The Admiral of Hogwarts

Just a few minutes after Hugo and Hermione sat down, they each took out a book from their luggage and started reading. Of course, they weren't reading textbooks at this time, but rather something like a travelogue they had bought at Flourish and Blotts.

To be precise, it was a series of booklets providing a simple and comprehensive introduction to the wizarding world of various European countries. It recorded the exclusive locations for wizards in each country and the specialties of the magical world in each country. It was more of a travel guide than a popular science booklet. After all, compared to ordinary people, they had Floo Network and Apparition magic, making international travel much easier.

"It's really noisy outside." After flipping through a dozen pages, Hermione looked around the compartment with some helplessness. After all, this train was an old model, and the carriages were all made of thin wooden boards, so the soundproofing wasn't very good. And after the wizards got this train, they focused the magical modifications on other places and didn't pay attention to the soundproofing issue.

So, after they sat down, all kinds of noises kept echoing around them, such as the sounds of students getting on the train and saying goodbye to their parents, the sounds of running and playing in the carriages, or the sounds of moving luggage. Although these sounds weren't loud, it always felt like there was a buzzing in your ears when trying to read.

More importantly, the door of their compartment was half-open. After all, this small compartment wasn't full, and according to the etiquette of riding the train, closing the door now would be very impolite.

"It is indeed a bit noisy," Hugo said, putting down his book. In fact, although the surrounding sounds were noisy, they weren't so noisy that he couldn't read. The reason Hermione put down her book and complained was probably just because she was nervous.

After all, this was the first time in their 11 years that they had left home for a long time, and they were going to a place they had never been to before, or even heard of. It was very normal to be nervous in this situation.

So Hugo also put down his book, then took out a small bag of shortbread cookies from his luggage and handed it over. "I think we can eat some cookies now and read after the train starts."

Sure enough, sweets can soothe nerves in many cases. After eating two or three small cookies with a lot of condensed milk and sugar, Hermione seemed much calmer. Just as the two of them were eating cookies and guessing what the magic school would be like, the door of the half-open small compartment was knocked on.

"So you were here! I've been looking for you since I got on the train. Luckily, I only had to go through one carriage to find you." After the knock stopped, the person outside opened the door, and a girl with silver-white short hair walked in, followed by a blonde, blue-eyed girl with pigtails. "Can we sit here?"

"Of course, of course, no problem. Miss Venetto." Meeting an acquaintance on this train, which was almost full of strangers, was a very happy thing for Hermione, so she very enthusiastically invited Venetto and the girl behind her into the room, and then helped them put their luggage on the shelf together with Hugo.

"May I ask who this young lady is?" After everyone was seated, Hermione asked Venetto, because she saw that this girl and Venetto seemed to be very familiar, not like they had just met.

"Oh, she's a distant cousin of mine, and she's always been with my sister Hood before." Venetto introduced simply, "Her name is Firefly, Firefly Roope."

Obviously, Firefly used her ship's name as her own name, and then used the surname of that brave captain as her own surname. But the name formed in this way didn't seem strange at all.

After all, the scope of naming in England is much larger than the scope of naming in Hugo's previous life's homeland, and all kinds of things can be used as their own names. For example, Sirius Black used a constellation as his name. Therefore, using Firefly as a name is also common and didn't make Hermione feel anything was wrong.

Perhaps because they had met before and left a good impression on each other, the four people in the carriage quickly started chatting. Even the fact that the train started and departed from King's Cross Station didn't interrupt their chat.

"—Actually, I also received a letter from Beauxbatons before, probably because I've been in Italy all this time." After the train left the city of London, patches of green fields began to appear on both sides of the railway. At this time, Venetto began to talk about the interesting things she had encountered before in the carriage. "But at that time, I had already agreed to come to Hogwarts, so I could only send them a letter to express my apologies."

"Beauxbatons seems to be a magic school located in France, and it is also one of the three strongest schools in Europe." Hermione said, recalling the books she had read before: "And the other two are Hogwarts, where we are going now, and Durmstrang, which should be located in Northern Europe or Germany."

"However, according to the introduction in the book I bought before, Hogwarts should be the oldest and best of these three schools." Hermione shrugged her shoulders at this point. "But considering that these books are all published in England, their impartiality is rather suspicious—"

Soon everyone shifted from discussing European magic education to focusing on Hogwarts School itself, and then naturally discussed the issue of sorting.

"Many of the books I've read say that Gryffindor is the best house in Hogwarts, because the greatest white wizard of this century, Professor Dumbledore, graduated from this house. But I feel that the characteristics of this house don't completely match my personality." Hermione had read a lot of books on the sorting issue, and had discussed it with Hugo several times at home before. So she probably had her own judgment. "But even so, Gryffindor still has enough attraction for me, but on the other hand, I think Ravenclaw is also good."

"But the problem is, we don't know how the school sorts?" It was Firefly who spoke at this time. As an outgoing ship girl, she quickly became familiar with Hermione even though she had just met her. "I've read several books at home, but they all only say that sorting is done through a ceremony, but they don't say the specific content of this ceremony."

As a ship girl, Firefly knew through Hugo's admiral network that the sorting relied on the Sorting Hat, but theoretically she shouldn't know this, so at this time she only told Hermione the definition in the book.

"So, except for Slytherin, we may be sorted into any of the remaining three houses." Hermione shrugged and said. "After all, we don't have the so-called wizarding bloodline—"

After discussing the sorting issue for a while, the four people in the compartment began to discuss the issue of homework. Hermione seemed a little worried that she wouldn't be able to compete with the students from wizarding families in academics, but Venetto said that according to the books she had read before, wizards believed that learning magic too early was not conducive to the children's physical and magical development, so there was no need to worry too much about this.

As they talked, the train sped quickly along the tracks, flying along fields full of cattle and sheep.