*Unless met upon the Jade Peak’s height, ‘twould be beneath Yaotai’s moonlit night.*
The immortal poet’s verse was originally written to describe a peerless beauty, but the moment Tris caught sight of Hogwarts Castle perched atop the cliff, he couldn’t help but recall those exact lines.
The sheer awe of watching a dreamlike fantasy blur into reality was truly beyond words.
Even though Tris wasn’t a die-hard Harry Potter fan, his spine tingled in that moment, as if his very soul were trembling.
“Hogwarts…” Tris whispered.
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Harry said beside him.
He was sharing a boat with Harry, Ron, and Hagrid.
Overhearing Harry, Hagrid let out a wide grin.
“Aye, Hogwarts Castle is a sight to behold. Every time I see it, I can’t help but marvel.”
The fleet of small boats rounded the cliff and docked on the other side.
Hagrid then led the forty-one young witches and wizards up a flight of stone steps to the massive front doors of the castle.
The towering oak doors were grand enough for a real giant to walk through—stately, imposing, and breathing an ancient, majestic grace.
The children gasped in awe once more.
Inside, the young students halted at the base of the Entrance Hall stairs.
At the top stood Professor McGonagall, dressed in emerald-green traditional wizarding robes, her dark hair pulled back into a neat, elegant bun.
She looked slightly different from the Professor McGonagall in Tris’s memory.
Judging by her face alone, McGonagall didn’t look old at all.
Tris wouldn’t have felt out of place guessing she was only in her thirties or forties.
It was only her makeup and attire that gave her a more mature appearance.
But most striking of all were her eyes.
Professor McGonagall had remarkably quiet eyes.
Describing eyes as “quiet” felt a bit strange, yet looking at her, that was the exact word that sprang to mind.
After briefly explaining the upcoming Sorting Ceremony, House points, and the House Cup, Professor McGonagall scanned the crowd once more.
“The Sorting Ceremony will take place in a few moments before the entire school. I suggest you smarten yourselves up as best you can while you wait. Please keep quiet until I return for you.”
Without waiting for a response, she turned and swept out of the room.
“The Deputy Headmistress is so strict,” Harry whispered.
Having read his acceptance letter, he naturally remembered her title and name.
“I’m more worried about what the Sorting Ceremony actually is,” Ron said, his eyes darting around in hopes of picking up any clues about the process.
Then he noticed several girls pulling out small compact mirrors and applying makeup.
“What are they doing?” Ron asked, baffled.
This was something he had never seen before.
At The Burrow, Molly rarely wore makeup, and even if she did, it wasn’t in front of the kids.
Ginny was still young; although she cared about her looks, she hadn’t learned how to wear makeup yet.
“Haven’t you ever seen makeup?” Hermione glanced at Ron, looking down her nose at him for not recognizing something so obvious.
“I… I… I really haven’t,” Ron stammered, stiffening his neck before finally admitting it.
“It’s just stuff women put on their faces to look a bit nicer than usual,” Harry explained.
Though Ron hadn’t seen it, Harry had.
Aunt Petunia didn’t wear makeup most of the time, but she touched herself up whenever they went out or had guests over.
Back at primary school, he had also seen a few precocious girls dabbling with cosmetics.
“Oh, I see,” Ron said, nodding before turning to Hermione.
“So why aren’t you wearing any?”
“Those with strong inner confidence don’t need external decoration,” Hermione said proudly.
“You just don’t know how, right?” Ron hadn’t caught on, but Harry curled his lips in amusement.
Though they had gotten fairly familiar on the journey, Harry still found Hermione’s ingrained arrogance a little off-putting.
“I just don’t care to learn!” Hermione retorted, her face flushing slightly.
Tris could tell that while Hermione might genuinely be uninterested in makeup, it was also true that she simply didn’t know how to do it.
Tris noticed Draco Malfoy sneaking glances from across the hall, clearly still fixated on Harry.
Catching Tris looking at him, Draco instantly put on a fierce scowl.
He looked like a puppy trying as hard as it could to act tough.
Tris couldn’t help snorting a laugh, which sent Draco into a flushed rage.
Before Draco could do anything, a sudden clamor broke out in the crowd.
A group of ghosts glided straight through the walls.
Tris didn’t know much about the Hogwarts ghosts.
The movies had briefly mentioned a few names in the first film, followed only by Nearly Headless Nick getting petrified by the Basilisk in the second, and the Ravenclaw ghost’s subplot in the final installment.
Right now, the ghosts seemed to be discussing another ghost named Peeves.
Upon noticing the gathered first-years, the ghosts showed great interest, and one of them even chimed in to say hello.
“What are those?” Harry asked Tris in a low voice.
Before Tris could answer, Professor McGonagall returned.
The children, who had grown restless because of the ghosts, instantly quieted down and followed Professor McGonagall into the Great Hall.
Almost every single student was captivated by the vast hall and its enchanted ceiling, and Tris was no exception.
Seeing it on a screen was one thing; experiencing it with his own eyes was quite another.
Professor McGonagall briefly outlined the Sorting Ceremony process, causing strange expressions to break out on many of the children’s faces.
“So we just have to wear a hat!” Ron ground out through gritted teeth.
“I’m going to kill Fred and George. They swore we had to fight a troll!”
Similar mutters rippled through the crowd.
While not every wizarding family was as flooded with children as the Weasleys, having two or three was quite common.
After all, the wizarding world lacked night life, leaving little else to do in the evenings…
Combined with almost zero financial strain regarding basic necessities, many wizarding families had multiple kids.
And quite a few of these kids had clearly been fooled by their older siblings.
“Silence, please!” Professor McGonagall announced, holding a parchment scroll.
“When I call your name, you will step forward, put on the hat, and sit on the stool… Hannah Abbott.”
Without surprise, Hannah Abbott was sorted into Hufflepuff, marking the official start of the Sorting Ceremony.
Each time a new student was sorted into a house, a cheer erupted.
Tris watched quietly, analyzing the distinct styles of each house.
The loudest cheers came from Gryffindor and Slytherin, with Gryffindor being much rowdier.
As Tris observed, though, that was mostly because of his two unhinged brothers, Fred and George.
The pair were hopping and dancing around, making an absurd amount of noise.
That Slytherin was equally lively caught Tris slightly off guard; he had assumed the snake house would be far gloomier.
Thinking about it now, that was taking things for granted—after all, the oldest students here were only sixteen or seventeen.
Naturally gloomy, unnaturally mature youths like Voldemort or Severus Snape were bound to be the exception.
At the thought of Snape, Tris glanced up toward the staff table.
A few professors were easy to recognize, like Albus Dumbledore and Professor Flitwick, while others were harder to place.
Snape was among the easily recognizable ones, sitting in a corner of the head table.
His pale face had a sallow tinge, and his greasy hair looked like it hadn’t been washed in ages—fitting Tris’s stereotype of a shut-in potion master perfectly.
Beside him sat a young man wrapped in a large turban—presumably Quirrell, the first-year boss.
Tris suddenly felt a wild urge: what would happen if he ran up right now and yanked off Quirrell’s turban?
He resisted the temptation, however.
It wasn’t out of fear of altering the plot, but rather the risk of failing to strike a fatal blow and winding up on Voldemort’s hit list instead.
What also caught his eye was a female professor with auburn hair sitting on the far side of the staff table, as far from Snape and Quirrell as possible.
The reason was simple: she was stunning!
With looks like that, she could easily hold her own in the film industry.
Since when did the Hogwarts faculty have such a gorgeous professor?
While Tris was busy observing the staff table, the Sorting Ceremony reached its midpoint. This chapter is updated first at g.com.
Professor McGonagall called Hermione’s name.
The girl looked visibly nervous.
She took a deep breath, hurried forward, and sat on the stool.
The Sorting Hat seemed to hesitate, taking its time to decide.
“Where do you think she’ll go?” Harry whispered.
“Ravenclaw, maybe?” Ron mused.
“She seems like the top-student type.”
Harry considered it and nodded in agreement.
Just then, the Sorting Hat shouted, “GRYFFINDOR!”
“How?” Ron said, a look of utter shock on his face.
“With how she is, how’s she in Gryffindor and not Ravenclaw?”
“Why, did you forget about our third brother?” Tris chuckled.
“Er… right.” Ron thought of Percy, reluctantly nodding.
As more names were called, Harry and Ron grew increasingly nervous.
But after Neville was sorted into Gryffindor, their anxiety eased somewhat.
If Neville could make it into Gryffindor, what were they worried about?
It sounded a bit harsh, but that was genuinely what both of them were thinking.
Draco Malfoy predictably went to Slytherin, while the Patil twins ended up separated—one in Gryffindor and the other in Ravenclaw.
“Twins sorted into different houses?” Ron asked, surprised, before glancing at Tris.
Tris shrugged.
He remembered the sisters well enough—weren’t they Harry and Ron’s Yule Ball dates in the fourth movie?
Though as for which house each was in originally, Tris hadn’t known prior to this.
When Potter was sorted into Gryffindor, the house erupted into the loudest cheer yet.
Fred and George went so far as to jump onto the table and dance.
“How are they our brothers?” Ron muttered, watching Fred and George shake their hips on top of the table with pure disdain.
“Don’t say anything. Just pretend we don’t know them,” Tris said, keeping his eyes dead ahead.
After Lisa Turpin was sorted into Ravenclaw, only three first-years remained.
Ron, Tris, and an arrogant-looking Black boy.
“Ron Weasley!” Professor McGonagall called.
“Phew!” Ron exhaled sharply and ambled forward on shaky legs.
But before the hat had even fully settled on his head, it bellowed, “GRYFFINDOR!”
Tris clearly saw Ron visibly relax.
“Tris Weasley!” Professor McGonagall called out next.
In that moment, Tris, who had assumed he wouldn’t be nervous at all, felt his calves trembling slightly.
“We’re waiting for you, Tris!” Fred called from the Gryffindor table, slinging an arm around a reluctant Ron’s neck while waving enthusiastically at Tris with his free hand.
Tris felt at a loss for words.
Right, what on earth was he nervous about?
Where else could a Weasley go?
It was bound to be Gryffindor.
Taking his seat on the stool, Tris glanced at the Sorting Hat in McGonagall’s hands.
*Ew, it’s so filthy!*
The next second, the hat was placed onto his head.
*I’ll definitely need to wash my hair later.*
*I wonder what the Hogwarts bathrooms are like…*
Tris mused to himself.
Yet the expected shout of “GRYFFINDOR!” never came.