Chapter 43: 1st September 1991, Sunday: Part 6

That was about the least convincing okay George had ever heard. Hermione said that with about the same level of enthusiasm as Ellie had for going to the dentist. There was no way she really meant it, she just wanted his notes that badly. Even then, George was quite satisfied with this result. Due to Hermione's 'acquired' personality, she won't be making any friends for the next couple of months. As long as George was a good boy from this point onwards and treated her warmly, she should start eventually reciprocating his kindness. Due to what George had planned in late October, he had no doubt they'll soon be the best of friends.

The boats continued to travel across the Black Lake until they reached a fishing dock that looked in about the same condition as the pier. In other words, they were arriving at yet another decrepit and rotten pile of wooden planks loosely held together with thousand-year-old enchantments. The thirty or so boats automatically parked themselves in a column with Hagrid's at the front. The half-giant helped some of the students who were struggling to dismount their boats, he easily picked them up like they were weightless.

Being such a refined gentleman, George jumped out of the boat first and offered his hand to Hermione. She didn't even spare him a glance as she left the boat, so he ended up helping Neville instead. Once all the students had left the boats, Hagrid started pointing at them whilst clearly counting with his fat fingers. He only smiled once he had finished, the numbers must have matched up. George was wondering how often a student went missing on the boat ride across the lake, maybe it wasn't so safe after all.

Then Hagrid addressed all the students, "now that yer all here, welcome to Hogwarts. If you all head to the top of the stairs, you'll see a large archway. There will be a rather grumpy-looking man called Mr Filch standing by.

He will tell you where to leave your pets if you didn't leave them on the train and will take ya to the Great Hall for the Sorting Hat Ceremony. It's dark out tonight, so watch your step. It's a long way to fall."

Everyone looked up the long and winding set of stairs that led toward the castle with dread. The few, like George, who brought their pets along appeared to be regretting their decisions. There was always the option to leave the animals on the train, but a minority of students wanted to keep their beloved pets for as long as possible. George personally didn't trust the school with his property. Blinkie wouldn't hesitate to fly away if the house elves gave it the chance. But unlike his fellow first-years, George wasn't dreading this climb. It was just the thing he needed after all that sitting.

As the students began to ascend the stairs, George noticed one white-haired individual who had convinced his two goons to practically carry him. Using one's underlings to perform physical labour, that pompous idiot had the right idea. George had put many hours into acquiring his first human asset, maybe now would be a good time to test his utility. George looked down from one of the twists in the staircase and couldn't see Neville anywhere. After letting half of the students pass him by, he eventually found Neville at the back of the pack.

Hagrid was following the students up the stairs and occasionally helped anyone who was falling behind, Neville was one such student. After the disappointment of watching his struggling friend subsided, George committed to reaching the top as soon as possible. His strong physique easily allowed him to pass all the other exhausted students who looked like they were about to blackout. Once George reached the top, he was greeted with a magnificent view of the Scottish Highlands. He was even high enough to see the lights from Hogsmeade village in the distance.

It took five more minutes before all the rest of the students managed to reach the summit. Most of them were very red in the face and were breathing heavily. If George had been the headmaster of Hogwarts, he would introduce a fitness regime to fix this present issue. Physical education should be a core subject at Hogwarts, and yet it didn't have so much as an elective class, it was truly disgraceful. He would have considered putting in a complaint with a prefect, but that would be practically pointless. The school curriculum hadn't changed in hundreds of years, and the stupid sport of Quidditch would be their excuse. 'If you want to get fit, just play Quidditch' is what they'd no doubt say.

"Look at the state of the lot of you. I swear the standard is dropping every year, mark my words", a haggard old voice echoed George's thoughts exactly.

George turned around to see an old man who had long thinning hair and a bald spot in the middle of his head. He wore a long trench coat with a formal shirt and tie underneath. A brown fluffy cat with red eyes was held underneath one of his arms. The miserable-looking man was holding a lantern toward the students, and he didn't look impressed. George knew this old pain-in-the-arse was Argus Filch, Hogwarts' main caretaker. He must be here to 'welcome' the new first-years to Hogwarts in his own special way. First a giant, then a scary old man, it's almost like Dumbledore is trying to terrify the next generation of wizards.

Hagrid walked past Filch, while ignoring the irritable man, and stood under a large stone archway to address the students.

"Now that you're all at the castle, I'll be off. Remember to listen to Professor McGonagall, you don't want to be getting in trouble with her on your first day. You can take my word for it."

Hagrid appeared to have a bad memory flash before his eyes, he shook his head to cast it away. The half-giant then turned around and ascended a flight of stairs out of view from the students.

The children's attention was then redirected towards Filch, "you all are going to leave your pets here. No exceptions!

The Hogwarts house-elves will take your luggage and your pets to your dormitories after the Sorting Hat Ceremony. Your possessions must be tagged with your full name, all unclaimed items will be disposed of."

The few students still clinging to the pets for emotional support seemed quite reluctant to say goodbye. Even Neville had gotten all worked up again and started looking for his toad. Blinkie wasn't quite so loved, his cage hit the ground with a little too much enthusiasm. George was quite happy to finally stop lugging around that bird everywhere, but he still wanted to make some last-minute adjustments before he parted with his owl. He pulled out a roll of duct tape and wrapped it around the cage a dozen times. Now there was no way on Earth that feathery pest was going to escape in his absence.

All of George's other luggage was already tagged and had been left behind. Now it had magically appeared in a massive pile of trunks beside the archway, the house elves must have already emptied the train. It wasn't so important if the suitcase got lost in transit because George had all of his most valuable possessions stored away in the leather sack. He had no plans of ever being separated from that sack, that's why he'd kept it down his pants all this time.

Filch kept nagging for the students to, 'get on with it' and, 'get a move on, we haven't got all day', as they left their pets behind. Only then was the group allowed to enter the castle

Filch pointed towards the stairs leading inside as he demanded, "get inside, the lot of you! Any longer, and you'll all be late. We can't be having that now, can we?"

Filch's overwhelmingly pleasant company was enough to encourage the students to quickly comply with his 'request'. Everyone was very excited now that they were finally entering the castle, they were already loudly talking amongst each other as they ascended the stairs. George, Hermione and Neville were the noticeable exceptions. Hermione was still being pointlessly awkward, and Neville was still looking for his toad. George however, was too busy looking at the witch at the top of the stairs. She was yet another person he had a perfect recollection of.

An elderly woman stood like a statue in the centre of the staircase, preventing the students from advancing any further. She was wearing a long dark green robe and had a pointed wizard's hat on her head. Bar the green skin and pointed nose, she looked like a stereotypical witch. George had known who she was the moment he laid his eyes on her.

McGonagall's eyes briefly glanced over all the students before she spoke, "welcome to Hogwarts. Now, in a few moments, you will pass through these doors and join your classmates. But before you can take your seats, you must be sorted into your houses…"

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The students stopped their conversations and listened with enraptured attention to McGonagall's speech.

McGonagall continued, "they are Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw and Slytherin. Now while you're here, your house will be like your family."

George chuckled internally as he thought, "yes, I will treat them just like my family. No need to worry about that, Professor McGonagall."

McGonagall then explained the obligatory point system at Hogwarts, "your triumphs will earn new points, any rule-breaking and you will lose points. At the end of the year, The house with the most points is awarded the house Cup."

A frog croaking could suddenly be heard at the top of the stairs just below McGonagall's feet. George looked down to see Neville's toad, just as fate had foretold, and yet it didn't make any sense. George had been secretly looking for the toad throughout their journey to the castle and hadn't seen it once. He had looked where it was inevitably going to appear, and yet it wasn't there moments ago. Within the time that George had looked at McGonagall and back down, which was just a fraction of a second, the toad had appeared out of thin air.

George was seriously considering if Trevor was the world's first teleporting toad. He would have to remember to ask Neville on a future occasion if this phenomenon ever repeated itself. Speaking of which, Neville noticed the toad shortly after George.

Neville shouted, "Trevor!", before picking it up off the ground.

Everybody giggled at Neville's outburst, but McGonagall didn't look very impressed. Luckily, Neville wasn't in a house yet, so he couldn't technically lose any points for interrupting a teacher.

Neville apologised and McGonagall finished her speech, "the Sorting Ceremony will begin momentarily."

She then left through the large doors behind her, leaving the students alone. On cue, Draco made his dramatic introduction. He was just as pompous and egotistical as George had envisioned, it was hard to find the guy annoying when he was just so entertaining to watch.

Draco shouted in a particularly famous boy's direction, "so it's true then, what they're saying on the train. Harry Potter has come to Hogwarts."

There was a lot of murmuring amongst the crowd, which drew a lot of attention to Harry. Hermione was still deliberately avoiding eye contact with him even now.

Draco introduced himself to Harry after getting his attention, "this is Crabbe and Goyle, and I'm Malfoy. Draco Malfoy."

George imagined introducing himself to Draco, "the name's Linwood, George Linwood. It's a pleasure meeting you Mr Malfoy. Would you like a drink? Perhaps a vodka martini, shaken not stirred of course."

Ron and George both chuckled at the same time, only Ron forgot to use George's level of discretion. Draco didn't seem to find Ron's laughter amusing, he wasn't the sort to let that slide.

Draco verbally punched back at Ron, "think my name's funny, do you? No need to ask yours. Red hair and a hand-me-down robe, you must be a Weasley."

George loved watching this show, he felt almost giddy seeing these events play out in person. He caught himself unintentionally smiling and quickly stopped before anyone noticed. He thought this was abnormal behaviour for him and decided to have a brief moment of self-reflection. Why was he finding this so entertaining? George had been acting a little off today, he was being too emotional by his normal standards. He'd been feeling angry one minute and excitable the next. He ended up shrugging it off as nerves for the upcoming Sorting Hat Ceremony, he was probably just being paranoid.

Draco looked back towards Harry, "you'll soon find out that some wizarding families are better than others, Potter. You don't want to go making friends with the wrong sort. I can help you there?"

Draco offered an arm out towards Harry, George personally found the proposition unimpressive. When it came to his high standard of making offers of friendship under false pretences, he would score Draco a three out of ten if he was generous. Draco's mannerisms just reeked of superiority, even an idiot could tell this 'friendly' gesture wasn't genuine. It was almost like the pure-blood was deliberately trying to annoy the boy who lived.

Harry looked at the offered hand before retorting, "I think I can tell the wrong sort for myself, thanks."

George was now discreetly smirking in the background, this marked the beginning of a rivalry that he couldn't wait to exploit. Anger is one of the easiest emotions to manipulate, and Draco was exceptionally malleable. Sadly, this little tussle between good and evil had to come to an abrupt end. Draco looked like he was about to retort, but McGonagall had reappeared and interrupted their conversation.

She addressed the students, "we're ready for you now, follow me."

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