Cold air hit Adrian the moment he stepped down from the train, and he moved aside as students crowded the platform, calling to friends and gathering beneath the lamps.
Steam drifted around them, briefly hiding the faces nearest him before the breeze carried it away, while Cedric climbed down behind him and looked along the platform.
“Where are we meant to go?” he asked, moving closer to Adrian as a group of older students passed.
Adrian was still searching for someone who looked as though they knew when a voice rose above the noise.
“Firs’ years!
Firs’ years over here!”
He turned toward the call and spotted a large man holding a lantern above the crowd.
Even with his patchy memory of the films, Adrian recognised Hagrid immediately, although he hadn’t appreciated quite how enormous the man would be in person.
Fred stopped beside him with a quiet “Blimey,” while George craned his neck for a better look.
“Charlie never mentioned he was that big,” Fred murmured, watching Hagrid raise the lantern.
George moved closer as another group pushed past them.
“He probably wanted to see your face when you found out.”
Adrian smiled as they started toward Hagrid, who was waving a handful of children away from the edge of the platform.
He had spent years living with magic and had known Cedric long enough to stop associating him with a few remembered scenes, but meeting the twins had made those old memories unexpectedly relevant again.
Seeing Hagrid brought much the same feeling, although Adrian suspected he would have stared even without knowing who the man was.
Cedric nudged him forward before someone could squeeze between them, and they joined the first-years gathering around the lantern.
“Any more firs’-years?” Hagrid called, looking beyond their heads.
“Come along, now, there’s room.”
He waited for two children to hurry over before turning toward the path, lowering his lantern so they could see where they were going.
“Stay close an’ watch yer feet.
Gets a bit slippery down here.”
They followed him away from the station and down a narrow path, where loose stones shifted beneath their shoes and roots crossed the ground at awkward angles.
Adrian was watching Fred negotiate a particularly uneven patch when he heard water beyond the trees, and a few steps later the path opened onto the shore.
Hogwarts stood across the lake, its windows glowing above the dark water as towers rose behind the broad stone walls.
Adrian stopped with the others, looking from the lights along the hillside to the highest rooftops, and found that his vague recollections offered very little help in taking it all in.
“Wow,” Cedric breathed beside him, then laughed softly as though he hadn’t meant to say it aloud.
“Dad said it was big, but I thought he was exaggerating.”
Adrian shook his head without looking away.
“I’m trying to work out how we’re supposed to find anything.”
Most of the attention he had given this world in his first life had gone to its creatures and Newt Scamander’s adventures.
Hogwarts had never occupied quite the same place in his imagination, but standing on the shore now, he could feel that beginning to change.
Hagrid moved aside, smiling beneath his beard as the children gathered along the bank.
He let them look for a few moments before raising his lantern toward the boats.
“Plenty o’ time ter look on the way over.
Four to a boat, now, an’ mind each other gettin’ in.”
Adrian climbed into one with Cedric and George, keeping a hand against the side while Fred stepped aboard.
The boat rocked beneath him, and Fred caught the edge before lowering himself onto the bench.
“Hold still, will you?”
“That was you,” George said, pulling his shoes out of the way, though he kept a firm grip on the bench until his brother was seated.
Adrian shifted his foot before Fred could tread on it, and Cedric waited until everyone was settled before releasing his hold on the side.
Hagrid climbed into another boat nearby, and a moment later they began moving away from the bank without anyone touching an oar.
Fred leaned forward, looking from the empty bow to the boats moving alongside them.
“We’ve got to get Dad to make one of these.”
George’s attention sharpened at that, and he turned to watch the shore slipping away.
“He’d spend all summer fiddling with it.
Mum would have to come down to the pond to fetch him.”
“We could help,” Fred said, with a grin that suggested he was already imagining it.
Cedric glanced between them.
“With building it?”
“Trying it out,” Fred explained, settling back as though that were an equally demanding contribution.
Adrian listened with half his attention, wondering how the boats kept their course.
Making something move was one thing, but getting a whole group across the lake without colliding seemed considerably more involved, and he doubted he would find the explanation near the beginning of his Charms book.
His lessons with Edmund had at least given him a better appreciation of how much work could hide behind something that looked simple.
Lumos remained the only conventional spell he had practised, and even that required more concentration than he thought a small light ought to need.
The magic he had worked out for himself felt different, though it had hardly arrived without effort.
Sap had taken months, and his creature-derived abilities had developed through observation, mistakes, and enough uncomfortable discoveries to make him cautious about pushing them.
During the month before leaving, he had also returned to other effects he remembered from Final Fantasy, wondering whether blue and green were the only useful comparisons.
A few small, inconsistent results had given him reason to believe he possessed some affinity for what he thought of as black and white magic, although both were weak enough that he had no intention of relying on them yet.
The names remained his own way of organising what he found.
Nobody had handed him a list of abilities or confirmed that the divisions meant anything outside his notebook, and he was trying to be careful about treating a promising result as an explanation.
Reading his schoolbooks had given him more questions.
The Levitation Charm, for instance, reminded him of Float, and he wondered whether a familiar kind of effect might make the unfamiliar spell easier to learn.
He hadn’t tried it, so the comparison remained something to investigate once he had a professor to teach him properly.
“You’ve gone quiet,” Cedric said, drawing his attention back to the boat.
“Trying to work it out?”
“A bit.” Adrian glanced toward the boats keeping pace beside them.
“I’d like to know how they steer.”
Fred looked over the bow again, as though he might have missed something.
“Maybe Hagrid’s doing it.”
“He hasn’t had to look at us once,” George said, then glanced toward their guide.
“Though I suppose he’s done this loads of times.”
Adrian watched Hagrid’s lantern moving ahead of them and decided that was as good an explanation as any of them could offer.
“Something else to ask.”
“You’re going to have a list by the time we get there,” Cedric said.
Adrian smiled, because he probably would.
More windows appeared as they approached the castle, along with bridges and narrow stretches of wall he hadn’t been able to distinguish from the shore.
He wondered which passages he would be allowed to explore and how long it would take before he could find his dormitory without following someone else.
The lake kept drawing his attention back, however, particularly when a ripple caught the light beyond their little fleet.
He followed each one for a moment, already curious about what lived beneath the surface.
“Mind yer heads!” Hagrid called as they approached an opening in the rock.
They ducked and passed into a tunnel, where the sound of water against the walls grew louder.
Fred peered over the side, trying to see past the reflected lantern light.
“Charlie said there’s a giant squid in here.”
Cedric caught the back of his robe when he leaned farther, and Fred glanced over his shoulder.
“I’m only looking.
You can let go.”
George leaned forward too, although he remained firmly on the bench.
“Do you reckon that bit’s true?” he asked Adrian.
“He tells us all sorts about Hogwarts.”
“I’d like to find out,” Adrian said, watching the dark water with renewed interest.
“We could ask Hagrid when we get out.”
Fred settled back reluctantly, giving Cedric an excuse to release his robe.
“I hope it is.
I’ve never seen one.”
Adrian hadn’t either, at least not a living one, and he found himself looking back at the water until the next boat’s lantern cast a reflection across it.
Seeing one would be worthwhile whether or not there was anything his magic could learn from it, and he was already wondering how often it came near the surface.
By the time they reached the landing, Hagrid was occupied with helping children out of the boats and counting them as they passed.
Adrian decided his questions could wait and followed the others up toward the castle.
Professor McGonagall was waiting when they entered, standing with her hands together and an expression that persuaded several whispering students to fall silent before she spoke.
Adrian recognised her, though the familiarity was less distracting than the way she surveyed the group, apparently noticing everyone at once.
“First-years, Professor McGonagall,” Hagrid said, giving the nearest children an encouraging nod.
“Thank you, Hagrid.
I shall take them from here.”
She waited until the last few children had joined the group before welcoming them to Hogwarts and explaining that they would be Sorted before the feast.
As she described the four Houses and the points they could earn or lose throughout the year, Adrian listened carefully, particularly when she spoke about the people they would be living and studying alongside.
Beside him, Fred leaned toward George, but whatever he intended to say died when McGonagall’s eyes moved in their direction.
“I shall return when we are ready for you,” she said.
“Please wait quietly.”
The room remained quiet until the door closed, after which conversations resumed at a volume that suggested everyone had interpreted the instruction generously.
Cedric moved closer to Adrian, glancing toward the door before speaking.
“Four years living down the road from each other, and now a hat gets to decide whether we even sleep in the same part of the school.”
“We’ll still see each other,” Adrian said, though he understood the concern.
“I’d rather not have to find you every morning, either.”
Fred joined them with George at his shoulder and made another adjustment to his tie.
“You’re still doing that?” Cedric asked.
“Percy’ll notice if it’s wrong.”
George leaned over to inspect the knot.
“He’ll notice something.
You might as well leave it.”
Fred dropped his hands, although he looked down once more before turning his attention to the room.
Across from them, a broad boy with dark hair glanced toward Adrian and said something to the two students beside him.
One looked over as well, but their conversation moved on before Adrian could decide whether they had been discussing him.
McGonagall returned a few moments later and instructed them to form a line.
As they approached the doors, Fred stepped beside Adrian and looked ahead.
“Hope it doesn’t take ages deciding.”
Adrian hadn’t considered that part, and the thought of sitting in front of the whole school while a hat deliberated did little to improve his nerves.
“I’d rather it got on with it.”
George leaned closer from behind them.
“You could ask it to hurry.”
Fred glanced back at his brother, briefly amused.
“You ask yours.”
Then the doors opened, and all three fell quiet.
Candles floated above four long tables, and the ceiling opened onto what looked like the night sky.
Adrian knew there was an enchantment involved, yet he still tipped his head back to look, only lowering it when the line slowed and he nearly walked into the student ahead.
Hundreds of faces turned toward them, and he became abruptly conscious of where he was putting his hands.
His accent had drawn enough attention over the past four years that he was used to answering questions about it, but he was grateful nobody had asked him to introduce himself to the entire Hall.
His eyes moved to the staff table and found Snape, whose expression suggested that recognising Adrian had done nothing to improve his evening.
Adrian gave him a small nod, receiving a brief look before the professor turned elsewhere.
Then he noticed Dumbledore, and his attention lingered.
The white hair and long beard were familiar enough, but Adrian found himself trying to reconcile the elderly headmaster with the younger man whose part in Newt’s adventures he knew so much better.
He would have liked to study him longer, perhaps hear what he was saying to the professor beside him, but McGonagall was placing a stool in front of the first-years.
The old hat she set upon it soon claimed everyone’s attention.
Adrian could understand why Fred had been concerned about waiting, because it looked quite capable of taking its time over something.
Then a crease opened near the brim, and it began to sing.
Fred glanced at George, whose eyebrows had risen, but neither spoke.
Knowing they would be Sorted by a hat had apparently left room for a few surprises.
Adrian listened, relieved that he had something to focus on besides the students watching them.
When the song ended, McGonagall unrolled her parchment and began calling names, sending the first children toward the stool while the tables waited to welcome them.
“Clarke, Adrian.”
His stomach tightened, despite having known that his name was coming, and Cedric gave his shoulder a quick squeeze as he stepped forward.
Adrian answered McGonagall’s quiet instruction and sat, catching a murmur from somewhere at the Slytherin table before the hat slipped over his eyes.
For a moment, he could hear only the Hall around him, then a voice spoke close to his ear.
“Well, you’ve brought rather a lot with you.”
Adrian’s fingers tightened against his knees.
He had known the Hat would need to learn something about him, but he hadn’t worked out what that might mean for memories that belonged to another life.
How much can you see?
“Enough to understand why you’re asking,” the Hat replied, its voice thoughtful rather than alarmed.
“But I’m here to find you a House.
You can stop preparing explanations.”
That was easier suggested than done, although Adrian made himself loosen his hands.
The Hat considered him for a while, and he had the uncomfortable impression of someone pausing over things he would rather have kept private.
“There’s courage here, and ambition enough to keep you busy.
A good deal of curiosity, too.
You dislike leaving a question unanswered.”
Adrian thought of his notebook, the references he had collected in Diagon Alley, and the creatures he wanted to study, and the Hat gave a quiet chuckle.
“Yes, I can see that this will be a fairly long undertaking.
Slytherin could offer you a great deal.”
His father had been in Slytherin, and the possibility didn’t trouble him.
Still, Edmund’s words on the platform returned to him, along with the reminder that his father’s experience did not have to become his own.
He wanted to learn, but when he pictured the coming years, there were people in them as well as books.
Cedric was waiting behind him, his parents would be expecting a letter, and he hoped the friends he made here would eventually feel as familiar as the boy who had spent four years turning up at his front door.
The Hat seemed to consider that before speaking again.
“You’ll work patiently for something you care about, and you’re rather less willing to leave people behind than you might pretend.
I think we can find you a place in—HUFFLEPUFF!”
The last word rang through the Hall, and Adrian lifted the hat to find a table full of students applauding him.
He handed it back to McGonagall and made his way over, accepting a welcome from an older girl before sitting where someone had moved to give him space.
When Cedric’s name was called a little later, Adrian watched him walk to the stool with his jaw set.
The Hat announced Hufflepuff almost immediately, and Adrian joined the applause while shifting along the bench.
Cedric sat beside him with a grin.
“Mum’ll be pleased.
She told me to make sure you wrote home.”
“She told me that herself.”
“Now there’s someone to remind you.”
Adrian laughed, relieved enough by Cedric’s arrival that he didn’t bother defending himself.
Across the Hall, a thin, dark-haired boy was watching him from the Slytherin table.
The boy held his gaze and smiled without much warmth, then leaned toward the student beside him.
A faint unease caught Adrian’s attention, familiar enough that he recognised it before he thought to look away.
It told him very little, and he had learned not to build explanations around it.
He noted the boy’s face and returned his attention to the Sorting.
Roger Davies went to Ravenclaw, while Angelina Johnson and Lee Jordan joined Gryffindor, followed later by Alicia Spinnet.
Most of the names meant nothing to Adrian, and he soon stopped trying to hold on to all of them.
Fred and George both went to Gryffindor, which seemed entirely reasonable after sharing a train compartment and a boat with them.
Once George had joined his brother beside Lee, Fred caught Adrian looking and spread his hands as though the result had been inevitable.
By the time the Sorting finished, his nerves had eased enough for him to notice how hungry he was.
Dumbledore stood to welcome them, and the conversations around Adrian faded as the headmaster looked over the tables.
“To those joining us for the first time, welcome.
I hope you will soon find yourselves quite at home, though I should caution you that feeling at home does not excuse putting your feet on the furniture.”
A few students laughed, and Dumbledore waited with a mild smile before continuing through the notices.
Adrian paid attention to the warning about the Forest, particularly because he could almost hear his father repeating it.
When the headmaster finally invited them to eat, the dishes filled so suddenly that Adrian forgot whatever he had been about to say.
Cedric laughed at his expression.
“You look happier about that than the boats.”
“I’ve been sitting still for ages, and now there are potatoes.” Adrian picked up a serving spoon and offered him the dish.
“The boats can have second place.”
Dinner gave them something easy to do while they met the people around them.
Toby Pike sat across the table and asked where Adrian was from, his West Country accent taking Adrian a moment to adjust to, while Maisie Fairbairn joined their conversation from farther along the bench.
“Arizona,” Adrian said, passing Toby the gravy.
“We moved here when I was seven.”
Toby accepted the jug with interest.
“Thought you sounded American.
Have you known each other long, then?”
“Since he moved,” Cedric said.
“He lives down the road.”
“Which means he knows all the embarrassing things already,” Adrian added, reaching for his drink.
Cedric smiled into his goblet, apparently unwilling to deny it.
Maisie asked whether he remembered much of Arizona, then wanted to know if he had seen any magical creatures there.
Adrian mentioned the Thunderbird, careful to explain how far away it had been, and the conversation soon moved to the creatures they hoped to see around Hogwarts.
By the time dessert appeared, he had stopped worrying about remembering everyone’s name at once.
There were still ghosts passing between the tables and candles hanging over his head, but someone needed the potatoes and Cedric had gravy on his sleeve, which helped make the evening feel less overwhelming.
Adrian was halfway through his treacle tart when someone behind him said, “Clarke.”
The thin Slytherin boy stood a few feet from the bench with another first-year beside him.
Up close, his expression looked carefully arranged, as though he had thought about this introduction before making it.
“Marius Avery,” he said.
“My father knew of yours.”
Adrian lowered his spoon and turned enough to face him properly.
“Did he?”
“He only recently heard your family had come back.
America must have suited your father.”
There was enough emphasis in the last sentence to make Cedric stop eating, though Adrian kept his attention on Marius.
That faint sense of unease had returned, but the boy’s manner offered enough reason for caution without it.
“We liked it over there,” Adrian said.
“We came back here four years ago.”
Marius shifted his weight, then glanced briefly at his companion.
“My father said yours left rather suddenly.”
Adrian rested his arm against the edge of the table, considering him.
Edmund had never made much of a secret of the fact that his years at Hogwarts had included things he preferred not to discuss, but that didn’t mean Adrian wanted an account from a boy who had crossed the Hall to make a point about it.
“You’d have to ask my dad about that,” he said.
“I wasn’t there.”
Marius’s companion smiled as though a joke had been made, although Marius himself looked less satisfied.
Adrian waited a moment, then picked up his spoon when neither offered anything further.
“We’ll see you around, Clarke.”
Adrian nodded, and the pair walked back toward their own table.
Cedric watched them go before leaning closer.
“Have you met him before?”
“Never.” Adrian glanced down at the tart on his plate, then took another bite.
“Apparently he wanted me to ask something.”
Cedric frowned across the Hall.
“Your dad’s never mentioned an Avery when I’ve been there.”
“He hasn’t mentioned one to me, either.” Adrian looked toward the staff table for a moment, where Snape was speaking quietly to another professor, then returned to his dessert.
“I’ll ask when I write.
Pass that custard, would you?
The prefect led them down from the entrance hall and along a stone corridor beneath the Great Hall, where the sounds of the departing students gradually faded behind them.
Adrian was beginning to wonder how much farther they had to go when their guide stopped beside a stack of large barrels tucked into a recess on the right.
“Gather round so you can see.
You’ll all need to remember this.”
Cedric moved closer, and Adrian stepped beside him as the prefect indicated a barrel in the middle of the second row, two from the bottom.
“This one, to the rhythm of Helga Hufflepuff.” The prefect tapped it slowly enough for them to follow, then looked back at the group.
“The wrong barrel or the wrong rhythm gets you covered in vinegar, so please ask if you’re unsure.”
Toby leaned slightly toward Adrian.
“I thought we were getting a password.”
Adrian watched the entrance open, revealing a passage beyond the barrels.
“I think I’d rather forget a password.”
Their guide waited until everyone had seen which barrel to use before ushering them through, and Adrian ducked into the passage behind Cedric.
It opened into a broad, round room where a fire burned beneath a wooden mantelpiece and several older students had already settled into deep armchairs.
Warmth reached him almost immediately, carrying the faint smell of woodsmoke and damp earth.
Yellow cushions brightened the overstuffed sofas, black details picked out the upholstery, and polished oak tables caught the lamplight beneath a low ceiling crowded with hanging plants.
Small circular windows sat high along the walls, with blades of grass visible against the dark glass.
Cedric followed his gaze.
“We’re right under the lawn.”
Adrian moved far enough aside to let the others enter, still looking around.
After the scale of the Great Hall, he liked being somewhere he could take in without craning his neck, and the chairs looked comfortable enough that he was tempted to sit down before anyone gave him further instructions.
Above the mantelpiece, a portrait of Helga Hufflepuff watched the arrivals with a welcoming expression, her hands resting around a small golden cup.
The prefect pointed out the noticeboard and explained where their timetables would be handed out, but Adrian’s attention wandered when a fern hanging nearby shifted despite the still air.
He watched its fronds settle, then noticed a trailing vine growing around one of the round doorways.
Several leaves had turned toward the children passing beneath them, and he slowed to see whether they would follow him as well.
Cedric stopped beside him.
“You can look tomorrow.
They’re showing us where we sleep.”
“I’m coming,” Adrian said, although he took one last look before following.
One of the leaves turned as he moved, which gave him something else to investigate when he had time.
The prefect led them into a low passage branching away from the common room, explaining where they would find the bathrooms and when they were expected at breakfast.
Adrian paid particular attention to the turns, then stepped through a perfectly round doorway into a dormitory where their trunks stood at the feet of wooden beds.
Cedric was sharing with him, along with Toby and two boys Adrian had yet to speak to properly.
Warm patchwork quilts covered the mattresses, and Adrian found his trunk beside a bed near a small round window, where the grass outside brushed faintly against the glass.
He sat down and rested a hand on the quilt while Cedric claimed the bed opposite.
For the first time since leaving the train, nobody was asking them to line up or follow, and Adrian was quite happy to stay where he was.
Across from him, Cedric dropped onto his own bed and began loosening his tie.
“Well?
What do you think?”
Adrian looked around the room before answering.
“I’m glad we ended up here.”
“Me too,” Cedric said, glancing toward the doorway.
“Though I’m going to need someone to show me the way back to breakfast.”
“We’ll follow Toby,” Adrian suggested, and Toby looked up from his trunk with enough alarm to make them both laugh.
The conversation turned to the others they had met on the train, and Toby asked which of the twins had been Fred.
After several attempts to explain, they established that spending a day with the brothers had not made either Adrian or Cedric particularly reliable at identifying them.
Adrian opened his trunk while they talked and took out the book he had been reading on the train.
His other guide was beneath it, along with the notebook containing his references, observations, and questions.
He set the first book beside his bed and put the notebook on top, pausing when he noticed the corner of a page he had folded down during August.
That page held his notes on Lumos, including Edmund’s corrections and several increasingly irritated descriptions of how much effort it took to keep the light steady.
Tomorrow would give him more than his father’s reassurance that beginners struggled.
He would have other spells to learn and classmates learning beside him, along with professors who might recognise something he had overlooked.
He hoped some of the work would suit him better, but even finding out why it didn’t would be useful.
Cedric noticed the notebook as Adrian put it down.
“You’re not getting your wand out tonight, are you?”
“No.
I’ve done enough for one day.”
“Good,” Cedric said, pulling his nightclothes from his trunk.
“I don’t want to explain to your dad how you set fire to the bed before lessons started.”
Adrian gave him a look.
“It was Lumos.”
“I know.
I’ve heard how the lessons went.”
That sounded enough like Edmund that Adrian laughed, then put the notebook aside and reached for his clothes.
The room gradually quieted as they changed and climbed into bed, though Toby kept talking to the boy beside him for several minutes after the lamps went out.
Adrian lay beneath the blankets and looked toward the faint outline of the round window, letting the day settle in his mind.
He had crossed the lake, been Sorted into Hufflepuff, and seen Dumbledore in person.
The Hat had noticed more than he was comfortable with, and a boy he had never met apparently thought his father’s past was worth bringing up over dessert.
There would be time to think about both when he wasn’t struggling to keep his eyes open.
For now, his book was within reach, Cedric was in the bed opposite, and tomorrow he would attend his first lessons at Hogwarts.
Adrian closed his eyes, hoping he would remember the way to breakfast.