Rose took a deep breath. This was it. This was the moment she'd been waiting for ever since her she was old enough to understand what magic was. She felt Mum's hand on her shoulder accompanied with a soft "You're ready darling?"
Rose found that she seemed to have lost her voice with the gravity of the situation and could only nod. Daddy came up to her other side, with his hand dwarfing her small one on the cart. He bent down to press a kiss to the top of her head, saying, "On the count of three then..."
He straightened up, and a one, a two, and a three later, Rose found herself on Platform 9 and ¾. She couldn't help it- she let out a little gasp at the thick steam and the people and the liveliness of it all. She had never had any reason to come to the platform, since she was the oldest of her immediate family, and usually by this time of year her muggle school had started up. Rose was her mother's daughter after all, and someone had better be dying for her to willingly miss school, muggle or magical.
Rose was still frozen to the spot, taking the brand new sights of the station all in. Hermione leant down to whisper, "It's quite amazing isn't it, love?"
"Yeah," breathed Rose, unable to speak above a whisper.
"I was the same exact way when I saw all this for the first time," Hermione said with a grin. Rose turned to smile at her mother, suddenly overcome by, well, everything. She flung her arms around her mother and pressed a kiss to her cheek.
"Love you, Mum."
Hermione laughed a little at her daughter's excitement and replied, "I love you too darling. Now that's enough of that. There'll be plenty of hugging and kissing for you to endure from the others. No need to waste all your stamina on me."
Rose giggled and suddenly remembered that her dad had come with her as well. She looked to her left, where he had been standing with her, only to discover that he was nowhere to be seen. "Where's Daddy?" she asked.
Hermione stood up on her tiptoes and looked around. She glanced back down at Rose and rolled her eyes. "It looks like he's trying to take the mickey out of your Uncle Percy. And look, he's forgotten to keep an eye on Hugo. Your brother's climbing all over someone's baggage trolley." Hermione grabbed the cart alongside Rose and started pushing towards her son and husband. "Honestly, Ron acts like he's still eleven…" she muttered under her breath.
Rose grinned as she glanced up at her mother. Despite her annoyed tone, her mum had a smile on her face, and her love for her husband was quite obvious. As soon as they got there, Hermione dragged Hugo off what appeared to be Molly's trolley. Hugo just grinned and scarpered off towards her uncle George and his family, who was a little ways away. Clearly her little brother had no qualms about playing hooky from school like she did, as he had quite pathetically begged her parents to let him tag along today.
"Hi," spoke a voice from her side, startling her.
"Albus!" she exclaimed, throwing her arms around her best friend and cousin.
"Ugh, Rosie that's enough of that. People will see me and think I'm an utter pansy."
"All because I hugged you? Albus Severus Potter, that's a whole load of rubbish and you know it!" declared Rose.
Albus grinned sheepishly. "I suppose you're right, actually. I guess I'm just a little wound up because of James. He keeps telling me that I'll be in Slytherin, and I guess I thought that everyone would just hate me or make fun of me. I tried not to let it get to me, but I can't help it!"
"Al, you've got to stop letting him affect you," Rose said with a sigh.
"Yeah, well the day that happens will be the day Hell freezes over," piped up a small voice from Albus's side.
"Shove off Lily!" Albus cried, while Rose giggled.
Lily stuck her tongue out at her brother. "Rosie, promise you'll write me all about Hogwarts and how everything is? I know both of my brothers, and I can't trust them with anything this important," Lily said with a huff.
"Of course I promise Lils! Cross my heart and everything." Lily was Rose's closest cousin, next to Albus. She'd found over the course of the years (quite unsurprisingly) that Albus was rather poor company when it came to painting nails or doing hair or playing dress up, so naturally she had turned to Lily.
"Gosh, thanks Rose! I knew my favorite relative wouldn't let me down!"
"What am I, chopped liver? It's not like I'm your biological brother or anything," grumbled Albus.
"Well, if you wanted me to like you more, you should stop being such a prat, Al!"
"Alright, calm down you two. You've only got fifteen more minutes until you don't have to see each other for five months."
"Yeah, yeah, Rose. Fine. Now, have you seen Hugo?" asked Lily. Hugo was to Lily as Al was to Rose- best friend except in times when joining in with Lily's activities could undermine his supposed "manliness" (Hugo's words, not Rose's).
"Last I saw him, he'd gone off to see Uncle George."
"Great! Uncle George always gives me free Weasley's Wizard Wheezes samples! All I have to do is pull out the puppy dog look…" Lily demonstrated her technique with a slight pout and big hazel eyes that she inherited from her her paternal grandfather. It was common knowledge among all the Weasley-Potter kids that their Uncle George loved to spoil them; and the girls knew that if he tried to resist, all they had to do was widen their eyes and look devastated (Lily liked to throw in a couple tears for dramatic effect), and he'd change his tune very quickly, much to Angelina's chagrin.
"Whatever, Lily. Just leave already," Albus muttered. Lily rolled her eyes and skipped away to find Hugo.
"Al, you're just jealous because Uncle George wouldn't give you free Puking Pastilles when Aunt Angelina was watching, and all your puppy eyes got was a laugh," Rose said with a smirk.
"Hey!" cried a rather affronted Al. "Whose side are you on anyway?!"
"No one's. I'm merely an unattached and logical observer," Rose replied.
"So much for best friend…" Al grumbled. "And you sound way too much like Aunt Mione right now."
Rose merely grinned.
Rose turned to see her father coming up to Hugo and Lily, who by this time had made it back to their parents and were discussing house preferences. Ron had that smile he got whenever he thought he was going to say something funny. "If you're not in Gryffindor, we'll disinherit you," he said, "but no pressure."
Rose was suddenly hit with the very realistic possibility that she could be sorted into a house that wasn't Gryffindor. Maybe Ravenclaw, or worse-Hufflepuff. Or, Merlin forbid, even Slytherin!
Rose could literally feel the blood rushing out of her face as she turned to look at Albus. She quickly reached her hand out to grab his, needing to find some comfort from somebody who understood her plight. She leant over to whisper, "It'll be alright. He's just joking, yeah?"
Rose saw Al gulp. "Yeah, well I hope so," he muttered. Albus took a deep breath. "You're right. We'll be fine. We'll be absolutely fine. We'll be fine, fine, fine."
"Al, you're looking a little green around the gills."
"Not green, Rose. Any color but green! That's the color of those… those snakes!"
Rose took a deep breath to calm herself down, because one of them had to pull up their big girl pants, and she'd bet ten galleons that it wouldn't be her cousin. And over the course of the years, she had found that tough love was the best medicine for the both of them. She pulled out her snobbiest voice and declared, "Al, honestly. Stop being such a melodramatic baby and get over yourself. So what if we land in some unfortunate house? So what if it's Slytherin? Our parents won't disinherit us, and they won't stop loving us either. That was just my Daddy being a right pain."
"Alright, I guess," replied Albus.
"Good. Now put on your brave face and go show that Sorting hat that you've got courage to spare."
Albus grinned at her. "What'd I do without you Rosie-Posie?"
Rose stifled a groan. This was the kind of thanks she got for pulling Albus out of his funk. She rather hated that nickname, and the only person who could get away with it was her Granddad Weasley. However, she couldn't leave Al's crime unpunished, so with an evil glint in her eyes, she instead smirked and declared. "Whatever you say, Ally darling."
Albus knew when he was defeated, and he knew to call it quits, so he merely glared at Rose instead. Rose beamed back at him, until she realized that her Daddy was saying something directed towards her.
"...beat him in every test, Rosie. Thank God you inherited your mother's brains."
"Ron, for heaven's sake," said Mum, half stern, half amused. "Don't try to turn them against each other before they've even started school!"
Rose looked around to see who they were talking about, but to know avail. She continued to make out snippets of Daddy's conversation- something about purebloods and marriage- which left Rose thoroughly confused and no further enlightened than when she first began her search. However, her dad began to glare at some point in the mist again, and Rose followed his line of sight to an amorphous shadow, flickering in the silver steam. A quick gust of wind blew the mist around the shadow away, to reveal a little family of three. There was a tall, pale, blond man with an extremely pointy chin and prominent frown lines. He seemed very poised and disdainful of all around him, but the way he looked at his son and wife was exactly the way her father looked at her, Mum, and Hugo. The beautiful woman beside him also looked very elegant, but her face was warm and open, and there was a gorgeous smile gracing it. Her attentions were on a boy who appeared to be around Rose's age, and looked like a younger version of his father. However, his features were markedly softer that the tall man's, and when he smiled at his mother, Rose saw that he had inherited her grin.
Rose tuned back into the conversation around her, only to hear James exclaim, "Teddy Lupin! Snogging our Victoire! Our cousin!"
Rose laughed at how affronted he looked and whispered to Al, "Really, it's like he's never seen two people snogging. He acts like its a completely new discovery."
Al laughed and whispered back, "They've been together for all of Victoire's summer hols, at least. They could have been together before that. I'm just surprised it took James so long to find out."
"Albus! When did you find out?! And why didn't you tell me?!"
Albus looked at her somewhat sheepishly. "Remember when Teddy stayed over at our house for a week at the beginning of the holidays because Mum was busy and she needed a sitter? Well, Victoire must have snuck in sometime, and I ran into each other snogging the living daylights out of each other on one of our couches. And I guess it just kind of slipped my mind to tell you when you got back from Greece a month later."
Rose gave Al the best glare she could and was pleased to see him wither slightly. "I can't believe you didn't tell me!"
Al winced and said, "Sorry?"
"You better be," Rose muttered.
"It's nearly eleven, you'd better get on board," said her Uncle Harry.
Her mother came and swept her up in a tight hug. "I'll miss you, sweetheart. Don't forget to write to me about everything."
"I won't Mum. Good luck not going crazy at home without any feminine support. I don't know how you'll survive without me."
Hermione laughed and replied, "You cocky little bugger, you! You had better watch that attitude, or the Sorting Hat might just decide you belong in Slytherin like your Dad's so afraid of."
Rose pulled a face and Hermione chuckled and said, " I'm just kidding sweetheart. I'll be proud of you no matter what House you're sorted into. Now, get a move on, or you'll be late."
Rose whirled around to find Daddy standing with his arms open wide. She ran to him. "I'll miss you Daddy," she told him.
"I'll miss you so much too, honey. Who am I going to play Wizard's chess with now? Hugo's utter rubbish at the game compared to you. You always give me a run for my money," Ron said with a grin.
Rose smiled at him as well. "I'll be sure to soundly thrash any chess player at Hogwarts who dares to challenge the offspring of the great chess champion, Ronald Weasley."
Ron let out a great big guffaw and said, "Atta girl!" However, his demeanor suddenly changed as a thought occurred to him. " Also, Rosie honey, you've have to be extra sure that all the boys know that you're not available. You've got to make it obvious that you're not interested in them, and that you'll just as soon poke their eyes out as let them get near you. They can be a little dense sometimes."
"Ron, give it a break. She's only a first year. I'm sure you weren't paying that much attention to girls when you were her age. Rose, honey, you don't have to listen to a word he says," said her mum, rolling her eyes and giving Rose a look that clearly stated "Can you believe this man?!"
"A father can never be too sure, Mione," Ron said gravely. Hermione just smiled at him and then turned her attention to Rose.
"I love you."
"Love you too, Mum."
"I love you darling," Ron murmured.
"Love you more, Daddy."
"And I love you most," he replied, eliciting a giggle from Rose. He spied Teddy and bellowed, "Stop trying to sneak another kiss from Victoire, and get over here!"
Teddy jogged over and came to a halt, saying,"Yes, sir, Senior Auror Weasley, sir." He, changed his features so that he looked like her daddy, and then made his face grow red and swell up.
Her dad growled a little. "You're lucky you're Harry's godson and that I like you. On your good days. Sometimes. Now stop dilly-dallying and help me with this cart. My back has been killing me these past few days."
"Of course, sir," Teddy said. "I always jump at the chance to help out the poor, infirm elderly."
"Hey, I resent that, you whippersnapper," said Ron as he tried to keep up his offended act. "When I was your age, I was saving the Wizarding world, instead of disrespecting my elders."
"So you admit it. You're an old man," said Teddy. Ron tried to look affronted, but couldn't help his grin from shining through. He reached out and ruffled Teddy's hair, and Teddy's features went back to his regular green-eyed, blue-haired appearance. The two grabbed Al's and her trolleys and went toward the area where all baggage was being loaded.
"Now Rose, I know you'll be off on your own for the first time, and I know it's hard to find motivation to do your assignments and not procrastinate, so I went ahead and took the liberty of making you a timetable. This way, you'll-"
"Mum, I know! I'll be fine. Don't worry." Rose took the proffered study schedule from her mother's hand and shoved it into the pocket of her school robes. She knew she'd never use the timetable because, although she had inherited her mother's aptitude for learning, she seemed to fare just as well- or even better- amidst the disorganized clutter of her everyday life.
"You'll do fabulously. I just know it," her mother muttered, seemingly more for her own benefit than Rose's.
"Yes, Mum. Now I'd best get on the train before Daddy has to pull the flying-car-trick out of his bag."
"Oh, yes, that one. I'd almost forgotten about that."
"I never could. It's my favorite bedtime story," Rose said with a smile.
Hermione grinned as well and said, "Alright then. Off you go!"
Rose grabbed her stuff and went to the door of the car James had gone in. She turned around and yelled, "Bye, Mum!"
Her mum laughed. "Bye darling! Owl me as soon as you get a chance."
Rose pulled herself up into the Hogwarts Express."I will Mum." She started into the velvet lined corridors of the train.
She figured that if she followed the loud voices and the explosions, she'd find the compartment of her cousins. And sure enough, she opened the door to the loudest area, she found it fit to burst with ginger hair and freckles. She plopped her stuff down and squeezed into the seat closest to the window. She turned to look outside and saw that her father had made his way back to her mother. Her dad's arm was wrapped around her mum, and her mum was leaning into her dad, and it made Rose smile whenever she saw how very much in love her parents still were.
Rose leaned out of the window and began to wave, as with a whistle and a chug-a-chug-chug the Hogwarts Express began to make its way toward Rose's simultaneously brilliant and daunting future...
