Infinite Magic (Male Reader x Harry Potter)

The Sorting Hat Updates Its Lyrics

We shuffled out of the compartment feeling the first sting of the night air on their faces as they joined the crowd in the corridor. Slowly they moved toward the doors. Harry could smell the pine trees that lined the path down to the lake. He stepped down onto the platform and looked around, listening for the familiar call of "Firs' years over here... firs' years..." but it did not come. Instead a quite different voice, a brisk female one, was calling out.

Grubbly-Plank: First years line up over here, please! All first years to me!

A lantern came swinging toward us, and by its light we saw the prominent chin and severe haircut of Professor Grubbly-Plank, the witch who had taken over Hagrid's Care of Magical Creatures lessons for a while the previous year.

Harry: Where's Hagrid?

Ginny: I don't know, but we'd better get out of the way, we're blocking the door.

Harry: Oh yeah.

Megumi: I should go too.

I waved at him as he hurried along with the first years. Jostled by the crowd, we squinted through the darkness for a glimpse of Hagrid, but there was no sign of him at all. Harry, Hermione, Suguru, and I looked around for Ron or Ava, wanting to know what they thought about the reappearance of Professor Grubbly-Plank, but neither of them was anywhere near us, so we allowed ourselves to be shunted forward onto the dark rain-washed road outside Hogsmeade station. Here stood the hundred or so horseless stagecoaches that always took the students above first year up to the castle. I glanced quickly at them, turned away to keep a lookout for Ron and Ava, then did a double take. The coaches were no longer horseless. There were creatures standing between the carriage shafts. If I had had to give them a name, I guess I would have called them horses, though there was something reptilian about them, too. They were completely fleshless, their black coats clinging to their skeletons, of which every bone was visible. Their heads were dragonish, and their pupil-less eyes white and staring. Wings sprouted from each of them, vast, black leathery wings that looked as though they ought to belong to giant bats. Standing still and quiet in the gloom, the creatures looked eerie and sinister. I had no clue why the coaches were being pulled by these horrible horses when they were quite capable of moving along by themselves.

Ron: Where's Pig?

I turned to see him pushing towards us through the crowd.

YN: Luna was carrying him.

Harry: Where d'you reckon-

Ron: Hagrid is? I dunno. He'd better be okay.

A short distance away, Draco Malfoy, followed by a small gang of cronies including Crabbe, Goyle, and Pansy Parkinson, was pushing some timid looking second years out of the way so that they could get a coach to themselves. Seconds later Ava emerged panting from the crowd.

Ava: Malfoy was being absolutely foul to a first year back there, I swear I'm going to report him, he's only had his badge three minutes and he's using it to bully people worse than ever...

Hermione: Where's Crookshanks?

Suguru: Ginny's got him. There she is.

Ginny had just emerged from the crowd, clutching a squirming Crookshanks.

Hermione: Thanks. Come on, let's get a carriage together before they all fill up.

Ron: I haven't got Pig yet!

But Hermione, Ava, and Suguru were already heading off toward the nearest unoccupied coach. The rest of us remained behind with Ron.

Harry: What are those things, d'you reckon?