The Great Hall opened up before them with floating candles, enchanted ceilings, and a deeply questionable interior design scheme involving excessive house colors. Thousands of candles cast a warm, flickering glow over the four long tables, their light reflecting off golden plates and goblets.
The enchanted ceiling swirled with a velvet night sky, scattered with stars that seemed to wink in anticipation of the chaos to come.
"Well," Fred said, pausing at the fork in the crowd where the path split toward the Gryffindor and Slytherin tables. He clapped a hand on Alister's shoulder, his grin turning slightly sympathetic. "Into the snake pit you go."
"Try not to eat anyone," George added, eyeing the sea of green and silver robes with the kind of distaste usually reserved for expired milk. "Unless it's Flint. You have our permission to eat Flint."
"I have standards, George," Alister drawled, adjusting his cuffs. "Besides, indigestion is a terrible way to start the term."
Cho squeezed his arm gently, her Ravenclaw robes already rustling as she stepped away. "I'll save you a seat in the library tomorrow. Try not to start a civil war with the other snakes."
"No promises," Alister murmured, watching his friends disperse like sensible people abandoning a sinking ship.
Cho drifted toward the studious calm of Ravenclaw, where students were probably already arguing about the correct pronunciation of magic spells. The twins bounded toward the raucous noise of Gryffindor, where someone was inevitably going to set something on fire before dessert.
For a moment, Alister felt the familiar pull to follow them. In his first year, he had spent more time at the Ravenclaw table discussing magical theory with Cho, or at the Gryffindor table listening to Fred and George's increasingly unhinged schemes, than he ever had with his own House. The Slytherin table had seen him exactly four times that year.
Four times that had entered house legend.
The rest of the students were too busy shouting greetings and reuniting with friends to notice his approach at first. But as Alister began to walk toward the green-bannered table, a distinct, localized silence rippled through the Slytherins like a wave of sudden, collective doom.
He moved with a bored expression. The sudden stiffness that seized the students nearest to him would have been comical if it weren't so satisfying.
He walked past a huddle of third years who immediately found the ceiling fascinating. He chose a spot near the center of the table and sat down.
Their reactions were immediate and glorious.
Students on either side of him scrambled to create distance, scooting their benches back with a screech of wood against stone. Within seconds, Alister found himself sitting in a pocket of empty space.
It was, objectively, hilarious.
Alister placed his hands on the table, interlacing his fingers. He finally deigned to look around.
"Anyone got a problem here?" he asked softly, his voice carrying perfectly in the silence. His dark eyes scanned the faces staring at him with varying expressions of terror, anxiety.
But no one dared to met his eyes.
"Potter," a voice stiffly acknowledged from down the table, sounding like someone being forced to admit to tax fraud.
Alister turned his head slightly. Marcus Flint, the Quidditch captain, was eyeing him with the wary respect. Flint had learned his lesson last year.
"Flint," Alister returned the greeting. "Your teeth look... surprisingly intact. Good summer?"
Several students choked on air. One kid started coughing.
Flint's jaw tightened, a muscle jumping near his temple. His hand clenched around his goblet. For a moment, it looked like he might actually respond with something stupid, but survival instinct won out. He looked away, muttering something to the person beside him.
Good, Alister thought, the corner of his mouth twitching upward in what a generous person might call a smile. A more accurate person would call it a threat.
He leaned back, resting one arm casually on the back of the bench, looking for all the world like a king.
The House of Serpents needed to understand something fundamental: while he might not interact with them much and generally act like his own house didn't exist, he was still not someone to mess with.
Because in approximately ten minutes, Astra was going to walk through those doors. And if the Sorting Hat put her in Slytherin a possibility that made his eye twitch slightly Alister wanted every single person at this table to know exactly who they would answer to if they gave her even a moment of trouble.
Soon, the heavy oak doors of the Great Hall creaked open.
Professor McGonagall appeared, stern and sharp in emerald green robes that matched her no-nonsense personality, leading a long line of terrified-looking first years who were about to have their fates decided by a ratty old hat with a God complex.
The hall erupted in whispers and speculation. Alister ignored all of it. His eyes locked onto the small, dark-haired girl near the back of the line, gripping the edges of her sleeves like they were lifelines.
Astra.
She was panicking. He could see it from here—the rapid breathing, the white-knuckled grip, the way her eyes darted around the Great Hall like she was cataloging escape routes.
Then, as if drawn by invisible strings, her eyes found him.
It was almost magnetic. Amidst the sea of unfamiliar, mostly hostile faces as the Slytherin table really needed to work on their welcoming committee skills, Alister sat in a pocket of solitary calm. He wasn't looking at the teachers or the enchanted ceiling or even the Sorting Hat. He was looking directly at her.
His expression shifted as the warm, brotherly smile he always gave her appeared on his face.
The effect was instantaneous.
The air returned to her lungs. Her shoulders dropped from somewhere near her ears back to their normal position. She lifted her chin, mimicking the posture she had seen him use a thousand times. The trembling in her hands ceased.
That's my girl, Alister thought with pride.
"Hannah Abbott!" Professor McGonagall called out, and the Sorting began.
Alister barely registered the procession of names. Hufflepuff, Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, Slytherin—they all blurred together. His attention was fixed on Astra, who was looking progressively less terrified and more determined with each passing moment.
Finally the voice rang out.
"Astra Potter!"
The hall went dead silent.
Then erupted in whispers.
"Another Potter?"
"Do you think she'll be in Gryffindor—"
"Wait, Potter's in Slytherin—"
Astra walked forward with her head held high, looking far braver than she felt. She sat on the stool with only minimal wobbling, and McGonagall lowered the Sorting Hat onto her head with gentleness as she flashed a warm smile on her face.
The Hat dropped over Astra's eyes.
"Hmm," a small voice whispered in her ear. "Interesting. Very interesting indeed. I see plenty of courage here, oh yes... but it's quiet courage. Not reckless. Not the charging-into-danger-without-a-plan kind that your brother specialized in during his first year—"
Aster's eye twitched. What the hell... has Brother done in his first year here.
"—and there's talent here," the Hat continued, sounding pleased. "A thirst to prove yourself... but not just for glory. You want to understand. You want to know the why behind the magic, not just the how."
The Hat fell silent.
Alister watched from the Slytherin table, his face impassive to everyone else, though his fingers tapped a slow, rhythmic beat against the wood. He was absolutely not nervous.
(He was lying to himself. Author knew he was lying to himself. readers knew he was lying to himself.)
"Not Slytherin," the Hat murmured. "You have the ambition, but your heart seeks truth, not power. Not Gryffindor either... you are far too prudent for that lot of adrenaline junkies. Better be..."
The pause was excruciating.
Two whole minutes passed. It was officially a Hatstall. The hall was buzzing with speculation.
Then, the rip near the brim opened wide.
"RAVENCLAW!"
The table clad in blue and bronze erupted into applause enthusiastic. Astra blinked, a genuine smile breaking across her face like sunrise as she pulled the hat off. She risked a quick glance at the Slytherin table.
She practically floated over to join a beaming Cho Chang, who was already making space for her.
The Sorting continued with considerably less drama. Hermione went to Ravenclaw and immediately launched into what appeared to be an intense discussion with Astra. Ron Weasley joined his brothers in Gryffindor to uproarious cheers that nearly brought down the enchanted ceiling.
The list dwindled. The first years thinned out. Alister was starting to think about what food would appear on the tables when Professor McGonagall looked down at the scroll.
She paused.
Her lips thinned into a line so sharp it could have cut glass.
For a brief second, her hand trembled.
The silence that fell over the teachers' table was sudden and absolute. Dumbledore sat up straighter in his throne-like chair, his blue eyes losing their characteristic twinkle. Snape's expression went from mildly disdainful to intensely focused. Flitwick actually stood up on his stack of books.
McGonagall's voice, when she spoke, sounded like she was announcing an execution.
"Artoria ... Grindelwald."
If the hall had been quiet for Astra, it was now a vacuum. The air was physically sucked out of the room. Alister was fairly certain several people stopped breathing.
Every head turned with the synchronization of a choreographed dance number. The name hung in the air like a curse—and for many of the older staff who had lived through his reign of terror, it was a curse. A name that, for an entire generation, was synonymous with a dark terror that predated even Voldemort.
Gellert Grindelwald.
The Dark Lord who had nearly conquered Europe.
The man Dumbledore had defeated in 1945.
The man currently locked in the top cell of Nurmengard prison, by all accounts completely insane and talking to walls.
Apparently, also a member of Apex chat known by few.
From the back of the line, a girl stepped forward, and the collective gasp from the hall could have powered a small windmill.
She had hair the color of spun silver—not blonde, but actual metallic silver that shimmered under the enchanted lights like liquid moonlight. Her eyes were heterochromatic one a piercing icy blue that could freeze fire, the other a dark, molten gold that looked like it held secrets that could drive people mad.
Her robes were perfectly tailored, her posture impeccable.
She ignored the gasps and the way the ghosts seemed to physically recoil as she passed. She ignored the fact that Professor McGonagall looked like she was seriously reconsidering her life choices.
She walked to the stool with the air of a queen claiming her throne.
Alister leaned forward, his interest genuinely piqued for the first time that evening. Gellert, what are you planning? And more importantly, who helped you?
McGonagall looked as though she didn't want to let go of the Hat. But she eventually lowered it onto the girl's silver head with the kind of reluctance usually reserved for handling cursed artifacts.
The Hat barely grazed a single strand of her hair.
It didn't hesitate and didn't even pretend to think about it.
It screamed the word before the fabric had even settled.
"SLYTHERIN!"
(END OF CHAPTER)
"Can't wait to see what Alister does next?
You don't have to wait! I am currently 10 chapters ahead on Patreon.
Link: patreon.com/xxSUPxx
Or you can buy me a coffee at:
buymeacoffee.com/xxSUPxx
special thanks to all my EPIC members and,
MYTH: Dutchviking
MYTH: Parker Johnson