Chương 15: ITW,H - Chapter 15 - Hogwarts

(Word Count: 3, 468)"First years, this way! First years, this way! Come on, now, don't be shy!" One of the first things they all noticed as they came off the train, was Hagrid towering over all of the students waving a lantern. Taking a glance around, Harry couldn't see much of the town of Hogsmeade through the dark. It seemed like the station was set on the outskirts of town, between the town and Hogwarts. Though, Harry couldn't see the castle from here.

"You reckon we're meant to go there?" Ron asked sarcastically.

"Hmmm…" Harry pretended to mull it over, rubbing his chin.

"I don't know. A giant of a man, waving a lantern and bellowing 'First years, this way?' Could be a trick." Hermione sighed at their antics, and pushed them along.

"Oh come on, you three." The four of them walked over to Hagrid. When Hagrid saw Harry come up to him, he smiled cheerily at him.

"Blimey, Harry! It's good to see you made it to Hogwarts! Last time I saw ye, ye were only a babe! Oh! Excuse me, I am Rubeus Hagrid, Keeper of Keys and Grounds at Hogwarts."

"I remember you, Hagrid. It's good to see you," Harry said.

"Eh! Ye remember me?" Hagrid looked like he was about to tear up from joy, smiling with rosy cheeks.

"Ye should come by me cabin fer some tea! I'll bake some of me famous cakes!" Harry smiled, "I'm looking forward to it! Once all of the first years were gathered together by Hagrid, he led them all down a stone path that winds itself down to the black lake. In the dark, the lake seemed to be a black mirror. There was no gentle lapping of the shoreline, or waves. The lake was unnaturally still. There was a small dock that was lined with boats, each with a lantern hanging from a pole at the front of the boats.

"No more than four a boat!" Hagrid called out. Since they were already grouped into four, they all got into an available boat without issue. Soon, at Hagrid's command, all of the boats lurched forward on their own. The view from the lake wasn't much, as they seemed to be blocked in on both sides by dense woods. Ron sat at the boat nervously.

"I've heard from Fred and George that a whole tribe of merpeople live in this lake," he said.

"Yes, I've read about that in 'Hogwarts: A History.' They've lived here for nearly three centuries!" Hermione confirmed his fears. In the dim light of the lantern, they could see Ron's face turn pale.

"It was true?" Ron squeaked.

"Oh yes. There's not just merpeople, there's grindylows, afancs, hippocampi, and even a large kraken!" Hermione obliviously listed off the magical creatures of the lake, with Ron turning paler and paler. Neville looked sick too. Harry laughed, "Stop tormenting them, Hermione!"

"What?" Hermione looked at Ron and Neville, confused, then saw them looking like they were about to faint.

"Oh… sorry," she said sheepishly. They boated underneath a bridge, and as they turned a bend in the lake, the view opened up and the large castle of Hogwarts came into view. The light from the windows of the castle reflected off of the lake, giving a magical view. Everyone gasped in wonder. It's no wonder they had the first years come across the lake their first year. It was an incredible first impression of the castle.

They docked at the castle's boat house and made their way up a long flight of stairs to the castle. When they all got to the top of the stairs, Hagrid knocked on the doors to the castle three times. The doors opened, revealing Professor McGonagall. She was dressed in her emerald green robes, and pointed hat. Her color choice was a bit interesting, considering her house's rivalry with Slytherin, but Harry figured that this wasn't the world of the Last Airbender. People were free to wear whatever color they wanted.

"The firs'-years, Professor McGonagall," Hagrid said.

"Thank you, Hagrid, I will take them from here," Professor McGonagall said and she pulled the doors open, revealing the entrance hall. The entrance hall was a huge chamber, with a ceiling so high he couldn't make it out. It was lit with torches ensconced in the walls, and there was a huge marble staircase leading higher up into the castle. Professor McGonagall led the students across the hall and to a small antechamber with a large set of doors, no doubt the doors to the great hall.

The first years all crowded together nervously, looking around at the castle.

"Welcome to Hogwarts," said Professor McGonagall, "The start-of-term banquet will begin shortly, but before you take your seats in the Great Hall, you will be sorted into your houses. The Sorting is a very important ceremony because, while you are here, your house will be something like your family within Hogwarts. You will have classes with the rest of your house, sleep in your house dormitory and spend free time in your house common room.

"The four houses are called Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw and Slytherin. Each house has its own noble history and each has produced outstanding witches and wizards. While you are at Hogwarts, your triumphs will earn your house points, while any rule-breaking will lose house points. At the end of the year, the house with the most points is awarded the House Cup, a great honor. I hope each of you will be a credit to whichever house becomes yours.

"The sorting ceremony will take place in a few minutes in front of the rest of the school. I suggest you all smarten yourselves up as much as you can while you are waiting. I shall return when we are ready for you," said Professor McGonagall, "Please wait quietly." With that no doubt rehearsed speech, she slipped into the great hall, closing the doors behind her, not allowing them a view of what lay beyond. She probably wanted to provide a grand reveal. Harry looked around at the students.

There were a lot less first years than he would have expected from a school. Hogwarts took in students from all of England, Ireland, Scotland, Denmark, and from the surrounding countries. For there to be only 40 students entering into the new year… It's too little. It was a stark reflection on how bad the war had gotten. His generation was born during the height of the wizarding war, which wasn't the best time to have kids. Among the students, he could pick out some that he could recognize.

There were two redhead girls, so one of them was Susan Bones. Seamus Finnigan, an Irish kid. The Parvati twins, Patil and Padma. Among the future Slytherins, it was easy to pick out Malfoy, Crabbe, Goyle. He had already met them. Other than them, he could only pick out Milicent Bulstrode and Pansy Parkinson. He knew there were other named characters, like Dean Thomas, Hannah Abbot, Lavender Brown, Daphne Greengrass, Tracey Davis, Blaise Zabini. However, he didn't have a good description of them.

Sure, he's read some descriptions from fanfics, but how was that relevant? Daphne was either raven haired or platinum blonde. Blaise was sometimes black, Greek, or Egyptian. There wasn't any real consistency. Just then, several of the kids screamed. Harry looked where they were, and saw about 20 or so ghosts streaming through one of the back walls. The ghosts looked like they were bleached white, with no color to them, instead of the blue-white they had in the movies, and a lot more opaque than Harry had expected.

He could still see through them, sure, but it was around 60-70% opaque. From the sound of things, the ghosts were arguing over Peeves. One comment that Harry found interesting was one ghost complaining, "He's not even a real ghost!" which made him wonder about what the difference was and why. One of the ghosts, the Fat Friar, came down closer to them.

"Ah! New students," The ghost just smiled happily at them, as if oblivious to their fear.

"About to be sorted are you?" A few of the students were brave enough to nod.

"I hope to see you all in Hufflepuff! My old house, you know." The doors to the great hall opened slightly and McGonagall returned.

"Move along now," she said sharply at the ghosts who, one by one, continued on through the wall into the great hall. McGonagall turned to the students.

"The ceremony is about to start. Now, form a line and follow me," she told the first years. With that, the doors opened up all the way, revealing the great hall. It was just like in the movies. There were four long rows of tables, one for each house, filled with students. At the end of the hall was a raised dais with a table for the staff. In front of the staff table, there was a stool, on which sat the sorting hat.

Above them, the walls faded away into the night sky, with no ceiling in sight, and floating candles lit the room. Hermione whispered to a girl next to her, who was marveling at the sight above her.

"It's bewitched to look like the sky outside, I read about it in Hogwarts: A History." Sitting at the staff table, were two people Harry wasn't looking forward to meeting. Snape and Quirrell. The cruel teacher that bullied his students, and Quirrelmort. This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there. Harry pulled up his quest again, just to refresh himself on what the rewards were.

[Fate Quest: Sorting As a new Hogwarts student, you will be sorted into one of the four houses. Your options are: Go with Canon! Choose to be placed in Gryffindor! Reward: You get 2 Skill Points to be placed as you wish. Let the hat sort you into Ravenclaw! Reward: You get 1 Class Point to be placed as you wish. Choose to be placed in Slytherin! Reward: You get +5 to Focus Choose to be placed in Hufflepuff! Reward: You get +5 to Control] Even without the quest rewards being biased towards Gryffindor, Harry would have still wanted to go there. As he had told Hermione and Neville, Gryffindor was the house his parents had gone to, and he wanted to keep up the family tradition, so to speak. Professor McGonagall led the group of first years through the center to the front. Harry noticed that the older years had the same issue of being far too few students.

Giving a rough estimate, it seemed like there were less than 300 students, with only around 50 in the years 1-5, and half that for years 6 and 7. It seemed a lot of students chose to not pursue their Newts. When all of the first years were gathered at the front, the sorting hat broke out into song, singing about the four houses.

"When I call your name, come sit on this stool. I will place the sorting hat on your head, and you will be sorted into your houses," McGonagall said, holding an unrolled scroll in one hand and the sorting hat in the other. There were a lot of people that Harry didn't recognize, so he made sure to memorize their names.

"Abbot, Hannah!" She was the first one called up. Harry watched curiously as she went to the front, since she was the one that had ended up marrying Neville in canon. She was a small girl with long blonde hair that was kept away from her face by two small braids at her hairline.

"Hufflepuff!" All of the Hufflepuff students cheered.

"Bones, Susan!"

"Hufflepuff!" And so went on the sorting. There weren't any changes to who was sorted where, as far as Harry could tell. Hermione and Neville were sorted into Gryffindor as they had wanted.

"Daphne Greengrass!" Harry saw that in this world, Daphne was platinum blonde. Unlike a lot of their peers, Daphne seemed to be in better control of her emotions. She held her head high and strode to sit in the stool confidently. The hat didn't take much time in deciding where she should go.

"Slytherin!" When it was Harry's turn, he strode forward and sat down. When Professor McGonagall placed the sorting hat on his head, he could feel a very light probe into his mind. He allowed the hat to do its thing"Interesting. Very interesting!" The hat spoke in his mind, "This is the first time I've encountered someone who spoke to one of the Three so directly, much less all three at once! You are destined for great things, Harry Potter. But where to put you? You want to go to Gryffindor, you say? Are you sure?

Above all else, you hunger for knowledge in magic. You would do well in Ravenclaw, you know?"

"Yes, I'm sure, please place me in Gryffindor. I will learn what I need to regardless of the house I'm placed in," Harry thought back to the hat.

"Very well then," then, aloud, the hat yelled out, "Gryffindor!" All the students in Gryffindor cheered. Harry could see the twins standing on their bench, gloating to the other houses, to Slytherin in particular, "We got Potter! We got Potter!" Harry went to sit next to Hermione, across from Ron. He didn't want to be next to him when he started eating. It wasn't like Ron ate like the cookie monster or anything, but still. Best not to risk it.

He checked the Quest page: [Year 1 Quests: Fate Quests: Youngest Seeker, Troll in the Dungeon, Golden Trio, Norbert The Dragon, Something in the Woods, Philosopher's Stone Magic Quests: Room of Requirement, Save the Unicorns!, Philosopher's Stone Death Quests: Philosopher's Stone, Ravenclaw's Diadem Overall Quests: Fate: Fulfill the Prophecy, The Snake Nagini Magic: Ravenclaw's Diadem, Slytherin's Locket, Hufflepuff's Cup Death: Horcruxes, Ghosts of Hogwarts Completed Quests: Fate: Sorting[!] Magic: N/A Death: N/A] He clicked on the Sorting quest, now completed. [Fate Quest: Sorting You've chosen to follow canon and be sorted into the Gryffindor house! Reward: You gain 2 skill points.] He could place the two points into Legilimency, to gain the second level in it, but he chose to save them. His encounter with the Deities in his mindscape made him want to delve further into the mind arts to try and find a way back to the mindscape.

He had a feeling that leveling up his occlumency to the max would do it. Occlumency represented mastery over his own mind after all, and from what Magic had said, the mindscape was his subconscious mind. Because his Occlumency was level 3, he needed 4 points total to level it up again. meaning he needed two more. When the sorting had ended, Harry had all of the names for the first years. There were only 11 first years sorted into Gryffindor. The 5 boys were: Seamus, Dean, Neville, Ron, and himself.

There were 6 girls, 3 he recognized, and 3 he didn't. The 3 known girls were obviously Hermione, Lavender, Parvati. The three girls Harry didn't recognize from the books were: Kellah Willis, Eloise Midgen, and Sally Smith. The Hufflepuffs were: Ernie Macmillan, Justin Finch-Fletchley, Wayne Hopkins, Zacharias Smith, Hannah Abbot, Susan Bones, Megan Jones, Sally-Anne Perks, Lily Moon, and Sophie Roper.

The Ravenclaws were: Anthony Goldstein, Michael Corner, Terry Boot, Kevin Entwhistle, Stephen Cornfoot, Padma Patil, Mandy Bracklehurst, Su Li, Lisa Turpin, and Morag Macdougal. On the other side of the Great Hall, the Slytherins seemed to be split into three groups. Draco, Crabbe, Goyle, and Pansy Parkinson in one group. Theodore Nott, Millicent Bulstrode, and a pair of twin girls: Flora and Hestia Carrow. Lastly, there were Daphne Greengrass, Tracey Davis, and Blaize Zabini.

That made it so Slytherin's distribution was the same as Gryffindor's, 5 boys and 6 girls. Just then, there was a ding. A notification appeared in the corner of his vision, telling him of two new Quests. It was interesting, because Harry was under the impression that he just received the lump sum of available Quests right at the beginning of the school year. Now Harry wondered what else he could try doing to trigger new Quests. He pulled up the new Quest he got.

[Fate Quest: Friends With The Snakes Being Sorted into Gryffindor placed you into the middle of a long standing House rivalry with Slytherin. Your options are: Go with Canon!: Ignore any possibility of making friends with the snakes, allowing the animosity between you and Draco to grow. Reward: +1 Power, +1 Control Make some new friends!: Try to get to know the Slytherins of your year. You'll be taking most classes together after all. Reward: +2 Focus Convert your rival into a friend!: Set aside your differences with Draco Malfoy and help him become a better person so he doesnt become a Death Eater in the future. Reward: +1 Class Point in Curses] [Magic Quest: Magical Tutor (Repeatable) You are far ahead of the curve in your magical studies. Take the time to help your fellow students by forming a study group! You must include at least 2 students from each house and help them find a field of magic that they're passionate about. Reward: +1 Level per academic year] Harry gave a mental shrug.

These were things he was already planning on doing. He already intended to try and become friends with Greengrass's circle, because he leaned more towards the gray faction when it comes to politics, so getting to know them was a must. Admittedly, he was also interested in getting to know the HP fandom's "ice queen." Dumbledore stood up from his chair.

"Welcome! Welcome to a new year at Hogwarts. Before we begin our banquet, I would like to say a few words. And here they are: Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak! Thank you!" He sat down, and immediately all of the empty places on the tables were filled with food. A feast of a variety of different foods. There was a platter of steaks right in front of him, but Harry avoided it. In the game, Hogwarts Legacy, you could see one of the house elves jumping on the steaks in order to tenderize them.

He didn't know if they still did that in today's time, but it was best not to risk it. He'd stick with the chicken, thank you very much. Just then, a spike of pain shot through his head. It felt like his scar had just been split open again. Harry's eyes snapped towards the source. Professor Quirrell was turned around in his seat, to the hidden face of Voldemort was pointing towards him. Professor Snape was watching, and had seen Harry's reaction.

He curiously followed Harry's line of sight to Quirrell, wondering what it meant.

"You okay, mate?" Ron asked around a mouthful of chicken.

"It's my scar, it's burning for some reason," Harry gritted his teeth. He had hoped occlumency would stop this, but it didn't work. Maybe he should invest more in Legilimency instead and use this link to make Voldemort suffer instead. The Weasley twins came over on either side of the table. One threw an arm around Harry, the other tussled Ron's hair.

"Heya, boys! Glad to see you made it into the right house!" The one next to Harry said.

"We knew you had it in you!"

"Hello… Fred?" Harry guessed. The twin smirked, "Nope! Name's Gred. He's Feorge."

"Right… Anyway, nice to see you two haven't been expelled yet," Harry said. The twins smiled, "Ahaha, Minny loves us! She wouldn't expel us!" After the meal ended, Dumbledore stood up again.

"Just a few more words, now that we've all been fed and watered, I have a few start of term notices to give you! The first years should note that the Forest on the grounds is forbidden to all pupils, and a few of our older students would do well to remember that as well. I have also been asked by Mr. Filch, the caretaker, to remind you that no magic should be used between classes in the corridors. Quidditch trials will be held in the second week of the term.

Anyone interested in playing for their house teams should contact Madam Hooch. And finally, I must tell you that this year, the third floor corridor on the right hand side is out of bounds to everyone who does not wish to die a very painful death." To end the start of term feast, everyone sang the Hogwarts school song, each student picking their own tune, and they were off to their dorms.

"Ah, music! A magic far beyond what we do here!" Dumbledore said, wiping away a tear.

"Now, off to bed!"