I'm sorry about not continuing about my day yesturday but a lot did go on. So where did I get to. Oh yeah entering the castle. It's huge. The entrance hall alone could probably fit the Drusleys house a few times over. The walls were covered in flaming torches giving light to the otherwise dark corridors. Both the walls and floors were stone and the staircase in the middle was made out of marble. A pair of doors to our left let out noise every few minutes giving us the right idea that behind the double doors was probably the great hall where we would eat and be sorted.
Before we entered though we met one of the teachers. Her name is professor McGonagall who teaches the subject Transfiguration, the head of Gryffindor house and the deputy headmisstress. Thats a lot of titles. She gave us a bit of a speech about the four different houses. There are four of them and are called Gryffindor the house of the lions, Slytherin the house of the snakes, Ravenclaw the house of the eagles and Hufflepuff the house of the badgers. She explained about the house point system and how if we misbehaved we would lose points whereas if we did something of merit we would gain points. At the end of the year the one with the most points would win the house cup.
After leaving us so she could set up some things we were met with the ghosts of hogwarts. There were a few of them and they were completely see through. The air seemed to get a bit chilly around them but they didn't seem to notice us at first. That is probably not likely as they must do this every year. I wonder why. Maybe its so we can get used to them. Or maybe they just love to scare the first years. Thats probably it. Later I found out there names. It seems that each house has a gost. Sir Nicholas for Gryffindor house- he was beheaded but not completely. The Frair was next and he is Hufflepuffs ghost- I honestly can't remember how he died. Huh. Anyway the Bloody Baron, who is covered in blood, is Slytherins ghost. The Ravenclaw ghost is named the Grey Lady. No one knows how she died either. Their are two other ghosts to mention. The first is Peeves who is the local portaghost who loves to cause trouble. The other ghost is named Myrtle apparently she used to be a student before she died and now haunts a bathroom.
Back to the sorting. We were led throuh the great hall towards a stool which held a hat. This hat was supposed to sort us apparently. I will admit I was a bit sceptic but then the hat began to sing. I don't remember much of the song but I do remember it mentioned traits of the four houses. Hufflepuff was the house of the loyal, Slytherin for the ambitious, Ravenclaw for the smart and Gryffindor is for the brave. Ron got into Gryffindor as did Neville as well as the girl Hermione Granger, I thought she would be a Ravenclaw. Malfoy got into Slytherin. When I went up to the hat the hall became silent. According to the hat I could have been placed in any house but he wanted Slytherin. I told him no as Malfoy was already sorted there and if the school didn't want to lose a student in the middle of the night then the hat would be better of placing me somewhere else. He eventually placed me in Gryffindor house. The whole house cheered.
Dinner was also an event as the food just appeared on the tables. There were all kinds such as fish and pork, salads and potatoes. When the main food was finished it was replaced by desserts like the treacle tart. Yum. But not everything was good. As I was browsing the head table looking at the proffessors I notice that when I looked towards a man wearing black robes sitting near proffesor Quirrel my head began to hurt. I turned to ask Percy Weasley who he was, apparently he is the potions proffesor called Severus Snape. He looks like you wouldn't want to mess with him. But the name Severus seems familiar I wonder why.
Talking with my year mates I discovered many things about them. Ron had his brothers already attending but Hermione was a muggleborn. Parvarti was from India but decided to go to Hogwarts with her twin who ended up in Ravenclaw. Lavender was a halfblood who grew up in the magical world whereas Seamus, who was also a halfblood, was raised in the muggle world. According to him his dad had no idea his mum was a witch until after they married. Dean has no idea whether he is a muggleborn or a halfblood as he dosen't know his biological father. Nevilles story though raised a few alarms as he claimed that his family thoght he was a squib until his great uncle hung him out the window from one of the upstairs windows before dropping him. Nevilles lucky he survived. I may have to speek to a teacher about this.
The night ended with a few words from Dumbledoor. He stated that the forest of death was out of bounds and that the caretaker Filch asked him to remind the students spells should not be practised in the corridors. Yeah I can already see that thats not gonna stick. He metnioned that quiddicth tryouts would be next week and that the times would be posted on the notice boared in our comon room. He finished his speech by claiming that the third floor corridor was out of bounds on, and I quote, "for those who did not wish to die a most painful death". WHAT?
Well that was my night. After that we were taking to the Gryffindor common room. The room is covered in red and gold and we each had seperate sides for our dormitories. Girls were on the right boys are on the left. So this is it. I'm now officially a student of Hogwarts. Seems like a dream. I have to go now so that I can start unpacking and get ready for classes as they start the day after tomorrow. Hopefully I can avoid those twins. Freds fine but George seems to have a bit of a staring problem. Oh well i hope the novelty of me being The Harry Potter will wear of soon. Fingers crossed.
Goodbye for now.
Harry Jay
First year Gryffinddor student at Hogwarts.
