Harry couldn’t help but be a bit satisfied with himself. He had nearly finished all of his Potions work, and had gone through every supplemental reading. The only things missing were the article on the use of magical creatures in potions, which he figured he could talk to Hagrid about, and the three one-page articles from Alchemy Today which each talked about different Potions used for magical maladies. A vicious satisfaction was building in him as he pictured the look on Snape’s face when he handed everything in on the first day of class. He’d sent a thank-you to Hermione for her notes, but hadn’t had to ask her the answer to a single question.The day he was to meet Hermione and Ron in Diagon Alley dawned bright and cool for early September. Although it wasn’t the fashion, he’d brought a Muggle schoolbag with him, because the list of books this year was somewhat exhaustive. He was certain Hermione wouldn’t consider the same thing; she’d blushingly informed him last year that there was something in touching the books she enjoyed. He’d called her mental.

“Harry!”

Hermione ran up to embrace him, then drew back to look him over, while he did the same to her.

Hermione had grown, Harry noted with a small grimace; she was now tall as he was, or nearly. She’d done something to her hair, which had lightened to a golden brown and was less frizzy than he remembered. Her cheeks were flushed with the excitement of shopping for school supplies, and she was carrying four books in her arms already. For some reason, she looked a whole lot older than he recalled.

Hermione finished her appraisal and grinned at him. “Harry James Potter,” she announced. “What’s happened to you?”

“Look who’s talking,” he shot back, flushing at her blatant admiration.

“I’ll have to tell Ginny,” Hermione added, “so she can prepare herself.”

“Enough of that,” Harry protested. “How are you? Where’s Ron?”

“I’m well, thanks, and Ron is in a certain new joke shop. As if you couldn’t guess.” She eyed his bag. “What have you got there?”

Harry began describing the Muggle Botany and Chemistry books he’d gotten and was just getting around to explaining why he had them when Ron burst out of a nearby doorway, laden with packages. “Harry!”

They settled down in the Leaky Cauldron and chattered away for awhile. “Mum’s with Ginny, getting some new robes and things,” Ron explained. “Dad – you know how he is – he wants to see the, er...”

“Photocopies,” Hermione supplied with a small, amused smile. “I expect he’ll go on about them for some time. Back to what we were saying...” she prompted, nudging Harry. “Why have you brought Muggle books?”

Harry grinned. “I’m thinking of my Potions essay–”

“Potions essay? But you’ve done all of them, you only just finished saying–”

“No, no, the one that’s the year-long project.”

Hermione looked horrified. “There’s a what?! Why didn’t you tell me?! I’ve been idling about all summer, I could have...”

“Idling about, she says,” Ron laughed amicably. “When she spent most of it with her nose in Potions and Charms texts.”

“Don’t worry, Hermione, you’ve got the whole year left,” Harry soothed, exchanging an amused glance with Ron.

Hermione eyed him. “And you’ve started on it?”

“Well, no,” Harry admitted. “Not yet. Just thinking of topics, is all...”

Hermione relaxed. “Well, I suppose I’ll forgive you for not mentioning it, then.”

“Can’t we talk about something less incredibly dull?” Ron moaned.

“Now you know how I feel when you and Harry talk Quidditch,” Hermione irritably replied, but she subsided directly thereafter, even when Ron began to do just that. For the next hour or so, they moved between inconsequentials, from Quidditch to Ron’s joke shop items, to their final purchases before they boarded the train. Harry found himself telling tales of his summer, but avoiding almost any mention of his cousin. He didn’t find the fact that a Muggle had a spark of magic to be all that big a deal, and he didn’t want them to make a big deal out of it, either.

Besides, considering the summer he’d had, the last thing he needed was a closer examination of his home-life. He hoped Dudley finished off the cake he’d left.

“Harry!”

Harry turned to view Ginny and Mr. and Mrs. Weasley standing in the door. Ginny, as Hermione had predicted, looked him over and flushed slightly. Ginny, Harry noted, had also grown up a great deal, especially in height; she was every bit as tall as Hermione, though still recognizably younger. Hermione exclaimed politely over Ginny’s new robes; Mr. Weasley descended into a long, drawn-out discussion considering photocopiers, but since Harry neither knew how they worked nor had even made the copies himself, the conversation ended more abruptly than it might have.

Harry’s thoughts were still on Potions, and he found himself desperately wanting to ask Hermione for her opinion on which direction he should take his paper, but he didn’t want to be rude to Ginny or Ron. His mind also kept traveling back to his cousin, but he didn’t really want to talk about that either. Neither Hermione nor Ron had mentioned Sirius at all, for which he was glad... now what was left to talk about?

Luckily for him, Ginny was filling up the empty space with bright chatter, telling Hermione and Ron a funny story from her Charms class, how one of the more talented students had levitated Professor Flitwick himself, rather than the feather. Harry laughed loudly, grateful for the reprieve.

Once safely on the train to Hogwarts, Harry could no longer help himself. He withdrew his work and began again. When Ron raised his eyebrows, Harry shrugged. “It’s all I’ve been doing for the past week, waking and sleeping,” he replied. “I can’t help it if my mind keeps going back to it. Besides, I’m not quite finished. I just sort of told Hermione I was.”

Ron laughed. “Anyone’d do the same.” After a moment or two of silence – Hermione was still with the prefects – Ron cleared his throat. “Er... what’s it about?”

Harry lifted his head. “Oh, well... it’s about the use of certain potions in medicine,” Harry said, shifting the papers in his hands. “The author seems to be concerned that the magical flux of each plant, depending on, you know, when it’s picked and how it’s dried and processed, is going to affect the efficacy of the potion–” Harry blinked, looking at Ron’s gobsmacked expression. “What?”

“Nothing, mate. You just sounded like Hermione for a second.”

Hermione slipped into the car, handing Harry a tea and Ron a pumpkin juice. Harry felt oddly embarrassed, and didn’t say anything more until Neville, Ginny and Luna entered en masse. Luckily, he still didn’t have to say much, other than the round of greetings along with a retelling of some funny stories from his summer, stories safe enough to tell in broad company. The last thing he needed was Malfoy, or, for that matter, Snape, finding out about his stellar homelike and using that to taunt him as well.

“...so Daddy was wondering,” Luna was saying in her least-dreamy voice, “if you’d be willing to give him another interview sometime. A sort of follow-up. What do you think, Harry?”

Harry nodded. “Sure, no problem.”

“And, about the D.A.,” Luna went on. “We’d certainly love it, if you’d be willing.”

“Certainly love... what?” Harry inquired, not certain he was following her.

“Well, you do intend to carry it on,” Ginny said in a tone that brooked no argument.

Harry didn’t know what to say. His actions last term had nearly gotten them all killed. He’d been surprised and warmed to see that they didn’t seem to hold any grudge, neither Ron nor Ginny nor Luna and Neville, but he certainly didn’t expect them to put him in any sort of position of leadership again. “I’ll... I’ll have to think about it,” he said, feeling a bit lost.

Ron and Ginny exchanged a knowing glance, which Harry allowed to sail past him, burying himself once more in his work. He had been waiting so long to get back to school, but oddly, now that he was on the train, he found himself fervently wishing he were alone again. Some of his irritation must’ve carried through his words, because soon the others were talking over and around him, seemingly without rancour. The tension in Harry’s chest eased, and he found himself warmed by the company even while he didn’t participate in the conversation.

“Time to put on school robes,” Ron said gloomily, reaching into the bag he’d stuffed his inside. Hermione nodded smartly and began to rummage through her trunk.

As the train came to a halt, Luna peered outside at the thestrals awaiting them. “They are pretty,” she noted absently, “in a macabre sort of way.”

Harry, looking at their skeletal bodies shimmering in the moonlight, couldn’t help but agree.

Ron elbowed Harry. “I swear, they get tinier every year.”A group of first-years, smaller in number than any Harry remembered, filed in. Each child looked small, lost, and frighteningly young. Harry had to wonder if his robes had hung off of him like that, making him look like he was drowning, back when he was eleven...

One boy in particular caught his eye. This child had a cap of shiny black hair that waved around his face in a riot of curls, and sharp, attentive blue eyes. Other than being singularly pretty for a boy, he was unremarkable, except that he reminded Harry of someone. He couldn’t place who.

The Sorting Hat was placed reverentially upon the low stool, and, after a moment, a long rip resolved into a mouth and it began its song:

I am for a purpose, as are every one of you:

I sort and place each child here,

To one dream, one goal, one truth.

At this, the hat paused, and there was a small silence, followed quickly by a low murmur. The hat had neither explained the houses, nor voiced an objection to them, as it had the year before...

Just as suddenly as it had faltered, the hat took up its song again:

It may be you are clever,

You are worthy of renown.

In that case, it is Slytherin

That will become your home.

It may be you have bravery,

And more than a bit of pride.

Of course, then it is Gryffindor,

In which you must abide.

It may be you are true at heart,

Beyond all other qualities –

In that case, you are Hufflepuff,

And strongest in your loyalties.

It may be that you are possessed

Of a talented intellect, an inquiring mind;

In that case, it is Ravenclaw,

To which you are assigned.

Another pause, this one slightly longer than the last. Harry noted each table in turn preening slightly as it was mentioned, especially the Slytherin and Ravenclaw tables, but then their descriptions had probably been the most flattering. “What’s the matter?” he wondered, but Hermione silently shook her head, waiting until the Hat finished.

And it makes sense at first, it seems,

To rely upon my intuition,

A convenient way to classify -

If nothing else, it is tradition.

And yet, can any wizard place

More value on, say loyalty,

Than maneuvering with clever grace,

Or intelligence, or bravery?

All of these are crucial tools

For living, and, when lacking one

A wizard suffers. It is cruel,

This Sorting, and must not be done.

Thus I tip my Hat to you

And disappear forever,

But before I do, I tell you true

One more of my endeavors:

I have sorted no less

Than one of five in alternative station

Than that which I did first suggest,

A sort of House-contamination.

There are Slytherins in Gryffindor,

And Gryffindors in Slytherin,

Hufflepuffs in Ravenclaw,

And on and on again.

It was their choice, not mine or yours,

To go to one House or to another,

So I let them go, but first

I told them the House they should be under.

There! The Houses, they are mixed,

And so shall I take my leave.

And if you wish the Houses fixed

I beg of you a kind reprieve;

For I, not you, have watched each year

From the unique perch of this stool,

The hatred that comes from the fear

Of the first-years in this school.

Now the time has come, dear children all,

When I must meet my fate.

I must adjure you: join the Houses!

Tomorrow may be too late.

And with a burst of flame like a phoenix dying, the Sorting Hat was gone. For a moment, there was complete and utter silence in the Great Hall; then, as the smoke cleared and it became apparent that there was no longer any such object seated at the stool...

The entire Great Hall erupted in a roar.