Unlike the station that they'd boarded at, the unlit platform that the train was dropping them off at was dingy and empty, and the students had to scramble onto the forest floor to avoid overcrowding the platform and being pushed off.

The night air was cold and damp, but Flynn shrugged it off, too used to the cold nights in the orphanage to care about the minor chill. He glanced at the single held aloft a bit further away from the platform and had to stop himself from starting at the sight of the hulking figure that held the lantern aloft. Though Flynn was used to tall adults in his life, the giant of a man would've easily towered over them, standing at a height of at least eleven feet tall.

"Firs' years!" the man called out. "Firs' years over here! All right there, Harry?"

The man smiled wide enough that it was easy to make out his delighted expression, even through the thick beard that covered most of his face. The smile was directed at a small black-haired kid near the front of the group, but the man quickly turned his attention back to the larger group.

"C'mon, follow me," the man said, waving his hands in Flynn's general direction.

Flynn didn't move until he felt a finger jabbing his side. He frowned down at Lily, who didn't seem to notice his glare, already walking forwards towards the giant man. Begrudgingly, he followed her, not willing to let the giant cow him into freezing when the small blonde girl didn't even seem to care.

"Any more firs' years?" the man said, scanning the crowd for a few more seconds before seeming to accept that he had gathered all of them. "Mind yer step, now! Firs' years follow me!"

Even with only the dim light of the giant's lantern, the moonlight being cut off by the thick trees that surrounded them, Flynn navigated through the darkness with a familiarity that none of his fellows seemed to have.

"Ye'll get yer firs' sight o' Hogwarts in a sec," the giant called over his shoulders, seemingly ignorant of the struggle that the majority of the students were going through in their attempts to navigate through the dark. "Jus' round this bend here."

As soon as he said it, Flynn stepped past a tree and was treated to an awe-inspiring sight, as the forest seemed to spontaneously clear. Above, in the night sky, countless stars shone down onto a pitch black lake that reflected their glow, creating the illusion of a formless void of space, the centre in which a large castle stood atop a high mountain.

Though Flynn didn't join in with his fellow students in their vocal admiration of the sight, it took several seconds for him to realize how intensely he was focusing on the sight, losing focus on everything else.

Flynn frowned and patted his waistband for his wand, and his back for his bag. Once he managed to confirm that all of his possessions were still on him, he kept his eyes down, not willing to let himself be so distracted again.

"No more'n four to a boat!" the giant called out, no doubt snapping more than a few students out of their awe-inspired fugues as he pointed to a fleet of small boats sitting in the water by the shore. Still looking a bit drunk with wonder, the students all wandered towards the boats, until everybody had managed to find one.

Sitting across from him, Lily continued to stare up at the castle with her mouth agape, and her eyes just as wide. A boy with brown hair also sat in their boat, but he seemed similarly enamoured with the sight of the castle and the night sky, to the point where he hadn't bothered acknowledging Flynn or Lily at all.

"Everyone in?" the giant shouted, from his own boat. Nobody responded, but with nobody on shore, he seemed to be satisfied enough to point towards the castle. "Righ' then. Forward!"

The boats moved simultaneously and smoothly, taking them forwards, silently towards the castle, and for the first time since they'd met, Lily seemed to be content with staying silent. Flynn enjoyed the silence and took a few peeks up at the castle whenever he felt safe to do so, until the boats brought them to a tunnel underneath the castle.

Even without the sight of the night sky. The students didn't so much as mutter as the giant led them up a long stone staircase, up to a large wooden door, and knocked on it three times.

The door swung open immediately to reveal a tall, black-haired woman wearing a set of green robes and a stern expression that reminded him that he was at a school, no matter how magical it was.

"The firs' years, Professor McGonagall," the giant said.

"Thank you, Hagrid. I will take them from here," the woman said, as she pulled the doors wide, revealing a ridiculously large entrance hall, wider than Jones's gym, and tall enough that the flickering light of the torches that lines the walls wasn't strong enough to reach the ceiling.

If Flynn had forgotten how rich the school was, and how little he belonged there, it was a quick enough reminder.

The students followed McGonagall through the stone halls, and though Flynn could hear the droning of a large crowd coming from a door to their right, the woman led them to a smaller room beside it.

Once all the students had filed in, McGonagall drew her wand from her sleeve and waved it, gently closing the door behind the last student.

"Welcome to Hogwarts," she said. "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."

Flynn felt something nudging his arm and he looked down to see Lily waggling her eyebrows at him. He turned his head to look back at McGonagall.

"The Sorting is a very important ceremony because, while you are here, your house will be something like your family within Hogwarts."

Flynn frowned at the mention of family, having heard the matron of his orphanage say the exact word before, whenever a new kid was brought in. Blind or uncaring to his distaste, McGonagall continued to speak.

"You will have classes with the rest of your house, sleep in your house dormitory, and spend free time in your house common room," she said. "The four houses are called Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and Slytherin."

Flynn felt another nudge to his side and glared down at Lily, who seemingly hadn't stopped waggling her eyebrows at him since she'd started.

He ignored her again, though admittedly, McGonagall's speech about the different houses and how great they were, and something about getting points to win a cup of some sort, had turned dull enough that he might've chosen to watch Lily's eyes wiggling to entertain himself if she weren't so oddly smug about it.

When McGonagall left them alone in the room, announcing that she'd be back to pick them up, Flynn finally turned to glare at Lily.

"What?" he said.

"You want to bet on how many people are going to end up in each house this year?" she asked. "I hear it's a tradition for the older students, but we can get a headstart."

Flynn stared at Lily, disappointed that he'd even bothered with her. Keeping his ears open, he heard the mentions of a test, and he tried to pay attention for any information that would be helpful, but before the growing conversations between the rest of the first years could get to a point where he could get anything useful out of them, but his attention was quickly drawn away by the sight of a horde of translucent humans phasing through the back wall.

Though he was among the first to actually see them, their inconspicuous entrance was easily noticed by the rest of the first years, as several of them screamed. Flynn glanced at the door, noting who he would need to push out of the way if it came time to run, but he felt a tug at the back of his robes. He glanced down, ready to give Lily another glare for whatever she was going to say to him, but when he saw her shivering, gripping the back of his robes with a white-knuckled grip, he frowned.

Flynn reached over to peel her hand off, but paused when he felt how badly she was shaking. His frown deepened, but though he placed his hand over hers, he couldn't bring himself to peel her fingers away from him. He let out a huff of annoyance as he glanced at the exit, and at the ghostly figures that were starting to notice them. If anything went wrong, he supposed he could just drag Lily with him. He doubted she was too heavy.

"Hey," he said, annoyed at the way that she was pulling his robes in a way that his collar was digging into his neck. "Calm down."

Lily glanced up at Flynn, but shut her eyes and looked back down immediately when she saw the hordes of ghostly figures floating above them.

Flynn frowned, but didn't know what else he could do to make her less scared, so he simply stood by her, not saying anything even as her tightening grip on his robes threatened to strangle him.

"Move along now. The Sorting Ceremony is about to start."

Flynn flinched at the suddenness of McGonagall's voice, as he whipped his head towards the direction that it came from. He hadn't noticed her coming in, and though her presence seemed to comfort the majority of the students surrounding him, especially since the ghosts scattered out of the room at her arrival, her stealthy entrance had only put Flynn on edge. Not for the first time, Flynn was reminded of just how out of his element he was and not for the first time, he wondered if he should just leave.

"Now, form a line, and follow me," McGonagall said, ignorant of the effect her entrance had had on Flynn. Turning around, she led the way out of the room, waving her wand to open and hold the door open, rather than just pushing it.

The casual use of magic made Flynn sigh and shake his head, reminding him of why he was there in the first place. He ran his thumb over his robes, to touch his thumb to the wand he kept in his waistband, but stopped when the back of his hand hit Lily's.

"Sorry," she said, finally letting go of his robes and pulling away.

Flynn frowned down at her, and looked up, just to confirm that all the ghosts had left the room.

"You okay?" he asked, though he wasn't too sure why he bothered. Whether Lily had calmed down or not had no effect on him, especially since she wasn't clinging to him anymore.

"Yeah," she said, her lips tweaking upwards in an awkward attempt at smiling. "Just wasn't expecting ghosts. Sorry," she said again.

Flynn stared at her for a few more seconds, before turning away, giving her a noncommittal grunt and nothing else.

When McGonagall led them through the double doors, Flynn's eyes flickered to the ceiling for a brief moment before he looked back down. He heard a whispered explanation by one of the students that the ceiling was bewitched to look like it opened to the outside, but despite it being just as awe-inspiring as that he'd taken in during his boat ride across the lake, he didn't spare it a second glance.

Four long tables spanned over the length of the dining hall, where hundreds of older kids were seated, and at the far end, a separate long table housed the teachers. Though Flynn knew that there was no reason that they would specifically be singling him out, he still felt his skin itch at the feeling of hundreds of gazes pointed towards him. A glare rose in his eyes and a snarl to his lips as he stood in line, staring forward, but avoiding eye contact with any of the other people in the room all the same.

Flynn felt the gazes in the room shift away from him when McGonagall silently waved her wand to float a four-legged stool in front of the line of first years, then, using her hands for the first time, she lifted an old leather hat and placed it gently onto the stool.

Flynn focused on the reactions of the staff and the older students, to see them smirking at the hat, but he didn't stare too long, not wanting anyone to notice his gaze. He glanced to the side, and out of the corner of his eye, he noticed Lily staring up at him. When she noticed him looking, she gave him a smile and grabbed a fistful of his robes to give it a gentle tug. He scowled at her, but before he could think of anything to whisper to her, he noticed movement out of the corner of his eye.

The tip of the hat twitched, and a tear in its fabric widened like a mouth. It began to sing.

Flynn frowned as the hat sang about the Sorting, and the qualities of the different houses, but didn't pay much attention to it. When the song was over, the dining hall erupted in a loud round of applause as it bowed to each of the four tables.

Once the applause died down, McGonagall stepped forward holding a long roll of parchment.

"When I call your name, you will put on the hat and sit on the stool to be sorted," she said. "Abbott, Hannah!"

"Last chance to make bets, Flynn," Lily whispered from beside him. "I think she'll be in Hufflepuff. She looks nice."

When the hat shouted out, "Hufflepuff!" Flynn didn't bother looking down at Lily, not wanting to see the smug smile that he knew would be on her face.

"Bones, Susan!"

"Gryffindor, I think," Lily whispered.

When the hat announced that the girl would also be in Hufflepuff, Lily let out a disappointed whine.

The names continued in alphabetical order, and as the first F name was called, Flynn felt himself tense in anticipation.

"Flintstone, Fredericton!" McGonagall shouted.

Flynn marched forward with a scowl on his face, willing himself not to make eye contact with any of the students surrounding him. He heard a small handful of sniggers in the silence of the hall, though a majority of the student body and all of the teachers seemed confused about why some of the students were laughing.

Flynn ignored them as he sat down on the stool. Though the hat was still big on him, being the largest of the first years made it so it didn't fall over his eyes at the very least, letting him keep an eye on his surroundings while he was being sorted.

"A paranoid one, aren't you?"

Flynn flinched as the voice echoed in his head, but before he could tear it off his head, the voice spoke again.

"Don't panic too much, boy. Wouldn't want your peers to think you're soft, would you?"

Flynn frowned, lowering his hands and crossing them over his chest. As much as he hated to admit it, the hat was right.

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"It's sad to see such a young mind so distrustful. Though I think placing you into Hufflepuff would do you well, but alas, I can not justify placing you in their den as you are. Perhaps in another life, Flintstone Fredericton, but in this one, there is no option other than-

"Slytherin!" the hat shouted.

Like they had whenever they were called, the table with the students wearing silver and green clapped enthusiastically enough, but seemed adverse to actually cheering like some of the other houses had. From his first glance at the students sitting there, he'd already pegged them as the stuck up rich kids, which made him surprised that he was headed there, but if what Lily said about the Slytherin house being the place for rude students, he supposed he could accept it.

"Don't insult the noble house of Slytherin like that, boy," the hat said. "A Slytherin is driven by their desires for strength, success, and superiority. In other words, power. Sounds familiar to you?"

Flynn furrowed his brow and pulled the hat from his head. He put it back on the stool, perhaps a little rougher than was necessary, and marched down to the Slytherin table.

The three other Slytherin first years that had been sorted before him were clapping as he approached the table, but while none of them were giving him outright hostile looks, they definitely weren't trying to be friendly either.

The boy, Vincent Crabbe, was giving him a mean look that might've been an attempt to dissuade him from sitting next to him. He had his arms and legs spread out wide, as if he was physically reserving the seats next to him for someone else, and though Flynn was confident that he could force the boy to give him space if he really wanted, he didn't have any reason to go through the effort. He sat across the table from Vincent instead, next to the girls, Millicent Bulstrode and Tracey Davis, if he remembered correctly.

Millicent gave him a scrutinizing glare, her eyes scanning the top of his head for some reason.

"Are you related to the Weasleys?" she asked as he sat down. For a young girl, her voice was deeper than he might've imagined, though it did suit her stocky appearance.

Flynn gave her a glare. With how strangely the magics liked to name things, Flynn couldn't tell if a Weasley was an insult or something else entirely. "You talking shit?" he asked.

Millicent grinned and shook her head. "No," she said. "I thought you might be one from your hair, but I guess if you're reacting like that, you aren't. I'd hate to have their blood in me too."

He didn't know whether she was referring to the colour or length of his hair, but he assumed she was talking about how he was a ginger. Though it didn't seem to be common, he did see more students with buzzcuts. Still unsure of whether he was being insulted or praised for his reaction, even if it seemed more likely to be the latter case, Flynn scowled.

Millicent gave him another grin, but didn't say anything else, letting herself be distracted by the names and houses that McGonagall and the hat were shouting out.

Turning back to the front, Flynn did the same, making sure to memorize the names and faces being called up, just in case.

When Gregory Goyle was called up, Vincent shifted aside to give up one of the reserved spots to him, though they didn't sit directly next to each other, making sure to leave a space between them. Flynn recognized Hermione Granger, and he wasn't sure if he imagined how she purposefully avoided looking in his direction. Draco Malfoy was called to the Slytherin house a few names later, he made his way to the spot between Vincent and Gregory and sat down without even asking, completing the trio.

When Lily Moon was called up and sent to Hufflepuff, like she predicted, Flynn scowled at her when she looked at his direction and waved cheerily at him.

And then when Harry Potter was called, Flynn noticed an instant shift in the atmosphere of the room.

Curiosity, awe, leaked from every face in the room, including some of the staff. When a scrawny stick of a kid stepped up to the hat, looking nothing like what the room's reaction had suggested, Flynn narrowed his eyes in curiosity.

Harry was small for his age. Scrawny, tired, nervous, and obviously unused to the type of attention he was getting. Flynn had seen his type before. In the orphanage, the two main methods that the boys used to survive was to toughen themselves up and put up a front that made nobody want to mess with them, or to slink into the background and make people forget that they existed. Harry seemed to flinch at every murmur directed at him, his eyes darting around nervously as he hunched his shoulders forward, as if trying to disappear within himself.

When the hat called out his house, the respective table let out a roar of a cheer. Students were jumping, laughing, and even hugging each other, but the boy in question seemed to have no idea how to react.

Flynn narrowed his eyes, making a note to figure out who the hell the boy was.

Later.

The mood in the dining hall settled down after Harry sat down at his table, but it never fully returned to the state it had been in a moment ago, with there being an air of excitement that hadn't been present prior.

When Ronald Weasley was called up, Flynn was able to confirm that Millicent had been referring to the colour of his hair when she voiced her suspicions of him being a Weasley.

Once Blaise Zabini was sorted into Slytherin, McGonagall rolled up her parchment and tucked it into the sleeve of her robes, before picking up the old leather hat and walking away with it. Flynn diverted his attention away to stare at Blaise, recognizing his face from the robes shop and his name from Jones's past, but the boy barely spared him a glance before sitting far enough away from him that he couldn't see him without awkwardly leaning backwards.

Flynn quickly stopped thinking about him. A dead name and a brief acquaintance hardly meant anything to him, and as the old man sitting at the middle of the staff table stood up, Flynn directed his attention towards him instead.

"Welcome," the old man said. "Welcome to a new year at Hogwarts! Before we begin our banquet, I would like to say a few words. And here they are. Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak! Thank you!"

The old man sat back down, and the whole dining hall erupted with claps and cheers. Before he could consider whether the old man was crazy or not, and what that possibly meant, Flynn's eyes widened when the previously empty plates in front of him were spontaneously filled with food.

He had his hand on a plate of roast chicken breast before he could even consciously decide to take it, pulling it closer to him and dumping its entire contents onto his plate. While he knew he'd been one of the lucky orphans who had a steady stream of food to sustain him, that hadn't always been the case. He had risked his life for scraps of food for six years before meeting Jones, and without Jones or Tom to slap him in the back of the head if he got too greedy, he easily fell back into old habits.

He heard a few indignant scoffs coming from the other students surrounding him, including from the older students, but he didn't bother them a second look as he swallowed as much food as he could stomach.

"Do those three even bother to chew?" he heard someone say.

At the comment, he looked up to see both Vincent and Gregory shovelling food down their throats at a similar speed that he was. Unfortunately for him, Draco, who had been looking between his two companions with a look of reserved disgust, happened to meet his eyes at that exact moment.

Flynn locked eyes with him, not willing to be the first to break eye contact. Draco seemed to think the same way, as his eyes narrowed and his lip curled upward in a sneer.

"Fredericton, was it?" the boy asked.

Immediately, he decided he hated the small blonde boy. The fact that the boy clearly thought himself superior, made Flynn want to punch his teeth in. But the boy absolutely stank with the rank scent of money, money that could make Flynn's life a living hell if he crossed him. While Flynn was confident that he could survive any amount of hell that was thrown at him, he wasn't stupid enough to call it upon himself for no reason.

He broke eye contact with the blonde boy, turning his attention back to his emptying plate of chicken. Reaching up, he snagged a plate of spinach from the air and upended its contents onto his own plate.

"Hey, Fredericton," the boy said. "I asked you a question, didn't I?"

Flynn sighed silently as he considered the possibility of just ignoring the kid, but as much as he would've liked to, he also knew it wasn't a viable option. Not unless he wanted to attempt ignoring the kid for the rest of his school life.

Flynn was about to respond, when he saw a hand grabbing the edge of his plate. Instinctively, Flynn lunged forward with his fork. The fork stabbed into the table, but the owner of the hand, Gregory, let out a yelp of shock and flinched back like it had found flesh.

"Hey!" an older student said in a whispered hiss from down the table, glaring at Flynn. "The hell do you think you're doing?! You trying to set a record on how fast you can lose house points?"

Flynn resisted the urge to roll his eyes at the older boy. "I slipped," he said, glaring pointedly at Gregory, who was cradling his hand like it had the fork stuck inside of it.

The older student scowled at Flynn, but glanced at the staff table. "Well, make sure you don't slip again, firstie. Get along or I'll fuse the lot of you together in a permanent hug."

Flynn nodded, still staring at Gregory. "I'm sure it won't happen again," he said, as he pulled his fork from the wood.

The older student didn't seem to be convinced in the slightest, but he didn't say anything else, returning his attention mostly to his own food. Flynn did the same, wiping the fork off with the edge of his robes before shovelling some spinach into his mouth.

He felt the gazes of everyone sitting around him boring into his skull, but he paid them no mind as he shovelled as much food into his mouth as he could.

"The fuck do you want?" Flynn asked around a mouthful of spinach, directing it at anyone who cared to answer.

There was a long silence before someone cleared their throat. Though he didn't see who it was, he instantly recognized Draco's voice.

"I-I was simply wondering," Draco said, stumbling on his words slightly, before powering through. "I've never heard of the Fredericton line before. Where do you come from?"

Flynn considered letting Draco know that it was none of his fucking business, but the question seemed important to the boy. Though he didn't care about placating the rich kid in the slightest, if he didn't answer properly, it was possible that the kid would be infuriatingly annoying about it unless Flynn did something to shut him up.

"Fredericton," Flynn said, around a mouthful of spinach. "A shithole in southeast England."

"Your family had a city named after them?" Draco asked, a tinge of respect entering his voice.

Flynn almost laughed at that, and he had to swallow a mouthful of food before he risked choking on it.

"Fat chance of that," he said, reaching over to grab his cup and a jug from the centre of the table. He frowned when the liquid that came out was a bright orange colour, but drank it anyways. It was disgustingly sweet, tasting exactly like the pumpkin pasty that Lily had bought him on the train, but he forced himself to swallow it anyway. "I'm an orphan," Flynn said.

"An orphan?" Draco repeated, sounding confused.

"Means I don't have any parents," Flynn said.

"I know what an orphan is," Draco said angrily. He paused before continuing, taking a moment to furrow his brow in concentration before he spoke. "Your parents were our kind, weren't they?"

Flynn raised an eyebrow. "You mean white?" he asked. While he wasn't surprised that Draco would be racist, with him looking like a domesticated neo-nazi, Flynn was hardly a target to pick on if that were the case. He was a ginger, for fuck's sake.

"What? Why would I care about that?" Draco asked, sounding more confused than offended. "I was asking if they were from a wizarding family."

Flynn shrugged. "I doubt it," he said.

Draco stared wide-eyed at him for a few seconds before his eyes narrowed and his lips curled up into a look of unbridled disgust.

"You're a mudblood," he said.

Flynn scowled. His immediate surroundings had suddenly gone silent, and from the corner of his eyes, he thought he saw the students surrounding him staring openly at him, though he didn't turn his head to confirm it, not wanting to break eye contact with Draco.

He had no idea what a mudblood was, but the insult in the boy's voice was obvious enough. Flynn narrowed his eyes before considering his options. There were a few ways he could deal with this situation, and none of them were perfect, so he decided to go with what he knew best.

"The fuck are you gonna do about it, bitch?"

Draco's face froze. Though his lips were still stuck in a snarl, his eyes glassed over as he seemed to be stunned by the simple insult. Once Draco's eyes dropped, breaking eye contact with him, Flynn glanced around himself to confirm that the entirety of the first years and a handful of the older years were staring at him with expressions varying from surprise, to fear, to downright malicious anger. The older boy who had told him off earlier was staring at him with narrowed eyes, and Flynn met his gaze until the older boy scowled and looked away.

As if starting a chain reaction, the rest of the students turned their attention back to their food, taking the occasional peek in Flynn's direction, but no longer openly staring.

Flynn turned his attention back to the plates of food floating above him as well, but instead of eating more, he grabbed whatever he could and snuck it into the pockets of his robes, not wanting to let the food go to waste, but not wanting to overstuff himself either. He didn't want to fight on a bloated stomach if it came to it.

As it turned out, life at Hogwarts might not prove to be so different from what he was used to, after all.