The Hogwarts Express bellowed out as kids and parents all swarmed around it, frantically pushing luggage and moving about.
Similarly to the chaos surrounding it, the corridors of the train were bustling with excitement and anticipation.
As minutes passed on Platform 9 and ¾, train compartments filled with new and old students awaiting their arrival to a school of magic and wonder.
In the last compartment, however, a boy of eleven sat by himself. His dark brown hair was parted and combed neatly. His pale complexion contrasted with his dark eyes that were cold and calculating. He sat alone, staring out the window in silence.
That silence was disrupted just as the train began to leave the station. As the engine roared one last time before departing, the boy's compartment door was opened to reveal a girl, no older than the boy himself.
The boy averted his gaze to the girl standing in the doorway.
"Can I sit here? I can't find anywhere else. I promise I won't interrupt your brooding," she said with a slight Scottish accent, taking note of his slight frown.
The boy nodded, taking in the girl's mass of unruly copper red hair, forming ringlets framing and falling into her face. Her cheekbones and nose were spattered with freckles. Her bright and intelligent eyes observing her new companion.
Her eyes were what really caught the boy's attention. Her left was pale blue-grey with silver lining her pupil and iris, while the other was jade green with gold instead of silver.
"Thank you. I'm Faeyth McGuffian," the girl stuck out her hand as she introduced herself.
"Yeah. Riddle. Tom Riddle," the boy said softly, shaking her hand.
"Nice to meet you, Tom. Exciting isn't it?"
Tom looked at her inquisitively.
"Being invited to Hogwarts!"
Tom nodded, intrigued by her enthusiasm and curious at her openness since most children from where he was from feared him.
"I read up a lot on the school. There's so much and it's so different!" Faeyth continued on.
Tom listened to her talk on, for once enjoying her chatter and company.
"One of few words, huh?"
Tom just blinked at her.
"Aren't you excited to go to Hogwarts? It's a grand opportunity and a once-in-a-lifetime experience. You have to be at least somewhat excited."
"I am, I just choose not to express it," Tom replied coolly.
"Ah. I see." Faeyth studied him, trying to figure out what the boy across from her was thinking.
She turned away from Tom, much to his unexpressed disappointment, and took out a book with an unknown title to Tom.
"What book is that?" Tom asked her.
"I don't know, actually," she replied, looking at the cover. "I got it at a bookshop in Diagon Alley when I got my textbooks."
Tom nodded and turned back to the window as Faeyth turned her attention to her book.
-
Faeyth left the compartment to change into her new uniform. On her way back, Faeyth came across the trolly lady and decided to purchase a package of Fizzing Whisbees - to which she had found are her favorite magic sweet, although she had not had many magic sweets previously - and two chocolate frogs; one for her and one for Tom.
Upon returning, she found Tom in the same exact spot and the same exact position with the only difference being his clothes having changed into his uniform.
"I bought you something."
Tom did not move or say anything.
"I-I'll just put it here then. And we'll be arriving soon." Faeyth placed the small package on the seat by Tom and began to gather her carry-on things.
Tom just watched silently.
-
The train let out a mighty blow as its wheels screeched to a halt. Steam billowed from the locomotive. Commotion and chaos returned to the train as students, old and young alike, all scrambled to get off the train.
"Well... I guess I'll see you around?" Faeyth asked Tom as she was half way out of the compartment.
Tom's only reply was "Your tie is crooked. Move it to the left."
Faeyth shrugged and bounced out of the compartment.
"First years to the boats, everyone else to the carriages! First years, follow me!" someone directed the scattered traffic.
Tom wondered what they meant by 'boats' because he, for sure, was not going to row his way to this magic school. If anything, Tom was just glad to be out of the orphanage for once.
Without realizing it until he heard the slothing of water on a dark bank, did Tom see several boats, long enough to fit three or more students in each, lined up for the first years to pile into.
Although hesitantly, Tom clamored into one with a rather pale haired boy, an ugly, dull-faced male with a dumb look on his face, and just Tom's luck, Faeyth.
"Hello again, Tom!" Isn't this exciting?"
He frowned.
"At least smile! You don't have to be sour all the time!" Faeyth chided.
Tom cracked a smile at that, causing Faeyth to laugh and she turned away from Tom with her back facing him. Tom fiddled with the package he had hastily shoved in his pocket on the train.
"Tom! Look! Isn't it magnificent?" Faeyth leaned forwards, awestruck with her mouth slightly agape. Tom looked up to see what made Faeyth gasp.
In front of them was the most beautiful castle Tom had ever seen - not that he had really seen many castles in the first place.
"Yes, it is," Tom breathed out, actually replying to her for once, dropping his stony demeanor.
All the first years clamored off of the boats excitedly, causing the boats to tip and slosh the water against the docks. The gasps came once they reached the grand doors of the Great Hall.
Professor Albus Dumbledore, an older gentleman with a long, white beard to match his long, dark robes topped with a pointed hat that folded over down his back who wore small spectacles on his nose which framed the mysterious glint in his aging eyes, explained the system of the Sorting that will occur once they enter the grand dining hall.
"What house do you think you'll get into?" Faeyth asked Tom when the professor disappeared to announce the first years' arrival.
"I don't know. Maybe Slytherin?" Tom answered, taking in his surroundings.
Before Faeyth could ask anything else of him, Professor Dumbledore came back and led the newly arrived students in.
Upon entering the Great Hall, a great chatter met the first years and even Tom could not help but stare up at the night sky enchanted on the ceiling. Floating candles littered the air above them as they approached the long table at the front of the room. A short stool sat in front of the table with an old, ratty, wrinkled, brown hat sitting upon it.
Much to the newcomers' surprise, the hat came to life and the dusty old thing that looked like it could crumble at any given moment began to sing. Its song depicted the four founders of the ancient school and what they stood for.
When the hat was finished, the first years started to be called up one by one to have the hat placed on their heads.
Students had their new families called out at the top of the hat's lungs. With each student sorted, a great uproar came from the house's returning members for their new arrival.
"Tom Riddle," Professor Dumbledore called out.
Tom, who had to be given a slight shove to the front by Faeyth, slowly made his way to the stool. The Sorting Hat was placed on his head as he sat down in front of the whole school.
"Hmmm... very curious..." a voice muttered in Tom's head.
Although slightly startled, Tom knew the mysterious object on his head was the one speaking.
"You've got that right, boy! Now I see ambition and yet...very curious..where to put you...Gryffindor would be a wise choice, however, you have a choice as to what path you take..." the hat kept muttering to itself - or to Tom, he did not know. Tom did not even know what the old thing was even talking about!
"Gryffindor could lead you to great things despite your past...then it must be...
"SLYTHERIN!" the hat finally called out at last.
Tom jumped down from the stool as soon as the thing was removed from his head. A loud applause rumbled and echoed throughout the room as Tom took up an empty seat at the table of emerald green and silver.
-
Several other students were called up before her. Faeyth was rather fidgety after her friend...acquaintance...was sorted.
It took Tom several minutes to be sorted and the Great Hall was dead silent, waiting for the hat's verdict. Faeyth was worried hers would take a long time too and now just wanted to get the sorting over with.
To her dread, Professor Dumbledore called out, "Faeyth McGuffian."
Reluctantly Faeyth stepped forward, looking to the long table of green and silver for a familiar face as the Sorting Hat was placed on her head. She met Tom's eye, much to her surprise that he was actually watching and he gave her a ghost of a smile, silently reassuring her anxious nerves.
"The dilemma of where to put you is great..." the hat began to talk, just as Faeyth saw with the other students before her.
She kept eye contact with the boy she met on the train, terrified as to where the hat would place her.
"You are destined for great things. Gryffindor would suit you well..." the ancient artifact upon her head mumbled.
Faeyth kept the locked eye contact with the unusual, quiet boy from the train; grey and green eyes interlocked with deep brown.
"...and yet, you are clever like a Ravenclaw, that anyone can see... yes, but also fiercely loyal like that of a Hufflepuff..."
"How long is this taking?" the poor copper-haired girl wondered, feeling a million eyes staring at her. Faeyth could feel the panic setting in as seconds began to feel like hours. The only thing keeping Faeyth from leaping off the rutting stool was the calming - yet unnerving - gaze of the only friend Faeyth felt she really had in this new world.
"What is this? I know exactly where to out you!"
Faeyth silently let out a breath of relief.
"SLYTHERIN!" the hat finally called out.
Just as the old, stinky hat was removed from her head, Faeyth practically sprang off the stool and quickly made her way over to the empty seat next to the pale boy with an icy stare from the train who was holding onto an unopened chocolate frog box in his robe's pocket.
-
"The hat never said why it placed her in Slytherin," Harry Potter mutters to his best friends as they watch the relieved red-haired girl race to sit next to who would become the Wizarding World's most feared sorcerer.
"That is odd, isn't it. I wonder what made the hat place her there," Hermione Granger agrees and wonders aloud.
The Golden Trio trail after the odd enigma of a girl after the feast ends.
In the girls' dorms of the Slytherin Commonroom, they see Faeyth McGuffian pull out a familiar journal and began to write with only a chocolate frog card to mark her spot before she goes to bed.
-
(5.11.20, 1914 words)