The Great Hall was vast, and every pair of eyes had turned toward him.
Sheen watched the witches and wizards craning their necks along the four long tables. At the staff table, beside gleaming gold plates and tall goblets, Dumbledore observed with an expression of mild but genuine interest.
Sheen did his best to look as though he knew nothing about anything. Under Professor McGonagall's gentle direction, he lifted the Sorting Hat and placed it on his head.
"I must teach many, and treat all equally."
He recited the words of Helga Hufflepuff silently, hoping to make his preferred destination clear to the Hat before it had a chance to form opinions of its own.
"A most encouraging young wizard," said a small voice near his ear. "It has been some time since anyone has bothered to memorise old Hat's song. You wish to go to Hufflepuff? Well, naturally — no."
Sheen: ...
Perhaps silence was the better strategy.
"Why not?" he asked, very quietly, in the privacy of his own thoughts.
"Let old Hat sing it again — fair Ravenclaw, from glen—"
The Hat launched, without warning, into song, and began writhing energetically on top of Sheen's head.
"Mr. Sorting Hat—"
Sheen pressed a hand to his head, bewildered.
"Those of wit and learning — will always find their kind in—"
The Hat continued, twisting and swaying.
"I want to go to Hufflepuff."
Sheen had begun to suspect what was happening.
"Ravenclaw said: we will teach those whose intelligence is surpassing—"
The Hat sang on, undeterred.
"I want to go to Hufflepuff."
One final attempt.
"Stubborn little wizard. And why must it be Hufflepuff?"
"Mr. Sorting Hat. Why must it be Ravenclaw?"
"Hmm. Thirteen hours of spell practice in a single day, drilling until you couldn't move. English letters you barely knew, and yet in two months you memorised every book you could get your hands on. Aside from Rowena herself, old Hat has not seen a wizard so hungry for knowledge in a very long time. Slytherin could serve your ambitions. Gryffindor would honour your courage. Hufflepuff would welcome your good heart."
The Hat's voice carried something almost like a feeling.
"But only Ravenclaw can give a mind like yours the means to walk toward truth itself."
"I want to go to Hufflepuff," Sheen said, though he could feel the conviction draining out of him even as he said it.
"Very well."
The agreement was so sudden that Sheen's green eyes brightened with relief.
"I'm lying," the Hat announced cheerfully, and its voice swelled to fill the hall —
"RAVENCLAW!!!"
Bereft, Sheen gave the brim of the Hat a firm pinch.
"Ow ow ow ow—"
Hearing the Hat's reaction did help, marginally.
What Sheen did not hear was what came after, in a voice too small for anyone else to catch:
"...Ha. I've deceived a Ravenclaw.
Truly like calls to like, Rowena — you always used to grab old Hat without thinking, just the same...
Twelve centuries. Old Hat has finally kept the promise made to Gryffindor — and found Ravenclaw its heir.
Watch carefully. There is something great hiding in that slight frame. Old Hat has not yet been wrong."
Ravenclaw would be fine, Sheen told himself.
At least it wasn't Slytherin.
He had barely lifted the Hat from his head to pass back to Professor McGonagall when a wave of enthusiastic applause broke from the Ravenclaw table. Even Gryffindor and Hufflepuff joined in — and the most vigorous of all was Justin, who had shot to his feet and was leading a considerable portion of the Hufflepuff table in energetic clapping.
Looking at it now, Sheen felt the loss more keenly than ever.
What a wonderful house Hufflepuff was.
What an absolutely insufferable hat.
At the centre of the hall, Professor McGonagall looked at Sheen with quiet warmth. Visibly sighin in relief, she had been wrong once before about another wizard, she didn't want the same to happen ever again.
The pilled, donated robes were gone, replaced by Hogwarts' plain black. The ill-fitting shoes had become proper leather boots in a neat English cut. His careful green eyes held, for just a moment, something that looked like hope.
She lifted the Hat from his head, her voice had a gentleness not present with anyone else.
"Are you ready, Mr. Green? Your new life is calling for you."
Sheen blinked. Then Professor McGonagall gave him a gentle, unhurried push in the direction of the Ravenclaw table.
"Welcome!" A slightly round young wizard near an empty seat was waving him over enthusiastically. "I can't believe it — you're a Hatstall!"
Bright, curious eyes peered at him from behind large copper-framed glasses. The boy gathered himself and stuck out his hand — but his glasses chose that moment to slide down his nose, so the hand went to catch them instead, and he started apologising to Sheen in a flustered flurry.
"Hatstall?" Sheen asked, unbothered, his large eyes genuinely puzzled.
"Oh — goodness — you don't know?!"
The slightly round boy's mouth fell open.
"Terry. Not everyone makes a study of that decrepit old hat." A voice came from behind him — a dark-haired boy, somewhere between exasperated and amused, cutting off whatever Terry had been about to launch into.
"Don't mind him. Terry has a habit of investigating things that nobody else thinks to investigate. When I sat down, he was asking me how many windows Hogwarts has. Merlin's beard — who cares about that? Unless they all fell out at once and landed on Terry Boot while he was down there counting them."
"The windows matter!" Terry said, going rather red.
"Of course they do," the dark-haired boy said, in the tone of someone managing a situation. Then he turned to Sheen with considerably more genuine interest.
"A Hatstall is what they call a sorting that takes more than five minutes. Extremely rare — said to occur once every fifty years or so. Anyway — I'm Michael Corner. Welcome to Ravenclaw."
He held out his hand.
Sheen shook it, and frowned slightly.
More than five minutes? He could have sworn it had only been a moment. A brief exchange, and then the Hat had made its announcement.
As though something had taken the time without him noticing.
He filed that away. There were seven years to investigate everything this school had "Sheen Green." He introduced himself to the boy before turning his eyes towards the empty plates...how much longer....
-----------------------------
When the last new student had been sorted into Slytherin, Dumbledore rose to his feet. He beamed at the assembled students with his arms spread wide, as though nothing in the world gave him greater pleasure than a full hall.
"Welcome!" he said. "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!"
Terry's quill moved at a furious pace. Michael wore the expression of a person whose expectations had been entirely confirmed.
Sheen paid none of this any attention, because the table in front of him had filled, as if by magic — which, in fairness, it had.
Roast beef, roast chicken, pork chops, lamb chops, sausages, steak, boiled potatoes, roast potatoes, chips, Yorkshire pudding, peas, carrots, gravy, ketchup, apple pie, treacle tart, chocolate éclairs, jam doughnuts, trifle, strawberries, jelly, rice pudding—
Sheen checked the spread against the mental list he had compiled beforehand. It matched the list, to the last dish.
Right then, he told himself.
Begin.
He did so with quiet and systematic thoroughness.
"How," Michael said, staring, turning to the boy on his left, "is he managing to eat that fast and still look that dignified?"
(End of Chapter)