"I'm telling you, Nat, Hogwarts is a great place," Ron Weasley reassured his eleven-year-old daughter. "You'll have so much fun there! I know I did." Ron had broken the Weasley family tradition of having a large family. Natalie Rachel Weasley was his and Luna's one and only.
Percy, Ron liked to argue had REALLY broken the tradition as he was unmarried and had no children at all. The other Weasley boys though had taken the baton and run with it. Bill was married to Fleur Delacour and they had four children, Merisel, eighteen, Danielle, fifteen, Elias, twelve, and Alyse, eleven. Charlie had married a quiet girl named Laura from Port Talbot, Wales. They had five kids of their own: Anthony, seventeen, Victoria, fifteen, Alexandra, thirteen, Felicia, ten and Brendan, nine. Fred, surprising, had the lion's share of offspring, putting his parents to shame with eight: Eric, fourteen, Thomas, twelve, Alison, ten, Shana, eight, Daniel, six, Benjamin, four, and HIS twins, Ryan and Seth, two. George barely avoided being listed as shameful; he only had three: Anna, fifteen, Summer, thirteen, and Marissa, eleven.
And Ginny...Ginny had only two kids, another shame, two girls, Trinity, sixteen, and Ariana, thirteen. Trinity and Ariana MALFOY.
The two girls were walking to the train with their mother when Ariana turned to Ginny and asked, "If Dad works at school, how come he can't just ride there with us? I mean, Hunter's parents ride to school with HIM because they're teachers!"
"I'm not really sure, sweetie, you'd have to ask him that. Speaking of Hunter though..." Ginny trailed off seeing none other than thirteen-year-old Hunter Jesse Potter waltzing up to them accompanied by his older two siblings: Damien, seventeen, and Anais, fifteen.
Trinity suddenly started acting very oddly, fixing her hair and blushing furiously as the Potters came up to her.
"Hey, Trinity," Damien greeted her with a flirtatious smile. "How were your holidays?"
Trinity reciprocated his smile. "They were great. Thanks..."
Harry was unnerved to see his son flirting openly with Malfoy's daughter. It was as though they...liked each other or something. As far as Harry was concerned Draco was still an annoying prick. He hadn't the slightest idea what Ginny saw in him.
Harry wasn't the only Potter glaring when Damien and Trinity's eyes would meet. Anais hated Trinity for the sheer reason that she was her father's daughter. Anais had always been wary of Draco, right from the beginning. It made no difference to her that Trinity looked much more like Ginny than Draco or that Trinity was a Gryffindor. She was Draco Malfoy's daughter, and that made her evil.
"Damien?"
"What?"
"Why doesn't your family like me?" Trinity and Damien were in their own little compartment of the Hogwarts Express. Damien was sitting down and Trinity was lying with her head in his lap.
Damien ran his fingers through Trinity's dark red hair. "Your hair looks a lot like my grandmum's did. You know, before she..."
"Damien, don't change the subject!" She sat up and turned to look him in the eye. "They don't like me. Why?"
Damien struggled to find the right words. "It's not you they don't like."
Trinity rolled her eyes. "Could have fooled me..."
"They don't like your dad, alright!" Damien exploded, automatically regretting it.
"What?"
"My parents don't like your dad, especially my father. Your dad was like his arch-nemesis at school or something..."
"What about my mum?"
"Your mum's their friend. They think she made a bad choice but..." He trailed off seeing Trinity inch away from him. "What? What's the matter?"
She gave him a weird look. "And what do you think?" she asked him softly. "What do you think of my father?"
"I...I say that anyone who contribute to your existence can't possibly be all bad!"
"That's clichéd, Damien, and you know it."
"Look, Trinity, you're my friend and would never say or think anything about you or your family that would hurt you. I don't know your dad. But it sounded like he was pretty mean when he was our age." Trinity made to say something but Damien silenced her with a wave of his hand. "Your mom says he changed and I don't know enough to say whether or not that's true."
Trinity looked at him hard for a few moments, before crumbling into his arms. "That's what I thought you'd say."
Damien rolled his eyes.
"Hurry up, Elias!" Tommy Weasley shouted at his cousin. "If you take any longer in there we'll be at school before we get to scare Natalie!"
Elias came out of the cubicle he'd previously been occupying, zipping up the fly on his charcoal-colored pants as he did so. "Relax; it'll be another two and a half hours before we reach Hogwarts."
Tommy took a seat on a sink as Elias walked over and washed his hands. "How are we going to scare her anyway? Eric's, like, guarding her compartment." Tommy hated his older brother, a prefect hopeful and almost carbon replica of his Uncle Percy.
Elias, instead of drying his hands, ran his fingers through his striking Weasley red hair, spiking it up with the left over water. "We lore Eric and Natalie away, and sabotage the compartment. When they get back, we're not there and our traps will scare the bullocks out of the both of them."
Tommy let out a hearty laugh. "That's great." He hit Elias's shoulder. "Let's go, man."
A few minutes had passed and Damien and Trinity were still in the same position. Damien was lying on his back on the seat and Trinity was snuggled into his chest. And the silence was bloody deafening.
"Uh, Trinity?" Damien asked carefully.
"Yeah?" Trinity had an almost annoyed edge on her voice.
"While we're on the topic of parents..." he fought to keep his voice steady as Trinity rested her forehead on his."What do your
parents think of me-mine...?"
She paused for a second. "Who cares?" and she let her lips brush across Damien's.
Damien's cerebrum seemed to have fused. This wasn't happening. It wasn't. But it WAS. Before he could receive the message to kiss her back, Trinity removed her mouth from his lips.
She sat up with a look on her face as though she was awaiting appraisal. Damien opened his mouth slightly. He truly was at a loss for words, so he settled with yanking her back down and re-sampling the experience for confirmation.
"And how, pray tell, do you KNOW there is a riot of third years in the first compartment?" Eric asked, his eyes narrowing dangerously.
Tommy looked at Elias for an answer. "Robbie Jones asked if we wanted to go join in, but we decided to tell you instead," he supplied.
Eric puffed out his chest in effort to look as important as possible. "Well, as much as I hate to say it, you two have done the right thing. I'm proud." He straightened his scarlet and gold striped tie and strutted off down the hallway. Without Natalie.
Tommy quickly pointed this out to Elias, who shouted down the hall, "We'll just stay here with Nat, then, okay?"
Eric stopped strutting and turned sharply around. "No, actually I think I should take her with me. Even if you make ONE good choice, you still can't be trusted. Go back to you compartment." He took Natalie's hand and continued on to compartment one.
Tommy adopted a high pitched voice. "Even if you make one good choice, you still can't be trusted..." he dropped it."Pompous loser..."
"Yeah," Elias answered, grabbing a box of hand-me-down Zonkos products. "And just wait until he finds no fight and a bugged compartment. Come on, help me with this..." Tommy rushed over to give his cousin a hand.
Completely at unawares when it came to the compromising situation their siblings were in inside the adjacent compartment, Hunter Potter and Ariana Malfoy were having a spot of a row.
"All you ever do is play mean jokes on me!" Ariana yelled at Hunter and his best mate, Tate Finch-Fletchley. "YOU BIG JERKS!"
Hunter, Tate, and the other four Gryffindor third year boys were constantly playing cruel and unusual jokes on the Slytherin girls of the year. If you were Ariana or any of her friends, you watched out for Hunter Potter, Tate Finch-Fletchley, Killian Finnigan, Ben Donovan, Joshua "Judgment Joss" Bell-Richards, and Jake Lesnie.
While Ariana had been at the witch's cart buying food, Joss and Ben had poured ketchup on her Standard Book of Spells. You had to face it, page three hundred and twenty-six would never be the same.
"Look, Ariana, I didn't even do it this time! It was Joss, I swear! He's the ketchup specialist!"
"Why can't you be more like your brother?" Ariana shrieked. "Damien's nice, why aren't you?" That struck a nerve with Hunter. Why WAS Damien so buggering nice to MALFOYS?
Trinity Malfoy smiled as she broke the kiss she shared with Damien Potter. Damien still had his eyes shut, savoring the feeling of her lips on his. The beautiful bright green orbs slowly opened as Trinity let out a giggle.
"Wow," she said, still laughing softly. "I never could have imagined how awesome that felt."
Damien gave a small laugh and grinned, breathing heavily. He wrapped his arms firmly around Trinity and pulled her close to him. "You know what? I'm thoroughly convinced I've loved you my whole life. Even before I knew you. I don't feel any different right now, just more satisfied. Like I've completed at task I've begged myself to finish for as long as I can remember. I love you, Trinity. I always have."
"I love you too. I can't even begin to tell you how perfect I think you are. From the moment I first saw you, you've been my superman. My hero. You and no one else."
Damien took her hand and brought it up to his mouth to kiss it. They stared into each other's eyes, communicating an unspoken pact of love and support. They sealed their understood deal with a chaste, yet mind-blowing, kiss.
The sweets their cousin Natalie had been munching on had been replaced with tongue-engorging toffees. Three water bottles had been bewitched to attack Eric should he dare to enter the compartment. Elias and Tommy Weasley admired their handiwork with satisfied smiles as they rolled their sleeves back down.
"I can't wait to see the water bottles attack my brother!" Tommy squealed with the utmost sick glee, practically bouncing up and down in excited anticipation. "He'll probably scream like a girl!"
Elias laughed along with his cousin. "Yeah. If he's anything like good old Uncle Percy, we won't be able to tell whether it's him or Natalie!"
"It's more likely to be Eric. I know for a fact he scares more easily. I mean, come on, I told him there was a skunk under the porch once when he had to clean it, and he…"
"…ran around in a circle letting out higher pitched screams than Shana usually makes. Yeah, I know. You've told me that story like a million times. I've memorized your exact wording."
Tommy wiped tears of mirth from his eyes as he responded, "Yeah, and after all that it's still funny as hell…"
Elias chortled a bit and shook his head. "You are absolutely horrible to him. You know that right?"
"Yeah, but tell me he doesn't deserve it. I dare you." Tommy rolled his eyes.
"You've got me there."
"Come on, Natalie. Let's get you back to your compartment. Those third years! So out of control. Can you believe that boy put KETCHUP on a SCHOOL-OWNED EDUCATIONAL TOOL? Scandalous!" He furiously readjusted his glasses before continuing. "Do me a favor, Natalie, and never behave like such and abomination as that boy has made himself. Keep you're pride and stay out of trouble."
They had reached the compartment. "Are you a prefect, Eric?" Natalie asked.
Eric laughed in a way he clearly though superior-sounding and twisted open the door. "I'm not a prefect yet because I'm too young." His foot was dangerously close to stepping inside.
"Come on! Come on!" Tommy coaxed in an urgent whisper from around the corner.
"But next year, I expect…" Eric was cut short by a wild barrage of water bottles squirting their contents at his face. "Ahhh!" he wailed in utter terror, flinging his arms over his face in an attempt to block the water.
Natalie was doubled up with mirth, her shrieks of laughter mixed with those of Tommy and Elias, who emerged from the turn that had previously veiled them.
"So, Eric," Tommy asked, his speak barely comprehensible for glee. "Did you break up that fight we told you about?" His school uniform dripping wet from head to toe, it was a wonder his older brother had not yet exploded…