Chapter 5: Banqueting

Professor McGonagall goes through her speech like the infinite copies of her across the multiverse have given countless time.

 

Actually, let’s count them!

 

1…

 

2…

 

3…

 

Skip a few…

 

79,006,889,567,100,744,214,123,290…

 

79,006,889,567,100,744,214,123,291…

 

Oh! She finished talking! Wait. Now everybody’s just standing around. Alright, where did I leave off?

 

People are mumbling and whispering to each other, which makes counting the McGonagalls really, really hard! Even Tori’s not-so-subtly trying to sneak up to my side, ready to start talking.

 

I can see her brain signals! Her frontal lobe is prepping itself, lighting up with electricity like a Christmas tree. “Dreamer, what house do you think you will be in?”

 

I shrug, suffocating the annoyance my instinct feels at being interrupted, from its very important task of counting, with a pillow. “I don’t know. All I do know is that if the hat chooses wrong, then I’ll eat it.”

“Hat? Wait, how do you know which one’s wrong? You don’t even know which one you want to be in. W-What if I’m in the wrong house?” Okay… she’s warming up to my being me, but those sudden adrenaline spikes are annoying to deal with.

 

Let’s just suck that out for right now…

 

“Mmm. Gut feeling, I suppose.” I stare wistfully at the doors. “Which ever one will get me more food…” I look over to Tori for her response, but, even with a lower adrenaline amount, she’s still having something akin to a panic attack.

 

Hyperventilating. Eyes glossing over. Knees locking up. Yep! She’s approximately 20.6 seconds away from fainting. All due to stress, too! Oh, the human body works in mysterious ways.

 

That’s why I made some changes when I made my avatar! I don’t even produce waste. Don’t even need to eat, either, but I enjoy doing it anyway. It’s a part of who I am.

 

Oh. Right. Tori.

 

My arms morph into long, not slimy tendrils, and wrap Tori in a tender hug. I give her pats on her head, because they feel nice. I lift her up, just a little, for a small floaty sensation. And I hold her close, coiling my arms around her, for comfort and warmth.

 

“Do you feel better now?” I coo gently into her ear. Her hair smells like pine. It’s nice. It makes me hungry too, but that’s par for the course.

 

She nods, but doesn’t make any other movement. “Do you want to come down?” She shakes her head. Fine, then. “Really? We might just walk in front of the entire school, and you’ll be in my arms.”

 

She stiffens for a moment, then relaxes. “It’s fine,” she murmurs, almost sleepily. I think she’s falling asleep in my arms. It is relatively late, and I am quite warm. Okay. Social suicide it is.

 

Professor McGonagall returns from wherever she went, and begins to say something, but stops in her tracks when she sees the crowd forming around me and Tori. “Miss—“ She checks her list—“ Archimedes! I excused you earlier, but I must ask you to put down Miss Sylrien!” Wow. Knew Tori’s last name, but not mine.

 

Tori mumbles something unintelligible into my hair. “Could you repeat yourself, Miss Sylrien?” Professor McGonagall is about two wrong things from blowing a gasket.

 

Tori raises her head just slightly. “I said, it’s fine, Professor.” Then pomfs back onto me.

 

Professor McGonagall just rubs her temples in exhaustion. “Can everyone please line up?”

 

————————————————————————————————————

 

The hat had done its whole shindig with music and song. People had applauded for it, but I was unable to find the tune it was going for. Must be something from living in another dimension.

 

With all the name calling McGonagall had done, I was forced to put Tori down, despite her protests, because…

 

“ARCHIMEDES, DREAMER!” McGonagall shouted, adding a silent sigh to the end. Thanks, teach. I’ll remember to eat you later. I have quite the taste for cats.

 

I know I’m already a handful that you were forced to deal with by a hypnotized school board on short notice, but screw you too. Yeah, Thomas had to hypnotize the racist…specist? Eh, whatever. He hypnotized the doesn’t-like-anything-not-human-hivemind school board into letting me, defined by their standards as a magical creature, into the school.

 

I skip, hop, and jump across the floor. Murmurs surround me. Talks of who I am, what house I might be in, what a moron…stuff like that. Those who talked bad about me quickly introduced their faces to the table as they suddenly, and inexplicably, fell asleep.

 

I plop myself onto the stool, making myself quite comfortable. I release my mental dampeners that keep others from reading my true thoughts and…relax as the hat is set on my head.

 

One.

 

Two.

 

Three.

 

Four.

 

Five.

 

Six one-billionths of a second have passed. The hat still hasn’t made a decision. It isn’t dead.

 

Well, it did die. Twice actually. But I revived it!

 

Eh, oops. It died again.

 

Come on already!

 

“HUFFLEPUFF!” It shouts after what feels like an eternity. Feels like, mind you. Anyway, this is probably the right house. Food for all and so many friends! It’ll be great!

 

I walk over to the table covered in yellow. Purple’s more of my thing, but yellow and purple do make for regal colors. Hahaha! I’m the Empress of Everything!

 

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Probably not even a lie.

 

I plop down near other students. I’m one of the firsts in the line, so there aren’t many first-years here. There is, however, a sixth-year sitting nearby with bright pink hair. Something Tanks? Thomas?

 

I freeze time for a little, pissing off Time herself and Yuki—her handler—a little. Pulling out my copies of the books, I flip through them very, very fast. Ignore the fires.

 

Nymphadora Tonks! Yes, I remember her! Absolutely. Girl that can, uh, change herself at will. That sort of thing.

 

She’s eyeing me with curiosity. Not that of, ‘Oh! A new experiment,’ but rather one of, ‘Hey. A new kid.’

 

I meet her stare, then oscillate the colors of my eyes through the entire human visible light spectrum. A nice, pretty rainbow, if I do say so myself. She looks shocked for a second, then pensive, then nods at me, then I ignore her and turn back to the first-years.

 

Then, then, then.

 

Then, Effeminate Boy One from the boat got called up. Henry something, or something. Fields? Yeah, that seems right. He stares down the hat as he walks up, not with hunger like I almost did, but with something cold…calculating. Just for a moment, and it quickly disappeared.

 

Not fast enough for me, though.

 

The hat is dropped on, and it shouts, “RAVENCLAW!” Huh. I expected Slytherin.

 

A few, or lot, of people later, and we get to Effeminate Boy Two. Honestly, he gives off a politician’s aura. A fake smile with a clammy, yet firm, handshake to boot. Someone willing to kidnap a child if it meant getting his way.

 

“SLYTHERIN!” I’ll need to keep an eye on him. It’s sometimes said that Slytherins aren’t all bad, but tell that to Rowling, who can’t stop rewriting her book after several years. She made essentially every single villain in the story come from Slytherin. None in the other three because they’re too ‘pure’.

 

People clap, cheer. Yell and whatnot. One by one, the newcomers fit tables that accurately fit their obvious personas. It’s to the point where Watson, pre-Sherlock, could figure it out.

 

And then there was one—Tori. Standing all alone with nobody beside her. She’s edging a panic attack with all of those eyes on her, that aren’t mine, and very few supportive ones. Nobody wants a timid girl that looks like she might collapse at any moment.

 

With a thought, a rift that seems to deny the very idea of light opens near her feet. Slowly, but surely, a tentacle extends from the arm-thick hole in space and winds its way around Tori’s hand.

 

Looking around confused for a second, Tori meets my eyes. In response, I give her a blazing smile! She chuckles at the luminosity of my flaming teeth, yet the other Hufflepuffs edge themselves away.

 

What? Afraid of a little fire?

 

I indirectly walk Tori down the aisle, step by step.

 

The hat is placed on.

 

One…

 

Two…

 

Three…

 

You know what? I’ll just use the power of precognition to learn what house she’ll be in. It’ll probably be in 21 words. Just a hunch, right?

 

“Hmm,” the hat grumbles. It tilts itself back and forth in deep thought. Come on already!

 

“GRYFFINDOR!” Yeah, we got another Longbottom case. Get the sword! Or…is it the adrenaline I’ve been eating…

 

Still, why is everyone still edging away from me. You haven’t seen me really eat anything yet…

 

————————————————————————————————————

 

Several students lost their dinner.

 

Right into the trash, might I add.

 

We got a wonderful tour around the castle though. The Prefects weren’t even explicitly or implicitly weary about me! They just treated me as another student. How nice…

 

They were even concerned when I tripped down the moving staircase and audibly broke 78 bones. I shifted them back in place—good as new.

 

I had to eject the ones I couldn’t mend or shift back, just regrowing them. A few more students lost their dinners as I pushed bone fragments out through my skin.

 

The cheeks tearing was most likely a little much for them.

 

Oh! Right! The Hufflepuff Common Rooms!

 

Yeah, we’re right next to the kitchen. Part of the tour, apparently, but only for Hufflepuff tours. Makes sense.

 

Uh, we got barrels that you have to not be tone deaf to use. Just tap, ‘Helga Hufflepuff’ on them. Don’t do…that, and you get vinegar-ed.

 

Tastes sour.

 

Part of the comfort charm of the Hufflepuff ideals is that we can choose a single room, bunk beds, or the classic poster bed layout. There seems to be an enchantment specifically meant to just…make and shift rooms if needed.

 

I opted for a single room. They put my luggage at the foot of my twin-sized-ish bed, but I know it’s empty.

 

Not empty, per se, actually. I needed to put things in it for weight, so it’s just all bricks.

 

Nyx is reporting a comfy arrangement she made at the Owlry. How quaint.

 

I stand in the middle of the room and…

 

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