CHAPTER FIVE - The Sorting Hat

The door swung open to reveal a tall, black-haired witch in emerald-green robes. She guided the first years down the tall, majestic Entrance Hall of the school, stopping at a smaller chamber with a door at the end.

"Welcome to Hogwarts," said Professor McGonagall. "The start-of-term banquet will begin shortly. But before you take your seats in the Great Hall, you will be sorted into your houses. The Sorting is a very important ceremony because, while you are here, your house will be something like your family within Hogwarts. You will have classes with the rest of your house, sleep in your house dormitory and spend free time in your house common room.

"The four houses are called Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw and Slytherin. Each house has its own noble history and each has produced outstanding witches and wizards. While you are at Hogwarts, your triumphs will earn your house points, while any rule-breaking will lose house points. At the end of the year, the house with the most points is awarded the House Cup, a great honour. I hope each of you will be a credit to whichever house becomes yours.

"The Sorting Ceremony will take place in a few minutes in front of the rest of the school. I suggest you all smarten yourself up as much as you can while you are waiting." She eyed each of the students carefully.

"In the meantime, is there a young lady named Attuoria here?"

Harry and Ron immediately turned to stare at her. She heard both of their thoughts go: "Uh oh, what did she do wrong?"

Attuoria could sense the fear radiating off of their gazes. But Attuoria wasn't scared. She wasn't wired to be scared. After all, only humans have fears, and she was not human.

She pushed her way up the chamber until she was standing right in front of the Professor. The chamber was eerily quiet as everyone held their breath.

Professor McGonagall peered down at the girl with her sharp brown eyes. Then, she leant down ever so slightly.

"Have you by any chance come up with a last name for yourself yet?" She said quietly, surprising Attuoria.

"Yeah." said Attuoria, surprised that she asked. Hagrid must've told her. "But I made it up on the spot."

"That's alright. As long as you stick with it. Now what's your last name?"

"Knight. Attuoria Knight."

"Knight as in 'knight in shining armour', am I correct?"

"Yes."

"Perfect. You can go back now."

Attuoria turned around and saw the entire first year population staring at her with wide eyes. She stared back at them blankly before pushing her way back towards Harry and Ron.

"I shall return when we are ready for you, please wait quietly." said Professor McGonagall before leaving the chamber.

Immediately Ron and Harry turned towards Attuoria.

"What did she ask you?" Harry asked in a hushed voice.

"For my last name."

"For your last name?" Ron repeated, confused. "Don't they have a record of your last name?"

Attuoria shrugged. "I don't think they were able to read the tribal Romanian script," she said, glancing at Harry, who was the one that came up with this 'Romanian tribe' backstory for her. "You know, dead Latin and everything."

They returned back to silence, before Harry decided to ask Ron about the process of the sorting ceremony. Attuoria was pretty sure his brother Fred was lying to him about the sorting ceremony being 'a test that hurts a lot'.

"The Sorting Ceremony's about to start." Professor McGonagall's voice announced, immediately catching the attention of all the nervous kids in the chamber. "Now, form a line and follow me."

Upon entering the Great Hall, all of Attuoria's previous thoughts vanished. The Hall was lit by thousands and thousands of floating candles, it's ceiling the view of a starry night sky. Four long tables lay in the hall, where all the students were sitting at. Another long table lay horizontally at the front of the Hall, where all the teachers were sitting. Golden plates and goblets sat on top of these tables, one for each person. There were even ghosts in the hallway, a few of them looking quite friendly, while the others just looked plain menacing.

Professor McGonagall placed a four-legged stool at the front of the Great Hall, directly facing all the students. Then, a pointed hat was placed on top of the stool. The hat looked very old and dirty, with patches roughly sewn together and it's edges frayed.

The hall grew silent. Then, the hat began to sing.

Attuoria could barely recognise a single word coming out from the hat's mouth. But luckily for her, she heard the most important bits: "You might belong in Gryffindor, where dwell the brave at heart", "You might belong in Hufflepuff, where they are just and loyal", "Or yet in wise old Ravenclaw, if you're a ready mind, where those of wit and learning", "Or perhaps in Slytherin you'll make your real friends, those cunning folk use any means to achieve their ends."

This gave her a basic idea of what each of the four houses represented. But whilst the people around her were contemplating their possible houses, she had no idea what was going to happen. After all, the only trait she knew about herself was that she liked to observe. But what would that mean? It wasn't even a personality trait. For all she knew, she didn't even have a personality.

"When I call your name, you will put on the hat and sit on the stool to be sorted," Professor McGonagall said, a very long roll of parchment in her hand. "Abbott, Hannah!"

Attuoria watched as a blonde girl walked up onto the stool and sat down. Professor McGonagall placed the hat on her head, and after a few moments pause, the hat yelled out "HUFFLEPUFF!"

The table on the very right of the Great Hall cheered and clapped, and Hannah went and sat down at that table.

The process seemed quite easy. Names were called according to alphabetical order of last name. Attuoria realised that her name was before both Harry and Ron's.

Sooner than she had hoped, Hermione Granger was called up. That meant they were already on "G". "K" was not too far. She glanced at Ron and Harry worriedly. Harry looked like he was about to piss himself. Ron was fidgeting a lot.

Focused on Harry, Attuoria read in his mind that he was worried about not even being placed into a house. Focusing on Ron, she managed to enter his mind and saw that he was desperately hoping to be placed into Gryffindor.

Apart from Ron's brothers, who were all in Gryffindor, she didn't know the house of anyone she had met today. She watched Hermione intently.

"GRYFFINDOR!" shouted the hat, and Attuoria heard Ron groan from next to her. Since he despised Hermione, the only reason he'd be complaining would be because she got placed into the same house as him. So this was also a clue that Ron was probably going to be placed into Gryffindor. Attuoria now had a basic idea of which house she wanted to be in.

"Knight, Attuoria!"

The mention of her name caused a jolt through Attuoria's body. It sounded so foreign. She was going to have to get used to this human name.

She walked over to the stool and sat down, unfazed by the many eyes staring at her. The hat was dropped onto her head and it covered nearly half of her vision. She sat there, waiting for the hat to speak.

"What?!" A small, confused voice sounded in her ear. It was the sorting hat's voice. "There's nothing here! How is that possible? A mind that is completely blank! Sorcery!"

Attuoria nearly let out a chuckle. Of course her human mind is blank, she never used it. Although she was in a human body, her thoughts always ran through her Nightmare demon mind, and not the mind within the human brain. Those two were wired differently. The demon mind was more intuitive, more complex, and much faster, which was why she preferred it over the human mind.

And of course, the sorting hat couldn't read the thoughts that just ran through her head, either. Those were all thoughts within her demon-side mind.

She lowered her consciousness into the human mind, within the range of the hat's detection limits. Except she didn't bring everything from her demon mind into the human mind. She selectively chose a few thoughts and traits that would most likely land her in Gryffindor house, the house of the brave and bold.

"Oh, now I see it. Huh, I somehow missed it. That's odd. I must be tired. Anyways, this looks to be an easy decision now," the small voice said. "Everything points towards GRYFFINDOR!"

The hat was lifted off her head and Attuoria immediately heard applause coming from the Gryffindor table. A slight smile played on her face, knowing she just played the sorting hat.

The Weasley twins welcomed her warmly to the table, and Attuoria sat down next to Hermione, who smiled and congratulated her.

She saw one of the twins slide a coin to the other, and couldn't help but frown. The one who received the coin noticed her staring, and winked at her.

"George here was certain you'd land in Slytherin. I said Gryffindor." Fred said quietly, leaning over the table and holding up the shiny silver coin in between his fingers.

"What made you think Slytherin?" Attuoria whispered to George, who shrugged.

"There's something about your dark hair, you know. It's flat and all, but you're hiding some secrets in there."

Attuoria said nothing.

Just then, the Great Hall erupted into laughter as everyone watched Neville Longbottom run off the stool with the hat still on his head. He awkwardly jogged back and returned the hat.

Then, Draco Malfoy was sorted into Slytherin with his cronies, his smug expression never once leaving his face.

After a few more turns, Harry was sorted into Gryffindor, which clearly delighted not just Attuoria, but everyone in the house. Famous Harry Potter was a Gryffindor.

And finally, near the end, Ron was sorted into Gryffindor. He looked so relieved, and his brothers beamed with pride.

The Sorting Ceremony ended, and Headmaster Albus Dumbledore stepped up and made a quick speech.

"Welcome! Welcome to a new year at Hogwarts! Before we begin our banquet, I would like to say a few words. And here they are: Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak! Thank you!" he announced, and then sat back down.

Everyone clapped and cheered. Attuoria muttered to herself, "What an eccentric old man."

Fred, who was sitting in front of her, heard her remark. "Very eccentric, isn't he? Dumbledore."

Attuoria nodded.

Then, out of nowhere, hundreds of dishes popped up onto the dining table. Separating her and Fred were now plates of roast chicken, lamb chops, steak, potatoes, chips, peas, carrots, gravy- There were so many options, Attuoria couldn't even recognise half of them.

"Say, have you ever tried Yorkshire pudding?" Fred said, handing her an oddly shaped, bread-like object.

"What?"

"Yorkshire pudding. You don't sound very British to me so I'd assume you haven't heard of these."

"No I haven't..." Attuoria said hesitantly, reaching over and accepting the bread. She took one bite out of it and realised why humans were so obsessed with food. The spiritual dimension has been missing out.

She immediately began loading her plate, wanting to swallow everything but knowing her human stomach had a limit.

"So, Attuoria, did I pronounce that right?" Fred asked, pointing at her with his fork. She nodded. "If you're not British, where'd you come from?"

Oh no, not again... Attuoria was starting to get sick of giving her fake backstory to people over and over again. Now she wished Harry was here to help her explain her Romanian heritage or something.

"Um, I'm from this place in Romania." Attuoria said with uncertainty. She didn't want to go into details in case something in her story was inconsistent.

"Oh, really? My brother Charlie-"

"Is in Romania working with dragons. Yes, Ron told me."

Fred nodded slowly whilst chewing on a piece of steak. Unconsciously, Attuoria's gaze met with Fred's. Fred's thoughts immediately began sounding in her mind:

"Romania, huh? No wonder she's so pretty. I wonder if Charlie will find some pretty Romanian girl there, although I doubt it. He'd be more likely to marry a damn Hippogriff."

Attuoria smirked slightly once she heard that, and Fred noticed.

"What's funny?"

The smile immediately dropped from her face and her expression went blank. "Nothing." She replied quickly, mentally scolding herself for reacting to someone's thoughts again. It was helpful to be able to read people's minds, but she needed to hide it.

Once everyone was about done with the food, the dishes disappeared and reappeared with all kinds of dessert, including pudding, ice cream and an assortment of confectionaries. Attuoria was glad that she hadn't fully stuffed herself with the main course, because now she could wolf down all the desserts on the table.

Hermione, who sat next to Attuoria, had been talking to Percy Weasley about lessons at Hogwarts for just about the entire meal. She was starting to feel annoyed when Hermione suddenly spoke to her.

"Attuoria, what class are you most excited for?"

"Everything...?" Attuoria replied hesitantly, knowing she didn't have a preference.

"Oh, me too! There's just so much to learn, right?" Hermione said, beaming. Attuoria just nodded in agreement.

"Do you want to go studying together once classes start? I would really love to check out the library." Hermione said, gazing at Attuoria hopefully.

"Sure." Attuoria replied with a slight smile. Maybe she could start searching for information on "T.M.R.".

At last, when the desserts disappeared, Professor Dumbledore got to his feet again. The Hall immediately fell silent.

"Just a few more words now we are all fed and watered. I have a few start-of-term notices to give you. First-years should note that the forest in the grounds is forbidden to all pupils. And a few of our older students would do well to remember that as well. I have also been asked by Mr Filch, the caretaker, to remind you that no magic should be used between classes in the corridors. Quidditch trials will be held in the second week of term. Anyone interested in playing for their house teams should contact Madam Hooch. And finally, I must tell you that this year, the third-floor corridor on the right-hand side is out of bounds to everyone who does not wish to die a painful death."

Then, Dumbledore announced everyone was going to sing the school song using their favourite tune. Attuoria had never heard music before, so she had no idea how to even sing. She was about to recite the song in full monotone but instead spent the entire time frowning at the lyrics. With "old and bald", "scabby knees", "interesting stuff", "dead flies and bits of fluff", and "until our brains all rot" as parts of the school song, she couldn't help but wonder if it was a joke.

Fred and George peered at her curiously as they sang the song in a slow funeral march.

After that, it was bedtime. The Gryffindor first-years followed Percy through the crowds, out of the Great Hall, up the marble staircases, past many portraits of whispering people. They stopped in front of a portrait of a fat woman wearing a pink dress.

"Password?" The portrait asked.

"Caput Draconis," said Percy, and the portrait swung forward, revealing a passageway through the wall into a cosy common room full of armchairs and pillows.

"Girls dorm up the right, boys dorm to the left." Percy directed, and everyone filed along.

There were only four beds in the girls dorm. There were windows on each side of the beds, with red velvet curtains hanging from them. Their trunks were already placed neatly on the floor, one in each corner of the room.

Attuoria glanced at the girls in her dorm. Hermione, a girl named Lavender Brown, and a girl named Parvati Patil.

Lavender and Parvati were already friends. The two of them sat on Lavender's bed, giggling about something. While Hermione and Attuoria were also acquainted, Hermione sat on her bed reading, and Attuoria just stared out the window from her bed.

She realised this was the first day her Philippine Eagle, Eylense, hadn't come to check up on her. It made sense, as she had been travelling all day. Plus, Eylense was diurnal, not nocturnal, so she wasn't expecting him to come so late at night anyways.

Her thought drifted to the message from "T.M.R." again. She needed to find out who that person was. "T.M.R." were clearly the initials of a person, a person with a first, middle and last name.

Attuoria had an odd feeling this messenger didn't want other people to see the message or know of his identity. Hence why he only wrote his initials. Initials were quite hard to match, as many people shared the same ones.

She thought about her classes tomorrow. It was going to be her first day studying as a witch. In fact, not just as a witch, but as a human.

Attuoria had been living for nearly two centuries, and nothing in her life had been worth remembering. Nothing was mildly interesting until that green encrypted message from "T.M.R." showed up. Only then, did her existence start to have meaning.

Attuoria smiled, closing her eyes and letting herself drift off into sleep. Sleep. Never in her life did she expect that she, a Nightmare demon, would be sleeping.

That was the last thing she thought before her mind went blank.