The Forgotten Twin

Chapter 8

The entrance hall was ablaze with torches and echoing with footsteps as the students crossed the flagged stone floor for the double doors to the right, leading to the Great Hall and the start-of-term feast.

The Great Hall looked as magnificent as always. The four long House tables were filling up under the starless black ceiling, which was just like the sky they could glimpse through the high windows. Candles floated in midair all along the tables, illuminating the silvery ghosts who were dotted about the Hall and the faces of the students talking eagerly to one another, exchanging summer news, shouting greetings at friends from other Houses, eyeing one another's new haircuts and robes.

Delilah tried to spot Lyra as she sat down next to Draco, but there were too many people. She could barely even see Harry, and the only reason she could was because everyone kept glancing at him.

She moved her attention to the teacher table. Unsurprisingly, Hagrid wasn't there either. There was a new teacher who must have been the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher. She looked like a pink toad with her horrid, pink cardigan.

"Is it just me, or does the new DADA teacher look like a pink toad," Delilah commented to Draco.

He looked up at the table and slightly paled.

"She does, but don't cross her. She works for Fudge. My father has told me about her. If she's here..."

"It means that Fudge is interfering here."

Draco nodded.

"I'm serious though, be careful around her."

Delilah smiled.

"Don't worry, I will. Harry won't, but I will. I promise."

"Good."

There was a movement at the head table, Grubbly-Plank was back, so the first years must as well.

Sure enough, a few seconds later, the doors from the entrance hall opened. A long line of scared-looking first years entered, led by Professor McGonagall, who was carrying a stool on which sat an ancient wizard's hat, heavily patched and darned with a wide rip near the frayed brim.

The buzz of talk in the Great Hall faded away. The first years lined up in front of the staff table facing the rest of the students, and Professor McGonagall placed the stool carefully in front of them, then stood back. The first years' faces glowed palely in the candlelight. A small boy right in the middle of the row looked as though he was trembling.

The whole school waited with bated breath. Then the rip near the hat's brim opened wide like a mouth and the Sorting Hat burst into song:

In times of old when I was new And Hogwarts barely started

The founders of our noble school

Thought never to be parted: United by a common goal,

They had the selfsame yearning,

To make the world's best magic school

And pass along their learning.

"Together we will build and teach!"

The four good friends decided

And never did they dream that they

Might someday be divided,

For were there such friends anywhere

As Slytherin and Gryffndor?

Unless it was the second pair

Of Huffepuff and Ravenclaw?

So how could it have gone so wrong?