Hogwarts Express
The summer air was cooling down after a long Britain summer. As Albus was strolling through the train station to find the enchanted platform 9 and 3/4s. His mother and father were fawning over him, while his older brother chatted with passing friends. His redheaded little sister, Lily, was still two years away from being able to go to Hogwarts, and was begging Albus to take her with him.
“Please! I swear I will be good! You could stow me away in your suitcase! I don't wanna have to wait another two whole years to be able to go!“
“Lily, please, you can wait, I'll send you letters from Hogwarts, describing the atmosphere and stuff ok?“ Albus remembered a similar promise being made by his older brother a year prior, he didn’t receive many letters.
The red brick wall was up ahead, and with a little confidence boost from Harry, and a playful push from Ginny, Albus ran directly into the wall with no collision hit. Afterwards, the feeling of not hitting anything still a strange one, and soon arrived at a bustling train station, with dozens of families wishing good luck to their children, teens running in all directions to find their friends, and to top it off, a beautiful red and black train, with a golden crest of a lion, snake, badger, and raven on each cart.
The wonder of seeing the train again was a beautiful feeling, especially that in a few long hours, Albus himself would be taking that very own train to his first year of wizarding school.
The quaint family of five bobbled down the rubbling road near the train, the fumes of exhaust billowing and the chatter of people slowly became louder and louder as they walked down the old, worn cobblestone path. Two cages, with a tawny owl and a brown and snow white ferret in their respective cages, rattled on top of the bare metal trolleys that Ginny and Harry were pushing along.
James waved goodbye to the person he had just been talking with and turned towards Albus.
“So what are you going to do if the hat puts you in Slytherin?” James said with a smirk.
“What-”
“First Slytherin in the Potter AND Weasley family.”
“No no no no! I won’t be sorted into Slytherin! I won’t!” Albus shouted.
“Stop picking on your brother James.” Their mom snapped and turned to give a motherly glare.
“I only said he might be!” James protested. “There’s nothing wrong with saying he might -” James snapped his mouth shut when his mother glared at him again.
“You’re going to write to me aren't you?” Albus asks softly so James won’t overhear him.
“Everyday if you want us to.” Ginny said with a sweet grin.
“Maybe not every day. James said that most people only get a letter once a month.” Albus said with a laugh.
“We wrote to your brother three times a week last year.” Ginny smirked.
“Also you don’t want to believe everything your brother says about Hogwarts,” Harry added. “He likes a good laugh, your brother.” Albus turned away from his father and began to look around.
“Where are they?” He mutters to himself. They walked through a puff of train exhaust, and the loud, bumped noise their trolleys made. When the smog cleared up again, Albus saw who he had been eyeing out. A few feet away from the Potters was a tremendously loud family of four standing next to a train cart entrance, three of which had identical fiery ginger hair just like his sister. An older man, with a scruffy beard was clinging on to his wife, while she was comforting the little boy clinging to her knees. An ecstatic looking ginger girl turned to face Albus, and started to saunter over, her walk bubbling with happiness.
“Albus!” the ginger girl cheered. It was Rose. She was already wearing her brand new Hogwarts robes and had her curly red hair pulled back into a tight, frizzy bun. Albus beelined over to his closest friend, while Harry and Ginny started chatting with his uncle and aunt, with Lily and Rose’s little brother, Hugo, were talking to each other, complaining about how much longer they’d have to wait before being able to get on the magical train themselves. Albus paid attention long enough to hear his uncle make a comment about Confunding a muggle driving instructor on how he almost failed him before Albus completely tuned him out.
“Nervous?” He asked, while Rose gave him a crooked smile for a second before it immediately fell into a frown.
“Horrified.” She murmurs back and grabs the edge of her robes and squeezes her fist tight around them.
“What if the bloody hat can’t sort me?” Albus stares at her for a moment with a raised eyebrow and questions how she could have thought that she could worry about not finding her place in the school of magic.
“I’m sure your sorting will go fine.” Albus reassures her. She thanked him without words, only using a sweet smile. Before either of them could say anything else Rose’s attention was pulled away by her father placing a hand on her shoulder.
“Make sure you beat him in every test Rosie. Thank Merlin you inherited your mothers brains.” Ron was pointing towards a lanky, pale boy, with blonde-white hair. He was standing with a man who looked quite similar to him, of whom Albus assumed was his dad, and a tall woman with brown curls, Albus assumed that was his mom. He seemed nice.
To disrupt the “peace“ that slowly settled over the group, James busted through the chaos, to start yelling about something rather… particular he had just witnessed.
“ Our Teddy! Teddy Lupin! Snogging our Victoire! Our Cousin! And when I asked Teddy-” Albus had heard enough of his brothers whining. Tuning him out seemed like a far better option. He only started to come back to pay attention when Harry started to speak with a loud clear voice. Albus recognized it as the ‘I’m trying to get everyone's attention’ tone, as it was used often in the presence of him and James when their pranks got a little too far out-of-hand.
“It’s nearly eleven, time you guys get on board!” His dad stated rather cheerfully.
“Don’t forget to give Neville our love!” Ginny yelled. James smirked as if in moments, he was going to make a quip about how he couldn't just give love to a teacher.
“Don't even think about saying that James“, his mother stared at him, in the way only an overwhelmed, exhausted, no bullshit mother would.
James rolled his eyes and decided to use his last moments before being forced to follow a semblance of rules, tormenting his dear brother.
“See you later Al, watch out for the thestrals!”
“I thought they were invisible. You said they were invisible! ” Albus yelled but there was no point James was already speeding away with his cart to make sure he could get a decent spot on the train. Albus scowled and within moment’s his father appeared at his side with a wisp of a grin.
“Thestrals are nothing to worry about” His dad told him.
“They're nice, gentle creatures. Besides you're not taking the carriages, you'll be taking the boats.”
His mom gave him a kiss on the forehead and said, “See you at Christmas Al.”
His dad gave him a hug and said, “Don’t forget Hagrid's invited you down for tea on Friday. Don’t mess with Peeves. Don’t duel anyone until you know how, and don’t let James wind you up.” Albus remembers his brother’s comments about being sorted into Slytherin.
What if I’m in Slytherin?
The worry goes unsaid, Albus only gives a sweet smile to his family and pushes the cart off towards Rose who was already getting on board. He finds himself being pulled aboard the train by Rose and she continues to yank him past all the other kids, who were giving him looks of recognition.
“Look! It's Harry Potter's kid!“
“OH MY GOD "
“They look so similar !“
“I bet he will be doing something great some day, just like his father.“
Rose pulls him into a compartment where James and some other kid is already sitting. The unknown kid had neat patted down strawberry blonde hair with thick rimmed black glasses, they had colorful braces and a chubby face. Sporting a well kept pair of Gryffindor robes and the unknown boy had a book in their hand.
“This is Bently!” James says, pointing towards the chubby kid sitting next to him. They held out their hand for Rose and Albus to shake.
“Bently Jones, but you can just call me Ben.” He whispered softly as he shook Albus’s hand.
“Albus Potter.” He says and lets go of the kid's hand. Rose shakes their hand with a tight grip just like she always does and speaks her full name proudly. Bently paled a small amount, as he grew twice as nervous in mere seconds.
The train whistles which is followed by a rough rumbling, the train begins to chug forward and Albus hears children calling out good-byes, and parents trying their best to get through emotions, and return their goodbyes with well wishes. Albus doesn’t call out or holler, but he gives a smile and a wave to his parents who were clustered together around a hoard of fellow parents. He stared out the window until he could no longer see his parents and only a sea of strangers' faces. Albus relaxes in his seat but isn’t able to relax for long because another two boys come tumbling in.
“Ello!” The shorter of the two says.
“Who are you?” The other says, staring at Rose and Albus. He's very tall and has tan skin and long red hair that sits on his shoulders. He is also wearing gryffindor robes, although they were less well kept.
“Jay, this is my little brother and my cousin.” James says and this Jay person light’s up. The shorter boy clicks in that they are the children of very famous people but his face softens again and he seems to not care.
“You two out.” James says and Albus snaps his gaze over to him.
“What?” Albus asks part of him thinking it's a joke.
It isn’t.
“Get out, there's not enough room for all of us and I want to sit with my friends.” mentioned James, rather forcefully.
“Where do you suppose we will sit then?” Rose snaps back.
“I dunno, go sit with someone random. Make a friend.” That is apparently a good enough explanation for Rose because she immediately stands up and walks out the compartment and drags Albus with her. The two boys take their seats and close the door behind them, starting to yell about the summer, quidditch, and whatnot teenage boys find interesting
“Rose! Why did you do that?” Albus whispers angrily, not wanting to draw too much attention to the two of them.
“James is right. We need to talk to someone new.” Albus groans. He didn’t like Rose until they were seven and they met when they were three. He would really rather just sit in a compartment with just the two of them.
“Don’t be so whiny Albus. Our parents met on this train, choosing who we sit by could decide our futures.” Rose announces and Albus has to hold back on rolling his eyes. Rose walks past a few compartments before opening one which only has one boy occupying it.
“Is this compartment-”
“It’s free, it’s just me.” The boy looks up from his book and Albus recognizes him. It’s the boy from the platform, the one Uncle Ron had been pointing at. Rose also seems to recognize him because she doesn’t say anything, so Albus does.
“Hi, I’m Albus Potter. What’s your name?” Albus doesn’t really understand why he’s talking to the boy, from the looks of it Rose doesn’t want to sit here and Albus doesn’t really want to sit anywhere, but he talks anyway.
“I’m Albus- I mean- Your Albus I’m Scorpius, sorry- I meant to say I’m Scorpius Malfoy.” The boy stumbles over his words; it's easy to tell that he's nervous. Albus doesn’t focus on that though, he focuses on the boy's last name. Malfoy. Something about it is so familiar.
“Pleasure to meet you, could we take a se-” Albus is cut off by a sharp stab in his gut. It had been Rose's elbow.
“Sorry, we should be going, we were actually looking for someone.” Rose says with a quick smile.
“No we were-” Albus is cut off by another sharp jab from his cousin.
“ROSE! Will you stop elbowing me? It hurts!” He whines holding his gut.
“You don’t have to lie, I get it. You can just go if you want.” Scorpius says softly and looks back down to his book.
“Well I don’t get it,” Albus says looking at Rose.
“You said you wanted to make friends, why can’t we sit here?” Albus is counting himself lucky for finding a relaxed person on the first try and he doesn’t want to waste that luck.
“It’s because you're a Potter and I’m a Malfoy.” Scorpius says. Albus is still confused though and his face shows it.
“Your dad is Harry Potter“
“Yeah… so?“
"My dad is Draco Malfoy“
“...“
“They didn’t get on all that well.”
And that’s when it hits him. Albus recognized the name Malfoy from one of Ron's many rants. His uncle seemed to deeply hate that family.
“Exactly,” Rose chirps in.
“So maybe we should go sit somewhere else.”
Albus is about to follow Rose’s lead before he sees a shimmer of gold coming from the further side of the boy.
“Is that a cauldron cake?” Albus blurts out
Scorpius seems pretty surprised to see that Rose and Albus are still in his train cart, even though Rose was visibly trying to rush her and Albus out of there as soon as possible.
“Yes, would you like one?” He says softly, grabbing one and holding it up for Albus to see. Rose is looking at him as a mental sign that she's begging him to just say no and move along, but Albus is intrigued. Option one, say no and walk away with Rose and probably never see this kid ever again. Option two, say yes to the scrawny blonde boy offering him his favorite sweet and possibly get stuck with him for the rest of the way to Hogwarts.
Albus reflected on James' “make new friends“ remark, and made his decision.
“Sure.” Albus says and reaches for the cake and takes a seat across from the boy. Scorpius seems amazed about what just happened while Rose is confused.
“Albus!” She hisses, tying one final time to get him to come with her.
“Rose!” He hisses back.
Nothing more is said.
Rose closes the compartment door and walks away. Scorpius still seems to be in shock.
“I’m only sitting here for the cakes.” Albus says and Scorpius laughs.
The two of them talk about a few different things, one of them being plants. Scorpius mentioned that in the garden at his house there were white roses that bloomed all year around. Albus mentioned that his dad grows a few vegetables in their backyard. Eventually they got onto the topic of Hogwarts and the sorting.
“I’m going to be sorted in Gryffindor.” Albus says, slightly lying to himself. He honestly wasn’t sure what he was going to be sorted into.
“My whole family is in Gryffindor.” Scorpius nods along and says,
“My whole family is in Slytherin. I’m pretty sure I’ll be sorted there but I wouldn’t mind being in Ravenclaw.” Scorpius smiles at him and his eyes light up when he looks out the window.
“We're about to find out” Scorpius points out the window and when Albus looks out he sees a magnificently ancient castle in the crater between some of the mountains.
A new era, blooming to start.
Hogwarts.