Post by Tathrin on Mar 31, 2012 12:07:28 GMT -8
Title: Hart's Reflection
Changing Canon Challenge[/b]
Summary: When Harry looked into the Mirror of Erised, he saw his parents standing behind him. But in this world, that is no mere reflection...
Rating: PG-13 (language, some violence)
Word Count: 4088
Back to Part One
Previous Part
Hermione swallowed hard and edged a little bit closer to Draco. He seemed quite unfazed by the size and splendor of Hogwarts Castle, and by the oddly-dressed witch who had welcomed them. Hermione reminded herself firmly that green robes weren’t odd at all, and that she had better get used to things like that, because they were totally normal in the wizarding world.
So, apparently, were very large castles.
Hermione had been to a few, with her parents, on holidays, but those were all usually done up like museums, or decayed into ruins. This felt...lived in. It felt the way it must have hundreds—maybe thousands—of years ago, when these stones were new and those tapestries first woven. Hermione felt strangely out of place, and surreptitiously eased her plastic watch a little further up on her wrist, hiding it beneath the long sleeve of her black robe.
Hermione ran through a mental list of all the spells she had learned, only half-aware of the fact that she was talking aloud as she did so. She wondered which one they would need, and whether or not it was one of the ones she had practiced, and if it was, if she had practiced it enough.
Draco laughed at her. “Don’t worry so, Granger,” he said. “It’s not difficult, and you’re not going to need any specific spells, not for the sorting.”
Hermione frowned dubiously. “Are you sure?” she asked.
Draco shrugged. “Well, father didn’t say anything about it,” he answered easily, “and I’m sure he would have mentioned, if there was anything I needed to be prepared for ahead of time.”
Hermione nodded, but privately remained unconvinced. She didn’t share Draco’s confidence. Perhaps the Sorting was one of those things that one simply wasn’t supposed to talk about ahead of time, with those who hadn’t been through it first hand. It was probably like an initiation into some sort of secret society, and one wasn’t supposed to give anything away in advance, so just because Lucius Malfoy hadn’t broken the rules to warn his son beforehand what they would be expected to do, that didn’t mean that there was nothing to fret about. After all, the entry in Hogwarts, A History had been decidedly vague, mentioning a hat and four houses and little else.
Hermione stayed quiet, but kept reviewing her mental list of spells. She tucked her hands inside her robes to keep from fidgeting. Hermione ran a finger across the smooth wooden shaft of her brand new wand, and felt only slightly reassured.
Professor McGonagall swept back into the room quite suddenly, making Hermione jump. “The Sorting Ceremony is about to start,” she announced. “Please form a line and follow me.”
Everyone hurried to obey, clustering up behind McGonagall, and then trailing back nervously as she led the way out of the chamber, across the entrance hall, and through a pair of very large double doors.
They swung open at McGonagall’s approach, revealing the Great Hall. The rest of the students were already seated inside at four long tables. Glittering golden plates and goblets were laid out, although there was as yet no sign of serving dishes or food of any kind. Another long table stretched out across the top of the hall; the other teachers sat there, looking to Hermione like a very eccentric and wise bunch.
The room was lit by floating candles that hung suspended in midair beneath the tall ceiling, which right now looked like a night sky, velvety black and dotted with glittering stars. “It’s bewitched to look like the sky outside,” Hermione whispered to Draco. “I read about it in Hogwarts, A History.”
“I know what it is,” Draco whispered back. He sounded very amused, and even a little bit condescending.
Hermione colored. Of course he knew that already; he had been born a wizard, hadn’t he? What was she doing, telling him things he already knew? She bit her lip before she said anything else stupid and hoped that no one would be able to tell that she was blushing.
McGonagall led the way up to the head table, the first years all standing in a long line facing the other students. Hermione resisted the urge to crane her neck around and peer over her shoulder for a closer look at the rest of the teachers.
Professor McGonagall did not speak as she placed a four-legged stool in front of Hermione and her fellows. She next produced a frayed and patched hat, tall and pointed as was the fashion of wizard’s hats, and placed that on top of the stool. Hermione gasped. “The Sorting Hat,” she whispered, “of course!” She stared at it eagerly, raising herself nearly onto her tiptoes in her excitement, and waited. Surely—
And then it did. The long rip near the brim of the hat opened and it began to sing:
“Oh, you may not think I’m pretty,
But don’t judge on what you see.
The years go by and things all change,
Except of course for me.
I stay and sort, divide the school;
For I see all your fears and dreams.
So perhaps you’ll go to Slytherin,
to follow clever schemes.
Or maybe it’s to Gryffindor,
I’ll send you if you dare.
And Hufflepuff is nice as well,
for those strong enough to care.
Or then again there’s Ravenclaw,
Where wit becomes fine art.
Each house you go, remember all,
Though I move you now apart,
Still there’s purpose that unites us,
And there’s history as well.
The past is what creates us,
And what tolls that fateful knell.
So make new friends, but keep the old,
And learn all that you can find.
But before you do—come wear a hat!
Through me you’ll know your mind.
So put me on! Don’t be afraid!
And don’t get in a flap!
You’re in safe hands (though I have none)
For I’m a Thinking Cap!”
Everyone applauded when the hat finished, especially Hermione. She mouthed its words silently to herself, trying to commit them all to memory. The rest of the first years were simply jabbering about the houses, and the hat’s tune-writing, but something told Hermione that when the hat spoke, it was important to listen to the words.
The Sorting Hat bowed to each table, taking in the applause, and then went still again. Hermione stared harder. Then she looked away from the hat quickly, because Professor McGonagall was moving again. She took a long roll of parchment from the head table and unfurled it with a practiced shake.
“When I call your name,” she said to the first years, “you will put on the hat and sit on the stool to be sorted.” Hermione nodded quickly, and saw a few of her fellow students doing the same thing, although most of them just stared at McGonagall, looking very pale.
McGonagall flourished her scroll and said loudly, “Abbot, Hannah!”
Blushing furiously, the blonde girl who had shared Hermione’s little boat stumbled out of the line. She edged her way to the front and up to the stool. When she put the hat on her head, it slipped down over her eyes. She gave a tiny little squeak that Hermione, even standing only a few feet away from her, could barely hear, and managed to find the stool despite being blinded. Hannah sat down, and Hermione—and the rest of the first years—held their breath. There was a long pause—
“HUFFLEPUFF!” shouted the hat.
The table on the right cheered and clapped as Hannah hopped off the stool and made her way, pink-faced and beaming, over to join them. “Knew it,” Draco muttered quietly. Hermione ignored him, too nervous herself to ask how.
“Bones, Susan!” McGonagall continued. The red-head also went to Hufflepuff, although the next student—a boy named Terry Boot—became the first Ravenclaw. Gryffindor received “Brown, Lavender,” a girl that Hermione thought looked a bit meek for the red-and-gold’s house reputation. “Brocklehurst, Mandy,” became another Ravenclaw, and just as Hermione was going to ask if there might be some problem, since Slytherin had been so far left out, they received their first student: “Bulstrode, Millicent.” The far side of the room broke into cheers as she joined their table. Draco clapped idly that time, although he hadn’t for any of the other students. Hermione was going to ask him if he knew Millicent, but “Corner, Michael,” pushed right between them on his way to the Ravenclaw table.
Hermione was too busy being indignant at such rudeness to pay any attention to the next students, and had leaned in to mutter her opinion of Corner’s behavior to Draco, when he suddenly went stiff.
“Crabbe, Vincent,” McGonagall called, and the burly boy who had split Draco’s lip open on the school train lumbered up to the stool. Draco’s icy glare marked each heavy step of the bully, and Hermione’s own frown followed along. She quite disapproved of rule-breaking in general, and of fighting in particular.
Crabbe was sent to Slytherin, and Draco’s lips went very thin. “Well I don’t think much of Slytherin’s taste,” Hermione whispered, “not if he is the sort of student they take in.”
Draco’s monosyllabic reply was entirely noncommittal, but he didn’t seem to relax when “Davis, Tracey,” also went to Slytherin. Hermione wondered if she was a bully, too, and then scolded herself; she shouldn’t judge an entire house based on the deplorable actions and attitudes of a single student. Besides, Michael Corner had been rude, but that didn’t mean that all Ravenclaws were.
Hermione had been rather entertaining the possibility of Ravenclaw House for herself, although she was trying very hard not to fixate on any one house in particular. The Sorting Hat would determine the best place for her, so she knew that it was best not to plan ahead too far. It was, after all, Hermione’s first encounter with a magical hat. One couldn’t be expected to know how such a thing was going to turn out.
And then, suddenly, though it seemed like she had barley blinked, Professor McGonagall was calling out, “Granger, Hermione,” and it was her turn to walk up to the stool, and pick up the hat, and sit down and wait for her fate.
She took a deep breath, and the hat slipped over her eyes, and everything went black and, for a long moment, silent too. Then a voice: “Well, well,” someone said, “you’re an interesting one, aren’t you?”
Hermione realized that her mouth was hanging open, and quickly shut it. Then she opened it again, just slightly, to whisper, “am I?”
The hat—Hermione was sure that was who the voice belonged to, now—the hat chuckled quietly in her ear. “Oh, yes,” it said, “yes indeed. Clever, certainly—extraordinarily clever. But you know that already, don’t you?”
Hermione blushed. She didn’t say anything to that, because what sort of reply could one make to such a comment?
"But more than just clever, aren't you?" the hat continued. "Yes, that doesn't seem to impress you very much, does it?”"
Hermione shrugged awkwardly. She wasn't sure what the hat was getting at, but thought it might be rude to point out that it wasn't making much sense.
"Let's see, let's see," the hat continued. "Well, you're certainly hard-working, no mistake there. And I great deal of ambition, that's for sure. I applaud your intent, Miss Granger; 'know everything,' eh? Not exactly an easy goal you've set for yourself...but you're not one to back down from a challenge, are you?"
Hermione shrugged again. Her face felt like it was on fire.
“Oh yes,” the hat mused, “you are a tricky one...full of spitfire and bravery, but packed to the brim with logic and knowledge, too. All the traits Rowena appreciated, to be sure, but Godric would have loved you too, wouldn’t he? And he’s not the only one...I think even Salazaar would have been inclined to conceive an exception on your behalf, and then of course Helga would have loved your spirit and compassion...”
Hermione shivered. The Founders had lived thousands of years ago, but here this hat was talking about them as if they had only just stepped out a few minutes ago...
“You’d fit in anywhere, really, but you don’t fit in at all, do you?” the hat asked quietly.
Hermione swallowed hard.
“Well then, let me think...where would be best for you, Miss Granger?” the hat asked. “What shall we encourage, hmm? That is the real question, isn’t it? Yessss...” it hissed to itself, it seemed, more than to her. “Well then,” it continued, “where to put you? Ravenclaw, perhaps...you would do well in Ravenclaw...or then again...maybe...
"GRYFFINDOR!"
The far side of the room burst into cheers, and only then did Hermione realize that the hat must have shouted the last word aloud. Blushing furiously, she hopped off the stool and handed the hat back to Professor McGonagall. Hermione's thoughts were so scattered she could barely manage to return all the hand-shakes and smiles as she was welcomed to her new home.
She glanced over her shoulder at the students still waiting to be sorted and caught Draco’s eye, but the grin on her face faltered as the met the cool, almost pitying expression in his gray eyes.
Then “Greengrass, Daphne,” was called up, and Draco turned away to watch as she was sent to the Slytherin table amidst the green-clad students’ cheers.
Hermione sniffed firmly, and squared her shoulders, and looked away. She would do just fine in Gryffindor. After all, she was brave enough to stand up to the bullies who had been bothering him; so Draco Malfoy had no right to be thinking that she lacked courage.
Honestly...
Changing Canon Challenge[/b]
Summary: When Harry looked into the Mirror of Erised, he saw his parents standing behind him. But in this world, that is no mere reflection...
Rating: PG-13 (language, some violence)
Word Count: 4088
Back to Part One
Previous Part
Hermione swallowed hard and edged a little bit closer to Draco. He seemed quite unfazed by the size and splendor of Hogwarts Castle, and by the oddly-dressed witch who had welcomed them. Hermione reminded herself firmly that green robes weren’t odd at all, and that she had better get used to things like that, because they were totally normal in the wizarding world.
So, apparently, were very large castles.
Hermione had been to a few, with her parents, on holidays, but those were all usually done up like museums, or decayed into ruins. This felt...lived in. It felt the way it must have hundreds—maybe thousands—of years ago, when these stones were new and those tapestries first woven. Hermione felt strangely out of place, and surreptitiously eased her plastic watch a little further up on her wrist, hiding it beneath the long sleeve of her black robe.
Hermione ran through a mental list of all the spells she had learned, only half-aware of the fact that she was talking aloud as she did so. She wondered which one they would need, and whether or not it was one of the ones she had practiced, and if it was, if she had practiced it enough.
Draco laughed at her. “Don’t worry so, Granger,” he said. “It’s not difficult, and you’re not going to need any specific spells, not for the sorting.”
Hermione frowned dubiously. “Are you sure?” she asked.
Draco shrugged. “Well, father didn’t say anything about it,” he answered easily, “and I’m sure he would have mentioned, if there was anything I needed to be prepared for ahead of time.”
Hermione nodded, but privately remained unconvinced. She didn’t share Draco’s confidence. Perhaps the Sorting was one of those things that one simply wasn’t supposed to talk about ahead of time, with those who hadn’t been through it first hand. It was probably like an initiation into some sort of secret society, and one wasn’t supposed to give anything away in advance, so just because Lucius Malfoy hadn’t broken the rules to warn his son beforehand what they would be expected to do, that didn’t mean that there was nothing to fret about. After all, the entry in Hogwarts, A History had been decidedly vague, mentioning a hat and four houses and little else.
Hermione stayed quiet, but kept reviewing her mental list of spells. She tucked her hands inside her robes to keep from fidgeting. Hermione ran a finger across the smooth wooden shaft of her brand new wand, and felt only slightly reassured.
Professor McGonagall swept back into the room quite suddenly, making Hermione jump. “The Sorting Ceremony is about to start,” she announced. “Please form a line and follow me.”
Everyone hurried to obey, clustering up behind McGonagall, and then trailing back nervously as she led the way out of the chamber, across the entrance hall, and through a pair of very large double doors.
They swung open at McGonagall’s approach, revealing the Great Hall. The rest of the students were already seated inside at four long tables. Glittering golden plates and goblets were laid out, although there was as yet no sign of serving dishes or food of any kind. Another long table stretched out across the top of the hall; the other teachers sat there, looking to Hermione like a very eccentric and wise bunch.
The room was lit by floating candles that hung suspended in midair beneath the tall ceiling, which right now looked like a night sky, velvety black and dotted with glittering stars. “It’s bewitched to look like the sky outside,” Hermione whispered to Draco. “I read about it in Hogwarts, A History.”
“I know what it is,” Draco whispered back. He sounded very amused, and even a little bit condescending.
Hermione colored. Of course he knew that already; he had been born a wizard, hadn’t he? What was she doing, telling him things he already knew? She bit her lip before she said anything else stupid and hoped that no one would be able to tell that she was blushing.
McGonagall led the way up to the head table, the first years all standing in a long line facing the other students. Hermione resisted the urge to crane her neck around and peer over her shoulder for a closer look at the rest of the teachers.
Professor McGonagall did not speak as she placed a four-legged stool in front of Hermione and her fellows. She next produced a frayed and patched hat, tall and pointed as was the fashion of wizard’s hats, and placed that on top of the stool. Hermione gasped. “The Sorting Hat,” she whispered, “of course!” She stared at it eagerly, raising herself nearly onto her tiptoes in her excitement, and waited. Surely—
And then it did. The long rip near the brim of the hat opened and it began to sing:
“Oh, you may not think I’m pretty,
But don’t judge on what you see.
The years go by and things all change,
Except of course for me.
I stay and sort, divide the school;
For I see all your fears and dreams.
So perhaps you’ll go to Slytherin,
to follow clever schemes.
Or maybe it’s to Gryffindor,
I’ll send you if you dare.
And Hufflepuff is nice as well,
for those strong enough to care.
Or then again there’s Ravenclaw,
Where wit becomes fine art.
Each house you go, remember all,
Though I move you now apart,
Still there’s purpose that unites us,
And there’s history as well.
The past is what creates us,
And what tolls that fateful knell.
So make new friends, but keep the old,
And learn all that you can find.
But before you do—come wear a hat!
Through me you’ll know your mind.
So put me on! Don’t be afraid!
And don’t get in a flap!
You’re in safe hands (though I have none)
For I’m a Thinking Cap!”
Everyone applauded when the hat finished, especially Hermione. She mouthed its words silently to herself, trying to commit them all to memory. The rest of the first years were simply jabbering about the houses, and the hat’s tune-writing, but something told Hermione that when the hat spoke, it was important to listen to the words.
The Sorting Hat bowed to each table, taking in the applause, and then went still again. Hermione stared harder. Then she looked away from the hat quickly, because Professor McGonagall was moving again. She took a long roll of parchment from the head table and unfurled it with a practiced shake.
“When I call your name,” she said to the first years, “you will put on the hat and sit on the stool to be sorted.” Hermione nodded quickly, and saw a few of her fellow students doing the same thing, although most of them just stared at McGonagall, looking very pale.
McGonagall flourished her scroll and said loudly, “Abbot, Hannah!”
Blushing furiously, the blonde girl who had shared Hermione’s little boat stumbled out of the line. She edged her way to the front and up to the stool. When she put the hat on her head, it slipped down over her eyes. She gave a tiny little squeak that Hermione, even standing only a few feet away from her, could barely hear, and managed to find the stool despite being blinded. Hannah sat down, and Hermione—and the rest of the first years—held their breath. There was a long pause—
“HUFFLEPUFF!” shouted the hat.
The table on the right cheered and clapped as Hannah hopped off the stool and made her way, pink-faced and beaming, over to join them. “Knew it,” Draco muttered quietly. Hermione ignored him, too nervous herself to ask how.
“Bones, Susan!” McGonagall continued. The red-head also went to Hufflepuff, although the next student—a boy named Terry Boot—became the first Ravenclaw. Gryffindor received “Brown, Lavender,” a girl that Hermione thought looked a bit meek for the red-and-gold’s house reputation. “Brocklehurst, Mandy,” became another Ravenclaw, and just as Hermione was going to ask if there might be some problem, since Slytherin had been so far left out, they received their first student: “Bulstrode, Millicent.” The far side of the room broke into cheers as she joined their table. Draco clapped idly that time, although he hadn’t for any of the other students. Hermione was going to ask him if he knew Millicent, but “Corner, Michael,” pushed right between them on his way to the Ravenclaw table.
Hermione was too busy being indignant at such rudeness to pay any attention to the next students, and had leaned in to mutter her opinion of Corner’s behavior to Draco, when he suddenly went stiff.
“Crabbe, Vincent,” McGonagall called, and the burly boy who had split Draco’s lip open on the school train lumbered up to the stool. Draco’s icy glare marked each heavy step of the bully, and Hermione’s own frown followed along. She quite disapproved of rule-breaking in general, and of fighting in particular.
Crabbe was sent to Slytherin, and Draco’s lips went very thin. “Well I don’t think much of Slytherin’s taste,” Hermione whispered, “not if he is the sort of student they take in.”
Draco’s monosyllabic reply was entirely noncommittal, but he didn’t seem to relax when “Davis, Tracey,” also went to Slytherin. Hermione wondered if she was a bully, too, and then scolded herself; she shouldn’t judge an entire house based on the deplorable actions and attitudes of a single student. Besides, Michael Corner had been rude, but that didn’t mean that all Ravenclaws were.
Hermione had been rather entertaining the possibility of Ravenclaw House for herself, although she was trying very hard not to fixate on any one house in particular. The Sorting Hat would determine the best place for her, so she knew that it was best not to plan ahead too far. It was, after all, Hermione’s first encounter with a magical hat. One couldn’t be expected to know how such a thing was going to turn out.
And then, suddenly, though it seemed like she had barley blinked, Professor McGonagall was calling out, “Granger, Hermione,” and it was her turn to walk up to the stool, and pick up the hat, and sit down and wait for her fate.
She took a deep breath, and the hat slipped over her eyes, and everything went black and, for a long moment, silent too. Then a voice: “Well, well,” someone said, “you’re an interesting one, aren’t you?”
Hermione realized that her mouth was hanging open, and quickly shut it. Then she opened it again, just slightly, to whisper, “am I?”
The hat—Hermione was sure that was who the voice belonged to, now—the hat chuckled quietly in her ear. “Oh, yes,” it said, “yes indeed. Clever, certainly—extraordinarily clever. But you know that already, don’t you?”
Hermione blushed. She didn’t say anything to that, because what sort of reply could one make to such a comment?
"But more than just clever, aren't you?" the hat continued. "Yes, that doesn't seem to impress you very much, does it?”"
Hermione shrugged awkwardly. She wasn't sure what the hat was getting at, but thought it might be rude to point out that it wasn't making much sense.
"Let's see, let's see," the hat continued. "Well, you're certainly hard-working, no mistake there. And I great deal of ambition, that's for sure. I applaud your intent, Miss Granger; 'know everything,' eh? Not exactly an easy goal you've set for yourself...but you're not one to back down from a challenge, are you?"
Hermione shrugged again. Her face felt like it was on fire.
“Oh yes,” the hat mused, “you are a tricky one...full of spitfire and bravery, but packed to the brim with logic and knowledge, too. All the traits Rowena appreciated, to be sure, but Godric would have loved you too, wouldn’t he? And he’s not the only one...I think even Salazaar would have been inclined to conceive an exception on your behalf, and then of course Helga would have loved your spirit and compassion...”
Hermione shivered. The Founders had lived thousands of years ago, but here this hat was talking about them as if they had only just stepped out a few minutes ago...
“You’d fit in anywhere, really, but you don’t fit in at all, do you?” the hat asked quietly.
Hermione swallowed hard.
“Well then, let me think...where would be best for you, Miss Granger?” the hat asked. “What shall we encourage, hmm? That is the real question, isn’t it? Yessss...” it hissed to itself, it seemed, more than to her. “Well then,” it continued, “where to put you? Ravenclaw, perhaps...you would do well in Ravenclaw...or then again...maybe...
"GRYFFINDOR!"
The far side of the room burst into cheers, and only then did Hermione realize that the hat must have shouted the last word aloud. Blushing furiously, she hopped off the stool and handed the hat back to Professor McGonagall. Hermione's thoughts were so scattered she could barely manage to return all the hand-shakes and smiles as she was welcomed to her new home.
She glanced over her shoulder at the students still waiting to be sorted and caught Draco’s eye, but the grin on her face faltered as the met the cool, almost pitying expression in his gray eyes.
Then “Greengrass, Daphne,” was called up, and Draco turned away to watch as she was sent to the Slytherin table amidst the green-clad students’ cheers.
Hermione sniffed firmly, and squared her shoulders, and looked away. She would do just fine in Gryffindor. After all, she was brave enough to stand up to the bullies who had been bothering him; so Draco Malfoy had no right to be thinking that she lacked courage.
Honestly...