HP Crossover 2 - The Sorting

[scribal_goddess]

Less boilerplate this time, still Gen 0 getting through their first introduction to Hogwarts. Still myrza's fault. Still G, with a wordcount of 2,130 this time. I'll probably be doing at least one or two more of these, but no guarantees of whether or not anything will ever get resolved. More book-compliant than movie-compliant.

They reached the station in the dark. The train came to a halt almost reluctantly, and those of them that were still awake pressed their noses against the glass. Midina had been conked out for hours, her head on Viridia’s shoulder, and Viridia herself had succumbed not long after. Talon was taking up more than his fair share of seat, stretched out and snoring softly with his feet in the fizzing whizbees, but Haldir had been leaning comfortably against the door, idly trying to build a castle with the Exploding Snap deck, talking intermittently to Chalimyra and Eluisa. Now, he ignored the faint pop of the cards beneath his shoe and stared out, ear-to-ear with the two girls, into the night.

“Suppose we’d better get our things, then,” Eluisa said softly. They prodded the other three awake and tried to get the candy which wasn’t irretrievably stuck to the compartment seats into one bag. Haldir felt bad because he knew that they’d lost part of Viridia’s exploding snap deck, but he didn’t see what he could do about it without angering Eluisa’s cat, which was currently curled up, panther-like in the shadows, and which he knew for a fact had not been de-clawed.

Quickly enough, with the admonition to leave their stuff, which would be brought up to the castle anyway, they were herded out onto the platform, huddled together to avoid being separated in the rush, following the lanterns against the tide of older students who were headed in a different direction.

“Why do the carriages run without horses?” Haldir asked Viridia, who had a death-grip on Midina’s hand and was towing her along. She shrugged in reply.

“What are you talking about?” Eluisa asked them, “They’ve got huge grey horses with bat wings attached. The poor things could use dinner even more than Midina could.”

Talon and Chalimyra looked at her in confusion.

“What horses, Elu?” Chalimyra asked, “I don’t see anything.”

“But I -”

“First years! Come along now, don’t dawdle!” And they were beyond the station in the dark, walking down the long path, away from the carriages with their empty harnesses.  Haldir couldn’t see anything, but it was dark, and they were quickly swallowed by the forest. If he was walking a little closer to the girls than he would have under other circumstances, it was because he didn’t want them to be nervous.

They came upon the lake suddenly, and saw the glowing windows of the castle reflected in the depths as the moon came out and washed the shore in shivering light. Only four people could fit in the bobbing boats, and the girls crammed themselves into one with apologetic glances for Talon and Haldir, who ended up with a freckly, large-nosed boy and one whose blonde hair stuck up on the edges. No sooner had they gotten settled than the boats set off under their own power, carrying them across the still water without a sound besides the splashing of paddles and some nervous, hastily shushed whispering.

“Did you see anything?” Haldir asked Talon in an undertone, “back at the station?”

Talon shook his head, and shivered as they passed under a hanging curtain of vines and into a tiny cavern where the boats drew themselves up on the gravely beach and stopped. Haldir soaked his shoes jumping out into the half-inch of water that lapped up on the beach. Aside from people darting back to the boats for their hats, or the wands that they weren’t used to carrying just yet, everyone headed through the doors, up the stairs, and into a sort of side-room, where they waited for a few minutes. Haldir stuck right by Talon and the girls, and ignored the fact that someone, trying to use magic to get a stain out of their shirt at the last minute, had set their sleeve on fire and their neighbors were putting it out with their hats. He could feel Midina’s nervous heartbeat, because she was squished up against him in the small room, and the part of his arm that was touching her left shoulder felt the steady, speeding roll of it. He exchanged a very nervous smile with Viridia, and tried to move his arm.

“Any minute now,” he told the girls, as much because he needed to hear it as they did. Midina looked up at him and nodded.

“Yes,” she said simply, hardly audible under everyone else. Talon was craning his neck to see whatever was going on at the front of the line, but he looked back down when she spoke.

“Look, if we all end up in different houses…” Viridia began.

“Don’t say that,” Eluisa told her quickly.

“It’s possible.”

“We will manage, whatever they decide,” Chalimyra said, in a voice that left no room for argument and which left you wondering as well why you would want to argue. “Even if we go our separate ways in the next few minutes, I will always remember the five of you as my first friends at Hogwarts.”

“Me too,” Haldir mumbled through lips made wooden with anxiety, just like the others. “Maybe we should… I don’t know, but if anyone ever needs anything this year… well, I’ve got your back.”

“Same with me,” Viridia said, and everyone nodded and murmured their assent again.

“But we’re keeping our fingers crossed for all being in the same house, or at least nobody being in a house alone,” Eluisa added with forced brightness. “It wouldn’t be too bad if only a couple of us got in a different house – and we’ll be loyal to each other and everything, not let silly things like Quidditch and house points get in the way.”

“There’s nothing silly about Quidditch -” Talon’s protest was cut off by the arrival of the stern older woman who Haldir knew as Deputy Headmistress McGonagall from his parents’ descriptions, coming to herd them all into the Great Hall.

They awkwardly formed a line, Haldir shuffling sideways so that he could be behind Talon and in front of Midina, and they marched on into the Great Hall like so many frightened ducklings following behind one duck. And there on a stool in front of the whole school, battered and stitched and bent, was a hat.

            The hat opened a mouth like rip and sang, something about the virtues of each house, but Haldir was too busy fighting down a sudden wave of panic to pay attention to the lyrics. He was going to be sorted. He was going to be sorted right now, in front of the whole school, and once you were sorted, there was no going back, you were stuck. Seven years opened up ahead of them, and what happened in those seven was about to be determined by a hat, of all things, and magical artifact or not, that was a bit much to have hanging on a single decision. What if Haldir really was put into a house where he knew no one? What if all the other five got put in one house, and he got sent off to another? He swallowed, seeing himself enviously staring across the Great Hall at a house table where everybody else was laughing and had forgotten about him, sitting alone. He didn’t know if he could take it, promises of loyalty or not.

            The hat finished singing, and Professor McGonagall stepped up with the list, opening a long scroll with a snap that caused Midina to grab Haldir’s elbow and let go quickly.

Better me than her, at least, he thought, as McGonnagall called out the first student whose last name began with an A, someone who was looking like they very desperately wished that for once, they would start with the Z’s instead. Ravenclaw got the first student of the year after a moment’s deliberation by the hat, and well over a hundred students erupted into cheers under the blue banners. The sorting had begun, and McGonnagal had soon gotten to the B’s.

Fairly quickly, it was Talon’s turn, and he gave Haldir a nudge as he headed off towards the front of the hall. The hat wrinkled a bit at the brim before declaring him Gryffindor, and Haldir had no time to clap because he was next, and he was approaching the three-legged stool and the battered hat that everyone said could read every corner of your mind. And then it was placed on his head and the hall disappeared.

Interesting, the hat said.

Haldir wondered what exactly was interesting, as the hat had slipped over his eyes and all he could see was a sort of brownish-grey darkness.

Hmm. Hard to say… Loyalty, I see, courage too, a nice dash of daring and some innovation, dedication, yes, but to tasks you have appointed yourself – ah, such as helping young – yes, chivalry in its most basic of forms – and nerve, you certainly have that. Not all bravery requires loud and obvious actions. Yes, definitely - GRYFFINDOR!

Talon was clapping like his hands might fall of at the table under the red and gold banner, and there was fortunately an empty seat next to him where Haldir sank down gratefully to watch Viridia sorted quickly and decisively into Hufflepuff. With his sorting over, it suddenly did not seem so cosmically important for all six of them to be placed in the same house, but Haldir still felt a bit of regret that Viridia hadn’t been sorted in with them.

“That’s a bit of a relief,” Talon muttered in Haldir’s ear. “Bossy, isn’t she?”

“She’s not that bad.”

The hat was taking it’s time on Eluisa, whose fingers were crossed in her lap, and who appeared to be having some sort of silent debate.

“Oh, not now, but bossy girls just get in your way all the time,” Talon replied, “Trust me, I have an older sister and more cousins than you can shake a stick at and girls like her always think they know what’s best for everyone.”

Finally, Eluisa was sent off to the Hufflepuff table where she immediately claimed the seat next to Viridia, and that was the last familiar face for a while as the list progressed from Greenleaf, Antoin and Gryffin, Marcus to the H’s with Highgate, Yvette and on towards the middle of the alphabet. Two girls and another boy joined the Gryffindor table, and perhaps thirty were left when the next on the list was Oziras, Chalimyra. She walked up calmly with a little grin towards the two girls already seated under the badger banner, and the hat pronounced her Hufflepuff in a decisive, unhurried way. Talon let out a groan.

“They’re putting all the girls in Hufflepuff, that’s hardly fair,” he grumbled.

“But I heard we have a lot of classes with the Hufflepuffs,” Haldir pointed out, “It can’t be that bad, it’s not like there’s a rule against having friends from other houses.”

“Might as well be,” Talon replied, “look at the way those two new Slytherins are looking at us. I met one of them in Diagon Alley getting my books and he seemed like a decent guy but just you wait until quidditch starts, nobody in separate houses is going to have a civil word for each other.”

Haldir opened his mouth to reply and nearly missed the sorting of the last person from their train compartment.

“- Midina,” McGonagall read from her list, and the tiny blonde girl darted forward, jammed the hat over her pointy ears, and sat. She sat there for such a long time that the low buzz of talk died down in the hall and everyone stared at her. Her cheeks turned pink even though the hat had fallen down to the bridge of her nose. Haldir thought it might be the longest sorting yet that night, because it was even longer than his had felt.

“Gryffindor!” the hat roared, and Midina looked about ready to wilt under all the applause.

“Let’s get her a seat – budge, Haldir – there we are.” Talon applied his elbows to Haldir’s ribs and between the two of them they managed to cram the other young elf into a spot next to them on the bench, though Talon appeared somewhat disappointed that Midina chose to sit to Haldir’s left instead of between the two of them.

“Congratulations,” Haldir told her, and Midina managed a small smile.

“Right, welcome to Gryffindor,” Talon added. A Rowanglade, Adamantia was added to Ravenclaw and it looked like the list of R’s, S’s and T’s was unusually long, as there were still twenty or more people waiting. “I wish they’d hurry it up,” he added as the girl and her long, honey-colored hair disappeared towards the Ravenclaw Table, “I’m starving.”

Comments

[mzyra.livejournal.com]

Ooooh, so Eluisa's seen death (though she's presumably lost her parents, so that may be why), and Midina's a Gryffindor? That's interesting... *ponders*

[scribal-goddess.livejournal.com]

Yeah. Eluisa's mom died when she was about nine. It's mentioned in one of the interludes (though I keep forgetting that not everybody's read that far...)

Yup. Midina's a Gryffindor. I didn't even fudge that test at all. Thing is, she can't fight for herself, just other people. (Not that all my girls aren't willing to go to bat for any of their friends or children...) Gryffindor made a lot of sense for her to me, and the pop sims (and the family/pop sim) getting in Hufflepuff did too.