"I see the platform, and Molly, Lucy, Uncle Percy and Aunt Audrey. Can you see James yet?" Fred asked, trying to hide his unreasonable excitement. It hadn't even been a week since he had last seen his cousin at his sister Roxanne's birthday party.
"I highly doubt you can see through the wall between us and the platform when nobody else can," Louis told his cousin haughtily. His father, Bill, spoke to keep the peace.
"James and his family might be on the platform already. Let's find out, shall we?" With a hand on each of the boys' shoulder, he guided them to the wall from King's Cross Station to Platform 9 and, quickly glancing around to make sure nobody was looking at them too intently, guided them through, his younger daughter following closely behind. Where has Victoire got off to? But all thoughts of his eldest child soon left his mind as he realized that his children and nephew had disappeared. "Louis? Fred? Where are you? Fred, did James let you borrow the cloak?" It's probably just another stupid prank, no reason to panic. But…where's Dominique? She was right behind me. Bill turned around and walked back through the barrier, but Dominique wasn't there, and nor were Louis and Fred, for that matter, although he did see James Potter careening haphazardly towards the barrier, face lighting up mischievously as he saw his uncle. Dismissing whatever James was thinking up for the moment and trying to deny what he had just seen, or rather failed to see, on the platform, Bill turned around and walked back through the barrier. Still no kids, but this time he noticed that Percy, too, seemed to have lost his children. Bill strode quickly over to where Percy and Audrey were panicking.
"I can't find Molly and Lucy anywhere, have you seen them?"
"No, I was hoping you'd seen Dom, Louis, and Fred. Did yours disappear through the barrier too?"
"Yes, they were right with us as we walked through. Lucy was even holding my hand, and then she was gone!" Audrey said. To stave off the panic, Bill allowed himself to sink into professional curse-breaker mode.
"Something's obviously wrong with the barrier. The easiest way to tamper with a magical gateway is to change where it ends up, so we just need to find out where that is."
"If the gateway's been tampered with, then we must not let anyone else through it," Percy proclaimed, regaining some of his composure. He determinedly strode farther onto the platform and called, "Harry! Get some Aurors here and block off the barrier to King's Cross! Someone's tampered with it!"
.
Harry got the barrier blocked off with his usual efficiency, hastened by some panic when he realized that James too was missing. Percy called the Ministry to get more experts and Bill began a magical examination of the barrier. Fleur called George and Angelina to tell them they had lost their son. Ron, remembering how students worried they would be late to the Hogwarts express tended to do something stupid, made sure to get the train's departure delayed and ventured to the Muggle side to block off a lesser-used part of the station for the anxious families arriving the Muggle way to wait until an alternate way onto the platform could be found or the situation could be resolved.
"The modified barrier must be set specifically to target the Weasley family, since all the other wizards and witches who walked through at the same time as you had no issues. It also targeted only the children, although we don't know what the distinguishing factor was nor, if it is age, what the cutoff is," Hermione said.
"You're right, Hermione. I've found a secondary path for the portal, specifically set to activate for a Weasley, although the way it's set up seems to be based more on family ties than blood explicitly. I expect that if they weren't excluded by whatever kept Percy and me from going through, Fleur and Audrey would have gone the alternate route as well."
"So it's safe?" Audrey asked hopefully.
"Well, I have no idea what's on the other side of the alternate portal and whether that is safe, but yes, the actual passage through the portal should be completely harmless as usual. Unfortunately, I'm having a lot more trouble finding a way to reverse it or even to figure out where it goes." The Weasley clan fell silent as Bill continued to examine the barrier and Harry led his Aurors to try to figure out if the person who tampered with the wall was still there.
Suddenly, the whole station began to roll and shake as if hit by a massive earthquake. Albus, Lily, Hugo, and Rose were being supervised by Ginny just past the Auror barricade. They fell to the ground, but Rose and Lily were soon lifted into the air by someone flying invisibly and carried through the barrier. Hugo and Albus were also levitated into the air, dropped on the luggage cart they had been minding, and sent hovering through the barrier.
.
The luggage cart crashed to the ground with a clang and rolled into a crowd of shrieking Muggles. "Damn hooligans!" called out a man in an expensive business suit.
"I'm calling security!" a woman declared scornfully. It was immediately apparent by the lack of Aurors keeping the barrier clear that Albus, Rose, Hugo, and Lily had ended up somewhere other than the King's Cross Station they were supposed to be in. Used to handling people staring at them after growing up with famous parents, Hugo and Albus ignored the mutters, climbed off the cart, and walked over to Rose and Lily. Both of them had scraped their knees and elbows when they were dropped by the invisible flier, and Rose was obviously trying not to cry. Hugo awkwardly tried to comfort his big sister.
Albus asked, "Someone carried you here?"
"Uh huh," Lily said. "And they let go as soon as we went through the barrier."
"Did they let go, or did their hand just go away?" Albus asked.
"I don't know!" Lily spat out petulantly.
"If they had gone through the barrier with us, they probably would have hit someone," Rose pointed out, wincing as she got to her feet. Hugo was looking around anxiously at the many people watching them curiously after their dramatic entrance.
"I see security. We should get out of here," he said.
"But we're not supposed to let them see us!" Albus said.
"Don't worry, Mummy said there's a mild Distraction Charm on the barrier that keeps any Muggles from noticing as people go through," Rose reported.
"Let's go!" Hugo said, tugging on Rose's hand and pulling her towards the barrier.
"Don't forget the luggage!" she called out. Albus grabbed the luggage cart and reached for his sister's hand, but she dodged away and ran towards the wall. He followed her. His heart leapt as he saw people he knew, but it fell again when he realized it was Molly, Lucy, Louis, Dominique, and James, not his parents. Then he noticed the cloaked men with wands drawn standing around Louis and James, but more importantly, they noticed him.
"It's Potter! Locomotor Mortis!" His legs locked together, Albus fell to the floor.
.
The apparent earthquake was magically created, so it didn't extend to the Muggle portion of King's Cross. This turned out to be unfortunate for the invisible flier, as there was still a tight perimeter of Aurors in front of the barrier. When he flew through, he crashed right into one of the Aurors, likely breaking a few of the unlucky man's ribs as they crashed to the floor. Whipping out their wands (the few thinking clearly enough to remember the Statute of Secrecy just accepted that the Obliviators would have to be called in at this point), the uninjured Aurors sent a flurry of Finite Incantatem spells around the downed man, undoing the flier's Disillusionment. "What do you think you're doing?" demanded an Auror. The man looked around. Noticing Victoire Weasley standing next to Teddy Lupin, he gave a crooked grin and said,
"I wonder how you'll like being the only Weasley grandchild." Victoire's face cycled through shock and horror before settling on anger, and she stalked toward him, wand drawn.
"What did you do to Dom, Louis, and our cousins?" she demanded.
"Don't worry, they're still in King's Cross, just not the one we're in," he boasted. "How do you think they'll get along with the Professor Carrows?" Victoire's face switched back to horror, and she took a step back. Then, becoming determined, she grabbed her luggage and ran for the barrier. One of the Aurors shot a spell to try to stop her, but missed, and Teddy ran after her, disappearing into the barrier behind her.