When You Can Set Someone Up, Set Someone Up

A little after six in the evening, the train arrived at Hogsmeade Station in the Scottish Highlands. The journey, which had lasted over seven hours, could finally be declared over.

Hah! This was the Hogwarts Express? Andy had never ridden such a slow train in either of his lives.

"Don't we need to take our trunks?" Hermione asked, looking puzzled as she watched Andy and Neville walk out empty-handed.

"No."

Andy explained, "They'll send our luggage to the dormitories."

Following the crowd off the train, they found that it was already completely dark outside.

Stars dotted the night sky. Weeds grew wildly all around them, wolf howls occasionally drifted from the distant forest, and crows perched on dead trees on either side, letting out chilling cries from time to time.

What a downright creepy station.

Quite a few Little Wizards were trembling in fright. Neville looked as though he was about to faint, while Hermione wore a tense expression, merely pretending to stay calm.

"Hey, Andy. I was wondering where you'd gone."

A familiar voice came from behind him. Andy turned and saw Ron walking toward him with a skinny black-haired boy.

"I got here early, so I just found a compartment at random. And this is...?" Andy asked.

"Hello, I'm Harry Potter," the black-haired boy said.

"I'm Andy Collins." Andy nodded.

"Is it really you?"

Hermione sized Harry up from head to toe, seemingly puzzled by how this skinny boy had saved the Wizarding World. "I've read about you. I bought a few extra reference books—Modern Magic History, Rise and Fall of Dark Arts, and Important Magical Events of the Twentieth Century. They all mentioned you."

Here we go again. Andy rubbed his forehead helplessly.

"They mentioned me?" Harry looked rather strange. He had no idea how he had become such a celebrity in the Wizarding World. On the train, a guy named Draco Malfoy had even come over on his own and tried to force a friendship on him.

Harry had refused him.

Or perhaps he hadn't.

Because that little kid named Draco apparently did not understand what the word "refusal" meant.

Ron tugged at Andy's sleeve and glanced toward Hermione as he asked in an extremely quiet voice, "How do you know her?"

"We met on the train. We were in the same compartment," Andy replied casually.

"Blimey, you can actually stand her?" Ron looked utterly incredulous.

"Ah—"

They were still chatting when a piercing scream suddenly rang out in the distance, as if someone had been terribly frightened.

Did someone die?

Andy curiously looked in that direction.

A hulking man at least ten feet tall emerged from the nearby woods. He lumbered toward them slowly, like some beast preparing to devour its prey.

"First Years! First Years, over here!"

The giant held a lamp in his hand and waved it above the First Years' heads. "Harry, over here! Are you all right?"

Andy felt that Harry probably was not all right.

Unless someone focused on Hermione's looks, most kids probably could not adapt to talking with her.

The giant shouted, "My name is Rubeus Hagrid, Hogwarts' Keeper of Keys. All First Years, follow me! Any more First Years? Watch your step! All First Years, follow me!"

The Little Wizards exchanged looks, as if hoping to draw courage from one another. Once one of them timidly stumbled after Hagrid, the crowd finally began moving forward with him.

"Wow, he's really tall." Hermione moved closer to Andy, seemingly hoping to get some firsthand information from him.

"Lumos!"

Andy waved his wand and explained quietly, "He might be a half-giant. But keep that to yourself. Don't say it out loud—they don't really like that term."

The crowd moved on slowly. Hagrid turned and pointed ahead. "Round this bend, and you'll get your first sight of Hogwarts."

At the end of the narrow path lay a black lake. On the high slope across the lake stood a majestic castle, its spires rising one after another, its windows glittering beneath the Starry Sky.

"No more than four to a boat!" Hagrid shouted, pointing at the boats along the lakeshore.

Andy, Hermione, and Neville climbed into one boat. Ron looked around, then could only pull Harry into another.

Andy noticed that a platinum-haired boy and a chubby boy boarded the same boat as Harry and Ron.

"Hello, I'm Michael Corner." The last person in Andy's boat was a black-haired boy.

"Hello!"

They greeted one another.

Once all the Little Wizards had boarded, every boat automatically set off toward the castle.

Everyone fell silent, staring at the towering castle. As the boats approached the cliff on which the castle stood, it seemed to loom directly above their heads.

"Beautiful," Andy murmured.

Hogwarts Castle certainly had style. And considering that it had stood for over a thousand years—even before officially enrolling, Andy was already looking forward to the next seven years of school.

The boats continued onward, passing through a pitch-black tunnel before arriving at the foot of the cliff, at a place resembling a dock.

"Hey! Look, is this your toad?" As the Little Wizards climbed out of the boats, Hagrid found a golden-backed toad while checking the empty ones.

"Oh! Thank goodness!" Neville cried in delight.

"It really came back on its own," Hermione said as she looked at Andy.

Andy tilted his head. "I'd wager Neville forgot he even had a toad."

Hermione shot Andy an annoyed look, but said nothing more, because she thought so too.

They continued following Hagrid, climbed a flight of stone steps, and stopped before a huge oak door.

"Everyone here?"

Hagrid called out, raised an enormous fist, and knocked three times on the castle doors.

The doors slowly opened. A tall Witch in emerald robes stood before them, her expression stern. Andy immediately thought of the disciplinary dean from his previous life.

She looked like some nun from hell.

"First Years, Professor McGonagall," Hagrid said, sounding like a total wimp.

"Thank you, Hagrid. I'll take it from here!"

Without Professor McGonagall seeming to do anything, the castle doors suddenly opened wide. The Little Wizards quietly followed her inside.

Andy waved Hermione, Neville, Ron, and Harry over, then said in a voice just loud enough for Professor McGonagall to hear, "Fred and George told me Professor McGonagall keeps a Tabby Cat..."