The familiar cascade of thick, bushy brown hair was something Lucifer could easily pick out in any crowded room, no matter how chaotic the swarm of students became. As he closed the distance toward the main entrance of the Great Hall, the overlapping voices of his friends drifted over the chatter of the arriving crowd.
"Did everyone see that Professor Grubbly-Plank woman down by the carriages?" Ginny was asking, her brow furrowed in deep confusion.
"What on earth is she doing back here?" Ron muttered, looking around anxiously. "Hagrid can't have left the school, can he?"
"To be completely honest, I'll be quite glad if he has," Luna's dreamy, detached voice floated into the conversation as she adjusted her bag. "He isn't a very good teacher, is he? He's a bit reckless."
"Yes, he is!" Harry, Ron, and Ginny all yelled back in unison, their voices sharp and thoroughly angry as they instantly rushed to defend the gamekeeper.
Hermione's mouth opened, about to interject with her own frantic thoughts, when Lucifer stepped up from behind and spoke directly for her. "I agree with both sides."
Harry snapped his head around, his green eyes flashing. "What's that supposed to mean?" he glared at him, his posture instantly stiffening.
"It means exactly what I said. Hagrid is great at explaining things when he is calm, but the moment he gets emotional, he completely loses track of what he's doing," Lucifer stated, his words of truth entirely level. "He loses his mojo, lets dangerous variables slip, and ultimately fails to be productive or safe for his class."
If looks had the physical power to kill, Lucifer would have dropped dead on the spot from the venom in the glare Harry was currently directing at him.
Lucifer merely looked back at the boy, his expression a mask of absolute, unbothered neutrality. He wasn't going to artificially concede a point or alter his logic just because they were friends; that was his honest, objective evaluation of Rubeus Hagrid as an educator, and no amount of teenage angst was going to change his opinion. He genuinely liked Hagrid as a person, but as a Hogwarts Professor, the giant man's track record simply went both ways.
Without giving Harry a chance to escalate the argument, Lucifer walked forward into the castle's massive dining arena like nothing had happened. Hermione quickly fell into step right behind him, leaning in close. "So... it's not just me who thinks that way about his curriculum?" she whispered quietly.
"No. Potter will just have to get over the fact that Hagrid isn't nearly as flawless an educator as he wants him to be," Lucifer said without a single shred of remorse. "He is good-hearted, but his lesson plans are far from amazing."
He walked with a regal confidence down the length of the Great Hall, his posture carrying a natural, commanding weight that had the immediate side effect of being deeply off-putting to many of his surrounding peers. The newly pinned Prefect badge fastened to his black school robes glinted sharply beneath the thousands of floating candles, drawing a flurry of surprised faces from the upper years, the reactions equally split between happy relief and deeply worried surprise.
He slid smoothly onto the wooden bench about halfway down the Gryffindor table. Hermione took her place directly on his right side, as she always did, while Harry and Ron threw themselves onto the seats across from them, still radiating a tense silence.
Neville Longbottom offered a quiet greeting as he sat down beside Harry, and Nearly Headless Nick drifted into a seat just a foot away. Across the table, Lavender Brown and Parvati Patil immediately looked up, both of them flashing Lucifer brilliant, lingering smiles, a visual display that Hermione thoroughly disapproved of, her jaw tightening as she pointedly shifted closer to his side.
Ignoring the girls, Harry and Ron immediately began scanning the length of the elevated staff table at the front of the room.
"He's not up there... and it's physically hard to miss a man of his size," Lucifer observed dryly, his eyes tracing the empty oversized chair.
"He can't have left the school permanently," Ron said, his voice laced with an anxious, desperate edge.
"Of course he hasn't left. He's just... busy with an assignment, exactly like Lucifer said on the platform," Harry said firmly, trying to convince himself as much as the others.
Hermione bit her lower lip, her worries flaring up. "You... you don't think he's in any real danger, do you? You don't think he got hurt out there?"
"No. He has Giant's blood running through his veins, which means he inherently possesses all the physical and magical resistances a full Giant has," Lucifer explained, cutting through her panic with calm, biological facts. "Any ordinary witch or wizard... would be incredibly hard-pressed to inflict any real harm on Hagrid, at least if they are acting alone. His skin is practically armor."
"Exactly like he said," Harry reiterated, nodding sharply. "He's just tied up with something important for the Order. He told us as much at the very end of last year, didn't he?" His voice dropped into a low, cautious whisper, highly aware that Lavender and Parvati were still hovering within earshot.
Receiving a double dose of logical reassurance from both boys, Ron and Hermione felt a sudden wave of comfort wash over them, nodding in agreement. "Right... yeah, that's definitely what it is."
Then her brown eyes continued to wander across the row of faculty members until they locked onto a completely unfamiliar figure sitting near the center. "Who on earth is that?" She asked, pointing a subtle finger toward a short, squat woman dressed in a loud, fluffy pink cardigan.
Harry leaned forward, his face turning an alarmed, sickly shade of pale. "It's that Umbridge woman!" he whispered, his voice trembling with immediate recognition. "She was sitting right there at my disciplinary hearing! She works directly for Fudge at the Ministry!"
"She works for Fudge?" Hermione repeated, her brow furrowing deeply as she stared up at the staff table. "Then what in the world is a senior political bureaucrat doing at a school banquet?"
"There is only one universal reason a corrupt government will ever get directly involved with an independent educational institution... and it is never for the actual betterment of students," Lucifer said, a low, menacing snarl curling his lips.
He remembered his internal vow from the previous world: if this pink, toad-like woman ever dared to set foot inside Hogwarts to claim a position of authority, he would find a way to shove Voldemort straight up a Dementor's rear end just out of sheer spite. Since the Dark Lord wasn't available at a moment's notice for such an experiment, Dolores Umbridge would just have to do as a substitute for it.
"Lucifer... she's sitting directly in the 'Defense Against the Dark Arts' teacher's chair," Hermione said quietly, her voice dropping into a horrified realization. "No... no, surely not..."
"Unfortunately, yes," Lucifer replied icily.
Just then, Professor Grubbly-Plank strode into the Great Hall from a side entrance, which officially signaled that the arriving First Years had been successfully handed over to McGonagall.
Lucifer watched the older witch walk along the outer outskirts of the hall and claim the ordinary seat Hagrid would usually occupy; the visual confirmation solidified the fact that the gamekeeper was completely absent from the castle. 'She'll suffer a localized tragedy due to her cursed teaching subject at the end of the year anyway,' he thought darkly, his mind tracking the inevitable, chaotic pattern of the Defense position.
A few seconds later, the massive oak doors of the Great Hall swung open on their iron hinges. A heavy, expectant hush fell over the room as Professor McGonagall marched up the center aisle, leading a long, symmetrical line of terrified-looking First Years.
In her grip, she carried a rustic, three-legged wooden stool, upon which sat an ancient, dirty, patched piece of Wizarding history,
'the Sorting Hat!~'
The buzz of the entire Great Hall faded into a dead, absolute nothingness as the children were guided toward the front stage. The young faces glowed palely beneath the shimmering, ethereal candlelight, every single one of them looking entirely frightened, nervous, and utterly overwhelmed by the grand reality of Hogwarts.
The Sorting Hat sat there, motionless for a second, before the tear near the brim opened and burst into song:
In times of old when I was new
And Hogwarts barely started
The founders of our noble school
Thought never to be parted:
United by a common goal,
They had the selfsame learning,
To make the world's best magic school
And pass along their learning.
"Together we will build and teach!"
The four good friends decided
And never did they dream that they
Might someday be divided,
For were there such friends anywhere
As Slytherin and Gryffindor?
Unless it was the second pair
Of Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw?
So how could it have gone sO wrong?
How could such friendships fail?
Why, I was there and so can tell
The whole sad, sorry tale.
Said Slytherin, "We'l teach just those
Whose ancestry is purest."
Said Ravenclaw, "We'll teach those whose Intelligence is surest."
Said Gryffindor, "We'll teach all those
With brave deeds to their name."
Said Hufflepuff "I'Il teach the lot,
And treat them just the same."
These differences caused little strife
When first they came to light,
For each of the four founders had
A House in which they might
Take only those they wanted, so,
For instance, Slytherin
Took only the pure-blooded wizards
of great cunning, just like him,
And only those of sharpest mind
Were taught by Ravenclaw
While the bravest and the boldest
Went to daring Gryffindor.
Good Hufflepuff she took the rest,
And taught them all she knew,
Thus the Houses and their founders
Retained friendships firm and true.
So Hogwarts worked in harmony
For several happy years,
But then discord crept among us
Feeding on our faults and fears.
The Houses that, like pillars four,
Had once held up our school,
Now turned upon each other and,
Divided, sought to rule.
And for a while it seemed the school
Must meet an early end,
What with dueling and with fighting
And the clash of friend on friend
And at last there came a morning
When old Slytherin departed
And though the fighting then died out
He left us quite downhearted.
And never since the founders four
Were whittled down to three
Have the Houses been united
As they once were meant to be.
And now the Sorting Hat is here
And you all know the score:
I sort you into Houses
Because that is what I'm for,
But this year l'll go further,
Listen closely to my song:
Though condemned I am to split you
Still l worry that it's wrong,
Though I must fulfill my duty
And must quarter every year
Still l wonder whether sorting
May not bring the end I fear.
Oh, know the perils, read the signs,
The warning history shows,
For our Hogwarts is in danger
From external, deadly foes
And we must unite inside her
Or we'll crumble from within.
I have told you, I have warned you...
Let the Sorting now begin!"
The Sorting hat became motionless once more; applause broke out as usual, but it was noticed by Lucifer that there was muttering and whispering.
It was obvious what they were about; the Sorting Hat gave a warning, to try and get people still disbelieving Voldemort's return to band together and unite before discord sets in.
Though Lucifer had to admit it wasn't particularly well-written. It seemed to be based on an existing melody, but with a serious, slightly disjointed warning tacked on: 'a call for unity among the students.'
This year, the lyrics were entirely different, even Harry had noticed. Instead of its usual witty descriptions of the 'four founders,' the Hat sang a grim melody about unity, explicitly warning the houses that they must band together from within, or Hogwarts would crumble to ash against external forces.
"The Hat is giving advice," Hermione whispered, her eyes wide as she leaned toward Lucifer. "It's never done that before, has it?"
"It's an enchanted object with access to the collective memory of the founders," Lucifer noted, keeping his eyes on the head table. "It can feel the friction in the castle, knows a storm is brewing."
"Too right it has," Harry agreed.
"Branched out a bit this year, hasn't it?" Ron asked as he raised his eyebrows.
"l wonder-" Hermione was about to speak when Lucifer immediately shushed her. She looked and saw McGonagall staring at all of the whispering students with a scorching look that you never wanted to be singled out by.
With a last frowning look that swept the four House tables, Professor McGonagall lowered her eyes to her long piece of parchment and called out the names of the First Years.
Each new child walked up, sat underneath the Hat, and it shouted out one of the four names of the Houses. Lucifer politely clapped for each House not just Gryffindor, but he applauded loudly for his own House, that meandered up to the table, looking like they'd rather die of actual embarrassment.
"I still can't believe Fudge put her here," Harry muttered, entirely ignoring the Sorting as his eyes remained glued to the pink clad woman at the staff table. "Look at her. She's watching everyone like a hawk."
"She's not here to teach, Harry," Hermione said, her voice dropping to a harsh whisper as a small boy was sorted into Hufflepuff. "She's here to spy. The Ministry wants a direct hand inside Hogwarts to monitor Dumbledore."
"Let them try," Lucifer said, a cold edge to his voice. "They think they can control an institution built on magic with bureaucratic edicts. They are out of their depth...."
The final student, Rose Zeller, was quickly sorted into Hufflepuff, and Professor McGonagall gathered the stool and hat to depart. Dumbledore stood up from his golden throne, his silver beard catching the light of the torches as he opened his arms wide to welcome the students.
Any sound that lingered was silenced immediately.
xxxxxx
Author's Note
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