Hogwarts was far more majestic than he had seen in his memories. But then again, in his memories, he saw it in a simple movie but right now he was watching it in person. And seeing something in real life was always better than seeing it in a screen.

Sitting in a boat in a serene lake and watching the large castle in the moonlight showed it in a regal light was one heck of an experience.

Perhaps the tradition of bringing the first years from the boats was not as stupid as he had earlier thought.

He looked at Hermione who was looking at the castle with awe struck eyes and wondered why she was so different than the one from the movie.

In the movie, she was shown as a know-it-all who couldn't stop talking and wanted to flaunt her knowledge to anyone that would listen. Something that only managed to alienate her from her fellow classmates.

But in the train, she only asked him questions upon questions. It was a bit bothersome to be sure but he found that he liked sharing his knowledge if someone truly wanted to learn from him.

Is this how teachers felt toward their best students.

If so then it was not a bad feeling at all. Who knows, perhaps he might even become a teacher in the future.

He chuckled at the thought and brought the attention of Hermione and the two other boys in the boat whom he didn't know upon himself. He put the two of them in the category of cannon fodder and promptly ignored them and went back to look at Hermione and wondered why she was acting so differently from the movie.

Vernon, Petunia, Dudley, Hagrid, Olivander and Draco. Every one of these people followed the script from the movie and acted not much differently then he had thought. Well, except for Hagrid who seemed a bit wary of him because of the snake wrapped around his neck but that seemed only natural.

And then it struck him.

From the moment he used the advanced 'Accio Spell' and punished Draco for insulting Hermione and bothering him, she saw him as an kinda-authority figure.

Plus, he was far more knowledgeable about magic then her so it was only fair that she would listen to him and try to impress him instead of filling his ears with the facts written in hundreds of books.

Or maybe reality was just that different from a movie.

Whatever the reason, he could probably make use of this situation. Turn the naive little girl into his trusted minion.

Or lover.

After all, she might have an insufferable personality but at the end of the day, she was the most brilliant witch of their generation and he was not going to forget that fact anytime soon.

He heard Hagrid's voice once again and realized that they had already reached the end of the lake and saw the 11 year olds disembarking from the boats.

"Come on Harry. We need to go." Hermione gushed and for once, Harry allowed her to take him with her.

—————

His classmates chose to maintain a good distance from him simply for the fact that he had Selena with him.

Well he could not blame them. Selena was not a friendly snake and Parselmouths had a bit of a reputation in the wizarding world. And even the muggleborns who had never heard about the legends feared him because of Parseltongue. It was terrifying to hear after all.

Even Hermione flinched every once in a while when he talked with Selena despite her vehemence to stand alongside with him instead of maintaining distance from him based on pure superstitions.

He could already hear Ron talking behind his back about him as the next dark lord and he had to actively suppress his anger in order to not throttle the gingerhead. At the same time, he wondered how Ron would feel when he realized that he was the Harry Potter. Their reactions would surely be fun to watch.

Minerva came back once again and looked him with her lips pursed and he wondered what the old woman was thinking.

Was she worried about that he was a Parselmouth? Did she believed him to be a dark-lord-in-making as well? Surely a well educated witch would not believe in such a thing. But then again, who can tell.

He felt the need to use legillimency on her and read her mind but then thought better of it.

He didn't knew if she had occulumency shields or not. She probably didn't but he was not about to risk it.

After all, reading minds was a great advantage. And he would not lose such an advantage on a mere whim.

"Silence." She said in a stern manner and all the murmurs died down at once. She sure does like to intimidate a bunch of 11 year olds.

"I will now escort you to the great hall where the sorting hat will be placed on your head, it'll tell you about your proper House." She said "I will call your names in alphabetical order." Her eyes lingered once more on him or was it Selena before she turned around and opened the door to the great hall.

"Harry!" Selena exclaimed as soon as the door to the great hall were opened.

"What is it Selena?" he asked.

"The magic in here is very dense master. The most dense I've ever seen in my life." She said excitedly. "There's so much magic in here that I can't even see the end of the great hall properly."

"Is that so. Well, that would make sense, in a way. The great hall has been used to host hundreds of powerful wizards and witches for hundreds of years so it's only natural that it would become saturated with magic." He said "What do you see Selena?"

"I already told you. The magic in this place is quite dense and the magic of the man sitting at the middle of the podium is greater than any I've ever seen." She said.

"That's to be expected. He's Albus Dumbledore. The most powerful wizard in living memory. Remember his magical signature. I want you to know if he ever comes close to me."

"Any reason why him in particular?" she asked and he nodded his head.

"From what I know of him, he can be a bit manipulative so I need to be wary of him."

"Very well then. I'll tell you if he ever comes close to you." She hissed.

"Thank you." He said and looked back at his fellow classmates only to realize that all of them had once again created some distance from him.

Not only that, but the whole great hall was silent. He could see different expression in everyone's faces. Expression like fear, shock and revulsion being the most prominent.

They had heard him talking in Parseltongue.

'Sheeps' he snorted at their antics.

He ignored them and went back to feeling the ambient magic in the great hall. He had no natural talent in sensing magic like Selena but he was still able to feel the heavy presence of magic in the atmosphere pressing gently on top of him like a warm blanket.

He gave a smile and wondered when he would be able to explore the castle and get the things that he wanted.

—————

"Gryffindor!" the hat shouted and Harry instantly realized his mistake.

He had forgotten to tell Hermione to join Ravenclaw and because of some stupid reason, she had once again joined Gryffindor.

He always thought that it was a stupid decision to send her to Gryffindor considering how she was the number one bookworm in the whole castle but then again, the hat sorted Crabbe, Goyle and Draco into Slytherin so he never really had a high opinion of the artifact in the first place.

After all, Draco had no cunning bone in his body and his highest ambition for now would only be to impress his father.

And he didn't even want to think about Crabbe and Goyle. That would just be wasting brain cells.

With such thoughts, he watched in silence as the sorting continued.

Every now and then, some people would point toward him with a bit of fear in his eyes but the cosmetic charm he applied on top of his scar made sure that no one was able to see his scar so no one really knew who he was.

He had thought that he would enjoy the looks in their faces once they knew that he is Harry Potter but now, he doubted that he would enjoy their expression at all. After all, there was only so much attention and drama a man could endure and he was already reaching his limit.

"Harry Potter" Minerva said and the hall, which had started murmuring by now went silent once again before it came back full force as he walked forward to the sorting hat.

He hid a disgusted glare at the whispering sheep and wore the hat on his head before putting down all his occulumency shields in the dark places and only left behind the memories where he enjoyed learning and reading.

After some thinking a few days ago, he had realized that the sorting hat would not be capable of reading his mind if he puts his occlumency over his mind.

After all, the four founders might have been excellent wizards and witches in their own rights but he doubted that they would be able to create an artifact that would be able to read all the memories of a person no matter how strong his occlumency shields were.

If such a thing was possible, then no one would be able to hide the information in their mind from them.

And as it turned out, he was right and even though his occlumency shields were barely paper thin, they did their job of hiding his dark memories perfectly.

And after a short conversation with the hat, he was finally sorted into Ravenclaw.

Which was exactly what he wanted.

But as the Ravenclaws smiled and cheered at their latest addition and motioned him to sit together with him, he went to the last seat in the table and sat quietly while ignoring the rest of his housemates.

He had to create a reputation for himself after all.

Reputation of an anti social guy.

After all, it would only hinder him if someone became too curious about his life.