The side door opened and the whispering began.
Minerva McGonagall stepped through, and behind her came the first-years, a single-file river of black robes and too-wide eyes.
Every head in the Great Hall turned.
The older students leaned forward, and the weight of their collective stare fell on the eleven-year-olds like a held breath released all at once.
The children stared back, mouths parting as they took in the floating candles, the star-strewn ceiling mirroring the night sky beyond the high windows, the long tables gleaming with polished plates and goblets.
It was too much to absorb and too beautiful to look away from.
McGonagall led them to the front of the hall and stopped.
She set down a three-legged stool.
On it, she placed a hat—patched, faded, ancient, and somehow expectant.
It wobbled once, as if testing its balance.
Then a rip opened near the brim, widening into a mouth, and the hat began to sing.
Elias felt his eye twitch.
He looked at McGonagall.
Her lips were pressed into a bloodless line, her posture rigid with long practice.
But he caught the micro-expression—a tiny, almost invisible softening at the corner of her mouth.
A muscle spasm that might have been the ghost of a fond memory, or the desperate suppression of a scream.
He made a note to learn that trick.
The Sorting Hat’s voice had all the melodic grace of a dying cat.
The song dragged on for ten full minutes.
When the hat finally gave a stiff nod instead of a bow, Elias clapped until his palms stung, grateful for the silence that followed.
McGonagall unfurled a scroll.
“When I call your name, you will place the Sorting Hat upon your head, sit on the stool, and await your Sorting.”
“Hannah Abbott!”
The ceremony began.
Elias watched as names were called and children stumbled forward, faces tight with hope and terror.
Hermione caught his eye just before her name rang out.
She hurried to the stool, jammed the hat over her bushy hair, and after a brief pause the hat bellowed:
“Gryffindor!”
She glanced back at him—something unreadable flickering in her expression—and then the Gryffindor table erupted in cheers, swallowing her into its noise.
The sorting continued.
Elias waited, back straight, hands loose at his sides.
“Elias Sorenson!”
He walked forward without hurry.
The Hall’s attention prickled against his skin.
He picked up the hat, lifted it toward his head—
“Slytherin!”
The hat hadn’t even touched a single white hair.
Elias went still for a heartbeat.
Slytherin?
He smoothed his expression, set the hat carefully back on the stool, and walked toward the Slytherin table where a smattering of applause rose, tinged with surprise.
He sat.
The sorting went on, but his mind was already elsewhere.
Muggle-born.
That’s what he was in this life.
No wizarding lineage, no family tree tangled with old blood, and yet the hat had shoved him into Slytherin without a second’s hesitation.
His ambitions?
His methods?
Or something deeper—something the system had planted in him?
The Seven Deadly Sins.
Maybe the hat had felt that architecture under his surface thoughts and found it… familiar.
He didn’t know.
But he intended to find out.
The library would have records—histories of Dark Lords, genealogies, anything linking the Sorenson name to the wizarding world he’d never known.
Two Dark Lords had risen in the last century.
If his family had produced one, the books would tell him.
That was a long-term project.
Right now, he had more immediate problems.
The sins values rose too easily and dropped too damned slowly.
He could barely enjoy a meal without the system slapping him with a notification.
If he let this continue, he’d eventually be unable to sleep in, to eat meat, to feel a single moment of self-satisfaction without the numbers ticking upward.
That was not a life.
That was a slow strangulation.
So.
Priority one: find a way to use the Seven Deadly Sins.
He refused to believe that a transmigrator with foreknowledge had been handed a countdown to damnation and nothing else.
There had to be a mechanism.
A cheat.
Something beyond just suppressing every natural impulse.
But he couldn’t afford tunnel vision.
He needed power, and he needed it now.
Goals crystallized: before the year ended, he would push at least one offensive spell and one defensive spell to level 5.
Transfiguration—his strongest subject—would hit level 5 as well.
A level 1 simple spell matched a first-year’s output, more or less, but the higher the level, the steeper the experience curve.
Level 5 was graduate mastery, minimum.
Advanced magic like Transfiguration would demand even more from him.
With his innate talent and his understanding of the world’s underlying mechanics, he could make it happen.
He also had to keep Hermione alive.
She was the heroine of the story he half-remembered, and he wouldn’t let a muddled memory cost her a future.
Voldemort could be someone else’s problem.
Dumbledore’s.
Harry’s.
He wasn’t arrogant enough to think a first-year should be hunting Dark Lords.
When the last student settled onto the Ravenclaw bench, Albus Dumbledore rose from the head table.
He spread his arms and beamed at them all, and his voice filled the Hall like warm honey.
“Welcome! Welcome to Hogwarts!”
Then he leaned forward, eyes twinkling, and said, “Before the feast begins, I’d like to say a few words: Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak! Thank you all.”
He sat down, and the tables groaned under the sudden weight of food.
Elias’s stomach clenched—half hunger, half dread.
He was starving, but he remembered the Great Hall feasts from the books and had braced himself for the reality.
The train ride had run late; it was nearly nine o’clock, and every child in the room fell upon the dishes like wolves.
The two first-years directly across from him were the worst.
Thick-shouldered boys who shoved three chicken legs into their mouths at once, barely chewing before grabbing two more in each fist.
Grease slicked their chins. Find the original chapter at g.com.
Crumbs sprayed.
Elias cut his grilled pork chop into neat, bite-sized pieces.
Knife in left hand, fork in right, spine straight.
He lifted a morsel to his lips, chewed slowly, and tried very hard not to look at anyone.
They’re children.
They haven’t been taught.
They’ll learn.
It didn’t help.
[Envy +1]
[Envy +1]
[Pride +1]
Damnit.
[Wrath +1]
Across from him, Draco Malfoy froze mid-chew, a half-masticated lamb chop bulging in his cheek.
He stared at Elias’s precise movements—the silver glinting, the controlled fingers—and a hot flush crept up his neck.
He swallowed with difficulty, remembering his father’s voice, the cold formal dinners, the expectations.
He reached for a knife and fork.
He tried to emulate.
It lasted maybe two minutes.
The two bruisers on either side of him were demolishing a platter of ribs, and Draco’s restraint shattered.
He snatched another chop, bit down, and ate with renewed vigor—though with slightly fewer crumbs than before.
Slightly.
Other Slytherins noticed.
A few of the pure-blood children glanced at their own piled plates and felt a foreign, uncomfortable twist of guilt.
Their appetites dimmed.
They ate less, and they resented Elias for it in a small, sharp way they would not soon forget.
Elias, oblivious, kept his eyes on his own food and mentally began scouting alternative dining locations.
He wasn’t subjecting himself to this mukbang nightmare again.
When the main courses had been reduced to bones and smears of sauce, Dumbledore rose and waved a hand.
The dishes vanished.
In their place, a riot of desserts appeared: tarts, trifles, cakes, puddings, and things studded with crystallized fruit.
Elias selected a simple jelly pudding, hoping the texture might soothe his frayed nerves.
The desserts, too, disappeared before long.
Dumbledore stood one final time.
“Ah, now that everyone has eaten and drunk their fill, I have a few more things to say, and a few points to note. First-year students, please note that the Forbidden Forest on the school grounds is strictly off-limits to all students. Some of our older classmates would also do well to remember this.”
His gaze drifted, twinkling, toward the Gryffindor table.
A few knowing chuckles rippled through the Hall.
“Furthermore, Mr. Argus Filch, the caretaker, has asked me to remind everyone that casting spells in the corridors is strictly prohibited. The Quidditch team selection process will take place in the second week of term. Those of you who aspire to join your House team should contact Madam Hooch. Finally, I must inform everyone that anyone who does not wish to encounter an unexpected and painful death should not, under any circumstances, venture into the corridor on the right-hand side of the fourth floor.”
The Philosopher’s Stone.
Elias’s thoughts sharpened.
The title of the first book, hidden in plain sight.
The Stone itself didn’t tempt him—immortality came with too many complications, and wealth was a matter of method, not magic—but Nicolas Flamel was something else entirely.
A six-hundred-year-old alchemist.
The pinnacle of a field that touched everything from transmutation to the laws of magic.
If there was any chance of contacting him, of extracting even a fraction of that knowledge…
He’d find it.