Eventually, he sits under the hat. 

Hi. Are you listening to just these thoughts, or can you see my memories, too? Why did you put my friends in other houses? They're good enough for Ravenclaw? Do you use the songs as metaphors a lot, or just sometimes? 

I don't see your memories, as such. You are known to me as you are sorted but not otherwise. I can sometimes be more direct with my songs, but the current political climate requires a touch more subtlety, no? And I put your friends where they fit, just as I'm sure you'll fit best in "RAVENCLAW!"

So he joins his Housemates.

The Headmistress places the Sorting Hat back on the stool, and returns to her seat.

"Houses, welcome your new members. And all of you, enjoy your first meal at Hogwarts."

She claps, and the tables fill with food.

The Ravenclaw table spins off into various independent conversations, and Chris is soon distracted from his worrying by the details of wizarding law. 

Derek is making tons of new friends! Lots of people to talk to. 

The Slytherins are more subdued, and not as accomodating of a first year as he'd hoped. 

The Gryffindors are fairly animate. There's a grinning second year nearby who tells candid, almost certainly exaggerated horror stories about the previous year. Naomi watches the reactions of the other older students to see which ones are actually true, but even if most of them were false she'd be horrified at the ones remaining. The second year is shushed after a first year boy starts crying. The conversation promptly turns to Quidditch. 

Josh, bored by hushed whispering about old hostilities, saunters over to the Gryffindor table. 

"So I was thinking we can meet up at the library." 

His housemates snicker and glare by turns.

"Sure!" She grins. "When? Oh, and we have to bring Chris too."

"I'll talk to him next. You seemed easier, he's getting all worried about how we can't be friends anymore. And maybe we should meet up tomorrow, I have to get to know all my fellow snakes!"

Naomi giggles. "Sure."

"I'll go tell him. Have fun in the lion's den."

He scampers off to the Ravenclaw table.

She does!

She meets a boy who teaches her how to play Exploding Snap and Gobstones and does a little more of her reading before she goes to bed. She has mixed feelings about not getting into Ravenclaw, because on the one hand she's worried that Chris will be lonely and on the other she's pretty sure Gryffindor is one of the better houses to be in if you're a clueless -- what did he call them -- Muggleborn. At least she doesn't get the impression she has to hide. She wonders why Josh thought she'd have to. 

They go to bed. The following morning they have classes! 

The next morning, the Gryffindors have Transfiguration. 

One of the seats at the head table was empty. Turns out that's because the Headmistress is teaching Transfiguration. Huh.

Naomi goes to class!

Chris is already there when she arrives, near his fellow Ravenclaws, but he seems to be sitting alone.

He waves at her.

No teacher is in evidence.

She sits next to him!

"Did Josh tell you we were planning to go to the library today?"

"He said, yeah. Did you know the Ravenclaw common room uses riddles to get in? What do you have?"

"We have a painting called the Fat Lady and a password, ours is 'valor'. A riddle, huh? That's cool. What kind of riddle?"

"The less of me you have, the more I am worth.

They change every time." 

"Oooh, what was the answer? I'd guess 'time' or 'life', time's a better general answer. Oh! 'Blood' works too! I wonder whether it ever asks the same riddle twice, you could test using different answers, it probably doesn't have just one or else no one would ever get in."

"It asks different questions to different people. For the first years, the prefects sent us all in one by one, to see what we would try. One of them did blood, the other did time. I said friends. We all got in." 

The other students have mostly filed in, but still no teacher to be found.

There are some spare textbooks in the front, which a blushing student grabs sheepishly, not making eye contact with the cat watching from the desk.

"Oh wow! What's the inside of the common room like? Gryffindor's is very red and velvet."