Categories > Books > Harry Potter > A Different Bella (working title)
The Sorting Hat
9 reviews20 year old Bellatrix can't have children. what happens when she accompanies the Dark Lord to the Potters on october 31st 1981 and maternal feelings arise? read and review
5Exciting
Disclaimer: I do not own anything to do with Harry Potter - otherwise I wouldn't be here.
A Different Bella (working title).
Chapter 4: The Sorting Hat.
As the door opened, Harry couldn't help but classify the woman that stood in the doorway as someone not to cross. This, he realised, was professor Minerva McGonagall, head of Gryffindor house and transfiguration professor.
"The firs'-years, professor McGonagall." Said Hagrid.
"Thank you, Hagrid, I will take them from here." She replied as she opened the door wide for the first-years to step through.
The entrance hall alone was big enough for Harry to fit his entire house inside. The room was lit by flaming torches along the walls, which Harry had to remind himself, was because electricity doesn't work here - the magic is too concentrated and messes it up; his house didn't yet have enough power concentrated around it - it'll take another hundred years or so of having magicians (the name he started using for witches AND wizards when he was ten - calling every magical person a wizard or Wizardkind is sexist) for that to happen.
The ceiling of the entrance hall was so high that Harry couldn't see it. There was a large marble staircase leading up to the first floor opposite them with a stone staircase on either side of it that went down, presumably to the dungeons - although Harry knew from Nymph that one of the stair cases actually went to the Hufflepuff common room.
To the right were two huge doors that Harry assumed lead into the great hall, and judging from the sound of many voices coming from in there, the rest of the school must already be here.
McGonagall lead them to the left and into a small stone antechamber that the first years struggled to squeeze into, only to have to listen to McGee, as Nymph called her, start going on about the different houses, but didn't mention the method used to sort the students before she left to check that everyone in the great hall was ready.
McGonagall soon returned to take the first years to be sorted, only to find that they had been made more nervous thanks to some ghosts popping into the room while on their way to the start of term feast.
After being lead back across the entrance hall, they entered the great hall in single file; Harry looked around and decided that Trixy, Rommy and Nymphie needed to work on their descriptive skills since it was ten times more amazing than Harry had ever thought it would be.
The hall was twice the size of the entrance hall, the entrance doors were through one of the side walls and towards the rear of the hall. In the rear of the wall were two huge windows that looked like they went on until they reached the cloudy sky, which was really an enchantment on the ceiling that made it look like the sky outside.
The side walls each had two huge banners hanging down; one depicting each house crest, on the left wall was Slytherin and Ravenclaw, on the right was Gryffindor and Hufflepuff. The wall at the front had a huge banner across it that showed the Hogwarts crest.
The hall was lit by thousands of candles that floated above five tables: one at the head of the room and on a slightly raised platform - the head table for the staff. The other four tables were at a right angle to the head table and ran almost the full length of the hall.
Harry could see from the crests on the students' robes that the Slytherins were sat on the far left of the hall, the Ravenclaws were between them and the Hufflepuffs, which meant that the Gryffindors were at the far right.
McGonagall lead them to the middle of the hall before turning down and leading them between the Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw tables. When they reached the front of the hall, they could see that there was a stool with a hat on it in front of the head table.
After a few ridiculous ideas as to what the hat was for ran though Harrys', and the other first-years heads, it sang a song that revealed the first years as having a far too active imagination.
Then McGee started calling names off a roll of parchment starting with "Abbott, Hannah." who became a Hufflepuff, after a while it made it to "Granger, Hermione." After a few minutes it shouted out: "RAVENCLAW."
Unfortunately, for Harry, Malfoy became a Slytherin, and Blaise groaned when "Parkinson, Pansy." was sorted into Slytherin.
When it was Harry's turn, he walked up the steps amid hissing whispers with a confidence that he knew made him look cocky; like Malfoy, all talk with no means to back it up...just how he wanted people to think of him, for now at least.
After sitting down and putting the hat on, Harry found a voice in his head: 'hmm, lets see...plenty of courage and loyalty...lots of cunning and an excellent mind...Well where do I put you? You have traits from all four houses; you're more suited to Ravenclaw and Slytherin than the others though. I suppose I should tell you that...'
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Blaise was looking at Harry in worry, the hat was taking an unusually long time on him, she could only hope that he wouldn't be a Gryffindor or a Hufflepuff because the house rivalries would probably get in the way of their friendship.
She knew that it would most likely be between Slytherin and Ravenclaw: Ravenclaw due to his brains, and Slytherin due to his cunning.
She breathed a sigh of relief when the hats brim opened to allow it to shout out the name of the house he would spend the next seven years in: SLYTHERIN!
She started clapping only to realise that no one else was, Harry didn't seem to notice that he was the only person that no one cheered for. Looking around, Blaise saw that McGee was just staring at him in shock...just like every other person in the room; they were probably expecting a Potter to get into Gryffindor.
What they had obviously forgotten was that Harry is a Potter and a Black. As her eyes found the headmasters, she saw a mix of anger, disappointment and grief, as if he'd just lost his entire family...or a war.
She could understand the disappointment since he'd lost his chance at controlling such a powerful person, but such extreme grief she didn't understand at all. She couldn't understand the anger either.
Blaise just watched as Harry walked full of confidence down to the Slytherin table (and finally getting a response as the Slytherins started clapping politely, although some (very few) had smiles slowly appearing on their faces as they hoped that Harry was the one that could help them), sitting down a few places away from Malfoy and a silvery ghost that was obviously, if the silvery splodges that looked suspiciously like blood all over it were any indication, the Bloody Baron.
With the silence finally lifted by the clapping, McGee resumed calling out the names on the list - Turpin, Lisa became a Ravenclaw, Ron Weasley became a Gryffindor and finally it was Blaise' turn.
She walked up the steps as confidently as she could, desperately trying to ignore the fact that her stomach felt as though it would empty its contents over the hat that was about to sort her.
A second after she sat down, the hat sliding down over her eyes to rest on her nose cut off her view of the students.
'A Zabini eh, and just as complex as your father...except with different strengths. Yes you have his bravery and his brains, but you have your mothers' cunning...and lots of it. I see you want to join your friend in Slytherin...well I always did have a soft spot for match-making, enjoy yourself in...'
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Harry watched, his fingers crossed under the table, as he hoped that Blaise would be joining him in Slytherin. He watched as the hat slowly opened its brim and shouted out for the whole hall to hear: "Slytherin!"
Harry breathed a sigh of relief as Blaise tried not to run across the hall to take the seat next to him.
"Harry." Blaise asked while McGee took the hat and stool away.
"Yes?" he answered her.
"What did the hat say to you?"
"That I've got traits from all four houses but suit Slytherin and Ravenclaw better than the others...and that Dumbledore's a manipulative old bxxxxxd that tried to order it to put me in Gryffindor."
"So that's why he was angry, I was curious 'bout that."
"So what did the hat say to you?"
"Oh, nothing." She answered while fighting the blush that she knew was rising to the surface of her cheeks.
Harry would have started to tease her, but was cut off by Dumbledore standing to give the start of term notices: "Welcome, welcome to a new year at Hogwarts, I'd like to say a few words before we begin out banquet." He said but then seemed to forget what he meant to say and ended up blurting out: "Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak! Thank you."
Throughout the feast, Harry and Blaise were introduced to their fellow Slytherin first-years; Millicent Bulstrode was a large girl with an aggressively large jaw, Daphne Greengrass was smallish - about an inch shorter than Blaise who was half an inch shorter than Harry - she had brown hair and eyes, Sophie Moon was about the same height as Blaise with eyes that seemed to change between blue and grey depending on how the light caught them and strawberry-blond hair.
Theodore Nott was a thin boy, about half an inch taller than Harry, with small beady black eyes and short brown hair, Padma Patil - a surprise since her twin was in Gryffindor, was of Indian origin - warm brown eyes and black hair. Pansy Parkinson was a pug-faced girl with violet eyes and black hair, and they knew Malfoy, Crabbe and Goyle.
Harry, always the analyst, quickly picked which 'faction' they all belonged to; Parkinson was acting as though she was already the head of year, along with Malfoy. They had Bulstrode, Crabbe and Goyle with them.
Harry and Blaise wanted to be separate from the system, so they were going to learn how to be animagi - something that Greg and Bella had refused to let them practice at home, just in case they became a dangerous animal...which they both knew they were; Harry was a black and silver phoenix and a Gryffin while Blaise could become a black panther.
If these were combined with the silencing charms they had read about, then they could be very stealthy animals, so they could be an excellent spying team.
They could see that Nott, although he wasn't entirely with them, appeared to be biased towards Malfoy and Parkinson.
Daphne, Padma and Sophie on the other hand appeared to want Harry and Blaise to be year heads from the way they were acting.
Once the feast had finished, Dumbledore stood to give the notices out; and finally succeeded in remembering his speech: "ahem, just a few more words now you are all fed and watered. I have a few start of term notices to give you..." Dumbledore began, telling them about the third floor corridor that was off limits, and that the forbidden forest was exactly as the name suggested - forbidden, along with the other notices.
After being made to sing the school song, they were finally dismissed to their dormitories...Harry and Blaise followed the female prefect despite knowing were they were going having had Nymphie steal a map from the Weasley twins the previous year...Harry never did getting round to asking if everything changed when she used her unique ability to imitate Fred, or was it George, oh well, never mind.
After leaving the hall, they went past the marble staircase, and went down the stone staircase on the far side.
Upon entering the dungeons, they were shown through a maze of hallways until they eventually arrived at the entrance to the common room - a bare stretch of stone wall - and the prefect said the password with a look of mild annoyance on her face. "Eternal Purity." Before muttering something that sounded like 'I'll kill flint when I next see him.'
Upon entering the common room, they had a quick look around. It was a long low room with rough walls and ceiling - as if it was carved straight out of the rocks - and was illuminated by green spheres hanging from the ceiling by chains. On the left wall, roughly in the centre was a fire crackling merrily under an ornately carved mantelpiece.
Directly opposite the fire were two doors that the prefect quickly informed them that they lead to the dorm rooms - the one on the left went to the boys dormitory, the one on the right to the girls dorms.
The prefect then told everyone to go to bed before grabbing Harry and pulling him to the side.
"Harry, my name is Alice Greengrass, I know you're a half-blood, so are me and my sister. Do you know about the hierarchy in Slytherin?"
"Yes, mum explained it to me and Blaise."
"Good, so you'll know that to avoid the system, you'll need something to sell as a service, like knowledge or something like that."
"Yeah, I know."
"Good, I recommend that you get out of the system as quick as possible, being a half-blood, the other people will treat you like a slave, don't try fighting back or you'll pay for it in an extremely painful way."
"If you need help or advice, you can come to me. Okay?"
"Yeah, thanks. Out of curiosity, what's your...service?"
"Knowledge, homework help, that sort of thing. Night, night."
With that, she left and went through the doors to the girls' dorms, leaving Harry to go find his own. As he entered through the door, he saw that he was in a small corridor that turned left after about fifteen feet, and was then lined with doors at certain distances apart.
Each door had a different name on it to show who it belonged to and what year they were in.
When Harry found his room, it turned out to be a nicely sized, twelve-foot by twelve-foot room, the queen-sized bed pushed up in the centre of the far right wall, with a simple work desk in the back left corner of the room.
Climbing into bed, he slipped into a peaceful, undisturbed sleep.
A Different Bella (working title).
Chapter 4: The Sorting Hat.
As the door opened, Harry couldn't help but classify the woman that stood in the doorway as someone not to cross. This, he realised, was professor Minerva McGonagall, head of Gryffindor house and transfiguration professor.
"The firs'-years, professor McGonagall." Said Hagrid.
"Thank you, Hagrid, I will take them from here." She replied as she opened the door wide for the first-years to step through.
The entrance hall alone was big enough for Harry to fit his entire house inside. The room was lit by flaming torches along the walls, which Harry had to remind himself, was because electricity doesn't work here - the magic is too concentrated and messes it up; his house didn't yet have enough power concentrated around it - it'll take another hundred years or so of having magicians (the name he started using for witches AND wizards when he was ten - calling every magical person a wizard or Wizardkind is sexist) for that to happen.
The ceiling of the entrance hall was so high that Harry couldn't see it. There was a large marble staircase leading up to the first floor opposite them with a stone staircase on either side of it that went down, presumably to the dungeons - although Harry knew from Nymph that one of the stair cases actually went to the Hufflepuff common room.
To the right were two huge doors that Harry assumed lead into the great hall, and judging from the sound of many voices coming from in there, the rest of the school must already be here.
McGonagall lead them to the left and into a small stone antechamber that the first years struggled to squeeze into, only to have to listen to McGee, as Nymph called her, start going on about the different houses, but didn't mention the method used to sort the students before she left to check that everyone in the great hall was ready.
McGonagall soon returned to take the first years to be sorted, only to find that they had been made more nervous thanks to some ghosts popping into the room while on their way to the start of term feast.
After being lead back across the entrance hall, they entered the great hall in single file; Harry looked around and decided that Trixy, Rommy and Nymphie needed to work on their descriptive skills since it was ten times more amazing than Harry had ever thought it would be.
The hall was twice the size of the entrance hall, the entrance doors were through one of the side walls and towards the rear of the hall. In the rear of the wall were two huge windows that looked like they went on until they reached the cloudy sky, which was really an enchantment on the ceiling that made it look like the sky outside.
The side walls each had two huge banners hanging down; one depicting each house crest, on the left wall was Slytherin and Ravenclaw, on the right was Gryffindor and Hufflepuff. The wall at the front had a huge banner across it that showed the Hogwarts crest.
The hall was lit by thousands of candles that floated above five tables: one at the head of the room and on a slightly raised platform - the head table for the staff. The other four tables were at a right angle to the head table and ran almost the full length of the hall.
Harry could see from the crests on the students' robes that the Slytherins were sat on the far left of the hall, the Ravenclaws were between them and the Hufflepuffs, which meant that the Gryffindors were at the far right.
McGonagall lead them to the middle of the hall before turning down and leading them between the Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw tables. When they reached the front of the hall, they could see that there was a stool with a hat on it in front of the head table.
After a few ridiculous ideas as to what the hat was for ran though Harrys', and the other first-years heads, it sang a song that revealed the first years as having a far too active imagination.
Then McGee started calling names off a roll of parchment starting with "Abbott, Hannah." who became a Hufflepuff, after a while it made it to "Granger, Hermione." After a few minutes it shouted out: "RAVENCLAW."
Unfortunately, for Harry, Malfoy became a Slytherin, and Blaise groaned when "Parkinson, Pansy." was sorted into Slytherin.
When it was Harry's turn, he walked up the steps amid hissing whispers with a confidence that he knew made him look cocky; like Malfoy, all talk with no means to back it up...just how he wanted people to think of him, for now at least.
After sitting down and putting the hat on, Harry found a voice in his head: 'hmm, lets see...plenty of courage and loyalty...lots of cunning and an excellent mind...Well where do I put you? You have traits from all four houses; you're more suited to Ravenclaw and Slytherin than the others though. I suppose I should tell you that...'
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Blaise was looking at Harry in worry, the hat was taking an unusually long time on him, she could only hope that he wouldn't be a Gryffindor or a Hufflepuff because the house rivalries would probably get in the way of their friendship.
She knew that it would most likely be between Slytherin and Ravenclaw: Ravenclaw due to his brains, and Slytherin due to his cunning.
She breathed a sigh of relief when the hats brim opened to allow it to shout out the name of the house he would spend the next seven years in: SLYTHERIN!
She started clapping only to realise that no one else was, Harry didn't seem to notice that he was the only person that no one cheered for. Looking around, Blaise saw that McGee was just staring at him in shock...just like every other person in the room; they were probably expecting a Potter to get into Gryffindor.
What they had obviously forgotten was that Harry is a Potter and a Black. As her eyes found the headmasters, she saw a mix of anger, disappointment and grief, as if he'd just lost his entire family...or a war.
She could understand the disappointment since he'd lost his chance at controlling such a powerful person, but such extreme grief she didn't understand at all. She couldn't understand the anger either.
Blaise just watched as Harry walked full of confidence down to the Slytherin table (and finally getting a response as the Slytherins started clapping politely, although some (very few) had smiles slowly appearing on their faces as they hoped that Harry was the one that could help them), sitting down a few places away from Malfoy and a silvery ghost that was obviously, if the silvery splodges that looked suspiciously like blood all over it were any indication, the Bloody Baron.
With the silence finally lifted by the clapping, McGee resumed calling out the names on the list - Turpin, Lisa became a Ravenclaw, Ron Weasley became a Gryffindor and finally it was Blaise' turn.
She walked up the steps as confidently as she could, desperately trying to ignore the fact that her stomach felt as though it would empty its contents over the hat that was about to sort her.
A second after she sat down, the hat sliding down over her eyes to rest on her nose cut off her view of the students.
'A Zabini eh, and just as complex as your father...except with different strengths. Yes you have his bravery and his brains, but you have your mothers' cunning...and lots of it. I see you want to join your friend in Slytherin...well I always did have a soft spot for match-making, enjoy yourself in...'
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Harry watched, his fingers crossed under the table, as he hoped that Blaise would be joining him in Slytherin. He watched as the hat slowly opened its brim and shouted out for the whole hall to hear: "Slytherin!"
Harry breathed a sigh of relief as Blaise tried not to run across the hall to take the seat next to him.
"Harry." Blaise asked while McGee took the hat and stool away.
"Yes?" he answered her.
"What did the hat say to you?"
"That I've got traits from all four houses but suit Slytherin and Ravenclaw better than the others...and that Dumbledore's a manipulative old bxxxxxd that tried to order it to put me in Gryffindor."
"So that's why he was angry, I was curious 'bout that."
"So what did the hat say to you?"
"Oh, nothing." She answered while fighting the blush that she knew was rising to the surface of her cheeks.
Harry would have started to tease her, but was cut off by Dumbledore standing to give the start of term notices: "Welcome, welcome to a new year at Hogwarts, I'd like to say a few words before we begin out banquet." He said but then seemed to forget what he meant to say and ended up blurting out: "Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak! Thank you."
Throughout the feast, Harry and Blaise were introduced to their fellow Slytherin first-years; Millicent Bulstrode was a large girl with an aggressively large jaw, Daphne Greengrass was smallish - about an inch shorter than Blaise who was half an inch shorter than Harry - she had brown hair and eyes, Sophie Moon was about the same height as Blaise with eyes that seemed to change between blue and grey depending on how the light caught them and strawberry-blond hair.
Theodore Nott was a thin boy, about half an inch taller than Harry, with small beady black eyes and short brown hair, Padma Patil - a surprise since her twin was in Gryffindor, was of Indian origin - warm brown eyes and black hair. Pansy Parkinson was a pug-faced girl with violet eyes and black hair, and they knew Malfoy, Crabbe and Goyle.
Harry, always the analyst, quickly picked which 'faction' they all belonged to; Parkinson was acting as though she was already the head of year, along with Malfoy. They had Bulstrode, Crabbe and Goyle with them.
Harry and Blaise wanted to be separate from the system, so they were going to learn how to be animagi - something that Greg and Bella had refused to let them practice at home, just in case they became a dangerous animal...which they both knew they were; Harry was a black and silver phoenix and a Gryffin while Blaise could become a black panther.
If these were combined with the silencing charms they had read about, then they could be very stealthy animals, so they could be an excellent spying team.
They could see that Nott, although he wasn't entirely with them, appeared to be biased towards Malfoy and Parkinson.
Daphne, Padma and Sophie on the other hand appeared to want Harry and Blaise to be year heads from the way they were acting.
Once the feast had finished, Dumbledore stood to give the notices out; and finally succeeded in remembering his speech: "ahem, just a few more words now you are all fed and watered. I have a few start of term notices to give you..." Dumbledore began, telling them about the third floor corridor that was off limits, and that the forbidden forest was exactly as the name suggested - forbidden, along with the other notices.
After being made to sing the school song, they were finally dismissed to their dormitories...Harry and Blaise followed the female prefect despite knowing were they were going having had Nymphie steal a map from the Weasley twins the previous year...Harry never did getting round to asking if everything changed when she used her unique ability to imitate Fred, or was it George, oh well, never mind.
After leaving the hall, they went past the marble staircase, and went down the stone staircase on the far side.
Upon entering the dungeons, they were shown through a maze of hallways until they eventually arrived at the entrance to the common room - a bare stretch of stone wall - and the prefect said the password with a look of mild annoyance on her face. "Eternal Purity." Before muttering something that sounded like 'I'll kill flint when I next see him.'
Upon entering the common room, they had a quick look around. It was a long low room with rough walls and ceiling - as if it was carved straight out of the rocks - and was illuminated by green spheres hanging from the ceiling by chains. On the left wall, roughly in the centre was a fire crackling merrily under an ornately carved mantelpiece.
Directly opposite the fire were two doors that the prefect quickly informed them that they lead to the dorm rooms - the one on the left went to the boys dormitory, the one on the right to the girls dorms.
The prefect then told everyone to go to bed before grabbing Harry and pulling him to the side.
"Harry, my name is Alice Greengrass, I know you're a half-blood, so are me and my sister. Do you know about the hierarchy in Slytherin?"
"Yes, mum explained it to me and Blaise."
"Good, so you'll know that to avoid the system, you'll need something to sell as a service, like knowledge or something like that."
"Yeah, I know."
"Good, I recommend that you get out of the system as quick as possible, being a half-blood, the other people will treat you like a slave, don't try fighting back or you'll pay for it in an extremely painful way."
"If you need help or advice, you can come to me. Okay?"
"Yeah, thanks. Out of curiosity, what's your...service?"
"Knowledge, homework help, that sort of thing. Night, night."
With that, she left and went through the doors to the girls' dorms, leaving Harry to go find his own. As he entered through the door, he saw that he was in a small corridor that turned left after about fifteen feet, and was then lined with doors at certain distances apart.
Each door had a different name on it to show who it belonged to and what year they were in.
When Harry found his room, it turned out to be a nicely sized, twelve-foot by twelve-foot room, the queen-sized bed pushed up in the centre of the far right wall, with a simple work desk in the back left corner of the room.
Climbing into bed, he slipped into a peaceful, undisturbed sleep.
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