'Together?' Charles asked, looking down at James.
'Yeah,' James replied, grinning.
As one, father and son ran at the brick wall between Platforms 9 and 10 in King's Cross Station, London, emerging on the other side. James looked around him, taking in the sight of Platform 9¾ and the scarlet train, the Hogwarts Express. The platform was full of teenage witches and wizards saying goodbye and hugging their parents, some dressed in their house colours already. The young black haired boy looked around in wonder at the red and gold, blue and bronze, yellow and black and green and silver clad students.
'So there are four houses, dad?' he asked, barely managing to tear his eyes away from the sight before him to look at his father.
'Yes. Can you remember what they are called?' Charles asked.
'Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff and Slytherin, right?'
'That's right.'
James smiled. Everything was becoming so real to him now. Soon he would be part of this rabble of students, meeting up with his new friends from his house.
'I hope I'm in Gryffindor,' he breathed, not even realised that he had spoken aloud until he heard his dad chuckle beside him.
'Every house has its own merits, son,' Charles smiled, winking at his son.
'Yes, but you were a Gryffindor so they're obviously the best,' James shrugged, turning to grin at his father who winked at him in return. 'Don't let your mother hear you say that, son. The Ravenclaw in her might not like it.'
James grinned.
'So, are you sure you have everything, James?' Maria asked, nervously smoothing out his T-Shirt and trying in vain to flatten his messy hair.
'Mum, seriously stop fussing. I'll be fine.'
'Oh, I know you will Jamesy,' she said, and kissed her son on the cheek.
'Mum!' James protested, trying to squirm out of his mother's clutches.
Maria and Charles just laughed and, after one last hug, waved to their son as he boarded the Hogwarts Express.
'Here I go,' James whispered to himself, smiling.
Sirius Black ran through the magical barrier between Platforms 9 and 10 at full speed, not even flinching as he went straight through the wall onto Platform 9¾. His eyes darted around at all of the people cluttering up the platform and sped up his walking to try and get away from his parents.
Orion's large, commanding hand grasped Sirius's shoulder before he could get lost in the swarm of witches and wizards. Sirius shrank down, not wanting to admit that he was scared, and walked at a slower pace with his father by his side. The boy's left eye was bruised from when his mother had hit him. He was sure that she could have healed it in a second, but she refused. Walburga was a short way behind them with Sirius's younger brother Regulus.
'Uncle Orion!' came a voice that Sirius did not want to hear.
'Bella!' came Orion's reply as he turned to see Bellatrix Black holding hands with her boyfriend Rodolphus Lestrange, a perfectly acceptable pureblood Slytherin, like herself.
'Sirius,' Bellatrix acknowledged curtly, avoiding his gaze.
'Bellatrix,' Sirius returned, with just as much contempt in his voice. He couldn't stand his older cousin. As deranged as the rest of them, obsessed with blood purity and a Slytherin through and through. To summarize, she was all of the things that Sirius hated.
'How are Narcissa and Andromeda?' Walburga asked.
'Oh, they are fine. Cissy is graduating this year, and there are talks of her getting engaged afterwards!' Bellatrix replied, a glimmer of excitement in her eyes. Sirius was surprised that she could even feel excitement. He was sure that that counted as a positive emotion and he was pretty sure she didn't have any.
'Engaged? To whom?' Orion enquired.
'Lucius Malfoy,' Bellatrix said.
'Ah, a Malfoy! Good choice. Good family. He's a Slytherin, isn't he? Pureblood?'
'Of course, Uncle Orion! What sort of addition to the family would he be if he wasn't?' Bellatrix laughed, glaring at Sirius with taunting eyes as she did so.
Sirius closed his eyes and began to breathe heavily to try and stop his hands from shaking with anger.
'I'd better go and get on the train now, father,' Sirius spoke up.
Orion turned and looked at his son. He noticed the resentment in Sirius's eyes at the very mention of the Slytherin house and began to grow angry.
'Fine. Just go,' he hissed.
Sirius, slightly taken aback by the fury in his father's eyes, said a quick goodbye to his mother and brother who merely nodded at him, and he walked away, onto the train and away from his family. At last.
Peter stared at the wall in front of him.
'I…I run at it?' he asked, his voice quivering slightly.
'Yes. It doesn't hurt. It'll just be a bit strange and scary the first time because you've never done it before. Look, we'll do it together,' Neva Pettigrew comforted, placing a hand on her son's shoulder and pushing him forward into a run together.
Peter scrunched up his eyes and winced as he went straight through a solid brick wall. It was a very strange sensation and he wasn't entirely sure that he liked it. Upon opening his eyes, he saw more people than he had ever seen in one place all at once. An explosion of colour, swarming around the massive Hogwarts Express. Peter tightened his grip on his trolley and pushed forward through the rabble, his mother at his side.
'Are you ok, Petey?' Neva asked, seeing the white knuckles on the metal.
'Yeah, I'm fine, it's just…'
'It's just what?'
'What if I'm rubbish?' Peter whispered.
For a while, Peter's father had been sure that his son was a Squib. He just seemed too…normal. It wasn't until he was eight and Peter made the neighbour's cat swell up to three times its normal size that Wilfred realised that Peter was magical. Since then it wasn't that he had a lack of magical ability, it was just that he couldn't seem to do anything with it. He had plenty of magic, and he wasn't stupid, he just didn't seem able to get it to do what he wanted.
Neva sighed at looked at her son. He was short and a little on the chubby side but despite how he may appear, she knew that he would be able to do some tremendous magic in time.
'Now you listen to me, Peter Pettigrew, you can do anything you put your mind to. Just keep trying and you know you'll get there.'
Peter gave his mother a sad little smile and began to head towards the train. He turned and gave his mother a hug.
'I'll try and make you proud. You and dad,' he promised.
'We will be proud of you no matter what, Petey. Just promise me you'll have fun and make friends.'
'I promise. Goodbye mum.'
'Goodbye Peter. I love you. Don't forget to write!'
'I won't. I love you too.' Peter replied as he turned his back on his mother and clambered onto the train that would take him away to the place where he would learn how to make his parents proud.
'Are you ok, Remus?' Audra asked, looking at him with concern in her eyes. Around all of the other students he looked so much paler and ill than she realised and she suddenly felt a jolt of fear at leaving him.
'I'm ok, mum. I'm just a bit…It's a bit of a change,' the young werewolf replied. He looked around him and saw all of the other students with huge trolleys to carry their trunks and various other bags whilst he just pulled his single, small trunk along by its handle. He hadn't ever resented his parents for the fact that they were poor but he had to admit to himself that he was scared of what other people would think.
'Remus, you're going to stretch that jumper if you keep pulling at it,' Neva sighed.
Remus hadn't even been aware of the fact that he was nervously pulling his jumper down over his hands and twisting at it. With a quiet apology to his mother, he stopped and stared at the ground thinking about the full moon in two weeks time. It would be his first ever away from home and he didn't know how he felt about that. He was glad that his mother didn't have to be there. She was a Muggle and unable to heal him after his transformation was over. The wolf didn't like being kept hidden without any food and in turn would attack itself instead, earning him all of the scars and cuts that littered his body. He knew that it couldn't be easy for a mother to see their child like that and not be able to do anything to help, so in that way he was glad that she wouldn't be there this time. Yet he was more scared for this one than he ever had been before. It would be the first time that he wouldn't wake up to his mother's face to comfort him before the Healers' arrived to fix him up. The thing that scared him most was not knowing what was going to happen. Professor Dumbledore had sent him a letter at the same time as his Hogwarts acceptance letter arrived to tell him that they were aware of his lycanthropy and they had made suitable arrangements for him that would be discussed upon his arrival to the school. Remus was very nervous and scared, but he had to admit that he was excited. His father's magic had always fascinated Remus and when he realised that he was magical himself, he had yearned to learn how to control it properly. Some nights when he wasn't at work, Remus's dad would tell him stories of Hogwarts and the four houses and the teachers until he fell asleep. A lot of the time Remus considered Hogwarts as some kind of fantasy land, like some of the Muggle bedtime stories his mother would tell him but now here he was, about to board a train to take him away to his fantasy. He couldn't help but smile.
'There you go. It'll be ok, Remus. Now, on you go before you miss the train,' Audra smiled, tears beginning to form in her eyes.
'Goodbye, mum. I love you,' Remus said, hugging his mother as tightly as he could before turning his back on her and boarding the train.
As the Hogwarts Express set off, he found himself an empty compartment and continued to wave at his now freely crying mother until the train turned a corner and she vanished from sight.
'There's no going back now, Remus. There's no going back now,' he whispered to himself as he dreamt about the new life that the train was speeding him too, unaware that somewhere on the train, three others were saying the exact same thing.