96
The first feast
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Everyone on Snakefang table cheers and greets you with the traditional 'welcome hiss' for new members.

"Welcome to Snakefang House Arthur!" says one girl who grins with pointed canines. "Hogsnorts is the best school in the country and Snakefang is the best house in the school. That means you are now the best of the best!"

She leaps to her feet suddenly and yells out "Snake House rules!"

The other children in Snakefang House stand up in a flash, answering her with their own shout of "Snake House rules, yah, sssssssss" sticking their tongues out and waggling them from side to side.

You grin broadly and let out a hiss of your own. This is the place for me alright, you think. Snakefang House: the best of the best. Oh yeah.

You are even happier when - the rest of the House Sorting complete - Slumblebore magically conjures up an incredible feast for dinner.

From out of thin air materializes platters of roast beef and boiled sprouts, Yorkshire pudding and mashed turnips, shepherds pie and boiled broccoli, toad in the hole and boiled potatoes, bubble and squeak and boiled carrots, apple crumble with strawberry ice cream, and spotted-dick drowning in custard.

"Strawberry ice-cream, my favourite!" Snako Malboy, who has also just been chosen for Snakefang House, licks his lips.

You and Snako get talking over dinner about your favourite flavours of ice-cream (his is strawberry, you like bubblegum flavour) and before long you are firm friends.

Halfway through the dinner, in a rite of initiation, all the first years crack open the eggs they received from Percy the Picking Pigeon. They pour the contents into a giant metal bowl on the Snakefang House table, and whisk them together. The older children heat the meal bowls with fiery jets from their magic wands and soon everyone in Snakefang House is sharing in a giant pigeon egg omelette.

As you chomp on your portion and feel the warm egg slide down your throat you feel your transformation into a Snakefanger is complete.

Then it's back to the regular food. You eat more than you have ever eaten before, enjoying yourself immensely. You wonder if Slumblebore is somehow making the food magically disappear after it enters your stomach, in a similar way to how he made the food appear on the table. But finally you realise you can't cram anything more into your belly, and let out a huge belch.

"Children!" Slumblebore stands, his beard streaked with mashed turnips and the odd boiled potato. He raises his hands for silence. "Children! Now we have eaten our fill it is time for bed. Prefects lead the students to the House towers. And remember: the dungeons are off limits this term. We don't know what's down there, and neither do we want to."

The children rise to their feet, clutching their distended tummies, and prepare to leave the hall.

You turn to Snako Malboy and say: