S1E2 : The Sorting Hat's Debate
King's Cross at summer's end was a living clock—whistles, shoes, gates, and goodbyes all ticking at once.
Corvus Arcturus Black stood in the shadow between Platforms Nine and Ten and watched the brick barrier the way a chess player studies a board: not as an obstacle, but as a move waiting to be made.
"Straight on," Samantha said, smoothing his collar as if it could quiet his pulse. "No dithering. Magic dislikes apologizing for itself."
"Convenient," Corvus said. "So do I."
They were both smiling, which helped. He gripped the trolley, picked a gap in the foot traffic, and ran. The bricks softened like warm wax and then—cool air, steam, red paint gleaming like lacquer. Platform Nine and Three-Quarters unfurled in a bright, impossible sentence: the Hogwarts Express, owls disagreeing with the schedule, trunks babbling on squeaky wheels.
Samantha walked him to the carriage ladder and said the things parents always say, except she made them feel like discoveries instead of rules. "Be gentle with other people's mysteries. Eat when you're angry. And if you set anything on fire—"
"—it will deserve it," Corvus finished, and she laughed, kissed his cheek, and let go.
He climbed aboard with Paradox the owl sulking in her cage and found an empty compartment halfway down. The train smelled of coal, polish, and the beginnings of stories. He stacked books—Charms, Transfiguration, A Beginner's Guide to Runes already webbed with his pencil annotations—and opened his Mystery Log to a fresh page.
> 8. Thresholds are honest. They either take you somewhere or they don't.
8a. Today, they do.
The door slid open. A girl with copper hair and an expression like kindness that could take a punch peered in, clutching sandwiches wrapped in wax paper.
"Everywhere else is full," she said. "Mind?"
"Mind?" Corvus echoed. "Frequently. Sit anyway."
She laughed and set the sandwiches down. "Susan Bones."
"Corvus," he said. "Occupationally undecided."
Hannah Abbott arrived in a soft gust of apologies; Daphne Greengrass followed, poised and observant, taking the empty seat like she was doing the compartment a favor. Conversation found its rhythm—where are you from, is that your owl, do you think the lake really has a giant squid—and for a while it felt like the train was drawing a line between what Corvus had been and what he'd agreed to become.
Half an hour later, the corridor brightened with trouble.
Two identical redheads leaned in, grins aligned. "Recruitment office," said one.
"Quality control," said the other.
"Qualifications?" Corvus asked, dead serious.
"Fred," said the first, shaking his hand.
"George," said the second, shaking it again.
"Black," Corvus said, and watched the millisecond where their eyes widened, curiosity and caution chasing each other.
"As in—" George began.
"As in ink," Corvus said pleasantly. "And sometimes sky."
Fred's mouth tilted into admiration. "We are going to get along."
They presented him with a paper twist of tiny sparrows that whistled like kettles when you tossed them. "For emergencies," said George. "Or when there aren't any."
After they vanished, Corvus wrote:
> 8b. Weasley x2 = ambulatory hypothesis test. Potential allies in applied mischief.
The countryside unspooled—a green filmstrip of hedges and stone walls—and then dusk arrived on schedule. Robes replaced jumpers; nerves hid inside jokes. When the train finally sighed to a halt at Hogsmeade, the platform glistened with recent rain, and a voice like a friendly avalanche boomed: "Firs'-years! This way!"
Corvus craned to see the man the voice belonged to—vast, shaggy, kind-eyed—and then the lake took all his attention. It stretched black and bright at once, reflecting a castle that seemed to have grown from the mountain by deciding to. Windows blinked. Turrets tested the wind. Wards hummed under his skin like a second pulse.
He stepped into a boat with Susan, Hannah, and Daphne. Water tapped the hull, patient. The castle drew closer, trick-of-the-light larger, until Corvus felt the sensation one gets standing beside a sleeping animal of impossible size: the knowledge that it was dreaming, and the suspicion that it might be dreaming him.
"Beautiful," Susan whispered.
"Listening," Corvus corrected softly.
The boats slid under an arch and into a harbor bright with lanterns. Up stone steps, through thick doors—cool air, beeswax and parchment, torchlight like steady applause.
The Great Hall was a sleight of hand: a sky for a ceiling, floating candles that did not drip, four long tables brilliant with expectancy. McGonagall gathered them, eyes sharp, lips kind. Corvus found the part of his mind that took notes and wound it like a watch.
He didn't look for Harry Potter, not particularly. The boy's name flowed around the room like a rumor already layered with expectation; Corvus preferred the edges where data collected itself without trying to impress anyone.
Names were called. "Abbott, Hannah!"—Hufflepuff roared its welcome. "Bones, Susan!"—Hufflepuff again, a double sunbeam at their table. "Greengrass, Daphne!"—Slytherin, of course, the green-and-silver erupting into decorous applause.
"Black, Corvus!"
A shiver ran the length of the hall like someone had plucked a very large harp. Corvus walked to the stool with his shoulders square, his mouth relaxed into something that was not quite a smile and not at all an apology. The Sorting Hat came down—heavy, warm, smelling of wax and chalkboards and the inside of old cupboards.
Well, said a voice, amused and scratchy. Another Black with opinions. Hello, Corvus.
"Good evening," he thought back, settling as if into conversation with a clever stranger on a long train. "I brought mine. Will you be bringing yours?"
You're wonderfully impertinent, the Hat said, sounding delighted. Ah, but what to do with you… There's a keen mind, razor curiosity, the urge to pull threads and see how tapestries fall apart. Ravenclaw would call you home. Yet you've also a Slytherin's precision, a taste for leverage, a refusal to be moved by other people's stories when your own data disagrees…
"I like levers," Corvus admitted. "I don't like cages. Put me where questions are currency."
You'd reform Slytherin from the inside, the Hat mused. You'd change none of your edges to fit their mirrors. A pause like a turned page. But you'd be bored by the politics and tempted by the theater. In Ravenclaw you'd build instruments, not audiences.
"Then let me build," Corvus said. "I can borrow cunning as needed."
The Hat's chuckle was all parchment. Sensible. And rare. Very well, Mr. Black—mind over pageantry. Better make it—
"RAVENCLAW!"
Blue-and-bronze cheered; the table made space that felt like a question mark resolving into a chair. Corvus slid the hat off, placed it back on the stool with courteous precision, and walked to his new house. Fred and George, from Gryffindor, cupped their hands and called, "Write us when you invent something illegal!"
Corvus saluted with two fingers and sat. Dumbledore rose for his brief, baffling welcome—"Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak!"—and the tables filled with food as if the castle had leaned down and poured autumn onto the plates. Corvus sampled systematically: roast chicken (yes), potatoes (twice yes), something green (respectfully no). He timed the goblet's refill. Two and a half seconds. He wrote it on the side of his napkin.
Across the Hall, Harry Potter's face flickered in torchlight—normal and not, a boy in a story that had been impatiently waiting for him. Corvus looked once, the way one glances at a comet: interesting, luminous, ultimately someone else's orbit. He returned to his own. Susan caught his eye from Hufflepuff and lifted her glass; he raised his, and felt, unexpectedly, at ease.
After pudding, prefects shepherded first-years out. The corridors drafted secret air; tapestries shifted when they thought no one was watching. The Ravenclaw procession climbed spiral stairs until the stairwell opened onto a door with a bronze eagle knocker. The prefect—pen poised as if he might transcribe the moment—nodded toward it.
The eagle spoke in a bell-clear voice: "I am the beginning of eternity, the end of time and space, the beginning of every end, and the end of every place. What am I?"
A few students groaned softly. Corvus did not. Riddles were where his pulse slowed.
"The letter E," he said.
The door swung open on a breath of cool, bookish night.
Ravenclaw Tower was a dome of windows and intelligence. The stars pressed their faces to the glass as if studying them back. Rugs muted footsteps; lamps waited without impatience. Corvus found his dormitory—a round room with sky-blue hangings and a view that made the lake look like a whispered secret—and unpacked with unhurried hands: robes, quills, the Mystery Log, and the small silver locket he still had not opened.
The other boys drifted into sleep with the audible relief of the very young and very tired. Corvus sat at the window seat where the stone was cool and the view was most unreasonable. He set the locket on the sill. He laid his wand beside it; the wand responded with a faint, pleased thrum that was half sound, half idea.
He wrote:
> 9. The Hat is a scientist with a theater habit.
9a. Correct placement: Ravenclaw (toolbox > spotlight).
9b. Slytherin tendencies: keep; use sparingly; rinse after.
He looked down at the black water, where moonlight shredded itself and then put itself back together again, as if to prove a point.
"Hello, Hogwarts," he said softly, to the stone and the lake and the air that felt fractionally charged. "I'm here to ask you better questions than the ones you're used to."
A current of wind ghosted through the open casement and flipped his page to a clean sheet. Candles along the wall leaned in, listening.
He wrote one last line before sleep tugged on his sleeve:
> 9c. Objective, Year One: map the edges of permission; then redraw them.
In the rafters, something with feathers shifted. On the far side of the castle, a boy the world would not stop watching turned in his bed. And at the heart of it all, the school—old, awake, amused—seemed to smile.
Morning found Ravenclaw Tower washed in the pale blue of a sky trying to remember autumn. Corvus woke to the soft sounds of trunks yawning, owls protesting schedules, and a roommate (Terry Boot, according to the label on his sock drawer) sleep-mumbling incantations as if answering a quiz in a dream.
The dormitory window gave him the lake again—ink-black last night, pewter now. He sat on the sill, locket cold in his palm, wand warm at his wrist, and let the castle's hum settle into him like a second pulse.
At the common-room door, the bronze eagle asked, "What flutters without wings?"
"Your curiosity," Corvus said, then—because riddles deserved proper answers—"A heartbeat." The door swung open, indulgent.
Down the staircases (which had already decided to move twice, testing his balance and his sense of humor), the Great Hall yawned wide with bread and conversation. Prefects handed out schedules; the Ravenclaw heading looked like a neat promise. First: Transfiguration with Gryffindor. Then Potions with Hufflepuff. After lunch: Charms.
"Save me a spot in Potions?" Susan said on her way by, hair neat, tie crooked.
"Consider it saved and alphabetized," Corvus said.
He timed the owls' post swoop (not random; a rhythm like rain) and the way the floating candles drifted with the convection of warm toast. Mystery Log entry, scribbled between bites of marmalade:
> 10. Nothing here is accidental; everything merely pretends well.
---
The Match and the Needle
McGonagall's classroom was the opposite of accidents: chalk straight, desks plumb, air smelling faintly of polished wood and fairness. Gryffindors filed in; whispers curled like overturned teacups. Corvus took a seat near the front because data behaved better within range of a teacher who could turn into a cat.
Professor McGonagall entered as if conjured from the timetable itself. She turned a desk into a pig and back again without flourish, which was somehow the most impressive flourish of all.
"Transfiguration," she said, "is some of the most complex and dangerous magic you will learn." Her gaze moved over them like a truth spell. It paused on Corvus for half a fraction (name, not behavior) and moved on.
Matchsticks appeared on their desks. "We begin with the basics."
Corvus read the notes on the board—intent, visualization, precision over power—and tapped the match with his wand. The wood shivered, silver whispering along the grain like frost. Another tap, softer. The head thinned to a pinprick; the shaft remained obstinately wooden.
He adjusted variables: breath, grip, angle. On the fourth try, the match sighed into a neat, hair-thin needle with a smug little gleam. The point caught the light like it had opinions.
McGonagall's shadow crossed his desk. "Excellent, Mr… Black." She said it with no extra weight, which was its own kind of gift. "Very precise. Do not, however, attempt decorative fluting until you have the fundamentals."
"I wouldn't dream of it," Corvus said, already dreaming of it.
Across the aisle, Hermione Granger's needle flashed triumph; on his other side, a red-haired boy swore softly at his still stubborn match. Corvus glanced once, decided pity wasn't useful, and returned to being ordinary and excellent at the same time.
---
Dungeon Weather
Potions lived in stone and shadows; the air was cooler, the light like late afternoon even at midday. Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs sat together. Susan slid into the seat beside him with the relief of an ally who found the right map.
Professor Snape arrived the way storms do—quietly, until you realize you're already drenched.
"There will be no foolish wand-waving here," he said, voice soft and taut as a wire. "I don't expect you will truly understand the beauty of the softly simmering cauldron… the delicate power of liquids that creep through human veins…" His eyes, black and heavy-lidded, flicked to the roll. "Black."
The room tightened. Corvus adjusted his face into mild curiosity, the one he used when plumbing expected him to panic. He could feel Susan sitting a hair straighter, Hufflepuff loyalty coiling.
Snape asked questions like sprung traps. "Asphodel and wormwood create what, Mr. Boot?"—Terry floundered. "No? Mr. Black."
"Draught of Living Death," Corvus said, not smug, not small.
A pause. "Correct."
He kept his gaze on the board. Snape moved on. "Monkshood and wolfsbane are the same plant. Its name?"
"Aconite," Corvus and Susan said together. The corner of Snape's mouth moved, or perhaps it was a trick of the torchlight.
They brewed a Boil-Cure—simple, precise. Corvus measured like a watchmaker: three snake fangs pulverized to dust, six horned slugs sliced cleanly, porcupine quill added after removing from flame (he wrote it twice). Susan's hand was steady; she smelled faintly of peppermint and ink.
Midway through, a Hufflepuff boy two tables over added his quills early. His cauldron performed a dramatic interpretation of volcanoes. Corvus flicked his wand, siphoned the overflow into a waiting jar, and clapped a stasis charm on the rest while Susan damped the flames. The explosion became a sulk.
Snape loomed, robes turning shadows into a cape. His eyes moved from the stabilized mess to Corvus's wand, to the boy with the red ears.
"Five points from Hufflepuff for carelessness," he said, then, after a breath that tasted of surprise, "and five points to Ravenclaw for… adequate damage control."
Adequate was Snape for impressive but I am medically allergic to praise. Corvus inclined his head as if returning lost property.
When class ended, Susan exhaled a laugh she'd kept in her pocket. "Adequate," she murmured.
"I shall embroider it on a pillow," Corvus said.
---
Wingardium and Its Friends
Charms after lunch should have been sleepy; Flitwick made it orchestra. The professor stood on a stack of books to see over the lectern and beamed at them as if the future had shown him a pleasant secret.
"Welcome, welcome! Today: fundamentals of control. A feather, a word, and the discipline to do neither too much nor too little."
Feathers lay on their desks like invitations. Corvus twirled his wand through his fingers to find the grip that fit today's weather. On Wingardium Leviosa, his feather lifted obediently and then—with a tiny, delighted wobble—began to orbit his quill as if the two had struck up a friendship.
"Controlled variables, Mr. Black?" Flitwick called, delighted.
"Only courting behavior, Professor," Corvus said. "No commitment."
Across the room, Hannah Abbott's feather jittered like a nervous pigeon. Corvus whispered, "Ease your wrist. Imagine the feather wants to go where you'd put a thought you're saving for later." Hannah breathed out, tried, and her feather settled into a graceful hover that made her glow.
Flitwick awarded points for "assistance without arrogance." Corvus added a line to the Log:
> 11. Teaching someone a trick is a subtler form of mischief.
They ended with a precision drill—up, down, stop, stop—and Flitwick's satisfaction made the room warmer. As they packed, he tapped Corvus's desk.
"Mr. Black," he said, eyes bright. "If one were to… purely hypothetically… explore acceptable bounds of experimental charmcraft, one would, of course, document method and keep all pranks non-destructive."
"Purely hypothetically," Corvus said, "one would also require test subjects who are expecting nothing."
"Purely hypothetically," Flitwick said, "one teaches near Slytherin on Thursdays."
They both smiled the sober smiles of men discussing the weather.
---
Controlled Variables (Pilot)
After dinner, the castle sharpened into night. Corvus found Susan and Hannah in the library long enough to set up a study rota ("I'll cover Runes; you handle Plants and their Many Ways to Be Offended"), then excused himself with a promise of biscuits.
Daphne Greengrass intercepted him at a corridor that smelled like stone patience. "Ravenclaw," she said, voice smooth as a new quill. "You were competent in Potions."
"Be still my heart," Corvus said. "High praise from the Serpentine Embassy."
Her mouth tilted, the Slytherin version of a laugh. "If one were to become bored later, one might look under the fourth gargoyle in the Transfiguration corridor."
"Hypothetically," Corvus said.
She was gone like a well-written exit.
Under the fourth gargoyle he found a hollow with a view of the central staircase traffic. Perfect. He slipped a small charm into the air—a drift of barely visible syllables, a nudge at the physics of dust and light—and waited.
Students passed. For each, the draft lifted the hem of their robes just enough to reveal shoes… which immediately borrowed the wearer's mood as color. Strut by, and your boots gleamed cocky bronze. Skulk, and they dulled to slate. Bullies found their laces politely knotting themselves into complicated Celtic art that took three minutes and one apology to undo.
Harmless. Measurable. Documented. Proper mischief.
He took notes on cadence and effect, snipped the charm after ten minutes, and tucked the data away. As he left, he passed Fred and George lounging like gargoyles who'd learned to talk.
"You didn't see me," Corvus said.
"We never do," they chorused, and patted the banister as if to tell it a joke.
---
Staircase Theories
On the way back up, the staircases decided to demonstrate their opinions. One turned mid-step with a theatrical sigh, offering a different landing than a heartbeat before. Corvus paused, felt the wardline like a draft on his cheek, and dropped a bread-crumb charm onto the handrail—tiny motes that would drift when the staircase's will engaged.
They drifted on a beat he recognized: the traffic rhythm from dinner. Not random, then. Responsive.
> 12. Staircases move according to density + intent + time of day.
12a. They prefer not to be watched deciding.
He bowed to the nearest newel post. "Charmed," he said. The staircase pretended not to preen.
---
Night Log
At Ravenclaw's door, the eagle asked, "What can fill a room but takes up no space?"
"Light," Corvus said, and the door swung inward with a happiness one seldom hears from hinges.
The common room breathed books and glass moonlight. He wrote at the window while the lake darkened back to ink:
> 13. McGonagall: elegance is economy.
13a. Snape: storm system with grudging ethics.
13b. Flitwick: conductor; expects symphonies from feathers.
14. Controlled Variables #001 — Mood-Shoes (proof of concept). No harm, measurable effect, self-undoing. Target reaction: laughter > irritation.
He set the quill down. The locket lay on the sill, quiet as a closed mouth. He touched it once. It was cool, then warmer, as if remembering a hand.
"Not yet," he told it. "Soon."
In the rafters, Paradox shifted, offended by nothing in particular. The candles drooped toward sleep; the tower exhaled. Somewhere below, the main stair navigated itself into a new opinion and clicked into place with a satisfied little clack.
Corvus closed his Log.
"Objective stands," he whispered to the room that was also a sky: "Map the edges of permission. Redraw them."
The bronze eagle tilted its head as if it had heard. Far away, the castle smiled its old smile, and somewhere in the green-lit deep of the lake, something very large and very patient turned once and settled.