"We're here." Fred shook me awake. I hadn't remembered falling asleep, but I was curled up on the seat, using my robes as a blanket.
We got off the train, I rubbed my eyes, still groggy from just waking up.
"Well this is where we split." George said sadly.
"What do you mean?" I was anxious; I didn't want to lose my only friends so soon.
"Don't worry, we'll see you in the Great Hall. But first years have to be led in as a group so they don't get lost." Fred explained. "Besides, you've got Ron. He's a first year too."
Some of my nerves wore off. At least I had a friend my age.
"First years! First years over here!" A loud voice boomed over the bustle of the train station. I looked over to see a large man, with bushy hair and a bushy beard calling out to the first years.
"Hagrid!" A small, scrawny, dark haired boy ran towards the large man, who was apparently named Hagrid. They chatted for a second while the other first years gathered around.
"Was that-" George said.
"Definitely." Fred agreed.
I looked towards the twins. They were still standing on the platform, despite the fact they could've, and probably should've, started heading towards the campus. "Who?"
"That's-" Fred began.
"First years!" Hagrid yelled again. "Let's get a move on!"
"You should get going. You don't wanna be left behind." George said.
The twins pulled me into a group hug, saying goodbye as they did.
They then walked off in the opposite direction than where Hagrid was standing, leaving me alone on the platform.
I made my way over to the big group of first years, searching around for Ron.
"Ow!" I turned around to see the small, curly brown haired girl from the train. "You stepped on my foot!" She yelled.
"I'm so sorry! I was looking for my friend. I didn't mean to step on your foot." I felt bad. Both interactions I'd had with this girl had been absolutely awful.
"It's alright. Just be more observant."
"I feel awful. First, I was disruptive on the train, and now I've stepped on your foot. What a good first impression, huh?"
The girl's eyes widened. "You're the girl who was sitting with those loud imbeciles on the train!"
"I wouldn't call them imbeciles." I giggled.
"Well either way, I've never properly met you. I'm Hermione Granger." She stuck out her hand, a smile on her face.
"I'm Y/N L/N. It's very nice to meet you. Again, so sorry for the way we met."
"It's alright. You've apologized. No reason to hold a grudge, right?"
I smiled. I was happy to find that Hermione didn't hate me. Heck, Hermione was the first girl I'd made friends with at Hogwarts. It wasn't that I didn't enjoy the twins' company, I did. But having a girl my own age around would be nice.
"Alright, first years! Follow me!" Hagrid's voice boomed over the conversation that Hermione and I were having.
I stuck close to Hermione as we walked with the group. It was dark out and getting lost on my first day wasn't something I was very fond of.
As the group walked, we came to a small dock, with tons upon tons of rowboats, big enough to fit about 10 people or so, spread out in front of us.
"Alright, make your way to a rowboat students."
The first years scrambled to the rowboats, anxiously wanting to sit with their friends.
Hermione pulled me towards a rowboat, almost knocking me into the dark water below.
We sat down and our rowboat filled up quickly. Ron piled in and waved at me. The scrawny boy who I had seen before sat down next to Ron.
I got a better look at him now, since I was sitting so close. His clothes hung off him, clearly way too big for him. He had rounded glasses that constantly seemed to threaten to fall off his face; they were broken as well. His jet black hair was extremely messy and a small lightning bolt shaped scar peered out from under his messy hair.
"Glad to see you made it ok!" Ron said.
"Yeah, me too."
Hermione noticed Ron and began to glare at him, and when he noticed her, he glared back.
"Woah, talk about tension."
"They've been doing it ever since we saw her on the train." The scrawny boy said.
"You met them on train Hermione?" I questioned, turning towards her.
"Unfortunately. I was only looking for Neville's toad but he" She pointed to Ron. "Was very rude in response to my simple question."
"Was not!"
"Was too!"
"QUIET!" Hagrid yelled from his rowboat. "We're about to start moving. Keep yer hands and feet inside the boat at all times."
In a blink of an eye, the boats began moving by themselves, the oars rowing the boats towards the school with magic.
"Sorry about them." The scrawny boy said to me.
"That's alright. I don't really mind."
"I'm Harry by the way."
"I'm Y/N."
The group of first years suddenly burst out in ooo's and ahh's. I turned around, suddenly noticing what they had been gasping at.
It was Hogwarts.
The lights inside of the giant school, castle almost, shone bright on the lake we were rowing across.
It was a gorgeous sight indeed.
"Welcome to Hogwarts!" Hagrid said, motioning with one of his giant hands towards the school.
The row boats docked on the other side of the lake, and the first years pulled themselves out of the boats.
Hagrid walked the first years up to the doors of the school and knocked.
The large doors opened with a creak and in front of the students stood an older witch.
She wore forest green robes that looked like they were made of silk. A large black pointed hat sat atop her thin, silver hair, which was pulled back in a bun on the back of her head. Small, wire thin glasses sat upon her small nose and she looked at the students over her glasses.
"Good evening students. I am Professor McGonagall. Please follow me." With a swift motion, she turned on her heels and walked through the tall, long hallway. The first years followed, with Hagrid bringing up the rear.
I could hear laughing and chatting in a room in front of us, a warm glow from the light inside coming from the crack under the door. But instead of leading the students towards the warm laughter and atmosphere, Professor McGonagall led the students to a small room off the hall.
She stopped in front of a door, with the same laughter and warm light coming from just beyond it.
"The start-of-term banquet will begin shortly, but before you take your seats in the Great Hall, you will be sorted into your houses. The Sorting is a very important ceremony because, while you are here, your house will be something like your family within Hogwarts. You will have classes with the rest of your house, sleep in your house dormitory and spend free time in your house common room." Professor McGonagall straightened her glasses, then continued. "The four houses are called Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw and Slytherin. Each house has its own noble history and each has produced outstanding witches and wizards. While you are at Hogwarts, your triumphs will earn your house points, while any rule-breaking will lose house points. At the end of the year, the house with the most points is awarded the House Cup, a great honour. I hope each of you will be a credit to whichever house becomes yours."
Hermione leaned over to me and whispered, "I hope we're in the same house."
"Me too." I whispered back.
"The Sorting Ceremony will take place in a few minutes in front of the rest of the school. I suggest you all smarted yourselves up as much as you can while you are waiting. We'll come get you when we're ready."
Professor McGonagall opened the door behind her, but not enough to where I or any of the other first years could see inside.
"Well, I hope I'm Gryffindor." Ron said, turning to me and Hermione. "Every Weasley is a Gryffindor."
"Gryffindor's are so boring. Slytherin is the best house." A voice behind Ron said.
I peered over Ron's shoulder as he turned.
A pale boy stood proudly. His platinum blonde hair was slicked back, showing off piercing silver eyes.
"Oh, what would you know?" Ron spat back.
"Only that Slytherin has produced some of the most powerful wizards there ever were."
"He's not wrong about that." Hermione spoke up. Ron glared at her, for what I felt would not be the last time.
"Well they may be powerful" Ron began. "But they're all evil!"
"Isn't it rude to assume something about a whole house Ron?" Harry said.
Most of the other students had been too busy to notice Harry, and unbeknownst to me, but he was quite the celebrity in the Wizarding World.
"Bloody hell, you're Harry Potter." the boy said.
The crowd burst into gasps of shock. The students whispered amongst themselves, truly wondering if the Harry Potter was attending their school.
"Why's Harry such a big deal?" I whispered to Hermione.
"You don't know?!" Hermione said, shocked. "The most powerful dark wizard tried to kill him, and he survived. And he was only a few months old. That's actually where he got his scar from."
I was impressed. Not the fact that Harry was famous, but that he had survived. It didn't really make sense, but here he was, standing quite alive in front of me.
"I'm Malfoy. Draco Malfoy." Draco stuck his hand out for Harry to shake, smiling as he did so.
"Harry, I wouldn't hang out with this guy. He doesn't seem like the type you should be hanging out with." Ron whispered to Harry, but he had been loud enough for me and Hermione to hear.
"I'm good, thanks." Harry said, rejecting Draco's hand, and his friendship.
The crowd gasped in shock for the second time that night. Most everyone knew that the Malfoy family was very rich and very powerful, both in magic and authority in the Wizarding world.
Draco seemed as though he was about to retort, but at that moment Professor McGonagall re-entered the room.
"Come along students, it's time to be sorted."
The students followed Professor McGonagall into the Great Hall, which was absolutely gorgeous.
There were four long tables, one for each house. Banners of each house were situated above the table they corresponded with.
The warm glow had been coming from the massive amounts of candles situated in the air, floating.
The ceiling above us seemed as though it were made of glass, for we could see the night sky above us.
As I entered the room, I saw the twins near the front of the Gryffindor table. They waved and I waved back. They smiled wide and George winked at me; a wink that meant 'good luck'.
I giggled a bit, which caught Ron's attention.
"What are you laughing at?"
"You're brother is being a dork."
"When is he not?" Ron rolled his eyes.
Professor McGonagall held up a worn, brown hat. She went on to explain that this hat would be the thing to sort the students into their houses. The first years looked up in disbelief, unsure of how this old hat would sort them.
But after the first student went up to get sorted, it became clear that the hat was magical, as it began talking and shouting the house that the student belonged in.
Student after student went up to get sorted; it seemed as though I would never be called.
Ron and Hermione had been called up, they had been sorted into Gryffindor. Harry, while he had been up there longer than most other students, was eventually sorted into Gryffindor as well.
The Sorting Hat barely touched Draco's head before it loudly called out Slytherin. Draco went to sit with the Slytherin's with the biggest smile on his face.
As Professor McGonagall called my name, I couldn't help but stare longingly at the Gryffindor table. Every friend I'd made had been sorted into Gryffindor. I sincerely hoped that I would be too.
I sat down on the stool that the other first years had sat on. The hat was placed on my head and it immediately began talking.
"Well, well. Y/N L/N. I remember your father. Bright bloke, he was. You seem almost just like him. In fact" The Sorting Hat took a moment. "HUFFLEPUFF!" It yelled loudly.
A chorus of whooping and cheering erupted from the Hufflepuff table. I smiled, they seemed like friendly kids.
As I walked past the Gryffindor table towards the Hufflepuff table, I caught the twins', Ron, Hermione and Harry all looking at me. None of them seemed too happy to watch me walk towards the Hufflpuffs, and if I was being completely honest, I wasn't too happy about it either.
I'll see them around the school. Heck, I'm sure I could visit them in between classes or even after class hours.
I took a seat with the Hufflepuffs; being immediately greeted by the majority of the students around me.
As the sorting went on, each table cheered as students were sorted into their houses. I even found myself doing it.
Finally all of the first years had been sorted. A man at the front of the room stood up, and the Great Hall went silent.
The man was tall, thin and very old, judging by the silver of his hair and beard, which were both long enough to tuck into his belt. He was wearing long robes, a purple cloak which swept the ground and high-heeled, buckled boots. His blue eyes were light, bright and sparkling behind half-moon spectacles and his nose was very long and crooked, as though it had been broken at least twice.
"Welcome back students and welcome to all the new students. I am Headmaster Dumbledore and I sincerely hope that you all enjoy your time here at Hogwarts. Before our feast begins, I do have one announcement. The third floor corridor is off limits, unless you'd like to die an extremely painful death."
I looked around as students whispered nervously.
What was on the third floor that was so dangerous?
"With that out of the way" Dumbledore continued. "Let us begin the feast."
With a wave of his hands, delicious food descended from above the tables, seemingly out of thin air.
And it had been.
I looked at the glorious spread in front of me, excitedly grabbing as much food as I could in front of me. The students throughout the Great Hall chatted between shoving gob-fulls of food into their mouths.
I could hear snippets of conversations over at the Gryffindor table. I heard the twins' talking about Quidditch with Harry, Ron and Hermione arguing over whether the school had a library, and I even heard some kids fake vomit at the sight of some student's pet frog. Neville, I believed the student's name was.
"Why hello Friar!" I heard a third year Hufflepuff student say. The students gawked as a ghost, seemingly the size of a barrel, floated towards the student.
"Well hello Mr.Diggory! How was your summer?" the ghost asked.
"Quite good sir. Practiced as much as I could. This will be our year, I guarantee it!"
"I sure hope so! Well you're a great player Cedric, I'm sure you'll do great."
"Friar, meet the first years. We had quite a few get sorted into Hufflepuff this year." Cedric said.
The Friar looked towards the first years, and his face lit up with glee. "Well hello students! Very nice to meet you all!" The first years answered back, still stunned at the sight in front of them. The Friar said nothing else, but instead flew off to who knows where.
"House Ghost." Cedric said to the first years. "Every house has one." He took a bite of his food. "Better get used to seeing weird things around here." He smiled as he said this through the bite of food he'd just eaten.
That was the last thing Cedric said to the first years during the feast, figuring he had answered their questions. And for most of the students, he had.
But I was curious to know what Cedric meant by, 'better get used to seeing weird things around here'. I decided that, for now anyway, I would table those questions for another day and continue eating the large dinner I had so graciously been given.
As dinner wrapped up, the plates of the students were cleared magically, and I was about to get up, when more plates descended from the ceiling. This time with dessert. I felt stuffed, but deseret looked and sounded so good. I figured I could make room in my stomach.
And I did. I stuffed down pies, cakes, cookies and almost every treat imaginable; I could feel the regret in the morning already.
As dessert came to an end, I felt as though I could barely walk. I could feel my stomach threatening to burst open from the amount of food I had eaten. What an opening feast!
Dumbledore stood up and began to address the students. "First years, follow your prefects to your common rooms. You will find your luggage has been placed in the first year dorms. Now, off to bed with the lot of you."
The entirety of the Great Hall stood up and began to make their way to their respective common rooms. All of the first years stood quietly as they waited for their prefects to show them to the common room.
A young gentleman strolled up to the first year Hufflepuffs. "Hello First Years! I'm Gabriel Truman. Luckily, we don't have that long of a walk, seeing as the Hufflepuff common room is on the first level." Gabriel said. "Come along! Now on our way to the common room, I'll do my best to give a tour, but there's not much to see on the way there." He began walking, and the first years gathered in a large group and began to follow him.