Chapter Text
The compartment was quiet. The rhythmic clatter of the wheels on the track had settled into something almost hypnotic, and Harry found himself breathing in the four-count pattern without meaning to.
He thought about Natasha standing on the platform. The way she'd gone rigid when he hugged her and then held on.
He thought about the spell she'd taught him last week. The one she wouldn't let him board the train without learning.
He thought about Hogwarts, waiting at the end of this track, full of people who knew his name before he'd spoken it.
A knock on the compartment door.
Harry turned his head.
A girl stood in the corridor, one hand resting lightly on the door frame. She was about his age, with long blonde hair that fell straight past her shoulders and sharp blue eyes that moved over Harry and the compartment with quick, assessing interest. She held herself very still, her posture straight, her chin slightly lifted.
"Is this seat taken?" she asked. Her voice was clear.
"No," Harry said. "Go ahead."
She stepped in, closed the door behind her, and sat across from him. She crossed one ankle over the other, folded her hands in her lap, and looked at him with the calm patience waiting for him to speak first.
Harry realized he was supposed to introduce himself.
"I'm Harry," he said. "Harry Potter."
The girl's expression didn't change, but something shifted behind her eyes, a spark of recognition.
"Oh, You're the famous Harry Potter."
"I wouldn't say famous."
"You wouldn't have to. Everyone else will say it for you." She extended her hand. "Daphne Greengrass."
Harry shook it. Her grip was firm and deliberate.
"We'll be hearing a lot from you and your story, I expect," Daphne said, settling back into her seat. "All eyes will be on you at the sorting ceremony. You know that, don't you?"
"I've been warned."
"Warned." She tilted her head. "By whom?"
"My aunt."
"Your aunt must be a sensible woman."
Harry thought about Natasha throwing tennis balls at his head while he recited incantations and decided that sensible was one word for it.
"She has her moments," he said.
Daphne studied him with those sharp blue eyes, and Harry had the uncomfortable sense that she was trying to read him.
"Do you have any idea where you might belong?" she asked. "Which house?"
Harry considered the question. He'd read about all four houses in Hogwarts: A History, had discussed them with Natasha over dinner, had turned the question over in his mind during long walks around the property. Gryffindor, where the brave lived. Slytherin, where the ambitious gathered. Ravenclaw for the clever. Hufflepuff for the loyal.
"I don't know at all," he said honestly. "Could be Slytherin. Could be Gryffindor. It's not a problem for me either way. Wherever I end up, I think I'll handle it."
Daphne's eyebrows rose, just slightly. "Most people would have said Gryffindor without thinking. The hero's house." She paused. "You mentioned Slytherin first."
"Did I?"
"You did."
Harry shrugged. "My aunt told me not to make assumptions about any of the houses. She said every house has produced great witches and wizards, and every house has produced terrible ones. The name on the door doesn't decide who you are."
"Your aunt sounds like she should be teaching at Hogwarts."
"She'd terrify the students."
"Is that not what teachers are for?" Daphne's mouth curved again, and this time it was a proper smile. "I'll be in Slytherin. My family has been Slytherin for generations."
"And you want that?"
"I want what suits me." She met his eyes. "Slytherin has a bad name. Has for years. People hear Slytherin and think Dark wizard, Death Eater, You-Know-Who. Most of the worst wizards of the last century came from that house, and nobody lets the rest of us forget it."
"But?"
"But ambition isn't the same as cruelty. Wanting to be great isn't the same as wanting to hurt people. Slytherin rewards cleverness, strategy, and self-preservation. The house doesn't make the person. The person makes the house. Most people are too lazy to understand the difference."
Harry looked at her. She spoke like someone who had thought about this for a long time, who had practised the argument in her head and decided she was right.
"My aunt would like you," Harry said.
"I'll take that as a compliment."
"It is one."
They talked. Not about anything earth-shattering. Daphne asked about the owl, and Harry told her the name was Galadriel, and Daphne said she didn't know the reference, and Harry explained Tolkien in the shortest possible terms ("Muggle author, wrote about elves and rings and a dragon sitting on a pile of gold"), and Daphne said it sounded like a book about Gringotts, and Harry laughed, and Galadriel opened one amber eye to glare at both of them for disturbing her sleep.
They talked about classes. Daphne was looking forward to Potions, which she said required precision and discipline, two things she valued. Harry said he was most curious about Defence Against the Dark Arts, which made Daphne look at him with an expression that suggested she was filing that information away for later use.
They talked about Quidditch. Daphne followed it casually; Harry told her he'd been flying for a year and loved it, and she said first-years weren't allowed their own broomsticks, which Harry already knew and was already annoyed about.
They were in the middle of a conversation about whether the Hogwarts library was actually the largest in Britain (Daphne doubted it; Harry defended the claim on the authority of Natasha, who had been there) when the compartment door slid open again.
A boy stood in the doorway.
He was round-faced and soft around the edges, with brown hair that stuck up at odd angles and eyes that were slightly too wide, as though the world kept surprising him and he hadn't learned to stop being startled by it. He was holding a toad in both hands. His robes were slightly too large, and there was a smudge of something on his left cheek, and everything about him gave the impression of a boy who had been having a very difficult day.
He looked at Harry. Then at Daphne. Then on the floor.
"Sorry," he said. "I was just... I've been walking up and down the train for a while. The corridors. I tried to sit in a compartment earlier, but some boys told me it was full, and it wasn't, they just didn't want me there, I've sort of been standing in the corridor since then, and my legs are getting tired, and I know this is probably full too, but I thought I'd ask in case..."
He trailed off, still looking at the floor.
Harry glanced at the compartment. There were six seats. He occupied one. Daphne occupied another. Galadriel's cage took up a third, but he could move it to the luggage rack.
Daphne stood up before Harry could speak. She gestured to the seat beside the window, next to Harry, with a brisk wave of her hand.
"Sit down," she said. "There are plenty of seats."
The boy blinked at her. "Really?"
"I wouldn't have said it if I didn't mean it." She sat back down. "What's your name?"
"Neville," the boy said, lowering himself into the seat as if he expected someone to tell him he wasn't allowed. "Neville Longbottom."
Harry's head turned.
It was fast. Faster than he intended. The name hit him, and his body reacted before his brain caught up, his eyes locking on the boy's face with a sharpness that he saw Daphne notice.
Longbottom.
The name. Natasha had said it one evening at the kitchen table, during one of the conversations about the Order of the Phoenix. She had been telling Harry about the people who fought alongside his parents, the ones who had given everything. She had mentioned a couple. Frank and Alice Longbottom. Aurors. Brave and brilliant. They hadn't been killed. That would have been kinder.
They had been tortured. By Death Eaters. After Voldemort's fall, followers of the Dark Lord had found the Longbottoms and used the Cruciatus Curse on them, again and again, until their minds broke. They were alive. They were in St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries. They didn't recognize their own son.
Natasha had told Harry this with the same flat, controlled voice she used when she was angry about something she couldn't fix.
Harry looked at Neville Longbottom, who was sitting on the edge of his seat, clutching his toad, wearing robes that were too big for him, and who had been walking the corridors of the train for what sounded like over an hour because nobody would let him sit down.
He wanted to ask him, but he made a decision not to ask him anything today, not going to make his first day harder than it had till now.
So he relaxed and said, "Nice to meet you, Neville. I'm Harry. Harry Potter."
Neville looked up at him. His eyes went to Harry's forehead, to the scar, and then back to his face, and for a moment he just stared.
"You're Harry Potter," he said. "The Harry Potter."
"Just Harry is fine."
"My gran talks about you," Neville said, and then immediately went red. "Sorry. That's probably weird. Everyone probably says that."
"It's not weird." Harry nodded at the toad. "What's his name?"
"Trevor." Neville looked down at the toad with an expression of fond exasperation. "He keeps escaping. I've lost him three times since we left King's Cross, and we've only been on the train for an hour."
"Impressive," Daphne said. "On both your parts."
Neville wasn't sure if that was a compliment or not. Harry could see him trying to work it out.
"This is Daphne Greengrass," Harry said.
"Hello," Neville said cautiously.
"Hello," Daphne said. "Which house are you hoping for?"
"Gryffindor," Neville said, and then added, quieter, "but I don't think I'm brave enough."
"Bravery isn't something you feel," Harry said. "It's something you do when you're scared. You've been walking up and down this train for an hour because people kept telling you to leave, and you kept trying anyway. That sounds brave to me."
Neville stared at him. Then he looked down at Trevor, and his ears went pink, and he didn't say anything, but the grip on the toad loosened slightly, which Harry took as a good sign.
The compartment settled into a comfortable quiet for a few minutes. Galadriel dozed. Trevor croaked once and went silent. Outside, the countryside had given way to wilder terrain, moors and crags and patches of forest that looked ancient and untouched.
Then a rattling sound filled the corridor, and a cheerful voice called out.
"Anything from the trolley, dears?"
A plump, smiling witch appeared in the doorway, pushing a cart stacked with sweets and snacks that Harry had never seen before. Cauldron Cakes. Pumpkin Pasties. Chocolate Frogs. Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans. Drooble's Best Blowing Gum. Liquorice Wands. The cart was a tower of colour and sugar, and the smell that came off it was warm and sweet and completely overwhelming.
Harry stood up. He dug into his pocket and pulled out a handful of Galleons.
"I'll take some of those," he said, pointing at the Chocolate Frogs. "And some of those. And those."
The witch handed him the sweets, and Harry kept pointing. Pumpkin Pasties, three of them. A bag of Bertie Bott's. Two Cauldron Cakes. Another handful of Chocolate Frogs, because they seemed important and he had no idea why.
"That's quite an appetite, dear," the witch said, counting out his change.
Harry carried the haul back to his seat and divided it into three piles. He put one in front of Daphne. One in front of Neville. And kept the third for himself.
Neville looked at the pile of sweets in front of him, then at Harry, then back at the sweets.
"You don't have to do that," he said.
"I know."
"I have money, I could have..."
"I wanted to." Harry opened a Chocolate Frog and caught it before it leapt off his palm. "Consider it a compartment tax. You sit here, you eat sweets. Those are the rules."
"I don't remember agreeing to those rules," Daphne said, but she was already unwrapping a Pumpkin Pasty.
Neville picked up a Chocolate Frog with the hesitant reverence of someone who wasn't used to being given things. He opened it carefully, and the frog jumped onto his shoulder, and Trevor lunged for it, and for about five seconds the compartment descended into chaos as Neville tried to catch the frog without dropping the toad while Harry grabbed for Trevor and Daphne sat perfectly still with her Pumpkin Pasty and watched the entire performance while smiling.
"Got him!" Neville held up the Chocolate Frog in one hand and Trevor in the other, red-faced and grinning.
"Impressive reflexes," Daphne said, smiling.
"My gran says I'm clumsy."
"Your gran hasn't seen you catch a chocolate frog while keeping an actual one."
Neville laughed. It was the first time he'd laughed since entering the compartment, and it transformed his face entirely, from anxious and uncertain to bright and young and surprised by his own happiness.
Harry bit into his Pumpkin Pasty and watched the moors roll past outside the window. The compartment was warm now. Three strangers who had been alone an hour ago, sitting together, eating sweets, and talking about nothing important.
He thought about Natasha's parting words. Be brave. But be smart first.
He thought about Susan Bones, who had promised to save him a seat and was somewhere else on this train.
He thought about the Sorting, which was coming in a few hours, and which would separate them into houses that were supposed to define them for the next seven years.
And he decided, sitting there with chocolate on his fingers and an owl sleeping beside him and two people he hadn't known an hour ago eating sweets he'd bought them, that no matter where the hat put him, these were the first people he'd chosen to sit with. And that mattered more than whatever name a piece of enchanted headwear gave to the room he slept in.
"Harry," Daphne said.
"Hm?"
"You've got chocolate on your nose."
Harry wiped his nose. "Better?"
"Marginally."
Neville laughed again. Trevor croaked. Galadriel opened one eye, decided nothing was worth waking for, and went back to sleep.
The train slowed, and the view outside the window changed. The rolling green fields started to be darker. The wheels screeched against the track, and the Hogwarts Express shuddered to a stop.
Harry stood, straightened his robes, and felt the weight of his wand in his pocket. Around him, students poured into the corridor, voices overlapping, trunks scraping, owls protesting the commotion. Galadriel hooted sharply from her cage.
He stepped off the train onto a dark platform. The air was cold and smelled of pine and water. Lanterns hung from iron hooks along the platform, casting pools of yellow light that didn't quite reach each other.
"Firs' years! Firs' years over here!"
The voice was enormous. This voice filled a railway platform without trying, the way thunder fills a valley, because it had no choice but to be that large.
Harry turned toward it and looked up.
Then he looked up more.
The man standing at the end of the platform was the biggest human being Harry had ever seen. He was easily twice the height of a normal man, possibly more, with a wild mane of dark hair and a beard so thick it could have housed a family of birds. He wore a massive overcoat made of something that might have been moleskin, and his hands, each one larger than Harry Uperbody's.
Harry stared. He had read about half-giants in Natasha's books. He had understood, intellectually, that they were large. But understanding that something is large and standing in front of it are entirely different experiences. If this was a half-giant, Harry thought, then a full giant must be something you could see from the next county.
"Firs' years! Follow me! Mind yer step!"
The man's eyes swept the crowd of small, nervous eleven-year-olds gathering around him, and when they landed on Harry, they stopped. The enormous face broke into a smile.
"Harry Potter," the man said, and his voice dropped to what he probably thought was a whisper but was actually just a slightly quieter boom. "I've been waitin' to meet yeh. I'm Rubeus Hagrid, Keeper of Keys and Grounds at Hogwarts."
He extended one of his massive hands. Harry took it. His hand disappeared entirely inside Hagrid's grip, and the handshake was so enthusiastic that Harry's entire arm moved with it, but the grip itself was careful.
"Yer welcome, Harry," he said thickly. "Yer very welcome. Now then! Firs' years! Follow me down to the boats! And don' fall in the lake, I'm not fishin' anyone out tonight!"
They followed Hagrid down a narrow, winding path through the trees. The first years walked in a tight cluster, whispering and stumbling in the dark, and Harry walked among them.
The path ended at the edge of a black lake. A fleet of small boats sat in the shallows, each one fitted with a lantern at the bow. The water was dark and still and reflected the stars.
"No more'n four to a boat!" Hagrid called, climbing into one by himself, which it took an entire boat to hold him.
Harry climbed into the nearest one. Susan Bones appeared beside him, her plait slightly windswept from the train ride.
"Told you I'd save you a seat," she said, grinning.
The boats moved on their own, gliding across the lake in silence. Nobody spoke. The only sound was the soft lap of water against wood.
And then the castle appeared.
It came into view all at once, as they rounded a bend in the shoreline, and every first year in every boat went quiet at the same moment.
Hogwarts stood on top of a cliff, towering over the lake, and it was vast. Towers and turrets reached into the night sky, lit from within by hundreds and hundreds of windows that glowed warm and golden against the dark stone. The castle lights were reflected in the water below, a perfect mirror image, so that it looked like there were two castles, one above and one below, reaching toward each other.
Harry thought of Silverspire, the name he'd invented in the car with Natasha on the first day. He'd imagined silver towers on a mountain, flags and eagles. The reality was different. Hogwarts wasn't silver. It was stone, ancient and weathered, and it didn't need flags or eagles. It was the most extraordinary thing he had ever seen, and it was called Hogwarts, and maybe Natasha had been right. Maybe the name did grow on you.
The boats reached the shore. They climbed stone steps carved into the cliff face and arrived at a massive oak door. Hagrid knocked three times.
The door opened, and Professor McGonagall stood behind it.
She looked exactly the same as she had at Willowmere Hollow: emerald robes, square spectacles, pointed hat.
"Thank you, Hagrid," she said. "I will take them from here."
Hagrid nodded, gave Harry one last enormous smile, and disappeared into the darkness.
McGonagall led them into the entrance hall, which was enormous, lit with flaming torches, and floored with stone. A grand staircase rose ahead of them, and from somewhere beyond the walls, the sound of hundreds of voices echoed.
"Welcome to Hogwarts," McGonagall said. "In a few moments, you will pass through these doors and join your classmates. But first, you must be sorted into your houses. They are Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and Slytherin. Your house will be something of a family within the school. You will have classes with the rest of your house, sleep in your house dormitory, and spend free time in your house common room."
She paused, letting the words settle.
"The Sorting Ceremony will begin shortly. I suggest you all smarten yourselves up as much as possible while you are waiting."
She left. The first years stood in the entrance hall and looked at each other with the shared expression of people who had just been told something important but weren't entirely sure what.
"How do they sort you?" a round-faced boy beside Harry whispered. He was pale and slightly sweaty and looked like he might be sick.
"A hat," Harry said. "You put it on and it decides."
The boy looked at him. "A hat?"
"It's a very old hat."
"That doesn't make it better."
Harry almost smiled.
The doors opened.
McGonagall led them into the Great Hall.
The hall was lit by thousands of candles floating in midair above four long tables where the rest of the students sat. The ceiling above was dark and scattered with stars, and it took Harry a moment to realise it wasn't a ceiling at all but an enchantment that reflected the sky outside. At the far end, a high table was set for the staff, and in the centre of it sat a very old man with a long silver beard, half-moon spectacles, and robes of deep purple.
Dumbledore. Harry recognized him from descriptions in Natasha's books, and from what she'd told him about the Order.
McGonagall placed a three-legged stool in front of the first years and set a pointed wizard's hat on top of it. The hat was old, Harry said to Daphne, who was close to him, that they would have to wash the head after they finished sorting through this ugly hat. Then a rip near the brim opened wide, and the hat sang.
It sang about the four houses, about bravery and cunning and loyalty and wit, about the founders who had built the school a thousand years ago. Harry listened to the words and tried to feel which ones resonated, but his mind was too crowded with everything else.
When the song ended, the hall applauded.
"When I call your name," McGonagall announced, holding a long scroll of parchment, "you will put on the hat and sit on the stool to be sorted."
She began reading names.
"Abbott, Hannah!"
A girl with blonde pigtails stumbled forward, sat on the stool, and the hat was placed on her head. A moment later it shouted: "HUFFLEPUFF!" The table on the right erupted in cheers.
Names continued. "Bones, Susan!"
Susan caught Harry's eye, gave him a quick, nervous grin, and walked to the stool. The hat barely touched her head before it called out: "HUFFLEPUFF!" Susan's face broke into pure relief, and she jogged to the Hufflepuff table, where Hannah Abbott was already saving her a seat.
"Granger, Hermione!"
A girl with bushy brown hair practically ran to the stool. The hat took nearly a minute before declaring: "GRYFFINDOR!"
"Greengrass, Daphne!"
The hat sat on her head for several seconds. "SLYTHERIN!" The table on the far left applauded. Daphne Greengrass sat down among them with her chin held high.
"Longbottom, Neville!"
He stood, took a step forward, and tripped.
He went down hard. His foot caught the edge of the stone floor where it met the raised platform, and he crashed onto his hands and knees in front of the entire school. The hat, which McGonagall had been holding out toward him, tumbled off the stool and rolled across the floor.
Laughter erupted. Not from one table or two, but from everywhere. Hundreds of students, older and younger, laughing at a boy on the floor who was already shaking with embarrassment.
Harry was on his feet immediately without thinking.
He walked to where Neville was trying to push himself up. Harry reached down and gripped his arm.
"Come on," he said quietly. "Up you go."
Neville looked at him. His eyes were wet, and he opened his mouth to say something, but Harry was already pulling him upright, and he turned to face the hall with Neville beside him.
The laughter had faded. Not all of it, but most, because Harry was looking at the tables with an expression that Natasha would have recognized. He didn't say anything. He just stood there, holding Neville's arm, and waited until the hall was quiet.
Then he picked up the hat and held it out to Neville.
"Go on," Harry said. "It's just a hat."
Neville took it. His hands were still shaking, but he managed a nod. He sat on the stool and put the hat on his head.
The hat took a long time. Then it opened its brim and shouted: "GRYFFINDOR!"
The Gryffindor table cheered. Neville pulled the hat off and looked at Harry with an expression of such gratitude that Harry felt his face warm. Neville hurried to the Gryffindor table and sat down next to the bushy-haired girl, who immediately began talking to him.
"Malfoy, Draco!"
A boy with a pale, pointed face and white-blond hair walked to the stool with the confidence of someone who already knew the outcome. The hat barely grazed his head: "SLYTHERIN!"
More names. The list grew shorter. Harry watched each one, filing faces and houses, the way Natasha had taught him to observe.
"Potter, Harry!"
The hall went silent.
An immediate, total silence, as if someone had cast a spell on every mouth in the room. Every head turned. Every eye found him.
Harry walked to the stool. His footsteps echoed on the stone floor. He sat down, and McGonagall placed the hat on his head, and the Great Hall vanished.
"Well, well, well," said a small voice in his ear. "Harry Potter. I've been looking forward to this."
Harry said nothing.
"Difficult. Very difficult. Plenty of courage, yes. A good mind. Talent, certainly. And a thirst to prove yourself. Oh my, yes."
The hat was quiet for a moment.
"You've been trained," it said, and there was surprise in its voice. "Properly trained. Breathing exercises, visualization, core sensing. Who taught you this?"
Harry thought of Natasha but said nothing.
"You have discipline. Uncommon in one so young. And your mind is protected, not walled but structured. You think before you act. You plan. You observe before you engage." The hat paused. "You could do well in Ravenclaw. That mind of yours would thrive there."
Harry waited.
"But no, it's not knowledge you want.You want to use what you learn. To be ready. To survive. There's ambition in you, Mr. Potter, though you might not call it that. The desire to become more than what you were. To never be helpless again. To never be the boy in the cupboard."
Harry's hands tightened on the edge of the stool.
"And loyalty. Deep loyalty, but selective. You don't give it freely. You give it to those who've earned it, and once given, it doesn't break." The hat hummed. "Gryffindor would welcome you. Your parents were Gryffindors, both of them. You have their courage."
"I know," Harry thought.
"But courage isn't what drives you. Not at your core. What drives you is the promise you made to yourself in that cupboard. That you would never be powerless again. That you would be ready when the moment came. That is not the wish of a lion, Mr. Potter. That is the wish of a serpent."
The hat was quiet for what felt like a very long time.
"Better be... SLYTHERIN!"
The word hit the Great Hall and broke the silence into pieces.
For a moment, nothing happened. The hall was frozen. Harry pulled the hat off his head and saw a thousand faces staring at him, mouths open, eyes wide. At the Gryffindor table, the bushy-haired girl had her hand over her mouth. At the staff table, Dumbledore's expression was unreadable. McGonagall, standing beside the stool, had gone very still.
Then the Slytherin table erupted.
The applause started slow, a few scattered claps, and then it built, louder and louder, chairs scraping back, students rising to their feet, voices calling out. By the time Harry reached the table, the entire Slytherin house was standing, clapping, some of them shouting, and the noise was deafening.
Harry sat down. The blond boy from earlier, Malfoy, was staring at him from three seats away with an expression Harry couldn't read. Daphne Greengrass, who had been sorted earlier, gave him a single, measured nod.
At the other tables, the shock was settling into whispers. Harry could feel the weight of a hundred conversations beginning at once, all of them about him. The Boy Who Lived. In Slytherin. The house of Voldemort. The house of the dark wizards who had murdered his parents.
Harry sat with his hands flat on the table and his back straight and his breathing steady.
He was exactly where he was supposed to be.
The sorting continued. "Thomas, Dean!" went to Gryffindor. "Weasley, Ronald!" went to Gryffindor, joining a cluster of redheads who cheered louder than anyone. "Zabini, Blaise!" went to Slytherin and sat across from Harry with a look of cool appraisal.
When the last name was called and the stool was removed, Dumbledore rose to his feet.
The hall fell quiet again. The headmaster stood at the centre of the high table, tall and thin, his silver beard catching the candlelight. He spread his arms wide and smiled.
"Welcome," he said, and his voice filled the entire hall. "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! Thank you."
He sat down.
Harry stared at him. He looked at Daphne Greengrass, who raised one eyebrow.
Food appeared on the golden platters. Mountains of it. Roast beef, roast chicken, pork chops, lamb, sausages, steak, boiled potatoes, roast potatoes, chips, Yorkshire pudding, peas, carrots, gravy, ketchup, and peppermint humbugs. Harry, who had been eating Natasha's cooking for a year and thought he knew what good food looked like, stared at the spread and felt his stomach remind him that he had forgotten to eat on the train.
He ate. The food was extraordinary. Around him, the Slytherin table buzzed with conversation, and some of it was directed at him, questions and introductions and the careful, probing politeness of people who were trying to figure out where he fit.
Harry answered politely. He gave nothing away. He observed.
When the last of the dessert had vanished and the golden plates were clean, Dumbledore rose again.
"Just a few more words now that we are all fed and watered. I have a few start-of-term notices to give you. First years should note that the forest on the grounds is forbidden to all pupils. I have also been asked by Mr. Filch, the caretaker, to remind you all that no magic should be used between classes in the corridors."
He paused. His expression shifted. The twinkle in his eyes dimmed, and when he spoke again, his voice was heavier.
"And finally, I must tell you that this year, the third-floor corridor on the right-hand side is out of bounds to everyone who does not wish to die a very painful death."
A few students laughed. Most did not. Harry didn't.
Something was on the third floor, dangerous enough to warrant a death threat from a headmaster.
Harry filed it away. He would write to Natasha about it tonight. She would want to know.
The benches scraped back. Students rose. Prefects called for first years to follow. Harry stood and joined the stream of green-and-silver-trimmed robes heading toward the dungeons.
He was in Slytherin. The house that everyone in the Great Hall had assumed he would never be placed in. The house that had produced the wizard who killed his parents.
And somewhere in the castle, behind a door on the third floor, something was waiting.
Harry touched his wand through the fabric of his robes and followed the prefect into the dark.