Welcome! The first three chapters are very boring as you may say, but the fourth chapter is where everything begins. I introduce you to my new OC's! They're very important characters — the first brought all of them together, and the other is the main antagonist. They're both professors at Hogwarts, but you'll know them more if you read this chapter from first word to last. Enjoy! (I hope so)

Thanks for reviewing, reviewers!

MALODOROUS (adj.) – giving off a strong or unpleasant smell; smelly

LOT (noun) – a large amount; a group

Chapter Four

The Malodorous Lot

"Firs' years! Callin' all firs' years!" a booming voice greeted the students as they filed out of the Hogwarts Express. Because of the man's voice and tremendous size, the first years immediately lined up behind him — Lily, Hugo, and the twins included. He was massive — about ten feet in size — and he was wearing a weather-beaten shirt beneath a weather-beaten coat. He was also wearing weather-beaten shoes on his size-forty feet, and Lily could see some of his huge toes poking out of his shoes. He had a full, grey-black beard, trimmed squarely that it reminded her of a hedge. The only peculiar thing about him is that he has a pink, flowery umbrella strapped against his side.

"Oi! Ain' I know yeh?" he yelled, barreling towards her. Lily ducked as he picked her up into a hug that was as bad as Lupin's. The only difference was that Lupin's hug was like being hit by a tractor; his felt like being hit by the entire farm.

"I always wan' ter see yeh!" he said. "Harry'd bin tellin' me yer goin' ter Hogwarts! Yer Lily, ain' I right?"

"Yes." Lily replied the moment he placed her gently onto her feet. "And I'm guessing you're Hagrid."

"Smart lass, aren' yeh?" said Hagrid. "Oh, yer like yer dad, all righ'. Wer's that Weasley boy?"

"That would be me." said Hugo in a strained voice. He was hiding behind Lily, clutching his ribs. Hagrid just mussed up his hair so bad that his spectacles almost fell off.

"Mm-hm. I remem'er yer dad, too. An' yer mom. Brigh' lass isn' she? I remem'er one time when he messed me rug. The slugs he puked out nearly ate me pumpkins, I tell yeh."

Lily held back a laugh. Hagrid grinned widely at her.

"Oh, yer so big now, Lily," he said, blowing into his embroidered handkerchief. "I wan' ter hug yeh some more."

Hagrid was about to pick her up into a hug again when, luckily, something — or someone — caught him off guard. She breathed a sigh of relief.

"Hagrid!" a raspy, old voice called. Lily suddenly heard a sort of screeching sound — like wheels that were forgotten to be oiled properly. She jumped back, though, when an intimidating man in a wheelchair screech to a stop in front of her.

He was intimidating, indeed, in a way that some first years scrambled back to not catch his eye (or eyes). He was thin to the extremes, with wisps of white hair sprouting out from his nearly bald head. His nose looked like an overcooked potato, and he had one mole on his weak and pointy chin. His face, all in all, resembled that of a turtle. But it wasn't his face that was intimidating — it was his eyes. They were eyes, all right, but when you look closely, or when he looks at you, you will be in fact startled by them, since his one eye was pale blue, and the other coal black. They glinted, and they held malice and other more nasty things known to man.

"Hagrid?" he asked, not taking his eyes off Lily.

"Yes, professor?"

"What're you doing?"

"Hangin' roun' the firs' years, sir."

"You should've left that job to Mundungus Fletcher. That bloke should do a bit of exercising, if he doesn't want the Ministry to be his enemy."

"Dung don' wanna do it, sir. An' I volunteered fer meself."

The man in the wheelchair glared more at him. "Suit yourself, then," he sneered. "But first, have you seen my glasses?"

"What glasses, sir?" Hagrid asked. "I've ne'er seen yeh wearin' glasses before."

"Don't lie."

"I'm jus' hangin' roun' the firs' years, sir. I've never seen anyone with em'."

"Yet," said the old man. "When you see someone with them, bring him to me." He took his eyes off Lily for just a second — just a brief second — and then said, "I'll ask someone else. If I see anyone of you — anyone of you — with my old glasses, I'll ask Professor Sinistra if I could drop you off the Astronomy tower. Or worse," he said, his face inches from Lily's now, his putrid breath fanning her face. "I'll crush you beneath the wheels of my chair."

He spun his wheelchair around and drove it like a madman.

Hagrid breathed a sigh of relief. "Ol' Simonoff's crazy. I've not seen anyone so…so —"

"Creepy-looking?" Lysander asked. "He scared the wits out of me!"

"Er, yes, mister…?"

"Toby." said Lysander, grinning.

"Er...yes. Toby. Anyway, Mundungus Fletcher had bin given me ol' job by the Ministry. Dung's gamekeeper now, but that ol' bloke won' do his job."

"Why did the Ministry give him your old job, Hagrid?" Hugo asked.

Hagrid scratched his bushy head. "He stole a lot of stuff, I guess. An' he won' pay back. He wants me ol' job."

"Oh," said Lysander. "So he's really a load of dung, isn't he?"

As he said that Lily saw him pass something reflective into Lorcan's hand, and the twins grinned at each other like they had accomplished the best job in the world.

"I think you should return them," said Hugo, eyeing the glasses with wary eyes. "Simonoff's not going to be pleased."

"Who cares?" said Lorcan, tossing them to Lysander. The moment Hagrid turned around to check on them, the twins hid the glasses in the sleeves of their robes. "Simonoff's going to forget about them, no doubt about that. They're just dumb, broken, no-good, old glasses. You can't even see through them."

"Well, I get mad when someone steals my glasses. I can't see a fly whenever my sister places a hex on them. She has the habit of doing so."

"Well, those are your glasses, anyway, not Mr. Turtle-Face's." said Lysander.

The four of them followed Hagrid, who produced a lamp out of nowhere, his pink and flowery umbrella swinging by his side. He seemed to be whistling, and he whistled hard indeed when they reached the cold lake. Lily already had bad thoughts about the giant squid gobbling the first batch of students who crosses the lake.

Traditionally, Hugo explained, first years cross the lake other than ride the station wagons like the older students. It was told that the reason it was done so was that to ensure that the first years be given the traditional welcoming to their very first year at Hogwarts. It also signals the beginning of the Sorting Ceremony, where first years will be sorted to their designated Houses named after the four founders of Hogwarts. Hugo hadn't mentioned anything about the giant squid, but the moment Lysander pointed the fact out to him he began sweating profusely.

"Scared now, are you?" jeered Lysander. "I'm not. I would really like to try swimming with it, by the way."

"It's cold." said Hugo.

"Where's the fun if it's not? Nothing perks you up better than ice-cold water. Look at the giant squid."

"No one has seen the giant squid yet, Lysander."

"Sure, someone did." said Lysander. "Mum said she had seen it — one of its feelers, perhaps."

Hugo scrunched up his eyebrows. "Squids do not have feelers." he said, taking off his spectacles and polishing them with intensity. "They have tentacles."

"Well, they're the same thing, aren't they?"

Hugo gave up on the idea. He figured that arguing with Lysander is pointless. Instead, he fixed his spectacles carefully onto the bridge of his nose and listened to Hagrid, who seemed to be barking out the rules.

"If anyone falls inter the lake, relax an' keep all yer muscles light. I'll pull yeh back in, I s'ppose. But yeh try ter avoid trouble." said Hagrid. "So yeh all don't try ter fall in. Big trouble fer me an' yeh."

"You got into a lot of trouble before. Haven't you, Hagrid?" a squeaky voice yelled from among the first years. "Father and Brother said that you were expelled. Shame you didn't finish your schooling."

Lily spun around to see who had insulted Hagrid. She was a girl, and she wore an expression that looked as if she had something nasty under her nose. She has slick, pale blond hair, cruel grey eyes, and a sly sneer plastered onto her elfish face. Her ears seemed to be too big for her head, and her forehead too wide that she looked like one of the gnomes in the Weasley garden.

Hagrid coughed. "It's all true. Yer that Malfoy girl, aren' yeh? Nasty bloodline. Too bad another one's coming to Hogwarts. I had me hands full, already."

Malfoy frowned and was about to say something when Lorcan spoke up. "Can we board the boats now, Hagrid?" he asked. "I don't want to stay here with bad company." Hagrid scratched his head and looked at Lorcan with grateful eyes, not noticing the Malfoy girl scowl even more. The twins chortled in unison.

Hagrid looked perplexed. "Er, sure." he said, holding his lamp up a bit higher. "No more'n four persons, firs' years."

The first years each scrambled to get into a boat. Lily, Hugo, and the twins boarded into what looked like a newly painted one. Hagrid, on the other hand, needed an old one all to himself.

"I hope the giant squid isn't real." muttered Hugo as he climbed in.

"Worry about getting sick." said Lysander as he pointed to the Malfoy girl, who began puking even though her boat hasn't slid into the water yet. Lily had the idea that the twins had something to do with it.

"What did you feed her?" Lily asked as their boat slid smoothly onto the black water. "I've never seen anyone puke that bad."

"Puking Pastilles." the twins replied in unison.

"Puking Pastilles?" Hugo repeated.

"Yeah. Puking Pastilles." said Lysander, grinning. "I dropped two. It's no surprise Scorpius gave away the other one. I assume that he's puking all over his carriage right now."

"Yeah. But we didn't know that he has a sister. Now isn't that fun?" said Lorcan, grinning.

Hugo seemed to mull over that fact, then said. "You buy stuff from Dad's shop?

The twins looked surprised. "Your dad owns Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes?" they asked.

"He's a co-owner, actually." Hugo replied. "He works with our uncle George."

"Cool. Then we can get discounts."

Lily said nothing after that. The other three chatted about the stuff bought from her uncles' shop, and Lily stared out into the pitch-black lake. The air was chilling enough that the hairs on her arms and neck stood up, but the full moon from above looked so big that Lily just leaned back to admire the view. It was a long ten minutes and twenty seconds, from what Lorcan had calculated, until they reached the cliff. Their boat sailed smoothly beneath it, where curtains of ivy hang. They also went through a dark tunnel, until they reached a kind of underground harbour, where they clambered out onto rocks and pebbles.

"Alrighty, then. Board out!" said Hagrid, helping the green-faced Malfoy girl get out of her boat. "Keep close, an' follow me."

He led them up a slope, towards rather large, oak doors, which opened automatically as they passed through. Stone gargoyles decorated the castle turrets, and the children gasped in awe at the sight of them.

As they went through the doors and stopped in the hallway, Hagrid was giving out a few pointers.

"Yeh'll wait fer Proffesor Montmorte here." he said. "He's about ter fetch yeh. Professor McGonagall called fer me. Summat abou' the, er, thing upstairs. Won' be stayin' here ter stay with yeh. Good luck."

With those last words (and a wink to Lily), he headed through the hallway.

"Wow," said a pale-faced boy from behind them. "I never knew Hogwarts was this huge."

"It's a castle, dummy." replied a girl. "That's why it's huge."

"Our manor is bigger,"

"No. Ours is."

Soon, everyone was gaping and gasping about the size of the castle, and it was such a racket that it alerted a little man in a bell-covered hat and an orange bowtie. He wasn't human, and he was creating a noise even louder that what the first years had created.

"Ooh. Ickle firsties! What fun!" he yelled. "Ickle firsties, ickle firsties!" and with each word he flew and blew raspberries, smashed vases, pulled robes, toppled students, and worse, dropped fart bombs at them. Lily ducked as one exploded at her feet, pulling Hugo aside with her.

"Runny, runny, ickle firsties, smell so funny, ickle firsties!" the thing sang as the students scattered around the hallway, making the place smell vile. The twins were howling with laughter.

"Peeves!" they yelled.

"Who's Peeves?" asked Lily.

"Only the school poltergeist." they replied in unison. "He's the worst poltergeist ever known, but he's cool, actually!"

"Why should that be a good thing? He's wrecking the school!"

A small girl ran as Peeves swooped down towards her, holding a fart bomb.

"Bad, little firstie! Peevsie's angry." He didn't look angry at all. He cackled and threw the fart bomb. The girl toppled down as she tried to duck.

"PEEVES!" a voice yelled, echoing across the corridor. "Don't let me call the Bloody Baron! He'll hear about this, I mean it!"

With a swish of his twilight-blue robes, a very tall, wizened man with a trimmed brown beard, trimmed long hair tied with a ribbon, and trimmed eyebrows, marched towards Peeves, waving his walking stick.

Peeves stuck out his tongue and vanished, dropping the rest of the fart bombs at them. They heard him zooming away, smashing vases and rattling armour as he passed.

"I'm deeply sorry about Peeves," said the trim, old man to them. "You'd better watch out for him, though. The Bloody Baron is the only one who can control him. He won't even listen to us teachers. Now let's see,"

He pulled out a long list from the inside of his robe. "I believe that I would be reading out the list for the Sorting Ceremony today. I am Oliver Montmorte, but you could call me Professor Monty. Now look decent, all of you, and follow me."

The first years scrambled up and, without forming lines, hurried up after Professor Monty, who was walking with very long strides.

"This lot doesn't smell good." said Lorcan to Lily, pointing towards a group of students.

"Well you don't, either." said Lily.

They were forced to breathe in the horrible smell as they strode through the hallway, half-running after Professor Monty, who wasn't at all pleased about their grubbiness.

Keep your eyes open for the next chapter: The Sorting Ceremony

Well, that's that, I guess. Good, isn't it? Just tell me if it's bad. I'll understand.

P.S. Please review! Eheheh.