"Trevor! You're here!" Loki and Hermione watched as a droopy boy jumped into a puddle and caught a toad, drenching everyone around him in muddy water in the process.
"His pet's a toad?" Loki mumbled loud enough for Hermione to hear.
"Hey! Be nice!"
"But who has a toad as a pet!?" Loki said jokingly causing Hermione to sprout a hidden smile yet she patiently explained, "In Hogwarts a History it is explained that the school has a choir that is led by the toads-".
"Come on, let's go.", Loki said pulling Hermione along with him as they followed the giant man.
"Do you know him?" Hermione asked softly.
"No, I don't, do you?"
"No! Then why are we following him? Mom told me not to follow strangers!"
"Oh come on Mione, you really think that giant man would do something to us? When we're so close to Hogwarts."
"But-"
"Shh…don't ruin the moment.", Loki said as he pulled Hermione through the thicket of bushes and emerged on the other side, on an uphill that gave them a full view of what lay beyond.
A lake as black as onyx and a sky as dark as midnight littered with several pearl-like stars painted the background for a giant Draculian castle whose towers pierced through the darkness and stood tall ready to fight off any enemies.
Most students remained stunned on the cliff for a while as they absorbed the beauty of their surroundings.
"Excuse me." A cold voice broke the student's thoughts as someone stepped through the thicket and bumped into Hermione.
All the students began shuffling their feet once again as they moved down from the short hill, towards the dock built on the lake.
Floating near the dock was a chain of small boats waiting for children to sit in them before moving away on their own, making way for the boats behind them so all the children could be taken to the castle.
"Four students in a boat!" The tall beardy man shouted once again for the students to hear, his bold words encouraged the little fearful children to jump into the boats in an orderly fashion.
As the line progressed forward with the students jumping into boats, Loki, Hermione and the two girls who bumped into Hermione sat down in one boat by themselves.
"Hello, I'm Loki, who might you be?" Loki said politely extending his hand.
The blond girl looked at Loki and then murmured something to the effect of '...lucky…death…misfortune…stay away?' while holding her head in her hands as if a bludgeoning headache threatened to tear it apart.
But she did not say anything else.
She seemed off, her hands trembled occasionally like she was afraid of something about Loki but she appeared to be doing her best not to look like she was.
"Erm…" Shifting his hand to the other girl, Loki repeated, "Hello, I'm Loki, who might you be my lady?"
"Tracey Davis." The girl said curtly shaking Loki's hand and going back to ignoring him.
"Rude much?" Loki said as the tall man in the boat leading them all shouted once again, "Watch your heads!"
Once they travelled under the vines hanging from the bridge above them, all in the boat saw the gigantic castle standing tall on a cliff.
The beauty captured the students but before they could get too lost in it, a boy fell into the lake, only to be put back into the boat by a large tentacle wrapped around his waist.
'What is that? A pet of the castle?'
Reaching a stone dock under the castle, the giant man got off his boat and helped the other children out and once everyone was out he walked up to the tall castle doors and knocked thrice on them with his giant hands causing the chains on them to rattle.
*BANG* *BANG* *BANG*
The doors opened with a creak and behind them, surprising everyone who expected another giant man to appear was a slightly tall woman wearing emerald green robes and a pointy witch hat with square glasses on her face.
"Professor McGonagall!" Loki heard Hermione exclaim.
The witch scanned the crowd and nodded agreeably once she spotted Hermione and then continued to scan the crowd until the end.
Once she was done, she turned towards Hagrid who spoke out loud, "The firs' years Professor McGonagall."
"Thank you for bringing them here Hagrid. I will take them from here."
"I understand Professor.", Hagrid said with a smile as he walked away on one of the paths that exited from the stone dock.
"Follow me.", McGonagall said and turned around, walking deeper into the castle as the first years all followed her like ducklings behind a mama duck.
There was something about the aura around her that made all students fall in line simultaneously without any thoughts of rebellion.
As they continued walking Loki observed the various Knights around the corridor that all gave him a tense feeling, like they'd step down from their posts at any moment and launch an attack on him.
"What do you think about them Mione?" Loki asked as he pointed towards the knights using his chin.
"You aren't suggesting they can move are you?"
"They look so realistic."
"But they're made out of stone! How would stone knights move?"
"I dunno magic?" Loki said stating the obvious.
"I haven't read about any such magic in Hogwarts a History."
"What if they were just never used in history?"
"But the castle has been through the goblin war!"
"What?" Loki asked puzzled.
Before Hermione could explain further, McGonagall *Coughed* getting the attention of all the first years.
"I expect you all to maintain silence and not make a mess out of yourselves. Please take care of your appearance and make yourself presentable. You will be entering the Great Hall in a moment and I don't want you to look like you've been through a storm." McGonagall's words were pointed and blunt-
-Especially her last words which she said looking at two kids that were close by, a boy with a black haired nest for a head and a redhead with mud splattered on his face.
McGonagall walked away and slipped through the small door that led to the Great Hall, leaving all the kids to themselves.
"Arghh!!! All because of you!" Hermione complained.
"Because of me? What happened because of me?"
"See! Professor McGonagall told us to stay silent because you roped me into a conversation!"
"Ha! It wasn't as if all the other students were also talking and discussing things weren't they?" Loki reminded sarcastically.
"AAHHHHH!!!!" Suddenly a child screamed in the corridor dragging the attention of all the other first-year students.
He was pointing above them which all the students followed and looked at only to be stunned themselves.
'There are ghosts in this world!?' Loki wondered.
'Are they of the chained pathway? And they're stuck in the wraith sequence? Or are they just spirits? Or maybe something like Red Angel Medici?'
'Why don't you need spirit vision to see them? Will they cause me to lose control?'
"Silence!" McGonagall announced her return with a sharp reprimand causing the children to fall silent.
This time however in her hands was a rolled-up parchment.
"Welcome to Hogwarts." McGonagall greeted with a thin inviting smile once the kids became quiet.
"The start of the term banquet will begin shortly, but before you take your seats in the Great Hall, you will be sorted into your house. The sorting is a very important ceremony because, while you are here, your house will be something like your family within Hogwarts…"
Loki tuned out the rest of her speech since the only family that mattered to him presently were Walburga, Elane and Kreacher. Instead, he found himself observing McGonagall, 'She looks powerful, I wonder what Sequence she is. Mione said she could do transfiguration easily, is she the transfiguration teacher then?'
He remained in the Zen state of observing things for a while until he finally heard, "Now, form a line…and follow me." She said and the children once again followed her into the great hall.
Thousands upon thousands of candles were lit and hung in the air without any wax dripping on the students below.
All the first years shuffled along behind McGonagall dragging their feet at the slow pace the line was moving in between four long tables on which students from the other years were sitting and looking at them like they were new merchandise.
Looking at the ceiling Loki heard Hermione beside him whisper, "It's bewitched to look like the night sky. I read it in Hogwarts a History." which caused him to look up at it too.
'It really feels like an exact replica…neat.'
Finally coming to a stop on the dias in front of the teacher's table where an old and dirty witch's hat was placed on a stool, McGonagall said, "You will come to the stool and place the hat on your head when your name is called."
The unsorted students just gulped and nodded their heads in acceptance, each wondering what sort of trials the hat would make them face.
While Loki thought, 'A hat will sort us? Surely it can't be that simple right? How will it even sort us? I thought nothing was written about it in the Black library because the test changed each year but a hat? What sort of test is this? A fashion test?'