Welcome

Luca felt cold air whirling around him as he spun falling in circles, not the most pleasant experience, but he relished its novelty and thought it much better than the merciless squeeze he experienced on his last magical travel. Eventually, his feet touched the ground, impact staggering him forward as he opened his eyes. Environment was the exact copy of the previous building, except here everything was white, fireplaces, walls, floor, and ceiling. Luca could almost mistake it for Heaven's foyer. As he stood looking around, something pushed him hard on the back.

"Ah, you idiot! Move aside!" an annoyed high-pitched voice came from the ground on his back left, a girl in plain robes indicating she was a 1st year too, lay there disheveled having bounced off him.

"Sorry." apologized Luca as he stepped to give her a hand. She hummed and got up herself, but then took his hand in a forceful handshake, trying to squeeze his fingers looking provocatively at Luca's eyes.

"What's the commotion? Newyears? Go out and gather with vice-headmaster." a teacher supervising the arrival of students for any problems noticed the little accident and went forward out of boredom.

"Yes, teacher!" the girl let Luca go and picked up her briefcase, he had a good look at her in the meantime. Wavy brown hair sticking out to the sides, making her head look double the size, parted the same 1/3rd as his, chin-length, sparse freckles all over her face, pale blue eyes, thick shapely lips, and straight narrow nose. She was taller than Bryce by at least half a head. Not looking back at him, she went towards the exit.

"I'm Luca Granger, nice to meet you." Luca chased her a few steps as he spotted Bryce waving to him from near the exit.

"Miranda Toll, painful to meet you." she looked at him sideways.

"Haha, this hall is so white, I got blinded." Luca laughed it off, a group of wizards cleared his line of sight and he could see the most bizarre creatures he spotted in the magical world yet. Standing guard beside the columns supporting the exit arch in pairs, approximately 1 meter tall if counting tribal feathered headwear running from the top of their heads to the ground, grey-skinned, yellow-eyed, with thick hair resembling porcupine quills, but that is not the cause of Luca's abrupt feeling that something is not quite right in the picture.

They wore military camouflage jumpsuits barefooted, a belt hung with ammo, and attached knives meant to be swords for their height. Luca could see a barrel of a gun sticking up and gun stock hanging a couple of centimeters from the ground diagonally behind each of their backs. Stinky expressions and suspicious eyes scanned all students they could see as if they owed them money. Nearest to him eyed the sweating nervously Bryce that took an opportunity to walk forward to Luca.

"That's my friend, Bryce Fritzel, we come from no-maj society." introduced Luca.

"Hello." Bryce bowed flustered, sneaking a peak behind to lock eyesight with that menacing dwarf. He went straight up with a jolt, to a smirk from Miranda.

"Miranda Toll, don't mind Pukwudgies, they are Ilvermorny guards." she explained amused.

"Do they need to carry a sniper rifle? What is so dangerous here?" asked Luca as Bryce hid cowardly behind him. Trio went forward with Luca in the middle.

"I heard from my dad it was added two years ago as Canada's Operation Unity finally regained control of all densely inhabited areas, previously they just carried a bow and poisoned arrows. Not very useful against regeneration and speed of bastards eying Ilvermorny. Border of Canada is close enough to hear werewolf howls every full moon around the school's barriers since its creation, rebellious mutts were decimated and now they can only sniff impotently for a chance to retaliate." Miranda described passionately as she clutched her fist and punched air in front. They crossed the doorstep of 'Floo Point In Ilvermorny' listening to her speech, now walking on a stone slab path interspersed with meticulously trimmed grass in between, conical trees that Luca assumed to be magical because of their perfect geometrical and symmetrical shape growing tall on the sides of it, normal-looking forest behind them. Students went forward to a looming in the fog castle, Pukwudgie pairs keeping an eye on them every twenty meters or so.

"Werewolves can rush inside anytime and we are allowed to come here?" Bryce couldn't believe his ears, Luca nodded fiercely to agree with this sentiment as he looked at Miranda.

"They want, but is it simple? Can they dig their way inside with those disgusting claws or something? Don't worry about it, better think about what spell we will learn first, I can't wait to have a wand!" Miranda didn't put her attention on this matter.

"First years, first years here!" on the side of a big iron gate now opened a crowd of students sat on crude chairs woven with fresh grass, a seamless white wall some of them found themselves in a shade of revealed from the fog. A monotone voice that beckoned them came from a translucent figure of unclear features hovering above a wizard walking back and forth as he leisurely smoked a pipe on the edge of the gathering furthest from the path.

"Want to come find my friends?" Miranda proposed, a lot of similarly dressed students caused her to not be able to find them on sight.

"We will just sit here." Luca took the nearest empty chair and sat down, Bryce followed him, and Miranda after some more looking around gave up quickly.

"Whatever, if we get sorted to the same house for the next seven years, we will get sick of seeing each other. How much you two no-maj know about Ilvermorny?" she asked curiously.

"I read all of 'Fairy Castle: Beginning To Present'." proudly said Bryce.

"Yeah, me too. Not very useful so far, no word in there of this roundup or Pukwudgies serving in United States military." lightly joked Luca.

"Mostly history and biographies of more notable wizards graduating, did you know Kailani Myeong managed to create two dozen new specific plum-related spells as a hobby besides being a great dragon-breeder? Anything you want, deworming spell, peeling all plums in front of her spell, pit removal spell, drying spell. This gave birth to a whole new cooking spells branch." Bryce chatted as students that passed them by decreased from a steady stream to a leaky faucet.

"Glad I didn't bother to open that brick of a book. You might go to Horned Serpent, almost hypnotized me." Miranda judged him as she yawned. Bryce got embarrassed and shut up, Luca glanced at his watch, 8:50, then roughly counted the kids around them. He looked at Miranda and slumped down with resignation as he realized something.

"Ten minutes and we are to go to the sorting ceremony, then pick up a wand. How long will it take for everybody here, better get used to waiting. We will stand or sit like that until dinner." he said pessimistically, getting a half-hopeful, half-despairing look from her.

"No way, that's first day of school ruined! There must be some solution ready to speed it up." she argued for reason.

"Tradition is tradition, they have to stick to welcome ceremony from way back when ten new students were coming yearly." Luca had a hunch it to be the case and prepared himself mentally. No new students on the horizon coming from the floo point, the ghost stopped repeating like a broken record and slid through the white wall inside Ilvermorny after exchanging a word with the wizard. He put his pipe in his pocket and cleared his throat.

"Four hundred seventy-one students scheduled to start learning in our illustrious abode in the year nineteen eighty-nine all arrived, time to get up." the wizard's voice resounded, he waved his arm widely as if to sweep his audience, upon which the grass chairs everyone was sitting on receded into a single blade of grass, hundreds of little wizards falling on their butts. Nothing to do with it, he continued.

"Welcome everyone to Ilvermorny School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, your second home on the road of life, after your parent's house, before you will build one of your own, imaginably alongside someone present here today. My name is Agilbert Fontaine, vice-headmaster and dean of Transfiguration courses. I would like to express faith in my ability to teach you well, make even the dimmest present into splendid humans first and wizards second, but to be honest, I don't think even glorious me can manage to turn a piece of shit into a diamond - permanently." at this point the grey-haired wizard, only defining trait Luca could see from the distance, swept his eyes around and let his words sink in. Frowning and defiant or nervous expressions abundant, satisfied vice-headmaster continued.

"But I and the teaching staff can definitely supervise your behaviour for the seven years of study that you are to undertake under our wings. During this time, we will do our best to turn those of you akin to a lump of coal into a shining for the magical community to see diamond, and squeeze those consisting of loose pieces of dirt into a solid, fertile earth. No exceptions - you will obtain skills and magic suitable for you to master and carry forward for your entire life!" intimidated by the increased volume little wizards shrunk back involuntarily.

"First step towards a bright future for everybody here is sorting you into a house, traditions of which you will be expected to fit. Warrior of house Wampus, scholar of house Horned Serpent, adventurer of house Thunderbird, stubborn, grumpy, dopey thorn of house Pukwudgie." one of the descriptions didn't seem to fit, all little wizards thought with strange faces. Suddenly, a bang was heard on their left, and a flash of white splashed on the face of Mr. Fontaine. Everyone's eyes followed the sound to see a Pukwudgie with a rifle smoking from its barrel in his hands. Nobody had time to process it, as the creature spat disappointed, hung its weapon on the back, and went towards Ilvermorny gates unhurriedly. Vice-headmaster's voice sounded flat yet again.

"Of course, some of you may fit more than one house in the process, which requires you to choose by yourselves loudly, in front of the entire student and faculty body. Don't worry about offending the other house you didn't pick, we can reach the great healers of Saint Jelweth's Hospital in a minute if our intern vets can't deal with some curse. By the way, I'm from the Wampus house." at this point, everybody could only stare wide-eyed at their teacher-to-be.

"Then you will receive a free piece of twig, I mean wand, in a room just forward from the Entrance hall under the witness of headmaster Geoffrey Roche, and his attendant. Well, I could talk all day, just go more or less in alphabetical order, Aamurs, Abfurds, Actons, Adqirs, or whatever go right behind me. Stand proudly for the next Merlin-knows how many hours this year, or be expelled immediately, on the first day, for disgracing the noble culture of our school. And shush, don't talk loudly until you officially become wizards as you leave Wand selection hall." Agilbert Fontaine strode quickly towards the gate through the middle of the crowd of students. As he approached, kids scattering aside, Luca could make out his details. Steel-framed ellipsoidal glasses, well although eccentrically groomed into an oval goatee protruding forward beard, grey-white hair falling down to his shoulders, pitch black robe decorated with silver string imitating the nightly firmament.

"Good, old guy has something." impressed by his demeanor and earlier speech Luca couldn't help but say, Miranda and Bryce pecked their heads in unison to dully concur.

"I should go to the end of the crowd, hope we can go to the same house." Miranda came to her senses and punched Luca's side playfully, ignoring Bryce she didn't take seriously due to his short height.

"Alright, later." smiled faintly Luca and proceeded to have a guess where they need to stand approximately in the chaotic line of little wizards.