Just as Sherlock had predicted, the Sorting Hat on Harry Potter's messy black hair finally announced "GRYFFINDOR!"
The announcement rang through the Great Hall like a bell, cutting through the tense silence that had fallen for nearly five minutes—only slightly shorter than Sherlock's own sorting session.
The Gryffindor students near Sherlock turned to stare at him with expressions that ranged from amazement to something approaching awe. Their eyes were wide with disbelief.
'Was this first-year really that perceptive?' They wondered silently.
Not only had he correctly predicted the outcome with such confidence, but he had also accurately forecasted the lengthy process.
'Perhaps this mysterious boy should have been sorted into Ravenclaw after all,' Several students thought secretly.
"You really did get it exactly right!" Hermione exclaimed; her voice filled with genuine wonder at Sherlock's deductive abilities. However, her words were immediately swallowed by an eruption of thunderous applause and jubilant cheers that seemed to shake the castle.
Without question, Harry Potter received the most enthusiastic and continuous welcome of the entire evening.
The roar of approval from the Gryffindor table was so overwhelming that it momentarily drowned out the polite applause from the other Houses.
It could be said the moment the Sorting Hat's decision was announced; the entire Gryffindor House seemed to explode with joy. Students leaped to their feet, throwing their arms in the air, whistling, and shouting themselves hoarse.
As Harry made his way across the floor toward the Gryffindor table, his face was flushed with a mixture of relief and embarrassment, Prefect Percy Weasley immediately jumped to his feet.
Percy grasped Harry's hand in both of his own, pumping it vigorously with such enthusiastic determination that his grip lingered far beyond what would be considered appropriate.
His eyes shone with star-struck admiration as he held on, seemingly reluctant to break contact with the famous Boy Who Lived.
Had Harry been a girl, the lengthy handshake would have bordered on harassment—as it was, it simply appeared uncomfortably enthusiastic.
The Weasley twins, Fred and George, were practically beside themselves with glee, their voices carrying clearly above the general noise:
"We've got Potter! We've got Potter!" they chanted in unison, their faces beaming with triumphant joy as if they had personally orchestrated this miraculous outcome.
At this moment, Harry was undeniably the center of attention, the undisputed protagonist of the evening.
Yet despite the adoration surrounding him, despite the dozens of faces turned toward him with expressions ranging from curiosity to hero-worship, Harry's eyes sought out and found Sherlock's calm gaze.
A feeling of relief came over Harry, a sensation he might have described as "finally, someone who understands me" or "from now on, I have someone watching my back." Without hesitation or second thought, he crossed through the celebrating Gryffindors and sat beside Sherlock.
The students sorted after Harry seemed almost anticlimactic in comparison, their names called and Houses were announced with considerably less fanfare.
When only two students remained standing, Ron Weasley was called forward.
True to family tradition, he was sorted into Gryffindor with remarkable speed—his sorting time rivaling even Malfoy's swift placement.
The final student, a boy named Zabini was placed in Slytherin with equal efficiency, bringing the ceremony to its conclusion.
As Sherlock surveyed the final distribution of new students across the four House tables, he noted with quiet satisfaction that his earlier observations had been accurate.
Hufflepuff had indeed gotten roughly half of the new arrivals, their table was now crowded with eager faces representing every conceivable background and personality type. The remaining students were distributed more sparingly among Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, and Slytherin, each House gaining perhaps eight to ten new members.
'Indeed,' Sherlock thought silently, 'Hufflepuff truly serves as the backbone of the wizarding world—accepting all those who don't fit neatly into the more specialized categories of the other Houses.'
The other three Houses, with their more rigid criteria and specific traits, could certainly be considered more selective, more... quirky in their requirements.
Not that Sherlock had ever considered himself particularly normal anyway, so the observation held no judgment—just analytical interest.
After Professor McGonagall rolled up the parchment with the new students' names and left with the Sorting Hat.
With the sorting concluded, Headmaster Albus Dumbledore rose from his chair at the center of the staff table. His appearance was exactly as Harry remembered from the Chocolate Frog card he had once found—an elderly wizard wearing glasses.
His blue eyes sparkled with intelligence, his crooked long nose looked like it had been broken more than once, and his silver hair and beard showed his old age.
As for his constantly twinkling half-moon spectacles, they seemed able to see right through a person.
"Welcome!" Dumbledore called out, his arms spreading wide in a gesture that seemed to embrace every person in the vast hall. "Welcome, everyone, to Hogwarts for the new school year! Before we begin our feast, I would like to say a few words."
The collective reaction from the first-year students was unmistakable.
Faces fell with resigned dread, shoulders slumped with defeat, and several students exchanged knowing glances of shared misery.
At this moment, all the new students couldn't help but recall the terror of being subjected to lengthy principal speeches in elementary school.
However, Headmaster Dumbledore's next actions completely subverted their expectations in the most delightful way possible.
He paused for dramatic effect, his twinkling eyes surveying the expectant faces before him. Then, with perfect timing and theatrical flair, he opened his mouth and said:
"And that is: Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak!"
"Thank you all!" he concluded with a gracious bow, and promptly sat down.
The entire "opening ceremony speech" had lasted less than ten seconds, a masterpiece of briefness that left the audience stunned into momentary silence before erupting into appreciative applause and laughter.
Although no one in the Great Hall had the slightest idea what those four peculiar words meant, everyone agreed that there was something rather brilliant about the whole performance.
The applause that followed was genuine and enthusiastic.
As long as you don't subject us to long-winded speeches, seemed to be the shared sentiment, you can say whatever mysterious nonsense you like, and we'll consider you a friend.
More importantly, everyone was absolutely famished after the long day of travel and emotional intensity. The moment Dumbledore's peculiar speech concluded, magic happened in the most literal sense.
The previously empty golden plates that had sat bare before each student suddenly filled with food.
Roast beef, roast chicken, chips, tomato sauce, peppermint candies...
It could be said that both main dishes and snacks were available in abundance.
The returning students were already accustomed to this, but the first-year students were startled by the scene.
"Me and my little friends were all stunned.JPG"
Without needing any instruction or encouragement, everyone began to eat with the enthusiasm of people who had been anticipating this moment for hours.
"Sherlock," Harry said quietly, leaning toward his new friend while keeping his voice low enough to avoid drawing attention from the enthusiastic eaters around them, "do you think he's—well, a bit eccentric?"
Percy Weasley, who had been reaching for a particularly appetizing piece of roast beef, overheard Harry's tentative question and couldn't resist interjecting with the authority of someone who had spent several years at Hogwarts.
"Eccentric?" Percy repeated in a whisper. "He's a genius! The finest wizard in the entire world, some say—possibly the greatest wizard who ever lived! But," he added with a small smile, "you're absolutely right that he's a bit eccentric. Perhaps more than a bit, if we're being honest. But that's part of what makes him so remarkable. Now, let's eat first before the food gets cold... Would you care for some potatoes, Harry? They're particularly good tonight."
Harry accepted the offered potatoes with a grateful nod, but his eyes immediately returned to Sherlock, seeking his opinion on the matter.
What he saw gave him pause: Sherlock was frowning apparently deep in thought.
Sherlock was indeed thinking.
Regarding Dumbledore's seemingly meaningless speech, he had already thought of several explanations in an instant.
His first theory was that the four words represented stereotypical impressions of the four Houses:
Hufflepuffs dismissed as harmless nitwits, Ravenclaws reduced to blubbering bookworms who fell apart when faced with real-world problems, Slytherins viewed as mere oddments—curiosities to be observed but not taken seriously—and Gryffindors characterized as tweaked, their bravery twisted into reckless stupidity.
Alternatively, the words could represent the complete opposite of each House's defining characteristics—a kind of inverse description that highlighted what each House was not:
Ravenclaw wisdom contrasted with "nitwit," Gryffindor courage contrasted against "blubber," Slytherin cunning and ambition set against "oddment," and Hufflepuff integrity and kindness opposed to "tweak."
A third possibility intrigued him even more: perhaps the words represented how each House viewed the others. Ravenclaws, proud of their intelligence, might indeed consider everyone else to be nitwits.
Gryffindors, valuing courage above all else, might see students from other Houses as cry-babies and cowards who blubber when faced with danger.
Slytherins, with their emphasis on pure blood and noble heritage, might well consider students from other backgrounds to be worthless oddments.
And Hufflepuffs, with their appreciation for balance and kindness, might view the more extreme personality traits of the other Houses as twisted or tweaked beyond healthy proportion.
Each interpretation had merit, and Sherlock sent them all away for future consideration.
The beauty of the puzzle was that it didn't require immediate solution—he had seven years at Hogwarts to observe and test his theories.
But regardless of the deeper meaning behind Dumbledore's words, the immediate reality was that after a full day of travel, emotional intensity, and new experiences, the students were genuinely starving.
The magical food in front of before them was not only abundant but genuinely excellent, representing a level of culinary sophistication that was particularly impressive considering Britain's somewhat notorious reputation for bland cuisine.
Sherlock, while not particularly invested in food under normal circumstances, found himself appreciating the quality of the meal. When something was genuinely well-prepared, he would eat more of it, and tonight's feast certainly qualified.
Harry, meanwhile, needed no encouragement at all.
Years of living with the Dursleys had taught him to appreciate food when it was available and to never take a full meal for granted.
While his 'relatives' had never allowed him to actually starve, they had certainly never allowed him to eat his fill either.
The food in front of him now felt like a dream come true, and he tried every single dish within reach, savoring flavors he had never experienced and quantities he had never been allowed.
The magical nature of the feast continued to manifest in small ways throughout the meal. As plates emptied, they refilled themselves automatically.
Spills vanished before they could stain clothing or tablecloths. Crumbs disappeared, glasses never seemed to empty completely, and somehow every student found exactly the combination of foods they most craved appearing within easy reach.
When the last student had eaten their fill and pushed back from the table with satisfied sighs, the plates performed one final act of magic, becoming spotlessly clean without any human intervention.
This final display of casual magic once again amazed the first-year students, who were beginning to understand that their new school operated by entirely different rules than the world they had known.
Seeing that everyone had eaten and drunk their fill, Dumbledore rose from his chair for the second time that evening.
The informal atmosphere of the meal began to shift as students straightened in their seats, sensing that something more official was about to occur.
This time, the headmaster's demeanor was obviously different—more formal, more traditionally academic.
"The autumn air grows crisp, the weather turns cool, and once again we find ourselves at the beginning of a new school term,"
Dumbledore began. "In the year ahead, I hope that each of you will continue your efforts to excel, constantly working to improve your understanding of both magical theory and practical application. Study diligently, practice faithfully, and strive to achieve excellent results when the term concludes.
Our senior students must hold themselves to the highest standards, taking the lead in following school rules and regulations, and setting exemplary behavior for our newly enrolled first-year students to follow.
Our new students should follow in their predecessors' footsteps, forging ahead with courage and determination, working together to build Hogwarts into the finest magical institution in Europe and, indeed, the world.
Finally, on behalf of the school administration, I must present several important requirements for all students, but particularly our new arrivals:
First, you must carefully observe all school discipline and regulations. This includes refraining from performing magic in the corridors between classes, and absolutely avoiding both the Forbidden Forest and the corridor on the right side of the fourth floor, both of which are strictly off-limits for your own safety.
Second, I encourage you to participate actively in school activities, including applying for Quidditch team evaluations when the time comes, and bringing honor to your respective Houses.
Third, work diligently to improve your House's collective standing and reputation throughout the school.
And now," Dumbledore concluded with a smile that was simultaneously warm and slightly mischievous, "the headmaster will personally conduct and lead everyone in singing our beloved school song together."
The first two points of Dumbledore's speech had been received with the appropriate mixture of attention and resignation that students typically show toward announcements.
However, the moment he mentioned singing the school song together, Sherlock's eyes caught something fascinating: every single member of the teaching staff smiles immediately froze.
'Something was fishy!'