He glowered for a moment. "Now on to some important information. Firstly, a warning: in keeping with the best of Hogwarts tradition, no one is to offer help to any First Years. Punishment for doing so will be swift and uncertainly reversible. It depends on the mood of the one issuing the punishment." He pointed to a Hufflepuff. "You'll note that Miss Bennet still has the rabbit ears from two years ago when she decided to offer some advice. That was leniency.
"A further notice: the Hogwarts Express will be leaving early this year. Late fees will be levied against those who trespass." He motioned to Professor McGonagall, who rolled her eyes and rose.
"And now we begin the sorting. I will thank you, Missrs Weasley, to remain silent for the duration. Do not make me force the matter." Gred and George mimed zipping and locking their lips. Then they mimed swallow the other's key. Two loud burps echoed. "Thank you." She left the hall.
"While my esteemed deputy is out of the room, I would normally take the chance to issue some kind of instruction of which she would not approve. But I can't be bothered. Instead, let us prepare to greet the new members of our educational institution. Before we do, I will lead us in a short prayer for those of them who will not see the year out." He bowed his head. "Please Merlin, may those who are too stupid to live die early, before we waste education on them. Amen." There was a chorus of answering 'amen's.
Fifteen minutes later, the doors to the Great Hall opened and the small children entered, led by Professor McGonagall. She lined them up and then proceeded to walk the length of the group, levitating them into an actual line with muttered comments about questionable geometry and how in her day people knew a line was straight. The entire horde was bedraggled and dripping on the floor of the Great Hall. McGonagall walked over to the Headmaster and held a whispered conversation to explain to him (and no one else but Hari) that there had been a delay as Hagrid had been forced to guide them in swimming across the lake after all the boats began to toss anyone who used them just far enough from shore that the person would have to tread water.
There were a few incoming students that raised flags to Hari's eyes. The first was a blonde with the most vacant expression he'd ever seen. She seemed to be genuinely mystified by the proceedings. There was also her wand tucked behind her ear. Odd. There was a boy who kept peering around while holding a camera. What was the kid . . . was that the one that Jordan had mentioned? Huh. And there was a girl with the red hair and freckles that screamed . . . actually, it just screamed that she had red hair and fair skin and probably, therefore, had family in Scottland or maybe Ireland. Brown eyes, too. Why was it that people seemed to think that red hair and freckles meant Weasley around here? There were at least three other people with red hair and freckels and any number with one or the other. Regardless, what had drawn his attention was the flare of magic from the book she clutched in the pocket of her robe. It was the one the blonde man had deposited into a cauldron in Diagon Alley.
Hari tuned out the Sorting as much as he could while seeing it and reading everyone's lips. It was one of the more frustrating aspects of his life that he often had to focus to avoid focusing on things. Of similar annoyance was the fact that everyone treated this as some sort of sacred activity and so when he prompted them to conversation, they shushed him. It wasn't that he took being shushed as much more than a minor aspect of life, but that conversation could be dull without another participant.
Early in the ceremony was the sorting of the boy-who-would-stalk. His placement in Gryffindor drew shrieks of rage and demands for sorting into Slytherin. The Gryffindors looked as upset about this as the Slytherins looked thrilled ("stupid Mudblood," Malfoy had added. Hari made sure to remember that for later). The blonde Hari had noticed had to be nudged several times to get her to even go be sorted in the first place and once the Hat had shouted its decision, Professor McGonagall had to remove the hat from her head and send the girl on her way with a stinging hex. The girl-who-was-probably-Weasley took a long time to sort and had an expression of stark terror for much of the time that the hat covered everything above her nose. Her eventual placement into the house where every other Weasely had apparently gone since the dawn of time was treated with the same celebration that Hari would have expected from the Second Coming.
"Does anyone know anything about the newbies?" Hari murmured to his friends when the Sorting had finished.
"Nah," replied Daphne. "Minor families, really."
"In other words, not movers and shakers, but not moved and shook," explained Blaise.
"Unless you count Trevor Nevilleson," added Tracy. "He's not a pureblood, but his father has a large share of Nimbus, so he's pretty rich."
"Close enough," said Pansy. She looked at them. "What? Since I've hung out with you guys, I've been noticing things. Rich is more important than blood. Not that people like my parents would admit it."
Professor Dumbledore rose and cleared his throat. Since conversation had only just begun, people were able to hear and shushed each other for almost a minute before realizing that this was the source of the ongoing noise. "Thank you." The twinkle gleamed. "So, as usual, I will be holding back the majority of my announcements until after we have finished our feast, but I feel compelled to make a few minor starting points primarily designed with the intent of delaying your chance to eat. The first is that . . ." he trailed off when Professor McGonagall's harrumph echoed through the Hall. " . . . we should eat. Moron. Blindside. Parallelogram. Parp. Tuck in."
"Is he getting worse?" asked Hari as the food appeared in front of them.
"Eh." Millie shrugged as she began to dish out food to herself and Pansy. "Quit complaining, you're too skinny. To tell the truth, I think he wavers in and out. Our parents seem to think that he's alternately insane and brilliantly devious."
"I just don't like peas!" snapped Pansy, using her spoon to put them on Millie's plate. "Give us the carrots, would you?"
Hari enjoyed his meal with the satisfaction of knowing that he alone would be eating raw fish and rice, followed by a bowl of salty broth with buckwheat noodles and pork in. He'd made a note to bring the local terms for such dishes home. It was certainly faster to use only a couple syllables. It was amusing to see Snape not bothering to glare at him and instead just stare at the empty Slytherin hourglass with a resigned sort of look.
"Oi, Potter!" Hari didn't look up at Malfoy. "What's with that red eye of yours? Poke yourself with your wand?"
Hari opened his mouth.
"Don't you dare," hissed Hermione.
"Magical pink eye?"
"Damn it." Hermione flushed as she realized she'd sworn. And then realized that no one other than her friends had heard, since the entirety of Slytherin other than them had all lunged as far from Hari as they could manage, many of those sitting at the ends of the benches finding themselves on the floor under a pile of bodies. Malfoy had run screaming to hide behind the Head Table.
"Hari?"
"Yes, Blaise?"
"Is it possible that you could come up with a different lie?"
"I'm not lying."
"Are you going to?"
"No."
"Of course not."
"POTTER!"
"Yes, Professor Snape?" Hari asked of the man screaming from the high table.
"Would you care to explain why I have a pool of urine with Draco Malfoy sitting in it behind my chair?"
"I'm going to assume either you or he have a bladder control problem."
"An interesting diagnosis," snarled the man as the rest of the hall went utterly silent.
"Thank you."
"Perhaps you can offer another suggestion?"
"There's normally a chamber pot behind your seat?"
Snape sighed. "I have been away from you long enough to forget how this goes it seems. We shall skip ahead. Why did you tell Slytherin House that you have . . ." he paused, "why did you lie and tell Slytherin House that you have magical pink eye?" Snape glared as almost half the student body scrambled further from Slytherin. "Really? Really?" He looked at the Headmaster. The man was surrounded by a healer's specialist protection that created a full-body variant of the bubble-head charm. "Of course."
"I wish to remind everyone that since Mister Potter is not speaking in polka dots, we can be certain that he does not have magical pink eye." Dumbledore's voice was slightly distorted from within his bubble-field. "So please return to your seats and continue with your meals." The Headmaster sat down and spent several minutes working out how to eat through the ward he'd conjured around himself. He looked sad when he realized that the flavor was airborne and had been left outside his protection. He sighed and returned to his now-bland steak.
Hari noticed people all around the hall returning to their meals. He was glad to see that a few people were wondering why Dumbledore was saying it was safe while within the field of a healer's charm used for infectious diseases. Personally, Hari was torn between suspecting mild paranoia and just seeing how many people he could worry.
Daphne was glaring back and forth between Hari and Dumbledore. "How do you do this? Really?"
"Do what?" Hari cocked his head.
"I know after a year, I shouldn't be surprised, but I have a feeling that there will always be moments like this, where I wonder how you can so horribly pervert reality."
"Uh . . ." Hari looked over at Millicent. "Could you give me a hand here?"
"If I don't miss my guess," said Blaise. "She's wondering why Dumbledore is playing into the paranoia."
"Oh." Hari shrugged. "Got me."
"I don't think she expected you to know, Hari," replied Tracy. "She was just musing on the nature of your presence on normality."
"Huh."
X
X
The food vanished and Dumbledore stood up to speak. "As usual, I have many things to say regarding the start of the year. The first will be to warmly welcome Gilderoy Lockhart to the teaching staff. Sit down, Gilderoy, I did not invite your comments." Lockhart had been halfway to his feet when Dumbledore cut him off. "I will tell you when you are welcome to speak. Here's a hint: not while I'm Headmaster. As I was saying, we welcome Gilderoy Lockhart to the teaching staff as the new Professor for Defense Against the Dark Arts. Let us all offer a moment of cheer for the foolish soul willing to take the post. I admit that there has been an upward trend, given that unlike his predecessors, Professor Stutterfaces only fled the castle under suspicion of assault on Aurors instead of actually dying. Perhaps that has given this poor idiot hope.
"While I realize that this will sound tired, I must remind all of you that despite its name, the Forbidden Forest is, in fact, forbidden. I know that you think that this is an invitation, but anyone who wanders in there had best have supreme confidence, since we will under no circumstances, be bothering to fetch you from whatever you meet in there. On a related note, there have been yet more things added to the forbidden list. Contraband now includes all products from 's'oknoZ' and 'onko'sZay' as well as their parent company: Zonko's. Please also bear in mind that you are not allowed to duel in the corridors. Assaults will be dealt with harshly, but duels will result in lack of medical attention. Please study up on your healing charms before engaging, therefore.
"I'm happy to say that last year continued our trend of a lack of pregnancies during the term. I understand that Miss Garadila is now expecting and I hope that her long-time boyfriend, Mister Damston, is the father, but since the conception was over the summer and—oh dear, I hope that his worry is because she hadn't told him yet and not because of indiscretions. Regardless, I am sure that as entertaining a soap-opera as that will make for your assorted housemates, that you will recall that I am Headmaster and so I get to finish announcements first. Thank you. As I was saying, the only child currently underway in this school is a result of summer break and is not, therefore, considered my problem. I remind all young persons that they are to speak to Madam Pomfrey about contraceptives before indulging in youthful stupidity. Anyone who is detected engaging in excessively stupid youthfulness will find their pictures added to the volume labeled 'idiots in the nuddy' that is made available to students of appropriate ages.
"I remind First Years that tonight is their one chance to learn a path from their common rooms to the Great Hall. To reiterate my earlier warning: expect no aid in finding classrooms, the entrance hall, the Great Hall, your common rooms, the Black Lake, and, for that matter, which way is down. We at Hogwarts believe that if you should need help finding the ground after jumping from a high place, you deserve whatever happens to you. And that, incidentally, you should publish on how you managed to have that experience. This is a place of academia, even if it always seems to just be teaching people how not to hex their own naughty-bits off.
"Now, curfew is in five minutes, off you trot." With that, Dumbledore strode from the room, leaving the students to scramble to get to bed before they could get detentions on the first night.
Hari absently led his friends into a solid bit of wall and then opened a door that was really just a part of the wall faking it and took them down a passage which ended with them walking up three flights of stairs before ending up in front of the entrance to their common room a good five minutes ahead of anyone else. His friends didn't comment, having gotten used to Hari knowing odd secret passages and using them without any explanation.
"Professor Simon Says Open," Hari called, leading the rest of them inside. "That's not actually the password, but until the Prefects use it, that's the default from the summer," he said. "At least, that's my best guess."
"You have a backdoor pass into the common room?" Hermione sounded like she wished she were shocked.
"Not really. Besides, it only works until the Prefects activate it using the correct password. Speaking of which . . ."
"Potter!" One of the upper years glared at Hari. "What are you doing in here before us?"
"Chatting with my friends?"
"How did you get in here?"
"The door?"
"And the password?"
"Thanks for reminding me: what's the password?"
"What?"
"That's a strange password."
"Hari?"
"Yes, Daphne?"
"I think he was asking how we got in without the password."
"Oh." Hari turned back to the red-faced Prefect. "None of your business."
"I'm a Prefect!"
"That's nice. I hope it made your mother proud." Hari rose and patted the boy's cheek. "How did they get you to take the job, anyway? Are there any other Prefects? No? Didn't think so." Hari's smile was broader now. "I guess you mother doesn't love you, boy-o. Maybe she wants your sibling to inherit?" He turned back to his friends. "Hermione, I will be assessing your progress tomorrow night. Assuming I find it sufficient, I will be beginning your training, Daphne, the night after."
Hari turned and went upstairs to his bedroom. He wondered if he should have mentioned to someone that the platform had malfunctioned. But they probably had people who kept track of that sort of thing. Oh well. Besides, he had more interesting things to do this night. Someone had decided to wear a target on his chest and Hari wasn't going to let him be disappointed.
(A/N John)
This is one of those chapters I don't have much to say about. Parts of it I think were just sort of padding, but other parts just spiraled out of control.
(A/N 2 John)
For those of you wondering, yes, the prank was that no boat was working for the firsties.
(A/N 3 John)
Also, good news: corpse in the next chapter! You sick freaks.