The underground harbor looked like it had been designed by someone whose entire architectural resume was "I've seen a cave once while drunk" and whose safety certification had been revoked in three separate countries.
"Everyone off!" Hagrid's voice had the subtle grace of a foghorn that had discovered protein powder and anger issues. "Mind the gap! Watch yer—oh bollocks, not again—"
Too late. Neville had already achieved liftoff, performing what could charitably be described as "interpretive dance meets gravity's greatest revenge fantasy" before introducing his face to the dock with the kind of commitment Olympic divers reserve for gold medal performances.
*THWACK*
"I'm okay!" Neville announced to the stone currently forming an intimate relationship with his face. "This is fine! Totally fine! The dock and I are bonding! We're having a moment! It's beautiful!"
"The dock doesn't have feelings," Hermione said, hauling him upright with practiced efficiency.
"You don't know that! Maybe the dock is just emotionally unavailable! Maybe it's been hurt before and now it has trust issues! Maybe it's in therapy!"
"Rocks. Don't. Go. To. Therapy."
"Not with that attitude! Maybe rocks have been crying out for help this whole time and we've just been walking all over them like insensitive jerks! Maybe we're the problem!"
"That's—" Hermione paused, her face doing something complicated that involved at least seven different emotions fighting for dominance. "Actually, given that we're at a magical castle where paintings talk and stairs move, I can't scientifically rule that out and I'm very uncomfortable about it."
"Welcome to magic," Tracey said cheerfully. "Where your worldview goes to die and science cries in the corner."
"Science doesn't cry!"
"It might start!"
Meanwhile, Hannah was frozen at the edge of her boat like someone had hit pause on her entire existence and forgotten to hit play again.
"Hannah. It's six inches." Susan had the patience of a saint speedrunning burnout and possibly enlightenment.
"Six inches is a lot when you're going to die."
"You're not going to die."
"You don't know that. People die from six-inch falls all the time. Probably. I don't have statistics but it feels statistically likely."
"That's not how statistics work—"
"Statistics are just feelings with numbers!"
"That's the worst definition of statistics I've ever heard!"
"That's what your mom said about six inches!" Ron blurted out, then immediately looked like he wanted to invent time travel specifically so he could go back and punch himself in the mouth repeatedly.
"Ronald Bilius Weasley!" Hermione achieved frequencies that probably gave the giant squid a migraine and possibly violated several maritime noise ordinances.
"My brain panicked! The panic made words! I don't control the panic! The panic controls me! It's like a dictatorship but in my head!"
"You absolutely control what comes out of your mouth!"
"That's what she—"
"Ronald, I swear on Merlin's saggy left—"
"I can't help it! It's a disease! A condition! 'Your Mom' syndrome! It's terminal and incurable!"
"The only thing that's going to be terminal is your lifespan if you don't shut up right now!"
"Threats of violence seem excessive!"
"You're being excessive!"
"I'm being hilarious!"
"Those are different things!"
"Not to me!"
Harry had already transitioned from boat to dock with the kind of effortless grace that suggested he'd been taking secret parkour lessons from ninjas who moonlight as Olympic gymnasts and also possibly cats.
"Okay, that's just showing off," Tracey said, following with significantly more "please don't let me faceplant in front of literally everyone I'll ever know" energy.
"What? I just stepped."
"Nobody 'just steps' like that. What are you, secretly a cat? Are you a cat, Harry? Did you forget to mention in your introduction that you're secretly a cat?"
"I'm not a cat."
"That's exactly what a cat would say if it was pretending to be a human."
"Cats can't talk."
"Magic cats might! We're at magic school! The rules are made up and the physics don't matter! You could be fifty cats in a trench coat coordinating like a hive mind and I wouldn't even be surprised at this point!"
"How would fifty cats even coordinate well enough to—"
"Magic cats, Harry! Keep up! They probably have a council! A cat parliament! Little tiny cat governments with bureaucracy and everything!"
"That's insane."
"This whole situation is insane! We're at a castle! That we got to by train! To learn magic! From a boat! Across an underground lake! Normal left the building several hours ago!"
"Fair point."
"Thank you!"
Daphne stepped off the boat with the kind of aristocratic grace that suggested she'd been taking "How to Exit Boats Like You Own the Concept of Boats and Also Possibly the Ocean" classes since she was three, possibly since conception.
"The secret," she announced like she was narrating a nature documentary about herself, "is confidence and proper posture."
"The secret is not dying," Susan corrected, basically carrying Hannah across the gap like luggage that had developed severe anxiety and possibly a drinking problem.
"I'm going to fall so much this year," Hannah predicted with the certainty of a prophet who'd seen the future and it was full of bruises. "I'm going to fall in ways that haven't been invented yet. I'm going to pioneer new falling techniques. I'm going to be a falling innovator. Future students will write dissertations. 'The Hannah Abbott Falling Method: A Comprehensive Analysis of Gravity-Based Failure, Volume One of Twelve, Forward by Isaac Newton's Ghost.'"
"Stop manifesting your own destruction!"
"I'm not manifesting! I'm accepting reality! It's called emotional maturity and self-awareness!"
"That's not what either of those things are!"
"You don't know what my emotional maturity looks like!"
"Because it doesn't exist!"
"Rude!"
"True!"
"Those are not mutually exclusive!"
"Everyone together!" Hagrid bellowed with enough volume to probably violate the Geneva Convention, several NATO treaties, and possibly the laws of physics. "Follow me! In a group! A people-shaped group! Shaped like people would be if people were shaped into a group of people!"
"What does that even mean?" Neville asked with the kind of genuine existential distress usually reserved for philosophy majors having breakdowns.
"It means follow me!"
"That's not what you said!"
"It's what I meant!"
"Then say what you mean!"
"I am saying what I mean!"
"No, you're saying what you think you mean, which is different from what you actually mean, which is different from what we're hearing!"
"How do you know what I mean better than I know what I mean?!"
"Because what you said made no sense to anyone except possibly you!"
"It made perfect sense!"
"To who?!"
"To me!"
"You're one person! That's not a consensus! That's just you being wrong!"
"I can't be wrong about what I mean!"
"You absolutely can if you say it wrong!"
They started climbing stairs that looked like they'd been carved during an era when "safety" was just a word people hadn't invented yet and "railings" were for people who lacked character and commitment to danger.
"These stairs are a crime against humanity," Susan observed, white-knuckling the wall like her life depended on it because it probably did.
"Actually," Daphne said, immediately slipping into her legal knowledge like a lawyer who'd been waiting her whole life for this exact moment, "you can't sue Hogwarts. The enrollment contract includes liability waivers for 'educational hazards,' 'architectural character,' 'stairs with hostile intent,' 'acts of structural aggression,' 'features of the castle that wish you harm,' and my personal favorite, 'consequences of historical building preservation.'"
"'Features of the castle that wish you harm?!' That's a thing?!"
"The castle has opinions! It's sentient! Sort of! It's complicated! The legal precedents are fascinating, actually. There was a case in 1847 where a student tried to sue after a staircase moved while he was on it and he fell three floors, but the court ruled that—"
"Daphne."
"What?"
"Nobody cares about magical legal precedents from 1847 right now."
"I care about magical legal precedents from 1847."
"You're the only one."
"That's because I'm the only one with intellectual curiosity and respect for the law."
"Or because you're the only one who's weird."
"Those are not mutually exclusive."
"That's what I said about rude and true!"
"Stop stealing my arguments!"
"They're good arguments!"
"Then make your own!"
The stairs wound upward through stone that had been witnessing students have the exact same existential crisis for approximately eight hundred years and had clearly developed both a sense of humor and possibly a drinking problem about it.
Ron was panting like he'd just run a marathon through peanut butter while carrying another person who was also made of peanut butter. "How much... further..."
"Not far!" Hagrid called back cheerfully, which was the kind of lie personal trainers tell right before they add more weight and explain that pain is just weakness leaving the body. "Just these stairs! And then the ones after these! And probably some more after those! Character-building stairs!"
"I don't want character! I want oxygen! And my dignity! Can I have my dignity back? I dropped it somewhere around stair forty!"
"Oxygen is for quitters!" Hermione announced.
"Then I'm a quitter! I'm a proud quitter! I'm going to get a trophy made! 'Ron Weasley: Best Quitter, 1991, Most Likely to Die on Stairs!' I'll put it on my desk! It'll be inspirational!"
"You can't be proud of quitting!"
"Watch me be proud! I'm being proud right now! This is my proud face!"
"That's your 'dying' face!"
"They're the same face! It's a multipurpose face! Very efficient! I save time!"
"That's not how faces work!"
"You're not the boss of my face!"
"I'm the boss of making fun of your face!"
"That's not a position! That's just being mean!"
"I'm being honest!"
"Honest and mean are not the same thing!"
"They are when you're dying on stairs!"
They finally emerged onto grass stretching toward doors so massive they suggested the castle had been built by giants with serious self-esteem issues and access to unlimited construction budgets and possibly cocaine.
"Jesus Christ," Ron breathed, neck craned back at angles that would make chiropractors weep openly and possibly start a support group.
"I don't think he's here," Neville said helpfully.
"What?"
"Jesus. I don't think he's here. Wrong franchise. Different mythos. Separate pantheon entirely. Also different time period. And religion. And possibly dimension."
"Neville, what are you talking about?"
"I don't know! The stairs broke my brain! Words are just happening now! I have no control anymore! This is my life now! I'm just saying things! Random things! Things that mean nothing!"
"Are you okay?"
"Define okay."
"Able to function as a normal human being?"
"Then no. Absolutely not. Not even close."
"Should we be worried?"
"Probably! But I'm not your problem! I'm my problem! And also possibly the stairs' problem!"
"The stairs don't have problems!"
"You don't know that! Maybe the stairs have lots of problems! Maybe they're stressed! Maybe they're going through something!"
Harry's weird Castle Resonance thing was having a full-blown party in his head, complete with streamers and possibly a DJ. The building was basically broadcasting "YO! NEW FRIEND! WE'RE GONNA BE BEST FRIENDS! I'VE BEEN HERE FOR A THOUSAND YEARS AND I'VE SEEN SOME SERIOUS SHIT AND I LIKE YOUR VIBE! YOU'VE GOT GOOD ENERGY! WE'RE GONNA GET ALONG GREAT!"
*Great,* Harry thought. *I've been adopted by architecture. This is my life now. I'm a building collector. That's my whole personality. That's my thing. "Hi, I'm Harry Potter, I collect sentient structures. This is my castle friend, this is my probably-haunted house, this is my emotionally available bridge, this is my lighthouse with abandonment issues..."*
"Wait here!" Hagrid announced at the doors. "Professor McGonagall'll fetch yeh in a minute! She's Deputy Headmistress! Very serious! Very Scottish! Her accent could cut steel! Don't mess with her! Seriously, don't! I'm not joking! She's terrifying!"
"We literally just got here," Ron protested. "What trouble could we have possibly caused in the thirty seconds since we arrived?"
"Preemptive trouble! It's a thing! Students radiate trouble! You're all trouble beacons! Walking trouble factories! Trouble manufacturing plants! You produce trouble just by existing!"
"You can't radiate trouble just by existing!"
"You'd be surprised! There was a study! Probably! I don't remember! But it sounds right so I'm saying it!"
"That's not how facts work!"
"It's how my facts work!"
"Your facts are wrong!"
"You're wrong!"
"That doesn't make sense!"
"Your face doesn't make sense!"
Before anyone could debate the philosophical implications of facial sense-making, Hagrid had lumbered off like a friendly mountain who'd just remembered he left the oven on and possibly also a baby unsupervised.
Silence descended for approximately three seconds.
"So we're just... standing here," Ron said to the universe at large.
"Seems that way," Tracey confirmed.
"On a doorstep."
"Yep."
"Waiting for someone we've never met."
"That's the situation."
"For an unspecified amount of time."
"You got it."
"Without any idea what's happening next."
"Correct."
"This is bullshit."
"Language," Hermione said automatically, like it was a reflex programmed into her at birth.
"We're standing on a step waiting for a Scottish woman we've never met while a half-giant just abandoned us to our fate! I get to say bullshit! It's in the rules! Page seventeen of the 'When You Can Say Bullshit' handbook! Right between 'undeserved betrayal' and 'unreasonable circumstances!'"
"That handbook doesn't exist!"
"It should exist! I'm writing it! Mental note: write the bullshit handbook!"
"That's... actually fair," Hermione conceded. "This situation does qualify for minor profanity. Possibly moderate profanity. Maybe even approaching severe profanity depending on how long we're standing here."
"Thank you!"
"You're welcome!"
"See? We can agree on things!"
"We can agree on the appropriate application of profanity!"
"That's the foundation of any good friendship!"
"That's not the foundation of friendship!"
"It's the foundation of our friendship!"
"Our friendship is weird!"
"All good friendships are weird!"
"Why are you two like this?" Daphne asked with the fascination of a scientist observing a completely alien species that shouldn't be able to survive but somehow does.
"Like what?"
"Like this! This constant arguing while somehow agreeing! This aggressive friendship that shouldn't work but somehow does! This whole dynamic that makes no sense but also makes perfect sense!"
"It's called communication!" Ron said defensively.
"That's not what communication is!"
"It's our version of communication!"
"Your version is broken!"
"Your face is broken!"
"That doesn't even make sense!"
"It doesn't have to make sense! It just has to be said! That's the whole point!"
"That's the worst philosophy of language I've ever heard!"
"You say that like I care about philosophy!"
"You should care about philosophy!"
"Why?"
"Because it's important!"
"So is breakfast but I'm not writing essays about it!"
"Maybe you should write essays about breakfast!"
"That's the dumbest thing you've ever said!"
"Ron," Harry interrupted with the weariness of someone who'd been through this exact conversation seventeen times already, "if you say 'your face' one more time, I'm throwing you off this step."
"It's a good comeback!"
"It's terrible and you use it every single time like it's the only thing you know!"
"Because it's versatile! It works in any situation! It's like duct tape but for insults!"
"It doesn't work in any situation!"
"Name one situation where it doesn't work!"
"Literally this one right now!"
"That's just, like, your opinion, man."
"That's not an opinion! That's a fact! Facts are different from opinions!"
"Your face is different from opinions!"
"That doesn't even—"
"See? It works!"
"It doesn't work!"
"You responded! That means it works!"
"Responding doesn't mean it works!"
"Yes it does!"
"No it doesn't!"
"You're still responding!"
"Because you're still wrong!"
"Ahem."
Time stopped.
The universe paused.
Several people forgot how to breathe.
Professor McGonagall stood in the doorway—which nobody had heard open, raising several concerning questions about door acoustics, magical carpentry, ninja training for professors, and "how long has she been standing there judging every decision we've ever made including decisions we haven't even made yet."
She looked like someone had taken the concept of "stern Scottish professor" and refined it in a laboratory until it reached maximum possible sternness density and then kept going just to see what would happen. Her hat added approximately eight inches to her height and a hundred points to her "I will academically destroy you and make you thank me for it" stat.
Her expression suggested she'd been listening to forty first-years debate proper insult construction and the philosophy of facial criticism for at least thirty seconds and was currently reevaluating every choice that had led to this exact moment, including her decision to become a teacher, her decision to work at Hogwarts, and possibly her decision to exist.
"Good evening," she said with the kind of precision that could perform surgery or possibly bisect atoms. "I am Professor McGonagall, Deputy Headmistress, Head of Gryffindor House, Transfiguration Professor, and currently questioning every life decision that led to me standing on this step looking at you lot specifically."
Forty first-years attempted to look innocent, which resulted in someone elbowing someone else, Neville somehow tripping over literally nothing while standing completely still (a feat that suggested he'd been training), at least three people dropping things they weren't even holding, and one person making a noise like a startled bird.
"I'm fine!" Neville announced from the ground, because of course he was on the ground. "Gravity and I are having a disagreement! It's philosophical! We're working through it! We might need couples counseling!"
"Mr. Longbottom has an unusual relationship with physics," Harry whispered to Susan.
"It's adversarial and possibly abusive," Susan agreed quietly.
"I can hear you, Mr. Potter," McGonagall said without looking at him, which was frankly terrifying and suggested she had either supernatural hearing or possibly just really good acoustics training or maybe just centuries of dealing with whispering students. "And you are correct. Mr. Longbottom's relationship with gravity is hostile and possibly codependent. However, we don't discuss it. That's between him, Newton's ghost, and possibly a licensed therapist."
Neville had made it back to vertical with Hannah's help, his face red enough to register as a legitimate fire hazard and possibly violate several safety regulations.
"In a few moments," McGonagall continued with the authority of someone who'd given this speech so many times she could probably recite it backwards in Latin while juggling flaming swords, "you will enter the Great Hall and be sorted into your houses. Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and Slytherin."
She paused for dramatic effect, which she'd clearly been perfecting for decades and had probably mastered around 1973.
"Your house will become your family. Your triumphs will earn points. Your catastrophically poor decisions will lose points. And based on the last thirty seconds, I'm already concerned about several of you. At year's end, the house with the most points wins the House Cup, which is a very large decorative chalice that people care about deeply for reasons that frankly escape me but that's tradition and tradition is apparently very important."
Her gaze swept across the crowd with the precision of a tactical laser designed to identify troublemakers, lingering on Ron (obvious troublemaker), Harry (famous troublemaker with destiny), the twins wherever they were (troublemakers by genetic destiny and personal choice), and Hermione (future troublemaker through excessive enthusiasm and good intentions gone wrong).
"The Sorting Ceremony will take place in front of everyone. I suggest you make yourselves presentable. Several of you look like you've been personally victimized by a flock of geese with strong opinions about fashion and also possibly violence."
Several students looked down at their grass-stained, wrinkled, Trevor-trauma-stained robes with dawning horror and possibly shame.
"I will return when we're ready. Wait quietly." She delivered this with the confidence of someone who knew "wait quietly" was an impossible request for forty eleven-year-olds but was making it anyway out of professional obligation, hope, and possibly spite.
She swept back through the doors like a particularly dramatic bird of prey who'd spent years perfecting her exit strategy for maximum impact and possibly took classes.
Five seconds of silence.
Then:
"That was terrifying," Hannah whispered.
"That was amazing," Hermione breathed with the intensity of someone who'd just met God and God had given her homework. "Did you see her presence? The way she commanded the space? The confidence in her posture? The authority in her voice? The—"
"Hermione," Ron said gently, "you're doing the thing again."
"What thing?"
"The thing where you analyze everything instead of just experiencing it like a normal person."
"Analysis is experiencing!"
"That's the saddest thing I've ever heard and I grew up with six siblings in poverty."
"Knowledge is beautiful!"
"So is silence but you haven't tried that yet!"
"I don't need to try silence! Silence is the absence of knowledge sharing!"
"Silence is the presence of not being annoying!"
"I'm not annoying!"
"You're literally being annoying right now! This conversation is annoying! The whole thing!"
"You're being annoying!"
"No, you're being annoying!"
"You started it!"
"You're perpetuating it!"
"You're participating in it!"
"Because you won't stop!"
"You won't stop!"
"Ladies, ladies," Harry interrupted, "you're both annoying. Can we move on?"
"I'm not a lady!" Ron protested.
"You're acting like one!"
"How dare you! That's offensive to ladies!"
"And to you!"
"Yes! Both! Dual offense!"
Before World War III could break out over the nature of annoyance, appropriate volume control, and whether Ron qualified as a lady, the doors exploded open with enough force to make several people actually scream and one person make a noise that can only be described as "confused seagull."
Through the doors came—
Actually, calling it "came" was generous. "Manifested with the energy of a caffeinated poltergeist who'd just discovered cocaine, poor life choices, and the concept of chaos as a lifestyle" was more accurate.
It was a ghost. Probably. Or maybe a demon. Or possibly what happened when chaos itself gained sentience, developed a personality disorder, and decided formal education was the funniest thing ever invented by humans.
Small, round, wearing a jester outfit that looked like it had been stolen from a Medieval Times that had gone seriously off the rails and possibly ended in tragedy. His face suggested he'd just discovered the best prank in the history of pranks and was about to deploy it with maximum prejudice and zero remorse.
"Fresh meat!" he shrieked with joy that could shatter eardrums and possibly violate several international treaties. "New students! Baby wizards! Tiny humans who don't know anything yet! Oh, this is going to be so much fun! So! Much! Fun!"
He zoomed through the crowd like a small, malicious fighter jet piloted by someone who'd never passed a pilot's test or possibly even seen a plane, and everywhere he passed, reality just kind of gave up trying to make sense.
Shoelaces tied themselves together in knots that would confuse professional sailors and possibly make them cry. Robes turned inside out. Hats flew off heads like they'd been launched by catapults designed by someone with anger management issues and access to medieval weapons. One kid's bag exploded across the ground with enough enthusiasm to suggest it had been planning this moment for years and was finally living its best life.
Someone's tie wrapped around their own neck. Another person's robes flew up over their head. Neville, somehow, ended up with his shoelaces tied to Hannah's, which neither of them understood because they weren't even standing next to each other.
"Peeves!" McGonagall's voice cut through the chaos like a claymore through warm butter. She'd materialized in the doorway with the speed of someone who'd developed supernatural Peeves-detection abilities through decades of suffering and possibly meditation.
"Ooooh, Minnie!" Peeves did loop-de-loops near the ceiling like a demented aerial acrobat training for the worst circus ever. "McGonagall! McGonnerpants! McScottishperson! Professor Mc-I'm-too-serious-for-fun! How's your tartan? Still aggressively Scottish? Very on-brand! Very consistent! I admire the commitment!"
"Peeves," McGonagall said with the dangerous calm of someone counting to ten in their head while planning murder in elaborate detail, "these students are about to be sorted. If you interfere—"
"Wouldn't dream of it!" Peeves protested with the sincerity of a used car salesman who'd just sold you a lemon that was also on fire. "Just saying hello! Being welcoming! Hospitality! Educational enthusiasm! School spirit! I'm very supportive! Very encouraging! A team player!"
"Peeves."
"Very pro-education!"
"Peeves."
"Deeply committed to student welfare!"
"Peeves."
"A valuable member of the Hogwarts community!"
"Peeves, so help me—"
"Fine!" He shot upward like a rocket filled entirely with spite, malice, and possibly bees. "I'll wait! But they're mine after! Mine mine mine! I called dibs! Firstie dibs! It's in the rules! I checked! Well, I didn't check, but it should be in the rules! I'm making it a rule! I'm the rule-maker now!"
He vanished through the ceiling with the sound of distant cackling mixed with what might have been church bells having an existential crisis and possibly a breakdown.
McGonagall's face suggested she was reconsidering everything—her job, her life, possibly the entire concept of education as an institution, and maybe also the fundamental nature of reality itself.
"That," she said with impressive composure considering what had just happened, "was Peeves. He's a poltergeist. He's been here for centuries. He cannot be removed, destroyed, or reasoned with. Many have tried. All have failed. He exists purely for chaos. He's extremely good at his job. He's possibly the best at his job. We're all very tired."
"Can we negotiate with him?" Hermione asked hopefully, like someone who still believed in diplomacy.
"No."
"Bribe him?"
"Only if you want him to escalate in ways you cannot imagine."
"Befriend him?"
"Miss Granger, that's adorable and optimistic and also completely impossible. No."
"There has to be some way to—"
"There isn't. People have been trying for three hundred years. Dumbledore tried. Professors before him tried. Students have tried. Parents have tried. The Minister of Magic tried once in 1973 and we don't talk about what happened. Peeves is immune to logic, consequence, human decency, and apparently the fundamental laws of the universe. Your best bet is developing a sense of humor about property theft, mild psychological warfare, and occasional public humiliation."
"That's not reassuring."
"It's not meant to be reassuring. It's meant to prepare you for reality. Reality is rarely reassuring. Get used to it now."
She swept her gaze across the assembled first-years, cataloging wrinkles, stains, Peeves-related trauma, Trevor-related trauma, boat-related trauma, and the general appearance of people who'd spent seven hours on a train followed by a boat ride across what might as well be the River Styx followed by an assault by a malicious ghost.
"We're ready," she announced with finality. "Form a line. Follow me. When I call your name, you'll sit on the stool. The hat will go on your head. It will announce your house. This is tradition. We've been doing this for a thousand years. Don't fall off the stool."
"People fall off?" Neville's voice achieved new altitude records that would impress pilots.
"Mr. Longbottom, given your well-documented relationship with gravity, I'd suggest holding on tight and possibly saying a prayer to whatever deity governs spatial awareness, balance, and not embarrassing yourself in front of hundreds of people."
"To who specifically?"
"Whoever you think will listen. Newton. Physics. God. The cosmic forces that govern balance. The universe itself. Your grandmother. Pick one and commit fully."
"Yes, ma'am," Neville squeaked like a mouse that had seen its life flash before its eyes.
"Everyone ready?" McGonagall was already moving because she clearly didn't actually care if they were ready or not and probably never had. "Follow me. Single file. No talking. Try to look like you belong at a prestigious magical institution instead of a refugee camp for people who've been fighting geese for territory and possibly losing."
The doors opened—slowly this time, with appropriate dramatic gravitas that suggested someone had been practicing—and the first-years got their first look at the Great Hall.
And collectively lost their goddamn minds.
The hall was stupid large. Not just big. Stupid large in a way that made you go "who built this and what were they compensating for and also how did they get the budget approved?"
Four long tables stretched into what appeared to be actual infinity. Each table seated what looked like several hundred students who were definitely, absolutely, one hundred percent judging the incoming first-years and probably ranking them.
Floating candles provided light while somehow not dripping wax on anyone, which was either incredible magic or incredible luck and nobody was asking questions because they didn't want to break whatever spell was preventing hot wax injuries and lawsuits.
But the ceiling.
The ceiling.
It wasn't a ceiling. It was the actual sky. Stars, clouds, the whole astronomical situation, just chilling inside a building like that was completely normal and not a massive violation of what anyone understood about architecture, physics, or reality itself.
"Holy shit," Ron breathed.
"Language!" Hermione hissed, but quietly, because she was also losing her mind.
"Hermione, there's sky inside. Sky. Inside. The building. Inside the building is outside. Outside is inside. The rules don't apply. Language doesn't matter anymore. Nothing matters. We're in the sky room."
"It's bewitched to look like the sky outside," Hermione whisper-explained with the intensity of someone sharing nuclear launch codes or possibly the meaning of life. "I read about it in Hogwarts: A History. The spellwork required is incredibly complex and involves seven different types of charms working in harmony—"
"Hermione," Daphne whispered with urgency, "we're supposed to be quiet."
"But it's fascinating!"
"Silently fascinating!"
"That's not how my brain works! My brain doesn't do silent!"
"Learn to make it work that way or I'll help it work that way!"
"You can't just reprogram someone's brain!"
"Watch me try to reprogram yours if you don't shut up!"
"That's a threat!"
"It's a promise!"
"Threats and promises are different!"
"Not in this context!"
They processed down the aisle between the tables, where hundreds of students were absolutely, definitely judging them. Some looked friendly and welcoming. Others looked like they were already planning which first-years to psychologically destroy for entertainment and possibly sport. A few looked bored, like they'd seen this movie forty times and knew how it ended.
At the staff table—raised on a platform like they were the Supreme Court of Magic or possibly the Jedi Council—sat the professors.
Dumbledore in the center, looking like Santa Claus had gone through a wizard phase and just never stopped and now he was committed to the aesthetic. Snape at the end, looking like he'd already personally decided to hate Harry specifically and was just waiting for an excuse to make it official. Hagrid squished into a seat that was absolutely not designed for people his size, grinning like a proud dad at his kid's terrible school play that he thinks is great because he's emotionally invested.
McGonagall led them to a stool that had clearly seen better days, topped with a hat that looked like it had been through Vietnam, several divorces, possibly an experimental phase as a very disappointed tea cozy, and maybe also had a substance abuse problem.
The hat was also, Harry's weird enhanced perception confirmed, alive in ways that were deeply concerning from multiple philosophical, practical, and possibly theological angles.
*A sentient hat that reads minds,* Harry thought. *Sure. Why not. This is fine. This is a normal Tuesday. This is just my life now. Sentient hat. Mind reading. Public sorting. Great. Love it. No notes. Living the dream.*
The Great Hall fell silent.
Everyone waited.
The hat twitched.
Someone in the back coughed.
The hat twitched again.
*This is going to be interesting,* Harry thought.
*Or a complete disaster.*
*Probably both.*
*Definitely both.*
*Why is it always both?*
---
Hey fellow fanfic enthusiasts!
I hope you're enjoying the fanfiction so far! I'd love to hear your thoughts on it. Whether you loved it, hated it, or have some constructive criticism, your feedback is super important to me. Feel free to drop a comment or send me a message with your thoughts. Can't wait to hear from you!
If you're passionate about fanfiction and love discussing stories, characters, and plot twists, then you're in the right place! I've created a Discord (HHHwRsB6wd) server dedicated to diving deep into the world of fanfiction, especially my own stories. Whether you're a reader, a writer, or just someone who enjoys a good tale, I welcome you to join us for lively discussions, feedback sessions, and maybe even some sneak peeks into upcoming chapters, along with artwork related to the stories. Let's nerd out together over our favorite fandoms and explore the endless possibilities of storytelling!
Can't wait to see you there!