Welcome to Hogwarts

Harry was quite annoyed at Hagrid for not mentioning how to get to platform 9 ¾ ticket while he stood around not knowing what to do.
When he spotted the Weasley family he almost yelled of joy.

"Well, hello there Harry", Mrs. Weasley greeted him happily.
"Hello ma'am, could you help me getting to platform 9 ¾?" He said.
"No need for that ma'am nonsense my dear, I'll sure be happy to help you."
With that the entire family continued on from platform 9 towards platform 10.
After she introduced her family, or at least those who were present, for there apparently were even more kids, they reached platform 9 ¾.
While the twins Fred and George who constantly made jokes about which of them was which helped getting Harrys stuff on board of the train he briefly talked to Ginny and promised her to send her a letter how Hogwarts was some time. He would have liked to continue talking to the Weasleys, but the train was just about to leave already so he went to search for a compartment that wasn't to full yet.

Hermione Granger was immersed in Hogwarts: A History and did not quite notice the person knocking on her door at first. As a consequence, she was startled when the door opened a little and there was a boys voice asking if there was any free space left in her compartment.
She wasn't sure whether she wanted to let him in, because she was sure to get ridiculed about her books again but in the end she thought it would be petty and rude to send him away for such a reason.
"Come in", she answered the question and was surprised when she saw a boy enter who looked more like he had just turned ten at best. He was scanty and slightly pale and had a few painful looking scars on his hands. His cloths looked like they were several sizes too big and were slightly torn.
"Hi, my name is Harry", he said after putting away his stuff and sitting done.
"Pleased to meet you, I'm Hermione, Hermione Granger."
"What are you reading", he said after a moment of silence.
At that she got a little exited and started telling him all about her books. She did realize that she was going a little overboard, but he had asked her so surly it was ok to tell him.
She reigned herself in after about 5 minutes or so, because she noticed that she had been the only one talking for quite some time. Was she annoying him already and he was just tolerating her because he did not want to search for another compartment? She started panicking slightly but then she noticed him look at her curiously. She settled for a compromise.
"So what are your favourite books?" She asked hopeful.
"I'm not sure I have a favourite book yet. Maybe the potions book, because it reminds me of cooking." He answered but his was seemed slightly off.
"You don't have to choose a school book. Did you read all the school books yet?"
"Hmm, I only read two not school related books and those were on wizarding culture and I'm not yet done with those. For your other question, no I started reading all of them, but I did not get to far, yet."
"Oh, why not. You read books about wizarding culture, does that mean you are muggleborn as well?"
"Muggle raised to be more precise, my parents were both magical, but they died a long time ago and I was raised but my aunt and uncle who are muggles."
"Sorry to hear that", she said but he just shrugged it off.
He looked thoughtful for a moment before changing the subject.
"Is there any useful information in Hogwarts: A history? Or is it just trivia that is nice to know?"
The question surprised and exited her because she really wanted to continue talking about books instead of awkward social stuff.
"Well, you see there is lots of trivia that might prove very useful. For example, did you know that the ceiling in the great hall is spelled to look like the night sky above?"
"So there is a great hall, good to know." He answered.
She wasn't sure whether or not he was mocking her or not but since he was listening with what she hoped was interest as long as the information she was providing was even slightly useful she was content to continue on, and on, and on.
Before she knew it there was a knock on the door and a voice informing them that they would reach Hogwarts soon and that they should put on their robes if they had not yet done so.

When they left the train, it was already dark outside. The station looked relatively muggle which Hermione was disappointed about. From somewhere someone started shouting "Firs' years over here, firs' years over here." And it took her a moment to notice the mountain of a man. At first, she had mistaken the lamp he was holding for a low hanging streetlamp. They walked up to him and Harry surprised her, and most people around her, by casually greeting the man who was apparently called Hagrid. They followed him to the dark lake to take the boats as was Hogwarts tradition as explained in her favourite book.

The maximum amount of people in one boat was four and Harry knew that it would be hard for anyone to get a word in when riding a boat with Hermione, and while he had started to like her after almost six hours of riding a train together he thought it best to meet some more people before getting into Hogwarts. So, when it was time to choose boats he convinced Hermione that they'd need to mix with other people a little bit and they got in separate boats. He of course knew she did not particularly liked meeting new people because of her social awkwardness but he did not care to much. In the end he needn't have bothered for as soon as the boats started moving the weird feeling that had started when they set foot on Hogwarts grounds started intensifying so much that he ignored the people around him almost completely. It was a good thing everyone was just gawking at the impressive looking castle in front of them, because pretending to care about some boring chitchat would have been very hard for him at that moment.

It had started as a slight tickling on his chest. Then it became an itch that started spreading over his entire body. Finally, it went to being a burning feeling that almost had him in tears.

The feeling stopped when the boats reached the castle and he was glad that most people felt to intimidated by Hagrid to start talking, because he was not sure whether or not he'd be able to speak at that moment.

After they had reached the great hall and professor McGonagall had told them to wait, there was some kind of drama in which the kid from the robe shop insulted the youngest Weasley boy, his name was Ron if Harry remembered correctly. Shortly after that they entered the great hall of Hogwarts, which even though Hermione had told him everything about it still was an amazing sight, with flying candles filling the room and the charmed ceiling above. While Hermione had told him lots of stuff about the four houses their respective values and important historical figures, how the sorting worked was apparently some kind of secret and was thus not written down, even in the book that Hermione seemed to know by heart.

He had thought about the ways they could be tested for the house values and had some strategies on how to get into each respective house for most tests he was able to think up, so he was a bit sad to learn that all they would have to do was putting on some old magical Hat that sung terrible songs and they would be magically sorted. He was thinking about how he could influence what house he would get in, but knew to little about what the Hat did to come up with a way to trick it.

When Hermione was called he got surprised when she went to Gryffindor instead of Ravenclaw. Harry smiled at her while the next boy got sorted into Hufflepuff.

"Longbottom, Neville" Professor McGonagall called next and all the sudden the air was filled with whispers. Harry was intrigued because he had heard a lot about the Boy-who-lived from Hermione. He was said to be the one who defeated his parent'smurderer. While he wished this boy had done so one day earlier he still owed him for revenging his parents even if he likely not even remembered doing the deep.

It took longer than expected but in the end, it came to no ones surprise that Neville got sorted into Gryffindor, even if he was a lot clumsier then Harry had expected him to be. One would think that such a celebrity would be fine walking through a hall and putting a stupid Hat on his head, but who was he to judge.

There were seven more people before it was finally his turn to get sorted, including the rude robe shop boy Draco Malfoy who got sorted into Slytherin the moment the Hat touched his head.

When the professor called his name he walked up to the stool sat down and waited for the Hat to call out his name.
Instead when the Hat was put on his head, he heard a voice.
"There are not supposed to be two of you in here." It said in a slightly confused tone.
"So it can look inside our head." He concluded.
"You are correct on that, but be at piece, everything I learn while I am on your head will stay between you and me … and him, I guess." The Hat answered.
"so, I believe we are to be sorted"
"You are right, of course. And be assured I really won't tell anyone about your existence, even if I would like to do so."
"We will believe you, for now. Could you please tell us our house now?" Harry was slowly getting impatient and the fact that this head was able to read his mind made him unusually nervous.
"and don't even think about calling out two different houses or we will set you on fire."
There was a sound that reminded him of gulping.
"Ok, let's see, you could go into Hufflepuff, but your loyalty is so hard to earn that you would not really fit in. You are smart enough to go into Ravenclaw, but your interest in knowledge is of a pure pragmatistic nature. You are in an unusual control of most of your feelings which would qualify you as brave enough for Gryffindor I guess, but your reasoning for wanting to go there is the most Slytherin I have ever seen in the more than one thousand years I have been sorting children. While I want to shout out Slytherin and be done with it I am committed to sort in the best interest of the student I am sorting so I will give you the choice. You might be happiest in Hufflepuff. You may contribute most to mankind in Ravenclaw. You'll likely get the most powerful in Slytherin. And you may be safest in Gryffindor. But before you choose, please remember that I can not look into the future, so what will happen depends entirely on you and the choices you make."

About ten seconds later the Hat called out "Gryffindor" and almost everyone in the hall started clapping, even some on the Slytherin table, because it had taken the Hat about three and a half minutes to sort Harry and everyone was happy that the sorting would finally continue.

Harry went over to his house table and sat down between Hermione and one of the Weasley boys called Percy while the sorting finally continued. Hermione was obviously happy about his sorting and wanted to talk to him about something, but her love for rules apparently stopped her from talking while there were still people to be sorted, even though she was basically the only person in the hall following that rule.

After Ron Weasley and Blaise Zabini had been sorted into Gryffindor and Slytherin respectively, the sorting came finally to an end. And the headmaster Albus Dumbledore gave a little speech that consisted entirely of nonsense words, which may as well have been some magical spell for all Harry knew.
He was quickly assured that the headmaster was some kind of crazy genius.

He turned to Hermione and raised one eyebrow.
"I believe you wanted to ask me something" he finally said after some awkward silence.
"Huh, oh, how did you know. Well, you see, I wanted to ask you what the Hat said to you."
"I think that is a little to personal" he answered.
He noticed how disappointed she looked at that, so he added a "so you might want to ask that question again when we are not in the same room as the entire school".
At that her face lit up as she had probably thought that she had finally annoyed him enough that he would stop talking to her.

While he almost ignored her for the rest of dinner, she seemed hellbent on keeping the one friend she had made.

For Harry the rest of dinner was a weird experience. Some of the food tasted strange and the pumpkin juice everyone seemed to be so fond of was not exactly what he would have called tasty. He of course lost no word about that, getting enough food to be full was something he would never complain about even if he did not particularly liked the taste of some of it. There was plenty of well tasting food and no one forced him to eat anything he did not like.

Being surrounded by so many people was another thing he would need to get to terms with. While he tried to follow all the conversations around him and integrate himself into the house he found that Hermione's way of doing social things might be more to his taste, even if he would never consider behaving like her.

He noticed that one of the professors was staring daggers at him through most of the dinner but decided not to ask anyone what the professors name was.

The dinner ended with the Headmaster casually mentioning that "the forbidden forest was forbidden" and that some corridor was not to be entered unless one wished to die a horrible death. After that they had to sing the school song, which was less of a song and more of an abomination. Before being told to follow the prefects of their respective houses.

The Gryffindor common room was hidden behind the moving portrait of the Fat Lady.
They were told to remember the password, which Harry thought was a pretty stupid thing to expect of eleven year olds. They were shown their dorms, one for the girls and one for the boys and Ron's brother Percy told them that there was some charm in place that forbid boys to enter the girl's dorm, which sounded a little sexist because he did not mention anything like that for the boys. One moment later Harry was hit with a realization that stopped him dead in his tracks. They would have to sleep in Dorms! This was both exciting and terrifying, for it would be the first time he slept in a real bed in a long time. But on the other hand, he would likely wake up everyone around him if he'd get a nightmare. While he had not woken up crying in a long time and his nightmares were not as frequent as they had once been, it still happened sometimes. When he got into his bed that night he was thankfully too tired to have dreams, but he put finding a solution to this problem onto a list that was getting quite long already.

AN

This chapter did not yet recive it's final check by my beta so it might be changed a little in the next few days, but I don't expect anything mayor to change.

One thing I think I forgot to say in the AN of the first chapters is that if you have any question on why something is the way it is, please ask me. While I may not answer your question if I think it would spoil any mayor plot point it is always good to have an explaination on why stuff is like it is. I have a file called "Why" in which I write down reasons for why something is like it is, even if it will not be relevant for the story in the near future or even ever, like for example why the money in the magical world works like it does and why no one trys to exploid trading gold and silver from the magical world and stuff like that.

23.04.2018 just found out that this chapter has not been updated to what it was supposed to be for like a month or so, even tho I had it ready and uploaded already. Reason: I'm still to dumb to operate this website correctly :(