You're right, I skipped straight to the boats. Let me redo the full arrival properly — Hagrid calling them, the walk down, all of it in order before the boats.
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**[ Ginny POV ]**
The train slowed.
I woke up before it stopped, the way you always do when something important is about to happen, some part of you refusing to sleep through it. Outside the window the sky had gone fully dark and the countryside had disappeared into black shapes against a deeper black.
Emily was already awake, straightening her robes. Isadora hadn't moved from her position at all, which made me wonder if she had slept or simply sat very still for several hours. Alice was rubbing her eyes and looking around the compartment with the slightly lost expression of someone emerging from deep sleep into an unfamiliar place.
"We're here," I said, which was unnecessary but felt like the right thing to say.
We gathered our things and joined the press of students moving through the corridor toward the doors. The platform outside was dark except for a scattering of lanterns, and the air that hit us when we stepped off the train was cold and sharp and smelled like pine and something else beneath it, something I couldn't name.
Then a voice cut through everything else.
"Firs' years! Firs' years over here! Firs' years follow me!"
Hagrid was impossible to miss. He was standing at the edge of the platform holding a lantern above his head, nearly twice the height of anyone around him, his great dark beard visible from halfway down the train. Several first-years near me took an involuntary step back at the sight of him before the crowd's momentum carried them forward regardless.
I had heard about Hagrid from my brothers. I was not surprised. That said, knowing in advance that someone was very large and actually standing next to them were two different experiences.
"Righ' then, all firs' years this way, follow me please, watch yer step now, mind the edge—"
We followed him away from the platform and down a steep, narrow path that wound through the darkness. The lantern swayed ahead of us. The ground was uneven underfoot and the trees pressed close on both sides, and the only sounds were footsteps and the occasional muttered apology as someone stumbled into the person ahead of them.
Alice grabbed the back of my robes briefly when the path dipped sharply, then let go and steadied herself.
"Sorry," she whispered.
"It's fine," I whispered back.
The path opened out.
"Woah."
I don't know which one of us said it. It might have been all of us at once. The trees fell away on either side and the lake stretched before us, black and perfectly still, and there on the other side of the water was Hogwarts.
I had tried to prepare myself for this.
I had grown up hearing about it. Six brothers had described it in varying levels of detail over the years. I had seen pictures in books and on chocolate frog cards and I had built some version of it in my head so many times that I thought I knew what to expect.
I didn't.
The castle rose against the sky with the kind of certainty that made everything else seem temporary by comparison. Towers and battlements and a hundred lit windows, all of it reflected in the surface of the lake below so that it seemed to exist twice, once in stone and once in water. The clouds moved overhead and the reflection shifted with them.
Nobody spoke for a moment.
"Four to a boat!" Hagrid called, gesturing toward the small wooden boats gathered at the water's edge. "Come on now, four to a boat, that's it, nice and easy—"
The four of us found a boat without discussing it. It seemed obvious. Emily stepped in first and Isadora followed and Alice and I climbed in after, the boat rocking gently beneath our weight before settling.
"Everyone in?" Hagrid's voice carried across the water. "Righ' then — FORWARD!"
The boats moved.
No oars, no visible mechanism, nothing at all except the water parting quietly beneath us as we glided out across the lake. Emily trailed her fingers over the side and watched the ripples spread. Isadora was looking at the castle with an expression I couldn't quite read. Alice had both hands in her lap and was very deliberately not looking at the water.
"Don't look down," I told her.
"I'm not looking down," she said, in the voice of someone actively not looking down.
The castle grew larger as we crossed. The lanterns from the boats cast small pools of light on the water around us and the stars were visible in the gaps between clouds overhead and the whole thing felt less like arriving somewhere and more like being drawn toward something that had been waiting.
We passed under a curtain of ivy into a narrow opening in the cliff face and the darkness closed around us, the sound of the water suddenly echoing, and then the boats scraped gently against stone steps and we had arrived.
Hagrid helped us out one boat at a time with a steadying hand the size of a dinner plate. We climbed the steps and followed the passageway upward until it opened onto the damp grass outside the castle entrance, the great oak doors rising above us.
They opened before Hagrid could knock.
Professor McGonagall stepped out.
I recognized her the moment I saw her. Pointed hat. Emerald robes. The kind of face that had seen everything at least twice and was not going to pretend otherwise. She looked us over once, the way you check that a package has arrived intact, and then her expression settled into something that was not quite warmth but was not cold either.
"Welcome to Hogwarts," she said. "The start of term banquet will begin shortly, but before you take your seats you must be sorted into your houses."
She explained the houses. Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, Slytherin. The values of each. House points and what they meant. Her voice was precise and unhurried, each sentence placed with the care of someone who had given this particular speech many times and still considered it worth giving properly.
Then she told us she would return when we were ready, and went back inside, and the doors closed, and the entrance hall filled immediately with the sound of about forty first-years quietly panicking.
"I heard it's a test," someone behind me said. "Written questions."
"I heard you have to duel another student," someone else replied.
"My cousin said you have to fight a troll," a third voice offered, with great confidence.
"Nobody is fighting a troll," Emily said, not loudly but with enough certainty that the nearest cluster of first-years turned to look at her. She didn't appear to notice, or didn't care.
I pressed my lips together to avoid smiling.
The doors opened again and Professor McGonagall reappeared.
"We are ready for you," she said.
We followed her inside.
The Great Hall opened up before us and I forgot, briefly, how to walk normally.
The candles. The ceiling, which wasn't a ceiling at all but a sky, deep black and cloud-layered with stars showing through the gaps, and I knew it was enchanted, I had been told it was enchanted, but knowing a thing and standing beneath it were entirely different. The four long tables stretching the length of the hall, lined with students watching us. The teachers at the high table at the far end.
I kept my eyes forward and focused on walking in a straight line.
Percy was at the Gryffindor table. I found him immediately the way you always find family in a crowd, some combination of hair color and posture that registers before conscious thought does. He was watching the procession of first-years with his chin slightly raised.
Fred and George were a few seats down.
Fred spotted me and elbowed George, and George looked up, and I looked away quickly before either of them could make a face at me.
A three-legged stool had been placed before the assembled students, and sitting on top of it was the most disreputable-looking hat I had ever seen. Old and patched and deeply battered, the kind of thing that had survived purely through stubbornness. I was still trying to work out what exactly we were supposed to do with it when it twitched, the brim folding open like a mouth, and it started to sing.
The song moved through the history of the four founders, the values of each house, the promise that wherever you were placed you would find your home. It was not a short song. When it finished the hall applauded and the hat went still again and Professor McGonagall lifted a long scroll.
The sorting began.
I watched each student walk forward and sit and wait. Some were fast, barely a breath under the hat before it shouted their house. Others sat long enough that the hall grew very quiet around them and you found yourself holding your breath without meaning to.
"Lefebvre, Isadora."
Isadora walked forward without hurrying, sat down, and the hat slid over her eyes. The hall waited. The pause stretched longer than most of the ones before it.
"SLYTHERIN."
Measured applause from the Slytherin table. Isadora removed the hat and walked to her seat without any visible reaction, which seemed entirely correct for her.
More names. The hall filled gradually.
"Winters, Alice."
Alice walked to the stool with her hands folded together and her shoulders very straight and sat down. The hat considered her for almost a full minute, which was long enough that I found myself actually nervous on her behalf.
"GRYFFINDOR."
The relief on Alice's face was visible from where I stood. She returned the hat and crossed to the Gryffindor table and when she passed the spot where Percy was sitting he gave her a small welcoming nod, which was Percy's version of a warm reception.
"Woods, Emily."
Emily sat. The hat called "RAVENCLAW" almost immediately, which surprised no one. She crossed to the blue and bronze table with the expression of someone whose expectations had been met, sat down, and immediately began looking around the hall with interest.
More names. The line shortened.
"Weasley, Ginevra."
I walked forward.
The hall was very quiet and very large and I was aware of every single person in it. I sat on the stool and the hat dropped over my head and swallowed everything in darkness.
"RAVENCLAW!"
The word rang out and I pulled the hat off and stood up and the Ravenclaw table was applauding and I could see Emily already watching me with a small nod of acknowledgment as I crossed the hall.
I glanced at the Gryffindor table before I sat down.
Percy had gone very still. I watched him look at me, then watched the slight shift in his expression, surprise moving into something more measured, more honest. He gave me a small nod. Not quite approval. More like recognition. From Percy, that meant more.
Fred and George were staring at me like I had just announced something deeply unreasonable.
Fred's mouth was open.
I gave them the most apologetic wave I could manage, turned away before either of them could recover, and sat down beside Emily.
"Private dorms," she said, without looking up.
"Private dorms," I agreed.
Alice caught my eye from the Gryffindor table and smiled and I smiled back, and the sorting continued, and the hall slowly settled into the comfortable noise of something beginning.
It was only when the last name had been called and the applause had faded and Dumbledore had risen at the head table that I thought to look for Ron.
I scanned the Gryffindor table properly this time, moving from one end to the other. Red hair wasn't difficult to find in a crowd. Percy was there. Fred and George were there. The Gryffindor first-years who had just been sorted were filing into seats.
Ron wasn't there.
I looked again, more carefully, in case I had missed him somehow.
He wasn't there.
And neither was Harry Potter.
I turned back to face the front and said nothing, and Dumbledore's voice filled the hall with its usual warmth, and the candles burned overhead, and I sat with that small cold fact and couldn't find anywhere to put it.
- The End -
Hey um so sorry for leaving the story... I just lost interest since it wasn't doing well when I first uploaded it, however many readers have asked me about the next chapter and I felt bad and decided to write every once in a while and I know this chapter isn't as good as the others but I'll return to the previous quality soon....
Thanks for supporting the story and if you enjoyed reading, drop a review or comment and maybe even give it some power stones...
Next update is either tomorrow or the day after....