Clambering out of the small crafts, the first years once again gathered around Hagrid, who took a quick headcount, checked the boats for anything left behind, and set off up another path. The students followed silently, and they'd barely been walking for two minutes when the path ended in the huge wooden doors that marked the entrance to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
They waited, still silent, as Hagrid raised one huge fist and gave two booming knocks against the wood. Moments later, the doors swung open to reveal a stern looking woman in dark robes the color of red wine, and Remus fought the urge to study his shoes as her fierce gaze swept the crowd of first years.
"The firs' years, Professor McGonagall," said Hagrid, sweeping a giant hand around the back of the group to herd them into the light of the hall.
"Thank you, Hagrid, I'll take them from here," she said, though Remus, and most of the other first years it seemed, barely heard her as they stared up in awe at the giant hall they now stood in, with grand doors much like they had just entered across from them and a huge sweeping marble staircase to their right.
"Welcome to Hogwarts," said Professor McGonagall, managing to tear the first years' attention away from the sight of the hall with the stern tone, "The start-of-term banquet will begin soon, with your Sorting. The Sorting is very important, because during your time at Hogwarts, your house will be like your family. You will have classes with your house, sleep in your house dormitories, and spend time in your house common rooms. And even after you leave the school, your house loyalties will stay with you.
"The four houses are Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw and Slytherin. Each house has it's own illustrious history and has produced great wizards and witches. While at Hogwarts, your good deeds and triumphs will earn you house points, while any rule breaking will lose you points. At the end-of-the-year feast, the house with the most points will be awarded the House Cup.
"The Sorting Ceremony will begin shortly. Until then, please wait in the room off of this hall for me to return and get you. Please wait quietly," she added, with another intense gaze over the group before directing them towards the room where they were supposed to wait and leaving.
Remus looked over at Adam, who was running a hand quickly through his mass of blond spikes, and the boy standing next to Adam, with a brown crew cut and dark green eyes, leaned around Adam, smiled nervously and addressed Remus.
"I'm Chris Adams. Know anything about this Sorting Ceremony?"
"You try on an old hat," said Adam, introducing himself to the other boy as well.
Chris laughed in relief, "That's it? I've had people trying to convince me all day that we'd have to wrestle a troll." Professor McGonagall entered the room as the boy finished his sentence.
"Form an orderly, single-file line and follow me," she said, and the first years did as they were told with only minimal shoving and jostling. Tonks was in front of him, while Adam and Lewis were behind him as they followed Professor McGonagall silently.
The first thing Remus noticed about the Great Hall when he entered it was the vast, starry sky that appeared above his head as he passed through the door. His parents had told him about the enchanted ceiling, but nothing could quite prepare you for the real thing. The line was led between four long tables, two on either side, at which the older students were seated and above which floated thousands of enchanted candles.
The line halted in front of a four-legged stool in front of the High Table, on which sat an extremely dirty, frayed wizard's hat. Remus watched in awe as the hall quieted, a long rip at the brim opened, and the hat began to sing.
Since the founders of this school first set out,
Upon their journey to educate young magic folks,
There's still plenty of them left in me,
So please try me on for size
And I'll let you know your rightful place
Perhaps you belong in Gryffindor,
The house the noble call their own
The brave will certainly find it their home
Or perhaps it's Hufflepuff for you
With your loyal heart
Unafraid of toil
Maybe in Ravenclaw is where you should dwell
Open a book for a spell
For wit and learning are your companions there
Or Slytherin is your home
Your cunning and ambition will help
You'll fit right in
So go ahead, put me on and open up that mind of yours
As the Sorting Hat, it's my job to tell you where to go!
The hall burst into wild applause, and the hat became still again after giving a short bow to each of the tables. Professor McGonagall stepped up next to the stool and opened a long scroll.
"When I say your name, please come forward and sit on the stool to be sorted," she said, "Abbey, Kathleen!"
A short girl with long red hair made her way forward and took her place on the stool. The hall waited in dead silence for a few moments before the rip along the brim opened and the hat's voice filled the hall again.
"RAVENCLAW!"
The table second from the left clapped, and Kathleen went over to take a seat as Professor McGonagall peered down at her list again.
"Adams, Christopher!"
The boy who'd introduced himself to Remus and Adam stepped out of his place in the line in front of Tonks and took a seat on the stool. It took longer for the hat to decide with Chris, but thirty seconds after he'd sat down, it shouted again.
"HUFFLEPUFF!"
This time, the table on the right cheered as Chris made his way over.
"Alroth, Doug!" A smiling, thin boy with dark skin and long black hair tied back in a short ponytail came forward, and joined Chris at the Hufflepuff table.
"Bramble, Moret!" became a Slytherin almost as quickly as the hat touched her head, and Remus's eyes were drawn towards the second table from the right. The applause there was reserved and formal, and seemed out of place following the eruptions of the Hufflepuff table at the announcement of Chris and Doug's house. Even the Ravenclaws, the house of normally reserved intellectuals, had managed a few war whoops for Kathleen, if the image had looked strange as the non-whoopers rose to shake Kathleen's hand as she found her place. But Moret seemed perfectly happy with the minor applause. Remus looked away from the table, but not before he saw the ghost hanging above it, his long robes covered in something silver and ominous.
"Brees, Winfield!"
A bored looking boy, whose long, un-kept brown hair fell carelessly across his light eyes, slouched up to the stool and took his place under the hat. For almost two whole minutes, he sat there, still slouched, arms crossed, head titled forward slightly, totally relaxed where everyone else seemed more nervous then they'd been in their entire lives. Remus thought he looked almost like a statue, unmoving, handsome and solid in his unshakableness in the dead silence of the hall. A moment later though, the illusion was broken as the rip along the hat's edge opened again.
"GRYFFINDOR!"
The table on the far left burst into thunderous applause, and the celebration taking place at the Gryffindor table put that of all the others to shame as various catcalls and war whoops accompanied Winfield's approach to the table. He flashed a smile at the people slapping his back, and then returned to looking rather disinterested in everything that was going on.
"Chamberlain, Adam!"
Remus heard the boy behind him take a deep breath as he stepped out of line and made the short walk up toward the stool; feeling himself brace unconsciously for the result, wondering where Adam, who he already considered a friend, would end up. For fifteen seconds, Remus clenched his fists in the silence of the hall before the rip opened wide.
"GRYFFINDOR!"
The wild cheering filled the hall again, and Adam made his way over to the table quickly, smiling wide, parts of his hair oddly flattened from the hat, but already springing back into place.
The Sorting had slowed a little, Winfield and another boy, "Bartlett, Leo," having taken almost five minutes between them before being sorted to their respective houses, Gryffindor and Hufflepuff, but it picked up again as "Eugene, Mary," and "Folds, Sylvia" followed Winfield and Adam to Gryffindor and "Gomes, Yvette," became a Ravenclaw. The hat took its time with some of the students, but others had barely sat down before they were off to their tables amid applause from the others already seated. Leen, the huge boy who had followed McNair on the train, quickly went to Slytherin.
The ceremony continued, and it seemed that McGonagall had reached "Lister, Lewis," in no time at all. Remus turned to look at the boy behind him, an intense feeling of nerves growing heavy in his stomach. But Lewis just stared intently at Professor McGonagall, as though he hadn't heard her.
"Hey, isn't that you?" asked Remus, inclining his head towards the hat. The other boy smiled gratefully and stepped out of line. Over two minutes later, he joined the Gryffindor table next to Winfield.
Tonks moved back towards Remus a little as he heard it: "Lupin, Remus." And the conversations that had been peppering the hall as they waited for the next name to be called ceased immediately as he stepped out of the line and everyone craned to get a better look at him. Professor McGonagall placed the hat on his head, and his view of the hall was replaced with the soft blackness of the interior.
"Remus Lupin," said a tiny voice in his ear, "Well, well, I think it's been quite a while since I've had such a highly anticipated Sorting. I myself am a little giddy to meet you, and I've been around for quite a long time. I've seen just about everything there is, wouldn't you agree? Let's have a look inside this head of yours than, shall we? Everyone out there is wishing you end up in his or her own house, but almost all of them have already sorted you inside their heads, don't you think? And personally, I think your head and heart agree with your past. That means there's just the one place for you," said the hat, and then the voice grew to address the entire hall.
"GRYFFINDOR!" screamed the hat, and Remus thought the whoops that went up from the Gryffindor table were certainly sufficient to blow out a person's eardrums. Most of the older students, the fifth, sixth and seventh years, were on their feet, and anonymous hands reached out to shake his. One older student, with stiffly gelled black spikes and huge green eyes, made a move to climb on to the table, but his actions were stopped with one particularly stern glance from McGonagall, who seemed barely able to contain her own happiness as he winked at her and returned to his seat. Remus dropped into the seat next to Adam with a smile, which he returned.
The Sorting was much more enjoyable without the knot of nervousness in his gut, and Remus settled down to watch. McNair followed Leen to the Slytherin table even quicker than Moret had been sorted, and he took his seat next to the hulking boy with a smirk.
When Tonks was called, she moved forward slowly, scowling at the unapologetic use of her first name, obviously trying to hide her clumsiness. She sat on the stool for almost as long as Lewis had, and when the hat finally shouted out her house, Remus could almost hear just the slightest hint of something like hesitation in its voice.
"GRYFFINDOR!"
Remus cheered along with the rest of the table, and Tonks managed to make it almost all the way to the seat on Remus's left without tripping, but at the last second, her own feet seemed to betray her. Remus and Adam both reached out an arm, and managed to provide sufficient leverage and support for her to catch herself and sit down.
"I don't think anyone saw. Your secret's safe with us," said Adam, smiling at Tonks as "Turpin, Ralston," became a Ravenclaw.
Tonks rolled her eyes, "I don't think it'll be a secret for very long, unless everyone at this school is blind and an idiot."
After Ralston, there were only three people left, and after "Victor, Jeremiah," a black boy with long dreadlocks who rivaled Leen in size had been sorted into Gryffindor, and "Warren, Claire," and "Zabbnit, Evan," took their places at the Hufflepuff table, the Sorting Ceremony was over. Professor McGonagall picked up the hat and the stool and disappeared through a side door behind the High Table as a tall man with a long silver beard and hair to match stood from the center of the table: Albus Dumbledore, headmaster.
"Welcome, everyone, to another wonderful year at Hogwarts!" he said, smiling out over the gathered students, "Now, I'll spare the announcements until after dinner, as I'm sure you are all quite famished. Bon appetite!"
Remus looked away from Dumbledore at the golden dishes on the table, and nearly fell out of his chair in surprise. Even for those who came from wizarding families, the sudden appearance of the massive amount of food that now covered the table was quite a shock the first time you saw it. Recovering quickly, Remus filled the plate in front of him with as much as it would hold and dug in.
"Thank you," said Lewis, from across the table, in a voice so quiet that Remus was surprised he could hear him at all.
"No problem. Everybody zones out every once and a while, right?" he said, but Lewis just half-smiled and shook his head.
"Oh, I wasn't, uh, zoning out. There were, well, there were some serious complications when I was born, and my ears paid the price. At times, I lose as much as seventy percent of my hearing. I was hoping that I could just read McGonagall's lips, but I was too far away," he explained, still talking very quietly, almost whispering.
"Oh. That doesn't sound fun," Remus said, not sure how to respond.
"It's okay. It only happens every once and awhile. I was hoping it wouldn't happen tonight, but it's just my luck," he said, and looked so sad that Remus wished he were better at knowing what to say.
"Cheer up, young fellow!" said a ghost in a ruff and tights who'd floated over towards the group of first years, "I'm sure all you new Gryffindors are ready to help us win the House Cup this year! Slytherin has won two years in a row now, and the Bloody Baron is getting unbearable. He's the Slytherin house ghost." He placed a hand on Lewis's shoulder, and Lewis shivered.
"And you're our house ghost?" asked Sylvia, looking the ghost over.
"Yes, I am. Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington," he seemed about to continue, but the boy with the huge green eyes who'd tried to climb on the table earlier cut him off.
"Ah, Nick, do we have to go through this every year? Kiddies," said the boy, leaning over towards the first years, "listen to Uncle Ben. Nobody calls him that. Everybody calls him," and here he paused to wink cheekily at Nick, who seemed resigned to his fate at this point, "Nearly Headless Nick," he said, delivering the last three words with a gusto you normally saw only in a theater, and he'd raised his voice so that the whole table could hear him, and they all gave a cheer, while Nick sighed and floated off to find better company before any of the first years could ask how someone could be 'nearly headless.' They weren't sure if they were glad of this or not.
Remus was beginning to feel drowsy as the desserts appeared, and his gaze drifted from the conversations of his fellow students up to the High Table. He was surprised to find someone staring back, a pale man with long greasy hair and eyes that looked like tunnels from this distance. The man was glaring at Remus intensely, and he certainly didn't look happy to see him.
Both the teacher and Remus were distracted by Dumbledore standing, and as the professor's gaze left him, Remus tried to shrug off the bad feeling about the man that had settled in between his shoulder blades. The headmaster swept his gaze over the hall with a smile before he began to speak, and the chatter and clattering of silverware that had filled the hall died almost immediately at his first word.
"Again, it is my pleasure to welcome all of you to another new year at Hogwarts! Just a few start of term notices before we turn in now that we are all properly stuffed.
"First years should note that the Forbidden Forest is strictly off limits. No student should enter the Forest without express permission and staff supervision. Magic should only be performed in the corridors in case of emergencies, and no, being late to class is not an emergency requiring you to hex those classmates you may or may not blame for your tardiness," he said, a twinkle in his eyes as he scanned the tables, "Quidditch trials will be held in two weeks time, and those wishing to try out for their House Teams should contact their team's captain or Madame Hooch as soon as possible. And now, I believe it's time for us all to head to bed. First years, if you would please find a prefect from your house to show you the way."
Remus, Adam and Tonks moved with the rest of the group towards the boy who'd introduced them to Nearly Headless Nick. Some of the first years looked skeptical that the boy who'd less then an hour earlier tried to climb on to the table at Remus's sorting could be a prefect, but the shiny silver badge was indeed pinned to his chest and he waited patiently for the group to gather around him.
"This all of you? All right then, I'm Ben Boyce, but you can call me Uncle Ben, because that's what everybody calls me. Or you can call me Overlord Ben, which nobody calls me, but I've been trying to get that started for four years now, and maybe this is finally the year it catches on. I'm the fifth year Gryffindor prefect, but only because Charlie Weasley's an early, so you guys don't have to worry about cramping my style by saying hello to me in the corridors or asking for help around the Common Room, 'cause Charlie's stolen all the mojo from the guys in our year by basically being a God, with a capital G. And I would hate him for it, but he's one stand up chap, so don't any of you go around saying Uncle Ben spoke ill of Charlie, 'cause he's one of my best mates. All right then, shall we go?" he said, and the first years were too bowled over by the rapid-fire words to do anything but nod. They followed him through the crowd leaving the Great Hall, and watched in slight amazement as it seemed every hand attached to someone wearing the red and gold of Gryffindor reached out to slap his hand as he passed. It seemed that Ben had quite a bit of his own 'mojo'.
"Now, I'll warn you guys right now, you are not going to be able to remember all these passageways and corridors immediately, but with time, it'll be like the back of your hand. So seriously, feel free to ask for help from anyone. Well, try and find me or somebody else from Gryffindor, but the Hufflepuffs are always pretty helpful. The Hufflepuffs are good people, right Gary?" he said, his voice rising at the last sentence to call out to another prefect leading the Hufflepuff first years.
"Hell yeah, we are," said Gary, nodding his head at Ben, and Ben grinned in return and led them up another staircase. Remus was already beginning to lose track, and the slight haze created from good food and sleepiness certainly wasn't making it any easier.
They'd been walking for nearly ten minutes when a man with long brown hair in need of a wash wearing patched robes rushed past them going the opposite direction, and for an instant, Remus's amber eyes met the man's pale blue ones. At the same time, a crippling pain ripped through his scar and he stumbled slightly as it shot around the rest of his body before settling into a dull ache in his shoulder and neck. Once the majority of the pain had passed, he realized that Ben was introducing the man who was now turning the corner out of sight.
"And that is our favorite, and only," he leaned forward on the last two words to whisper them as though they were some great secret, with a wink at the first years, "caretaker, Mr. Linkin."
"What happened, mate?" asked Adam as they moved on, still following Ben at a rapid pace.
Not sure what to say, Remus went with a half-truth, "I tripped."
"That's my job," said Tonks, and Remus's laughing distracted him sufficiently to prevent him from rubbing at the scar, which still tingled and occasionally panged with ache. Finally, they seemed to have reached their destination, a portrait of a rather large woman in a pink dress.
"All right, kiddies, watch your Uncle Ben closely now, and welcome to the best little sliver of paradise you're likely to discover in this dark, dark world," he said, and even the Fat Lady rolled her eyes as he winked at her and said, "Corothie."
She swung forward to admit them, and the first years flowed into the warm, round room draped in scarlet and gold behind Ben and stared around in wonder. After he'd preformed a quick head count to insure they hadn't lost anyone on the way up, Ben stepped to the front of the group again.
"This is your common room. I'd give you the full tour, but I'm absolutely knackered and you can basically see it all from here, so I'll give you the short version. It's round, it's cozy, and us Gryffindors spend most of our free time and celebrate our many and varied victories here. Girl's dormitories are that way, and the boys are the other way. Night to all!" he said, and then the boys followed him towards their dorms.
Remus and Adam bid Tonks good night and followed the prefect. They reached the door marked First Years quickly, thankfully, as the new first years appeared on their last legs. Ben himself seemed to be losing a little bit of his own slightly manic energy, and bid them good night again, continuing the climb to his own dormitory.
Too tired to talk much, little was said by the five new Gryffindor boys, besides introduction, before they fell into their beds, barely noticing that their trunks were already at the feet of the four-posters.
Something was wrong within the familiar dream. He was still caught in the hatred behind the werewolf's eyes, but now they were the black tunnel-like ones of the teacher from the feast, and the normally silent landscape of the nightmare was punctuated by a single word, whispered in an unfamiliar voice: Destiny.
Remus awoke in a cold sweat, his eyes immediately falling on the waning moon outside. Never before had the dream come on a night devoid of the full moon. And there was that word again: destiny. He fell back asleep rather quickly, and barely remembered anything strange about the dream except for the unusual timing of it.
But apparently, Hogwarts had just as many questions to offer as answers.