Harry, who was starting to feel warm and sleepy, looked up at
the High Table again. Hagrid was drinking deeply from his goblet. Professor McGonagall was talking to Professor Dumbledore. Professor Quirrell, in his absurd turban, was talking to a teacher with greasy black hair, a hooked nose, and sallow skin.
It happened very suddenly. The hook-nosed teacher looked past Quirrell's turban straight into Harry's eyes—and a sharp, hot pain shot across the scar on Harry's forehead.
«Ouch!» Harry clapped a hand to his head.
«What is it?» asked Percy.
«N-nothing.»
The pain had gone as quickly as it had come. Harder to shake off was the feeling Harry had gotten from the teacher's look—a feeling that he didn't like Harry at all.
«Who's that teacher talking to Professor Quirrell?» he asked Percy.
«Oh, you know Quirrell already, do you? No wonder he's looking so nervous, that's Professor Snape. He teaches Potions, but he doesn't want to—everyone knows he's after Quirrell's job. Knows an awful lot about the Dark Arts, Snape.»
Harry watched Snape for a while, but Snape didn't look at him again.
At last, the desserts too disappeared, and Professor Dumbledore got to his feet again. The hall fell silent.
«Ahern—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.»
Dumbledore's twinkling eyes flashed in the direction of the Weasley twins.
«I have also been asked by Mr. Filch, the caretaker, to remind you all that no magic should be used between classes in the corridors.
«Quidditch trials will be held in the second week of the term. Anyone interested in playing for their house teams should contact Madam Hooch.
«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.»
Harry laughed, but he was one of the few who did.
«He's not serious?» he muttered to Percy.
«Must be,» said Percy, frowning at Dumbledore. «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 Dumbledore. Harry noticed that the other teachers' smiles had become rather fixed.
Dumbledore 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 Dumbledore, «and off we go!» And the school bellowed:
«Hogwarts, Hogwarts, Hoggy Warty Hogwarts,
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 Weasley twins were left singing along to a very slow funeral march. Dumbledore 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 Gryffindor first years followed Percy through the chattering crowds, out of the Great Hall, and up the marble staircase. Harry'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 people in the portraits along the corridors whispered and pointed as they passed, or that twice Percy led them through doorways hidden behind sliding panels and hanging tapestries. They climbed more staircases, yawning and dragging their feet, and Harry 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 Percy took a step toward them they started throwing themselves at him.
«Peeves,» Percy whispered to the first years. «A poltergeist.» He raised his voice, «Peeves—show yourself»
A loud, rude sound, like the air being let out of a balloon, answered.
«Do you want me to go to the Bloody Baron?»
There was a pop, and a little man with wicked, dark eyes and a wide mouth appeared, floating crosslegged 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, Peeves, or the Baron'll hear about this, I mean it!» barked Percy.
Peeves stuck out his tongue and vanished, dropping the walking sticks on Neville's head. They heard him zooming away, rattling coats of armor as he passed.
«You want to watch out for Peeves,» said Percy, as they set off again. «The Bloody Baron'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 fat woman in a pink silk dress.
«Password?» she said. «Caput Draconis,» said Percy, and the portrait swung forward to reveal a round hole in the wall. They all scrambled through it—Neville needed a leg up—and found themselves in the Gryffindor common room, a cozy, round room full of squashy armchairs.
Percy 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?» Ron muttered to Harry through the hangings. «Get off, Scabbers! He's chewing my sheets.»
Harry was going to ask Ron 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 Quirrell's turban, which kept talking to him, telling him he must transfer to Slytherin at once, because it was his destiny. Harry told the turban he didn't want to be in Slytherin; it got heavier and heavier; he tried to pull it off but it tightened painfully—and there was Malfoy, laughing at him as he struggled with it -then Malfoy turned into the hook-nosed teacher, Snape, whose laugh became high and cold—there was a burst of green light and Harry 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.
CHAPTER EIGHT
THE POTIONS MASTER
There, look.»
«Where?»
«Next to the tall kid with the red hair.»
«Wearing the glasses?»
«Did you see his face?»
«Did you see his scar?»
Whispers followed Harry from the moment he left his dormitory the next day. People lining up outside classrooms stood on tiptoe to get a look at him, or doubled back to pass him in the corridors again, staring. Harry wished they wouldn't, because he was trying to concentrate on finding his way to classes.
There were a hundred and forty-two staircases at Hogwarts: wide, sweeping ones; narrow, rickety ones; some that led somewhere different on a Friday; some with a vanishing step halfway up that you had to remember to jump. Then there were doors that wouldn't open unless you asked politely, or tickled them in exactly the right place, and doors that weren't really doors at all, but solid walls just pretending. It was also very hard to remember where anything was, because it all seemed to move around a lot. The people in the portraits kept going to visit each other, and Harry was sure the coats of armor could walk.
The ghosts didn't help, either. It was always a nasty shock when one of them glided suddenly through a door you were trying to open. Nearly Headless Nick was always happy to point new Gryffindors in the right direction, but Peeves the Poltergeist was worth two locked doors and a trick staircase if you met him when you were late for class. He would drop wastepaper baskets on your head, pull rugs from under your feet, pelt you with bits of chalk, or sneak up behind you, invisible, grab your nose, and screech, «GOT YOUR CONK!»
Even worse than Peeves, if that was possible, was the caretaker, Argus Filch. Harry and Ron managed to get on the wrong side of him on their very first morning. Filch found them trying to force their way through a door that unluckily turned out to be the entrance to the out-of-bounds corridor on the third floor. He wouldn't believe they were lost, was sure they were trying to break into it on purpose, and was threatening to lock them in the dungeons when they were rescued by Professor Quirrell, who was passing.
Filch owned a cat called Mrs. Norris, a scrawny, dust-colored creature with bulging, lamp like eyes just like Filch's. She patrolled the corridors alone. Break a rule in front of her, put just one toe out of line, and she'd whisk off for Filch, who'd appear, wheezing, two seconds later. Filch knew the secret passageways of the school better than anyone (except perhaps the Weasley twins) and could pop up as suddenly as any of the ghosts. The students all hated him, and it was the dearest ambition of many to give Mrs. Norris a good kick.