Mr Weasley's directions.
As soon as they received the green card from the Weasley family, the group began packing their bags, agreeing to go to James' house that Saturday to leave.
Sirius, ever since his mother kicked him out of the Black house, had been staying with the Potters every summer until the start of the next school year. Now, with his coming of age, and seventh year ahead of him, Sirius began to worry about finishing his Hogwarts education as a homeless person.
For that very reason, he considered that if he spent these vacations in a reckless and crazy way, he would be able to forget, even if only for five minutes, all the worries that had been haunting him lately.
The days passed by without a trace, as the only relevant fact was that James was obsessed with learning as much about the Muggle world as he could, in order to impress Lily's parents. Saturday morning the missing six appeared in front of the porch, suitcase in hand and stomachs growling with hunger.
As they ate Mrs. Potter's home-cooked breakfast, they chatted about their expectations for the trip and how they were going to get to the Weasley residence.
“Mr. Weasley gave me some rather complicated directions, but I think we'll arrive a little later at dinner time” James determined, popping a piece of toast into his mouth, and receiving a surprised look from everyone present “Why are you all looking at me like that?”
“Dinner?!” Lily asked.
“Arthur is a rather… peculiar person. He would never pass up an opportunity to use ordinary means of transportation; he's a super mega fan of Muggles, I guess that's why he works at the Ministry on something to do with them.”
“Muggles, James! We are going to take years!”
Lupin spread the last piece of his toast with jam, before turning into the heated discussion ahead.
“I think it's fine; I hate travelling by broomstick, the shuttles are a problem and only Sirius, Lily and I know how to Apparate.” Lupin bit into his toast before continuing to speak. “By train I think it will take us a couple of hours, and if we take a bus while we have lunch on the road, I think we might even get there earlier.”
James looked at Lupin with a grateful expression, Sirius snorted amused, and they left it to Potter to continue with the directions.
“That's right, he told me to buy the tickets, and that if we got to London before one o'clock, he was going to pick us up” James said, unconcerned, “I haven't bought them, we'll do it there, won't we?”
Lily, Mary, and Lupin were stunned to hear James' statement.
“What time is it, Remus?”
He conjured tempus and the time floated in front of their heads: 12:07 a.m.
“You're a big idiot, we're late!”
They left the dishes on the table, and everyone hurried to grab their bags before leaving the house, stomping off to say goodbye to the Potters. With Remus' help, they bought tickets for public transportation and got off twenty minutes later in front of the local train station.
It was proving to be quite a disaster, but they let Lily buy the tickets, arriving somewhat disappointed.
“There, for one o'clock, but we'll be there at five.”
“I understand! So, Muggle tickets have to be bought in advance, I thought London was closer to Sunderland” James mentioned, “Are we that far away?”
“Over two hundred kilometers, Prongs.”
“What's a kilometer?”
Lupin's patience was exhausted, he sat with his arms folded and then a light bulb went off.
“James.”
“Yes?”
“How do you travel to King's Cross, every year?”
“By Floo Powder.”
He stood up with impressive speed, grabbed his suitcase and walked out of the station without looking back.
“Well, we're going on Floo Powder!” Remus spluttered, with the group laughing behind his back at James' naivety, and Lupin's restrained anger.
Eventually, back at the house, Euphemia was waiting for them at the side of the fireplace with the bag of floo powder, she argued with her son, for not listening to her before leaving, and the group went into the fireplace, dictating the words that Fleamont instructed them to say.
They appeared inside the Leaky Cauldron, the owner of the shop looked at them in surprise, as they were not used to having visitors in the middle of the vacations. James was the last to shake off the remains of ashes and arriving three minutes ahead of schedule, they hurried to King Cross station, meeting Arthur Weasley, fatter and happier than James remembered, waiting for the boys outside a small light blue car.
“Mr. Weasley!” James called out, the man turned and waved his hand at them “Thank you so much for waiting for us.”
They all introduced themselves and looked at the small car on its side.
“Come on, guys! Get in the Anglia, Molly asked me to hurry; she loves feeding mouths every day.”
Comfortable, as the car could fit ten passengers comfortably and all their suitcases, the boys were twice as excited, when they realized that, after pressing a couple of buttons, they disappeared from Muggle field of vision and soared into the skies.
『 °*- ღ -*°』
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I love Mr. Weasley! He is a god's bread.