The Epilogue Continued
This story will take place 19 years after Harry Potter's Final Battle with Voldemort. Harry (head of the Auror Department) and Ginny Potter (who played professional Quidditch for the Holyhead Harpies before becoming the Senior Quidditch Correspondent for the Daily Prophet) have three kids: James Sirius Potter (third year, Gryffindor), Albus Severus Potter (first year), and Lily Luna Potter (age 9). --Bill and Fleur Weasley have two daughters: Victorire (Gryffindor, 7th year) and Clare (Ravenclaw, 5th year). --Charlie and his wife, Brigita Weasley, live in Romania and have three kids who attend Beauxbatons: Dragomire, Tullia, and Cami. --Percy still works at the ministry and runs for minister of magic every few years. –George (successful businessman, owns several business) and Angelina Weasley have four kids: Fred (Gryffindor, 6th year), Christopher (Gryffindor, 5th year), Roxanne (Gryffindor, 2nd year), and Howard (age 10). --Ron (works at the Auror Department and also joined George in business) and Hermione (high up in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement) have two kids: Rose (first year) and Hugo (age 9). --Luna married Rolf Scamander (a fellow naturalist) and has two boys: Lorcan (Ravenclaw, 4th year) and Lysander (first year, I know JK said that they were twins, but I didn't like that, sorry JK). –Neville (Herbology Professor) married Hannah Abbott (landlady of The Leaky Cauldron) and they have one daughter: Abbey Longbottom (Gryffindor, 6th year). --Draco married Asteria Greengrass and they have one son: Scorpius (first year). This story will not be regularly updated, but I promise I will not abandon it for too long.
Author's Notes:
I don't own any of this. I have tried to keep the story loyal to the writings and interviews of JK Rowling, but I know not everything will line up with JK's thoughts. This story takes place 19 years after Deathly Hallows, so take a pinch of time dust, reread the epilogue, and prepare to transport yourself 19 years into the future.
Chapter One
The Hogwarts Express
Thick white steam poured from the Hogwarts Express as it pulled out of the station; the low rattling, rumble of the train against the tracks grew steadier as the train began to pick up speed. Rose Weasley and Albus Potter watched as platform nine and three quarters sped away and hung out the window waving until their parents had disappeared from sight.
"Guess it's just us now," Rose whispered softly. Her short bushy red hair toppled messily around her face as she pulled her head back through the window. She straightened up and suddenly adopted her very bossy, Aunt Hermione-ish tone. "Come on. We need to change into our school uniforms right away, so we'll be ready."
Albus ran his hand through his dark hair nervously, making it look even more untidy than it usually did. Inside the train his hair looked black, but when the sunlight hit it you could tell it was actually dark red. Al looked a lot like his father without glasses or the famous scar, except his dad didn't have freckles.
Rose dragged her trunk down the corridor ahead of him singing the Hogwarts school song under her breath to the tune of a slow and almost mournful funeral march, "Hogwarts, Hogwarts, Hoggy Warty Hogwarts …"
Al knew she had learned this latest version from Uncle George, but Dumbledore's Chocolate Frog card had been singing the school song in different rhythms and tunes ever since they first received their Hogwarts letters.
He dragged his trunk after her, past overflowing chaotic compartments. Al remembered the front page story of the daily profit had that morning: "Attendance is Up: Record Number of Students Head to Hogwarts." He hoped his brother or one of his cousins had thought to save them a seat. Shrieks of laughter and shouts drifted out of open compartment doors throughout the train. Above them, flocks of creatively folded flying notes flitted along the ceiling, flapping in and out of compartments in search of their recipients.
"We finally going aren't we?" Albus asked, still feeling slightly dazed at the thought of going away to school, and not just any school, but Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. It was hard to imagine living anywhere other than home.
"I'm not sure. Al, give me a pinch!" He was looking into the compartments as they went by and didn't notice that Rose had stopped suddenly, until he had banged his knee painfully on the corner of her trunk.
"Al, will you give me a pinch?"
"Wha—? Why?" Asked Al, baffled by her odd request. She rolled up her sleeve and held out her arm "Have you gone ment—"
"Just trust me. I might be dreaming; how else will I know?"
"You really have gone mental." Albus rolled his bright green eyes. They were, as he had often been told, his grandmother, Lily's, eyes. Al began to squeeze his trunk past hers.
"Fine, I'll do it myself!"
Albus watched with mild fascination as she pinched a bit of skin on her forearm between her fingers, scrunched up her blue eyes, and twisted. He wondered, as he had many times, why he let her be the leader of their duo.
"Ouch!" She released it as large pink blanch formed on her arm.
Albus smirked. "Up till now, I thought you were the smart one."
Rose followed him down the corridor looking slightly hurt. "Lorcan says if you don't get pinched, the Nygrees will keep you dreaming forever and you'll never wake up again."
"Nygrees aren't real--" he told her, but truthfully he wasn't sure. He grinned, torn between whether he should laugh or apologize. Luna, Lorcan's mum, was a naturalist and traveled the world researching little heard of creatures. Nygrees could exist.
"Oi, Al, there you are." James shouted at him out of a compartment door up ahead. "We were beginning to wonder if you had gone to join the Slytherins already."
"How is the newest member of the Slytherin house?" Fred joked, tossing his bag up onto the luggage rack.
"Have you made any slithering fiends yet?" Christopher chimed in, looking up from his book-- which screamed softly as he tucked it into his bag.
"Shut up."
Al felt his ears turning crimson and considered for a moment turning and going out the way he had came; sitting with strangers might be better than having to listen to his cousins' jokes all the way to Hogwarts.
But he sank into a seat near the window anyway, thinking about what his dad had told him on the platform-- about Slytherin and the two head masters for which he was named. His stomach squirmed; despite his dad's reassurance, he hoped the sorting hat wouldn't send him to Slytherin.
Roxanne glared at her older brothers and cousin over the top of her copy of the Quibbler. "Don't worry Al, they told me the same thing last year, but it turned out alright."
Victoire appeared in the doorway already in her school robes. A Head Girl badge gleamed on her chest. "There you are!" She beamed around at all of them. "Come with me Rose, I have to do something with your hair. You can't go up in front of the entire school looking the way you do. Roxanne, go find Clare, I'll do your hair too."
"What about me?" Fred asked running his fingers through his dark frizzy hair to make it stand on end. It was short enough to keep from blowing into his eyes during Quidditch, yet just ungroomed enough to look like he was overdue for a hair cut.
"I know a lost cause when I see one, but I guess I could try." She frowned slightly. "Some sleek and smooth might actually help."
Rose gave Albus a desperate glance before allowing herself to be led down the corridor by her cousin.
Albus changed into his school robes and slipped out of the compartment as James and Dan Bones, a third year, started a game of wizards' chess. He took off in the opposite direction of Victoire and Rose peeking into compartments as he passed, searching for someone, but not really sure who.
Lysander was suppose to be a first year too this year he remembered. Lysander was Lorcan's younger brother, Luna's youngest. He spotted a boy with white blonde hair sitting and looking out the window in a compartment with a few other students that looked like they must be first years.
"Hey, Lysander!" Al walked cheerfully into the compartment; quite sure it had to be him. The boy turned around, he wasn't Lysander, but he looked vaguely familiar. He hesitated a moment.
"Oh, sorry I thought you were someone else. Do I know you?" Al knew it sounded kind of dumb to ask, but he couldn't shake the feeling that he had seen the boy somewhere before.
The boy looked slightly shocked, but he quickly recomposed his face into a competent expressing and held out his hand, "The name is Malfoy, Scorpius Malfoy, you must be a Potter." He added with a smug smile.
"Erm—yeah, Albus Potter" He wasn't quite sure if he should shake his hand or not, but decided it would be rude not to. He suddenly remembered where he had seen the boy before; Uncle Ron had pointed him out when they were at Kings Cross Station.
He was Draco Malfoy's son, and he knew all about the Malfoys. Their whole family had served the dark lord, the one his dad, Harry Potter, had defeated— Lord Voldemort. Albus shook the boy's hand. "Nice to meet you," he added a little awkwardly.
"Potter? Hey, are you related to Harry Potter?" one of the boys asked.
Albus gave a small smile as he backed out of the compartment, "Oh him. Yes, he's my dad." The boy gaped at him and all at once the attention of everyone in the compartment was focused on him. "Well, I-- see you later then." Al turned and hurried out of the compartment before the boy could call him back and nearly collided with the old lady in dark purple robes pushing the food trolley.
"Watch it! Anything off the trolley, dear?" she asked him, her dark eyes were distorted behind her thick glasses perched precariously on the tip of her nose. Mum had given James some gold to buy snacks with before they left and he did feel a little hungry.
"Sure, I'd need to get some gold; I don't have any with me." Al told her.
"That's alright dear. Take a chocolate frog—you never know, you might get one of your father, he is a famous wizard, I would recognize those eyes anywhere." Her eyes locked steadily on his as she smiled at him.
He smiled nervously under her unrelenting gaze and took the chocolate frog she handed him, "Thank you."
"Your welcome dear, anytime," she warmly told him. She leaned over between the hanging black and red licorice wands. "Tell your dad I said hi, won't you dear?"
"Yeah, sure, I'll tell him, thanks." She didn't seem to need to blink as much as an ordinary person. Not sure what else to say, he turned and headed back down the corridor the way he had come, anxious to shake the sensation of the old witch's unrelenting gaze.
It wasn't unusual for strangers to know who he was—especially thanks to reporters like Rita Skeeter, who tailed his family asking for quick quote interviews whenever the news was slow. He often wished that he was a metamorphous like Teddy or at least that he looked less noticeably like his father.
"Check Mate!" James shouted happily as his knight smashed into Dan's queen, turning her stone body to rubble. Al slid the compartment door shut behind him and sat down on the floor next to his brother.
"That was the most pathetic game of chess ever," said Roxanne smugly, as she walked into compartment behind Al.
"You weren't even here," said James a little defensively.
"I still know it was pathetic, any game you win has to be."
"Do you really think you can beat the chess champ?"
"Do you want to play four ways? Al and I verse you and Dan?"
"Sure!" James pulled out his wand from the sleeve of his robe. "Expandio" James whispered as he tapped the chess board with his wand, two more rows of squares magically grew out of each side. The game Four Ways was Uncle Ron's invention, it was just like regular wizarding chess only the chess board was expanded to make room for four sets of chess men.
Al pulled out his own chess men out of his trunk and lined them up on the board; they turned a deep shade of emerald. The chessmen always picked a color different from the other sets on the board, but you could never tell what color they would choose. James's had already turned to black stone and Dan's were bright ruby red. Margaret sat down cross-legged on the floor with them and set up her men, which turned pale bronze.
Four Ways was a chaotic game, but its rules were simple: the player with the last remaining king wins. Lately they had started to play in teams, so that two sets of chessmen attacked the other two sets, the team with the last king standing won the game.
They were halfway through the stack of sweets the others had bought when Rose slid back the compartment door and rejoined them. Her hair was pulled back in a formal up do with bunches of shinny curls around her face. Al didn't say anything, but he secretly thought it had looked better before. Roxanne grinned at her.
"Finished already? I thought Victoire was going to do make-up too!"
"She was, but luckily someone set off a dung-bomb near the end of the train. How did you escape so quickly?" Rose asked irritably trying to twist the curls out of her face.
"It's just because you're a first year," said Roxanne knowingly. She flipped her long, dark red hair—which Victoire had charmed into shiny straight locks—over her shoulder and imitated Victoire's cheerful voice, "You never get a second chance a first impression. You must look your best."
"I miss Ted," said Roxanne in her normal voice. "Vicky was a lot more bearable when he was around, so long as they weren't sucking off each other's faces."
Rose pulled a face and cheered as Roxanne's bishop tackled James' rook and began to beat him to pieces.
The train trip passed quickly. It was even enjoyable. The older students seemed to be continuously moving about. Al had been introduced to so many people that he wasn't sure he would remember them all. And his brother and cousins completely forgot— between catching up with old friends and drilling Jake Cresswell for details about the slightly bloody vampire fang necklace he had brought with him to school—to tease him about becoming a Slytherin.
But when the conductor's voice echoed through the train: "We will be reaching Hogwarts in five minutes' time. Please leave your luggage on the train; it will be taken to the school separately" Al's stomach began to do somersaults again.
His hands felt clammy and they shook as he tried to stuff his chess set back into his trunk. He glanced at Rose, she looked as nervous as he felt. The color had drained from her face making her freckles stand out dark and vivid. But despite her obvious nerves, she caught his eye and grinned at him as they joined the noise crowd of students thronging the corridor, their pockets stuffed with the last of the sweets.
The train slowed and stopped with a lurch. People began to exit onto the small, dark platform. A vaguely familiar voice was booming: "Firs' years! Mind your step! Firs' years! Firs' years, meet here!"
Al knew the voice before he saw him, it was Hagrid. Al had only met Hagrid once before, his dad had taken them to tea at Hagrid's hut the summer before James's first year. But he wasn't someone you could forget easily. Sure enough Hagrid was standing out on the platform, twice as tall as anyone else and at least three times as wide.
"Alright there Hagrid?!" James shouted from somewhere over Al's right shoulder, James's arm suddenly clamped over Al's shoulder, as he marched him right up to the gigantic bearded man. "Dad said to say hi, this is my brother Al."
"Another one, eh," Hagrid's hairy face beamed down at them. He patted Al on the head, the force of which almost made him collapse to his knees. "Don't worry, you'll do great!"
"See, even Hagrid thinks you'll do great in Slytherin," James told as him. "See you at sorting."
James turned and walked off, but before Albus could lose him in the crowd James shouted over his shoulder, "Maybe you could go directly to the Slytherin table and save the hat some time."
He stuck out his tongue in response, but he wasn't sure if his brother had seen, James had already disappeared into the crowd with his friends.
"Albus hurry up," Rose grabbed his arm and he followed her down the steep, narrow path to the lake.
"You'll be able to see the castle in a few moments," Hagrid's booming voice called back to them. There was a loud "Ooh!" from the students ahead of them and Al heard someone shout "Wicked!"
The path turned a bend and opened suddenly at the edge of the great black lake. The castle was a shadowy black mass against the starry sky. Its glowing windows glistened in the night and the glow reflected in the still water of the lake. The castle's turrets and towers pierced the sky.
Al had never really appreciated just how huge Hogwarts was until now. He followed Rose into a boat with a girl he didn't recognize, Lysander followed them. His bright blue eyes bulged excitedly as the fleet of boats started to glide across the lake.
"Do you know what House you'll be in?" Lysander asked.
"James says I'm going to be in Slytherin," Al answered darkly.
"I've heard Slytherins aren't bad," the girl he didn't know told him. "My dad got to know a few of them during the Triwizard Tournament. He went to Durmstrang." She added in response to their questioning looks.
"I'm hoping for Ravenclaw," Lysander told them. "Like my mom."
"Ravenclaw wouldn't be bad, Mom said the sorting hat almost put her in Ravenclaw," said Rose, "but Dad will disinherit me if I'm anything except Gryffindor. Not that Mom would let him do it-- but still."
"If you had your choice, which house would you pick?" the girl he didn't know asked.
"I—I don't know," stammered Rose, uncertain.
"I'm hoping for Slytherin," the dark haired girl told them.
"At least I'll have a friend," said Al, feeling a bit more cheerful.