The Sorting

While floating over the dark waters of the black lake in almost complete silence Julius could not help but feel tempted to jump into the water just to see the giant squid from close up to find out if it was indeed a kraken as he guessed from fact like the apparent resilience of his skin.

Well, and of course many, many fanfictions.

But in the end he decided to just enjoy the beautiful sight in silence and so he did together with his first friends, not that they knew about that themselves.

And as he stared at the lights of the castle in the distance, which were reflected by the dark waters, not one of the friends noticed how the fourth guy inside the boat quickly took a picture with his Mirror before hiding it inside his robes again.

Then the boats arrived at the foot of the castle and the long trail of fresh first-years quickly followed in the wake of Hagrid as he led them towards the famous great hall, struggling to keep up with his giant steps.

In the hall in front of the great hall the procession was already awaited by an old witch with a strict looking face, which most of the new first-years already learned to know and fear before even meeting her in person through the horror stories spread inside of the Hogwarts forum, there were even sub-forums dedicated to Professor McGonagall horror stories which would probably get the writers enough detention for the rest of their school careers at Hogwarts it they were ever caught by the Scottish witch.

„'ere's the new firs' years Professor", Hagrid immediately addressed her in his typical fashion while scratching the back of his head.

Immediately he got a curt but still friendly reply back, sounding as if this was already a common ritual between the two:

„Thank you Hagrid, you may now return to your seat, I'll take them from here."

„Welcome to Hogwarts," proceeded 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."

"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 honour. I hope each of you will be a credit to whichever house becomes yours."

"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 you can while you are waiting", she looked pointedly at the less tidy first-years before continuing,"I will come back here as soon as we are ready for you, I expect you to wait here quietly until then."

With these words she left the horde of children behind to enter the great hall, causing a cacophony of loud conversations and laughter to quell through the gates together with warm candle light until the gate closed with a bang, sealing all of it inside again and leaving the entrance hall in deep silence.

Surprisingly for Julius no one even thought about speaking during this time, only tidying themselves up a bit despite being far more kids than in the Harry Potter series.

‚Welp, I guess not having a Malfoy here can have it's perks.'

A few minutes later McGonagall appeared again to lead them into the now almost eerily silent hall and through the long rows of tables on both sides towards the teacher's table and the sorting hat.

'Apparently the great hall will change it's size according to the number of new students, but I guess that shouldn't surprise me considering who it's creators were.'

After they arrived in front of the podium on top of which the stool and a (luckily much cleaner) hat sat, a wrinkle opened inside of it and words began pouring out:

„In Hogwarts' hallowed halls I sit, A hat of wisdom, wit, and grit, For ages past, my duty clear, To Sort each student, far and near.

From ancient times, my voice does call, To welcome young and old, one and all, Upon their heads, I take my place, To gaze into their soul's embrace.

Gryffindor, brave and bold of heart, With courage strong, they'll play their part, Loyal Hufflepuff, steadfast and true, Hardworking souls, they'll see it through.

Intelligent minds, in Ravenclaw reside, Seekers of knowledge, far and wide, And Slytherin, ambitious and sly, Resourceful, cunning, they'll reach the sky.

In every student, I can see, The magic that sets their spirits free, For in this hat, an ancient art, The power to bind each house and heart.

So listen well, dear child of mine, Your destiny I'll help you find, With every word and whispered thought, Your house awaits, to you, I'm brought.

In Hogwarts' halls, forever bound, Together we'll explore the ground, From speaking hat to student's ear, A journey starts, embrace, and cheer."

After this small poetic interlude Professor McGonagall now stepped forward holding a long roll of parchment.

„When I call your name, you will put on the hat and sit on the stool to be sorted,"she said,"Abraxus, Julius."

Not surprised to be first due to the first two letters of his last name Julius outwardly calmly climbed the podium and sat down on the stool before putting the hat on his head with only slightly trembling fingers, being as excited as he was.

But even though not completely unsurprising and not too disappointing the hat did not speak inside his mind even once before loudly announcing his decision:

"Slytherin!"

Under loud clapping from the Slytherin table and more restrained clapping from the Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs Julius walked towards his new housemates and sat down on a seat with two empty ones next to him, apparently even the foreign students had only slightly bettered the situation of Slytherin in the public eye.

„Agarwal, Aarav."

While the ritual continued Julius crossed his fingers to let his two friends also come to Slytherin but it seems he didn't need to do so, both came to Slytherin quite quickly even though Habol caused quite the stir after not having been mentioned with any last name, he also seemed quite thoughtful after walking towards the Slytherin table to sit with his friend.

Not that he let those thoughts dim his mood as he enjoyed the feast completely ignoring the side eyes he got from the other Slytherins.

…

And again not one of the three friends had any idea what was going on in the mirror net, to a big part caused by their own actions.

-Hogwarts Forum-

Swapnil_Devil - image_here

image_here

You're also seeing this right? The two guys with the greatest background have already found one another, and that even with those haughty purebloods constantly searching the train for one of them I guess they're also just humans who sometimes don't feel like dealinlg with some certain annoyances who think they're more important than they actually are

Wilder6 - @Swapnil_Devil don't you think their just even more stuck up than those idiots which somehow didn't find them throughout the whole ride? I mean they did both go to Slytherin didn't they? And while that doesn't have to mean something it could very well do so

SEEKER - @Wilder6 aren't you forgetting something here? The guy they were in the boat wiht, with whom they actually talked, also got into Slytherin and he doesn't seem to be some extremely well known pureblood

SEEKER - @SEEKER *with

DaoistxjRjqE - @SEEKER let's wait a moment before we glorify those purebloods, and also most of the people looking at this discussion rn should put their Mirrors away or it's gonna be problematic; Snape doesn't look happy and neither does McGonagall

Suddenly a great part of the new first-years turned their heads toward the teacher's table only to quickly avert their gazes and let a small oval item disappear into their robes after meeting the ice-cold gazes of the two strictest teachers.

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