Chapter 710

“You’re really brave.” Neville said with heartfelt admiration as he gave Harry a thumbs up and sat down next to him, with Hannah and Susan Bones sitting next to them.

“I thought of it on the spur of the moment, too.” Harry mumbled as he felt his face begin to heat up. He really hadn’t thought all that much about it or even intended to ask others to follow his example, which was why he didn’t say a word, and it was Hermione who realized his intentions in time.

“That’s great man, you’re leading an example.” Ernie Mcmillan said aloud, leaning over and patting Harry on the shoulder, looking at the badge on Harry’s chest with an envious look.

“By the way, I wonder what changes have been made in the faculty this year?” Harry said hurriedly, trying to change the subject.

He looked in the direction of the professor’s seats – they were not fully occupied yet, but Snape and Professor Slughorn could be seen sitting together, Slughorn looking at Harry with undisguised approval, with his hands clasped together; Snape, on the other hand, had vacant eyes, making it impossible to grasp his emotions. A few seats away, Professor Sprout and Professor of Astronomy Aurora Sinistra talked in whispers, with a distinct smirk on their faces.

“Not all the Professors arrived yet… Well, I guess we’re a bit early.” Susan stretched her neck and said, “But at least we can be sure that the posts for Potions, Defense Against the Dark Arts, Herbology, and Astronomy won’t change too much.”

“It’s quite strange that Defense Against the Dark Arts professor hasn’t changed ….” Ernie and the rest exchanged a meaningful look, and Harry knew that at the moment in the minds of the crowd, the names of the professors of Defense Against the Dark Arts who had come and gone over the years must have flashed through.

But Harry didn’t find it strange in his mind, Voldemort was dead, so the shadow hovering over Hogwarts had naturally disappeared.

“You guys, do you think that maybe Slughorn and Snape would actually swap positions with each other? Snape will teach Potions class and Professor Slughorn will teach Defense Against the Dark Arts?”

“Not likely.” Harry said immediately.

“Why?” Hannah asked curiously.

Harry’s gaze froze, yes, why am I so sure? He couldn’t give conclusive proof, he just simply felt that this kind of thing wouldn’t happen. He couldn’t help but suspect it was due to his recent frequent recollections of what he had seen in the stone Pensieve. “What’s the point of asking? He must have got the inside information.” A voice interjected.

It was Mafalda, she clutched a small notebook, along with a ballpoint pen that could only be bought in a muggle store in her other hand, her eyes twinkling as she sized him up, seemingly catching a whiff of the scoop.

“Come on.” Mafalda said with an inquisitive look on her face, “I think the most likely changes are going to be in the Ancient Runes and Transfiguration class. Professor Hap was assigned as a special envoy of the International Confederation of Wizards some time ago, and he has visited more than a dozen ministries of magic due to it, so he might not have much time to spare in the coming days; the latter – Professor McGonagall probably won’t be teaching the students this year, since she is the Headmistress now, isn’t that right?”

She rattled off what she knew, then looked at Harry with a probing gaze.

Harry stared back at her, probably realizing that every word he would say next would appear on the Wall of Riddles tabloid, so he decided not to say a word – and he really wasn’t sure of the answer, but that didn’t stop him from making up plausible rhetoric.

“You’ll soon find out, let’s keep it a surprise.” He said in a vague, almost know-it-all tone. The next second Harry realized he was mimicking Trelawney’s speaking pattern, which made him slightly uncomfortable.

Neville obviously took Harry’s words as a clue and thought hard for a moment.

“Who could it be?” He frowned and looked at Harry carefully and said, “It should be someone I know, but not someone I can easily associate with enough to make it a surprise …” Harry looked at him a little nervously, fearing that when the result came out later his big lie would be busted, but Mafalda is present, he could not make a reminder.

At that time Harry thought – this distant relative of Ron’s is not here to study, she’s always carrying around a sketchpad, like some painters, whose purpose is to collect useful material that can be put into their artwork.

“Could it be Mr. Longbottom? If so, it would be quite a surprise …” Hannah Abbott speculated.

Harry’s mind started to think about the possibility of it.

“No,” Neville said with certainty, shaking his head, “because Professor McGonagall really did contact my father about teaching at the school.”

“Professor McGonagall invited Mr. Longbottom?” Harry asked in surprise.

“Yeah, but Dad refused, he didn’t want to be away from Mum and the two of them are now working together to choose a site for a new wizard town.” Neville explained.

After being healed by Professor Hap, Mr. and Mrs. Longbottom first travelled abroad, and when the Wizard War broke out, they immediately decided to contribute their part, and when the war ended, they had no desire to join the Ministry of Magic, as they preferred to open a small store and live their own little lives. It was only recently when the major incident that exposed the wizarding world happened, they were once again invited by the Ministry of Magic to work as special Aurors. Recently, they were involved in the black market and smuggling trade sweep within the United Kingdom, but it was the first time that Harry heard of what they were recently doing from Neville.

“A new wizard town – what’s that?” Mafalda asked with a sharp look on her face as she looked up from her little sketchbook.

Harry thought of the recent hot news, if both wizard and muggle sides wants to trade, they must need a fixed location first, could it be related to this? But he quickly realized he was sidetracked, “It’s to settle the foreign wizards who recently relocated here.” Neville said.

“It was indeed mentioned on the radio …,” Mafalda mused.

“Auntie had a headache over them.” Susan Bones interjected, “The number of registrations has surpassed three hundred, and the ministry has urgently deployed a group of officers to prevent them from causing trouble.”

“That’s not uncommon, those people are more or less related to the wizards on our side.” Ernie Macmillan said unconcernedly, “My father said – a number of people had fled to abroad during the first wizard war, but now the situation has been reversed, I believe there are quite a few familiar family names among them, such as Shafiq.”

“I was under the impression that they had returned before the wizarding world was completely exposed.” Hannah Abbott said slowly.

Ernie shrugged.

“I didn’t pay much attention to them …”

Mafalda left contentedly, after which she flew like a hard-working pollen-gathering bee to a different bush – Hermione was chatting with Luna and Ginny, as she looked at Mafalda’s back, Harry saw Ron looking listlessly over, with a dumb expression that suggested he wanted to come over.

The disorganized state of seating in the great hall was keenly noticed by Felix and McGonagall when they showed up together and took their seats in the wide chairs, they swept their serious and probing gaze across the four long tables like a lion and a snake on patrol through their territory.

“Are you satisfied with the surprise that the newly appointed Head Boy has brought us?” Snape asked quietly, his tone sounding like someone had broken into his private storeroom and repositioned all the familiar vials of potions.

“I do feel satisfied, Severus. I am glad to see this change occurring in my tenure.” Professor McGonagall said with joy, then she looked at Felix with an odd expression on her face, “But Felix – I must remind you that you have an important task on your shoulders today, so don’t act like nothing is wrong.”

Felix who was talking with Slughorn about the progress of the improvement of the potion formula turned his head upon hearing this and looked at her rather innocently.

“Sorting, Felix, sorting.” Professor McGonagall reminded him.

“Oh, I almost forgot I had to preside over the Sorting Ceremony – thanks a lot, Minerva.” Felix stood up cheerfully and stretched his hand to retrieve a dirty hat out of the thin air, and shook it off vigorously before striding towards the entrance hall.

Once he was at the door, he bumped into Firenze while waiting for Hagrid to lead the freshmen over.

“Hello, Firenze.” He addressed the Centaur, knowing that Firenze had put a lot of effort into persuading the Centaurs to join the Pan-Magical Alliance.

“Ugh, I wasn’t going to show up,” the Centaur said sadly, “I’m not used to eating human food.”

“Don’t worry, the house elf specially prepared fresh vegetables, completely natural.” Felix said. He watched the Centaur go in, Firenze’s tail flicking, he didn’t know if it was from annoyance or nervousness, and then a few more minutes passed when he heard the sound of heavy footsteps.

Hagrid’s tangled, tousled hair came into view, followed by a group of young wizards who looked at everything with curiosity, like bean sprouts that could walk on their own.

“Is everything going well, Hagrid?”

Hagrid froze for a moment, apparently, he had forgotten, just like Felix had before, about who would preside over the Sorting Ceremony tonight. “Oh … it went smoothly …” he cranked his head behind and shouted, “Don’t crowd, line up and come in one by one! Felix, I’m leaving the new students in your hands, all of them one by one.” He said to Felix.

“By the way, I’ve put that little house on the edge of the Forbidden Forest, and little Grawp was quite happy about it.”

Hagrid was referring to Grawp’s temporary house that was built during Bill and Fleur’s wedding. When the wedding was over, Felix re-turned it into a painting, and it was brought back by Hagrid.

Felix blinked and said, “That’s good.”

When Hagrid left, he took the first-year students to a separate room where they were introduced about the Sorting rules and the basic information of the four houses. Under the soft white light of the magic lamp, the excitement and anticipation on their faces were clearly seen. Felix smiled.

“Sir?” At that moment, a freshman spoke in a somewhat trembling voice, “Excuse me, are you Felix Hap, I’ve read your name in the newspaper.”

“You can call me Professor Hap,” Felix said gently, “even if you can’t take my class yet, you can still call me that. As for your question, I suppose yes, there is no second Felix Hap who has appeared in the newspapers more often than I have lately. So, what’s your name?”

“Locke,” the freshman said in a rush, “Locke Arwin.”

“… Oh, oh, yes, Mr. Arwin. You pleasantly surprised me, you happen to have a similar-sounding name as a friend of mine.” Felix said, “I wish you luck on your sorting into your ideal house – I mean – have a great time.”

“There’s still a little time before the sorting begins, so you can get to know each other a bit well, as not surprisingly, you’ll spend seven years together.”

As the new students glanced at each other and introduced themselves, the great hall was overwhelmed by the succession of unfamiliar faces that appeared.

First, it was a Centaur – “Hey, it’s Firenze!” Ron shouted from the Ravenclaw table. After a few more minutes, Castle Caretaker Filch led two men in, and all the students were baffled by the tall, thin old man in the lead, who wore a gray robe with wisps of metallic, gray hair and beard, along with glasses.

It wasn’t until he got close that some of the students recognized that this man was actually the owner of the Hog’s Head Inn, and as a result they ignored the elegant and unsmiling witch draped in a dark green shawl behind him. But Harry would never forget her, and his eyes widened simultaneously with Neville, Ron, and Hermione, who were at the next table.

“Surprisingly, it’s Aunt Emmeline Vance.” Neville said with a soft intake of breath.

Aberforth and Emmeline Vance selected a seat and the professors welcomed them. Aberforth chose to sit on the far side of the room, his face showed little expression as he casually picked up a fork from the table and tapped it twice, and Firenze, the Centaur next to him, rubbed his hooves on the ground in annoyance.

“Am I bothering you?” Aberforth asked gruffly.

“No.” Firenze said politely and curtly, his keen sense of smell caught a faint stench of goat.

At this point, the students below came back to their senses, and a lively discussion broke out. A number of them felt that if they had to pick one of the three as a professor of Transfiguration, they would prefer the elegant-looking witch with the classy demeanour – not many of them knew the identity of Aberforth. A few of them had previously suspected that they had been mistaken. But Harry knew better than that; there is no way Aberforth would be a professor of Transfiguration, because Transfiguration is a disciplined study of magic, and as far as he knew, Aberforth was not very good at classes that required patience. On the contrary, Emmeline Vance is a very talented witch, who is a few years older than Sirius and Amelia, and also, like the Longbottoms, she fought in two wars and survived.

Felix led the new students into the great hall and stopped in front of the professor’s seats. He conjured up a small bench and placed the Sorting Hat on it, after which it began to sing, a process the older students were all too familiar with, except-

“Why does this year’s Sorting Hat singing sound feeble?” Ron muttered. Of course, he was just casually commenting that, as the Sorting began, the enchanted ceiling overhead reflected the orbital trails of the stars – Firenze tilted his head to look up – and Felix pulled out a piece of parchment and read out the first name.

“Locke Arwin.”

A freshman stumbled out of the crowd and put on the Sorting Hat, and after a moment-

“Ravenclaw!” The Sorting Hat yelled.

The Great Hall thundered with applause. The new student placed the hat down and hesitantly got off the bench when Felix said gently, “Just pick an empty seat and sit down. The House only matters when it comes to your class schedule.” So Arwin ran to the Slytherin table and sat down, and Draco Malfoy, who is the Prefect, stood up and shook his hand.

The sorting proceeded in an orderly manner without much incident. By the time the ceremony was over, Professor McGonagall, as the Headmistress, gave a welcome speech to the students and dryly announced several new appointments for this school year.

“Professor Emmeline Vance will work as Professor of Transfiguration … Professor Firenze, who has just got back from a journey, has shown great expertise in observing the stars and Capnomancy, and he will be teaching a branch of Divination class for students who have passed the O.W.Ls exam… …and also, this year’s Ancient Rune class will be held in Classroom Seven. Classroom Seven and the underground amusement center will be available to students once again and the keeper of these two places will be Mr. Aberforth Dumbledore …”

Professor McGonagall’s serious gaze swept across the great hall, then she revealed a smile.

“Once again, welcome back, in this current situation, I am very happy to see that we are able to unite together without division, which is our strongest weapon. That’s all I have to say, so let’s start eating.”

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