THREE: The Unsorted House
Many of the first-years still
standing in line up at the front of the Great Hall were looking even more
terrified than before, but Harry noted that the boy with the curly black hair
looked incredibly relieved. He turned to a small girl with two long, blonde
plaits down her back and exchanged a high-five, laughing. Harry couldn’t help
but grin bemusedly, reaching back in his mind. Had he really wanted to be sorted?
No, he
answered himself. Not at all.
Harry was all too conscious that he was one of the
students that the Hat had willfully mis-Sorted, and
felt the shame of being placed into Slytherin
overwhelm him all over again. He hadn’t wanted to be Slytherin
– didn’t that count for something?
Hermione remained quiet, but she was the only one.
“What does that mean?” Ron’s face was
white, his eyes wide. “There’s never been no Sorting
Hat! Not in all of Hogwart’s history!”
Hermione straightened briefly, as if she were
about to mention the exception to this rule that she’d read in Hogwarts: A History, but then subsided, looking slightly gloomy.
“I expect they’ll enchant another,” she finally
said darkly.
“But you wouldn’t want them to,” Harry deduced.
Hermione frowned in thought. “No.”
“Well, I don’t see what’s all that wrong about the
Houses,” Ron said.
“It’s why I hate Millicent,” Hermione announced.
“She’s in Slytherin. There’s no other reason.” She
was blinking, as though waking from a dream. “Who would have thought that
placing people according to their strongest personality trait would ever work?”
she continued. “I mean, look at the three of us. It’s obvious the reason we all
get on is because we’re so different, not because we’re the same.”
Ron snorted. “We all got placed in Gryffindor,
didn’t we?”
“Didn’t you hear the Hat?” Hermione shot back. “One of five! There’s a twenty percent chance that you
weren’t placed in Gryffindor first! Well – were you?”
Harry watched the color climb on Ron’s face. “Yes,
I was, thanks.”
“Well, I wasn’t.”
Harry’s eyebrows shot up. “Hermione?”
“I was placed in Ravenclaw,
of course,” she said.
“You’re having me on,” Ron protested.
“No, I don’t think she is.”
“Hermione?” Ron said in a small voice.
“Oh, blast them,” Hermione said, her own
voice distant as she gazed up to the front of the hall where the first-years
were still milling, confused. “Even Dumbledore looks thrown. I’m going to go up
to see if I can help. Come along, Ron.” She stood, tugging absently at his
robes.
When Ron didn’t move, she turned the full force of
her glare on him. “Come on, Ron, we’re prefects!” She tsked. “I shouldn’t have to remind you of that every other moment,
you know!”
Harry blinked across the way, where Neville was
sitting, looking shell-shocked. “All right, Harry?”
Harry laughed, then
turned his attention up to the front of the Great Hall. Hermione, apparently,
wasn’t the only one of the prefects who’d seen the need. A Ravenclaw
and a Slytherin had also joined Professor McGonagall
and Hagrid, who were attempting to soothe some of the
more frightened of the first-years.
Neville was now looking worried. “Where will they
go? Where will they sleep?” he wondered.
Harry shook his head in bemusement.
“I expect they’ll be placed somewhere meantime,”
Seamus put in.
“Meantime?”
“Until they can enchant a new
Sorting Hat, of course.”
“But will they?” Neville wondered. “The Hat was
pretty definite, wasn’t he?”
Dean turned an anxious glance on Neville. “Were
you put in Gryffindor first, mate?”
Neville pinked. “Yes, actually.”
He turned his attention away from the other boys, though, playing with the
Gryffindor crest on his robes.
“Ahem.”
Harry, Neville, Dean and Seamus all jerked
slightly at the sound of Dumbledore’s voice echoing across the Great Hall with
the use of Sonorus. The Hall quieted rather
abruptly.
“As something truly historically momentous has
occurred,” he said expansively, “there can be no question as to what to do:
talk about it, in a long and boring fashion. However, I have found that the
mind does not well function on an empty stomach. In that spirit – tuck in!”
Food then appeared at every spot of the table; the
tables seemed to be groaning with it. Harry, however hungry he was, kept his
eyes trained on the first-years still standing up front.
With a wave of Dumbledore’s wand, another small
table appeared, likewise laden with food. The blonde girl and black-haired boy
exchanged another series of comments before setting-to with a will. Most of the
other children looked ill at ease; Harry noted a girl he would have labeled as
a Weasley had he not known better – she didn’t even
pick up a fork, staring instead at the food as though she supposed it might
leap down her mouth of its own accord.
After a moment, Hermione sat by the small redhead
and began chatting her up; the blonde Slytherin prefect did the same to Harry’s black-haired boy.
Harry couldn’t help but feel a strange, instinctive anger. He didn’t even know
the small boy’s name, but he did not want any Slytherin
bothering him. The fact that everyone at the table appeared to be having a
decent time of it bothered him more, if anything.
Ron slid into the seat across from him again,
looking bothered. “Ravenclaw,” he said immediately.
“Did you know?”
Harry shook his head. “No clue, mate.”
“Well, it makes sense, doesn’t it? And the way she
rolls her eyes whenever anyone says she should have been Sorted
there?”
“I’d roll my eyes if people kept saying the same
thing to me over and over,” Harry offered neutrally. “For instance: ‘Harry Potter!
Is that you? Oh, what a pleasure it is to be meeting you, Mister Potter!’” he
intoned in his best Colin-Creevey sycophant voice.
Ron snorted into his potatoes.
“Anyway, it’s not like it matters,” Harry went on,
feeling as though he were defending himself instead of Hermione. “She’s been
with Gryffindor for years now. No way she can be
anything else.”
There were nods around the table.
“One in five, though,” Seamus said darkly. “That’s
a lot. I wonder who else...?”
Harry reddened, hiding his blush with a cough.
“The Hat said Slytherins
in Gryffindor,” Neville added.
“Yeah, and Gryffindors
in Slytherin,” Ron joked. “Don’t know which is harder
to believe.”
“Did anyone see the new Defense Against
the Dark Arts teacher?” Harry inquired suddenly, peering up at the empty spot
at the staff table.
Neville shook his head. “No... it’s
been empty since the beginning.”
“Maybe they’re giving up,” Ron said.
There was a general laugh at this, but Harry had
to wonder. The school had such terrible luck with Defense teachers that it was
no wonder no-one wanted to apply any longer. If that were the case... if the
others wanted to continue with the D.A., he supposed he would. He was no
teacher, but any Defense instruction was better than none.
The meal disappeared suddenly, causing Harry to
realize he’d only eaten three or four bites of his food. Sighing, he placed his
fork on the empty table, where it immediately disappeared.
Dumbledore rose from his chair to survey all of
the students of the Great Hall. “First,” he intoned, “some general
announcements. As always, the
Harry realized that Hermione was gone, along with
the blonde Slytherin prefect and the dark-haired Ravenclaw boy.
“Needless to say,” Dumbledore went on, with a
twinkle in his eye, “such a thing has never before occurred in the history of
the school. There have always been Houses at Hogwarts, and, to my thinking, it
should always be thus.” He cleared his throat. “However, the Sorting Hat has
sacrificed itself so that its message may come through all the clearer. Thus, I
shall be required to reconsider this notion, as should all of you,” he
concluded, eyeing them severely.
“One final notice: your
new – or shall I say, your old – Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, Remus Lupin, will be arriving
tomorrow, due to... certain circumstances which cannot be helped. On the days
which Professor Lupin is indisposed, your Assistant
Professor, Harry James Potter, will serve – if he agrees. That is all.”
Harry gaped soundlessly, his eyes automatically
going up to the staff table. He met Professor Snape’s
eyes – the Professor looked horrified rather than furious, which was somehow
even worse. Professors McGonagall and Sprout, along with Hagrid,
looked fondly pleased. Dumbledore himself wore one of his most somber
expressions, as though he wished to convey the seriousness with which he viewed
this matter. When Harry turned back to view his housemates, they each wore an
expression that Harry supposed must mirror his own.
Neville was the first to break into a grin. “Wow,
Harry!” he exclaimed. “That’s incredible – you’ll be brilliant!”
“Well, of course he will,” Ron said, as though to
contest the dubious-sounding whispers that seemed to be rippling through the
Great Hall.
“I haven’t accepted yet, you know,” Harry
retorted, still processing the shock mixed with derision on Professor Snape’s face.
“It’s better than going three days of the month
without lessons,” Neville protested. “We need Defense, Harry.”
Ron nodded. “Your lessons last time were good,
Harry,” he acknowledged. His eyes went faraway. “I
expect it’ll be tough, planning lessons for more than one group and all, but
you could ask Professor Lupin to help you.”
“And Hermione,” Dean added. “She is a Ravenclaw, after all. Bound to be
brilliant.”
“Hermione’s a Gryffindor,” Ron spat. “Come on,
Harry.”
Harry stood, his stomach full of the nothing he’d
eaten all evening, and followed Ron up to
Ron and Harry waited in the
Gryffindor Common Room for Hermione, who stumbled in after most everyone had already
gone up to bed. She looked harried, and bits of dust and cobweb were clinging
to her hair.
When she settled down on one of the sofas with a
huff of breath, Ron sat close to her, carefully picking the bits of detritus
away from her hair and robes.
“Awful,” she breathed, when she had the breath at
all. “Awful! Rooms not used in years – vermin – dust – and Dumbledore,
calling them the Unsorted House! Missed the point, hasn’t he?”
Harry couldn’t help but agree, but he knew better
than to interrupt Hermione when she was on one of her rants.
“I was thinking about it the whole time, recalling
what the Hat said, and I really think it had a point,” she continued, frowning.
“I mean, where has Sorting ever really gotten us? Enmity, that’s what. I
recognize that, these days, it’s a way to sort potential Death Eaters...”
“Of course,” said Harry, who’d never once thought
of it that way.
“...but I think it actually causes more problems
rather than less,” she went on as though he hadn’t spoken. “Picture this: Draco Malfoy is placed in this
part of Hogwarts, and he rooms with you, Harry, and maybe Ron and Neville. What
happens?”
“We tear him apart?” Ron went on hopefully.
“No,” Hermione snapped. “He probably makes
nice with the lot of you. He’s a Slytherin, isn’t he,
which means–” She paused, took a deep breath. “ – that
is, if he wasn’t mis-Sorted – he looks for
advantage. And it would be awfully stupid to make enemies of his roommates; no
advantage in that. So he doesn’t. And eventually advantage turns to
actual friendship, somewhere along the line. He has doubts. He never becomes
a Death Eater...”
Ron was staring at Hermione like she’d lost her
mind. “You don’t really think-” he began.
“Oh, but I do,” Hermione said, the same spark
shining in her eyes that Harry recognized from any discussion of S.P.E.W. “And
there’s not much use in being nice to sixth-year potential Death Eaters, is
there, when they’ve already decided what they’re going to do with their lives?
It’s probably far too late for Draco.”
“Draco?” Ron squeaked.
“He’s a human being, Ron,” Hermione said,
and this time her voice had slipped from matter-of-fact to cold. “Besides, this
isn’t about him, or only him, anyway. It’s about the way this school is
run.”
Harry frowned. He’d never heard Hermione refer to
Hogwarts in that tone before, as though she was somehow dissociating herself
from the very name.
“I helped those children get settled, and it
occurred to me that some of them would have undoubtedly been placed in Slytherin,” she went on, her voice lilting faintly as her
thoughts turned from the school. “But I couldn’t tell who. They’re all the same
right now, all innocents. Sending a child to Slytherin
is like telling them they have to be deceptive.” She frowned. “For that
matter, sending a child to Gryffindor is like telling them they must be brave,
even stupidly; sending one to Hufflepuff says that
they must put others before themselves.”
It’s also,
Harry thought, like informing them they’re clever, or brave, or loyal. Those
are good things. But at the mutinous look on Ron’s face, he decided to
refrain from calling Slytherins clever. Ron was a
bright red.
“Maybe you don’t understand the importance of the
Houses because you weren’t brought up in the wizarding
world,” Ron mused coldly.
The spark in Hermione’s eyes died. “Oh,” she said.
“I see. Well then, I’ll just go up to the girls’ dorm and be Muggle where they don’t mind it.” She stood, rigid, and
stomped her way up the stairs.
“Mental, she is,” Ron said vaguely, but he looked
a bit guilty. After a moment, he gazed at Harry. “You know what I mean, don’t
you, Harry? I mean, you were Muggle-raised, and I
don’t have a problem with that, it’s just...” He paused, obviously trying to
convey his thoughts in a way that wouldn’t insult Harry. “You grow up with it
all your life – from when you’re a little kid – and you begin to sort of... Sort people unconsciously. It’s
background, I’m not even aware of it.”
Harry thought about that. In a way, the Dursleys did that themselves,
Uncle Vernon in particular: by car, or house, or clothing, or the
attractiveness of the wife hanging on another man’s arm. “I don’t think that’s
limited to the wizarding world,” he replied.
“It is important. How do you tell whether
you want to associate with someone unless you know their House? Any of
those kids could be a Slytherin.” Rather than finding
this thought warming, as Hermione had, Ron looked disgusted, a small sneer
decorating his face. It looked odd there.
Harry stood. “Uh, I’m going to go on up to bed. I
have Potions first thing,” he managed, faking a yawn. Ron nodded, stating he
was going to stay by the fire for a bit, while Harry went up the stairs.
When he got to his bed, Harry lay silent and
wide-eyed, staring up at the slats of the bed above his. It had been one thing
when
It was another thing entirely when Ronald Weasley did.
Hmm. (Pulls a thoughtful face.) What do you think,
all? Review, pls!
Oh. And unreasoned criticism is silly, but thoughtful
criticism is welcomed. Thanks to those who pointed out that the Leaky Cauldron
is not in Hogsmeade!