♻️

"Settle down now, settle down. That’s it, thank you, thank you. Now.

Welcome back, one and all to another year back at Hogwarts, and welcome, for the first time, to our newly sorted first years - may your first year be far less eventful than mine, and may you make it to far more of your classes on time than your predecessors.

The start of term feast is always a time to reflect, I have found, on the past - especially on the moments our new first years have just experienced. I ask the older students to recall their first moments at Hogwarts, their first steps up and through the Great Hall, and those brief, uncertain moments under the Sorting Hat that we all experience.

I do believe that, if you recall the high emotional strain the night’s events had on you, you will be more inclined to do what you had wished an upperclassmen could do for you. Please, take our new first years under your wing, teach them the way of Hogwarts, and make sure their first night is memorable.

And with that, I send you off  - to bed and to your books, for a new year has finally begun!"

For this challenge you are asked to write on your character’s earliest memory of Hogwarts - either their first night there, the night before they boarded the train, saying goodbye to their parents at the train station, the train ride in, or even the sorting ceremony - what do they remember the most? What was their strongest emotion? How much has changed since then?

Write a short drabble (must be 200 words, at minimum, to receive 5 house points from the Headmistress) detailing that memory.