Chapter Text
Ranboo stood on the platform, gazing in awe at the bright red engine before him.
Other students and families all hustled about around him, saying their final goodbyes until Christmas and loaded their things onto the train, while he just stood there, frozen in his spot with his cat curled in his arms. It had been a gift from his parents when they found out he had gotten his acceptance letter to Hogwarts in the mail.
“Come on, Michael,” Ranboo sighed, holding the Turkish angora up. “Best to put you back in the cage for now. I’ll let you back out on the train.”
He probably looked stupid right now.
He was the only one that didn't know a single person on the platform, and he didn't have his family with him either because they both had work. Everyone else was running to catch up with their friends, as he just stood there talking to his cat.
Opening the cage, he let Michael climb in, giving his ear a little scratch before he locked it back up.
“Now, onto finding an empty spot to sit."
Ranboo had taken no more than 3 steps when he felt a force collide with him, tackling him to the ground. They both landed hard onto the concrete with a painful thud, grabbing the attention of a lot of the families nearby. A few even stopped to stare at the pair on the ground.
“Oof!”
“Ouch! Fuckin’ hell! Get off me, you twat!”
“You’re the one who ran into me!”
“Oh piss off, bitch boy!”
“ What’d you just call me? Get off!”
Ranboo and the other boy quickly detangled themselves from the mess of limbs and stood up, brushing themselves off. The other boy recovered quickly and glared at Ranboo, crossing his arms over his chest.
Once Ranboo finished dusting off his pants and sweater, he gave himself a quick mental check for any injuries. When he determined that the most he'd be was sore for the next few minutes, he finally looked down to meet the bright blue eyes of the young boy, who had just rammed straight into him.
Whoa.
Ranboo had to remind himself that this was the boy who had just tackled him to the ground and called him a bitch boy and a twat- he shouldn’t be thinking about how cute the smaller blond in front of him looked with his little pout on.
“What the fuck ya starin’ at, bitch?” the blond huffed. “I’m waiting for my apology.”
That snapped Ranboo out from his trance and those previous thoughts quickly died, as he stared incredulously at the boy.
“Apology? Apology?!” Ranboo’s eyebrows dipped. This boy couldn’t be serious right now. “You’re the one who just knocked me to the ground, if anything I should be asking you for an apology.”
"Oh, fuck off! Stop being a massive dickhead, dickhead."
For an 11-year-old, this kid sure did swear a lot.
"Tommy!"
Ranboo looked over the blond's shoulder to see a tall brunette and a pink-haired teen making their way through the crowd over to them. An older man, who Ranboo assumed was the parent, was behind them, also calling out for Tommy.
"Tommy!" the brunette called again, stopping next to the boy. Ranboo guessed that the pouting blond was Tommy. The taller brunette looked between Tommy and Ranboo. "What happened?"
Tommy looked away from Ranboo to the other, but still gave him the side-eye as he said, "Bitch boy over here just ran into me."
Ranboo frowned.
"That's a load of garbage," he shot back, narrowing his eyes at Tommy. "You're the one who ran into me! Stop blaming me for that."
"Wilbur," Tommy huffed. "Who would you believe? Me, your lovely brother, or this random twat?"
Wilbur rolled his eyes, putting a hand down on Tommy's shoulder.
"The random twat, Tommy. You blame everyone for your shit. Did you at least catch your snitch?"
Tommy uncrossed his arms and revealed in his hand a tiny golden ball.
Ranboo gaped at the sight, and annoyance bubbled in his stomach.
"You seriously tackled me to the ground for that thing?!"
"Hey! It was a gift, and I wasn't about to lose it just because you were standing like a fuckin' weirdo in the middle of the bloody platform! You were in my way!"
"Great, now that that's sorted, let's go," Wilbur deadpanned, seemingly fed up with Tommy's antics. Ranboo couldn't blame him. He was too, and he had just met Tommy. "We have to go find an empty compartment."
He started to pull Tommy away, and as they were walking away, following after their dad, Ranboo heard Wilbur asking the pinkette if they had already said their goodbyes to their own parents.
Tommy spun around to look at Ranboo over his shoulder to shoot him one last glare, flipping him the bird.
Ranboo scoffed and pushed the cart holding his trunk and Michael's cage in the opposite direction.
oOo
"Hey, is this seat taken?" Ranboo asked.
He had been wandering up and down through the different train carts to find an empty compartment, but when he came up fruitless in his search, he gave up and asked the nearest person who was sitting alone in one, if he could join.
The only occupant in the compartment was a smaller boy with a mop of fluffy brown curls on his head that slightly fell into his eyes. He looked to be the same age as Ranboo.
He jumped a little in his seat, not expecting someone to randomly come up to talk to him and looked over to where Ranboo was standing in the narrow hallway with Michael's cage in one hand.
"Oh, yeah sure. I was just waiting for my friend, but he must have taken a compartment with his brother, so you can sit here instead."
"Great, thank you."
Ranboo stepped into the small compartment and set Michael's cage down on the seat opposite to where the brunette was sitting, before dropping down as well.
The boy stuck his hand out for Ranboo to shake.
"The name's Tubbo, by the way."
Ranboo shook his hand and smiled back.
"Ranboo."
oOo
"Do you know what house you'd like to get, Ranboo?" Tubbo asked, halfway through the train ride.
They had spent most of the time talking and getting to know each other, and Ranboo was glad that he would have at least one friend at Hogwarts. He didn't know anyone else on the train other than Tommy and Wilbur, but he couldn't really consider them friends after their brief interaction. So he was glad that he could count on Tubbo to be a friendly face in the crowd.
"Ummm, I'm not sure," Ranboo confessed, looking down at Michael, who was curled on his lap asleep. "Any of them I'd be fine with, I think."
Tubbo hummed, taking a bite out of the sandwich he had packed in his bag for lunch.
"Yeah, most of the houses are fine- except for Slytherin. You don't want that one."
Ranboo's eyebrows rose in curiosity as he looked back up to meet Tubbo's eyes.
"What's so bad about it?"
"There has never been a good wizard that came from Slytherin. They all end up evil or something like that. They also support all that weird bloodline business and You Know Who," Tubbo explained with a slight frown on his face. His gaze dropped down to his sandwich. "My friend's older brother got sorted into Slytherin. He isn't evil or a bad guy though- he's actually a really nice guy. I think you'd like him. The younger one maybe not so much, he can be loud, but he's my best friend so…"
Tubbo shrugged, taking another big bite.
Both of Ranboo's parents had been normal people- or muggles as Tubbo had referred to them as- so there were still a lot of things that he didn't understand or know about the wizarding world. It felt like a completely different planet, a whole new civilization that has been hidden right under everyone's noses. He didn't understand why some people were so obsessed with if you were a Pureblood wizard or not, and he didn't know who You Know Who was. It might have been smart if Ranboo had taken the time to read some of the history that was in his History of Magic textbook to gather some background knowledge, but he never found the time and it slipped from his mind.
Tubbo was patient with him though. The Brit answered all the questions he had and explained the things that Ranboo didn't understand since Tubbo’s parents were both wizards.
Tubbo had only mentioned You Know Who twice, and both times, Ranboo ran through a multitude of different ideas on who this person was in his head. Just by hearing and seeing the way Tubbo tensed and lowered his voice when he mentioned him, already told Ranboo that whoever they were, they weren't a good person.
His curiosity gnawed away at him, and he debated asking Tubbo about them.
Giving in, Ranboo moved a hand to gently scratch the top of Michael's head to distract himself from looking at Tubbo.
"Who is- um…. You Know Who? Are they bad?"
Tubbo grimaced. His whole face darkened instantly, and it looked like he was lost in thought or bad memories.
Ranboo started to regret asking. It brought down the happy and lighthearted mood, replacing it with one of mystery and sorrow.
"He was the worst. You can't even say his name, that's how bad he was," Tubbo finally croaked after a minute of silence. He slowly shook his head, causing even more of his hair to fall in his eyes, but he didn't bother to move it away. "You'll find out who he is and what he's done eventually. Not now, Boo."
A silence fell over the small compartment again.
"Is he still alive?" Ranboo asked, hoping he wasn't pushing too hard.
"No." Tubbo paused. "But people think that he's going to come back…. I hope he doesn't…. I really hope he doesn't."
Tubbo wiped a hand across his eyes, releasing a quiet, shaky breath, and Ranboo regretted even bringing up the subject. A wave of guilt washed over him, and he reached out to the smaller boy, stuttering over an apology.
Tubbo just stood up, packing away his unfinished sandwich in his bag.
"I'm gonna go find where my friend is," he muttered, already halfway out the door. "I'll be back."
And just like that, Ranboo was alone again.
oOo
It was Tommy.
Tommy was the one that Tubbo had left to go find, and the one with the older brother in Slytherin. Ranboo figured out that it was Wilbur who was in Slytherin, and Tubbo had told him that he was in his 3rd year. He also found out that the pink-haired teen that was with Wilbur on the platform back at King's Crossing is named Technoblade or Techno for short. He was also a 3rd year with Wilbur but in Ravenclaw instead, and he was Wilbur's best friend long before they both came to Hogwarts like how Tommy and Tubbo were.
When Tubbo returned back to the compartment with Tommy in tow, the blond was not happy to see Ranboo there and kept calling him a wrongen and told Tubbo an exaggerated version of their first meeting at the station.
Ranboo didn’t care for spending the rest of the ride to Hogwarts with Tommy, but Tubbo didn’t look so gloomy anymore, so he endured all of the glares and cuss words that Tommy sent his way.
oOo
They were all standing in neat lines in the Great Hall, listening to Professor McGonagall as she explained how the sorting hat worked and the different houses that they could potentially end up in for the rest of their 7 years here.
Ranboo wasn’t really paying attention.
He was too awestruck by everything around him. It was all so grand and stunning. Everything pulled his attention.
The floating candles around the ceiling that was enchanted to look like the night sky outside, the bright colors of the banners that hung around the hall that showed off the different house colors and mascots, all the students that sat at the four tables that were all dressed in robes that were lined with the colors of their respected houses.
All of it amazed Ranboo, and he felt like a little kid in a candy store.
His eyes jumped to everything around him, trying to take it all in. He’d have 7 years to memorize it all, and it really started finalizing in his mind that this was actually happening. This was all real and not some weird fever dream that he was having.
He saw Wilbur sitting at the table on the far right, dressed in the Slytherin robes, engaged in a conversation with the blond kid sitting next to him. Techno was at the table right next to the Slytherin one, wearing the Ravenclaw uniform with his long hair tied back in a braid (Ranboo found the fact that Techno somehow made his long, pink hair intimidating and badass, admirable). He was talking with the redhead boy that sat across from him.
Techno’s red eyes looked up and met Ranboo’s.
He must have remembered him from before because the pinkette gave him a curt nod before he returned his attention back to the ginger.
Ranboo remembered Tubbo also mentioning that Techno was a Metamorphmagus, which is how he gets his hair long and pink and his eyes red. Tubbo had to explain to him that a Metamorphmagus is a witch or wizard that can change their appearance at will without the need for a potion or spell.
Tubbo was nudging his shoulder, snapping Ranboo back to the present.
“Pay attention, boss man!” the short brunette whisper-shouted to him. “McGonagall’s about to start calling names to go up.”
Ranboo’s stomach flipped in anticipation, and his heart rate shot up in his chest.
He wasn’t sure where he’d end up, and it only slightly terrified him.
Which house would he call home for the next few years of his life? Which color would he end up wearing?
Was he brave enough to be in Gryffindor?
Smart enough for Ravenclaw?
Kind enough for Hufflepuff?
Ambitious enough for Slytherin?
What if he didn’t belong in any? Would they just kick him out? Turn him away?
Ranboo knew that that last train of thought was absurd and that they wouldn’t ever do that, but his mind was running a mile a minute, thinking about crazy scenarios on how this could turn out.
Tommy looked over at them from where he was standing on the other side of Tubbo.
Even he looked nervous.
McGonagall began her list of names.
Tubbo would be near the end because his last name started with a U, but Ranboo and Tommy would both be at the beginning because their last names began with a B and a C. So at least, Ranboo didn’t have to stand for long while he silently panicked inside.
“Ranboo Beloved!” McGonagall called out after she finished with all the A last names. The name echoed through the giant room, bouncing off the stone walls.
As soon as he heard his name get called, everything seemed to stop for him, and he froze. Tubbo had to give him a little shove when Ranboo didn’t move forward.
It didn’t feel like Ranboo was in control of his own body anymore, as he slowly walked over to the wooden stool at the front of the room. It felt like someone else was puppeteering him, forcing him to put one foot in front of the other and to sit down on the small stool, facing the entire student body.
All eyes were on him and the silence of the Great Hall was drowned out by the thunderous pounding of Ranboo’s heart in his ears.
McGonagall set the hat down on his head.
“Good luck,” she smiled, giving his shoulder a little pat before she stepped back.
The hat came to life on his head.
It didn’t say anything at first, just a thoughtful hum, and suddenly, the thoughts of Ranboo not fitting into any house came back to the forefront of his mind.
He looked to Tubbo to block out the stares from the other students, and the brunette gave him a reassuring smile and a thumbs up.
Ranboo felt the sorting hat move around again, and he held his breath as it delivered the final verdict.
“HUFFLEPUFF!”