Adventures of Harriet Potter

The Sorting Hat's New Song

Harriet did not want to tell the others that she and Luna were having the same hallucination, if that was what it was, so she said nothing about the horses as she sat down inside the carriage and slammed the door behind her. Nevertheless, she could not help watching the silhouettes of the horses moving beyond the window. "Did everyone see that Grubbly-Plank woman?" asked Ginny. "What's she doing back here? Hagrid can't have left, can he?"
"I'll be quite glad if he has," said Luna. "He isn't a very good teacher, is he?" The tension was palpable. "Yes, he is!" said Harriet, Ron, and Ginny angrily. Harriet glared at Hermione; she cleared her throat and quickly said, "Erm . . . yes . . . he's very good."
"Well, we think he's a bit of a joke in Ravenclaw," said Luna, unfazed. "You've got a rubbish sense of humor then," Ron snapped, as the wheels below them creaked into motion. Luna did not seem perturbed by Ron's rudeness; on the contrary, she simply watched him for a while as though he were a mildly interesting television program. Rattling and swaying, the carriages moved in convoy up the road. When they passed between the tall stone pillars topped with winged boars on either side of the gates to the school grounds, Harriet leaned forward to try and see whether there were any lights on in Hagrid's cabin by the Forbidden Forest, but the grounds were in complete darkness. Hogwarts Castle, however, loomed ever closer: a towering mass of turrets, jet-black against the dark sky, here and there a window blazing fiery bright above them.
The carriages jingled to a halt near the stone steps leading up to the oak front doors and Harriet got out of the carriage first. She turned again to look for lit windows down by the forest, but there was definitely no sign of life within Hagrid's cabin. Unwillingly, because she had half hoped they would have vanished, she turned her eyes instead upon the strange, skeletal creatures standing quietly in the chill night air, their blank white eyes gleaming.
Harriet had once before had the experience of seeing something that Ron could not, but that had been a reflection in a mirror, something much more insubstantial than a hundred very solid-looking beasts strong enough to pull a fleet of carriages. If Luna was to be believed, the beasts had always been there but invisible; why, then, could Harriet suddenly see them, and why could Ron not? "Are you coming or what?" said Ron beside her. "Oh . . . yeah," said Harriet quickly, and they joined the crowd hurrying up the stone steps into the castle. The entrance hall was ablaze with torches and echoing with footsteps as the students crossed the flagged stone floor for the double doors to the right, leading to the Great Hall and the start-of-term feast.
The four long House tables in the Great Hall were filling up under the starless black ceiling, which was just like the sky they could glimpse through the high windows. Candles floated in midair all along the tables, illuminating the silvery ghosts who were dotted about the Hall and the faces of the students talking eagerly to one another, exchanging summer news, shouting greetings at friends from other Houses, eyeing one another's new haircuts and robes. Again Harriet noticed people putting their heads together to whisper as she passed; she gritted her teeth and tried to act as though she neither noticed nor cared.
Luna drifted away from them at the Ravenclaw table. The moment they reached Gryffindor's, Ginny was hailed by some fellow fourth years and left to sit with them; Harriet, Ron, Hermione, and Neville found seats together about halfway down the table between Nearly Headless Nick, the Gryffindor House ghost, and Parvati Patil and Lavender Brown, the last two of whom gave Harriet airy, overly friendly greetings that made her quite sure they had stopped talking about her a split second before. She had more important things to worry about, however: She was looking over the students' heads to the staff table that ran along the top wall of the Hall.
"He's not there." Ron and Hermione scanned the staff table too, though there was no real need; Hagrid's size made him instantly obvious in any lineup. "He can't have left," said Ron, sounding slightly anxious. "Of course he hasn't," said Harriet firmly. "You don't think he's . . . hurt, or anything, do you?" said Hermione uneasily. "No," said Harriet at once. "But where is he, then?" There was a pause, then Harriet said very quietly, so that Neville, Parvati, and Lavender could not hear, "Maybe he's not back yet. You know — from his mission — the thing he was doing over the summer for Dumbledore."
"Yeah . . . yeah, that'll be it," said Ron, sounding reassured, but Hermione bit her lip, looking up and down the staff table as though hoping for some conclusive explanation of Hagrid's absence. "Who's that?" she said sharply, pointing toward the middle of the staff table. Harriet's eyes followed hers. They lit first upon Professor Dumbledore, sitting in his high-backed golden chair at the center of the long staff table, wearing deep-purple robes scattered with silvery stars and a matching hat. Dumbledore's head was inclined toward the woman sitting next to him, who was talking into his ear. She looked, Harriet thought, like somebody's maiden aunt: squat, with short, curly, mouse-brown hair in which she had placed a horrible pink Alice band that matched the fluffy pink cardigan she wore over her robes. Then she turned her face slightly to take a sip from her goblet and she saw, with a shock of recognition, a pallid, toadlike face and a pair of prominent, pouchy eyes.
"It's that Umbridge woman!" said Harriet. "Who?" said Hermione. "She was at my hearing, she works for Fudge!" Harriet explained before a wave of nausea rolled through her. "Nice cardigan," said Ron, smirking. "She works for Fudge?" Hermione repeated, frowning. "What on earth's she doing here, then?" That certainly was the million Galleon question. "Dunno . . ." Harriet said, trying to deduce the reason on her own despite her growling stomach.
Hermione scanned the staff table, her eyes narrowed. "No," she muttered, "no, surely not . . ." Harriet did not understand what she was talking about but did not ask; her attention — which had been on her in disagreement with itself stomach, that was nauseous and hungry at the same time — had just been caught by Professor Grubbly-Plank who had just appeared behind the staff table; she worked her way along to the very end and took the seat that ought to have been Hagrid's. That meant that the first years must have crossed the lake and reached the castle, and sure enough, a few seconds later, the doors from the entrance hall opened. A long line of scared-looking first years entered, led by Professor McGonagall, who was carrying a stool on which sat an ancient wizard's hat, heavily patched and darned with a wide rip near the frayed brim.
The buzz of talk in the Great Hall faded away. The first years lined up in front of the staff table facing the rest of the students, and Professor McGonagall placed the stool carefully in front of them, then stood back. The first years' faces glowed palely in the candlelight. A small boy right in the middle of the row looked as though he was trembling. Harriet recalled, fleetingly, how terrified she had felt when she had stood there, waiting for the unknown test that would determine to which House she belonged. The whole school waited with bated breath. Then the rip near the hat's brim opened wide like a mouth and the Sorting Hat burst into song: