Platform Nine and Three-Quarters at King's Cross Station was as busy as ever. People in all sorts of clothing pushed trolleys, while wide-eyed owls in the cages on top turned their heads curiously from side to side.
"Ah!" A rosy-cheeked little girl gave a startled cry when the owl in front of her suddenly turned its head two hundred and seventy degrees. Her cry was drowned out by a whistle blasting amid billowing white steam.
Cats chased mice, darting back and forth around people's feet.
"Brother, what exactly is the Sorting Ceremony like?" a soft, wheedling girl's voice asked. "Just tell me!"
A fair-skinned girl with pink cheeks, wearing a fashionable pink-and-white long dress and a floral round hat, clung to a handsome, upright young man's arm with both hands and shook it back and forth.
Holding a little girl's tiny hand in his other hand, the young man exchanged a smile with the curly-haired, visibly pregnant woman beside him.
"Didn't I tell you? You have to compete against a professor in magic. Don't worry. You've already learned up to third-year material over this past year. You'll pass for sure."
"I don't believe you." The girl pouted, let go, and latched onto the woman beside him with a grin. "Granger, you're the best. Tell me, please."
"Haha." Hermione chuckled softly, her belly rounded with pregnancy, and shook her head with a perfectly serious expression. "Well, your brother isn't actually wrong. The sorting method changes every year. He's talking about last year's Sorting Ceremony."
Hermione glanced around, bent down, and said quietly,
"Don't tell anyone else. All I can tell you is that this year's Sorting Ceremony involves bringing something out of the Forbidden Forest."
"The Forbidden Forest?" The girl blinked, a trace of doubt flashing in her bright eyes.
"That