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Hatstalls and Staff Changes


The moment that Professor McGonagall produced the hat and put it upon the stool before the Great Hall, the hat had shaken itself awake and opened wide it’s brim and begun:

“Welcome to Hogwarts girls and boys
It’s time for me to make my annual choice!
For once a year I perform a sorting song,
To split you into the houses where you belong,
‘Tis the Tradition of Hogwarts, as long as memory,
My job has been the same for nearly a century!

Seventh year students, next year it’ll be off with you -
Into the world to live your lives as we’ve prepared you to do!
Sixth years have a lot still to learn, yet wiser than they’ve ever been
This is the year that - like adults, you’ll start to seem!
Fifth years have their exams and that means challenges -
Hard work and revising must be done in all of the houses!
Halfway there, dear Year Fours, you’re growing up so fast
Please just remember to enjoy the years while they last!
Year Three, you’re integrating houses more this year with classes you’ve elected,
Learn from each other instead of letting the chance go neglected…
Welcome back, my dear little Twos!
So much bigger and brighter - oh my - it’s good to see you!

It’s hard, as a hat, to watch you all grow -
And nary but hardly ever get to show -
How much I love to see you shine
Learning from this school of mine…
I know it’s only once a year that I get taken off the wall,
But I, the Sorting Hat, am so proud of you all.
May you be happy every day that you live -
Whether you are cunning, courteous, courageous, or creative -
Whether we wear the blue Ravenclaw
Yellow Hufflepuff, Green Slytherin, Red Gryffindor -
For today though I split you into houses, do remember to recall
That we are equals -- one and all.

Now I shall sort these new students that were brought
Here to Hogwarts School to be taught
About the witchcraft and wizardry they can do --
Welcome, First Years, I’m pleased to meet you!
Now if you will, please put me on your head…
And we’ll get you each properly sorted!”

The Great Hall burst into applause and Professor McGonagall took the scroll out from beneath her arm and stepped forward, lifting the hat up and shaking the scroll out so she could read it. She cleared her throat. “Albright, Francine!”

A moment later -- “HUFFLEPUFF!”

And the sorting had begun.

As the hat deliberated over student after student, the first years climbing the short steps up to the stool and sitting down upon it, Sirius looked over the staff table. They were sitting closer than they normally would’ve done so that Lily and Remus could sit on the ends and welcome the new students to the table easily, which afforded Sirius a rare, clear view of the staff table (he was so short he usually couldn’t see all the staff members over the heads of the likes of Frank Longbottom or about the puffy fireball of hair hair on Meg Johnston). He elbowed James. “Oi. Dumbledore’s not here.”

James looked across the table in surprise and saw that Sirius was indeed correct - the tall throne-like seat in the center of the staff table, where Albus Dumbledore usually roosted, was indeed empty. “Well bloody hell, where’s he gone to then?”

Remus leaned back and murmured over his shoulder, in a low voice, “I told you lot, he went to the States to see Newt Scamander. Professor Veigler said the Scamander’s son, Lysander, died over the summer and Dumbledore’s gone to help them get through it.”

“Well what the actual fuck? What about us?” Sirius asked.

“Shh,” said Frank from behind them, “This is the last sorting I’ll get to see.”

“Oh don’t remind me,” whimpered Alice.

Frank wrapped his arms ‘round her shoulders.

“Yes, do shut up,” Lily murmured.

Sirius stuck his tongue out at her back, then drew his wand and whispered muffliato and turned back to James again, “And who’s that bloke there at the staff table? That nutter there?”

James followed Sirius’s gaze. To say nutter was the only way to describe the man that Sirius was indicating. He was older, with a mostly bald head - what hair he had hung in a scraggly sort of wild ring, and he was unshaven, with thick stubble all over his chin and cheeks. He wore thick, thick square glasses with very narrow silver frames and a gap-mouthed grin that made him appear a bit less than entirely sane. He did not wear the traditional teacher’s robes, but rather wore a loose white cotton shirt with three done done buttons at the neck - and a silver chain about his neck that gleamed in the reflection of the thousands of candles levitating overhead.

“Bloody hell, he looks --” James floundered for a word. “Interesting.”

“Bet he’s the new Defense teacher,” Sirius murmured.

“What? The Prewetts aren’t here?” James scanned the table quickly and, indeed, there were no Prewett brothers. He scowled, “I bleeding enjoyed their class, too.”

“Add another name to the long list of Defense Against the Dark Arts Teachers promotional merchandise. I was taught by the Prewetts 1975-76! Collect them all!” Sirius said, shaking his head.

James sighed. “Well, I hope this one isn’t a dudder. I’m trying to become an Auror, I don’t need any fuddy duddy Defense teachers!”

“He looks fuddy duddy, look at him, bloody hell. Looks like he stuck himself into a Muggle electrical socket, like that Einstein bloke.”

James laughed.

The nutter man was watching the sorting with a gooey sort of nostalgic look about him, his eyes gleaming, near to tears.

While they were talking, two new students had been added to Gryffindor - Bosley, Patton and Castle, Christopher - and they tuned in just in time to witness Darrens, Janis go to Ravenclaw. For the next thirty minutes - for there were several hat stalls - they all watched the students split and run to their houses. They gained Finch, Madeline and Jenner, Coby, as well as King, Micah, and Nox, Gwendolyn. Then --

“Odair, Edgar.”

Everyone in the Great Hall looked and Lily stared up at the boy as he climbed the steps, shaky kneed, looking such a lot like Jasper, except shorter and stockier, with a smattering of dark freckles over his nose.

“Poor thing,” whispered Lily.

Edgar sat on the stool and wrapped his fingers around the seat and McGonagall dropped the hat upon his head.

It was the longest hat stall of the night. The hat wobbled and deliberated as poor Edgar Odair’s mouth moved, silent to the school, whispering a conversation with the Sorting Hat, his little face wincing and trembling as they spoke.

“Bleeding hell, kid, stop chatting with the ruddy hat and get a go on, some of us are fucking hungry,” Sirius muttered, his stomach growling to emphasize his point.

“I know, gods he’s taking forever,” James said. “What’s the bloody hold up, of course he’s going Hufflepuff, just like Jasper was, right?”

Lily was leaning forward, biting her lip.

Finally, after over five minutes - the longest hat stall that had been seen since 1947 - the Sorting Hat called out, “Alright then -- GRYFFINDOR!”

“Yes!” Lily cried and she waved for Edgar Odair to come over.

James blinked in surprise.

“I for one find this very shocking,” Sirius said, smirking.

Lily wrapped her arm about Edgar as he crawled onto the bench beside her, which was the next available seat, and she said, “Welcome to Gryffindor, Ed!”

“Thanks,” he replied, glad to see a familiar face - for he’d met Lily Evans over the summer at the boardwalk when he and Jasper had run away for a day - to get away from their parents… Don’t tell her about Dad, Jasper had warned Edgar at one point when Lily was out of range to overhear, I told her we’re here on a family trip alright? I don’t want her knowing about Dad.

The sorting continued on until finally a pair of twins - Danae and Divinia Weiss - were sorted - Danae to Gryffindor and Divinia to Slytherin.

“Odd the hat would break up twins, isn’t it?” Sirius asked, looking to Remus.

Remus shrugged, “Sometimes twins are more different than you’d think,” he answered.

“Just look at Tuney and I,” Lily supplied.

“I always forget you’re twins with that rattlesnake,” Sirius said, shaking his head.

Lily would’ve reprimanded him for insulting Tuney - why, she didn’t know, but it was her sisterly duty - but at that moment, Minerva McGonagall had stepped up to the golden podium, raising her wand to cast the sonorus upon herself so that she could be heard throughout the Great Hall. Whispers went up - echoes of Sirius’s wonderment of where Albus Dumbledore was - but then McGonagall cleared her throat and the hall fell into absolute silence, paying her full attention.

“Hello, and welcome back to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry,” she said crisply, and though she was keeping very cool, Sirius could hear just a twitch of nervousness in the way her voice lilted with her accent.

You got this, Minnie, he encouraged her in his head.

“I know you are wondering where your headmaster is, but I assure you that the business he has is very important and that he will return to us in a timely manner. In the meantime, I have been asked to step up - as deputy headmistress - to see to it that you, our students, are well taken care of.” She looked about. “It is my painful duty to begin the school year with a sorrowful announcement - one which it has come to my attention you’ve already heard aboard the Hogwarts Express… Rumors are a terrible way to find out about the loss of a person you care for, so please… allow me to set them straight… In June, attacks were made by the Dark Lord and his followers - one of the attacks was on an apartment building north of London. The building housed several muggle families, as well as one wizarding family - the already broken Harding family, or at least what remained of them after prior attacks. Liam Harding lived in that apartment building with his aunt, his mother’s sister, and they, along with ten muggles, were killed when the building collapsed under the force of feindfyre.”

McGonagall paused as people reacted, murmurs went up, voices cried out, several people started crying - those that had been holding out that the rumors had been all lies. Wally got up and walked out of the Hall and Remus jumped up to go after him.

McGonagall took a deep breath, “Liam Harding will be remembered. Upon Dumbledore’s return, we shall speak of how we will memorialize the young boy and arrangements shall be made at that time.”

James looked down at the table, remembering in his prior timeline the planting of the four trees in the courtyard for Maryrose… He looked across the Great Hall to where she sat, whispering to one of the new Hufflepuff firsties. Her eyes met his and he flushed and looked away quickly.

“But let us not be sad - Liam Harding would not have wanted sadness on this day, our return to Hogwarts. The House Elves have prepared a feast and we are here together to partake of it, and that is cause enough for happiness -- as our beloved Sorting Hat has said, may we be happy. I do wish to bring your attention quickly to a change of staff - please welcome Professor Elphinstone Urquart, our new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher.” McGonagall waved her hand to the staff table.

“Bleeding hell with a name like that, no wonder he looks like a nutter,” Sirius murmured.

“That is an exceptionally unfortunate name,” James agreed.

“Professor Urquart is a newly retired auror, former head of the Magical Law Enforcement Department, before Alastor Moody was promoted to the position, and is a very… gifted… wizard in magical defensive theories, as well as a good friend of mine.” She smiled back at him. “Additionally, we are welcoming a new Muggle Studies teacher as Professor Kotes has retired. Professor Pleiades Gaunt.” She waved her palm to a slender man that Sirius and James hadn’t even recognized, who sat at the end of the row of teachers, a benign smile upon his face, in a crisp, clean suit, freshly pressed.

Although Sirius and James had not noticed the man - “Where did he come from? Was there there a second ago?” James muttered, confused - Peter had noticed him.

“Yes, he’s been there the whole time,” Peter murmured. His fingers had slipped into his pocket and wrapped about the carefully folded parchment that he’d been given on his birthday - the parchment that he had not yet unfolded. Peter’s tightened his grasp upon it and he stared at the man who had sat down at his table at Fortescue’s, uninvited, knowing everything about him and had said that he would always remember him.