Think of a boy. A small, skinny boy with almond-shaped green eyes dancing under a tangle of untidy ink-black hair. This is Albus Severus Potter.
The sun fell on Albus's face, glinted on his hair, threw every freckle into focus as his eyes followed the arc of the steadily rising sun. 6:57. Only three minutes until the chaos that could only mean it was the first of September began. And Albus was not a fan of chaos. He loathed it, in fact.
Beep. Beep. Albus's hand slammed down on the unfortunate alarm clock so hard that it was in danger of breaking. Today Albus was going to start at Hogwarts. And he was going to prove to everyone that he didn't have to be a carbon copy of his father.
"Your move," said the red-headed girl crossly. Albus grinned.
"Pawn to C5," he muttered, and settled down, legs crossed, to watch his pawn beat up Rose's knight.
"Clearly I didn't inherit Dad's talent for chess," said the redhead, who happened to be Rose Nymphadora Weasley, daughter of Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger.
"OI! Malfoy!" yelled Albus's brother James's voice, presumably directed at the sad-eyed boy slumped outside their compartment. He looked a good deal like Draco Malfoy and dived into their compartment. He glanced up and scowled at them.
"Can we help?" said Rose rather defiantly. She wasn't in the mood for being called a blood traitor at that moment in time.
"C - can I sit here?" said the Malfoy boy rather hesitantly. "Look, I know you don't much like me and I probably won't like you, but this total git is after me and I need somewhere to hide. I'm Scorpius Malfoy, by the way." He slid into the seat next to Albus, who hurriedly introduced himself, as did Rose. The door creaked open again and a rather anxious-looking boy edged into the compartment.
"I'm sorry, but can I sit here? There's nowhere else," he asked. "I'm Lucas De-Grant."
After several hours of playing wizard chess and trading Chocolate Frog cards, Albus suddenly cried," Look! We're slowing down! Rose, this is it, we finally get to go to Hogwarts!"