The crush of humanity was insane. Draco was willing himself to become more liquid as he tried to ride out the flow of the entire Slytherin House trying to go from Common Room to the Entrance Hall all at once. He was more than a little glad when Greg and Vince found him. Their solid, glaring presence at his back gained him some breathing room.
He tossed them a grin and tugged his robes closer to perfection. "Thanks. I'd hate for Squashed Malfoy to end up on the menu for the evening."
"Yet another way you're unique."
The trio turned. Alex grinned and waved minutely from her spot against the wall.
"Any of you seen Blaise?" she called, "He was here...Ow!" and she was down, a fast moving boy having slammed into her and disappeared. "Bloody first year! I'll see him hanged."
Draco leaned back to his friends, "Opinions?"
"She'll owe you if you help her out." Greg put in, easily manipulating Draco.
"Good enough for me." He shrugged and together they forced their way over to the wall. Draco leaned down and offered her a hand. "Perhaps you require a rescue m'lady?"
She wrinkled her nose and then, giving up on her bad mood, laughed. "You have 'perhaps'ed correctly. My thanks." Alex rested her hand in his and, after a second, his warm fingers closed over hers. He lifted her to her feet with seeming ease.
"My pleasure. Anything else I can do for you?" he asked, feeling magnanimous.
"I still need to find Blaise." Alex replied. "Any suggestions?"
"Of course." Draco appeared to think hard, then suddenly brightened. "I've got it! The Perfect Plan!"
"Do tell." She replied as the crowd continued to flow past.
"Well," Draco grinned and jerked a thumb at Greg and Vince, "we make them do it."
Alex burst out laughing and Vince rolled his eyes.
"Or," Greg said in all seriousness, "I could spell a big flashing neon sign above your head that reads, 'Zabini wanted. Apply here if qualified'..."
"Oh no!" Alex choked out, "not a flashing neon sign! They're so tacky, he'd never live it down!"
"Very well." Greg agreed, sweetly, "I promise it won't flash."
"Come on!" Draco grouched. "I'm sure we'll find him when they line us up outside."
Alex shrugged and followed after him, the river of students now a thin trickle. "So, I take it you don't want a neon sign floating above your beautiful hair?"
"I do not have 'beautiful hair'." Draco mocked Alex's tone.
"Oh, I'm so sorry!" she exclaimed in mock apology, "You're hot, manly, and seductive beautiful hair. Better?"
Draco nodded soberly. "Much. My thanks."
Alex inclined her head...and it seemed the double dose of pompousness was the proverbial straw. From behind them both Greg and Vince burst out laughing.
Delayed as they had been they were among the last students to arrive at the scene of barely controlled chaos that was the Entrance Hall. From off to their left they heard Professor McGonagall's voice, tense, but still calmly restoring order to her House. A few, shuffling, moments after the Gryffindors were lined up the Hufflepuffs followed suit.
"Is this your best?" Professor Snape asked coldly, appearing before the gathered Slytherins. Somewhere around seventy pairs of eyes flew to glare furiously into his. That instant the Slytherins were in their lines.
Snape smiled thinly. "Better." He paused and his gaze flicked over them. "Remember, this is your castle. Trade insult for insult and courtesy for polite disdain."
His students grinned and, if anyone had been looking at Slytherin house just then, provided a show of Slytherin-ness unlike what the school had seen in years.
As they all proceeded into the cold evening air Alex leaned forward, "Mmm." She murmured into Draco's ear. "Fresh meat."
"Ten galleons the new students will sit with us at dinner." He muttered back, annoyance in his voice.
"Ick. Bloody leeches." She grimaced, then remembered herself and smoothed her features. "Fine, I'll take that bet."
The entire human population of Hogwarts currently arranged to perfection on the steps leading into the school they settled back on their heels and waited. The evening was clear and cold, the sun and moon just beginning to exchange positions. Not a hint of anyone or anything arriving was evident. After several long minutes of patient silence some of the other students began talking among themselves.
As they were lined up by year, and since Gryffindor was to their immediate right, Alex had little difficulty overhearing part of a one, Ronald Weasley's, comment. She lifted and eyebrow. What did he just say about PortKeys?
A hand tapped her left shoulder. She turned her head and found Blaise. He nodded towards the boy she'd just been listening to. "Can you imagine the logistics of setting up a PortKey that could bring that many people that distance at once?"
Draco scoffed. "Worse still they'd be coming from under the magical protections of their school and landing underneath ours. That makes it nearly impossible."
"Not everyone knows as much as we do." Alex tempered slightly. "Just because we know that PortKeys use a similar network as Apparations, and that they work almost exactly..."
"Aha!"
They all fell silent as the Headmaster started to speak.
"Unless I am very much mistaken, the delegation from Beauxbatons approaches."
"Where?" a good portion of the student body asked in various level of volume, including a few over-excited Slytherin first years. No one else from that House showed anything more than polite interest in the proceedings.
"There!" someone else shouted, pointing out over the Forbidden Forest.
A huge shadow was hurtling across the deep blue sky toward the castle, growing larger all the time.
"It's a dragon!" shrieked one of the first years. A Hufflepuff, Alex noted.
"Don't be stupid," a Gryffindor boy said, "it's a flying horse!"
Somehow Alex doubted it was either….but it appeared the Gryffindors guess was closer…. As the gigantic black shape skimmed over the treetops of the Forbidden Forest and the lights shining from the castle windows hit it, they saw a gigantic, powder-blue, horse-drawn carriage, the size of a large house, soaring toward them, pulled through the air by a dozen winged horses, all palominos, and each the size of an elephant.
The first three years of students, those in the very front, drew backwards as the carriage hurtled lower, coming in to land at a tremendous speed. Alex watched it, amused at the frightened reactions of the younger students. Did they honestly think it would crash? Run them over?
An enormous crash announced the landing of the carriage.
"Ow! Am I destined to be abused by idiots!" Alex spat, drawing her flattened foot away from her Gryffindor year mate. "Watch yourself, Longbottom!"
He glanced back at her with wide eyes and did not look away until Alex lifted her own, furious eyes to the arriving vehicle. The large blue doors, embossed with the school's coat of arms slid open silently, a boy in pale blue robes jumping down and unfolding a set of golden steps. He sprang back and the largest woman to ever grace the halls of Hogwarts made her appearance. The size of the horses and the carriage was immediately explained.
A few people gasped. Draco snorted. "Some people just make it easy to tell how pure their blood is," he muttered.
"Any relation to Hagrid, d'you suppose?" Blaise replied.
His observation was never commented on because at that moment Dumbledore started to clap; the students, following his lead, broke into applause too, many of them standing on tiptoe, the better to look at this woman.
Her face relaxed into a gracious smile and she walked forward toward Dumbledore, extending a glittering hand. Dumbledore, though tall himself, had barely to bend to kiss it.
"My dear Madame Maxime," he said. "Welcome to Hogwarts."
"Dumbly-dorr," said Madame Maxime in a deep voice. "I 'ope I find you well?"
"In excellent form, I thank you," said Dumbledore.
"My pupils," said Madame Maxime, waving one of her enormous hands carelessly behind her.
A dozen boys and girls, all, by the look of them, in their late teens, had emerged from the carriage and were now standing behind their Headmistress. They were shivering, which was unsurprising, given that their robes seemed to be made of fine silk and none of them were wearing cloaks. They were all staring up at Hogwarts with apprehensive looks on their faces.
Alex felt the desire to smirk. A few were from families that it would be better to leave alone, but most were not. She almost hoped Draco would win their bet, for if any of these, or the students from Durmstrang, did try and suck up…well, all who annoyed her were free game. And once this year was over she would never see them again, thus, no worries about long term rivalries. Her evil schemes were interrupted first by Blaise tugging on her braid and then by Madame Maxime's voice.
"'As Karkaroff arrived yet?" she asked.
"He should be here any moment," said Dumbledore. "Would you like to wait here and greet him or would you prefer to step inside and warm up a trifle?"
"Warm up, I think," said Madame Maxime. "But ze 'orses – "
"Our Care of Magical Creatures teacher will be delighted to take care of them," said Dumbledore, "the moment he has returned from dealing with a slight situation that has arisen with some of his other – er – charges."
"My steeds require – er – forceful 'andling," said Madame Maxime, looking as though she doubted whether any Care of Magical Creatures teacher at Hogwarts could be up to the job. "Zey are very strong…."
"I assure you the Hagrid will be well up to the job," said Dumbledore, smiling.
"Very well," said Madame Maxime, bowing slightly. "Will you please inform zis 'Agrid zat ze 'orses drink only single-malt whiskey?"
"It will be attended to," said Dumbledore, also bowing.
"Come," said Madame Maxime imperiously to her students, and the Hogwarts crowd parted to allow her and her students to pass up the stone steps.
"Single-malts?" Draco drawled just loud enough to be heard by the departing students, a heavy note of sarcasm in his voice, "how crude. Our stable is watered with nothing less than pure…" by that point the other school had gone completyely and so Draco didn't have to finish his statement. He grinned. "I do believe that I made some of them blush."
"Of course you did." Pansy said, leaning in to join the conversation. "Their French. They'll be easy-"
A loud and eerie noise was drifting toward them from out of the darkness: a muffled rumbling and sucking sound, as though an immense vacuum cleaner were moving along a riverbed...
"The lake!" yelled Lee Jordan, the Gryffindor known for his highly biased commentary at the school's Quidditch games. "Look at the lake!"
From their position at the top of the lawns overlooking the grounds, they had a clear view of the smooth black surface of the water – except that the surface was suddenly not smooth at all. Some disturbance was taking place deep in the center; great bubbles were forming on the surface, waves were now washing over the muddy banks – and then, out in the very middle of the lake, a whirlpool appeared, as if a giant plug had just been pulled out of the lake's floor...
What seemed to be a long, black pole began to rise slowly out of the heart of the whirlpool...
"It's a mast!" Harry Potter proclaimed into the silence.
"Really, Potter!" Draco sniped quietly, "It is!"
Slowly, magnificently, the ship rose out of the water, gleaming in the moonlight. Finally, with a great sloshing noise, the ship emerged entirely, bobbing on the turbulent water, and began to glide toward the bank. A few moments later, they heard the splash of an anchor.
People were disembarking and slowly filing up to the castle steps. As they drew nearer their uniforms became visible in the dark and Alex raised an eyebrow. They were wearing cloaks of some kind of shaggy, matted fur. But the man who was leading them up to the castle was wearing furs of a different sort: sleek and silver, like his hair.
"Dumbledore!" he called heartily as he walked up the slope. "How are you, my dear fellow, how are you?"
"Blooming, thank you, Professor Karkaroff," Dumbledore replied.
When he reached Dumbledore, he shook his hand with both of his own. "Dear old Hogwarts," he said, looking up at the castle and smiling in a way that did not hide his cold and shrewd gaze. "How good it is to be here, how good... Viktor, come along, into the warmth...you don't mind do you Dumbledore? Viktor has a slight head cold..."
Karkaroff beckoned forward one of his students. Alex eyed him as he passed but he was entirely unknown to her.
It would seem, however, that he was known to a good portion of the student body, and that he was someone of some kind of importance. She filed that bit of knowledge away for later, for now Dumbledore was leading the Durmstrang arrivals into the castle.
"Finally." Blaise muttered as the students were allowed to enter their own school. "I'm bloody frozen."
A/N: A little warning, while I don't expect it to effect this fic too much I have in fact just gotten a job(as a waitress thank you). So while, as I said, I don't think it'll mess up this fic it may force me to delay a week with an update or some such nonsense. If that happens you'll get warningalong with my deepest apologies.
Other than that, yes I know this chapter wasn't really exciting or important I couldn't just skip over the arrivals of the schools. This and the next two chapters will cover the Arrivals and the champion choosing but after that( number 25...I think) will be the notorious Hogsmeade weekend involving Mody's house. So just hold on a little longer...and review.