where to be seated on the train wasn't much of a choice for me right now, i had to sit with the rest of the heirs in my year, specifically Orion Black due to his father leading our faction in the Wizengamot.
Until I proved to my father and the general public as a whole that I'm someone important I cant make any unusual actions, this unfortunately means that for the first few months of Hogwarts I'm going to have to appear loyal to house black or more specifically Orion, not extremely so, father still has some pride after all, but enough that its obvious.
So sliding open the door to the compartment that I was informed most first year heirs use by my mother, I wasn't surprised to see Black already there, along with Abraxas Malfoy, Theo Nott, Evan Rosier, Herbert Burke and finally Corban Yaxley.
Greeting Black first as was proper, I then gave each of the others a greeting before giving a slight nod to Malfoy last, due to him not being a part of the sacred twenty eight.
While taking a seat next to Nott I could already feel myself grow annoyed with all this, while a small part of me, which was defiantly the eleven year old Avery, found this all normal, the rest of me found it all quite strange.
Listening to Malfoy try to curry favour with Black was an experience, especially when I know his son will do everything in his power to usurp the black lordship in the future.
No one else came to disturb us for the rest of the journey, people from the light and grey faction have there own cabins and everyone else in our year such as muggleborn and half-bloods were probably to nervous to join a compartment that looks full already.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Watching the castle from the boats is truly a once in a lifetime moment, although our own family manor is probably up there in the biggest ones I've ever seen with beautiful architecture Hogwarts still puts it to shame.
Seeing the ghosts roam the castle halls is also quite frilling, ghost are very rare only able to be sustained in places strong with magic, and you don't get much stronger than Hogwarts.
Luckily for me there was no Draco and Ron making a seen before we enter the hall and with my name being the first on the list it was a quick and easy sorting into Slytherin, just like I suspect Draco did when he was sorted I just kept chanting the house in my head, so that when the hat neared my brow it instantly sorted me without ever fully resting on my head.
You may ask yourself why Slytherin, and the simple answer would be because its expected of me, but the truth is that the closer I am to Slughorn the better my chances are of succeeding in my plans of fame and prestige, and with those I can act how I wish, not having to worry about sucking up to black and being beholden to father and his views.
I ignored most of the sorting, only paying attention to the important ones, that is until I heard the name "Riddle" leave Albus Dumbledore's lips,
Snapping my head to the stool I watched as a slightly shorter than average brown haired boy sat under the hat, I wasn't one hundred percent sure when he attended school but to know he's in my year is slightly reassuring as well as worrying.
Reassuring because I will know where he is most of the time and worrying because no matter how old, a psychopath with magic is always going to be dangerous, I'm not under any assumptions that he's some misunderstood soul, if Albus Dumbledore, one of the greatest wizards of modern time thinks he's dangerous then I'm going to listen.
Although that does bring up the question of whether I have a moral obligation to do anything about riddle, for now I'm just going to ignore him, he is only eleven after all, and he definitely isn't Voldemort yet, no matter how many bunny's he's killed.
The rest of the sorting went pretty quick after that, getting escorted down to our quarters and watching my fellow Slytherin's shoot riddle dirty looks while he came to his own conclusions on why they were doing so was pretty worrying.
But getting our own rooms quickly made me forget about that, one due to the added privacy and second because Morpheus was calling to me.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The first week of classes was surprisingly boring for a school of magic, they were more introductory than anything, but while classes were quiet the inner politics of Slytherin has been shifting, with the arrival of our group came a big power shift, with so many heirs being in the same year and Black being the leader it was bound to happen, and while none of the older years will be expected to do his bidding, there was definitely the expectation that they would have to show favour to him and by extension us at some point throughout the year.
One of the things I paid attention too was the treatment of Riddle, for a majority of Slytherin he was beneath there notice, but a select few took it upon themselves to humiliate Tom quite often, although never around the other houses due to the need to show a united front as a house.
I contemplated trying to help but thought better of it, until I can secure my own standing in this world I'm not going to risk it for a future dark lord.
On a good note I've already managed to show Slughorn the pros of giving me his favour, it wasn't even that hard, I first impressed him with my theoretical knowledge in class that was well above even fifth year level, then with a request to show him my practical work after class was all it took to have him eating out of the palm of my hand.
If it had the added benefit of already making my classmates look at me in a favourable light then all the better, Potions was a noble profession, anyone talented in it will be look at in a good light, it could even get a muggleborn recognition and that's no easy feet in the current political state of magical Britain.
The potion I showed him was simply a less powerful version of my eye enhancing potion, it would grant anyone who drank it permanent 20/20 vision, I already made sure there wasn't some other invention out there that fixed this problem already, and once I confirmed that there wasn't it was an easy choice to start with.
Not only is there no risk of people abusing it, but it would earn me quite a bit of goodwill from the general public.
So with a promise of five percent of the profit for him Slughorn made arrangements of publication in the daily prophet and a means of mass production, apparently as long as you pass your Owls in potions you can work in a big apothecary where dozens of people are paid to brew and distribute simple to make potions.
And with that my first steps to freedom are made.