The Gryffindor table was loud.
Felix had expected that, but expecting it and sitting in the middle of it were two different things.
The table stretched the length of the Hall, and every seat seemed to be occupied by someone talking over someone else, passing dishes, laughing at jokes that had started before he arrived.
The older students sat toward the middle and the far end, and the first-years were clustered together near the front, still pale from the Sorting and not quite sure what to do with themselves.
Fred and George had already made themselves comfortable.
George was reaching across the table for a plate of roast potatoes before anyone had even been served, and Fred was watching him with the expression of someone who had seen this exact move a hundred times and was still entertained by it.
“You’re going to get us in trouble before the food’s even on the table,” Fred said.
“It’s already on the table,” George said.
“That’s not the point.”
“It’s a very good point.”
Felix sat down across from them and took stock of the first-year boys in his year.
There were five of them in Gryffindor, and he already knew three: Fred, George, and himself.
The fourth was a boy named Lee Jordan, who had been Sorted shortly after Angelina Johnson and had taken a seat at the far end of the first-year group with the air of someone who had been waiting a long time to get here.
Felix knew the name from the books — Lee Jordan, the future Quidditch commentator, one of Fred and George’s closest friends.
Seeing him now, small and eleven and already grinning at something Fred had said, was another one of those moments where the past and the present overlapped in a way Felix was still getting used to.
The fifth boy was someone Felix didn’t recognize at all.
He was smaller than the others, with dark hair and a thin face, and he sat quietly at the end of the bench with his hands folded in his lap, watching the Hall with wide eyes.
He looked like someone who had never seen anything like this before.
Which, Felix realized, he probably hadn’t.
Fred noticed Felix looking at him.
“That’s Jonah,” Fred said.
“Jonah Stewey. He’s a Muggleborn. Sat next to me on the way in.”
Felix glanced at the boy again.
Jonah was still staring at the floating candles above the tables, his mouth slightly open.
“He looks like he’s about to fall off the bench,” Felix said.
“He nearly did,” George said.
“Twice. On the way down the stairs.”
“He’ll settle in,” Fred said.
“Everyone does.”
Felix wasn’t so sure about that, but he kept the thought to himself.
The girls’ side of the first-year group was easier to read.
Angelina Johnson sat with her back straight and her chin up, already looking around the table like she was taking notes.
Felix remembered her from the books — Chaser, future Quidditch captain, one of the few people who could keep Fred and George in line.
She was younger than he had pictured her, but the confidence was already there.
The other three girls were harder to place.
Two of them were chattering quietly to each other, and the third sat slightly apart, her hands folded in front of her, watching the Hall with the same quiet attention Felix recognized in himself. This chapter was copied from novelping(.)com without permission.
She had dark brown hair pulled back, and there was something about the way she held herself that made Felix pause.
Fred followed his gaze.
“That’s Aurora Hazelwood,” he said.
“The quiet one. She’s a Muggleborn too.”
Felix nodded slowly.
Aurora Hazelwood.
He didn’t recognize the name, which meant she wasn’t in the books — or if she was, she was in them so briefly that he had never noticed.
Either way, she was new to him, and that was rare.
He had spent the last five years knowing almost everything about almost everyone he was going to meet at Hogwarts.
Meeting someone he didn’t already know was strange in a way he couldn’t quite describe.
She looked up at that moment, as though she had felt him watching, and their eyes met for half a second before she looked away.
Felix looked away too, and reached for the nearest dish.
The food was better than anything Felix had eaten at home, which was saying something, because Falker Manor did not skimp on meals.
Roast chicken, roast beef, potatoes, three kinds of vegetables, gravy, warm bread, and a plate of something that turned out to be treacle tart if you got to it before Fred did.
Felix ate quietly while the twins argued about Quidditch and Lee Jordan weighed in from the far end of the table, and Jonah Stewey stared at the treacle tart like it was the greatest thing he had ever seen.
“Try it,” Felix said, pushing the plate toward him.
Jonah looked at him, startled.
“Are you sure?”
“It’s dessert. There’s more where that came from.”
Jonah took a slice, and Felix watched his expression shift from cautious to delighted in the space of a single bite.
Fred caught the look and grinned.
“Another one converted,” he said.
“Converted to what?” George asked.
“Treacle tart.”
“That’s not a conversion. That’s just having taste.”
“Same thing.”
Felix’s mouth twitched, and he turned his attention back to his plate.
Halfway through the meal, the noise in the Hall began to settle, and Felix looked up to see the Headmaster rising from his seat at the professors’ table.
Albus Dumbledore.
Felix had read about him for years, had seen his name in every book and every account of the wizarding world he had ever come across, but he had never seen the man in person until tonight.
He was taller than Felix had expected, and older, with silver hair and a long silver beard, and there was something about the way he stood that made the entire Hall go quiet without him having to say a word.
He gave a short speech of welcome — nothing elaborate, nothing Felix recognized from any book.
He welcomed the new students, reminded the old ones of the rules, and said a few words about the value of curiosity and caution in equal measure.
Then he sat back down, and the Hall resumed its noise.
Felix watched him for a moment longer before turning back to his plate.
Whatever Dumbledore was, whatever he would become over the next several years, tonight he was simply the Headmaster welcoming a new group of students to Hogwarts. Read this novel at g.com for the best experience.
Nothing more, nothing less.
Felix filed the observation away and went back to his treacle tart.
After the feast, the first-years followed a Gryffindor prefect up through the castle and toward the tower.
The prefect was a boy named Oliver Crane, a fifth-year Felix had never heard of, with the kind of brisk, no-nonsense manner that suggested he had done this exact walk many times and was not interested in answering questions along the way.
The castle was exactly as Felix remembered it from the books and films and the countless hours he had spent imagining it.
Staircases that moved when you weren’t looking.
Portraits that talked to each other as you passed.
Corridors that seemed to go on longer than they should have, opening into rooms and passages that Felix was almost certain had not been there the last time he looked.
He kept his eyes open and his mouth shut, filing everything away for later.
They stopped in front of a portrait of a very fat lady in a very pink dress.
“Password?” she asked.
“Caput Draconis,” Oliver said.
The portrait swung forward, revealing a hole in the wall, and the first-years climbed through one by one into the Gryffindor common room.
Felix had seen pictures of it, but pictures didn’t do it justice.
The room was round and warm, filled with squashy armchairs and worn rugs and a fire that crackled in a massive stone hearth.
Tapestries hung on the walls, and tall windows looked out over the dark shape of the grounds.
It felt less like a room and more like a place that had been lived in for a very long time by a great many people, all of whom had left a little bit of themselves behind.
Fred and George had already claimed a pair of armchairs near the fire, and Lee Jordan had joined them, and the three of them were arguing about something Felix couldn’t hear from the doorway.
Angelina Johnson had taken a seat on one of the couches with the two chatterboxes from the feast, and Aurora Hazelwood had found a quiet chair near the window and was looking out at the grounds.
Oliver Crane gave the first-years a short speech about curfew, House points, and the importance of not waking the portrait of the Fat Lady at two in the morning.
Then he left, and the common room settled into the low, comfortable hum of people getting to know each other.
Felix found an empty armchair and sat down.
He looked around the room, taking in the faces of the people he would be sharing his years at Hogwarts with.
Fred and George, already scheming something.
Lee Jordan, already laughing.
Jonah Stewey, already looking more at ease than he had at dinner.
Angelina Johnson, already watching everyone else the way Felix watched them.
And Aurora Hazelwood, sitting alone by the window, still looking out at the grounds.
Felix watched her for a moment, then looked away.
He didn’t know her.
He didn’t know anything about her.
She wasn’t in any book he had ever read, and she wasn’t in any future he had ever planned for.
She was simply there, a girl in his year, a Muggleborn witch who had been Sorted into Gryffindor alongside him and who, for reasons he couldn’t yet explain, kept drawing his attention back to her.
He filed it away, the way he filed everything else, and turned his attention back to the room.