When the Hogwarts Express finally stopped at Hogsmeade station, the sky and the dark clouds therein were only slightly touched by the last few pink rays of the setting sun. With one final squeaky toot, the Express screeched to a halt, and the students started to exit the scarlet train.

Albus, now dressed in the black robes that he had bought in Diagon Alley, followed his Weasley cousins off the train, glancing out the window as he went to get at least a partial look at the village they'd arrived in through the smoke of the train and the crowds of students already bustling around the platform. The station was decorated with violet garlands dusted with twinkling gold stars, perhaps some kind of welcome to the arriving students, and the little bit of Hogsmeade that Albus could see was lit up by many small lights, highlighting the many windows of the businesses and homes in the village.

As he passed an open window, the black-haired boy could hear a gruff voice outside the train calling, "Firs' years! Firs' years over here!"

"That'd be Hagrid," Albus said to Rose with a grin.

He jumped down the steps off of the train and looked for Hagrid. It didn't take long to find him, considering that the gray-bearded half-giant towered over everyone easily.

"Firs' years! C'mon, firs' years, don' be shy!"

Waving goodbye to their Weasley cousins as they went to go join their friends in the carriages, Albus and Rose squeezed through the crowd to gather with the other first-years.

"Hagrid!" Albus called ahead when they were about six feet away.

At the sight of Harry Potter's younger son, Hagrid immediately beamed, his large face entirely wrinkling up with his smile.

"Ah, there y' are, Al! I was tryin' to catch sight o' you."

His beetle-black eyes twinkled fondly. "'Course, it was a little difficult...yeh look so much like yer dad, I though' I was twenty-five years younger fer a minute."

He brought a giant hand down to ruffle Albus's hair; Albus felt like his whole body was being shaken in the process.

"An' Rosie! Gosh, yeh look like yer mother, how did yeh grow up so fast?"

When Hagrid removed his hand, Albus couldn't help but instinctively brush his hair out of his face so it could lie flat again. As he did so, he noticed three particularly short girls who had just come up toward the group of first-years.

They were huddled so close together they looked almost like the three-headed runespoor snake that Albus had read about in his copy of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. The first head had a plump face framed by a mass of dark brown curls, the second had thick dirty-blond hair and a sharply pointed nose, and the last had her lank, dull brown locks tied back with what looked like a large pale pink bow strung through a lace doily. From their guarded body language and the distance they put between themselves and their peers, it almost seemed like they were trying to somehow stay with and yet outside the group at the same time. Albus wondered for a brief moment if they thought all the other first-years had some horribly contagious disease they didn't want to catch, until he saw the girl with the doily in her hair shoot a look at Hagrid that seemed visibly condescending.

The young Potter frowned in their direction, but it didn't make much of a difference since they weren't looking at him.

"Well, come alon', then!" Hagrid brightened up at once as he looked around at the gathered first-years. "Follow me, you lot - this way t' th' boats!"

He turned and started trudging past the train rails down a narrow dirt path away from the station, and the first-year students strolled quickly at his heels to keep up with him.

As they moved further through the little grove of dark trees, Albus glanced around at the group of about fifty kids around him.

At the far back of the crowd was Malfoy, his pale, pointed face proud and focused despite the visible berth between him and the rest of his classmates. Not far away from Rose two boys, one with messy auburn hair and a bulbous nose and the other with bright blond hair and a slightly orange tan, were animatedly debating under their breath whether or not the Appleby Arrows would make a comeback after their appalling Quidditch season. When he faced forward again, Albus quickly noticed the strange girl from the train, Sam Fina, strolling alongside Hagrid, her face holding none of the fear or hesitation that the short trio of girls had shown - she instead seemed to be very focused on the lump bustling around inside one of Hagrid's moleskin coat pockets.

"Do you have a pet toad?" Albus caught her asking.

"Toad? Aw, nah," Hagrid denied jovially. "Jus' a little somethin' fer me lessons."

He brought a large hand into his pocket to fish out what looked like a gray lobster with green spots speckled all over its shell. It was lucky that the half-giant was hanging onto it by its tail; it was swinging every which way trying to grab at him with its claws.

"A Mackled Malacaw," he told the instantly interested Sam. "Funny little bugga - plan t' show it t' me third-year class, I reckon they'll get a kick outta 'im - "

Albus couldn't help but think that the class would like it fine as long as they didn't have to worry about being pinched.

A chocolate-haired boy with a smile that dwarfed his other features pushed lightly past Albus to see the Malacaw better.

"Wicked! So that's for the Care of Magical Creatures class?"

"Yep, tha's righ' - ah-ah-ah, don' touch!" Hagrid yanked it back when the boy extended a hand as if to try to touch it. "One pinch from one o' these guys an' th' next week yeh'll have summa th' worse luck you've eva had in yer life! Yeh're gonna hafta wait fer third year, boy..."

Albus reaffirmed the thought that Hagrid's third-year class would like the Malacaw just as long as it didn't pinch them.

Rose seemed to agree, for she spoke up at that moment with a frown meekly twisting onto her freckled features.

"Shouldn't you tie up their claws, then, Hagrid...so that no one gets hurt?"

Hagrid chuckled. "Aw, Rosie, no one's gonna get hurt - as I said, all the claws're gonna do is give you bad luck, they ain't gonna kill yeh."

"Not unless you're unlucky enough to get in a situation that kills you," Albus thought he heard a voice mutter behind him. When he glanced over his shoulder, he saw Malfoy walk to the right of the group just past him. Even with his movement, though, the berth between the blond-haired boy and the other first-years seemed not to shift.

Merlin, does he think he's better than everyone else or something? Albus couldn't help but think.

At that moment, however, a great "Ooooh!" from some of the other first-years made him look ahead again. Squeezing a bit between Hagrid and Sam Fina, he could see what had prompted the outcry.

They had arrived at the lake, which had many small boats lit with golden lanterns lined up along the shore, and across the rippling dark water, on the high mountain overlooking it, was Hogwarts castle, its spiraling turrets arching up as if to touch the first few stars to dot the evening sky. All of the castle's many stone towers had lights in their windows, as had the windows of Hogsmeade village, and the flickering dots of gold almost seemed to wink in greeting at the awed group of first-years.

"No more'n four to a boat!" Hagrid called, gesturing to the boats with his large hand brusquely even if he couldn't help but beam at the children's reactions. "Come on, now, in yeh go!"

Albus quickly shot out of his reverie in time for the students behind him to abruptly shove past him to grab a place in the boats. Many of them were taller than him, and so he ended up being tossed about in the large crowd like a sock in a washing machine.

When he finally pushed his way out, he ran over to catch up with Rose, who had already climbed into a boat with the brown-haired boy who had been interested in the Mackled Malacaw.

"Come on and sit here, Al!" said Rose.

The brown-haired boy shifted over to let him in, a large grin taking up most of his face.

"Hey there!" he greeted, grabbing hold of Albus's hand to shake it with a lot of vigor. "Name's Kevin, Kevin Wood - and you'd be Al?"

Albus nodded awkwardly, smiling as sincerely as he could as he detached his hand from the overly cheerful handshake.

"Y - yeah - nice to meet you."

He didn't really feel like saying his last name in return - people tended to treat James, Lily, and him funny when they knew their name was Potter, likely because of how famous their dad was.

"No, boy, yeh can't sit in a boat by yehself, there ain't enough fer tha' - I'm sure there's someone who'll let yeh sit with 'em, if yeh jus' ask nicely - "

Albus turned around to see Malfoy standing next to Hagrid. Rose looked over too and at once looked disdainful.

"Looks like Malfoy thinks he's too good to sit with normal people,"she scorned coldly.

Albus had thought the same thing considering how Hagrid had answered, but at that moment Malfoy, despite a great reluctance in his face, went up to the boat with the three small girls in it and asked very quietly,

"May I sit with you?"

The chubby girl with the curly black-brown hair shot a fearful look at the other two. The girl with the doily in her hair gave Malfoy a look more suitable for a squashed bug.

"No," she said very coldly.

There was a mutter between the students. Hagrid looked quite startled.

"Wha - ?"

"We don't want him in our boat," the girl reiterated.

The half-giant frowned deeply. "Aw, c'mon, lass - that's no way t' treat one o' yer classmates!"

"He's no classmate of ours," the sharp-nosed girl with dirty-blond hair retorted coldly. "He's nothing but a traitor - just like his traitor father!"

Hagrid, not used to his authority being questioned, acted very awkward.

"C'mon now, yeh don' hafta be judgin' his fam'ly - yeh don' hafta be friends with him, yeh just have t' share a boat with him fer a couple o' minutes - "

"I'm not sharing anything with him!" spat the sharp-nosed girl.

It seemed like a lot of the other first-years were echoing that sentiment, considering the looks on their faces and the cluster of arguing voices that popped up in response - yet despite this, Malfoy never lost the proud straightness in his posture, even though his averted gray eyes betrayed the hurt that he refused to blatantly show on his face.

Albus felt a rush of sympathy despite himself, and before he knew it, he had shouted over the rising crescendo of voices.

"He can sit here!"

Everyone turned around to look at him, their faces taken aback.

"Al, what are you doing?" Rose hissed at him.

His freckled face burning, Albus avoided Rose's eyes and instead looked at Malfoy, who had turned to face him out of surprise.

"You can sit here, Malfoy. ...There's room for one more," he finished a bit stupidly.

Malfoy studied Albus for a long, long moment, his gray eyes boring into him with something not unlike suspicion. Albus couldn't help but swallow uncomfortably at the harshness of the stare, but he refused to blink. Everyone seemed to be holding their breath.

Then, rather like when Sam Fina had asked to sit in his compartment, Malfoy gave a silent nod, and slowly walked over. Glancing at Kevin, who looked a little awkward, and Rose, who deliberately avoided eye contact with him, the pale boy climbed into the boat and settled down next to Albus without a word.

Hagrid, looking immensely relieved that the problem had been resolved, clapped his hands.

"Ah! Very good, very good - all righ' now, time t' get movin' - "

Bustling over to the shore, he climbed into his own boat, the largest of them with a red-colored lantern hanging from it.

"FORWARD!" he shouted cheerfully.

All at once, the little boats began to move across the lake with about as much up-and-down movement as a toy boat being dragged across a laminate floor. The water of the lake under them, endless with how dark it was, captured the reflections of the students still looking with great awe at the castle above. Albus couldn't keep the biggest of smiles from unfurling on his face at the sight, entertained simply by looking over the large towers and counting how many twinkling lights were in the windows. It was even better than he had imagined it in his mind while hearing stories from his father and James.

The first boats came up upon a cliff; Hagrid yelled, "Heads down!" at the first-years, and they all ducked as they moved through a curtain of ivy to enter a cave in the large mountain that supported Hogwarts. Through the tunnel they went, the light of their lanterns guiding them through the black, until at last they reached the end, in the form of a miniature dock made of stone.

The boats stopped by themselves, and Albus got to his feet, stumbling to climb out of the boat. Rose, Malfoy, and Kevin followed after him, and they and he joined the gathered bunch of first-years beside Hagrid. Up through a passageway they went, and suddenly they were on grass, strolling up to the castle that they had only just before stared at from across the lake.

It looks even bigger from up close, Albus thought to himself, before considering that that was a stupidly obvious thing to have thought.

Up some stone stairs was the castle's front door, large and made of oak, upon which Hagrid gave a great KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK with his large fist.

At once, the door opened, and Albus's heart leaped at the sight of a familiar face.

Dressed in a handsome set of gold-trimmed brown robes was a young man slightly short for his age with a plump, friendly face, a large, thin nose, and deep dirty-blond hair. His dark brown eyes were small, but they twinkled brightly at the sight of Hagrid and the young students.

"There you are, Hagrid!" Neville Longbottom greeted. "I was starting to think that something had happened."

"We hadda...little problem a' th' start," Hagrid admitted, adjusting his feet in a slightly awkward manner.

"Well, no harm done," Longbottom replied.

He took his wand out from inside his robes, turning his head to smile at the students.

"I'll take you from here. This way, first-years!"

With a light tap-tap of his wand on the oak, the door opened wide to reveal the large stone entrance hall, trimmed with flaming torches and a high, domed ceiling.

Longbottom turned around and started to walk through the hall, and the first-year students followed him in, their footsteps clapping against the stone of the floors. They went up a staircase, trying to stay together, and finally stopped in front of a massive pair of double doors. In the wood was carved many shapes of lions, eagles, badgers, and serpents, all enclosed in the winding vines that framed each of the panels of the humongous doors.

"Welcome!" said Longbottom, as he turned again to look at the students. "I am Professor Longbottom, Deputy Headmaster and Herbology professor here at Hogwarts. You might remember me from your Hogwarts letter."

A few students did - Sam's eyes seemed to have lit up at once, and the plump black-haired girl from the runespoor trio shifted slightly at the sound of the name - but most of the students glanced at each other, seemingly unsure.

Longbottom, however, didn't seem to mind; rather, his buck-toothed smile widened a bit.

"I only said you might, I don't mind if you don't."

The students that hadn't recognized his name visibly relaxed, smiling in return. Longbottom then continued,

"All right - in here is the Great Hall. All of the other students and teachers are already inside, but before you can join them, and before we can start dinner, you have to be sorted into your houses. While you're here, your house will be like your family - you'll eat with them, sleep with them, have classes with them, and spend a lot of your time with them. If you do well here, you'll earn points for your house...and if you break rules, you'll lose points. At the end of the year, the house with the most points is awarded the House Cup - take it from me, it's awfully fun to win."

"How will we know who's winning?" asked Kevin, who seemed to love the idea of winning something.

"We have four hourglasses to keep track of things," Longbottom answered.

He gave a sweeping gesture to a set of four large hourglasses hung up on the wall next to the doors, all of which had a house name written above them, gems enchanted to stay in the top half, and a golden plaque on the base that said how many points each house had. In the one marked Gryffindor, the gems were rubies, in Hufflepuff tiny gold nuggets, in Ravenclaw sapphires, and in Slytherin emeralds. Albus noticed that Gryffindor and Slytherin's plaques both had "-5" chiseled into them and thought that Victoire must have already gotten approval to discipline James and the three fifth-year Slytherin boys.

"Two of our houses already lost some points because people were picking fights on the train," Longbottom stated simply, in response to some of the kids looking confused. "So try to keep your tempers, all right?"

He cleared his throat, and then smiled again.

"Now you all wait here for a moment - I'll come back when we're ready for you. Try not to wander off!"

With that he opened one of the doors, giving only a fleeting peek at the candlelit Hall within, before walking in and closing the door behind him.

The students at once started chattering, the different conversations fumbling over each other so that the group of kids sounded like a buzzing beehive.

Albus felt his stomach drop a few inches. He'd been really excited to see the castle and even to be inside it, but the reminder of being Sorted seemed to make all of the nerves he'd had on Platform Nine-and-Three-Quarters flood him all over again.

Someone put a hand on his shoulder. Albus nearly jumped in response, but upon turning around, he saw it was only Rose and instantly relaxed.

"Just about time, then, huh?" said the redhead, offering a weak smile.

"Yeah," Albus muttered. After a moment, he added, "...Are you nervous?"

"Incredibly," assented Rose under her breath.

"Aw, you shouldn't be nervous!" said Kevin, butting into their conversation. "Meeting everyone is sure to be fun...and all of the houses sound pretty cool!"

"All except Slytherin, you mean," said the blond-haired boy with the orange tan who had been debating Quidditch on the platform with another boy.

"Yeah, yeah, of course," Kevin quickly corrected himself. "I thought that was a given, though."

"What's so bad about Slytherin?" Sam piped up curiously.

A lot of the students turned to look at her, most with a visibly condescending way. Albus, however, felt uncomfortable.

"It's evil, that's what!" said a tiny boy with a slight overbite.

"All Dark wizards come from Slytherin," a boy with skin slightly darker than Fred and Roxanne's chipped in.

"And all Slytherins are great big cowardly prats," added a girl with a bright blond ponytail.

"Is that so?"

Albus turned around toward the runespoor trio of girls, all of whom looked annoyed.

"Are they cowardly because they don't waste their time saving people all the time," continued the brown-haired girl, "or is it because they're actually smart enough to not get themselves killed?"

"Who asked you anyway, Nott?" snapped the dark-skinned boy.

"Yeah, we all know where you're going to end up," the boy with the orange tan agreed coldly.

"Nott"...Albus thought the name sounded familiar, but he couldn't quite remember where he'd heard it. Fortunately for him, Rose did.

"Her father works in the Department of Magical Transportation," she muttered at Albus. "Theodore Nott. Her grandfather was a Death Eater."

As soon as his cousin mentioned Theodore Nott, Albus remembered one of the few people that had bothered to talk to Mr. Malfoy at a Ministry Christmas function one year - a very tall and weedy gentleman with a leer-like smile and lank dull brown hair. As soon as he thought of the man, he could see the resemblance between him and the girl with the doily in her hair.

"Perhaps it is obvious," the girl with thick dirty-blond hair next to Nott shot back as she straightened up proudly, "but we'll take pride in it all the same - especially if it means we won't be stuck with filth like you, Cottingley."

Cottingley brought an orange hand up as if to take out his wand, but the auburn-haired boy he'd been talking to earlier grabbed onto his arm.

"Doyle, no," he said firmly, before glancing at the runespoor trio with immature reproach in his face. "We don't need to start a fight in the middle of the entrance hall."

"We don't start fights," the dirty-blond-haired girl answered coolly. "We only finish them - if they're worthy of being finished."

"Then I suppose Muggle-borns started the Second War, Mulciber?" retorted the girl with the blond ponytail. "I guess in your family's alternative history, they were just pleading to get killed off."

A crowd of voices jeered agreement in response, but before the three girls or anyone else could make another point, Professor Longbottom interrupted the argument with his return.

He glanced around at the gathered students as they fell silent - from the look in his eyes, Albus could guess he figured out that there was nearly a fight. Even if he did, however, the professor chose not to mention it.

"Well, come along, then!" he said brightly, offering a smile as he gestured toward the door to the Great Hall. "We're waiting for you."