The doors to the Great Hall opened, and the first-years filed in.
Felix had seen the Hall before, but only in the way you see something you have read about a hundred times — flat, familiar, expected.
The reality of it was something else entirely.
Four long tables stretched the length of the room, each one lit by thousands of floating candles that hovered just below a ceiling enchanted to look like the night sky.
Stars glimmered overhead, and the dark shapes of the professors’ table sat at the far end, where a tattered old hat waited on a stool.
The other first-years slowed as they walked, craning their necks to take it all in.
Felix kept his eyes forward, but he let himself feel it — the weight of the room, the hundreds of older students watching them, the strange quiet that fell over the Hall as McGonagall led them to the front.
She set the Sorting Hat on the stool, and the entire Hall went still.
Then the rip near the brim of the hat opened wide, and it began to sing.
Felix listened the way he had listened to Andros’s notes — carefully, looking for the meaning underneath.
The Hat sang about the four Houses, about the qualities each founder had valued, and about the importance of unity within the school.
When it finished, the Hall erupted into applause, and McGonagall unrolled a long scroll of parchment.
“When I call your name,” she said, “you will come forward, sit on the stool, and place the hat on your head.”
The room quieted again.
The names began.
Felix didn’t recognize most of them — ordinary surnames belonging to ordinary families, the kind of names that never appeared in any book he had ever read.
He watched each one walk forward, sit on the stool, and receive their House.
Some looked relieved.
Some looked disappointed.
Most looked exactly like what they were: eleven years old, far from home, and trying very hard not to show it.
Beside him, Fred and George were whispering to each other, apparently placing bets on how long each Sorting would take.
Cedric stood quietly with his hands at his sides, watching each new student with interest rather than nerves.
The list worked its way down through the alphabet.
A heavy-set boy with a sullen expression walked forward and sat on the stool.
The Hat barely touched his head before it shouted, “SLYTHERIN!”
He lumbered toward the Slytherin table without looking back.
More names followed.
Felix filed them away the way he filed everything else — quietly, without judgment, without commentary.
These were his classmates now.
The people he would share dormitories and lessons with for the next seven years.
Then McGonagall called a name he had been waiting for.
“Cornfoot, Stephen.”
A tall boy with sandy hair and a calm, unhurried walk stepped forward and sat on the stool.
The Hat considered him for a moment, then announced, “RAVENCLAW!”
Stephen walked toward the Ravenclaw table with the same unhurried pace he had used to approach the stool, as though being Sorted was simply one more thing to get through before dinner.
“Diggory, Cedric.”
Cedric stepped forward without hesitation, the way he did everything, and sat on the stool.
McGonagall lowered the Hat onto his head, and for a moment the Hall was quiet.
Then the rip opened.
“HUFFLEPUFF!”
The Hufflepuff table cheered louder than they had for anyone else, and Cedric hopped off the stool with a small, easy smile that he aimed in the direction of Fred and George as he passed.
Fred made a show of wiping away a fake tear.
More names came and went.
He had known this moment was coming since he was six years old, and he had spent the last three weeks preparing for it the same way he prepared for everything else — quietly, methodically, without letting anyone see how much it mattered to him.
And then McGonagall paused for a fraction of a second before reading the next name.
Felix caught it — the way her eyes flicked up from the scroll and found him in the line of first-years, the way her mouth tightened almost imperceptibly before she spoke.
“Falker, Felix.”
Nothing happened.
No one in the Hall reacted.
The older students at the four tables kept their eyes on the front, waiting for the next name like they had waited for every other name before it.
A few first-years glanced at him, the way they had glanced at everyone else.
The name meant nothing to any of them.
It was just another surname on a very long list.
But at the professors’ table, something shifted.
Felix saw it in the corner of his eye — the way Professor Flitwick’s eyebrows rose slightly, the way Professor Sprout turned her head, the way Professor Snape’s expression went very still.
At the center of the table, Dumbledore leaned forward just a fraction, his eyes fixed on Felix with a quiet, patient attention that made Felix feel, for the first time all evening, that he was being studied rather than simply observed.
None of the students noticed.
Felix did not let any of it slow him down.
He walked forward at an even pace, the way his father had taught him to cross a dueling circle — measured, deliberate, without hesitation.
He climbed the few steps to the stool, sat down, and looked out at the Hall for a moment before McGonagall lowered the Hat onto his head.
The world went dark.
For a long second, there was nothing.
Then a voice spoke, dry and amused, right next to his ear.
“Oh. Another Falker.”