She shrugs. "Nobody's told me not to," she replies. "And it's varnished, isn't it? Probably waterproof."

"Can't argue with that," Joey admits. "-I'm Joey," he says. "Should we do the whole introduction thing, since we're boatmates?"

"I'm Riya," says the girl with the wet wand. "Charmed, I'm sure."

     "Sheila," says the girl next to Joey, looking much less sure that she's charmed.

          "Callum," says the blonde. "This is so exciting! Being at Hogwarts, I mean. What Houses are you lot going for? I want Gryffindor. Seems like the best."

     Sheila shrugs. "Probably Ravenclaw," she says apathetically.

Riya looks at Joey. "You got any idea what they're talking about?"

"Yeah, it's like - you get a horoscope based on whether you're a Gryffindor jock or a Ravenclaw nerd or a Slytherin politician or boring Hufflepuff. And then that determines who you spend the next five to seven years with. I'm not sure which one I want, I'm not a jock but I don't know if I have a strong preference between politician, nerd, and boring."

Callum looks mildly offended. Sheila snorts.

"Oh, that explains so much, this is a public school public school," Riya says. "I thought, well, it's state funded so it must be a state school? But no, I'm going to Eton For Witches. Uh, I think I'm a... 'jock'? - are you American," she asks Joey with mounting glee.

"Yes, I'm American, can you not tell from the accent, also it's so weird having that be the strange and exotic character trait it apparently is."

"Kind of? Thought you might be one of those kids who watches too many movies and ends up with the accent."

"Ah. No, I'm 100% not-from-concentrate Californian."

She nods thoughtfully. "That's one of the - little countries that you have there? Honestly, I can't keep track of-"

Then the boat passes under a bridge, and they get a full view of Hogwarts, and they're stunned into silence.

Joey's first thought is I wish I could show this to Ezra.

He refuses to be sad about it. He lets that thought stay, but he thinks, very deliberately, I'm glad I get to see this, even if Ezra can't be here.

Then he lets out his breath. "Wow."

Riya nods dumbly. Callum and Sheila look slightly less awed, but still pretty impressed.

Eventually, Riya finds her voice again. "That's way better than Blenheim Palace. Jesus."

"It's incredible."

     "Pretty," Thalia agrees, then sets herself to preening his hair.

They sit in silence for the rest of the boat ride. They pull into a grotto beneath the castle, and they're led into a room with massive double doors at one end.

A ghost swoops overhead. A couple of the eleven-year-olds squeak with alarm. Joey just giggles delightedly.

After a few minutes, Professor Suliman comes in and clears her throat, quieting the murmuring of forty eleven-year-olds instantly.

"Good evening," she says. "I am Deputy Headmistress Elizabeth Suliman, and I am here to welcome you to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. In a few minutes, you will be Sorted into your Houses. Your House will be your home, and contain your closest friends for the next seven years. But it is important that you not simply isolate yourselves within your Houses. We must not become four factions pitted against each other; we are four parts of the same whole. Now."

She waves her wand, and the massive double doors open silently.

"Welcome to Hogwarts."

She walks through, followed by the crowd of kids.

Professor Suliman strides up to a stool which has been placed on a raised dais, reaches into her pocket, and pulls out a tattered old pointed hat. She places it on the stool and stands off to one side. It begins singing a bizarre song welcoming the first years to Hogwarts and explaining the Houses, and the intentions of Hogwarts' Founders. Joey doesn't catch most of the song, because he's too busy wincing and clenching his teeth to make his ears rumble so he can't hear it, because it sets off his auditory problems really badly.

When the song is over, Professor Suliman starts calling names in alphabetical order. "Ahmad, Hakim" is sorted into Ravenclaw, as is "Carter, Liam," though his apparent twin "Carter, Sean" is sorted into Slytherin. Joey mostly tunes that out too, because after each kid is Sorted there's a bunch of loud cheering from the corresponding House's table, which is also not great for his auditory problems.

Eventually, though, Professor Suliman calls out "Reed, Joseph!" Joey scurries forward through the aisle to the hat stool, taking the hat from "O'Malley, Katherine" as she flees to Ravenclaw. Then he sits on the stool, takes a deep breath, and - well, first he takes off his own pointy hat, setting it on the floor next to the stool. Then he puts the Sorting Hat on his head.

Well, well, well, says the Hat silently. You're an interesting one. Potential, certainly, but... hmm. I don't suppose I could sell you on Slytherin?

I don't know if I'd like it there, Joey admits. They sound mean. He didn't mean to say "mean," that sounds like something a kid would say, but he's just thinking it and that doesn't let him pick his words carefully.

They're really... well, it's not my job to sell you on something that'd hurt you, the Hat sighs. Don't write them off, though. So it's Ravenclaw or Hufflepuff... You'd get a lot out of Ravenclaw, you know. You can do great things, if you've got the right motivation, and motivation they'd give you in spades.

I can motivate myself, Joey says.

When it's fun you can motivate yourself, the Hat counters. When it gets hard you give up and convince yourself you never wanted it in the first place. Ravenclaw's got plenty like that, them who need a trail of sweets to get them to the end. They've found ways of handling it.

Then I'll ask Ravenclaws for study help, Joey says. But for the people I'm around all the time, I want... I want people who'll like me. People who'll hug me. Not to replace my family, but maybe to give me something to lean on when I don't have them.

The Hat sighs again. Alright. I suppose if you're sure, you'd best go on to "HUFFLEPUFF!"

Joey hops off the stool, puts the Hat back on the seat, puts his own hat back on, and scampers over to the Hufflepuff table, which is cheering. It doesn't bother him quite so much now, though he's sure he'll reconsider when they're being loud and he's right there at the table. But right now, they're cheering for him, and that's kind of nice. He slides into a seat next to Aaron. "Hi! Hug me," he demands.

Aaron laughs and hugs him.

The rest of the Sorting progresses much as the first half did, though it turns out there are only six kids with names after "Reed" in the alphabet, so there's not much of it. Once they're all at their assorted tables, an elderly woman in a lavish green robe and hat stands up and clinks a spoon against her goblet. She introduces herself as Headmistress Minerva McGonagall, and gives a brief speech about school rules and a few announcements, including that Filius Flitwick has left academia to rejoin the duelling circuit and that Professor Jenkins will therefore be moving from Transfiguration to Charms, which he is much better at (some laughter) and to replace him as Transfiguration professor please welcome Professor Safiya al-Fulani (Professor al-Fulani stands and bows with a smile) and that the Forbidden Forest continues to be very thoroughly forbidden.

"Now, I've talked enough; time to eat." She claps her hands together, and a feast appears on the tables.

"I know what, like, half of this stuff is," Joey says to Aaron. "Please help."

"Sure!" Aaron introduces Joey to the arrayed food, which is partly just English and partly wizarding (Yorkshire puddings appear to be Muggle in origin, whereas the fairy caviar to be spread over them is definitely not).

Joey ends up with a very eclectic plate, reasoning that he should try a bit of everything at least until he knows what he likes and what he hates. Yorkshire puddings turn out to be a hit. Fairy caviar is apparently closer in flavor to an oddly textured mixed berry jam than to traditional eggs. Shepherd's pie is nice, as is steak and kidney pie, as is mooncalf jelly, though it looks disconcertingly like a giant blue eyeball.

"Is it always this heavy on meat?" he asks, trying a sausage. "I have occasionally enjoyed a vegetable. In my time."

Aaron shakes his head. "There's a variation usually, it's just the start and end of term feasts are very traditionally British. But they do loads of different stuff normally, and some of it's got vegetables in."

"Good, good. Not that this stuff isn't great, but if we just had this every day I think I'd get rickets."

When they've finished the main course, dessert appears. Aaron once again leads Joey through disambiguation.

"This is easier, because I'll eat basically anything presented to me as a dessert," Joey comments, loading his plate with treacle tart and toffee pudding and rosemallow clouds.

Predictably, he eats until he feels slightly sick. "I have no regrets," he lies.

Aaron lets this falsehood slide. "Alright, Hufflepuff first-years, come over here," he says loudly. "You too, Ananda."

     Ananda turns out to be a sixth-year girl with the same pin on her robes as Aaron, and her hair done up in a complicated braid. She joins him and the first-years, as the rest of the table heads out the doors. "Alright, little ones - and that does include Aaron - we're going to introduce ourselves. You'll be doing a fair deal of that over the next few days, so it's best to start now. I'll start: My name's Ananda Luthra. I'm from London, I'm a pureblood, I want to be a Healer, and one fun fact about me is that my twin sister is a Gryffindor prefect. Everybody got the formula?"

"Well, in case you didn't," Aaron says smoothly, "I'll lay it out: Full name, where you're from, whether you're a pureblood or a halfblood or a newblood, what you want to be when you grow up, and a fun fact about yourself. I'm Aaron March, I'm from Aberdeen, I'm a halfblood, I want to be a musician, and my fun fact is that I have a half-kneazle named Solomon, who's back in the dormitory sniffing everything to make sure nowt's been tampered with, as is his duty and his right." He looks around the circle. "Ah, Joey, how's about you go next, us both having pets and all."