Albus pressed his face to the window as the train gathered speed, trying to keep his smiling parents in view until the last possible moment. Too soon, it turned a corner and there was nothing but darkness and wires in the stead of all the wizarding families left behind on the platform.
"You're not going to cry, are you?" James said loudly, eying Albus disparagingly.
Albus glared back, "No," He said defiantly, and turned to the window again, more to hide his wet eyelashes than to look at the sooty walls of the tunnel.
After about five minutes of the girls chatting about the Hogwarts ghosts while James sat counting his gobstones, Albus heard the compartment door open. In the window's reflection he saw a pale-blond head sticking through the doorway before James leapt up, blocking the view.
"What are you doing here?" James demanded. Albus turned to face the room and recognised the boy to be Scorpius Malfoy.
"Everywhere else is full. I was wondering…"
James cut across the boy's trailing voice, "You weren't seriously considering that we'd let you sit with us?"
"James!" Rose said warningly.
He ignored her. "Get out you disgusting little brat!"
Scorpius didn't need telling twice, the compartment door shut with a snap and he disappeared from sight, his face a searing pink and his eyes gleaming with tears.
"James, how could you say that?" Rose was glaring at him with her fists shoved into the cushioned seat either side of her.
"In case you didn't notice, that was the Malfoy boy." James said, as if it cleared up everything, and he turned to look out of the window.
"So?"
James turned back to face her. "His family are evil, Rose, they were all deatheaters or just as bad."
"My Mum said that they renounced the dark lord and all his blood-purity nonsense. They're on our side now." Rose returned, folding her arms.
"Only because the other side was completely destroyed, and they only renounced him after he'd been killed. Can't you see that they're only on our side because there's nowhere else to go? Merlin, you're so green, Rose."
Rose shot him a resentful look; she hated being told things like that, like she was too stupid to understand. She was always trying to prove her worth and to be treated as an equal. James, on the other hand, was arrogant, Albus thought that he simply didn't understand the impact he had on other people's feelings; he wouldn't hurt someone on purpose. Apart from Malfoy or another one of the deatheaters' kids, but that was different: they came from families of murderers.
James refused to meet her eyes, he stared resolutely out of the window at the wires lining the tunnel, and Rose eventually gave up and went back to talking to her friend. She was also starting this year, and they both started discussing the sorting.
"I just hope I don't end up in Hufflepuff," moaned Carrie, a fat blonde girl, for the seventh time.
"Don't worry, the sorting hat does take your decision into account," Said her cousin, Rebecca, consolingly. Rebecca was a Gryffindor and in James' year.
Carrie didn't look very mollified. With a resigned air, she went back to feeding Rebecca's owl treats through the bars of its cage.
"What about you, Al?" Asked Rose, "What house do you think you'll be in?"
"Slytherin is my guess," Said James smugly, without taking his eyes away from the window.
Albus remembered what his Dad had said to him, that he was named after a Slytherin, who was the bravest man he'd ever known. Perhaps being in Slytherin wouldn't be so bad after all: over the course of nearly two decades the blood-purity attitude of Slytherin house had been mostly eradicated. All that remained of toujours pur attitude were the memories of Slytherin before the Final Battle of Hogwarts.
"I don't know" He said to Rose, as if his brother hadn't said anything.
"Well that's okay, because at the end of the day it doesn't really matter what house you're in, as long as you're happy there," Said Rose, beaming at him. Albus managed a smile back.
The tunnel finally opened to reveal the wide, blue sky with the sun glistening high above them. Rebecca put her owl on the seat opposite her and opened her bag to reveal a stack of chocolate frog cards she'd collected over the summer.
"Have a look at these, James, see if these could add to your collection. These are the ones I already have. It's five sickles a card."
He got out of his bag a slightly smaller stack of spare cards and they exchanged, and spent the rest of the morning shuffling though the famous witches and wizards.
Albus and Rose watched the little houses go by as the Hogwarts Express neared the outskirts of London. Soon there were fields and the occasional forest or lake flowing by their window, glimmering in the late summer sun.
Their stomachs began to grumble as the day grew hotter, and they all started to get their money out for lunch even before the sounds of trolley wheels rolling across the floor reached them.
James stood up to open the compartment door as the voice of the ancient woman grew louder.
"Anything off the trolley, dears?" She asked as she appeared in the doorway.
Albus was last to get his food, as he was furthest away from the door. He got a couple of cauldron cakes, some jelly slugs and a chocolate frog.
"Is that all you're having?" Asked James incredulously, his voice slightly muffled as he'd stuffed half a pumpkin pasty into his mouth a few seconds before. James had got about four pumpkin pasties, six cauldron cakes along with an assortment of sweets. He'd always had a huge appetite; he'd been known to eat entire birthday cakes by himself and not even feel sick.
Albus, on the other hand, was a more careful eater. He was small for his age, whereas James could possibly pass for a fourth or even fifth-year.
Rose had bought even less than Albus. She already had a container of fresh fruit to eat, which she offered round to everyone before starting on it herself. They'd all declined, of course, wanting to have as much room for sweets as possible.
The scenery outside grew wilder as they grazed on a box of Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans and discussed Quidditch.
"I'm going to try and get on the reserve team this year," Announced James, watching Rebecca carefully to see how she reacted. She was a chaser for the Gryffindor team.
"That's great, I'm sure you'll get in," She said, smiling, "I can help you train for the try-outs, if you want. You never know, you might get into the actual team."
"I doubt that, as I've never really taken it up seriously before. I missed a load of flying lessons when I was in the hospital wing after being attacked by those Grindylows."
"Well no one made you wade through all those weeds at the edge of the lake." Rebecca said.
"It was a dare, you can't not do a dare." James said, apparently offended by Rebecca's disregarding attitude toward the accident.
Rebecca gave him a withering glance before she stood up to get her trunk. "Come on guys, we'll be getting there soon so we might as well put on our robes."
There wasn't a lot of space to change but eventually they had all pulled on their uniform, James and Rebecca with the Gryffindor crest sewn onto theirs.
James' stomach rumbled loudly as the sun began to dip below the horizon, and Carrie began to fidget with the hem on her robes.
Albus felt himself becoming more and more nervous as the sky darkened and stars began to appear above them. All too soon, the train began to slow down and approach Hogsmeade station.