chapter one: meeting.
Hello, and welcome to my first fanfiction. (: Or rather, first in a
while... XD I couldn't think of a name, so I ended up calling it
Project Prologue Potter as I sketched out ideas as a sort of code
name. Then I couldn't be bothered to change it, haha.
I hope that this will end up being long, as I have quite a few ideas.
You'll notice that I put Luna Lovegood's daughters in there... 8D
Loads and loads of characters will eventually be introduced, I'm so
excited!
As for pairings, as this is in the future, I suppose I can do what I
like... -cackle- I'm still thinking of ideas, but this is hopefully
not going to end up being one of those cliché fics where all the
Potter and Weasley children end up in Gryffindor and the only main
characters are the ones mentioned in Deathly Hallows' prologue. I
don't think that will quite be the case here. D Aaand yeah, slash
will probably end up there, so if that's not your thing you better
clear off early.
It will hopefully span out over years if people seem to like this for
some bizarre reason... reviews would be nice.
- - -
If there was one thing Albus hated, it was the rain.
It made your hair wet, and if it was rather messy like Albus', it went
all weird at the top. Your clothes became soggy and stuck to you so
that you began to resemble a moving clump of wet newspaper, and you
started feeling cold. Even if you were wearing three protective layers
of warm jumpers like Albus was. And you also couldn't see anything,
especially through a window, as Albus had now discovered.
He stared at the foggy window for quite some time, wondering whether
he should change into his robes yet or not. It was quite a while until
they reached Hogwarts, and it was rather cold anyway, so he eventually
decided against it. He would have liked some quiet time to think and
fret, but it was impossible in a carriage full of hooligans. One of
which was his brother. The others were mostly assorted friends, pretty
much all of them being fellow Gryffindors that James had befriended
during his time at Hogwarts. The others were numerous cousins; James
was known for spending a lot of time with his family.
"Are you all right, Albus?" a concerned voice spoke from the side of
him. Albus had been waiting for this. It happened every five minutes.
"I'm fine, Rose," he replied back mechanically. "What about you?"
"A bit scared," she laughed, after a while. "Partly because of all the
noise and partly because this is the most you've said for an hour.
You're really all right?"
"Yep."
"Okay..."
And that was that. They fell back into silence. At least Rose was
actually trying to socialise with these people, smiling and laughing,
albeit warily. Albus, however, had been staring out of the window, his
head resting on his palms, for ages. He rather thought James had given
up on him by now.
The thing was, Albus wasn't a particularly sociable person. There was
James for that, and Lily. He was the odd-one-out of his family.
Whenever their cousins and uncles and aunts and goodness-knows-whats
came around, it was always Albus who was the one that departed
upstairs first, or discreetely left the house. The only cousin he
spent much time with was Teddy (who'd left Hogwarts now anyway) and
Rose - but she was probably going to go into Ravenclaw and leave him
all alone in some other random house. Probably not Gryffindor.
Gryffindor.
That had been the source of all his recent troubles and thinking. You
see, Albus thought a lot. And usually he came to some sort of
conclusion at the end of his session. But this time he hadn't. What if
James' taunts came true? What if he did end up in Slytherin? His whole
family would probably hate him for ever. He was sure Dad had just
pretended that Gryffindor didn't really matter that much. If it did,
why did he get sorted into Gryffindor? His dad was brave, everyone
knew that. He was the saviour of the wizarding world, for crying out
loud (although lots of Ministry officials liked to pretend that he
didn't do as much as he had, although this was decreasing after the
rise of Minister Kingsley Shacklebolt). Albus would never do anything
like that. Even his middle name was Slytherin.
Dad had said that you could ask the Hat to be placed in Gryffindor.
But what if the Hat just said no? 'You're much too Slytherin to be put
in Gryffindor.' Even if he did choose to be put in Gryffindor... he
would always live knowing that he didn't belong there, either. He was
doomed. Doomed...
"Are you all right, Albus?"
"I think I'm going to go for a walk," Albus murmured in a strangled
sort of voice. "Maybe have a look around or something?" Rose's mouth
was slightly agape as he looked at her with a forced smile. Rose knew
how he would hate going for a walk by himself around some strangers.
It must be really bad.
"I'll come with you."
"...okay then. Come on."
James and his friends made no attempt to stop them. Clearly they
hadn't been particularly exciting company. Then again, James only
found company exciting if they had three or more dungbombs with them,
and Albus certainly did not.
As soon as they closed the carriage door behind them, they made their
way across the corridors of the train, glancing into compartments on
their way past. All of them were filled with laughing, happy people.
Maybe they'd find some sort of empty carriage where they could just
talk to eachother. Or just stare out of the window again. That would
be cheerful...
"Hello, Albus. Is that you?"
Turning around, he came face-to-face with two short girls that he most
definitely recognised. Once you'd met Cirrus and Alto it was kind of
hard to forget their appearances. Rose smiled in greeting at the
Scamander twins.
"Hello, how are you?" Rose prompted politely as Albus didn't say
anything, merely glanced at Rose for support. He was bad at speaking,
and every time he met the Scamander twins he just gazed at their
eccentric exteriors. Both of them had long blonde hair and huge bright
silver eyes. And both of them wore the strangest jewellery Albus had
ever seen. Radish earrings. And necklaces of Butterbeer corks. People
either avoided them completely or were attracted to their oddness.
"Oh, we're fine," Alto replied at once, with a smile. Rose smiled back. Silence.
"That's a very nice look, wearing three jumpers. Is it warm? Are you
looking for a compartment?" Cirrus asked, looking back at Albus, who
nodded, now looking at the ground.
"Would you like to come to ours?" Albus nodded. "Come on, then! It's
right at the end of the train, really quite nice, you know. I don't
know why everyone always avoids the one at the end, because it's
probably the best in my opinion..."
The twins nattered on, Albus trying to listen and keep up at the same
time, the twins walking at their usual groundbreaking speed. When they
stopped it was very suddenly, outside the end compartment. Now Albus
saw why everyone avoided it. It was absolutely miniscule, and it was
quite a squeeze just getting in the door itself, especially whilst
wearing three layers of clothing. However, they managed it, and sat
down politely next to eachother at the end. It was only now that Albus
noticed that there was someone else in it.
He hadn't looked up yet, but when he did, Albus realised that he
looked rather familiar. Rose was staring at him thoughtfully as well.
His hair was blonde like the girls', but more of a white-blonde than a
silver. And his eyes were a harsh grey, his nose and chin slightly
pointed. Albus thought he looked rather formiddable, but lonely at the
same time. He stared back with furrowed eyebrows, then glanced at
Cirrus and Alto.
"Who's that?"
"This is Rose Weasley, our friend, and this is Albus Potter, our other friend."
"Nice to meet you. I'm Scorpius."
"Scorpius Malfoy?" Rose asked, still looking thoughtful. The boy
nodded, his eyes narrowing a bit at the mention of his surname,
glancing back out of the window. Now Albus remembered, he was the boy
at the station. The one his uncle had told Rose to beat in every exam.
"Which house do you think you're going to be in?" Scorpius asked very
suddenly, making Albus jump, who had just relaxed and had been looking
at the door wistfully.
"Well, my dad said I might be in Gryffindor, but my mum said I might
be in Ravenclaw, so I don't know really."
"Not... not Slytherin?"
"I bet I'm in Slytherin," Albus muttered gloomily, partly to himself.
"You do?" Scorpius asked, looking a bit shocked. "I thought you'd be
in Gryffindor."
"R-really?"
"Yeah, my mother said Potter was one of the Gryffindor family names."
"I don't think all families are in the same house," Rose said, looking
thoughtful again. "I mean... our cousin Victoire, she's a Weasley and
she's in Ravenclaw."
"And Fred's in Hufflepuff."
"Mmhmm, and loads of Weasleys have been in Gryffindor..." she trailed
off after she realised Scorpius wasn't listening anymore. He was
staring out of the window instead. They lapsed once again into
silence. The Scamander twins, who had been listening with mild
curiosity were now reading the same magazine. Albus noticed that the
book was upside-down, and wondered vaguely whether he should go get
dressed.
"Erm... we better go get into our Hogwarts robes now," Albus mumbled,
nudging Rose's arm. Rose looked confused, as she was already wearing
hers, but nodded in understanding as Albus gave her a significant
look. Scorpius didn't even seem to notice, and just nodded with a wave
of a hand, still staring glumly out of the window, and the two
departed hurriedly.
