Disclaimer: I don´t own an - you know, Im tired of writing the same thing over and over again. Lets get creative.

Mmm. Oh, I got it.

I, Lily Fierros, hereby swore that Im not called J.K. Rowling, nor I own WB. So, there´s no way in Earth I own Harry Potter. (It would be great, though...)

Chapter 4.- The Platform again.

Time passed quickly, and between adapting the new members of their small team, and finding most of the Horcruxes, it soon was the first of September; as Tornado discovered, surprised, while looking at the newsletter.

"Were not going to Hogwarts yet, anyway," he said after getting over the shock. "We still have to destroy all of Lord Voldemort´s bloody souvenirs."

"I know," Charles sighed. "Dumbledore it's not going to like that we arrive late."

Murmurs of agreement followed that statement, and it was true. Albus Dumbledore, the 'leader' of the light, hated their presence in the castle, and arriving late would certainly not improve his - ah, feeling.

They continued their searching, but could not help feeling that they would rather be in the castle; Hogwarts even though some of them didn´t want to admit it) had become their home

Charles yawned as he sleepily put on his clothes and robe. His mother had woke him up earlier, saying that last years it had been a mess, what with all of them being late. This time, she had decided they would be punctual. Unfortunately, Charles wasn´t a morning person, and he nearly fell asleep while having breakfast. Finally, the Potter´s were ready. Mother and Father took their younger son´s hands and appeared to King´s Cross.

Once inside the station they lingered casually beside the barrier between platforms nine and ten until the coast was clear, then each of them leaned against it in turn and fell easily through on to platform nine and three-quarters, where the Hogwarts Express stood belching sooty steam over a platform packed with departing students and their families.

Charles turned to his own, swallowing. Even after years of leaving home for a year, he still felt homesick sometimes. He tried to act normal, though.

Lily hugged him tightly, and then kissed him on his forehead.

"Be good this year, Charles," she whispered. "I wouldn´t be able to stay sane if you have another 'eventful' year..."

James Potter chuckled, before messing his son´s hair. It stayed frizzy for a moment, before it fell into place again. "I doubt he will have a calm year, Lils."

Charles grinned at him, and for a moment all was perfect. Then his mother looked at him in the eyes, serious. "Charles, be careful, please. And, if you hear from Harry, please. Tell us."

Charles looked at the floor at the mention of his 'big' brother. He then looked at his parents, and saw the desperation, of knowing nothing about their kid, and nodded.

"I will, mum."

The older Potter´s smiled at him, and Charles felt oddly guilty.

If only Harry were here, he thought sadly.

A warning whistle sounded; the students still on the platform started hurrying on to the train. Charles hurried to the train, stepping inside a compartment, and waved to his parents.

"See you!" he called out of the open window as the train began to move, and watched until the blurred figures of parents disappeared from his view.

The train was gathering still more speed, so that the houses outside the window flashed past, and Charles figured it was the best to find his friends.

He struggled off down the corridor, peering through the glass-panelled doors into the compartments he passed, which were already full. Charles could not help noticing that a lot of people stared back at him with great interest and that several of them nudged their neighbours and pointed him out. After he had met this behaviour in five consecutive carriages he remembered that the Daily Prophet had been telling its readers all summer what a lying show-off he was. He wondered dully whether the people now staring and whispering believed the stories.

It was until the last carriage that he found his friends; Hannah, Susan, Seamus and Dean. He waved at them from the door, and then stepped in.

"Hi, Charles," Hannah exclaimed. "You were made a prefect too!" she said when she noticed his badge. "Oh, I'm so glad. This way I´ll know someone in the meetings!"

Charles grinned at her. "Yeah. I was about to leave now. We don´t want to arrive late."

Bothe stood up, and after waving goodbye to their exasperated friends, left to the Prefects compartment.

Both of them did not turn up for nearly an hour, by which time the food trolley had already gone by. Their friends had finished their pumpkin pasties and were busy swapping Chocolate Frog Cards when the compartment door slid open and they walked in.

"I'm starving," said Charles, as he grabbed a Chocolate Frog from Dean - who offered him one after his return and throwing himself into the seat next to him. He ripped open the wrapper, bit off the frog's head and leaned back with his eyes closed as though he had had a very exhausting morning.

"Well, there are two fifth-year prefects from each house," said Hannah, as she took her seat. "Boy and girl from each."

"And guess who's a Slytherin prefect?" said Charles, still with his eyes closed.

"Nott," replied everyone at once, knowing already that their Slytherin enemy would be the one to have been offered the place.

"Yeah," said Hannah sadly, as she played with a strand of her blond hair.

"And that girl - Daphne Greengrass," said Charles. "She's actually not that bad. Still, a Slytherin, though."

"Who is the other Hufflepuff?" Susan asked, looking up from a book she had been reading.

"Ernie Macmillan," said Hannah, smiling. Ernie was one of her friends from Hufflepuff.

"And Wayne Hopkins and Padma Patil for Ravenclaw," said Charles, checking his clock and sighing. "The other Gryffindor prefect is Sally-Anne Perks."

"Oh, Sally-Anne," Susan nodded, "I think we have a few classes together. She is nice."

"We're supposed to patrol the corridors every so often," Charles told Susan, Dean and Seamus, and the conversation ended. Charles dozed out after a while.

"We'd better change," Hannah said suddenly, waking him up, and all of them opened their trunks with difficulty and pulled on their school robes. She and Charles checked that their prefect badges were pinned to their chests.

At last, the train began to slow down and they heard the usual racket up and down it as everybody scrambled to get their luggage and pets assembled, ready to get on.

They shuffled out of the compartment feeling the first sting of the night air on their faces as they joined the crowd in the corridor. Slowly, they moved towards the doors. Charles could smell the pine trees that lined the path down to the lake. He stepped down on to the platform and looked around, listening for the familiar call of 'firs'-years over 'ere . . . firs'-years . . .'

But it did not come. Instead, a quite different voice, a brisk female one, was calling out, 'First-years line up over here, please! All first-years to me!'

A lantern came swinging towards Charles and by its light he saw the prominent chin and severe haircut of Professor Grubbly-Plank, the witch who had taken over Hagrid's Care of Magical Creatures lessons for a while the previous year.

'Where's Hagrid?' he said out loud.

'I don't know,' said Susan, pushing him gently to the side, letting the other students out.

Charles and Susan became separated as they moved off along the platform and out through the station. Jostled by the crowd, Charles squinted through the darkness for a glimpse of Hagrid; but there was no sign of him. Instead, he supervised as the younger students got out, as he´d been told to do in the meeting, and once he finished, he started looking around for his friends, wanting to know what they thought about the reappearance of Professor Grubbly-Plank, but neither of them was anywhere near him, so he allowed himself to be shunted forwards on to the dark rain-washed road outside Hogsmeade Station.

Here stood the hundred or so horseless stagecoaches that always took the students above first year up to the castle. Charles glanced quickly at them, turned away to keep a lookout for Seamus and Dean.

He found them waiting at one of the carriages, and they all got into it.

With a start, he realized that he hadn´t seen his brother or his friends. And a worried feeling got into his heart.

Nightmare was okay, he assured himself. But found himself doubting it.

Was he?

A.N.

Okay. No, Im not dead. Im really really sorry for the late update. I lost all the work I had for this chapter, so I had to start again. And I was in exams (and tiring projects too,) so I wasn´t able to write in a looong time.

Okay so now Im in summer break/holidays, etc. so I´ll have lots of free time - which means, more chapters.

I hope you liked it, even though I had to use one of JK´s chapters for orientation. Charles part is most similar to cannon, but with some changes, as he, well has parents and different friends. If you noticed, some sentences are the same from the book, so I´ll say now. (again) No, I don´t own them.

Anyway.

REVIEW!

Lily