Hermione's brain kept hiccoughing in confusion every time she tried to get properly angry. "Is your life always this peculiar?" she said at last.
Harry Potter's face gleamed with pride. "I make it that peculiar. You're looking at the product of a lot of hard work and elbow grease."
"So..." Hermione said, and trailed off awkwardly.
"So," Harry Potter said, "how much science do you know exactly? I can do calculus and I know some Bayesian probability theory and decision theory and a lot of cognitive science, and I've read The Feynman Lectures (or volume 1 anyway) and Judgment Under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases and Language in Thought and Action and Influence: Science and Practice and Rational Choice in an Uncertain World and Godel, Escher, Bach and A Step Farther Out and -"
The ensuing quiz and counter-quiz went on for several minutes before being interrupted by another timid knock at the door. "Come in," she and Harry Potter said at almost the same time, and it slid back to reveal Neville Longbottom.
Neville was actually crying now. "I went to the front carriage and found a p-prefect but he t-told me that prefects weren't to be bothered over little things like m-missing toads."
The Boy-Who-Lived's face changed. His lips set in a thin line. His voice, when he spoke, was cold and grim. "What were his colours? Green and silver?"
"N-no, his badge was r-red and gold."
"Red and gold!" burst out Hermione. "But those are Gryffindor's colours!"
Harry Potter hissed at that, a frightening sort of sound that could have come from a live snake and made both her and Neville flinch. "I suppose," Harry Potter spat, "that finding some first-year's toad isn't heroic enough to be worthy of a Gryffindor prefect. Come on, Neville, I'll come with you this time, we'll see if the Boy-Who-Lived gets more attention. First we'll find a prefect who ought to know a spell, and if that doesn't work, we'll find a prefect who isn't afraid of getting their hands dirty, and if that doesn't work, I'll start recruiting my fans and if we have to we'll take apart the whole train screw by screw."
The Boy-Who-Lived stood up and grabbed Neville's hand in his, and Hermione realised with a sudden brain hiccough that they were nearly the same size, even though some part of her had insisted that Harry Potter was a foot taller than that, and Neville at least six inches shorter.
"Stay!" Harry Potter snapped at her - no, wait, at his trunk - and he closed the door behind him firmly as he left.
She probably should have gone with them, but in just a brief moment Harry Potter had turned so scary that she was actually rather glad she hadn't thought to suggest it.
Hermione's mind was now so jumbled that she didn't even think she could properly read "History: A Hogwarts". She felt as if she'd just been run over by a steamroller and turned into a pancake. She wasn't sure what she was thinking or what she was feeling or why. She just sat by the window and stared at the moving scenery.
Well, she did at least know why she was feeling a little sad inside.
Maybe Gryffindor wasn't as wonderful as she had thought.
Chapter 9: Title Redacted, Part I
All your base are belong to J. K. Rowling.
1,000 REVIEWS IN 26 DAYS WOOHOO AWESOME POWA! 30 DAYS 1,189 REVIEWS COMBO IS CONTINUING! YEAH! YOU PEOPLE ARE THE BEST! THIS IS SPARTAAAAA!
Ahem.
The third-generation quarks were also called "truth" and "beauty" before "top" and "bottom" won out; my birthdate is around Hermione's, and when I was eleven, I used "truth" and "beauty".
When Part I of this chapter was first posted, I said that if anyone guessed what the last sentence was talking about before the next update, I would tell them the entire rest of the plot.
You never did know what tiny event might upset the course of your master plan.
"Abbott, Hannah!"
Pause.
"HUFFLEPUFF!"
"Bones, Susan!"
Pause.
"HUFFLEPUFF!"
"Boot, Terry!"
Pause.
"RAVENCLAW!"
Harry glanced over briefly at his new House-mate, more to get a quick look at the face than anything else. He was still trying to get himself under control from his encounter with the ghosts. The sad, the really sad, the really truly sad thing was that he did seem to be getting himself under control again. It seemed ill-fitting. Like he should have taken at least a day. Maybe a whole lifetime. Maybe just never.
"Corner, Michael!"
Long pause.
"RAVENCLAW!"
At the lectern before the huge Head Table stood Professor McGonagall, looking sharp and looking sharply around, as she called out one name after another, though she had smiled only for Hermione and a few others. Behind her, in the tallest chair at the table - really more of a golden throne - sat a wizened and bespectacled ancient, with a silver-white beard that looked like it would go almost to the floor if it were visible, watching over the Sorting with a benevolent expression; as stereotypical in appearance as a Wise Old Man could possibly be, without actually being Oriental. (Though Harry had learned to be wary of stereotypical appearances from the first time he'd met Professor McGonagall and thought that she ought to cackle.) The ancient wizard had applauded every student Sorted, with an unwavering smile that somehow seemed freshly delighted for each.
To the golden throne's left side was a man with sharp eyes and a dour face who had applauded no-one, and who somehow managed to be looking straight back at Harry every time Harry looked at him. Further to the left, the pale-faced man Harry had seen in the Leaky Cauldron, whose eyes darted around as though in panic at the surrounding crowd, and who seemed to occasionally jerk and twitch in his seat; for some reason Harry kept finding himself staring at him. To that man's left, a string of three older witches who didn't seem much interested in the students. Then to the right side of the tall golden chair, a round-faced middle-aged witch with a yellow hat, who had applauded every student except the Slytherins. A tiny man standing on his chair, with a poofy white beard, who had applauded every student, but smiled only upon the Ravenclaws. And on the farthest right, occupying the same space as three lesser beings, the mountainous entity who'd greeted them all after they'd disembarked from the train, naming himself Hagrid, Keeper of Keys and Grounds.
"Is the man standing on his chair the Head of Ravenclaw?" Harry whispered towards Hermione.
For once Hermione didn't answer this instantly; she was shifting constantly from side to side, staring at the Sorting Hat, and fidgeting so energetically that Harry thought her feet might be leaving the floor.
"Yes, he is," said one of the prefects who'd accompanied them, a young woman wearing the blue of Ravenclaw. Miss Clearwater, if Harry recalled correctly. Her voice was quiet, but conveyed a tinge of pride. "That is the Charms Professor of Hogwarts, Filius Flitwick, the most knowledgeable Charms Master alive, and a past Duelling Champion -"
"Why's he so short?" hissed a student whose name Harry didn't recall. "Is he a halfbreed?"
A chill glance from the young lady prefect. "The Professor does indeed have goblin ancestry -"
"What?" Harry said involuntarily, causing Hermione and four other students to hush him.
Now Harry was getting a surprisingly intimidating glare from the Ravenclaw prefect.
"I mean -" Harry whispered. "Not that I have a problem with that - it's just - I mean - how's that possible? You can't just mix two different species together and get viable offspring! It ought to scramble the genetic instructions for every organ that's different between the two species - it'd be like trying to build," they didn't have cars so he couldn't use a scrambled-engine-blueprints analogy, "a half-carriage half-boat or something..."