Ginny entered the great hall together with the other first year students. After spending a very enjoyable time with Harry, they had been divided after the train reached Hogwarts. She had to cross the lake with Hagrid, the gamekeeper of Hogwarts, and the other first years, while Harry went to the self-moving carriages that took the older students to the castle. She had wondered why the first years had to go to the castle separately from the other students and assumed that this was probably one of those ancient traditions which no one knew the purpose of anymore.

The flock of first years came to a halt between the Head Table and the four House tables. In front of the Head Table stood a chair with an old hat on it. She knew that this was the sorting hat, which had sorted countless generations of wizarding children into the four Houses of Hogwarts. It would soon sort her as well. Although finding out which House of Hogwarts would be hers was an important event with huge influence on her future life, she was not nervous. After all, she could not change the hat's decision anyway. She hoped to be sorted into Ravenclaw so she would see Harry more often, but she expected to end up in Gryffindor as everyone of her family did before her. She looked towards the Staff Table again and saw that Professor McGonagall had left her Chair and was now standing in front of a podium.

"Welcome to a new year at Hogwarts," said Professor McGonagall. "I know all of you first years are very excited to be finally sorted into your houses, but the head of House Slytherin has insisted on talking to you before the sorting. Therefore, I will introduce you to our new staff members first, and then give them the chance to say a few words if they like. First of all, you might have already guessed that I am the new Headmistress of Hogwarts. I will replace Albus Dumbledore, who is currently unable to be here with us." Her voice sounded weary and sad as she said the last sentence.

Ginny was quite confused. The Prophet had proclaimed that Albus Dumbledore was dead. Killed by Lord Voldemort before David Monroe was able to stop him. Of course they had not found a body, but Dumbledore disappearing on the same day of the Voldemort incident was very unlikely a coincidence. However, Professor McGonagall seemed to believe that he was still alive.

"Professor Snape also left us last year and will be replaced by Horace Slughorn." Ginny had heard a bit about Slughorn. He had been her parents' potions teacher. They did not really like him as he favoured people with influential relatives or outstanding skills and they had had neither. Ginny was not sure what to think about him, but if half the things she heard about Snape were true, he would be an improvement.

After the applause (mostly from the Slytherin table) had ended, Professor McGonagall started to speak again: "Also, as usual, we needed a new Defence Professor. I am glad to announce that we were able to recruit a well-known fighter of evil powers for this position. Please welcome Professor Gilderoy Lockhart." At the Staff Table, Gilderoy Lockhart appeared and put the invisibility cloak under which he had hidden on the desk. This explained a lot. Ginny had to buy all of Lockhart's books for this semester. She had assumed that the new defence teacher was a fan of Lockhart, but she had never expected that it would be Lockhart himself. The applause was much louder than it had been for Slughorn and Ginny could understand why. Gilderoy Lockhart really was famous. He was probably the third most prominent enemy of dark wizards and creatures after Harry Potter and David Monroe. If anyone could replace Monroe as a defence teacher, it was probably him. Besides that, he was really handsome, and half of magical Britain's female population fancied him.

After the applause had finally stopped, Lockhart said with a magically enhanced voice:

"I am sorry that I had to deprive you of my sight with an invisibility cloak until now, but I knew that you would never have been able to concentrate on the headmistress's speech with me sitting at the table, and you thinking that this might be the only chance to get an autograph. But now you know that there will be plenty of time for that this year, please continue to pay attention to Professor McGonagall. Although she might not be a renowned fighter of dark magic and five time winner of the Witches Weekly Most Charming Smile Award like me, her words are of some value for you."

Lockhart sat down again and the Headmistress continued with her speech. "Thank you for your kind words Gilderoy," she said with a very polite tone. "As some of you might have realised, there is another face missing at the Staff Table. Professor Trelawney is no longer a teacher at Hogwarts because her subject, Divination, has been removed from the Hogwarts curriculum. Our last new staff member will now explain why this has happened and what he will be teaching instead of Divination."

The hall went silent as everyone was confused about what they had just heard. People were looking around so see were the new Professor, who was not at the table yet, would come from. Somewhere behind her, Ginny heard a chair moving. She turned around and saw that a person had stood up from the Ravenclaw table and was now moving towards the podium. It took her and everyone else a few seconds to realise what had just happened.

There was a sudden silence in the hall.

All conversation stopped.

All eyes turned to stare.

Harry James Potter-Evans-Verres walked slowly and with a calm expression, completely ignoring the confused looks everyone gave him. It seemed to take ages until he finally reached the podium. He stopped there, pointed his wand at himself and said "Sonorus." A few seconds later, his magically enhanced voice filled the great hall of Hogwarts.

"I think most of you are probably confused by what has just happened. So let me explain it to you. First, let's talk about Divination. I am actually completely stunned how this subject can have survived for more than a thousand years. It's stupid even by wizards' standards. It makes less sense than the snitch. No one can learn to make prophecies. You are either born a seer or not. And even seers cannot deliberately make prophecies. They make them at completely random times. Things taught in Divination are not part of the process of making a prophecy, and there is no evidence that studying Divination increases the chance that a seer makes a prophecy in any way."

Ginny was stunned by this statement. It was so obvious that she wondered how more than thirty generations of wizards could have missed that fact. She seriously reconsidered the gratefulness she had felt for growing up in a wizard family earlier this day. Maybe growing up in the Muggle world would actually have been better.

There was a lot of frustration in Harry's voice as he continued speaking:

"Although I think you all comprehended what I wanted to tell you, although everyone with a brain should be able to understand it, the Hogwarts Board of Governors still refused the removal of Divination from the curriculum. If I had not been able to convince the Chief Warlock to get a law through the Wizengamot that overruled them, this subject would probably have been taught forever simply because it is tradition for a wizarding school to offer Divination.

"You might now be wondering what I will teach you. If you hope that I will show you how to do whatever you want by snapping your fingers, I'll have to disappoint you. I do, however, believe that what I am going to teach you will be the most valuable thing you will learn your entire life. I will teach you to realise if you are studying a completely pointless subject. I will teach you how to frighten dementors without using a patronus charm, I will teach you how to use magic in ways you do not think are possible, and finally after my lessons you might be able to understand, how I can do whatever I want by snapping my fingers. I will teach you the methods of rationality."

Everyone in the audience looked puzzled. No one had ever heard of these methods of rationality, and they could not possibly allow you to frighten dementors. Sure, Harry had done that, but that was because he was a powerful and potentially dark wizard. Ginny, however, was not confused, she finally understood what Harry had really meant when he told her that she would understand what a rationalist was after some time in Hogwarts.

After a long pause, Harry started speaking again: "You might currently not believe me that rationality is more important than powerful magic, but I suggest you try it out. After all, it is impossible that my lessons are more useless than Divination, so it can only be an improvement for you. Divination was an elective starting in the third year, I will however start teaching students from their first year onwards if they wish to learn from me. It is a bit of extra work for you, but I would still recommend it to everyone. If you don't like my teaching, you can leave my lessons at any point in time. There is no use in trying to teach rationality to someone who is not willing to learn."

Ginny did not even have to consider. She immediately decided to sign up for the lessons. After all, it was Harry giving them. But besides that, what Harry said actually made so much sense that she would have probably even signed up to learn his way of thinking if someone else would have taught it.

"Before we can at last begin with the sorting, I have one last thing to tell you. I am the new head of house Slytherin and I would like to explain to you what will change in Slytherin under my influence. All first year students please listen carefully even if you have decided that you would never join Slytherin house."

On a normal day, the statement that a twelve year old Ravenclaw student was the new head of House Slytherin would have shocked everyone and probably produced an outrage at the Slytherin table, but after what had happened before people were just silently staring at Harry, waiting for what he would say next. Ginny, like everyone else, had expected Professor Slughorn to be the new head of House Slytherin and was now curious about what Harry would say next. After all, he was not even a Slytherin himself.

"There has been a lot of confusion about what House Slytherin is about in the past. The goal of the Houses of Hogwarts is to sort students by their dominating personality trait. The trait of Slytherin is ambition. Hating muggleborns has nothing to do with being ambitious or the values of House Slytherin. Sure, Salazar Slytherin did not like Muggleborns, but in his time this was true for the majority of wizards. The only reason most people in Slytherin do not like Muggleborns is that the sorting hat takes people's wishes into consideration. And because everyone believes Slytherin is about hating Muggles, people who hate Muggleborns choose to be in Slytherin, and other people choose other Houses even if they are ambitious. I will not tolerate discrimination based on blood status in my house. I encourage everyone who is truly ambitious to join Slytherin this year. If you would like, I will write a letter to your parents to explain the new policy of House Slytherin to them. That way, it might be easier for you to explain it to them. I don't want to be responsible for anyone of you getting disowned after all. That was all I had to say to you. We can now begin with the sorting."

Authors Notes

The next chapter will go online on wednesday the 10th of june. I know that it is controversial whether Harry's unbreakable vow would allow him to teach rationality. I will try to explain why I think that he should be able to do so as soon as possible. However it will take a while since I don't want to write from his perspective. So Ginny will have to find out about the vow first. I have already wrote a bit about my opinion on this topic in this chapters draft thread on reddit, so if you are curious you can look there.