Anthony, a fluffy-haired blonde wizard, thought about it seriously for a moment.
"I don't know."
"You don't know what you were thinking about?!"
Michael sighed, he was fairly certain that his two new acquaintances — Anthony and Terry — were going to collectively shave years off his life.
As for the question of how someone could eat so quickly while remaining so composed —
An impoverished orphanage tends to develop creative methods for managing its children. Most of these methods served no purpose beyond wearing the children down, body and spirit. The only real beneficiaries are the carers themselves, who accumulate an ever-growing list of reasons to scold and belittle.
As a result, Sheen had been forced to absorb certain things along the way. Etiquette, among them. Table manners, posture, a prescribed way of readying oneself for bed — a whole regiment of small performances that could earn reprimand from the caretakers for the smallest mistakes.
'At least I'm out of there', he thought. 'If I weren't, Nurse Anna would make the most of her remaining days before being fired.'
—------------------
In the Great Hall, the evening proceeded in its various directions.
Dumbledore laughed and conversed with the staff at the head table.
Sheen ate.
Michael attempted to strike up conversation with several witches nearby.
Sheen ate.
Terry took meticulous notes on Dumbledore's opening remarks.
Sheen ate.
The noise in the hall gradually settled. The food on the tables disappeared.
"And now," Dumbledore's voice rang out warmly, " seeing as we are all fed and watered!"
Are we? Sheen thought to himself.
He wasn't too sure about that.
Dumbledore continued — three notices: no one was to enter the corridor on the third-floor right-hand side, the Forbidden Forest was out of bounds, and there was to be no wandering the school after hours.
"And now — before we go to bed — let us sing the school song!"
A certain liveliness entered Dumbledore's voice. Sheen glanced along the staff table and observed that every professor's smile had gone from genuine to very clearly strained, Snape in particular pinched the bridge of his long nose in exasperation as he closed his eyes.
He understood why, shortly afterward.
"This is dreadful," Sheen said, covering his ears.
"If you don't want to listen, you have to sing!" Michael bellowed with tremendous enthusiasm and absolutely no sense of pitch. "If you're not making it worse for everyone else, everyone else is making it worse for you!"
"...Fair point."
And so Sheen sang:
Hogwarts, Hogwarts, Hoggy Warty Hogwarts,
Teach us something please,
Whether we be old and bald or young with scabby knees,
Our heads could do with filling with some interesting stuff,
For now they're bare and full of air, dead flies and bits of fluff,
So teach us things worth knowing, bring back what we've forgot,
Just do your best, we'll do the rest, and learn until our brains all rot.
"You have a wonderful voice!" Michael said afterward, leaning over.
Sheen nodded. He had borrowed a tune from a pop song he'd known in his previous life.
The effect was reasonable — the collective caterwauling around him had, at least, diminished somewhat.
Shortly after, they followed a tall prefect out of the Great Hall and up the moving staircases. Sheen looked back at the empty plates with a small bit of sadness, 'i will be back in the morning, oh beautiful food…'
They climbed the stairs…and they kept climbing…
"These stairs are going to be the death of me," Michael announced, slumped over the banister with the expression of a man who had made peace with his fate.
"You said exactly the same thing about the prefect's legs, two minutes ago," Anthony said, with a look of magnificent disdain.
"Excuse me?! That is classified information, Anthony! There is a code between friends! You can't just–you- You —You come here!—"
Michael somehow summoned the energy to lunge across and attack Anthony's ribs.
By the time Sheen reached the common room, his face was pale. Another flight of stairs and his body would have filed a formal complaint. His legs might have even asked for divorce.
'I'll need to find a better way to climb stairs' he thought to himself bitterly, catching his breath in small, quiet gasps.
The first-year Ravenclaws had assembled in the common room. A prefect with golden hair waited for them with a patient smile, giving them time to recover before she spoke.
"Congratulations! I'm Penelope Clearwater, your prefect, and it is my very great pleasure to welcome you to Ravenclaw.
Our emblem is the eagle — soaring where others cannot reach. Our common room sits at the very top of Ravenclaw Tower, and through these arched windows you can see the whole of the Hogwarts grounds: the Black Lake, the Forbidden Forest, the Quidditch pitch, and the greenhouses. No other house has this view."
She paused to let that settle.
"Some people think that's not particularly useful. I can tell you — once you've learned to fly a broomstick, it is extraordinary.
Our house ghost is the Grey Lady. Others may find her silent, but she speaks to Ravenclaws. A small piece of gossip: some believe she lived during the same era as our founder, and the two may have been connected. She is especially useful when you're lost, or when something has gone missing.
And I am confident you will all sleep very well tonight — our four-poster beds are made up with sky-blue silk eiderdowns, and there is always a breeze past the windows."
She smiled.
"I will say it once more: congratulations on becoming a member of the cleverest, most quick-witted, and most interesting house at Hogwarts."
No flourishes, no fuss — just the right words, precisely placed. The first-years' eyes had lit up by the time she finished. This was why Michael, and most of the other Ravenclaws, applauded so warmly.
Flying, Sheen noted to himself, filing it away.
Some of the more accomplished Ravenclaw fliers were said to simply fly back up to the tower. He made a mental note of this, ranked it in importance just below the scholarship, and then turned his attention to the common room itself.
The Ravenclaw common room was said to be one of the most airy and spacious rooms in the castle — a wide, circular space with graceful arched windows, hung with silk in blue and bronze. Through those windows, the grounds spread out in the darkness below. The ceiling was a dome scattered with stars; the deep-blue carpet beneath his feet was scattered with stars too.
There were tables and chairs, bookshelves along the walls, and in a niche opposite of the door stood a white marble bust of Rowena Ravenclaw herself.
Beside the bust, a door led upward to the dormitories. Prefect Clearwater was already pointing toward it.
"Now — come and collect your timetables, then head through that door to your rooms. Your dormitory assignments are printed on the back."
She distributed them with efficient calm, directing the young Ravenclaws into an orderly queue.
Sheen looked at his. Potions — the most demanding subject on the list — was first thing Monday morning. Two periods back to back.
The urgency was immediate. He had a sudden, strong desire to go directly to bed and review Magical Drafts and Potions — he had only read it through once, and if something slipped his mind in Snape's classroom, there would be no Half-Blood Prince to quietly assist him.
"Sheen!"
Michael's voice, bright with excitement. Sheen turned.
"My nan always says a person who loves food is a person worth knowing!" He waved his timetable cheerfully. On the back, in the dormitory column, it read:
Room 404: Sheen Green, Michael Corner.
They made their way to the dormitory — Michael with his arm slung around Sheen's shoulders, entirely of his own initiative.
The room was hung in blue and silver.
Each bed had its own bookshelf; arched windows dressed with blue silk. Sheen took this in briefly, then his attention settled on what mattered most.
The quilts were thick. Deep teal, generously stuffed.
No freezing tonight, Sheen smiled.
(End of Chapter)