I ended up taking out my copy of Easy Spells to Fool Muggles by Luca Caruso and browsing various camouflage spells for Novus. I only got a few pages before I also fell asleep.

I was cruelly awoken by my new friend shaking me awake. "Areti! Areti! Honestly Ret, get up!" The word up was punctuated with something hard hitting me on the shoulder. I sat up with a jolt.

"Ouch!" Trinity was looking at me with a sort of smirk. She'd hit me with my copy of Easy Spells to Fool Muggles, which now lay on the floor.

"Honestly, girl, you sleep hard. We're here!"

That cleared the thought of sleep from my head. I jumped up and looked out the window, spotting the magnificent castle standing over a beautiful lake. I frowned. "How're we getting to the castle? We're not… walking?"

Trinity laughed. "No, first years use boats to get across the lake."

I nodded, slightly relieved. "Oh. phew," I grinned. Then I looked around the compartment. Our things were strewn across the room, and neither of us was actually wearing our robes yet.

We hurried off the train. We were one of the last ones, but we did manage to get ready in time to not be left behind.

"Firs' years! Firs' years over here!" A great, tall, burly man with a greying beard stood near the edge of the tiny, dark platform they'd stepped onto.

"That's Hagrid!" Trinity gasped. "He's supposed to be the Care of Magical Creatures teacher, and I heard he's half-giant!"

I blinked. "Half-giant? How does that even work?"

Before she could answer we were shoved in the general direction of Professor Hagrid, and before I knew it we were in a small boat with a girl and a boy that I hadn't seen before.

Trinity grinned at the two. "Hello, I'm Trinity Harris, and this is Areti Runites." I smiled at them. "What're your names?"

The girl gave us a smile. "I'm Marietta Corner."

The boy looked at us for a second before making a gesture with his hands.

Marietta blinked. "Uh, what?"

The boy gave a sort of sigh and handed her a piece of parchment. She read it and gave an "Ohhhh." She looked up at us. "So, um, this is Joseph Calderon, and he's mute."

Joseph gave us a tired grin and waved at us.

"But how'll you do magic? Don't you need to speak to do spells?" Trinity blurted rudely.

Joseph winced, and I kicked Trinity's foot. "Spells don't need incantations, they're just easier with words." I tried to smile at Joseph. "Sorry she's being rude, she didn't mean to be insensitive."

He gave a sort of shrug. Then Marietta gasped. "Oi! We're here!"

We all hurried out of the boats, and I saw Albus and a blonde boy in front of the crowd, right on Professor Hagrid's tail. We made our way up a flight of stone steps and crowded around the huge, oak front door. Hagrid quickly counted us, and then knocked on the castle door.

The door opened, revealing a tall, red-headed wizard that stood there. "Thanks, Hagrid. I can take them."

We all crowded through the door and entered an entrance hall that was so big you could fit a no-maj house into it. We followed the wizard across the room, and I noticed we could hear hundreds of voices coming from a doorway. The wizard showed us into a small, empty chamber where we crowded in, standing closely together.

"Welcome to Hogwarts," said the wizard. "I am Professor Percy Weasley, and dinner will begin shortly. Before you eat in the Great Hall, you will all be sorted into your Houses. The Sorting is a very important ceremony because your House will be like your family. You will have classes with your house, sleep in your house dormitory, and spend free time in your house common room."

"The four Houses are Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and Slytherin. Each House has its own history and has produced brilliant witches and wizards. While you are at Hogwarts, you can earn House points, and any rule-breaking will lose House points. At the end of every year, the House with the most points will win the House Cup."

"The Sorting Ceremony will be in a few minutes, in front of the rest of the school. I shall return when we are ready for you," said Professor Weasley. "Please wait quietly."

He left, robes swishing behind him. I tried to swallow my nerves, twisting my robes nervously.

"No pressure," Trinity said sarcastically. "I don't think I like him."

"So how does this work?" I asked, petting Novus's head anxiously. "I don't quite know how we're sorted, being used to Ilvermorny and all that."

Marietta started explaining the Sorting Hat to me, and I noticed a few kids listening in. "Basically, there's this hat that can talk. Apparently, it used to belong to Godric Gryffindor, one of the four Hogwarts founders. So everybody takes turns trying on the hat, and the hat sort of… reads your mind. And then tells everyone what house you should be in."

That sounded nerve-wracking. "So we try on an ancient hat that intrudes on your thoughts and then tells everyone what your personality's supposed to be like? In front of everyone? That's just terrific."

Marietta winced. "It does sound bad when you say it like that, but I've never heard anyone that said anything too bad about the way Hogwarts sorts..."

"Right," said Professor Weasley, who'd returned. "The Sorting Ceremony is about to start, so line up and follow me."

I ended up in line directly behind Trinity, and with Joseph behind me. We all walked out of the chamber and through a pair of double doors, into the Great Hall.