Marsha was SO excited. She had just spent the last DAY getting ready for this. She had spoken to Zac and to Lance! She had met Danielle and Rusty (who had red hair too! They could be twins! Sort of...) annnnd Wylie! And she had seen some faces that she thought she recognised from Diagon Alley and from the platform... but really, there were just lots and lots of people... and she didn't think she would ever remember everyone's names.

Now though, now she was pulling some of said friends with her towards the.... well, she didn't really know she just knew that she was following the groundskeeper away from the rest of the students Huh. Silently, she wondered if her aunt had been telling her the truth about having to feed a giant squid before being allowed to pass... Hmmm. She didn't think it was very likely. Not really.

A few minutes later they came to the edge of a lake, and Marsha frowned thinking that Aunt Sasha really must have been telling the truth. No waaaaay.

Looking at Lance and Zak, she grabbed their hands and pulled them into the same boat as her - what? they were standing next to her and it was three to a boat! She knew them... it made sense. "Come on!" She exclaimed, excited for the ... well, whatever was away to happen.

It had only taken almost a full year, but her time at Hogwarts was HEEEEERRREEEE!!!!

Zac was dumbfounded when he got off the train. Not to mention his legs and bottom were really sore from the journey. After doing a few stretches, he was being dragged to the boats with another boy by Marsha. WAIT, BOATS???? Izaac bounced in after her and whispered a quiet, "Woooooooooah..." It was so magical. It was only a lake. Only school. But it had a magical presence, one that Zac hadn't anticipated. It was WAY better than his dreams.

When the boat took off, he literally squeaked at Marsha. And it was kinda high pitched.

"Oh Merlin. It's so much bigger than I was imagining... We're actually HERE!" Izaac was mostly babbling to himself and his grin was hurting his jaw, it was so big. His head tilted back to stare at the darkening sky quickly before stretching up to get a good look at the castle.

He shouldn't have eaten those extra pieces of chocolate before he got off the train...

Having been tugged into a boat with Marsha and another boy, which was AWESOME that they got to ride BOATS (were they safe? would they tip over? did they have to row themselves across? could they touch the water?), Lance had found the water to be particularly interesting very fast... And it had nothing to do with with the millions of butterflies in his stomach that made him queasy. Nope. He was just leaning over the edge of the boat because the water was fascinatingly dark and smooth. He'd heard there was a giant squid that lived in it.

They were riding to their doom for sure.

It wasn't long before he was unable to control himself, shoving his arm into the water to see how cold it was. Yup, it was cold alright. And... he forgot to roll of his sleeve. Didn't matter! The cold felt nice, and he was anticipating the moment in which he'd see the reflection of the castle in the water which caused even more butterflies to happen and even more leaning over the edge of the boat...

For water analysis purposes. Of course.