Magic dragon the dragonstone

The door swung open at once. A tall, white-haired old mare in emerald-green robes stood there. She had a very stern face and Spike’s first thought was that this was not someone to cross.

“The firs’ years, Professor Granny Smith,” said Rutherford. “Thank you, . I will take them from here.”

She pulled the door wide. The entrance hall was so big you could have fit the whole of the Dursleys’ house in it. The stone walls were lit with flaming torches like the ones at Gringotts, the ceiling was too high to make out, and a magnificent marble staircase facing them led to the upper floors.

They followed Professor Granny Smith across the flagged stone floor. Spike could hear the drone of hundreds of voices from a doorway to the right the rest of the school must already be here but Professor Granny Smith showed the first years into a small, empty chamber off the hall. They crowded in, standing rather closer together than they would usually have done, peering about nervously.

“Welcome to Celestia School,” said Professor Granny Smith. “The start-of-term banquet will begin shortly, but before you take your seats in the Great Hall, you will be sorted into your Houses. The Sorting is a very important ceremony because, while you are here, your House will be something like your family within Celestia School. You will have classes with the rest of your House, sleep in your House dormitory, and spend free time in your House common room.

“The four Houses are called Manticorear, Bearal, Dragonfire, and Cockatricea. Each House has its own noble history and each has produced outstanding magic creature. While you are at Celestia School, your triumphs will earn your House points, while any rule-breaking will lose House points. At the end of the year, the House with the most points is awarded the Alicorn Cup, a great honor. I hope each of you will be a credit to whichever House becomes yours.

“The Sorting Ceremony will take place in a few minutes in front of the rest of the school. I suggest you all smarten yourselves up as much as you can while you are waiting.”

Her eyes lingered for a moment on pipsqueak’s cloak, which was fastened under his left ear, and on Gallus’s smudged beak. Spike nervously tried to flatten his scales. “I shall return when we are ready for you,” said Professor Granny Smith. “Please wait quietly.”

She left the chamber. Spike swallowed.

“How exactly do they sort us into Houses?” he asked Gallus.

“Some sort of test, I think. Gilda said it hurts a lot, but I think she was joking.”

Spike’s heart gave a horrible jolt. A test? In front of the whole school? But he didn’t know any magic yet what on earth would he have to do? He hadn’t expected something like this the moment they arrived. He looked around anxiously and saw that everyone else looked terrified, too. No one was talking much except Yona yaker, who was whispering very fast about all the spells she’d learned and wondering which one she’d need. Spike tried hard not to listen to her. He’d never been more nervous, never, not even when he’d had to take a school report home to the Riders saying that he’d somehow turned his teacher’s wig blue. He kept his eyes fixed on the door. Any second now, Professor Granny Smith would come back and lead him to his doom.

Then something happened that made him jump about a foot in the air several creatures behind him screamed.

“What the ?”

He gasped. So did the creatures around him. About twenty ghosts had just streamed through the back wall. Pearly-white and slightly transparent, they glided across the room talking to one another and hardly glancing at the first years. They seemed to be arguing. What looked like a fat little monk was saying: “Forgive and forget, I say, we ought to give him a second chance ” “My dear Friar, haven’t we given Peeves all the chances he deserves? He gives us all a bad name and you know, he’s not really even a ghost I say, what are you all doing here?”

A ghost wearing a ruff and tights had suddenly noticed the first years.

Nobody answered.

“New students!” said the Fat Friar, smiling around at them. “About to be Sorted, I suppose?”

A few creatures nodded mutely.

“Hope to see you in Bearal!” said the Friar. “My old House, you know.”

“Move along now,” said a sharp voice. “The Sorting Ceremony’s about to start.”

Professor Granny Smith had returned. One by one, the ghosts floated away through the opposite wall.

“Now, form a line,” Professor Granny Smith told the first years, “and follow me.”

Feeling oddly as though his legs had turned to lead, Spike got into line behind a colt with sandy hair, with Gallus behind him, and they walked out of the chamber, back across the hall, and through a pair of double doors into the Great Hall.

Spike had never even imagined such a strange and splendid place. It was lit by thousands and thousands of candles that were floating in midair over four long tables, where the rest of the students were sitting. These tables were laid with glittering golden plates and goblets. At the top of the hall was another long table where the teachers were sitting. Professor Granny Smith led the first years up here, so that they came to a halt in a line facing the other students, with the teachers behind them. The hundreds of faces staring at them looked like pale lanterns in the flickering candlelight. Dotted here and there among the students, the ghosts shone misty silver. Mainly to avoid all the staring eyes, Spike looked upward and saw a velvety black ceiling dotted with stars. He heard Yona yaker, “It’s bewitched to look like the sky outside. I read about it in Celestia School: A History.”

It was hard to believe there was a ceiling there at all, and that the Great Hall didn’t simply open on to the heavens.

Spike quickly looked down again as Professor Granny Smith silently placed a four-legged stool in front of the first years. On top of the stool she put a pointed magic creature sword. This sword was scratch and rusted and extremely dirty. Aunt Petunia wouldn’t have let it in the house.

Maybe they had to try to lift it, Spike thought wildly, that seemed the sort of thing noticing that everyone in the hall was now staring at the sword, he stared at it, too. For a few seconds, there was complete silence. Then the sword twitched. A rip near the brim opened wide like a mouth and the sword began to sing:

“Oh, you may not think I’m pretty,
But don’t judge on what you see,
I’ll eat myself if you can find
A smarter sword than me.
You can keep your bowlers black,
Your top swords sleek and tall,
For I’m the Celestia School Sorting sword
And I can cap them all.
There’s nothing hidden in your head
The Sorting sword can’t see,
So try me on and I will tell you
Where you ought to be.
You might belong in Manticorear,
Where dwell the brave at heart,
Their daring, nerve, and chivalry
Set Manticorears apart;
You might belong in Bearal,
Where they are just and loyal,
Those patient Bearals are true
And unafraid of toil;
Or yet in wise old Dragonfire,
If you’ve a ready mind,
Where those of wit and learning,
Will always find their kind;
Or perhaps in Cockatricea
You’ll make your real friends,
Those cunning folk use any means
To achieve their ends.
So put me on! Don’t be afraid!
And don’t get in a flap!
You’re in safe hands (though I have none)
For I’m a Thinking blade!”

The whole hall burst into applause as the hat finished its song. It bowed to each of the four tables and then became quite still again.

“So we’ve just got to try on the sword!” Gallus whispered to Spike. “I’ll kill Gilda, she was going on about wrestling a troll.”

Spike smiled weakly. Yes, trying on the sword was a lot better than having to do a spell, but he did wish they could have tried it on without everyone watching. The sword seemed to be asking rather a lot; Spike didn’t feel brave or quick-witted or any of it at the moment. If only the sword had mentioned a House for creates who felt a bit queasy, that would have been the one for him.

Professor Granny Smith now stepped forward holding a long roll of parchment.

“When I call your name, you will put on the sword and sit on the stool to be sorted,” she said. “Moondancer,!”

A light yellow-faced mare with red and purple pigtails stumbled out of line, put on the sword, which fell right down over her eyes, and sat down. A moment’s pause “BEARAL!” shouted the sword.

The table on the right cheered and clapped as Moondancer went to sit down at the Bearal table. Spikesaw the ghost of the Fat Friar waving merrily at her.

“fleur-de-lis!”

“BEARAL!” shouted the sword again, and Fleur de lis scuttled off to sit next to Moon dancer.

“Feather, Bangs!”

“DRAGONFIRE!”

The table second from the left clapped this time; several Dragonfires stood up to shake hoovfs with Feather Bangs as he joined them.

“Rumb” went to Dragonfire too, but “ Trouble, Shoes” became the first new Manticorear, and the table on the far left exploded with cheers; Spike could see Gallus’s twin sisters catcalling.

“Indigo, Zap” then became a Cockatricea. Perhaps it was Spike’s imagination, after all he’d heard about Cockatricea, but he thought they looked like an unpleasant lot.

He was starting to feel definitely sick now. He remembered being picked for teams during gym at his old school. He had always been last to be chosen, not because he was no good, but because no one wanted Lighting Dust to think they liked him.

“Night, Glider!”

“BEARAL!”

Sometimes, Spike noticed, the sword shouted out the House at once, but at others it took a little while to decide. “Sassy,Saddles,” the sunny-haired mare next to Spike in the line, sat on the stool for almost a whole minute before the sword declared him a Manticorear.

“Yaker, Yona”!

Yona almost ran to the stool and jammed the sword eagerly on her head.

“MANTICOREAR!” shouted the hat. Ron groaned.

A horrible thought struck Spike, as horrible thoughts always do when you’re very nervous. What if he wasn’t chosen at all? What if he just sat there with the hat over his eyes for ages, until Professor Granny Smith jerked it off his head and said there had obviously been a mistake and he’d better get back on the train?

When Pipsqueak, the colt who kept losing his toad, was called, he fell over on his way to the stool. The sword took a long time to decide with Pipsqueak. When it finally shouted, “MANTICOREAR,” Pipsqueak ran off still wearing it, and had to jog back amid gales of laughter to give it to “ Garble, garb.”

Garble swaggered forward when his name was called and got his wish at once: the sword had barely touched his head when it screamed, “COCKATRICEA!”

Garble went to join his friends Crackle and Steam, looking pleased with himself.

There weren’t many people left now.

“sunburst” . . . , Tree hug” . . . , “Tender taps” . . . , then a pair of twin mares, “ Wind Sprint” and “wallflower blush” . . . , then “diamond Rose, little strong heart” . . . , and then, at last “Drago, Spike!”

As Spike stepped forward, whispers suddenly broke out like little hissing fires all over the hall.

“Drago, did she say?”
“The Spike drago?”

The last thing Spike saw before the sword dropped over his eyes was the hall full of creatures craning to get a good look at him. Next second he was looking at the black inside of the sword. He waited.

“Hmm,” said a small voice in his ear. “Difficult. Very difficult. Plenty of courage, I see. Not a bad mind either. There’s talent, oh my goodness, yes and a nice thirst to prove yourself, now that’s interesting. . . . So where shall I put you?”

Spike gripped the edges of the stool and thought, Not Cockatricea, not Cockatricea.

“Not Cockatricea, eh?” said the small voice. “Are you sure? You could be great, you know, it’s all here in your head, and Cockatricea will help you on the way to greatness, no doubt about that no? Well, if you’re sure better be Manticorear!”

Spike heard the sword shout the last word to the whole hall. He took off the sword and walked shakily toward the Manticorear table. He was so relieved to have been chosen and not put in Cockatricea, he hardly noticed that he was getting the loudest cheer yet. Griffa the Prefect got up and shook his hand vigorously, while the Gruff twins yelled, “We got Drago! We got Drago!” Spike sat down opposite the ghost in the ruff he’d seen earlier. The ghost patted his arm, giving Spike the sudden, horrible feeling he’d just plunged it into a bucket of ice-cold water.

He could see the High Table properly now. At the end nearest him sat Rutherford, who caught his eye and gave him the hoovfs up. Spike grinned back. And there, in the center of the High Table, in a large gold chair, sat Star swirl the beard. Spike recognized him at once from the card he’d gotten out of the Chocolate Frog on the train. Star swirl’s silver hair was the only thing in the whole hall that shone as brightly as the ghosts. Spike spotted Professor Rover, too, the nervous young diamond dog from the double Hydra. He was looking very peculiar in a large purple turban.

And now there were only four creatures left to be sorted. “Snips,” a Orange haired colt even shorter than Snips, joined Manticorear at the Manticorer table. “Babs, Seed,” became a Dragonfires and then it was Gallus’s turn. He was pale green by now. Spike crossed his fingers under the table and a second later the hat had shouted, “MANTICOREAR!"

Spike clapped loudly with the rest as Gallus collapsed into the chair next to him.

“Well done, Gallus, excellent,” said Griffa Gruff pompously across Spike as “Diamond, Tiara,” was made a Cockatricea. Professor Granny Smith rolled up her scroll and took the Sorting sword away.

Spike looked down at his empty gold plate. He had only just realized how hungry he was. The apple pasties seemed ages ago.

Star swirl the bearded had gotten to his hoofs. He was beaming at the students, his arms opened wide, as if nothing could have pleased him more than to see them all there.

“Welcome!” he said. “Welcome to a new year at Celestia School! Before we begin our banquet, I would like to say a few words. And here they are: Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak!

“Thank you!”

He sat back down. Everybody clapped and cheered. Spike didn’t know whether to laugh or not.

“Is he a bit mad?” he asked Griffa uncertainly.

“Mad?” said Griffa airily. “He’s a genius! Best magic creature in the world! But he is a bit mad, yes. Potatoes, Spike?”

Spike's mouth fell open. The dishes in front of him were now piled with food. He had never seen so many things he liked to eat on one table: roast beef, roast chicken, pork chops and lamb chops, sausages, bacon and steak, boiled potatoes, roast potatoes, fries, Yorkshire pudding, peas, carrots, gravy, ketchup, and, for some strange reason, peppermint humbugs.

The Wind riders had never exactly starved Spike, but he’d never been allowed to eat as much as he liked. Lighting Dust had always taken anything that Spike really wanted, even if it made him sick. Spike piled his plate with a bit of everything except the peppermints and began to eat. It was all delicious.

“That does look good,” said the ghost in the ruff sadly, watching Spike cut up his steak.

“Can’t you ?”

“I haven’t eaten for nearly five hundred years,” said the ghost. “I don’t need to, of course, but one does miss it. I don’t think I’ve introduced myself? Prince Blue Blood at your service. Resident ghost of Manticorear Tower.”

“I know who you are!” said Gallus suddenly. “My sisters told me about you you’re Nearly Headless blue blood!”

“I would prefer you to call me Prince Blue Blood ” the ghost began stiffly, but Snips interrupted.

“Nearly Headless? How can you be nearly headless?”

Prince Blue Blood looked extremely miffed, as if their little chat wasn’t going at all the way he wanted.

“Like this,” he said irritably. He seized his left ear and pulled. His whole head swung off his neck and fell onto his shoulder as if it was on a hinge. Someone had obviously tried to behead him, but not done it properly. Looking pleased at the stunned looks on their faces, Nearly Headless Blue Blood flipped his head back onto his neck, coughed, and said, “So new Manticorears! I hope you’re going to help us win the House Championship this year? Manticorear have never gone so long without winning. Cockatriceas have got the Cup six years in a row! The Chancellor naysay’s becoming almost unbearable he’s the Cockatricea ghost.”

Spike looked over at the Cockatricea table and saw a horrible ghost sitting there, with blank staring eyes, a gaunt face, and robes stained with silver blood. He was right next to Garble who, Spike was pleased to see, didn’t look too pleased with the seating arrangements.

“How did he get covered in blood?” asked Snails with great interest.

“I’ve never asked,” said Nearly Headless blue blood delicately.

When everyone had eaten as much as they could, the remains of the food faded from the plates, leaving them sparkling clean as before. A moment later the desserts appeared. Blocks of ice cream in every flavor you could think of, apple pies, treacle tarts, chocolate éclairs and jam doughnuts, trifle, strawberries, Jell-O, rice pudding . . .

As Spike helped himself to a treacle tart, the talk turned to their families.

“I’m half-and-half,” said Snails. “Me dad’s a Muggle. Mum didn’t tell him she was a magic creature ’til after they were married. Bit of a nasty shock for him.”

The others laughed.

“What about you, pipsqueak?” said Gallus.

“Well, my gran brought me up and she’s a magic creature,” said Neville, “but the family thought I was all-Muggle for ages. My Great Uncle Algie kept trying to catch me off my guard and force some magic out of me he pushed me off the end of Blackpool pier once, I nearly drowned but nothing happened until I was eight. Great Uncle Algie came round for dinner, and he was hanging me out of an upstairs window by the ankles when my Great Auntie Enid offered him a meringue and he accidentally let go. But I bounced all the way down the garden and into the road. They were all really pleased, Gran was crying, she was so happy. And you should have seen their faces when I got in here they thought I might not be magic enough to come, you see. Great Uncle Algie was so pleased he bought me my toad.”

On Spike’s other side, Griffa Gruff and Yona were talking about lessons (“I do hope they start right away, there’s so much to learn, I’m particularly interested in Transfiguration, you know, turning something into something else, of course, it’s supposed to be very difficult ”; “You’ll be starting small, just matches into needles and that sort of thing ”).

Spike, who was starting to feel warm and sleepy, looked up at the High Table again. Rutherford was drinking deeply from his goblet. Professor Granny Smith was talking to Professor Star swirl. Professor Rover, in his absurd turban, was talking to a teacher with greasy dark red Gale, a hooked nose, and dark blue today under scales.

It happened very suddenly. The hook-nosed teacher looked past Rover’s turban straight into Spike’s eyes and a sharp, hot pain shot across the scar on Spike’s cheek.

“Ouch!” Spike clapped a hand to his ceek.
“What is it?” asked Griffa.
“N-nothing.”

The pain had gone as quickly as it had come. Harder to shake off was the feeling Spike had gotten from the teacher’s look a feeling that he didn’t like Spike at all. “Who’s that teacher talking to Professor Rover?” he asked Griffa.

“Oh, you know Rover already, do you? No wonder he’s looking so nervous, that’s Professor Torch. He teaches Potions, but he doesn’t want to everyone knows he’s after Rover’s job. Knows an awful lot about the Dark Arts, Torch.”

Spike watched Torch for a while, but Torch didn’t look at him again.

At last, the desserts too disappeared, and Professor Star swirl got to his hooves again. The hall fell silent.

“Ahem just a few more words now that we are all fed and watered. I have a few start-of-term notices to give you.

“First years should note that the forest on the grounds is forbidden to all pupils. And a few of our older students would do well to remember that as well.”

Star swirl’s twinkling eyes flashed in the direction of the Gruff twins.

“I have also been asked by Mr. Cranky Doodle Donkey, the caretaker, to remind you all that no magic should be used between classes in the corridors.

“fireball trials will be held in the second week of the term. Anyone interested in playing for their House teams should contact Madam Rainbow Dash.

“And finally, I must tell you that this year, the third-floor corridor on the right-hand side is out of bounds to everyone who does not wish to die a very painful death.”

Spike laughed, but he was one of the few who did.

“He’s not serious?” he muttered to Griffa.

“Must be,” said Griffa, frowning at Star swirl. “It’s odd, because he usually gives us a reason why we’re not allowed to go somewhere the forest’s full of dangerous beasts, everyone knows that. I do think he might have told us prefects, at least.”

“And now, before we go to bed, let us sing the school song!” cried Star swirl. Spike noticed that the other teachers’ smiles had become rather fixed.

Star swirl gave his wand a little flick, as if he was trying to get a fly off the end, and a long golden ribbon flew out of it, which rose high above the tables and twisted itself, snakelike, into words.

“Everyone pick their favorite tune,” said Star swirl, “and off we go!”

And the school bellowed:

“Celestia School, Chelsea School, Hoggy Warty Celestia School,

Teach us something please,
Whether we be old and bald
Or young with scabby knees,
Our heads could do with filling
With some interesting stuff,
For now they’re bare and full of air,
Dead flies and bits of fluff,
So teach us things worth knowing,
Bring back what we’ve forgot,
Just do your best, we’ll do the rest,
And learn until our brains all rot.”

Everybody finished the song at different times. At last, only the Gruff twins were left singing along to a very slow funeral march. Star swirl conducted their last few lines with his wand and when they had finished, he was one of those who clapped loudest.

“Ah, music,” he said, wiping his eyes. “A magic beyond all we do here! And now, bedtime. Off you trot!”

The Manticorear first years followed Griffa through the chattering crowds, out of the Great Hall, and up the marble staircase. Spike’s legs were like lead again, but only because he was so tired and full of food. He was too sleepy even to be surprised that the creatures in the portraits along the corridors whispered and pointed as they passed, or that twice Griffa led them through doorways hidden behind sliding panels and hanging tapestries. They climbed more staircases, yawning and dragging their feet, and Spike was just wondering how much farther they had to go when they came to a sudden halt.

A bundle of walking sticks was floating in midair ahead of them, and as Griffa took a step toward them they started throwing themselves at her.

“Discord,” Griffa whispered to the first years. “A poltergeist.” He raised his voice, “Discord show yourself.”

A loud, rude sound, like the air being let out of a balloon, answered. “Do you want me to go to the Chancellor naysay?”

There was a pop, and a draconequus with wicked, yellow and red eyes and a wide mouth appeared, floating cross-legged in the air, clutching the walking sticks.

“Oooooooh!” he said, with an evil cackle. “Ickle Firsties! What fun!”

He swooped suddenly at them. They all ducked.

“Go away, Discord, or Chancellor naysay"ll hear about this, I mean it!” barked Griffa.

Discord stuck out his tongue and vanished, dropping the walking sticks on pipsqueak’s head. They heard him zooming away, rattling coats of armor as he passed.

“You want to watch out for Discord,” said Griffa, as they set off again. “The Chancellor naysay and Fluttershy’s the only one who can control him, he won’t even listen to us prefects. Here we are.”

At the very end of the corridor hung a portrait of a very muscular pony with a shovel.

“Password?” he said.

“Crystal empire,” said Griffa, and the portrait swung forward to reveal a round hole in the wall. They all scrambled through it pipsqueak needed a leg up and found themselves in the Manticorear common room, a cozy, round room full of squashy armchairs.

Griffa directed the girls through one door to their dormitory and the boys through another. At the top of a spiral staircase they were obviously in one of the towers they found their beds at last: five four-posters hung with deep red, velvet curtains. Their trunks had already been brought up. Too tired to talk much, they pulled on their pajamas and fell into bed.

“Great food, isn’t it?” Gallus muttered to Spike through the hangings. “Get off, Class! She’s chewing my sheets.”

Spike was going to ask Gallus if he’d had any of the treacle tart, but he fell asleep almost at once.

Perhaps Harry had eaten a bit too much, because he had a very strange dream. He was wearing Professor Rover's turban, which kept talking to him, telling him he must transfer to Cockatricea at once, because it was his destiny. Spike told the turban he didn’t want to be in Cockatricea; it got heavier and heavier; he tried to pull it off but it tightened painfully and there was Garble, laughing at him as he struggled with it then Garble turned into the hook-nosed teacher, Torch, whose laugh became high and cold there was a burst of green fire and Spike woke, sweating and shaking.

He rolled over and fell asleep again, and when he woke next day, he didn’t remember the dream at all.