"Well, before we all retire, let us sing the school song!" Dumbledore announced, raising his wand. With a flourish, he tapped it lightly, and a piece of text, fashioned from twisted, shimmering golden ribbon, floated high in the air for all to see.
The small group known as the Hogwarts Choir emerged, accompanied by the Prefect who had just tried to ignore Albert's inquiry about the house-elves. Several choir members in the front row were holding large, lethargic-looking toads in their hands, their purpose utterly mysterious.
As Dumbledore gave a final wave of his wand, the entire hall—teachers and students alike—began to sing the school song, each individual choosing their own distinct rhythm.
Albert joined in the motion, moving his mouth and making vague, murmuring noises to maintain the illusion of participation. He couldn't help but feel a profound sense of absurdity. The lyrics were relentlessly childish, and the melody was embarrassingly melancholic.
It was one thing for the fresh-faced, excited first-years to participate, but witnessing a line of venerable professors, all with fixed, strained expressions, reluctantly moving their lips, was excruciatingly comical. It felt deeply, wonderfully embarrassing, a necessary ritual of utter silliness.
The performance reached its bizarre peak beside him. The Weasley twins, Fred and George, were singing the school song to the mournful, unmistakable tune of a Funeral March. Their timing was completely out of sync with everyone else, the words drawn out into agonizing moans. The new students seated around them, caught between embarrassment and amusement, were looking sideways at the two oddities.
"Hogwarts… Hogwarts… Hoggy Warty Hogwarts…"
The twins dragged their final lines out long after the majority had finished, concluding with the utterly morbid flourish: "...We will study hard… until we turn into dirt."
Albert had to fight a visceral urge to cover his face with his hands and desperately pretend he'd been seated with the Ravenclaws all along.
Finally, the last drawn-out chorus died into silence. Dumbledore, his face twinkling with delight, clapped his hands once and said, "And now, to bed! Off you go!"
The command triggered an immediate, chaotic rush. The hall instantly became a congestion nightmare as hundreds of students from all four tables surged toward the exit.
Albert now had an immediate, practical understanding of why the first-years were sorted and dismissed at the head of the main crowd. If they had been forced to follow the mass of older students, they would have inevitably been swept away, following the wrong color of robe to the wrong side of the castle. Imagine a terrified Gryffindor newbie accidentally ending up in the Slytherin dungeon common room, he mused. The chaos would be truly beautiful.
"Newcomers, follow me, please," commanded the Prefect, the one who had recently graced the stage as a choir member.
He expertly navigated them through the noisy throng, out of the Great Hall, and into the cool air of the main marble staircase area. They quickly separated from the freshmen following the Prefects of the other houses.
The Gryffindor Prefect led them on an intricate, bewildering path. They did not immediately attempt the famous main moving stairs. Instead, he led them through a bewildering series of corridors, staircases, and hidden passages that seemed intent on confusing any pursuers.
The hallways were a living gallery. Countless portraits lined the walls, filled with figures who whispered, gossiped, or occasionally shouted greetings at the passing line of new arrivals. Albert saw one enormous, gilded portrait of a stern knight, who briefly exited his frame to wander into the portrait next door, mid-conversation, only to reappear a moment later with a slightly different hat.
They learned quickly that in Hogwarts, geometry and logic were merely suggestions. The path was a constant, mind-bending assault on spatial awareness:
Some doorways required a specific touch point to open.
Others were hidden behind heavy, musty velvet curtains.
A few were concealed completely behind tapestries or, as they soon discovered, animated portraits.
The worst part of the journey, however, was the architecture itself. They were climbing a lesser, internal staircase when the Prefect failed to warn them quickly enough. It looked completely normal, yet at the fifth step, there was a flaw in the charm—a trap.
Albert saw Lee Jordan's foot land awkwardly. With a startled yelp, the black youth found his foot sinking halfway into the solid stone of the step as the magic momentarily dissolved beneath him.
"Are you all right?" Albert quickly reached out and hauled the struggling boy free, before placing his own foot carefully over the tricky step.
"No, I'm furious!" Lee Jordan exclaimed, shaking his leg, his initial excitement fading under the constant architectural assault. "Why would the school have so many... weird, malfunctioning hazards?"
"I think it's brilliant, don't you, George?" Fred whispered, stifling a laugh.
"Absolutely brilliant," George agreed, his eyes shining with mischief.
"They're not malfunctioning; they're features," Albert explained, sounding like a knowledgeable tour guide. "These are defensive facilities left over from the castle's history. Now, they're just quirks. A complex security system that has devolved into a massive, hilarious annoyance. Come on, I don't want to get lost before I even reach my bed."
They marched onward, up countless flights of stairs, around cold, stone corners, and through whispering corridors. Albert's legs genuinely started to ache from the sheer vertical climb.
Finally, the Prefect halted the weary group on the eighth floor. They traversed one last, extremely long corridor, arriving at its conclusion. The entire area was dominated by a large, round portrait of an extremely plump, richly dressed woman—the legendary Fat Lady, the sentinel of Gryffindor Tower.
"Password?" the Fat Lady demanded regally, her voice surprisingly sweet.
"Nonsense," the Prefect stated clearly.
With a grinding sound, the portrait swung inward like a door, revealing a large, circular hole in the wall behind it.
The Prefect turned back to face the exhausted newcomers. "You must remember the password. The Fat Lady won't let you in without it. The current password is gibberish. You must learn the changing passwords quickly; they change often."
With that final instruction, he scrambled through the hole. Albert and the others followed, emerging into the Gryffindor Common Room.
It was a magnificent room: large, circular, and incredibly welcoming. The walls were lined with tapestries depicting famous acts of chivalry, and the floor was scattered with mismatched but deeply comfortable velvet sofas and squashy armchairs. In one corner, a massive stone fireplace roared, casting a comforting orange glow over the room and making the rain beating on the tall windows seem a distant threat. A few older students were already sprawled on the furniture, chatting and waving a lazy greeting to the new arrivals.
"You're in luck," the Prefect continued, pointing to a large calendar above the fireplace. "Tomorrow is Saturday, which means no classes. This is a rare opportunity, and I strongly suggest you spend these two days getting familiar with the castle. The environment is far more complex than you can imagine. If you don't want to be late for classes on Monday, you need to figure out where the main classrooms are."
He then gestured to two separate doors. "Girls, your dormitories are through that door. Boys, follow me."
The male Prefect said goodbye to his female counterpart and led Albert's group through the second door, down a narrow, winding spiral staircase. They passed many doors, and he quickly pointed out the shared washrooms and bathrooms. Fortunately, the bathrooms had proper cubicles.
"Your rooms are named individually," he concluded. "Find your door and settle in. Welcome to Gryffindor."
Albert, the twins, and Lee Jordan soon found their door, which was simply labeled with their four names. Their dormitory was small but cozy, containing four four-poster beds draped with curtains, and their respective trunks neatly placed at the foot of each.
Albert stifled a huge yawn, pulled out his pajamas, and quickly changed.
"Well," Albert said, stretching contentedly, a smile on his face. "Looks like we're a crew. Please accept my guidance in the future, gentlemen."
"Looks like we're stuck with you," Fred replied, grinning broadly.
"Please accept our guidance, Albert," George added with a mocking bow.
Lee Jordan laughed, already sitting on his bed. The four roommates looked at each other and the exhaustion of the day dissolved into comfortable camaraderie.
"Tomorrow, I'm going to launch a full-scale exploration of this castle," Albert announced, pulling a Muggle camera—a simple, instant-print model—from his trunk. He stepped back to the doorway and snapped a quick picture of his new dormitory, the flash momentarily illuminating the four boys. "Want to join?"
"Absolutely. The Forbidden Forest will have to wait, but the Forbidden Corridors are a fine start," the twins said in unison. "Wake us up early."
"What about you, Lee?" the three asked the black boy, turning in unison.
"Of course I'm coming. I don't want to get swallowed by a staircase on my own," Lee Jordan declared.
"Good night, then."
Lying in his strange, curtained bed, Albert found himself wide awake. Insomnia, a chronic inconvenience, often plagued him when he slept in unfamiliar environments. The other three, thankfully, had no such troubles; fueled by adventure and a massive feast, they were deeply asleep mere minutes after hitting the pillows.
Albert turned on his side and discreetly opened his internal task panel. He checked the primary mission:
Thousand-Year-old School: Hogwarts Exploration
Current Progress: 3% (Up from 1% before the feast.)
Rewards: 1,000 – 100,000 Experience Points, 1 – 10 Skill Points.
Three percent, he mused. Just walking from the dock to the dormitory, including a detour through a maze of corridors, had netted him 2% progress. Tomorrow's exploration would be highly rewarding.
He spent a moment flipping through his lengthy skill list. Most of his magic skills were at Level 1, but many—minor charms, obscure arithmetic spells—were still listed at Level 0. He felt the familiar, nagging urge left over from his gaming past: the deep, neurotic need to max out all the skill trees immediately. He had amassed a decent chunk of general experience points, and it would be so easy to just burn them to unlock dozens of Level 1 spells.
No. Must resist.
He took a slow, deep breath. Those points were too valuable, tied directly to his future life, his ability to execute complex, life-saving magic, or acquire truly rare abilities. He needed to hoard them for true emergencies or exponential gains, not waste them on digital busywork.
Albert dismissed the panel, preventing himself from accidentally ruining his savings. He closed his eyes, drifting in the uncomfortable state between wakefulness and sleep. He had a vivid, strangely detailed dream of reading a book—a Harry Potter novel from his past life. He remembered the crisp binding, the smell of the paper.
"Is all of this a dream, then?" he whispered into the darkness.
No. He had confirmed it again and again. The cold of the lake, the chill of Nick's ghostly touch, the metallic scent of the coins, the aching in his legs. This was not a dream.
I feel like the author of a fanfiction, he thought, chuckling silently. Writing my own version of the Harry Potter story. Only this time, I can't be an omniscient, detached author. I'm stuck inside the plot, forced to play the part I create.
Ah, being a hipster is a disease, even in the magical world. With that final, self-deprecating thought, Albert finally drifted into a deep sleep.