The ghost blinked, apparently unused to being interrogated quite so immediately. "House, unfortunately, only sight and hearing, and yes, I do."
"Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington at your service, and don't hesitate to ask me if you have any more questions about ghosts," he offered generously.
"Aegeus Granger. Pleasure to meet you," he said politely.
The ghost seemed delighted at the attention rather than annoyed, and spent a few more minutes answering increasingly specific questions about the nature of his own afterlife before drifting off toward the next table.
At last, the puddings too disappeared, and Professor Dumbledore got to his feet again. The Hall fell silent.
"Now that we have eaten, a few words. Mr Hagrid, our groundskeeper, asks that everyone stay clear of the Forbidden Forest. Quidditch trials will be held in the second week of term. Anyone interested in playing for their house teams should contact Madam Hooch"
"We also have a new addition to our staff this year. Please join me in welcoming Professor Thaddeus Vance, who will be taking up the post of Defense Against the Dark Arts," said the headmaster cheerfully.
At the far end of the staff table, a tall man with sharp, grey-streaked hair and a weathered, high-collared coat stood up and offered a brief, formal nod to the room. His face bore the subtle, hardened look of an experienced fighter.
A polite round of applause rippled through the four house tables.
"He's a former Ministry investigator," Charlie Weasley leaned over to whisper from across the table. "My older brother Bill mentioned him— supposed to be exceptional with practical warding and counter-curses. Though with that post, who knows if he'll last past June."
"Before we go to bed, let us sing the school song!" cried Dumbledore.
Aegeus noticed that the other teachers' smiles had become rather crooked.
Dumbledore gave his wand a little flick and a long golden ribbon flew out of it, which rose high above the tables and twisted itself snake-like into words. "Everyone pick their favourite tune," said Dumbledore
"And off we go!" And the school bellowed.
"Hogwarts, Hogwarts, Hoggy Warty Hogwarts—"
When they had finished, prefects rallied the first-years, as for Gryffindor, they were led by Charlie through the grand staircases up to the seventh floor.
While marching, Aegeus spotted another ghost— smaller, harder-edged, with a look of open, gleeful malice.
"That one isn't a house ghost," Rosalind murmured from behind, pausing just long enough to deliver the warning before stepping past him. "That's Peeves. Try not to make eye contact."
The advice came a moment too late. Peeves had already spotted the newest, most talked-about first-year in the hall, and the poltergeist— unnoticed all evening— decided this was the precise moment to announce his presence to the newcomers.
He swooped into a bag, cackling, a fistful of mashed potatoes he had secretly pocketed while everyone was eating, and aimed squarely at Aegeus's head.
Aegeus simply tilted his head three inches to the left at the exact moment the potato arrived— and it sailed past him to land, with a wet and enormously satisfying splat, directly on Marcus's face.
Everyone erupted into laughter. Marcus stared at him in a silent, wounded betrayal.
Peeves hovered there for a moment before zooming away with a cackle.
They then continued their journey and stopped before the large oil painting of a pink-robed woman.
"Password?" the Fat Lady asked.
"Nates Draconis," the prefect called out.
The portrait swung open, revealing a round doorway into a warm, circular common room lined with squashy armchairs and a fireplace already crackling.
He crossed to the window, unlatching the heavy brass cage resting on the sill. Inside, his owl shifted her feathers, eyes fixing on him.
"Go on, stretch your wings," Aegeus said quietly, stepping back to give her room.
With a soft rustle of feathers, the owl glided through the arched stone frame and out into the cool night air. Aegeus leaned against the sill and watched as her silhouette swept in a wide, elegant arc across the grounds— dark and silver under the moon— before diving low over the Black Lake, which lay beneath them like a flat, black mirror in the distance.
He stayed there for a long moment, while the quiet murmur of his roommates unpacking echoed from the room behind him.
The heavy oak door bounced off the stone wall with a dull thud, shattering the quiet.
"Here we are!" Marcus announced, tossing his trunk onto the mattress adjacent to Aegeus's with complete disregard for the structural integrity of the floorboards. He flopped onto the bed, kicking off his boots. "The food alone makes the whole bloody train ride worth it. I thought my uncle was exaggerating, but the house-elves mean business."
~~~
The morning sun broke over the Scottish Highlands, casting long, golden rays through the tall windows of the Gryffindor dormitory.
Aegeus woke at precisely seven o'clock, well before most of his roommates. While the rest of the dorm slept, he slipped quietly out of bed, dressed, and made his way down the spiral stairs toward the library.
Getting there was its own small challenge. Hogwarts, he had already gathered from the previous night's walk, did not believe in staying still. Staircases swung between floors, landings on their own schedule, occasionally moving him somewhere else. Doors turned out, on closer inspection, to be just painted walls.
One portrait he passed twice was occupied the first time and conspicuously empty the second, its subject apparently off visiting some other frame. Even with his perfect memory, he had to keep checking his mini-map every few minutes to make sure he was still on course. For even if he knew the road, staircases apparently had no obligation to lead him to his destination.
By the time he found the library, it was already half past seven. The long room was empty except for a stern-looking witch shelving books at the far end, who spared him only the briefest glance before returning to her work.
The library was, without exaggeration, on an entirely different scale from Flourish and Blotts. Where the shop had offered a respectable few thousand volumes crammed onto shelves requiring the occasional ladder, this was closer to an ecosystem— towering stacks stretching up into the cavernous ceiling, holds filled with centuries of knowledge.
He picked his way past general rows— Charms, general theory, the well-worn beginner texts that most first-years would usually start with— and found a table tucked into a dark corner far back, half-hidden behind a shelf of curse-breaking texts and largely out of the librarian's direct line of sight. Not exactly hidden, just inconvenient to find.
He selected a modest stack to start— Basic Incantation Theory, a slim volume on wand movement, something on charm-layering he had spotted on the way in— and settled in, flipping the first cover open. The pages blurred past at his usual pace, logic and structure settling into his brain.
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TO BE CONTINUED
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