Chapter 4: Late Arrivals
A few minutes of silence went by, and then there was a knock on the glass of the compartment door.
James looked up from his cards spread across the vacant seat and recognized the girl immediately.
"Sirius!" he gasped, turning around to look at him.
"What?" he answered, but James had gotten up to open the compartment door.
"Hi," he said.
"Hello. Do you mind if I sit with you? Everywhere else is full."
"No, not at all," he motioned toward the seat scattered with Chocolate Frog cards, but she sat in his seat instead.
"Thanks. My name is Lily."
She was a very pretty young girl, 11, with reddish-brown hair and brilliant green eyes.
'Lily..' James thought, 'Pretty name..' "I'm, uh.." He snapped his fingers, hoping his name would come to him.
"James," Sirius said from the corner, grinning.
"What?" he said, turning to Sirius.
"That's your name isn't it?"
"Wha- OH, yeah!"
Lily laughed at him and his ears turned pink.
"Yes, my name is James," he said, trying to smile, "James Potter."
"I'm Remus Lupin," he said, looking up from one of his new school books.
She smiled and said hello. "And you are?" she said, looking over to where Sirius was, obviously paying no attention at all.
"What, huh, sorry."
"Your name," she said, waiting for an answer.
"Oh, I'm Sirius."
"Sorry?"
"Sirius Black. Sirius with an 'i' instead of an 'e'."
"Oh!" she laughed at herself. "Sorry about that. What're you doing?" she asked James, who was sitting on the floor, playing with his cards.
"Chocolate Frog cards," he looked up and smiled at her. She smiled back.
Sirius started laughing at him. Just then, the lunch cart came by.
"Anything off the trolley, dears?" the young witch, about mid-twenties with wavy brown hair, said.
"Mhm," James mumbled. "I'll take all the Chocolate Frogs, a box of Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans, and uh, what do you all want?"
"I'm fine," Remus said.
He looked over at Lily.
"Oh, that's quite all right."
Sirius, on the other hand got up and started examining the cart. James pushed him aside and said, "Hey! You buy your own."
"Nine Sickles," the witch said, and James handed over nine shiny silver Sickles and picked up the entire display of Chocolate Frogs.
James threw the box of Chocolate Frogs into Remus' lap.
"I told you I'd buy you some."
"Some, but not the lot of them!" he looked astounded and opened a box.
"Oh, careful. They've only got one jump in them."
It hopped onto Remus' jacket and he caught it.
"Mmm," he said, swallowing the frog whole. "Thanks."
"Don't mention it. What card have you got?"
"Remus took out the card and flipped it over. "Dumbledore!" he shouted.
He continued to open the boxes and gave Lily, James, and Sirius (sitting beside his pile of candy) the chocolate frogs after he ate his fill.
"So," James said, opening his shoe box of cards. "Who do you want to trade?"
They sat there and traded cards for at least an hour.
The scenery outside the train changed constantly, gradually getting darker. They passed over lakes, through a dark forest and through a field spotted with cows.
Everyone looked like they were having a good time. Laughing, telling jokes, getting better acquainted with Lily, then, all of a sudden, the train stopped.
James popped his head out of the compartment.
The Prefect they had saw earlier was walking down the corridor.
"Is everyone all right?" he called. No one answered. "Please stay calm and do not go out of your compartments. We are currently trying to get information on about why the train has stopped. We will come back to inform you later."
But he never came back.
About another hour later, another Prefect opened the compartment door.
"We'll be arriving in a half an hour. Please change into your robes," and she left before James had a chance to ask why the train had stopped.
Fifteen minutes later, they were all in their robes and Remus and James was putting up their cards, Remus looking sad that he had to put them away, but happy that they had at last reached Hogwarts.
Soon after, the train started to slow down again, and finally came to a stop.
"We're here!" shouted Remus, his nose pressed against the window.
Sirius laughed. "Come on, you guys. We gotta go now."
Sirius walked out of the compartment, James, Remus and Lily following close behind.
"I'm going to go find my friend, Scarllette, ok?" Lily called from the back. "I'll see you guys later!"
They stepped off the train into a crowd of students, all compacted together because there was little room.
"Don't worry, you'll see her again," Sirius said, slapping James on the back, almost knocking him over.
"Yeah. You're right," he said.
"Firs' years, over here! Firs' years!"
They all turned in the direction the voice was coming from.
There, amidst a crowd of anxious first years was the biggest man they had ever seen in their entire life. He wore a huge jacket with pockets you could easily fit a goblin into, carried a lantern, and had bushy black hair and a wild beard. Twice as tall as any normal man, and five times as wide.
Sirius' mouth dropped. "Wow," he said, still staring.
"Come on now, hurry it up!" he called again.
They all walked over toward the crowd, their eyes still on the man.
"Follow me, then," he said and turned toward the lake. "Five to a boat only, please. Don't want yer to be sinkin' now do we?" he said with a laugh.
"James!" Lily called, dragging behind her a girl her age with long dark brown hair and brown eyes. The girl took off her glasses and rubbed them on her robes. "This is my friend, Scarllette! The one I was telling you about. This is James, Remus, and that's Sirius, with an 'i', not an 'e'," she laughed and they all said hi.
She seemed a bit shy at first, but managed a hello and stood quietly beside Lily, looking in the direction of Remus. She went red when his eyes met hers, and they both looked down immediately.
"Come on now, in a boat ye go!" the giant of a man said, pushing all five of them toward a boat with one very large hand.
They all climbed in and soon all the boats were slowly rowing themselves across the dark watered lake, the reflection of Hogwarts shining brightly in the water.
The night air was cool as they drifted toward the school, while the castle towered high and majestically into the midnight blue sky, with stars strewn across it, shining brightly. The Milky Way was just over head and was as bright as ever. The moon was out, adding more light to the lake in addition to the little lanterns that hung on the ends of long poles at the front of the boats.
Often, many of the first years screamed because they thought they saw giant purple tentacles rising out of the water.
The giant reassured them that their eyes were playing tricks on them, but as soon as they reached the shore, he told them that their eyes were just fine, and that there was, in fact, a giant squid in the lake.
A few more shouts rose into the air and one girl with dirty blond hair and a short button nose yelled, "I knew it!"
"Din' want ye to be frightened or anything. Besides. I think 'e likes you lot," he said smiling. "By the way, I am Rubeus Hagrid. Keeper of keys and grounds at Hogwarts. You can call me Hagrid though, everyone does. On we go, then."
They all turned and made their way to the dark castle glowing in the moon light.
Hagrid pushed open the massive wrought iron gates and held them open.
"Have a good year!" he called after them, closing the gates as the last of the students ran through as though he would eat them if they didn't run fast enough.
Remus wearily looked at the moon and sighed.
"What?" James asked, looking from Remus' eyes, following them to the moon.
Remus shook his head and looked away.
The crowd pushed their way through the entrance and waiting for them at the top of the marble staircase was one of the professors in emerald green robes with a black pointed hat sitting atop her neatly cared for black hair. Glasses on the end of her nose, she looked over top them and smiled warmly.
"In a few moments, you will be walking in through those doors," she motioned to the entrance of the Great Hall, "and be sorted into your Houses. Now the four Houses are as followed: Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff, and Slytherin." She looked over the crowd, some of them shaking hands with other students, an expression of confidence on their faces, while others looked scared and nervous like they were about to faint.
She turned around, walked up to the doors and pushed them open.
Several gasps filled the air and the professor walked quickly up the middle to the front.
Four tables filled the gigantic room, each one seated dozens and dozens of second through seventh years in black robes and black pointed hats, like the ones that were called for on their robes list.
At the very front of the Great Hall, a very long table sat perpendicular to the other tables. The big gold chair in the middle seated the long-haired Headmaster. To his right, was an empty chair, followed by seats filled with one half of the teachers, while the other side was seated the other half of the teachers.
In front of the them sat an old three-legged stool, and sitting on top of it was an old wrinkly hat.
"Line up along here please. Now when I call your names, please step up to be sorted." She picked up the old hat and released a finger holding the roll of parchment in the other hand. It rolled down to the floor and rolled off somewhere in front of a first year.
"Allen, Marietta" was the first to be sorted.
A rip near the brim of the hat opened up and seemed to be muttering to itself. The girl on the stool looked frightened and nearly fell of the seat when it shouted "Ravenclaw!"
The table of Ravenclaw's erupted into fits of applause and whistles. When the noise ceased, the next frightened first year stepped up.
Sirius fidgeted next to James.
"Are you ok?" he asked, looking as Sirius.
"Yeah, it's just.. the lot of my family has been in Slytherin. I don't want to be in Slytherin."
"Don't worry about it. You're good enough to be in Gryffindor!" He turned around and the Sorting Hat had yelled out "Hufflepuff!" and a girl with long black shining hair walked over to the table and sat down.
"Black, Sirius," the professor called and Sirius stared at James for a moment, shook off his nervousness and stepped up to the stool. He shut his eyes and the hat began to move.
"Yes, yes.. I see your family's been in Slytherin, but there's something different about you. Yes.. it's all here in your mind. All right then. Gryffindor!" the hat shouted and the Gryffindor table welcomed its fourth new Gryffindor of the night. Sirius looked relieved to get down from the chair. He shot a thumbs up at James, said good luck and James nodded.
Time seemed to have gotten a lot slower now that his name was coming up. It seemed that the Sorting Hat took a longer time on the next head as it had on the one before. He drifted off into space, looking around at the ceiling. It looked like the night sky, the stars above him twinkling merrily.
"It's bewitched you know. To look like the night sky," whispered a voice over next to his ear. It was Lily.
He looked at her and smiled.
"Evans, Lily."
"Oh, dear," she said, and she walked to the front of the crowd.
"Good luck!" James yelled after her. She turned and smiled.
She sat there for a minute or two and then the hat yelled "Gryffindor!"
James looked relieved that she wasn't in Slytherin, but very, very pleased that he'd get to see her more often now that she was in Gryffindor.
He stood gazing at the ceiling for a few more minute, seeming to be in a sort of trance.
"LaBelle, Scarllette," she called and Scarllette walked up to the stool. A few seconds later, the hat called out "Gryffindor!"
"Lupin, Remus," she called and later he was sorted into Gryffindor with Sirius, Lily and Scarllette.
He stood and thought for a moment and the professor called for "Pettigrew, Peter" and the Sorting Hat placed him in Gryffindor.
"Potter, James," she called, looking around the crowd.
He wanted to walk, but his legs wouldn't move. Finally he found them and stepped slowly up the steps, almost tripping on the first one. He sat down and she placed the hat on his head.
He sat for a while, for what seemed like an eternity to him and finally, after much muttering to itself, the hat yelled out "Gryffindor!"
A broad grin stretched across his face and he walked over to the Gryffindor table and sat in between Sirius and Remus.
It felt good to sit down after standing for so long.
"That felt like an eternity up there!" James gasped, trying to get his breath. A half dozen or so more first years were sorted.
"Snape, Severus," she called and he was sorted into Slytherin.
"Severus? What an.. interesting name," Sirius said.
"Did any of you happen to look up?" James said, once again, tilting his head back as far as it would go.
Remus and Sirius did so too, as well as a few more first years who had overheard.
"It's enchanted. Lily told me," he said, returning his head to face the boy sitting in front of him. "James Potter," he said, smiling. The boy across from him looked cautiously at James from beady black eyes.
"Peter Pettigrew. Nice to meet you," he said.
A few minutes afterwards, the sorting was finished, and the room fell silent.
James turned around to see Dumbledore standing in front of a large podium, looking around the room, with a smile on his face and a twinkle in his light blue eyes.
"To our new students, welcome and to our returning students, welcome back." He said this in the same calm voice he had spoken in at the Potter's house when he came for dinner. "Please allow me to start off the new school term by first saying -" but his sentence was interrupted by a loud crash signifying that both of the enormous doors to the Great Hall had been thrown open.
Everyone turned to look in the direction of the noise, and coming from it was a man with slicked back black hair with a cold look in his eyes as his black robes billowed behind him as he walked. Following him was a woman in her early twenties, with long black hair down to her waist, flipping behind her, wearing long midnight blue velvet robes, her big brown eyes gleaming, but her expression did her soft features no justice whatsoever.
"So sorry that we're late, Professor," he said with a sneer. "I tried to board the Hogwarts Express earlier, but they wouldn't let me on."
Dumbledore smiled, but said nothing.
"So that's what happened," Remus said to James.
"I am Ronald Dante, sent by the Ministry. They asked me to give you this." He pulled out a roll of parchment from a pocket inside his robes and handed it over to Dumbledore with an odd sort of cold half grin.
Dumbledore read it and slowly rolled it up. "Very well," he said, finally, after a brief pause. "Professor McGonagall, two chairs please." He turned to the professor wearing the emerald green robes. Two hard backed chairs, much like the ones all the other teachers were sitting in materialized out of the end of her wand. "Students, I would like to introduce to you, Mr. Ronald Dante, and our new Alchemy teacher, Professor Monty."
Some clapped while other stared at the strange visitors.
"What's Alchemy?" Remus leaned over to James and whispered in his ear.
"I don't know, but I suppose we're going to find out.." he said, not taking his eyes off the man called Dante.
"Where was I?" Dumbledore asked and thought for a moment.
James looked down eagerly at the golden plates that had materialized sometime between the time he looked up at Dumbledore and the time he looked back down.
"Ah, yes. Tuck in," and with that, the golden plates were filled with hot, steaming food and bowls and platters and all sorts of dishes were sitting in front of them filled to capacity with freshly prepared food. James' eyes widened.
"I have no clue what to eat first," Sirius said, looking rather confused, stroking his chin with one hand and making several attempts at trying to figure out what to eat first with the other.
James laughed at him, grabbed a fork in one hand, the knife in the other and began eating.
"But, wait," Peter said, stopping midway into lifting a chicken leg up to his mouth. "Wasn't he going to say something else?"
Sirius shrugged.
After dinner had melted away and all the delicious deserts disappeared, Dumbledore rose from his seat.
The room was quiet once again.
"Supper was delightful." He patted his stomach and smiled. "First of term starts tomorrow and I want to encourage you all to get a very good nights sleep in your warm and cozy beds that await you and your many, many dreams. Good night." His eyes twinkled as he sat back down and watched the students and staff leave.
The sound of the benches scraping the floor rang throughout the Great Hall and Prefects were shouting their Houses names.
James caught sight of one yelling "Gryffindors! Follow me!" and James, Sirius, Remus, Scarllette, and Peter followed him up the many steps, taking special care to skip the disappearing step as the Prefect had told them to do so.
The Gryffindor Prefect was the same one they saw on the Hogwarts Express. The tall, blond haired, blue-eyed one that commanded for everyone to get into their compartments before the train started.
At last, they came to a stop at a portrait of a particularly fat lady in a frilly pink dress.
The portrait came to life. "Password?" she asked.
"Butter rum," said the Prefect promptly and the portrait swung forward revealing a hole to enter the common room. "Well come on, get in," he said, waiting until every last student had entered and then he climbed in and the portrait swung back on its hinges to conceal the hole.
Inside was warm and filled with students, a fire burning brightly in the fireplace with old, big armchairs and a couch in front of it.
Scattered about the room were more of the same armchairs and a few desks in the corner for studies.
"This is your common room," the Prefect began, "the boy's dormitory's are up the stairs to the left, girls, the same and to the right."
All of them walked up the stairs, the boys turning left, the girls turning right. Inside the boy's dormitory's were large, four poster beds with curtains around them. Their trunks had been brought up and placed at the ends of their beds. Warm pajamas were laying on the turned down beds as a fire in the grate in the center of the room lit the room with a soft glow.
Remus jumped into his bed. "Wow. It's soft.." he said, throwing the covers over top of his head.
They got their pajamas on and got into bed.
"You know," said Peter from his bed next to Sirius', "I have a feeling that this is going to be a very interesting year."
They all nodded and said goodnight to each other, but little did they know exactly how interesting it was going to be . . .