I know it's a bit short, but, frankly, what could I add?

by lord Martiya

02: TRAIN AND SORTING

Harry was quite thrilled by this Hogwarts. Many secrets, and treasures, and the fact the lawsuits were going on just fine (Kazumi-oba-san had even took pictures of the defendendants' looks when she presented them the lawsuits) could only better his mood. The one bad thing was that he got stuck with an annoying redhead bragging about he would befriend Harry Potter and become famous, and the bushy-haired girl from the bookshop was apparently scared by him (he wondered why) and had ran away as he saw him. So long for intelligent conversation.

"Hey, you, we're searching Harry Potter." a rude blond said as he entered his compartment.

"OK, THAT'S IT!" Harry cried, deciding to take a page from Kazumi-oba-san's book.

Harry covered his eyes and ears and detonated a flashbang grenade, then placed the stunned redhead and blond in an embarassing position and took pictures, only then noting the two goons.

"OK, Red, you annoyed me since travel started, and you, Blond, were just the last straw." Harry said. "Now, shoo, or else..."
"Else what?" the Blond asked.

Harry showed the picture, smiled and finished: "I'll show this around."

Blond and Red ran away from the pictures and the witnesses coming to see what had banged.

"No pissed Hufflepuffs..." two identical redheads commented after seeing him.

"Pissed Hufflepuffs?" Harry asked.

"You don't want to piss them off." one of them said.

"Yeah, better fondling the Dark Evangel: she's just one, and you'll have a nice experience before death." the other added.

While doubting it was better THAT than pissing off the Hufflepuffs (he had seen a train pervert touching her adult form. Then his mother covered his eyes, and if the sounds were any hint death would have been a liberation for the poor bastard. Just too bad Evangeline had him healed and still tortured him when she was bored), Harry returned reading. It would be a long way to Hogwarts.

It was the moment of the Sorting. In Hogwarts there were four Houses for the students to be sorted into, any of them privileging a character trait to develop (Gryffindor was for bravery, Ravenclaw for smarts and knowledge, Slytherin for ambition and cunning, and Hufflepuff for friendship and hard work. Meaning that pissing off an Hufflepuff was probably pissing off ALL of them, explaining the redhead twins' fear of them), and supposed to friendly compete for a cup. The Suck Up Cup, as Evangeline called it: you won points mainly for sucking up to the professors, and doing well at school or in sport activities was just secondary.

All in all, Harry despised the system: once the Houses existed to just privilege a trait at once, and the students were resorted yearly in the first four years, now once sorted you were struck forever, and the House Cup had installed a dangerous rivalry. At least in Japanese schools and militaries the rivalry was about who did the best job, meaning you actually did something productive and that who won was admittely the best. But Harry was not the boss, and had to suck it up and wear the magical Sorting Hat (about that, Red had showed his idiocy after complaining that his twin brothers had told him the Sorting included wrestling with a troll. Harry couldn't resist but ask him 'And you buyed it?', ridiculing him before the entire school: Red's older twins were infamous pranksters in the school).

With the time, many students had been sorted, among them the bushy-haired girl (whose name was Hermione Granger), ended in Gryffindor, and the blond bully (named Draco Malfoy), ended in Slytherin. Harry couldn't explain that to himself, Malfoy wasn't exactly cunning as expected from a Slytherin... Then, well before the expected time, they called him. As Harry Potter.

"Well well well, you're quite different from anyone I sorted." the Hat commented telepathically before shouting at the crowd: "Before the job, I'd like to warn you all about one thing: Dumbledore may have forgotten, but Harry, here, was adopted, and took her adopted mother's name. So, please, call him Harry TATSUMIYA, for he won't answer at Potter again and his mother was commissioned into the Sirmoor Rifles. And I don't want a thousand kukri-wielding military here to quarter whoever did the attack at her honor."

The only noise was Dumbledore explaining the Faculty what the Sirmoor Rifles were (Gurkhas. Two professors just balked away, while a greasy-haired one threw holy water at Harry crying 'Pape Satan! Pape Satan Aleppe!' until Dumbledore explained that the Gurkhas were just humans you didn't wanted to face, not Satan's spawn, people possessed by a legion of demons each or the manifestation of the Horsemen of the Apocalypse) and suggesting to call him Tatsumiya until further instructions.

"Now that's settled, let's sort you." the Sorting Hat said. "Hmmm... Cunning, a lot of, and smarts and knowledge seeking. I see even courage, and that's to be expected by a guy who willingly faced Evangeline's survival training. And hard-workmanship, and patience. Loyal to your friends... Well, any preference?"

"Do your job, you're the expert." Harry replied.

"Well, that's right. Well, Slytherin's out of question, you'd end exterminating half of the House in two hours. That leaves three Houses, and the one for you is HUFFLEPUFF!"

Dumbledore didn't know if being disappointed or relieved. On one hand, he needed Harry in Gryffindor so the young Ron Weasley (that he expected ending in Gryffindor) would keep him safe from darkness and linked to himself. On the other hand, Gryffindor was the House of Bravery, and magnify that trait in somebody raised by a Gurkha officer was just redundant, and Hufflepuff would still do a magnificent job at keeping him into the Light side.

At the Slytherin table, Draco Malfoy was relieved. He didn't knew what a Gurkha was, but knew that his father winced every time he heard the word, and if Snape's reaction was any hint it was better staying away from Potter-no, Tatsumiya until he was finished with that bon-ton book he had NEVER read but was now feeling a great need of.

Among the still unsorted students, the future Gryffindor named Ronald Weasley was incensed. After all, HE was the best possible friend for Harry Potter, and fated to be in Gryffindor. Harry Potter should have been in Gryffindor with him, not with those good-to-nothing Hufflepuffs!

It was with those thoughts that Ron was Sorted. And all the time he was sulking about fate, etc. Plus, he was quite cunning, those times his life was threathened enough to defeat his laziness. That explained his Sorting.

"I'm sorry for you, young Weasley, but your place is SLYTHERIN!" the Hat declared. "Albus, please, hide me where his mother won't reach me!"

"Sure! I just know a place where you'll be safe!" Albus Dumbledore replied before summoning the Hat, leaving Ron Weasley too stunned to even move. That at least until the food appeared.

Harry was now in the Hufflepuff common room, wondering what could be hidden at the third floor to warrant lethal force, when one of his Housemates (a Susan Bones, if he recalled well her name) approached him.

"Excuse me... We were wondering why you don't answer to Harry Potter anymore." she asked.

"Well, it's not that I don't answer at that name, it's just that, after ten years as Harry Tatsumiya, if anyone calls me Harry Potter I think there's someone named like that nearby, and get the clue only after some time." Harry replied.

"You see, a pissed Molly Weasley is quite an harpy." the Sorting Hat explained. "When she was a student she became famous for using love potions and make people that pissed her fall in love with something disgusting and take pictures for blackmail. And she HATES Slytherin!"

"Well, this explains why Dumbledore sent you here." Evangeline Athanasia Cathrine 'Dark Evangel' McDowell replied to her current headwear while walking for Mahora. Nobody even glanced at her: after all, Qiao had made crazier things almost normal, and Haruna's parents were visiting.

Author note

No, I don't know how Mana managed to become an officer of a male-only unit Gurkha regiment. It's not even something I want to know, but she's scary enough to do whatever she did to get the Queen's commission among the Gurkhas. And if you ask why I chose the Gurkhas... Well, what do we know about Mana's nationality? She could be Afghani (I'm writing an AU story with an Afghani Mana), Nepalese (here) or whatever the writer wants, and I needed a way to scare the crap out of Snape.

About the House choice, it's just the only place I could send him into after ten years with Mana: a sniper is not a solitary soldier but a specialist working into a two or three-men team (a spotter and a sniper, plus sometimes a third member guarding the others) with absolute trust and respect. Just an example: during the Vietnam War the US Marines sniper Carlos Hathcock, famous for his marksmanship and the habit of wearing a white feather on his hat, got an insanely high bounty on his head, and all the other US snipers serving in Vietnam started wearing a white feather on their hats just to distract the bounty hunters. Now, Mana normally does exactly that job: do you actually expected her child, even if adopted, not showing the traits of Hufflepuff?