New Professor

At last, everyone in the compartment had arrived. Draco Malfoy merely gave an unnatural smile, then quietly sat at the very edge.

It was not until evening that the train finally arrived at Hogsmeade Station.

The moment they got off, they did not see Hagrid.

Of course, they no longer needed to follow Hagrid, since only first-years had to take boats across to the castle—that was an old Hogwarts tradition. But this year, they did not know who was responsible for guiding the new students.

Second-years and above all rode in self-moving carriages. However, it was only because of Eli and Harry's reminder that Ron Weasley and the others learned the carriages were actually pulled by Thestrals, creatures visible only to those who had witnessed death.

The group dawdled along, mostly because of Eli. Hermione Granger had spent considerable effort waking him up, then spent quite a while getting his brain working again.

They laughed and shoved each other around, only arriving at the carriage area at the very end.

By the time they got there, one carriage had just left. Only the last one remained, and there was just one person sitting inside.

"Hi!" They turned around to see Neville approaching them, carrying a strange, moving cactus in a pot.

"Oh, hi!" They greeted Neville. None of them asked about the peculiar plant in his arms, because judging by Neville's eager expression, he might have introduced it to them all the way to the castle.

"Looks like we'll have to squeeze in..." Fitting so many of them into one carriage would indeed be difficult, but this was the last carriage.

"Looks like you'll have to squeeze in. Though perhaps people can overlap." A voice that seemed to drift through the air reached them, ethereal and distant. The girl holding