Contrary to Albus's fears, the last week went smoothly, without anything out of the ordinary happening. Albus was very much excited at the prospect of going back to home and seeing everyone there. He finished packing and went downstairs. He found James coming from his dormitory, carrying his backpack.

'Hey, Rose has already gone to the Hall. I found Wayne and her exchanging goodbyes with Scorpious. The git had the nerve to stare hard at me. You done with your packing?'

Albus nodded, when a thought struck him. 'Why did you come back when you had already finished packing?'

'Well, I had this feeling that I'd forgotten something.'

'You have packed the Invisibility Cloak and the Map, haven't you?' Albus asked. 'Or dad will be mad.'

James seemed to come out of a reverie and started rummaging through his stuff. 'Will you believe it? I haven't packed the Cloak yet. Be right back in a minute. Wait for me, OK.'

James rejoined him soon. 'I still can't understand how I left the Cloak behind. Because, I feel pretty certain that I packed it yesterday.'

'You never had a great memory, did you?' Albus grinned.

'Yeah,' James agreed good-naturedly.

They joined the queue that waiting to board the train. Rose had found an empty compartment for them. And, they spent the time teasing and joking with each other, thoroughly enjoying the journey.

When the train arrived at Platform nine and three-quarters, Albus found his father, mother, Uncle Ron and Aunt Mione waiting for them. He was so delighted to see his mom that he threw his arms over her immediately. Over the other side, Rose was also clinging to Hermione. Chattering loudly, they made their way to the car park.

'Why didn't Lily and Hugo come?' Albus demanded, once everyone had seated themselves inside the car.

Ginny ruffled his hair and replied, 'They wanted to come. But, they wouldn't have fit into the car. So, we left them at our house.'

Ron, who was doing the driving added, 'Teddy is baby-sitting them.'

When they reached home, Lily gave a loud shriek and came out. She gave Albus a big hug, and dragged him inside. 'Everyone is coming for dinner tonight,' she beamed.

'That's nice,' said Albus appreciatively.

'Is Uncle George also coming?' James wanted to know. Understandingly enough, the two of them got along really well.

'Don't smuggle any banned stuff from him, OK?' Ginny said warningly.

'Oh, would I do that?' James said in an innocent tone which deceived none.

Dinner was a raucous affair that night. Albus' grandfather and grandmother were the first arrivals. They showered Albus and Rose with sweets and small gifts. Next to follow was George, who was immediately shepherded inside by James, much to Ginny's disapproval. Last to apparate were Bill, Fleur and Victoire.

Once all the visitors had arrived, Harry bewitched a gargantuan dining table to sit in the middle of the garden. When he failed in his first two attempts, Albus distinctly heard his father grumbling, 'My wand is losing its grip.'

Lily perched herself next to Albus and badgered him with questions about Hogwarts. She was visibly eager to hear Albus' version of the Wizarding School after being resigned to hearing barbed comments from James the previous summer.

James had wedged himself in-between Teddy Lupin and Victoire, making things difficult for them, when they were badly craving for some privacy. Elsewhere, the elders were discussing in hushed tones about the Diagon Alley murders.

All the food and the familiarity of the atmosphere were making Albus to feel relaxed and contented. But, that constant feeling that something was not right, continued to gnaw him.

James cut across his musing. 'Hey, shall we go to Mark's place tomorrow?'

'Yeah,' Albus readily agreed. He had never been to his Uncle Dudley's place. He knew that they were his only Muggle relations. And that James liked Dudley's son, Mark, very much. But still, he was curious to know what drew James to that place often. 'Can Rose also come with us?'

'I dunno. You gotta ask Uncle Ron. But honestly, I don't think it's a very good idea asking Rose.'

'Oh come on, she'll also like to visit a Muggle residence.'

James relented rather reluctantly. After dinner, they cornered their father and Uncle Ron. Once they got the go ahead, they started making plans for the next day with Rose.

'Well, we had better get up early tomorrow. I'll have Dad to fix us with train tickets. Shouldn't be much of a problem. Uncle Dudley will pick us from the station.'

'When shall we be coming back?' Rose asked.

'We shant be trespassing their hospitality for a long while. We shall spend the morning there and come back.'

The next day, after a hasty breakfast and a lengthy piece of advice from Ginny, they set off. They had chosen Muggle clothing for the trip. Albus was sporting a Nike shirt, brandishing a name 'Rooney' at the back. Both Albus and Rose were looking rather conspious, while James looked perfectly at ease.

Harry dropped them off at the station. Thankfully, the train was on time. And, they clambered on an empty compartment. They were joined by a family of four, constituting of two children and their parents. The kids turned out to rather boisterous and Albus spent the entire train journey watching their little pranks.

When they got down from the train, they were thronged by a sea of people. Somehow, they freed themselves from the crowd and made their way out to the car park, with James in the lead.

'That's their car over there. The red one. Come on. They must be somewhere there.'

And, quite right he turned out to be. Albus spotted his Uncle Dudley and Mark beside the car. Albus had never seen them in person before. He could vaguely remember seeing his oversized uncle in a wedding album. His son, Mark came out to be a real surprise. He looked really handsome with twinkling eyes and a ready smile. After a round of hellos they clambered into the car.

Albus, who had previously had zero experience with Muggle cars, thought it looked exactly like a magic car, minus the invisibility mode. They reached Privet Drive in a surprisingly short while, considering the heavy morning traffic and the fact that the car couldn't fly.

The house wasn't like anything that Albus had visited in all his life. It was spotlessly clean, and everything was gleaming. Mark led them all to his room. If the rest of the house had surprised him, this room really stumped him. All over the room was weird looking gadgets, stacks of some round shiny disks scattered over the bed and to cap it all there was a rather huge screen with moving pictures. Still finding it hard to take in this entirely new world, Albus nevertheless plonked himself into a comfortable looking armchair.

Albus watched as James and Mark played what James explained was Peeyes 3 (anyway that was it sounded to him like). Rose, who had suffering in silence the entire while, suddenly announced, 'I'm very bored.'

Mark apologized and offered to let her watch TV. All this Muggle talk was getting into Albus' nerves. But, much to his surprise, after ten minutes, he and Rose were glued to the screen. After Mark had taught them to swap channels, they began to thoroughly enjoy the experience. They watched one channel where two tough looking guys were fighting with each other for all their life's worth. In another, they found a girl calling herself Amy Lee having a huge crowd spellbound with her singing.

'Hey, she sounds so like Kirley Duke of the Weird Sisters,' Rose exclaimed.

'Wow, you have rock bands in the magical world too.' Mark was curious.

Soon, James and Albus were enthusiastically talking about the Celestina Warbeck, Gideon Crumb and other notable singers of the Wizarding Wireless Network.

'Hey, are there real vampires in your world?' Mark wanted to know.

'Yeah,' agreed James. 'Why do you ask?'

'I recently read a story based on vampires. And, according to the book, vampires are immortal, never age, are inhumanly beautiful, are incredibly strong and possess amazing reflexes. Is any of it true?'

James and Albus laughed. 'Well, that is incorrect. Vampires are definitely not immortal. They tend to stick to themselves. They were considered to be dangerous and there used to vampire hunters. But, now the vampires are restricted to Transylvania in Romania and the Black Forest in Germany and they prey only on animals.'

Meanwhile, Rose had turned back to the TV again. She watched two people involved in hitting a ball over a net, and moved on to another channel, where someone was announcing the impending failure of the world's supposedly most powerful weapon ever built.

When James was finally bored playing, the four of them trouped downstairs to eat. After having a yummy lunch prepared by their aunt, they bade goodbye to her, and made their to the railway station with their cousin.

Mark saw to it they safely boarded the right train, and returned back. Harry was again there to pick them up. Soon, they were back in their living room, recounting their day's adventure to Ginny.

The rest of the holidays flew past in a blur. Albus and Rose had decided to be back at Hogwarts one day before the reopening date. Albus repacked his bag with some help from his mother. He made sure twice that James hadn't removed the Invisibility Cloak. He was determined to keep it with him.

When Albus finally entered the Gryffindor common room, there were barely half a dozen students. He made his way to his room. He found that none of the others had arrived. When he climbed into his bed, he found he had missed the castle a lot. He went into sleep never realizing he was about to be rudely awakened from his sleep in one hour and come face to face with Dark Magic for the first time in his life!!!