A/N—I don't own this. J.K. Rowling owns Harry Potter and all the characters and places.

"Whoa..." James stopped abruptly, and behind him Peter tripped over his trunk.

"What is that?" Peter squeaked, hiding behind Sirius, staring up at the man before them.

A tall—very tall—man stood in front of the little group, his bushy black beard puffing out from his face and sprawling over ruddy cheeks. His black eyes sparkled as he looked down at them.

"That's a giant," Sirius said, and Peter slid towards the ground. Remus tut-tuted softly, and Sirius looked at him, motioning towards the giant. "Well, if he's not a giant, then what is he?"

"A half-giant," Remus stated, shifting his pile of books as he searched for something. His fingers scrabbled at the spine of a particularly thick book, and he tried to get a hold on it. James reached out and pulled the book from the pile and handed it to Remus, who promptly put down his stack of books—why couldn't he have done that earlier?—and flipped through the pages of The Complete Book of Magical Creatures, talking all the while.

"Giants stand at 22 to24 feet,"—here he held up the book, displaying a diagram on the page—"but this man's not even 15."

"How do you know?" Sirius retorted.

"Because I'm 4'10", and this man's about 3 of me, which would make him around 14 ½ feet."

Peter's face was pink as he tried to follow along with Remus' train of thought, and Sirius was holding up his hands, visually adding up the total. James didn't even try.

The half-giant laughed loudly, making every one of them jump.

"Oh, very good! Clever, 'en't we, eh?"

Remus flushed and looked at his feet.

"I bet I know where yer goin'. Meh name's Hagrid."

"Hello, Hagrid," Remus said, and James and the others greeted him likewise. Hagrid smiled at them and ruffled Remus' hair before saying,

"But come on, now! Firs' years, come along this way!"

He swung his lantern towards the shadowy platform, illuminating a small group of boats.

"Boats?" Sirius asked. "Boats?" He grinned. "This is awesome!"

Around them, other children were crowding into carriages. Peter looked wistfully at them, starting to protest with an "Oh, can't we go in the—" before he screamed,

"There aren't any horses!"

Remus and James both turned to look, and quickly affirmed Peter's declaration. The carriages weren't drawn by anything. There was nothing there.

"What?" Remus whispered.

"Thestrals. They can only be seen by people who have...who have seen someone die. They're spectral horses, though a lot larger and they're mostly harmless, so long as you don't bother them and don't harm their young." It was Sirius speaking.

"Have you seen someone die?" James asked.

Sirius shook his head. "Nope. But my brother is mortally afraid of anything he can't see, so I learned all about them. He still thinks that a thestral lives beneath his bed and eats his socks, and I told him that two years ago." He laughed. "Once I actually made a fake thestral model and put it under his bed. He screamed for an hour."

They had moved towards the boats as Sirius related his tale, and James whooped, punching Sirius on the arm.

"Awesome!"

"It was funny," Remus said, wiping at his eyes.

"But how could you do such a thing to your brother?" Peter asked unhappily.

Sirius looked at him.

"Because my...never mind. It was a joke. Like what your brother plays on you all the time."

"My brother doesn't play pranks on me."

"Oh. Well. I guess I'll have to fix that by being the brother that does." Sirius accompanied this statement with a pat on the back, and Peter yelped as a chocolate frog hopped on his neck and into the water.

They laughed all the harder as they got into the boats, until Sirius said,

"Now, stay away from the water, or the Giant Squid will eat you."

Remus and Peter both paled, and Remus began flipping through his book frantically, trying to read the entry on the Giant Squid by lantern light.

"He's kidding," James said when he saw that Peter was about to cry. It had been a great joke, he thought, but he didn't want Peter crying in front of the whole school. "Okay. Ask Remus. The Giant Squid is harmless."

Remus nodded, and shot a grumpy glare at Sirius. His research had proved Sirius to be kidding, and he apparently hadn't liked being tricked.

Sirius grinned. "Tricked you."

They managed to pass the rest of the boat ride in silence, because when they saw the huge castle, Peter and Remus were too awed to speak, and James and Sirius were content to stare happily at the place they had so long wished to see.

"Come along, up the stairs, this way, firs' years!" Hagrid called as they moored the boats and stepped out onto the stone steps.

"Gryffindor," James muttered to himself. "Please..."

"I'll be a Slytherin," Sirius told him, having heard James' plea. "So whatever you get, you're going to be better than me."

"You don't strike me as a Slytherin type," Remus said matter-of-factly. "You seem like a Gryffindor."

"My whole family is in Slytherin, Remus. I'm doomed."

Peter began to sob. "I don't want to get sent home!"

An already jittery young girl behind them heard Peter's cry and began to wail that "she didn't want to go home, either!" Soon most of the first years were weeping at the thought of being sent home.

"There ain't anyone who's goin' to be sent home," Hagrid assured them as he led them through a pair of large doors. "No one's goin' home. Everyone who gets a letter has a place somewhere. You just might end up in Hufflepuff..."

That made a few children cry harder, though the majority were soothed by Hagrid's words.

"Thank you, Hagrid," a stern voice said, and they all turned to look up at a woman in green who stood before another set of closed doors. She held a roll of parchment in one hand.

"Welcome to Hogwarts," she said. "My name is Professor McGonagall. I am head of Gryffindor house."

"Ugh," Sirius muttered. "She looks fun."

"Each and every one of you, as Hagrid said just now, has received a letter. That means that you have a place in Hogwarts. Let me assure that that no one will be sent home because they don't belong here. If you're sent home, it's for disciplinary reasons."

Everyone sighed in relief.

"When you enter the Great Hall, you will head for the teacher's podium, where you'll be sorted into your House. You cannot switch houses, and you cannot trade. When I call your name, step forward."

McGonagall opened the doors and ushered them all in down the center aisle, towards the large table at the front.

A small stool with a battered hat sat at the edge of the podium, and the children whispered agitatedly, trying to figure out what it was for. McGonagall stood by the stool, and opened her scroll, reading out the first name.