Chapter 510: Slave Labor

A few seconds later, Professor McGonagall placed a three-legged stool on the floor in front of the first-year students and, on top of it, a dirty old patched wizard's hat.

Everyone looked at it, and for a moment, there was silence in the Great Hall. Then a long tear near the brim opened wide as a mouth, and the hat burst into song.

This time, the Sorting Hat was describing the history of the four founders who founded

Hogwarts, the qualities of the four, and the different virtues they valued, and that a young witch or wizard should have.

Gryffindor looked for unparalleled bravery. Ravenclaw looked for intelligence. Hufflepuff valued hard work more than anything else.

Slytherin, on the other hand, was looking for ambitious young wizards hungry for power and strength.

The letters were very well designed and how the Sorting Hat came up with them was anyone's guess.

THE Great Hall rang with applause as the Sorting Hat finished.

Professor McGonagall immediately unrolled a large roll of parchment and looked seriously at the young wizards in front of her. "When I call your name, you will put on the hat and sit on the stool." She said to the first years..." When the hat announces your house, you will go and sit at the appropriate table."

Under the supervision of Professor McGonagall, the nervous first-year students were successively divided into four houses.

As soon as they put on their hats, she immediately called out the name of the House to which the young witch or wizard was to go.

This year's sorting ceremony was going very well, and Ivan remembered that it took a long time.

As a legendary magical object, the Sorting Hat held a part of the thoughts of the four founders.

He could use a spiritual spell to instantly see a young wizard's hidden thoughts and judge accordingly.

Ivan suspected that if a young wizard mastered a mental protection spell like Occlumency, and was stronger than the Sorting Hat, his magic would not work. Of course, so far no young wizard had shown up.

"Creevey, Dennis!" shouted Professor McGonagall.

Little Dennis Creevey staggered forward, tripping over Hagrid's coat...just as Hagrid himself entered the room through a door behind the teachers' table.

Hagrid, with his long, wild, tangled black hair and beard, looked a bit alarming, giving the wrong impression to the new kids.

But everyone who knew him knew that Hagrid had a very caring heart.

He winked at Ivan as he sat at the end of the teachers' table and watched Dennis Creevey put on the Sorting Hat.

The tear in the rim opened wide and he shouted, "Griffindor!"

Colin breathed a sigh of relief and began to clap his hands hard.

Under everyone's applause, Dennis, grinning broadly, took off his hat, put it back on the stool, and hurried to join the others.

"Colin, I fell in the lake!" He said shrilly, launching himself into an empty seat. "It was brilliant! And something in the water grabbed me and pulled me back into the boat!"

"Cool!" said Colin, just as excited. "It was probably the giant squid, Dennis!"

"Wow!" said Dennis, as if no one in his wildest dreams could expect more than to be thrown into a deep, stormy lake and pushed out of it again by a giant sea monster.

If he knew Ivan was about to go to the lake to communicate with Merpeople, how excited would he be?

The sorting continued; boys and girls with varying degrees of fear on their faces moved one by one to the three-legged stool, the line slowly diminishing as Professor McGonagall went through the names.

"Oh, hurry up," Ron groaned, massaging his stomach.

"Ron, the sorting is much more important than the food," Nick said almost decapitated, disgruntled.

"Of course it is, if you're dead," Ron said.

Nick looked a little unhappy, he didn't respond to his words, but whispered to Ivan.

Finally, the sorting ended when Kevin Whitby was assigned to Hufflepuff.

Professor McGonagall picked up the hat and stool and took them away.

Professor Dumbledore stood up. He smiled at the students, arms open in welcome.

"I have only two words to say to you," he told them, his deep voice echoing through the hall,

"Tuck in!"

In the next second, the empty plates in front of everyone were magically filled.

All the young wizards began to eat heavily, and Nick watched sadly as they loaded their plates.

Ron's words seemed to be very touching to him. He hadn't tasted food for hundreds of years.

"You're lucky there's a feast tonight," Nick looked at the big steak in front of Ivan, "There was trouble in the kitchen earlier."

"Why? what happened?" asked Harry, his mouth full of food.

"Peeves, of course," said Nick, shaking his head, which was wobbling dangerously. He quickly tugged his collar a little higher up on his neck. "The usual argument, you know. I wanted to attend the party.... Well, it's not possible. You know what he's like, totally uncivilized. He can't see a plate of food without throwing it away. We held a ghost council, and the fat friar was in favor of giving him the chance, but the wisest thing, in my opinion, was that the Bloody Baron put his foot down."

The Bloody Baron was the ghost of Slytherin, a gaunt, silent specter covered in silver bloodstains, indicating the horrible experience before his death. He was the most powerful of all ghosts, and at Hogwarts, only he could control Peeves.

"No wonder, we thought Peeves seemed cut up about something, he tried to throw water balloons at us all over the corridor." Ron said sullenly, "What did he do in the kitchens?"

"The usual," Nick said, shrugging. "He caused havoc and mayhem. He threw pots and pans everywhere. The place was swimming in soup. He terrorized the house elves to no end..."

Clang!!!

Hermione had knocked over her golden goblet. Pumpkin juice spilled onto the tablecloth, staining several orange feet of white linen, but Hermione paid it no mind.

Ivan secretly felt bad. Now that Hermione knew Hogwarts had its own house elves, he would surely bring up his ideals of treating elves well again.

Hermione had talked to Ivan from time to time and thought he should do something for the elves.

Hermione's ideas could not be said to be wrong, but they were absolutely impossible, and Ivan did not know how to persuade her.

When Hermione made up her mind to do something, she would not change easily, and she would certainly stick to her guns, no matter how difficult the path ahead might be.

Ivan knew this all too well, and he knew it was futile to try to persuade her to give up. He could only choose to support her.

"Are there house elves here?" said Hermione, looking, horrified, at Nick Nearly decapitated. "Here at Hogwarts?"

"Of course," Nick said, looking surprised at her reaction. "There are more elves here than anywhere else in Britain. There are over a hundred."

"I haven't seen any of them!" said Hermione in disbelief. "I thought Dobby was the only one..."

"Well, they hardly ever leave the kitchen in the daytime, do they?" Nick said. "They come out at night to do a bit of cleaning ... See the fireplaces and so on ... I mean, you're not supposed to see them, are you? That's the mark of a good house elf, isn't it, that you don't know they're there?"

Hermione stared at him, her eyes widening, as if Nick had said something terrible.

"But they get paid?" she said. "They get paid vacation, don't they? And, do they get sick leave, and pensions, and everything?"

Nearly decapitated Nick cracked so much that his collar slipped off and his head came off, dangling from the ghostly skin and muscle that still held him to his neck.

"Sick leave and pensions?" he said, pushing her head back onto his shoulders and securing it once more with his collar. "House elves don't want sick leave and pensions!"

Hermione looked down at her barely touched plate of food, then put her knife and fork on it and pushed it away from her.

"Slave labor!" her breathing became very heavy, and she said disgustedly, "That's what made this dinner.... Slave labor! I just know what's going on. It turns out that what we eat every day is shameless!"