The Hogwarts express rolled into the station and came to a slow stop. As with each of his previous four years at Hogwarts, Teddy Lupin was there at half past ten to see its arrival into platform nine and three quarters.
For each of his years at Hogwarts, he had travelled to the station on the first day of September with his grandmother and godfather. Harry always insisted that they arrive at the station half an hour early, ("Trust me, it is not fun to be late and either jumping on the train at the last second or missing it entirely.") Teddy always liked to be one of the first onto the platform, and he liked how it went from being eerily quiet to completely manic within such a short amount of time.
No sooner had he finished appreciating the quiet, a steady stream of students began to filter in from the handful of walls that led to various muggle train stations up and down the country. As Harry loaded his trunk on to the train for him, Teddy saw lots of familiar faces greeting one another with hugs and squeals of delight; he saw nervous looking first years whom he swore were even smaller than the now second years were when he saw them exactly a year ago; he saw teary-eyed parents, and eye-rolling children reassuring them and promising to write.
"All set, Ted," Harry said, patting him on the shoulder.
"Thanks Uncle Harry."
"You'll write to me if you need anything?" he asked, a frown wrinkling his forehead as it did every year.
"Even if I don't need anything," Teddy gave his usual reply before turning to his grandmother. "Bye, Gran, don't forget to feed my-"
"Your gillyfish, I know," she finished, smiling at him. I'll see you at Christmas, Teddy. Be good, do your homework, prepare for your OWLS."
"I know, I know. Uncle Harry already warned me about the workload this year. A lot."
Harry chortled. "Yeah well, I barely got through them with Hermione. You don't have anyone to spend the year pestering you and buying ridiculous homework planners that yell at you."
Teddy laughed and rolled his eyes. He was spared from further lectures by an extremely loud yell that came from the opposite end of the platform.
"TEDDY REMUS LUPIN YOU BEAUTIFUL GREEN-NO RED-NO BLONDE HAIRED BOY! GET OVER HERE!"
He didn't even have to look up to know that the shout had come from his best friend. Maxim ("Don't call me that shit-tastic name, it's Max for Christ sake,") Keller was one of Teddy's two Hufflepuff dorm friends, and easily the loudest person Teddy had ever met in his life. Teddy would often joke that he would get more peace and quiet in a room with every Weasley and Potter than alone with Max. He had gotten them kicked out of the library more times than Teddy could count.
"Hey, Max," Teddy grinned as Max jogged over to him, leaving his mum, dad, and younger brother to load his trunk onto the train (Max did nottravel lightly).
"Definitely blonde today then," Max said as a way of greeting Teddy. "Copying off me are you? That won't get you the girls you know."
Though he would never admit it Max was fiercely jealous of Teddy's Metamorphmagus. He frequently had his mother send him packages from home with varying muggle hair dye kits, having given up on trying to do it by magic when he accidentally turned himself bald, much to Teddy's amusement. Max ran his hand through his swept back golden blonde hair and cast a quick glance over his shoulder to see if a nearby group of sixth year Ravenclaws were watching. They weren't.
Max changed the subject. "Seen Giles anywhere?"
"Not yet. Shall we go find a compartment before they all fill up?"
Max nodded and quickly ran back to his family to say his farewells. Teddy allowed himself to be squeezed tightly by his Gran, and received another pat on the back from Harry. He stepped on to it with his backpack slung loosely over his shoulder, and his caged owl, Helga (a birthday gift from Harry and Ginny) in his hand.
The train was still relatively quiet; it wasn't due to leave for another ten minutes, so Teddy and Max found an empty compartment quickly. They were joined fairly soon after that by the third person from their dormitory, Giles Bell. Like Max, Giles was muggle-raised, though he was half-blood. Giles' wizard father had been absent from his life since he was a baby, though his mother had known he was a wizard and had always told Giles that he would go to Hogwarts at the age of eleven.
"Hello, fidius Achates!" he greeted as he plonked himself down in the seat next to Teddy.
"Fidius what now? Is that a spell or something?" Teddy asked.
"Fidius Achates," Giles repeated. "It means faithful friend. It's my-"
"Christ, are you still doing that word or phrase of the day shit?" Max interrupted with a groan. "I thought you would have grown out of that over the summer. Come on, we're OWL year students now."
"All the more reason to extend and improve my vocabularly," Giles quipped back. He leaned back in his seat, put his feet up on the empty chair next to Max, and put on a pair of black thick framed glasses he retrieved from his pocket. Giles eyesight had been described many times by professionals as perfect, much to his annoyance for he had a love of wearing glasses, and so he wore ones with fake lenses instead. He reached into his jacket once more and pulled out an all-too-familiar pocket dictionary, which he began flicking through.
"I have not missed that thing." Max eyed the book with a frown. "So, anything new and exciting happen over the summer?"
"Absolutely nothing," Teddy said dully. "Spent most of it at Uncle Harry's as usual. James is so good at Quidditch now. The kid's nine and already kicking my arse at it."
"Well, we can't all be as amazingly talented on a broomstick as me," Giles said without looking up from his dictionary. He had been Hufflepuff's seeker for the last two years, and would easily secure his spot again this year.
"Thing is though, his mum's an international Quidditch player and his dad's Harry Potter so he was always going to be amazing, wasn't he?" Max said. "Did you see much of the lovely Victoire?"
Giles lowered his dictionary, grinning.
"Do we have to do this? Yes, I saw Victoire. No, I do not fancy Victoire. No, she does not fancy me. And no, we did not snog."
"Oh come off it, Ted," Giles said, closing his dictionary now that he was fully interested in the subject of conversation.
"She's totally fit, how could you not?"
"Yeah," Max agreed fervently. "I mean, I'm gay and even I can appreciate those curves. She's part-veela, you have to fancy her. It's like the law of attraction or some bollocks like that."
"She's also just a friend," Teddy told them for what felt like the hundredth time in the last six months, "I've known her forever. She's a good friend, that's all."
Max and Giles threw each other a glance that quite plainly said yeah right, though thankfully neither of them pursued the subject.
When the snack trolley came around soon after, the three boys eagerly shoved their coins at the old witch and grabbed several handfuls of sweets and pastries each, piling them all on to the empty seat before digging in.
The rest of the journey to Hogwarts passed most uneventfully. Along the way, the three boys filled themselves with too many sugary snacks that left them longing for the savoury delights of the start of term feasts, a few of their classmates popped their heads in to exchange hellos and how were your summers. As the day grey darker out of the windows, they changed into their school robes.
When the train slowed to a stop in Hogsmeade station, there was the usual rush of movement and pushing to get out into the crisp autumn air and a little closer to the delicious Hogwarts feast. Max loudly voiced his frustration at being pushed around, yelling at some terrified looking first-years (who weren't actually to blame for it) that pushing him wouldn't make the feast start any quicker.
For the second time that day, Teddy heard a loud voice yelling his name. This time, it was Hagrid. Not wanting to shout all the way from the train to the dock where the boats for the first-years were waiting, Teddy flashed him a large grin and waved.
The three boys made their way among the crowd over to the carriages. It still fascinated Teddy that they didn't simply move on their own as it looked, and even though he had seen pictures of thestrals, he still couldn't actually picture them standing there waiting for their carriage to be filled so it could pull it towards the great castle in the near distance.
"You know, I think you made one of those first years cry…" Giles said, peering over his shoulder towards the boats as he clambered into a carriage.
"I stand by my actions. A galleon says that one doesn't get sorted into Gryffindor."
Teddy laughed. "I'm not taking that bet, there's no way he's a Gryffindor."
"I'll take it," Giles said confidently and outstretched his hand for Max to shake.
There was a buzz of excitement in the air when they finally entered the castle and made their way to the long Hufflepuff table in the Great Hall. Many of the students were already sat on the benches, chattering animatedly to one another as they awaited the first years.
Teddy sat down in the middle of Max and Giles and looked up at the staff table as he waited for the remainder of the students taking their seats. The sorting hat was perfectly still on its stool in front of the table. Professor McGonagall sat in the headmistresses chair in the centre, the seat to her left was empty; it belonged to the deputy headmistress Professor Sprout, whom Teddy knew would be waiting in the entrance hall now for Hagrid and the new students. Professor Longbottom was directly on McGonagall's left, looking terrified as he was talked at by a formidable man Teddy didn't recognise. He was completely bald, and even though Teddy was sat a little way away from him, he could see several veins running across the top of the man's head, he was also sporting the largest pair of ears Teddy had ever seen. He snorted loudly and then nodded in the direction of the mystery professor when his friends looked at him questioningly. They both began to stifle laughs behind their hands.
To their relief, a distraction came moments later in the form of the Headmistress standing up. A silence fell over the hall without her needing to say a single word. She sat down again and the hall doors swung open with a loud creak, and Professor Sprout walked briskly in, followed by a tight huddle that consisted of the first years.
She took her place by the Sorting Hat, and as always, Teddy was amused by how closely the pair were matched in their patched and frayed appearance. The hat opened its brim widely and began to recite its poem for that year:
Welcome back to Hogwarts,
It's the start of a new year.
Let me meet you, brand new faces,
And I'll sort you fair and square.
It's time for me to separate,
Your bright and fresh young minds.
So sit just here and put me on,
Let us see what this hat finds.
Will you go to Gryffindor?
Where the brave of heart belong.
Or will I call out Ravenclaw,
Whose intellect is strong?
You could be a true Hufflepuff,
A trusty and kind friend.
Or will it be to Slytherin,
Their ambition knows no end.
For a hat, I'm awfully wise,
I don't sit on the fence.
I know which house you belong to,
So let the sorting commence!
Once it had finished, Professor Sprout explained the process (much to the relief of some of the new students who were obviously expecting a lot worse) she took out a roll of parchment and read the first name.
"Adams, Emily?"
A plump red-faced girl stumbled forwards and placed the hat on her head with shaking hands. It deliberated for a moment and then yelled, "HUFFLEPUFF!"
Teddy cheered loudly along with the rest of his house and watched the girl take a seat a few people up from him.
Samson Bulmer was next to be sorted and practically ran to the Gryffindor table beaming. Liza Beaumont became the first Ravenclaw and then-
"Fitchley, Fraser?"
"Ooh, this is our boy!" said Max, sitting up so he could get a better view of the sandy-haired boy that he had made cry. "Get ready to pay up, Giles."
Fraser sat down on the tiny stool, the hat barely touched a hair on his head and-
"GRYFFINDOR!"
"YOU ARE JOKING ME!" Max yelled, and could be heard even over the cheers that had erupted from one table over. He whipped his head around to look at Giles. "You cheated."
"How could I have possibly cheated? Do you think I quickly bribed the sorting hat without you noticing?"
"Obviously not, but there's no way you would have guessed he was going to be a Gryff based on that five seconds you saw him and he cried. How did you know?"
"Okay, fine, you got me. I saw him at nine and three quarters this morning with Elaina Fitchley, it's her little brother."
"Who's Elaina Fitchley?" Teddy asked.
"Gryffindor prefect. She took points off me last year when I basically hadn't done anything and when I argued with her she gave me this full rant about her being a Hogwarts legend and all of her family had been Head Boy or Head girl and every single one of them was a Gryffindor. She's vile. Anyway I saw her this morning basically lecturing her brother not to let her or the family down and to live up to their reputation and all the rest of it. If her whole family was in Gryffindor, it's pretty likely he would have been too. So, one galleon was it?"
He stretched out his hand and grinned widely as Max dug into his pocket for a large gold coin and placed it in his palm.
Teddy returned his attention to the sorting, from Freemont, Liza all the way down to the name he had forgotten would be on the list of new students this year.
"Weasley, Louis?"
The last boy to be sorted had the trademark Weasley-Delacour platinum hair that seemed to be a source of light. He gave a huge grin to his sisters, Victoire and Dominique, who waved back from their seats at the Gryffindor table. He sat on the rickety stool and the hat was on his head for less than five seconds when it also placed him in Gryffindor. Louis practically skipped over and sat next to Victoire who greeted him with a hug.
There was the usual start of term announcements from McGonagall about not being permitted to enter the Forbidden Forest unless instructed, and making sure to read Flich's ever growing list of banned items that would be posted on common room notice boards. She then introduced the large-eared teacher as Professor Savage, who gave a curt nod of his head at the small scattering of applause. Teddy was please when Professor McGonagall finally announced the start of the feast.
The plates in front of them were filled with all of Teddy's favourites; crispy sausages, lamb and pork chops, every type of cooked potato known to man, gravy, pies, and somethings. Up and down the house tables, students were piling their plates high with more food than they had probably eaten in the entire summer.
The dinner was replaced with desert and Teddy helped himself to a ridiculously large helping of treacle sponge and custard, and thought fondly of his Uncle Harry who always told him it was the sticky sweet cake he missed the most of all the food the Hogwarts house elves had to offer.
It was with great difficulty that Teddy heaved himself off the bench when they were dismissed from the feast shortly after. He was always thankful that Hufflepuff's was the shortest walk from the Hall to their common room and dormitories.
They shuffled slowly along the corridor that held the large painting of a fruit bowl that would gain access to the kitchen, and tucked themselves into the nook that contained a stack of barrels.
Teddy stepped forward, took out his wand, and tapped out the rhythm of Helga Hufflepuff on the correct barrel. Its lid swung open, allowing Teddy to crawl through. He got to his feet and welcomed the sight of the familiar common room.
He had no idea what the other three common rooms looked like but he could safely bet none were as homely as this one. The circular room, with its low ceiling and constant feel of warmth that you only ever got on the back of your neck on a British summer day, felt like a huge hug. The walls and floor had an earthy feel, which was emphasised by the various plants that were dotted around the room care of their head of house. Teddy's favourites were the one that would join in with you if you sang a song to it, and another which swayed gently in an almost hypnotic way. Three quarters of the way around the room, just under the ceiling on the walls, were a series of round windows. Each of them showed the same view: long blades of grass dotted with dandelions, giving the room a further underground feel. The only part of the walls that had no windows was the patch directly above the gigantic fireplace, for it held a huge rectangular framed picture of their house founder. The paining of Helga Hufflepuff was awake, and greeting the students with a friendly wave.
Teddy was incredibly tempted just to plonk himself down for a rest in one of the squashy yellow armchairs that sat in front of the crackling fire, rather than dragging his very full self up the stairs to bed, but he knew if he sat down he would have fallen asleep in seconds. Instead, he waited for Giles and Max to come through the tunnel into the room, and then headed up the boys' staircase with them.
When they arrived at their dormitory, their trunks were already set at the foot of their beds waiting for them. There were only three beds in the room, all identical four posters made up with yellow and black bedding and matching hangings around the frame. Uncle Harry had told Teddy that he had shared his Hogwarts dormitory with four other boys, which was the average number of boys in each house, so when Teddy had started Hogwarts he had been confused as to why their number was so small. Harry had explained that the Hogwarts numbers for Teddy's year and the one after were bound to be small because not many witches and wizards had had children in the midst of the war. Sure enough, Teddy's entire year group consisted of only twenty one students.
Teddy was pleased when he finally pulled on his pyjamas and crawled into bed under the duvet. He, Max, and Giles managed to all mumble a sleepy goodnight to each other before their soft snores filled the room.