a/n: First Harry Potter fic! This takes place in the next generation, all from Rose's point of view (which is probably inflicted with OCD), and will probably be monstrously long by the end :). Rose is currently a fourth year.

"Bye!"

"Okay!"

"Love you, James!"

"Okay, mom!"

"Do your homework Rosie!"

"I will!"

"Be nice to your brother, James!"

"I know!"

"Take care of Lily!"

"I don't need to be taken care of!"

"Alright, sweetie."

"Bye Mum!"

"Bye Hugo!"

"Bye dad!"

"Bye Albus!"

"Love you!"

"Love you too!"

"Be careful!"

"I will! Bye!"

"Bye!"

"Okay, okay...Bye bye, family! Now let's go already!" said James, striding onto the train and abruptly cutting short the annual sob-fest as all of us left for Hogwarts.

My pack of cousins and I squeezed into a stupidly dinky compartment and watched our parents' faces grow smaller and smaller as the Hogwarts Express began to chug away from the station. The farewells were particularly emotional this time around, because the youngest of my family, Lily and Roxanne, were finally entering their first year. In the words of grandma Molly, 'it marked the beginning of the end, the beginning of our entire generation growing up.'

I'm entering my fourth year and I'm so excited! There would be new classes, and I could finally see my friends and Hogwarts, which is a second home of sorts I guess.

"Hey Rose, do you think you could move?" said a voice underneath me. I looked down and found that Albus was crushed awkwardly against the window.

"Sorry Al." I said, lurching backwards and bumping into someone else in the crowded compartment

"Okay, we're getting out of here!" piped Fred as he, Louis, and James rushed away, probably to do something sketchy.

"Hey! Where are you going?" I said, "I'm coming with you!"

"Go away midget!" said Fred.

"Yeah! And watch Lily for me, 'kay?" added James.

"Hold on...nevermind." I muttered. "Screw you." I added under my breath as an afterthought.

"Hey Rose." said Albus, dragging his trunk with Lily and Hugo following behind, "Dom and Molly and everyone kicked us out. Let's find seats somewhere else."

"Sure." I replied.

Albus had always been my favorite cousin, for some reason. Personality-wise, he was my polar opposite. I was loud, bossy, slapdash, opinionated, and easily obsessed with whatever came my way, be it quidditch, reading, or the Weird Sisters. On the other hand, Albus was quiet, thoughtful, systematic, and independent. He was quite an oddball in our family

Nonetheless, it was extremely shocking when he was sorted into Slytherin. After his sorting, the entire hall had been deafeningly silent, and nobody applauded until some of our cousins (who were almost all from Gryffindor) started clapping. Al looked like he was walking to the gallows when he headed for the Slytherin table.

The press had a bloody field day. Nobody in the world could believe that Harry Potter's son could possibly be a Slytherin! I felt kinda sorry for Albus though, who despised publicity and probably stuck out like a sore thumb in the snakepit. He seemed to have some friends from Gryffindor and Ravenclaw, but none from his own house.

Or maybe Slytherins just didn't have friends, period. Maybe friendships in their house were a liability because they were the house of wiliness and backstabbing? I couldn't understand Slytherins at all. I was a devout Gryffindor from birth.

My brother, however, was in Ravenclaw, though it wasn't that surprising that Hugo landed in the house of nerds; he was more of a bookworm than Mum even! He's even named after a character in one of Mum's favorite books, The Invention of Hugo Cabret. He was creative, and he learned mathematics and science the muggle way, and he was good at chess. He could outplay Mum by the time he was nine! (Not Dad though. Dad was, surprisingly, one of the best chess players I've ever met.) Everyone adored Hugo, especially Lily. Lily loved him and tailed behind him whenever our families got together, ever since she could walk.

Hugo's only flaw was that he was a huge wimp and had no coordination. He couldn't play Quidditch to save his life and his feet seemed too large and he knocked over everything. Then, he would apologize profusely, which really grated on dad's nerves.

Dad also seriously questioned Hugo's choice of friends (and his sanity) too. You see, he was friends with the Scamander twins. I didn't particularly like them because they were way too weird, and I suspect one of them might be queer. (Not that I have anything against queer people, it's just a little weird to be around them, you know?)

They were aunt Luna's children, and probably the biggest weirdos in the whole school.

In fact, there they are now, sitting in a compartment right up ahead.

"Hello Hugo. Hello everyone." said the twins in tandem, with identical drifty voices.

"Hi guys." said Hugo, "How was your summer?"

"It was excellent." said one of the twins (I can't tell if it's Lorcan or Lysander).

"Yes. We went on vacation to Africa-"

"-to the Island of Mauritius-"

"-and father helped us find diricawls-"

"-we brought back some feathers-"

"-do you want to see?"

Without waiting for a reply, they took out...nothing.

"What are we looking at?" asked Lily.

"Diricawls are flightless birds that have the ability to disappear at will." recited Hugo, "I guess if the feathers can disappear too."

Just at that moment, three long grey feathers materialized onto one of the twins hands.

"Muggles call them dodos and think they're extinct." said one of the twins,

"But they've just been hiding." finished the other, "They're not as stupid as everyone thinks."

"Dodo's are still in a lot of muggle literature though." said Hugo, "Have you heard of Alice in Wonderland?"

I took that as a cue to leave. Once Hugo started talking about books, he never shut up.

"Okay...we'll be going now." I said as I tackled Hugo in a chokehold and ruffled his hair, "Bye bye, nerd!"

"Hey! Go away!" said Hugo indignantly, wriggling like a little worm.

"You're no fun." I said as Al and I left. Lily stayed with Hugo (of course).

Miraculously, there was still an empty compartment, and Hugo and I slipped in immediately.

"When do you think the trolley's coming?" I asked, "I'm starving!"

"You're always starving!" laughed Albus.

We fell into a comfortable silence. I took out A Raisin in the Sun, a very odd play written by an American. It was about a black family that lived in Chicago in the mid 1900s. It kinda reminds me of how Dad described life at the Burrow when he was little. Dad said his family were actually quite poor when he was a kid, even though we're well off now. I guess there are some perks to being a war hero.

Suddenly, the compartment door slid open and a blond head perked in inquisitively.

"Hey there's no more seats, can we-"

I looked up and cocked an eyebrow when I saw that it was none other than Scorpius bloody Malfoy and some short tan boy (I think it was Christopher Nott?) standing right outside the compartment.

"Er...never mind." said Malfoy quickly as he turned away.

"You can sit if want, Sc-Malfoy." said Al.

Wait a sec...was Albus about to call him by his first name?

"Uh, it's fine." he said, with a somewhat imperceptible flick of his eyes towards me.

"Scared, Malfoy?" I taunted. (Why did I do that? That was incredibly immature.)

"You wish, Weasley." he snapped back.

"I don't wish, I know."

"You know nothing."

"I'm sure that's why I was top of the class?"

"Excuse you, but I was top of the class last year."

"Nope. I scored three points higher on the Herbology final exam. I even did the math."

"Did the-"

"Math...wouldn't expect a pureblood snob to ever hear of it."

"I know what math is! And you and I both know that you only got those extra points because Longbottom likes you more."

"Well you haven't done anything to make yourself more likeable to anyone!"

"You little-"

"Okay!" said Albus loudly, "You need to stop it."

I glanced at him. Was he directing that irritated glare at me or Malfoy? Because honestly, I started it, but Al should've been my side anyways...

"Thanks for the pleasant company," drawled Malfoy as he strutted away, "But I'll be leaving."

"Don't take your time!" I called before hastily slamming the compartment door shut.

Albus sighed at me. "You just couldn't resist having the last word, could you?"

"Sorry! But he's just so...so...UGH!"

Then I glanced up and Albus was giving me the most unnerving smirk.

"What?" I snapped.

"Nothing." he said, schooling his face into something more pleasant, "You're just funny when you get angry."

"Trust a Slytherin to laugh at someone else's frustration."

"Yup." replied Albus simply before he too took out a book.

It wasn't until much later that I realized he was smirking at me for a different reason.

After we arrived at Hogwarts, Albus went off to the Slytherin table, Molly went to Hufflepuff, and Hugo and Dominique went off to Ravenclaw. The rest of us were all Gryffindor.

The Sorting seemed to crawl past at a torturously slow rate. Every couple seconds, my stomach would emit a mortifyingly loud rumble that turned heads. I simply shrugged. It wasn't my fault the Sorting Hat had to take so long to carefully consider where to place all the midgets. And it wasn't even completely accurate half the time!

I yawned and concentrated on thinking about anything but my imploding stomach. It didn't work. I sighed huffily and watched the sorting commence as the deputy headmaster called out the list of first years. I recognized some of the names as siblings of my classmates, or children of mum's colleagues. And then there were some I didn't recognize. Perhaps those were muggleborns-

"Christina Cram!"

The hat sat on her head for a few seconds before declaring

"SLYTHERIN!"

The girl got up and looked like she was marching to her death.

Jeez, what was so bad about Slytherin house? Well, other than the fact that everyone judges and hates on them arbitrarily. But Slytherins aren't that bad anymore. Students would choose to be in any other house, and the numbers in Slytherin have shrunk maybe forty percent or so from the first wizarding war, but most of the kids are still somewhat tolerable.

My cousin Al is in Slytherin and he's a little angel.

I think.

At least he appears to be a little angel, though my aunt and uncle say he's unnervingly manipulative and witty, like both of his namesakes.

"Seymour Dursley!"

I looked up in alarm. The kid sitting on the stool was a little chubby with brown hair and light brown freckles and very plain features. Did they call him "Dursley"? I could've sworn I heard the name somewhere, and not in good context either. I looked around and noted that much of my family mirrored my expression of deep contemplation. So I guess I wasn't the only one.

Suddenly, I heard a faint gasp from the Hufflepuff table. I looked over and saw that my cousin Molly had covered her mouth in shock.

"What is it, Molly?" shouted James (obnoxiously loud, I might add).

Heads turned.

"Your dad's cousin!" said Molly, sitting straight and recollecting her self-importance, "Wasn't his name Dursley too?"

"Dad's...Merlin!" said James, right as the sorting hat cried out, "RAVENCLAW!"

"Do you think that's Uncle Harry's nephew then?" I asked, watching this "Seymour Dursley" kid walk nervously to the Ravenclaw table. He didn't look extremely thrilled to be learning magic, for some reason, which is odd because Ravenclaws are supposed to be super annoyingly curious about everything.

It seems my cousin Molly decided to be extremely friendly, even from where she sat at the end of the Hufflepuff table. Not that it was surprising; she was like a mother hen to her housemates and our entire family, despite being the fourth oldest. Victoire was three years older than her, and Teddy was a few years older than Victoire, but they were both too absorbed with each other to care about the rest of us. Well...at least Victoire was too absorbed with Teddy, but Teddy was actually pretty awesome and paid attention to the rest of us. I guess he's kinda like a cool uncle, but much younger. He's only twenty this year!

Finally, Lily was called up, and the hat sat on her head for a solid minute before calling out "GRYFFINDOR!"

Lily looked very relieved. I bet she was scared that she'd be a Slytherin like Al.

After ten more students, the sorting was finally over. I could've cried with relief. I haven't eaten anything since those few measly Chocolate frogs on the train four hours ago. With the arrival of food and friends, I completely forgot about Dursley and everything else.

Later we went to our common room and I played exploding snap with some of my friends before going to bed. I couldn't wait until we get our schedules tomorrow! I signed up for as many courses as I could, just like mom suggested. (Except for divination because it's stupid, and muggle studies because I probably know more muggle stuff than the teacher.)

A feeling of contentment washed over me as I burrowed into the bedsheets in my dorm. It felt nice to be back at Hogwarts.

a/n: Review plz!