Chapter 4: Sorting part 1

Beta read by Shigiya, Darklord331 and DOOMRAIDER.

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-Train stop-

As we reached our final destination, the train's rail wheel screeched itself to a slow halt. It was dark outside already, the journey didn't last as long as I expected. 

People pushed their way toward the door and out onto a tiny, dark platform like a pack of sheep. I decided to wait a bit and not get accidentally squashed by the crazy horde of crazy kids. 

My body shivered in the cold night air. Then a lamp came bobbing over the heads of the students, and I heard a familiar voice of the lovable giant from the movies. 

"Firs' years! Firs' years over here! All right there, Harry?" 

When he called out the name, I immediately zoned in on the so-called 'Boy who lived'. He looked slightly different from what I remembered, more scrawny than I expected and pale-skinned. Must have been due to spending most of the time locked up under the stairs cupboard. As expected, he was accompanied by the redhead Ronald Wesley and surprisingly, Neville Longbottom. 

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"An interesting change from the movies, though it does make me wonder how things will proceed from this small change… I'm overthinking things." It was a minor event that didn't need to be examined so thoroughly for no reason. 

From the looks of it, the boy was still searching for his toad. 'Hang in there buddy, you'll definitely find your pet soon enough.'

Now, onto Hagrid, I had to crank my head all the way up just to see his face. The man made people like Shaquille O'Neal and Yao Ming look like midgets. 'He should be near 3 meters tall or less.'

Certainly far taller than his movie counterpart, though not as big as trolls or giants from what I had read about the latter.

Anyways, the giant certainly looked happy and tried to be friendly with us. He tried to be as less frightening as possible to the new ones. I knew this guy's heart was as big as his size, in the movies, I always smiled whenever he would appear on screen. 

He was and still is, my favorite character.

Hagrid's big hairy face beamed as he mentioned us to follow him. "C'mon, follow me—any more firs' years? Mind yer step, now! Firs' years follow me!" He even had that thick accent of his.

Draco was nowhere to be seen.

Hermione was probably making sure no one forgot anything inside the train, knowing her character.

The kids pushed each other once again making some slip and fall, and we followed Hagrid down what seemed to be a steep, narrow path. It was so dark on either side of them that a few even muttered that there must be thick trees there. Nobody spoke much. Neville, the boy who kept losing his toad, sniffed once or twice. Whether he was crying or had a cold was unknown to me.

"Yeh'll get yer firs' sight o' Hogwarts in a sec," Hagrid called over his shoulder, "jus' round this bend here."

There was a loud "Oooooh!" 

I was one of these people, the view in front of me was just… breathtaking.

The movies couldn't do it justice.

The narrow stone path had opened suddenly onto the edge of a great black lake—reflecting the full moon on the surface—Perched atop a high mountain on the other side, its windows sparkling in the starry sky, was a vast castle with many turrets and towers. An ancient and magical palace filled with wonders beyond anyone's imagination.

I was truly living in a fairy tale.

"No more'n four to a boat!" Hagrid called, pointing to a fleet of little boats sitting in the water by the shore. I carefully boarded the small boat which looked as ancient as the castle and made me feel like I would fall at any moment. I had a deep fear of the ocean, and sitting there made my heart beat like an engine.

'The dark depths just keep reminding me of that place on top of that…' 

I was joined soon after by two familiar faces and a new one. Draco looked like he had eaten an entire lemon with his sour expression. Hermione just silently sat opposite to me and didn't even glance at my brother once. The third was another girl with blonde hair and was actually someone I knew personally.

"Hey there Miss—cough! Hannah, it's been awhile hasn't it?" I almost greeted her formally out of habit. Now that Narcissa wasn't here, I didn't need to be that formal.

"Ja-Jarius, ni-nice to meet you again," said Hannah with a flustered expression. 

I remember Lucius talking about the Abbot family, how just like us, the Abbott family was one of the so-called Sacred Twenty-Eight. But with Hannah here, she was actually half blood, meaning she had some Muggle blood inside her. Of course, this made her receive a rather disdainful attitude towards the other families, including my own mother. It was the reason she was a bit of an anti-social outcast. We met from time to time in the past, but never went beyond a 'Hi' and 'Bye', so it was better to call us strangers even. 

"Everyone in?" shouted Hagrid, who had a boat to himself that looked comically small for the giant. "Right then—FORWARD!"

There was an initial tugging feeling and the fleet of little boats moved off all at once,  the lake, which was as smooth as glass. Everyone was silent, staring up at the great castle overhead. It towered over us as they sailed nearer and nearer to the cliff on which it stood.

"Heads down!" yelled Hagrid as the first boats reached the cliff; we all bent our heads and the little boats carried us through a curtain of ivy that hid a wide opening in the cliff face. We were carried along a dark tunnel, which seemed to be taking us right underneath the castle, until they reached a kind of underground harbor, where they clambered out onto rocks and pebbles.

As I was spectating the surroundings, I saw a small amphibian swimming near my boat. 

"Oh? Well lookie here." I rolled up my sleeves and quickly snatched the toad from the water. "Got ya!"

My actions garnered the attention of the other people beside me.

"What is that!?" Hermione asked

"Ew! You splashed some water on my face!" Draco said, wiping his face with his robe.

"It's a toad, remember the one you were searching for?" I searched for Neville and immediately found him with Harry and Ron. 'Well, giving him the toad straight away is impossible with us being separated by a couple of boats… I'll give it to him a bit later.' 

Putting the creature in my pocket could lead it to run off again and I didn't want my robe to get wet and slimy. So I held the creature in my hand as it struggled to jump away. I was really not familiar enough to handle amphibians but I tried to calm it down with a few head pats.

"You're not giving it back to him?" Hermione said, not looking grossed out by the creature like our friend Hannah here.

"You want me to jump off the boat and swim to Neville or toss this thing in the air like I was playing basketball and hope it lands on Neville?"

"..."

"That's what I thought." 

A dozen minutes later, our boats finally reached land, we walked through a passage with Hagrid's lamp being the only light source illuminating our surroundings. The walking continued for the next few minutes till we arrived at a big wooden door.

"Everyone 'ere? Good? Aight!"

Hagrid raised a gigantic fist and knocked three times on the castle door.

Bang!

Bang!

Bang!

The door swung open at once. A tall, greyish black-haired witch in emerald-green robes stood there. She had a very stern face and of course, she was none other than professor Minerva McGonagall—The strict yet kind teacher.

"The firs' years, Professor McGonagall," said Hagrid.

"Thank you, Hagrid. I will take them from here."

She pulled the door wide. If I hadn't been reincarnated as a Malfoy, I would have found the place to be enormous, but now… it was about the same size as our hallway back home. The stone walls were lit with flaming torches, the ceiling was too high to make out, and a magnificent marble staircase facing them led to the upper floor.

We followed Professor McGonagall across the flagged stone floor. I could hear the drone of hundreds of voices from a doorway to the right—the rest of the school must already be here—but Professor McGonagall showed us into a small, empty chamber off the hall. These kids crowded in way too much, standing rather closer together than they would usually have done, peering about nervously.

"Welcome to Hogwarts," said Professor McGonagall. "The start-of-term banquet will begin shortly, but before you take your seats in the Great Hall, you will be sorted into your houses. The Sorting is a very important ceremony because, while you are here, your house will be something like your family within Hogwarts. You will have classes with the rest of your house, sleep in your house dormitory, and spend free time in your house common room.

I wanted to ask if they had any internet but remembered that I was still a decade away from such technology. Even if I traveled into the future and ended up in the twenty-first century Hogwarts—things would most likely have stayed the same.

"The four houses are called Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw and Slytherin. Each house has its own noble history and each has produced outstanding witches and wizards. While you are at Hogwarts, your triumphs will earn your house points, while any rule-breaking will lose house points. At the end of the year, the house with the most points is awarded the house cup, a great honor. I hope each of you will be a credit to whichever house becomes yours."

Yeah, I may not care about much but I'm for sure making my house get that cup. Why? Because I wanted to.

"The Sorting Ceremony will take place in a few minutes in front of the rest of the school. I suggest you all smarten yourselves up as much as possible while waiting."

Her eyes lingered for a moment on every student. Some grew nervous and dusted their robes, others combed their hair with their fingers and a few just looked downwards; unable to meet her gaze.

When she locked on to me, I just gave her a peace sign. She reminded me of a stern but loving grandmother, I couldn't really fear her with that mindset.

She frowned at my action, guess in her eye, I was being rude or something.

"I shall return when we are ready for you," said Professor McGonagall. "Please wait quietly." Then she left, leaving a bunch of unsupervised eleven years old on their own.

'Well she did instruct a bunch of eleven year old kids to stay quiet, like hell that'll work.'

And as predicted, the first one to break the silence was none other than Neville… surprisingly.

"How exactly do they sort us into houses?" he asked Ron.

"Some sort of test, I think. Fred said it hurt a lot, but I think he was just joking."

Oh did he? Interesting.

"He's right you know," I chimed in beside them. When Ron saw my face, he immediately frowned heavily. "Apparently, they extract some blood by cutting your palm in a bowl which will ignite in flames. Depending on the color of the fire you'll be sorted in a different house." Many of those who weren't familiar with the ceremony gasped in horror.

Heh, gullible fools.

"By the way, here is your toad. Take it away quickly before it tries to escape again." Like seriously, this little guy wasn't heavy, but holding him so carefully for so long felt uncomfortable and I wanted to get rid of the toad as soon as possible.

"Trevor!" Neville explained with sheer happiness as he took back the creature. "T-Thanks for finding him! I didn't know how he managed to escape." 

"Hahaha, not a problem, just found him by pure luck." At least now he had a good starting impression toward me. "Now going back to the matter I was discussing previously, when your house is chosen, a red hot mark is then marked onto your skin. And unfortunately, since burn wounds are easily treatable in the wizarding world, many students have to get the mark many times a year. Very painful indeed." I could see Harry's face going all pale while Ron looked like he was ready to vomit at any moment.

"Shut up, Draco!" Wait what? "Fred told me that we had to wrestle a troll, there was no mention of blood or fire anywhere!" 

That was way worse than my story! A troll was no different than a towering dumb giant twice the size of Hagrid with at least ten times the strength! Wrestling one no matter how brave or powerful one presented themselves was no different than begging for death.

And also…

"Hey Weasley, you got the wrong person!" I went inside the crowd to search for someone. "Hey! What are you doing!? Stop dragging me!" And pulled Draco out of the crowd. 

"This is my adorable twin brother, Draco. The name's Jarius Malfoy, it's a pleasure to meet you!" I extended my hand to Ron as both he and Neville became slack jawed. Harry meanwhile, looked at me with widened eyes, and kept going back and forth between the two of us.

"There are two of you!?" Ron shouted while pointing at us.

"Why are you so shocked? You Weasleys have a set of twins as well — Fred and George if I remember correctly. We don't even need to go that far," I pointed at the two girls behind me, another set of twins. "These two are twins as well. By the way, hey girls! Nice to meet you! It's not everyday I get to meet other twin siblings, I hope we can be friends." I gave them another round of self presentation and forced Draco to do one as well. 

They giggled, one of them came forward and shook my hand with the other one following her sister's action.

"Hi, I'm Parvati Patil and this is my sister, Padma Patil. We would be glad to have you as a friend." Parvati looked to be the most outgoing of the two, her sister merely remained quiet and nodded at me. 

"Anyways, your brother was right as well, Weasley. The troll trial is only for those who believe themselves to be cut above the rest in terms of knowledge and magic. They would have to duel against the beast in order to pass the trial and immediately jump to the third-year classes. My ancestor, Lanius Malfoy was such an individual, look up the records if you don't believe me." That last part was a complete lie, there was no Lanius Malfoy, I just created a fake name to give my statement more credibility. Like if anyone here would remember the name in the next hour.

Neville was already on the floor and some of the students even began panicking. Even Hermione—for all her intellect—fell for my words. "What!? You can't be serious! This violates many health and safety codes, how can the ministry accept such a—"

"—He's messing with you all," muttered a voice above our heads. 

Several people jumped in fright when they saw a transparent bluish ghost head of an obese fellow.

"Welcome to Hogwarts, my dear students! I'm Friar, a former Hufflepuff house member. You will all be part of the sorting hat ceremony, so don't worry—there is no blood involved… probably." Friar said while laughing. He had a rather jolly attitude and recounted stories of his past, also, he kept talking about someone named Peeves or something.

"Mr, Friar, I believe it's time for you to move along." I didn't even hear the door open and somehow, the old lady was once again where she stood. "The hat sorting ceremony is ready, follow along, all of you!" We formed a line with her other institutions and followed her inside.

The inside was just like in the movies, both a strange and splendid place—filled with mysteries in every corner. The ceiling was lit by thousands and thousands of candles that were floating in midair over four long tables, where the rest of the students were sitting. There was no hot wax falling on anyone's head, it made me wonder if there were any candles at all; or if this was just an illusion.

These tables were laid with glittering golden plates and goblets. At the top of the hall was another long table where the teachers were sitting. Professor McGonagall led us—first years—up here, we were then instructed to form a line facing the students. The hundreds of faces staring at us felt a bit unsettling. I could feel the stares I was getting from the Slytherin side. Ignoring them, I gazed upward and saw a velvety black ceiling dotted with stars. 

I heard Hermione whisper, "It's bewitched to look like the sky outside. I read about it in 'Hogwarts, A History'."

"Just how many books did you read before coming here?" I couldn't help but ask, I was no slouch myself with my reading but something told me that Hermione beat me in this category easily.

"All of them, even most of the first year material, are secretly planning to study the second year and third year syllabus." She said with a rather smug look, looking rather proud of her achievement.

"Ya got issues, girl, I swear you're addicted to studying."

"Why thank you!"

"That wasn't a compliment," my eyebrows already started twitching. If she was born as a Malfoy, Lucius would have been the happiest father in all of the wizarding world. Aside from her ideals and moral compass, nearly all of her traits were that of a pure Slytherin and Ravenclaw. Well, not that it mattered since she was going to choose Gryffindor anyways. Personally, I should have tried convincing her to join Ravenclaw or Hufflepuff. The former suited her desire to study like a loon, and the latter because she could easily be able to make friends.

Slytherin was a big no no, it was not the house and its morals per say which was a problem, but rather the people in it. They would just bully her nonstop and might even force her to leave Hogwarts; they were that mean. Again, not all of them were bad, I wouldn't be surprised if she made a friend or two with time and effort. Some aspects of Slytherins were just exaggerated by many sources. 

"Stop staring at the ceiling, she's back." 

Professor McGonagall silently placed a four-legged stool in front of the teachers table, below the stairs. On top of the stool she put a pointed wizard's hat. This hat was patched and frayed and extremely dirty. Resembled something my aunt would have worn while she went out torturing people for fun.

Yes, she was that messed up. At least, that was what Lucius and Narcissa hinted at without explicitly wording it that way.

Suddenly, everyone around me gasped when they saw the thing moved and folded lines turned into something looking like a mouth and eyes. 

Then it was my turn to be surprised when the hat started to sing!

"Oh, you may not think I'm pretty,

But don't judge on what you see,

I'll eat myself if you can find

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And don't get in a flap!

You're in safe hands (though I have none)

For I'm a Thinking Cap!"

The song wasn't that long and only lasted a few verses. I enjoyed it, it certainly had a catchy tune to it. Just surprised that I had never heard of it before… Did I forget about it or was it not present in the movie? A small detail that made me curious about any other further changes this world could have compared to its counterpart.

Hermione hummed along, and I remained unsurprised by the fact she knew about the song. 

Professor McGonagall now stepped forward holding a long roll of parchment. If I remembered correctly, we would be called by alphabetical order. 

"When I call your name, you will put on the hat and sit on the stool to be sorted," she said. "Abbott Hannah!"

A pink-faced girl with blonde pigtails stumbled out of line, put on the hat, which fell right down over her eyes, and sat down.

"HUFFLEPUFF!" shouted the hat.

The table on the right cheered and clapped as Hannah went to sit down at the Hufflepuff table. The obese ghost from before who looked like he had died from diabetes, clapped his hands along the rest.

'Can we even hear them clapping?'

"Boot Terry"

"RAVENCLAW!"

"Bulstrode Millicent"

"SLYTHERIN!"

"Finch-Fletchley Justin"

"HUFFLEPUFF!"

One by one, everyone was called to the front and was sorted to their respective house. The sorting was surprisingly balanced, there weren't too many people sorted in a single house compared to the others. For some reason I thought Slytherin would barely get anyone, but I was proven wrong when there were already two people sorted in the house.

That was a pleasant surprise, not everything was so one-sided as I had initially thought it would be.

"Hermione Granger" 

Hermione walked to the stool and hesitantly put on the hat on her head. An unsure expression marred her face. 

The instant exclamation of 'Gryffindor' didn't happen and that made me do a double take as I saw Hermione closing her eyes and began muttering something under her breath. I couldn't hear anything from so far away.

"An unusual decision, not everyday has someone ever asked me such a thing. You have the traits but lack other aspects, yet you still insist—Interesting, indeed." Hermione's face frowned, and her muttering stopped. "Alright, alright, no need to get so touchy with me, missy. This will not be an easy road, I wish you the best and trust me—you'll need it."

What was going on, why was it taking so long for her to be sorted in Gryffindor?

Did something happen which I wasn't aware of? The only difference between this reality and canon Harry Potter was that she sat in the train with me instead of Harry and Ron. But that shouldn't have been enough to change her mind, Hermione was someone who was always set on her goals. She planned to be a Gryffindor so why change to another house?

Have I really changed that much from a simple five minute talk!?

"SLYTHERIN!"

"I knew that girl was trouble, being friends with him," groaned Ron while pointing at me. "At least she ain't in Gryffindor."

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What the fuck!?

'That's your future teammate, Ron! She isn't supposed to be in Slytherin in the first place!

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The next 5 chapters of Snafu, Harry Potter and my 3 other Fate fics (Fate Coiling Sword with 3 chapters, A Fake Familiar Reborn with 3 chapters and To love a sword having 4 chapters) are already available on my P@treon. With 4 more Broly chapters at /NimtheWriter. Also, I post monthly commissioned arts on each story, already posted a few on an Archer's Promise, Broly and Snafu.