The Hogwarts express
Albus Potter watched his fathers smiling face, its features so much like his own, glide backwards, away from him. He felt joy and sadness at the same time as he waved out of the window. I'm finally going. He thought. Albus was the son of one of the greatest wizards in the world, Harry Potter. His father had escaped and survived the most powerful dark wizard of his time, lord Voldemort, on many encounters, something that no wizard had ever done before, and one of the remarkable things about this, was that Harry had done it all between the ages of one and seventeen. But now the wizarding world was safe from Voldemort, because at the age of seventeen, Harry had defeated him. But this story is not about Harry Potter, It is about the boy waving out of the window, on his way to Hogwarts.
"Come on Al," said Albus's older brother James, who would be going into his second year, "Cheer up. We'll see them at Christmas and stuff. And anyway, you wont make any friends at Hogwarts if you're a wimp." James punched him on the shoulder and ran back to his cousin Fred Weasley, son of his uncle George.
Albus wandered around the train for a time, and then headed back toward his own compartment, not really knowing who would be in it, because he had hurriedly put his things in it and ran to say goodbye to his mom, dad, and sister. He walked past compartments, and saw a few people he recognized, but didn't bother to stop to say hello. He walked past a compartment with the boy Scorpius Malfoy, the one his uncle Ron had pointed out, talking lazily to a boy Albus guessed was Gordon Goyle, due to the fact that his father told him that Scorpius would probably be hanging around him. He finally reached his compartment, and was pleasantly surprised to see it packed with most of his best friends. He opened the compartment door, and was greeted by Rose Weasley, Flora Lovegood, Callum Finnigan, Sara Macmillan, and Mark Thomas.
"Albus!!" said most of the people in the carriage at the same time. Albus sat down in an empty seat, and felt a warm glow rising in his chest, diminishing the nervousness about leaving his family that was there previously. All his friends around him talking about houses, and the feasts their parents talked about, made his insides squirm with excitement and adoration for all the people in the carriage. "So, what houses do you all think your going to be in? I'm sure i'm going to be in Ravenclaw." Said Sara Macmillan. Albus's stomach clenched like a fist as fear of being in Slytherin came back to the front of his mind, and swept away the warm glow. "Me too." Said Flora, with the same dreamy air of her mother Luna.
"I think I'll be in Gryffindor." Said Mark. Appreciative murmurs came from Rose, Callum, and Albus. As he was in a carriage full of his friends, Albus voiced the thing that had been bothering him since he got his letter from Hogwarts. "I hope i'm not in Slytherin. That would be terrible."
"Oh Albus," said Rose, looking as though she was biting back an exasperated expression, "It'll be fine! Our whole family has been in Gryffindor. And even if you aren't in Gryffindor, you could be in ravenclaw with Sara and Flora." Albus felt a bit better. "Yeah," said Mark, "And don't think about Slytherin much. That obstacle will come when we get there." Mark always had a calming word.
"I guess so," mumbled Albus, feeling as though only some of his fear about being in Slytherin had been diminished, "Thanks guys." There was a kind of awkward silence then, in which everyone kind of sighed, and looked out the window at the fields and cows. "I guess we should change into our robes now" said Albus breaking the silence, which he thought was probably his responsibility, because it was he who brought on the awkward silence. So, after a lot of clicking, standing on seats, and falling possessions, they had all extracted their robes from their trunks, which were on the shelves above them. They quickly changed into their robes, and sat back down.
"I can't wait to get to the castle. My dad said that the feasts are excellent!" said Sara, sounding a bit hungry. Before anyone could answer, there was a great clattering in the hall, and then came a smiling witch pulling a cart full of sweets. Albus, just realized how hungry he was, plunged his hand into his pockets and took out a handful of sickles, knuts, and galleons. They decided to pool portions of their money together, and bought most of the cart, leaving the cart lady looking a little concerned, as though they were going to do something dangerous with the candy.
They spent the rest of the ride talking about quidditch, eating all of their candy like starved bandits, and what teams they wanted to be on if they were international quidditch players. Most of the talk revolved around albus and Rose's fathers, because they were both excellent players themselves. After talking about everything in quidditch that exists, they started talking about pets. When albus had gone to Diagon Alley, his father had told him that Hagrid had given him some money, because he wanted to buy his first owl, just like he did James's, and his fathers. So albus and Harry entered eyelops owl empouium, which was full of glittering eyes and ruffling feathers, and chose a handsome snowy owl, that for some strange reason, made his dad get all choked up when he chose it. Albus immediately named her Artemis, after the Greek goddess of the moon and hunting, because of her white feathers and piercing silver eyes.
"Me mam got me an eagle owl. I named 'im Merlin." Said Callum, standing on his seat and struggling to extract a hooting Merlin from his cage. "My dad got me a cat!" said Sara, opening a basket and letting out a small tortoise shell cat, "I named her Grace." Grace stalked over to rose and sat on her lap, sniffing. She obviously smelled the family cat, crookshanks, on Roses hands. Grace's head suddenly whipped up away from rose's hands and then grace leapt up into the air trying to catch a hooting Merlin, who was at the moment flying over to one of the overhead luggage racks. Merlin hooted loudly and took refuge on Callum's wrist. Albus decided it was time to let Artemis out of his cage, so he, like Callum, stood on top of his seat and took down Artemis's steely grey cage. Artemis was sleeping with his head under his wing, and when Albus opened the cage door, immediately woke up and flapped over to rose, whom he knew well. The rest of the groups wanting to show the others their pets were cut short when someone opened the door of the compartment.
"So. Albus Potter is here." Said a sneering boy with white-blonde hair. Scorpius Malfoy had come to their compartment. He was flanked by two large muscular boys. One was the Goyle boy he had seen in the compartment before, and the other he didn't recognize. Scorpius nodded to the other kids in the compartment. Scorpius knew that his family was in Harry potters debt, he had heard his dad mention this a few times, but this boy, Albus, he could deal with on his own. There was something about him. Not a pure blood. There was something wrong about that. It just didn't make sense. All decent wizards are pure blood, Scorpius thought.
"This is Goyle, and Parkinson." He said indicating to the big boy on his right as Goyle, and the skinny boy on his left as Parkinson. "So. What'r you gonna do now, without famous daddy to help you out?" Everyone in the compartment leapt up with determined looks on their faces. "Say that again…" said Mark, looking angry, which was a rare occasion. "Yeah," said Rose, looking around with a smirk, which Albus guessed she wore just to annoy Scorpius, " Theres three of you, and six of us. So, how exactly do you plan to take on all of us?" The same thought seemed to have occurred to Scorpius and his cronies. Scorpius seemed to turn a bit pale, while goyle and Parkinson flexed their muscles threateningly. Scorpius made an angry face and said, "See you at school. We can settle this then." The door of the compartment closed as the three boys stalked out into the hallway.
Callum let out a long wailing whistle, "well that was close." Everyone nodded in agreement.
"But he said, 'see you at school. We'll settle this then", said Albus darkly, "what do you think that means? Does he want to like, fight?" Sara was about the only one who didn't look too worried.
"Albus, you worry wart. He was just trying to scare you." Said Sara, "Don't worry about it. He's probably all talk. Just like his father, my dad says." There were murmurs of agreement and skepticism throughout the compartment. Albus was about to bring up his suspicions, when a voice rang out in the train, "We will be approaching Hogwarts in five minutes time. Please get ready. Your trunks and pets will be brought up to Hogwarts separately." Everyone went rather pale, and Albus felt sweat under the collar of his robes.
Albus stowed Artemis in her cage, and the other occupants of the compartment followed suit. They looked out of the window, but could only see a vast black lake, that chilled albus's heart, and made him feel like he was drowning in the lake itself. The train started to slow down, and finally came to a stop after much screeching of brakes. The prefects were systematically coming out of the compartments, looking very uniform and important, and standing at the doors to hold them open for all of the other students. Albus stepped off of the train into the cool autumn night air, and couldn't help but feeling proud, despite his fear of being in slytherin, that he was finally at Hogwarts.
"Firs' years! Firs' years over 'ere! Come on now!" Albus heard Hagrid's loud voice over the bobbing heads of students. Albus located Rose and walked with her closer to where the majority of first years was crowding. Hagrid led them to about 20 little wooden boats floating in the lake. "This here is the Black Lake." Explained Hagrid. "No more'n four to a boat. Come along now," he said to a hesitant first year with dark brown hair. Albus, Rose, Callum, and Mark all crowded into a boat, and saw Sara and Flora climb into a boat with the hesitant boy and another boy whom he didn't recognize. After everyone had clambered into a boat, and hagrid had his own, he yelled, "FORWARD!"
And all of the boats moved, of their own accord, across the lake. "This'll be 'ogwats then." Said Hagrid, pointing with a massive hand to an enormous castle sitting atop an immense mountain. Everyone was too awed to speak. The castle was huge, with many towers and turrets, and looked like it had survived many millenniums. The boats soon reached a sort of harbor that seemed to be underneath the castle itself. Once the boats had stopped, they all climbed out a bit shakily onto a pebbly shore.
Once everyone was out of the boats, hagrid led them along a narrow rocky passageway, climbed up some steps, and came out in front of the immense from door of Hogwarts. Hagrid raised a gigantic fist and knocked three times on the castle door.
Chapter TwoThe Sorting
