Part 3

The train station for the school was just as crowded and chaotic as Kings Cross, possibly even more so as there were no parents to keep their children in line and the platform itself was much smaller. It also didn't help that they weren't bogged down by their luggage, which apparently would be taken from the train to the school separately, and so were free to run about at will.

Students young and old pushed their way onto the open platform. Harry and his new friends joined the crowd forcing their way slowly off the train and together they wandered in the general direction the rest of the students were going. Harry had just been able to make out in the dim platform lighting that there was a row of some sort of carriages ahead when a loud voice arose over the general murmur of the students.

"First years!" the voice called from the other end of the platform.

"That's Hagrid!" Harry said, delighted that he would get to meet someone he knew, and, with a bit of difficulty as they had to go against the crowd, they started towards him. He was easy to see, even though it was early evening and there wasn't much light, because he stood well over the heads of most fully grown adults, let alone teenage students.

It got easier as they went as less and less students streamed from the train and more and more of those left were also first years going in the same direction. Hagrid continued to bellow for the first years until the final stragglers had left the platform and the only people left were what Harry supposed to be the entire first year class who had found their way to Hagrid's side. It felt like quite a crowd, though when Harry looked around he didn't think there were nearly as many as he might have expected; at most there were around fifty students, possibly even less than that. Of course, Harry being Harry, he had expected anything from almost nobody to thousands and so he was not particularly surprised, though he was pleased that it was quite easy to slip towards the front so he could greet Hagrid again.

"Hello, Hagrid."

"Hello, Harry," Hagrid answered, offering him a smile before he surveyed the platform one last time. Then he addressed the group at large. "We're all here? Alright then, follow me! Watch your step, and don't leave the path."

Hagrid led them off the platform and down a dirt path into a forest. Most of the students huddled together as they walked, apparently nervous. Harry wondered why. Perhaps they found dark forests scary? Harry looked around, curious to see if there would be any of the magical beings his book mentioned, but it was quite dark beneath the trees and he didn't see so much as an owl, let alone a pixie.

"You'll be able to see the school in a bit," Hagrid announced, and then, quite suddenly, the path led out of the forest and ended at an enormous lake. Quite a few of the students stumbled to a halt and made gasps of awe. Across the lake was a castle. Harry thought it exactly the sort of place for a magical school, and rather thought he might have found the perfect wall mural to paint for his new bedroom back on Privet Drive. He wished he had a camera. In fact he spent so long looking at it that it wasn't until Hagrid's 'four to a boat' that he even noticed the boats where several fellow first years were already climbing aboard.

Four to a boat was, of course, a bit problematic since he and his new friends made five.

Luckily, Harry was always ready to make new friends. So when Hermione pulled Neville into a boat and the remaining boys looked at each other, uncertain who would be left behind, Harry kindly waved them ahead.

"You share," he told them, "I don't mind." Then he went to a half full boat before they could try to call him back. This boat had two girls in it. They looked a bit startled when he climbed in behind them.

"I hope you don't mind me joining you," Harry said, just in case they had been waiting for someone else. But one of the girls shook her head so Harry sat down.

"I'm Harry Potter," Harry said, cautiously offering his hand to avoid over tipping the boat as it rocked gently beneath them.

"I'm Susan Bones," the girl with red hair answered.

"Tracey Davis," the other girl said, each briefly accepting Harry's handshake, though they had to awkwardly twist around to do it since he was behind him and they were all facing forwards.

"Everyone in? Then off we go!" Hagrid shouted from his own boat, and as one all the boats started to move across the lake.

Susan grasped the sides of her seat tightly at the sudden movement. Tracey kept her hands folded calmly in her lap, though she did twist her head again to give Harry a puzzled sort of look. Harry hardly noticed as he was too interested in the boat ride and watching the castle slowly approach. The boats drew closer and closer and finally went right under the castle through an archway. Finally the boats slid back onto shore and the three of them stumbled out.

"That was a brilliant way to see our new school, don't you think?" Harry asked them; "At my old school they just gave us our class schedule and held an open school day to make sure we could find our way around. We just went in the front door."

"I was home schooled," Tracey offered, and Susan gave a sort of half nod but said nothing, her face looking rather pale. Harry hoped she wasn't sick.

Hermione, Michael, Ron and Neville all wandered towards Harry and his new friends, each of them looking oddly nervous. Did they not like boat rides? Or perhaps, Harry thought, they didn't like dark passages beneath a castle?

"Is this your toad?" Hagrid called from the boats where he had checked to make sure nothing was left behind.

"Trevor!" Neville exclaimed. Harry was happy that his friend's toad had been found.

Hagrid led them on to a closed door and knocked. A severe looking witch answered and was introduced as the deputy headmistress and one of their professors: McGonagall. She led them further into the castle and then left them before yet another closed door to wait. The students stood quietly until she was gone before they started talking again.

"Do you know how they sort us?" Susan whispered towards Tracey and Harry, the first words Harry had heard her speak since she told him his name. "My aunt wouldn't say."

"My brothers said we had to wrestle a troll," Ron offered, "But I think they were joking."

"I would think they make us do some spells," Hermione said, "To test us, maybe." And she started to mutter to herself all the sorts of spells she had taught herself and which ones she might need to know. Harry began to suspect everyone wasn't nervous because they were afraid of castles or lakes; they were nervous because they were afraid of being sorted. He still wasn't sure why. In fact, the only kid who didn't look a bit anxious and pale was Neville, who just looked happy that he had found Trevor again.

"I don't think we have to do a test to be sorted," Harry told his friends, hoping that might help. Hermione with her muttering about spells was already getting several dark looks.

"My father told me exactly how they sort us, of course," Draco announced, though he still looked quite pale, Harry thought. But then, Draco was the sort of person who looked a bit pale even when he was in perfect health.

Before Harry could ask what his father might have said, or if Draco was feeling ill, the room was suddenly full of ghosts. Some of the students screamed. Even Draco made a sort of squeaking noise, before he could catch himself.

Harry jumped too; their arrival was so sudden and they were arguing so loudly that it was impossible not to be startled, but his surprise was immediately followed by curiosity. He had read that the school had ghosts but so much of what he had read had been so far removed from his small room on Privet Drive that it had been hard to really take in.

"You must be the new first years!" one of the ghosts said, having noticed them; "Waiting to be sorted?"

"Yes," Harry answered, because no one else seemed about to. He rather wanted to talk to them more; ghosts must have seen such a lot of history he thought it would be fascinating to befriend them, but just then didn't seem to be the time. The ghosts seemed to think so too because they gave a few more words of encouragement then went on through a wall.

Professor McGonagall returned at last and they were led, at first it seemed, back outdoors. But it was an outdoors that had walls and a floor and long rows of tables and floating candles and no sense of free flowing air that one usually gets out of doors; the candles barely even flickered as outdoor flames tended to do, though that might have been because they were magic.

"The ceiling is enchanted to look like the outside sky," Hermione whispered softly, "I read it in Hogwarts, a History."

"Oh," Harry said, "You have a good memory for details." He had probably read about the enchanted ceiling too but it wasn't a tidbit he had taken special notice of. He had been more interested in learning about the school's classes than its architecture, and anyway, he preferred to make his first impressions in person and then learn the history and details afterwards. It is quite impossible to see a place for the first time twice, after all, barring medical calamity, and so he had only skimmed over that sort of thing in his book and instead paid close attention to the parts that really seemed important, like the four houses.

Eventually, after Harry had spent quite a bit of time staring up into the night sky and then about the room at the four tables and up at the dais where the professors evidently sat, Harry became aware that everyone was looking at something in front of the dais. Harry, being at the shorter end of his age group, couldn't quite see what it was.

"What is it?" he whispered to Michael, who was quite tall.

"It's an old hat," Michael answered, sounding puzzled, and then people in front of Harry shifted just enough that he could see it for himself. He caught sight of it just in time for it to start singing. Harry jumped a bit. That was unexpected.

After all that worrying and speculation, it turned out that to be sorted they just had to put on a hat. Harry thought Ron might be relieved. Hermione actually looked a bit disappointed. As Professor McGonagall started to call students forward by order of the alphabet to put the hat on their heads and be sorted, Harry wondered excitedly which house he would be sorted into. He didn't really have a preference himself, but it was fun to see where some of his new friends were being sorted. It was also a great chance to learn the names of all the students in his class. Harry paid attention. Each student had a turn putting the hat on their head and then, after a bit in some cases and right away in others, the hat would shout out the name of one of the houses.

Susan Bones was sorted into Hufflepuff and soon after Michael Corner was put into Ravenclaw. Vincent, Tracey and Gregory were all placed in Slytherin while Hermione was put into Gryffindor, as was Neville, though only after a great deal of deliberation on the hat's part. Draco got his wish so quickly that Harry wasn't entirely sure the hat even had time to rest on his head. Harry had a much clearer view by this point as half the students had already been sorted. Then, at last:

"Potter, Harry!"

It was Harry's turn. What he felt in that moment wasn't so much nerves as that rare thrill of excitement he only occasionally allowed himself to experience. He hardly noticed the whispers now filling the hall as he skipped up to the front and put the hat on. It was quite large and floppy and slid right over his eyes. For a moment he was alone in the darkness, waiting expectantly. Then, quite suddenly, he heard a voice.

"Interesting," said the voice, "Quite a positive world outlook you seem to have developed. Almost Slytherin in its deviousness, except that you don't seem to realize you're doing it. And what's this? A thirst for knowledge, I see, yes, a very strong drive to learn. A strong sense for compassion is here as well. Ambition, too. But where to put you?"

It must be the hat speaking, Harry realized, and it was looking inside his head to decide which house to put him in. He wondered what the inside of his head looked like.

"Not Gryffindor," the hat said, seeming to be talking to himself rather than to Harry, "You have to feel fear to be able to be brave and you seem curiously lacking in fear. You would do very well in Ravenclaw or Slytherin, very well indeed, but will you find what you truly need?

"Can you put me where I can learn a lot and make a lot of new friends?" Harry asked, just in case the hat could hear him. It seemed it could because the hat answered.

"Finding friends will not be a problem for you, I think," it said. "Tempting, very tempting to throw you into Slytherin. You'd be good for them, most certainly, but would they be good for you? No…for you to truly find what you need, better be…HUFFLEPUFF!"

The last word was shouted out to the entire hall. Harry smiled. It was good to know that the hat thought he might have the tenacity of a badger.

"Thank you, hat," he said before he took it off his head and set it back in its place for the next person. Finding his new table was no difficulty at all, first because he had paid attention to where the different students went after their sorting, second because he recognized Cedric and Susan at his new table, and third because it was the table that was cheering.

Harry waved to Cedric as he went to sit down next to Susan where the other first years had slowly been congregating. They didn't have a chance to speak yet, though, because of course the sorting wasn't finished yet. Professor McGonagall continued through the alphabet. Ron, Harry was happy to see, was placed with his brothers in Gryffindor just like he had wanted. Soon after that, the sorting was finally over.

The sorting was followed by a brief introduction by the headmaster Dumbledore, who didn't waste any time with long winded speeches and instead they started at once on the feast. Harry was impressed by the food, not just the quantity but the quality.

"Do you know how the food is prepared?" he asked his new classmates. "Is it made by magic or is it cooked?"

Unfortunately, all his new classmates in his immediate vicinity were first years, and their reactions to his question ranged from 'Good question' to 'you're Harry Potter!'. Harry supposed he would simply have to learn about it later and contented himself with filling his plate with a small bit of most everything. It was a novel experience, eating a nice meal that he hadn't had a hand in cooking. At his old school he'd always brought his own lunch (and appreciated it, as he'd seen what the other children were forced to eat), but he supposed that would be impossible at a boarding school.

The food was good, but it was hard to give it the attention it deserved because there were so many new people to observe. There were the other students of course, and the professors, but also the ghosts had come to sit with the students. There was one to a table, and the Hufflepuff ghost had settled itself in the gap between Susan and a boy Harry had learned to be a muggle-born named Justin. The ghost was quite large and without a corporal body he had ended up partly inside the two students. Susan had shrieked at his arrival and shoved up against Harry, knocking him into the boy on his other side. Justin almost ended up in an older boy's lap. No one seemed to mind, though some of the older students laughed, and they all just shifted over until the ghost had enough room to sit without having to sit inside someone else.

"Sorry," said the ghost, his voice somehow loud and far off at the same time. "I do apologize if I scared you."

"It's not that," Susan told him. "It's that you're like ice."

"Yeah," Justin agreed, though his voice was a bit squeaky, his eyes wide and face a bit pale. "I wasn't a bit scared." When the puddings arrived, neither Justin nor Susan seemed to want anything cold like the ice creams and went for the pies instead.

Harry had hundreds of questions buzzing in his head, but he was hesitant to ask. His own relations hated questions and Harry didn't want to be rude. Besides, he was full and sleepy and everything was so new that he found himself silently trying to pay attention to everything at once and almost forgetting that he could speak too. He wanted to know all about his new classmates, and the ghosts, and the professors, and every bit of the castle. So he listened to how Justin had been down for Eton before he got his Hogwarts letter, and how Rowena had an older brother named Roger who was in Ravenclaw and hoped to join the Quiditch team that year, and that Megan and Wayne both called themselves half-blood because Wayne's dad and Megan's grandparents were muggles, while Hannah's family was considered pureblood but she technically wasn't because of a muggle grandmother, and that Lisa almost hadn't come to Hogwarts because her mum thought it was a devil school, and Ian had a younger sister named Eleanor who was so upset about Ian getting to go to Hogwarts she managed to turn his entire trunk inside out with accidental magic and their parents were so pleased they got her the kneazle she had wanted forever.

Harry wanted to know what a kneazle was, but he never got the chance to ask because that was the moment when his forehead suddenly sent a sharp sensation through his head as though he had been stabbed by an ice pick. The feeling only lasted for half a second but it was startling enough that he forgot all about his previous questions.

"Are you alright, Harry?" Susan asked.

"It's fine," Harry answered quickly, and he went back to observing everyone and everything and wondering if perhaps he was just getting tired. His head felt stuffed full from all his new observations. His first day at Stonewall had been similar, though to a lesser degree, as he had taken in all the new classmates, teachers, and the layout of his school. Hogwarts, he suspected, would take him at least a week to fully conquer.

The other students seemed to be feeling similar as the roar of conversation throughout the hall was slowly dimming to a low hum, the students more preoccupied with finishing the last of the food or, particularly among the first years, trying not to nod off at the table. Harry didn't precisely feel like he was going to fall asleep right there as he was used to long days, but he felt the very rare and strange sensation of having had enough. He didn't want to ask questions, he didn't want to explore the castle, he didn't want to find out why that one dark haired professor with piercing eyes kept his attention divided between Slytherin table and Harry, and he didn't want to listen to what the headmaster had to say once the feast was finished. Harry had seen and learned enough for the day and now all he really wanted was someplace dark and quiet where there was nothing to see or learn. It was no wonder he had pains in his head.

The school song actually caught him by surprise, almost as though he had half fallen asleep after all without noticing while the headmaster was talking. Being startled was also a rare occurrence for Harry; usually he paid close attention to everything. He made sure to pay extra close attention when a prefect named George led them through a door and down some stairs, and then waited for a wall to change into yet another set of stairs, and then past a picture of a bowl of fruit and then a tapestry with a castle and down another corridor and finally they all stopped at an enormous painting of a table with some kind of instrument, a skull, a candle, and some pomegranates.

Here Prefect George stopped.

"This is the front entrance to Hufflepuff house," he said. "To open the door, you have to play the right tune on the mandolin. That's our password. The tune changes every month. If you can't remember the tune, you'll have to wait for someone who knows it."

That said, he reached towards the instrument in the painting and strummed across the strings once, then plucked each string once. The painted strings vibrated beneath his fingers, the sound soft but clear. Then the entire painting swung open like a door. He shut it again.

"Now you try."

The painting felt strange beneath his fingers when Harry took his turn. It didn't feel like strings anyway, but it also didn't really feel like a painting. Perhaps it was a bit like what a painting would feel like if real strings were glued on top of it and then painted over. He couldn't reach his fingers into the scene but the strings still had a reality to them that defied understanding. Playing the short tune Prefect George had shown them was easy enough. Even half asleep, Harry could easily follow something so simple.

The door swung open and Harry stepped through.

Author's Note: I've had half of this chapter sitting on my computer for ages and I've finally decided to just share what I've got, even if it is slightly shorter than the other chapters. Who knows when/if I'll ever get around to writing more. At least I got through the sorting. Where I was completely tempted to stick him some place like Slytherin just to contradict all the people who predicted Hufflepuff, but in the end I decided not. For one, they predicted that house for a reason and I saw much the same in this Harry. For another, I already had notes on the house from a different story. Besides, I like the symmetry. In cannon, his first real friend introduced his house and in this story the first person he met was Cedric.

So, here it is. Sorry, no confrontation with Snape. Maybe one day. No promises. Though this Harry is rather fun to write.