Someone had come into his room, pulled the curtains back and was now telling him he had to get up, as if the noise, light and presence of said person weren't enough of a clue! The person, his mother, was now shaking his shoulders and telling him firmly that if he made them late on Lily's first day he would regret it. James Potter sighed and opened his eyes, "okay, okay, I'm getting up."
As he walked into the kitchen he was assaulted by his little sister, already in her robes and horrendously excited. His brother Albus wasn't much better and by the time they finally made it out the house, later than planned but not too much so, he was feeling quite exhausted or at least acting exhausted. In reality he was just as excited as his younger siblings but at fourteen he felt it better not to show it. As they got in the car Albus mentioned that his best friend Scorpius had a little sister that would be joining this year too, "Maybe she'll end up friends with you and Hugo, you could you're your own terrible trio" Albus said, only half jokingly, James laughed but couldn't help hoping that Lily wouldn't get into too much trouble, he knew it was silly and that neither his parents or the Hogwarts teachers would actually hurt her but he couldn't help wanting to protect her despite the fact that she really didn't need it. With her vibrant green eyes and deep red hair she looked far from breakable, but he was her big brother and he knew she still had nightmares, that she was terrified she wouldn't be in the same house as Hugo or the Scamander twins and would have no friends, that she was dreading the classes and that although she was tough she was still an eleven year-old girl. So he was worried about how she'd react to Hogwarts and how Hogwarts would react to her.
They arrived at the station and moved quickly through the barrier, they were a little late and most of the Weasleys had already arrived. James quickly hugged his parent's goodbye, promised to come back for Lily before the train left and hurried over to join Louis and Fred. He noticed Hugo come hurrying up to Lily, shortly followed by the Scamanders, and felt a touch of amusement that his little sister was the calmest of the lot. He chatted to Fred and Louis for a few minutes only to be interrupted by Albus and Scorpius, the latter of which was dragging a terrified-looking girl by the hand. She was…tiny the only word he could think of, she was short and pixie framed, her skin was the Malfoy pale and she had the lightest, hugest blue eyes he had ever seen. To top it off she had Malfoy blond hair which she wore long and loose, it had a slight very non-Malfoy curl to it and was floating about her face. Her expression was so scared and she looked so fragile that his big brother instincts kicked in and he wanted to make whatever had hurt her go away and preferably cause it or them a lot of pain in the process. It didn't take him long to work out it must be Hogwarts that was scaring her and he resigned himself to the fact that he could not take on the beloved castle and make it stop scaring her. Albus finally spoke up, "James, this is Linnet Scorpius's sister; you remember I told you she was coming to Hogwarts this year. Linnet this is my brother James", the girl, Linnet's mouth opened and she stammered "...H-Hi, Nice… Nice to meet you" and actually managed a smile.
James couldn't help smiling back.
