The flames of the few candles directly above Aaron’s head were changing color.
From their normal warm orange-yellow, they slowly shifted, bit by bit, into an eerie, ghostly blue.
The blue candlelight cast bizarre shadows across Aaron’s face, beneath the brim of the Sorting Hat.
No one knew why.
A few of the younger first-years were already starting to feel frightened.
Twenty-five seconds.
At the staff table, Albus Dumbledore’s smile finally shifted.
It did not vanish, but rather took on a layer of scrutiny.
His right hand was no longer tapping the table.
Severus Snape stared directly at the stage.
His mental shields had automatically reinforced themselves by three layers the moment the Sorting Hat trembled.
This was not a conscious act on his part; rather, his mind had detected an incredibly faint wave of mental shock originating from the hat, and had defended itself out of pure instinct.
That ripple had not come from the hat itself.
It was a rebound, sent flying back after the hat made contact with something else.
Severus Snape’s gaze fell on Aaron.
Thirty seconds.
At that moment, the hat’s trembling suddenly ceased.
It went completely still, as if someone had pressed a pause button.
The air in the Great Hall seemed to solidify.
And then, the Sorting Hat spoke.
Its voice was entirely different from when it had sorted the other first-years.
Before, its tone had been loud, confident, and infused with the calm ease of ancient wisdom.
But now, the voice sounded cracked.
Like the sound of a string stretched to its absolute limit, vibrating violently.
It carried a raspy crack.
“Slytherin!!”
It was not shouted.
It was hissed.
The Sorting Hat had exhausted every shred of its remaining mental energy to squeeze those two words out of its ruined vocal cords.
This was not a calculated judgment.
It was not a conclusion reached after weighing character, ability, and potential.
It was pure survival.
It needed to expel this “thing” from its mental realm.
Sort him.
Sort him quickly.
Send him away.
Anywhere would do.
Slytherin was the choice it had made in the final tenth of a second.
Not because Aaron was suited for Slytherin, but because it had read the only piece of legible information on the topmost layer of Aaron’s mind.
Ambition.
Not ordinary ambition.
Not the sort of ambition that whispered, *I want to be the strongest wizard.*
The sheer scale of that ambition…
the hat did not dare to contemplate it.
It simply grasped the keyword “ambition” out of instinct and threw Aaron to Slytherin.
The Great Hall was dead silent for three full seconds.
No one applauded, because no one knew what had just happened.
All they knew was that the Sorting Hat had remained silent on this unknown first-year’s head for thirty seconds—something unprecedented in the last decade of the Sorting Ceremony’s history—and had then croaked out “Slytherin” in a voice that sounded like it was being strangled.
The ghostly blue flames of the candles overhead were slowly returning to their normal orange-yellow.
McGonagall stepped forward and took the hat off Aaron’s head.
Not because the hat was heavy, but because the moment she lifted it, she noticed a detail on its lining.
The interior fabric, which should have been a dusty, dark red, had a small patch that had turned an ashen white.
It looked scorched, yet there were no burn marks or singes.
It was more like…
it had faded.
As if all the “vitality” in that patch of fabric had been utterly drained.
McGonagall gripped the hat tightly, making sure no one could see the faded spot.
Aaron stood up from the stool.
His expression was indifferent, his steps leisurely and composed.
He walked toward the Slytherin table.
Scattered applause broke out at the Slytherin table.
It was not a warm welcome, but a polite, mechanical patter of hands.
Most of the Slytherin students exchanged glances, none of them knowing who this obscure first-year was, or why the Sorting Hat had reacted so bizarrely.
Malfoy did not applaud.
He kept his hands pressed tightly beneath the table, fingers laced together, his knuckles white from the strain.
As Aaron walked in his direction, Malfoy’s body involuntarily shrank back toward Crabbe.
Aaron did not sit near Malfoy.
He chose an empty seat near the very end of the long table, sitting down quietly with his hands resting flat on the tabletop.
As if absolutely nothing had happened.
The Sorting Ceremony continued.
The remaining first-years were sorted one by one, but the atmosphere in the Great Hall was no longer the same.
A subtle, indescribable uneasiness hung in the air.
Most people would forget this feeling within a few minutes.
But a select few would not.
At the staff table, Albus Dumbledore resumed his genial smile.
He picked up a lemon drop from the table and popped it into his mouth.
But his eyes were no longer on the Sorting Ceremony taking place on the stage.
His gaze swept across the vast hall, settling on the dark-haired boy sitting quietly at the end of the Slytherin table.
Across hundreds of heads and the light of over a thousand candles, Albus Dumbledore watched Aaron.
His expression was like that of someone admiring a painting.
But the light in those bright blue eyes was no longer merely gentle.
Beside him, Severus Snape held his goblet, his gaze also fixed in the same direction.
He had not taken a single sip of the pumpkin juice inside.
Severus Snape’s dark eyes were hollow and cold, like two bottomless, dried-up wells.
His scrutiny was completely undisguised, carrying the instinctive wariness unique to a former Death Eater facing any unknown threat.
Aaron sensed both gazes—one old, one young; one in the light, one in the dark.
He did not look up at them.
He picked up the empty goblet on his table, waiting for the food of the Start-of-Term Feast to appear.
His heart was perfectly calm.
The Sorting Hat had sent him to Slytherin.
Good.
The Slytherin dungeons were closest to the Black Lake.
The entrance to the Chamber of Secrets was in the second-floor girls’ bathroom.
All the legacies left behind by Salazar Slytherin, including the Basilisk that had slept for a thousand years, were now one step closer to him.
Albus Dumbledore was watching him.
Severus Snape was watching him.
No matter.
All they saw was a quiet, taciturn Slytherin first-year.
As long as he did not actively expose himself, his Divine Shielding would gradually blur the anomalous impression left by the Sorting Hat tonight over the coming days. This chapter was copied from novelping dot com without permission.
Human memory was fragile, and even the sharpest intuition would be dulled by the grind of daily mundanity.
He was patient.
The Sorting Ceremony came to an end.
Albus Dumbledore stood up and delivered a few opening remarks.
Aaron paid no close attention to the details, only registering a few key phrases: the third-floor corridor on the right-hand side was out of bounds, and the Forbidden Forest was forbidden.
The Forbidden Forest was forbidden.
The corner of Aaron’s mouth twitched imperceptibly.
Then, the food appeared.
Great mounds of roast meats, mashed potatoes, puddings, pies, and various other English dishes materialized out of thin air on the long tables.
Pumpkin juice automatically poured itself from empty pitchers, filling every goblet.
The surrounding first-years gasped in awe and began scrambling to heap food onto their plates.
Aaron took a piece of toast and some mashed potatoes.
He ate slowly and quietly.
Two seats to his right, a girl with short brown hair was chatting with the person opposite her.
To his left, a boy with shoulder-length black hair was slicing a steak with his knife and fork, his movements as precise as a surgeon’s.
No one spoke to him.
No one noticed him.
In everyone’s perception, this spot at the very end of the Slytherin table seemed to have been empty all along.
Aaron took a sip of pumpkin juice.
It was sweet.
He set his goblet down, closed his eyes, and briefly projected his consciousness into his Divine Kingdom.
The Naga lay coiled by the pond, its slitted eyes slightly open, staring at a fallen leaf floating on the water.
The Demiguise was curled up on the altar steps, its silvery-white fur rising and falling with its breath.
Two Fire Salamanders tumbled and played in the magma fields of the southern zone, occasionally puffing out tiny clouds of orange-red sparks.
Over three hundred insects moved in an orderly fashion within their respective nests.
Everything was normal.
Aaron withdrew from his Divine Kingdom.
The Start-of-Term Feast continued, with the clamor of voices and clattering of plates echoing through the Great Hall.
He leaned back against his chair, looking up at the enchanted ceiling dusted with countless stars.
Hogwarts.
He had arrived.
This thousand-year-old magical school now lay sleeping amidst the stone and dark waters beneath his feet.
Within its every corridor, every classroom, and every forbidden territory hid countless magical beasts.
And every single one of those magical beasts was a potential believer.
Aaron’s grey-blue eyes looked exceptionally calm under the starlight.
Like a predator that had just stepped into its hunting grounds, assessing the terrain, plotting its path, and mapping out its movements.
No rush.
Settle in first.
And then…
He lowered his head, took his final bite of toast, and swallowed it quietly.
At the other end of the Great Hall, Albus Dumbledore also set down his dessert fork at the staff table.
He dabbed his mouth with a napkin and said something to McGonagall beside him.
His voice was extremely quiet, completely drowned out by the noisy feast.
But McGonagall heard it.
Her expression changed.
She did not reply, merely nodding.
Albus Dumbledore picked up another lemon drop.
His smile was genial, but his eyes were like bottomless abysses.