September the first arrived and it was time to leave for Hogwarts. After breakfast, Harry and Neville made sure that they had packed everything in their trunks and with Frank's help, loaded it into the boot of their magical car. They then set off for London and arrived at King's Cross Station at half-past ten. 

As the Longbottoms walked into the crowded station, they bumped into the Changs, who had arrived at around the same time along with the Li family. 

Cho immediately went into Harry and walked together as they, along with Neville, headed for the barrier between Platforms Nine and Ten. They had just gotten close when they heard Hermione's voice. "Oh, hi, Hermione," said Harry, turning around and smiling at her. "And hello, Mr., and Mrs. Granger."

Since Muggles could get onto Platform Nine and Three-Quarters if they were holding on to a witch or wizard, Min and Alice volunteered to bring Hermione's parents over. After making sure no other Muggles were paying attention, Neville ran through the barrier. Harry and Hermione followed a few seconds later, and after that came the adults. Mr. and Mrs. Granger gazed around in wonder.

At the same time Sirius, Emmeline, and Remus went by floo powder along with Aunt Petunia and Dudley; the children greeted them, especially Dudley which then hugged his cousin.

"We're going to Hogwarts together, finally.. I hope I can learn a lot from you.." said the excited Dudley to Harry.

"My friends are there to help you, and you will learn a lot, much more than you ever before," Harry replied before a voice called them.

"Hey guys, over here!" The families turned around to see Susan waving from somewhere near the end of the Hogwarts Express, with her parents standing next to her.

Harry, Dudley, Sue, Cho, Hermione, and Neville hurried over to their friend. "Hello everyone," said Susan, beaming. "I've saved the last compartment, across mine, in the final carriage for us to sit in. Come on. Daphne and Tracey are already inside."

With the help of their parents, the three of them got their heavy trunks loaded on the luggage racks. just as the Weasleys arrived, with Percy striding off to join the other prefects, Fred and George looking for their friends, and Ron joining his friends in putting his trunk away.

After that, Harry left the compartment to bid his adopted parents good-bye. "I know you'll have a great time at Hogwarts, Harry," said Alice, smiling down at him. "Do well in school and take time to enjoy life."

"Make sure you write to us at least once a week," added Frank. "I want to know everything you and your friends get up to." 

"And last but not least, Prongslet... Don't do anything that I or the Marauders wouldn't do," said Sirius.

Remus gave him a look, then said, "Harry, and please don't do most of the stuff the Marauders did. Sure, have fun and all, and I know harmless pranks will always be fun, but I want you to follow more in your mother's footsteps than your father's, especially as you are close with Cho."

Frank and Alice nodded in agreement, along with Cho's parents.

"Don't worry, Remus," said Harry. "Just like you or Uncle Sirius say, a few harmless pranks that make people laugh will always be needed, but trust me, I'm not going to cause havoc or be a bully. I'll miss you all, though."

"Oh, and Aunt Emma, I wish your baby will be healthy."

"Thank you very much, Harry, and we'll miss you too and Neville. Marianne will miss you too as well." said Emmeline, "But don't worry, it'll be the Christmas holidays before you know it and you'll see us again and have some fun!" She hugged Harry, and then Remus and Sirius hugged him too, and last, but not least Frank and Alice.

"By the way," said Remus, handing Harry a basket. "We know that you'll be buying snacks from the food trolley, but Emmeline still packed a couple of sandwiches that all of you love, and she also made some Battenberg cakes if you are hungry before the time, with Alice's help. The sandwiches will be healthier than sweets, and the food trolley doesn't sell muggle-style stuff like, well, Battenberg cakes." Neville can see Alice smiled in appreciation.

"Thanks," Harry said, taking the basket appreciatively, as the said cake, with its signature pink and yellow colours and the chequered pattern was one of his favorite desserts.

"Study well, and make sure you write to us at least twice a week, okay Dudders?" asked Petunia.

"Of course, Mom". Uncle Vernon was unable to go with them because he is having an audit in the Grunning's factory in Hull. 

It almost eleven, and after another round of hugs, Harry boarded the train just as the whistle blows. 

A couple of minutes later, it started moving, and he leaned forward slightly to wave to his adopted parents and the rest of the adults and other children present; David, Marianne, Edmund, Astoria, Luna, Alex, and Ginny. He noticed Ginny, Luna, and Marianne running after the train, half-laughing, half-crying, until it drew too much speed and the girls fell back, waving.

Susan sat in a compartment with Daphne, Sue, Tracey, and Dudley, while Harry, Cho, Ron, Neville, and Hermione in another compartment across Susan's one.

Once the Hogwarts Express rounded a bend and the platform couldn't be seen anymore, Harry and the basket went inside the compartment reserved by Ron, Hermione, and Cho for him. Then he feels a bit peckish thanks to he doesn't eat much of his breakfast. He took out a sandwich, which was tuna with lettuce, tomato, and cheese, and began eating.

"Are you hungry already?" asked Hermione incredulously. "It's not even noon yet."

Harry swallowed and responded, "Sorry, I was too excited earlier to eat much breakfast." Ron and Cho chuckled a little with Harry's confession.

Then they began to talk about their sorting.

"I don't fancy being in Slytherin, though," said Ron, making a face. "But I'll do it for sake of our friendship, especially since among Purebloods here and in the other compartment... Daphne and Tracey are the best candidate among us to be in Slytherin since they are from a long line of Slytherins. In fact, Tracey had told us that her family is one of Salazar's descendants. You know there are many magical families all over Britain, even in Canada and Australia as well as the USA, with Four Founders in their blood."

Cho replied to Ron "Slytherin would be a great house if You-Know-Who hadn't given it such a bad reputation, and most of the students there didn't focus on pureblood supremacy even during that time."

Harry shrugged. "There's not much we can do about it, though." The others sighed, and then they changed the subject to discuss the subjects they'd be studying at Hogwarts.

At half-past twelve, the witch with the food trolley came by. Ron had some sandwiches that his mother had packed for him, but he still took out a few Knuts from the pocket money he had. The five of them pooled their money and went out into the corridor. They ended up buying some of everything, and after spending eleven Sickles and seven Knuts, tipped all the food onto an empty seat.

Hermione decided to eat Harry's other sandwich (which was roast beef), followed by two Pumpkin Pasties and a Cauldron Cake. She then settled back to nibble on a Licorice Wand and some Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans.

"My God... why this one tastes like soap?" said Hermione upon eating one of the Beans.

"Well, for the first-timers... Every Flavor indeed means every flavor, Hermione." Harry replied to her, patting her back.

"Welcome to the Wizarding World again" Ron added.

He regarded those who had eaten the said bean as truly "initiated" to the Wizarding World.

"Remember when I got vomit flavor?" Cho asked them.

"Eugh..." they winced.

Soon after they've done eating Harry decided to break it in with a game against Ron. Of course, Ron was brilliant at chess, so despite help from the others, Harry ended up losing.

"I think all your advice is what caused me to lose," said Harry, laughing, at the conclusion of the match. "Or at least, made me lose so badly since I bet I would have lost anyway."

"I'll play you, Harry," Cho suggested. "I'm even worse than you at chess, by the way, so you'll win this one."

Harry agreed to it and Cho took out her chess pieces. Though she put up a good fight, as she said, Harry did end up winning with a solid checkmate.

The two were putting their chess sets away when the door to their compartment slid open. Three boys entered, and Harry recognized the one in the middle as the boy that was certainly Draco Malfoy. He was looking at Harry with a lot more interest than he'd shown back in Diagon Alley.

"Is it true?" he asked. "They're saying all down the train that Harry Potter's in this compartment. So it's you, is it?"

"Yes," Harry said shortly, looking at the other two boys. Both of them were thickset and looked extremely mean. Standing on either side of the pale boy, they looked like bodyguards.

"Oh, this is Crabbe and this is Goyle," said the boy carelessly, noticing where Harry was looking. "And my name's Malfoy, Draco Malfoy."

Ron gave a slight cough, which might have been hiding a snigger. Draco Malfoy looked at him. "Think my name's funny, do you? No need to ask who you are. My father told me all the Weasleys have red hair, freckles, and more children than they can afford."

Ron turned red at this. Harry's eyes narrowed, and then he said in a falsely polite and cheerful tone, "Oh, it is a great pleasure to be properly introduced to you, Draco Malfoy."

Ron and Cho sniggered at his sarcastic action, while Neville and Hermione stifled giggles. Meanwhile, Malfoy turned pink, but then got himself under control and glanced at the other four. "Besides a Weasley, you're sitting with the Chang girl and a Longbottom, but who's the other girl?"

"I'm Hermione Granger," said Hermione.

"Any relation to Hector Dagworth-Granger, the famous potioneer?" Malfoy asked.

Hermione shook her head. "I don't think so. I'm Muggleborn."

"Oh," said Malfoy with a sneer. "Then you're not worth my time. Anyway, Potter, you'll soon find out some wizarding families are much better than others. You don't want to go making friends with the wrong sort. I can help you there." He held out his hand to shake Harry's, but Harry didn't take it.

"Perhaps you've forgotten that I mentioned my godfather during our first meeting," he said. "Uncle Sirius, along with Uncle Remus, who was friends with my parents along with my adopted parents, the Longbottoms, taught me all about the wizarding world. Their friends also helped me, Uncle Gideon, Aunt Min, Uncle Joseph, and many more. Thanks to them, I already made a group of friends, and insulting them isn't going to make me become your friend."

Malfoy's cheeks turned pink again. "I'd be careful if I were you, Potter. Unless you're a bit more polite to me... you might go the same way as your parents. They didn't know what was good for them, either. You hang around with riff-raff like the Weasleys, Longbottoms, and mudbloods, and it'll rub off on you."

"Don't you dare to call Hermione with that word!" Ron shouted angrily, while Cho raised a hand like she wanted to slap the trio and Neville pulled out his wand.

Harry stood up, a look of disgust on his face. "You're one to said about being polite, Malfoy. So far, you've insulted my friends and my parents, and you've been rude to me. Oh, and Uncle Sirius told me about the Crabbe and Goyle families. He said that due to too much inbreeding, they're not very intelligent. So maybe you should be worried that their stupidity will rub off on you if you hang around them too much. "

"Also you must know that in the compartment behind you three there are our friends as well."

Hearing the confrontation Susan decided to open her compartment door.

"Daphne? Tracey?" said the surprised Malfoy.

"Meet Susan Bones, Daphne Greengrass, Tracey Davis, Sue Li, and my muggle-born cousin Dudley Dursley."

Nobody dares to speak anymore from Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle.

"Surprised? Well, as you've wasted our time as well as yours I suggest you and your goons leave now, Malfoy, otherwise I can't blame myself if one of us either gives you a good hex, a slap in your faces, a punch in your guts, and many more."

Malfoy glared, but seeing that he was outnumbered and outgunned, resentfully turned tail and went out from their sights, Crabbe and Goyle following him.

"I don't want to be like that jerk anymore. He's basically like my old self." Dudley said to Harry.

Once they were all gone, Hermione asked, "What did you mean about not having him refer to me 'with that word', Ron?"

Ron began to explain his friends with a scowl on his face, "Mudblood is a very foul word to call Muggleborns. It's pretty much saying that you've got dirty blood because you've got Muggle parents and you don't belong in this world."

Harry suddenly remembered how Uncle Remus had told him that Professor Snape lost his birth mother's friendship with him as the result of the said word.

"But why haven't I heard the word before? You lads, and lasses, sorry Cho, had told me all about the wizarding world but that."

"Hermione, that's not a word you use in polite company," Susan pointed out, still standing with her friends inside Harry's compartment. "Do you think the rest of us would ever call you that? No matter how angry we got at you, we would never insult you like that."

"Yes, but you could have at least mentioned it in the context of pureblood supremacy," said Hermione. "I've read about the war against Voldemort, and you and your parents have all warned me about the racist purebloods."

"Trust me, it just never crossed our minds," said Sue Li. "We would never dream of calling you or Dudley the 'm-word', so it didn't occur to us to someone like Malfoy would insult you like that, especially not here and now."

"And even me and Trace's pureblood parents won't want us to say that word anyway," Daphne added. "Especially with my cousin near me."

Harry sighed. "I probably shouldn't have said what I did about Crabbe and Goyle, even if Malfoy was extremely rude and what Uncle Sirius and Uncle Gideon said about them was completely true."

"They deserved it for choosing to hang around Malfoy," Ron said. "I wouldn't worry too much about it, Harry."

"You've done the right thing Harry," Cho added.

"He insulted your family, Ron, so I decided to have a little payback with the way I talk to him," said Harry with a shrug. He looked out the window and added, "I think we're almost there since it's getting dark now."

The compartment door opened again to reveal Percy.

"We almost reach Hogwarts, so get your robes on."

"Alright, brother" Ron answered.

"Well, we must get back to our compartments," said Dudley. They dug their school robes out from their trunks and wore it, girls first.

When the girls returned to their compartments, the train began slowing down, and a minute later, a voice echoed throughout the train, "This is your conductor speaking, we will arrive at Hogwarts in five minutes. Please leave your luggage on the train, it will be taken to the school separately."

The train slowed right down and finally stopped. People pushed their way toward the door and out on to a tiny, dark platform. Then a lamp came bobbing over the heads of the students, and Harry heard a familiar voice: "Firs' years! Firs' years over here!"

Hagrid's big hairy face beamed over the sea of heads. He greeted the quintet as they came over, and then said, "C'mon, follow me – any more firs' years? Mind yer step, now! Firs' years follow me!"

Slipping and stumbling, they followed Hagrid down what seemed to be a steep, narrow path. It was so dark on either side of them that Harry thought there must be thick trees there. Nobody spoke much.

"Yeh'll get yer firs' sight o' Hogwarts in a sec," Hagrid called over his shoulder, "jus' round this bend."

There was a loud "Oooooh!" The narrow path had opened suddenly onto the edge of a great black lake. Perched atop a high mountain on the other side, its windows sparkling in the clear, starry skies of Scotland, was a vast castle with many turrets and towers.

"No more'n four in a boat!" Hagrid called, pointing to a fleet of little boats sitting in the water by the shore. The group split up, with Harry, Ron, Cho (with her persistence to be with Harry), and Neville getting into one boat. Susan and Hermione getting into another with a girl with blonde pigtails and a skinny blond boy with an upturned nose. Meanwhile, Daphne, Tracey, Dudley, and Sue are in yet another boat.

"Everyone in?" shouted Hagrid, who had a boat to himself. "Right then – FORWARD!"

And the fleet of little boats moved off all at once, gliding across the lake, which was as smooth as glass. Everyone was silent, staring up at the great castle overhead. It towered over them as they sailed nearer and nearer to the cliff on which it stood.

"Heads down!" yelled Hagrid as the first boats reached the cliff; they all bent their heads and the little boats carried them through a curtain of ivy that hid a wide opening in the cliff face. They were carried along a dark tunnel, which seemed to be taking them right underneath the castle until they reached a kind of underground harbor, where they clambered out onto rocks and pebbles.

They clambered up a passageway in the rock after Hagrid's lamp, coming out at last onto smooth, damp grass right in the shadow of the castle. They walked up a flight of stone steps and crowded around the huge, oak front door. "Everyone here?" Hagrid asked.

With that, he raised a gigantic fist and knocked three times on the castle door.

The door swung open at once. Professor McGonagall, wearing emerald-green robes, stood there. Her face was stern instead of smiling, and she gave off the aura of someone not to cross, and Harry and his friends know better thanks to her few visits to his house in Privet Drive.

"The firs' years, Professor McGonagall," said Hagrid, giving a slight bow.

"Thank you, Hagrid. I will take them from here." She pulled the door open wide. The entrance hall was so big you could have fit the whole of Ria's house in it. The stone walls were lit with flaming torches, the ceiling was too high to make out, and a magnificent marble staircase led to the upper floors.

They followed Professor McGonagall across the flagged stone floor. Harry could hear the drone of hundreds of voices from a doorway to the right – the rest of the school must already be here – but Professor McGonagall showed the first years into a small, empty chamber off the hall. They crowded in, standing rather closer together than they would usually have done, peering around nervously.

"Welcome to Hogwarts," said Professor McGonagall. "The start-of-term banquet will begin shortly, but before you take your seats in the Great Hall, you will be sorted into your Houses. The Sorting is a very important ceremony because, while you are here, your House will be something like your family within Hogwarts. You will have classes with the rest of your House, sleep in your house dormitory, and spend free time in your House common room. The four Houses are named of the Founders of this school; Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and Slytherin. Each House has its own noble history and each has produced outstanding witches and wizards. While you are at Hogwarts, your triumphs will earn your House points, while any rule-breaking will lose House points. At the end of the year, the House with the most points is awarded the House Cup, a great honor. I hope each of you will be a credit to whichever House becomes yours."

"The Sorting Ceremony will take place in a few minutes in front of the rest of the school. I suggest you all smarten yourselves up as much as you can while you are waiting."

"Here we go, remember. Whatever our houses we will be friends. Got it?"

His friends nodded, as they are waiting for that time of their Sorting...

...

A/N: The Sorting will be in the next chapter, so stay tuned!