A/N: Hey guys! i hope you're all having a lovely day! Before we get into the chapter, I wanted to go over a few things. Firstly, Since I do post a chapter every single day, I've decided to take one day for myself and that will be Sundays, so I wont be posting a chapter that day. I hope you can understand that as a human, i do deserve a break. :) Nextly, In a review, someone asked about me possibly writing in an Authors Note, the names of the family and who is who's kids, so I'll do that first, then from now on, I'll be giving you guys a little fun fact about my OCs in each Authors Note, anyway lets get this done! :)

Married in 1971 | Zander - 1950 X Rose - 1953
Rose is Lily Potters sister and Harry 's biological Aunt and Zander is his uncle, though to keep Harry secret, they are passing him off as their son and Henry's twin brother.
Harry & Henry - July 31st, 1980 | Henry is their eldest son that they adopted and Harry is being passed off as his twin as Harry is taking a special kind of Polyjuice potion, that lasts a week.
Sam - September 1st, 1981 | Henry's younger biological brother, he was adopted with his brother by Zander and Rose.
Amber - August 1st, 1982 | The only Biological child of Zander and Rose.

Xayla - 1961 | Zanders little sister, she is Rose's sister-in-law .
Sapphire & Jade - March 18.1983 | The daughter of Xayla & Sirius, these two are nieces to Zander and Rose.

Toby — 1977 | Taken in by the family, he was never officially adopted by any one person in the family, though he feels more like Remus is his father figure than any of the others.
Relena — November 12th, 1985 | Child of Remus, she was born via a magical form of IVF!

Darci — January 12th, 1983 | Little sister to Dudley, she is Petunias magical child.

Fun Fact #1: At Hogwarts, Zander was a Ravenclaw and Xayla a Slytherin. Zander knew and hung out with Arthur and Molly while in school, while Xayla knew of but did not hang out with Severus Snape and The Marauders.


(Henry POV)

Harry and I walked around for a bit, dragging our trunks as the train now picked up speed. We didn't want a super crowded car, but all the ones in the front were so busy that we figured that we'd keep looking until we found something. On our way back, we stopped when we saw the blond boy from Madam Malkins in a car that wasn't too empty, but deciding we didn't really want to sit with him, we continued on until we found an almost empty car near the back with only one boy sat in it.

"Ron!" Harry grinned and following him in, we put our trunks up, then sat across from the boy, who beamed back at us.

"Hey! How are you guys. I thought you'd want to sit with Fred and George or something."

He looked down at his shabby robes, but Harry didn't seem to notice as he said, "No, we get tired of being twins ourselves, forget being friends with a pair of them." Ron chuckled and I grinned.

"He only says that because I'm the better twin."

"How so?"

"I'm cuter."

"We look the same, you fried pickle."

"Your mum."

"I'm telling mum you said that."

Ron was absolutely cackling now at our banter and we couldn't help but laugh along with him. "We love to fight, but we're best friends at the end of the day.

"Brilliant!" Ron said and we laughed.

"Anyway," I said, "Have you done any magic yet, Ron? We practiced a bit, but not much."

Ron brightened as he pulled out his wand from his robe pocket. It was a dingy thing, with Unicorn hair sticking out, but he didn't seem to mind too much at the moment, "My brothers taught me a spell, but—"

"Excuse me? Have any of you seen a toad?" It was a nervous looking boy with dark hair and a round face. I'd never met him, but lucky for us, he seemed nice if not a bit skittish.

Harry, Ron and I all shook our heads, and Ron set down his wand as I stood and offered to look in our cart real quick and as I did, the boy gave a small smile of appreciation, though his smile faded when I looked everywhere and found absolutely no toad. "Sorry man." I said, "I'm sure you'll find him." I tried to smile, but it was in vain. The boy now looked as if he was going to cry as he turned and left.

"Poor kid." I said and Ron shrugged.

"Who would choose a toad over an owl or cat?"

"Maybe it's simply what he was given." I said, giving him a look and he quieted.

"Yeah, I can understand that." He looked at his rat and I shrugged.

"You should judge others right away. That's what our mum says, anyway. Judging others is what creates rifts like the one that caused the Great Wizarding War."

Ron nodded and after a moment, the conversation seemed to turn to the topic of the wizarding war, The Dark Lord, The Order of The Phoenix and even Harry Potter, though 'James' wasn't super participatory when the subject turned to speculating about him.

After a while of talking and conversation jumping, there was a knock at their door.

"Snacks anyone?

We looked over to see a small, plump, elderly witch looking at us from the doorway, a trolley of sweets right in front of her.

"I'm good…" Ron said, as he held up a bag of sandwiches that to me looked as though they'd been sat on. "She forgets I don't like corn beef." He muttered as Harry stood and pulled some sickles from his bag.

"I'll take the lot." Ron and I looked at him and he grinned. "I don't want to hear any arguing. It's better to share treats with friends, okay?" I nodded, totally okay with my cousin to pay for my snacks.

Ron didn't look too comfortable at this, but after Harry and I insisted, he finally caved and Harry bought some of everything off the witches' trolley for us to have.

We sat and ate for a time, getting and trading Chocolate frog cards, having contests with Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans and generally just having a good laugh. Harry and I playfully bullied one another and even got Ron in on it. We were just finishing up talking about our family dynamics, when the door to our compartment opened and the round-faced boy from earlier came back in, now in absolute tears, led by a bushy, brown haired girl.

"Has anyone here seen a toad, Neville here has lost his." She had a bossy sort of voice that reminded me of Amber, when she was trying to tell Harry and I what to do, even though she was younger than us.

"No, sorry." I said. "We helped him look a bit, but we didn't find it."

"Oh, okay— wait, have you been doing magic?" She noticed the discarded wand we'd forgotten about earlier when Neville had come in the first time, looking for his toad. Ron, remembering what he'd been going to do earlier, picked up his wand with a grin.

"Oh yeah, my brothers taught me a spell."

"Okay then, let's see it." She walked over and sat down.

"Alright then…" he held the wand tightly as he waved it at his rat and said, "Sunshine, Daisies, butter mellow, turn this stupid, fat rat yellow!"

Nothing happened and as we all sat in silence for a moment, Harry and I exchanged looks. The rat was still just as gray as he'd been before and was fast asleep even.

"Are you sure that was a real spell?" Said the girl, "Well, it's not very good, is it? I've tried a few simple spells for practice and it's all worked for me. Nobody in my family is magic at all. It was ever such a surprise when I got my letter, but I was ever so pleased, of course. I mean, it's the very best school of witchcraft there is, I've heard. I've learnt all our course books by heart of course. I just hope it will be enough. I'm Hermione Granger by the way, who are you?"

She spoke so quickly, I felt as if my brain was going to explode on the spot and trying to allow my thoughts to catch up and register what she had just said, I took a deep breath and said. "I'm Henry and this is James Darken." I gestured at me and my 'twin brother'. "This is Ron." I pointed at Ron, who'd gone a bit pink from her insult about his spell.

"Oooh, do any of you know what house you'll be in? I've been asking around, and I hope I'm in Gryffindor. It sounds by far the best. I hear Dumbledore, himself was in it. Though Ravenclaw doesn't sound too bad. Anyway, we better go and look for Neville's toad. You two had better change. You know, I expec5 we'll be there soon." With that, she stood and left, taking the toadless boy with her.

"Whatever house I'm in, I hope she's not in it." Said Ron, who threw his wand into his trunk. "Stupid spell. George gave it to me, bet he knew it was a dud."

"What house are your brothers in?" Harry was looking, probably to help Ron get his mind off the silly spell.

"Gryffindor." Ron said, the new subject obviously was no better than the last. "Mom and Dad were in it, too. I don't know what they'll say if I'm not. I suppose Ravenclaw wouldn't be too bad, but imagine if they put me in Slytherin."

"That seems to be the house no one wants, other than Hufflepuff." I said, thoughtfully.

"Yeah…" Ron said glumly.

"Well, James and I have been pretty anxious about houses, too." I said as I looked from my cousin to Ron, who looked curiously at what I had to say next. "I don't think in the end it matters."

"Of course it matters." Ron said, but I shook my head.

"Right here, right now. Let's make a pact, no matter what house we are put in, we will accept it and be happy, because we can all still be friends." I know what I was saying sounded pretty cheesy, but knowing that despite whatever house I get, I could still have friends made the sorting sound so much easier, "Our feelings over our house placement is a choice, and I'm gonna gonna choose to be sad over it."

"Okay." Harry and Ron agreed and with grins, we all stacked our hands in the middle to seal the deal.

"You know." Harry now said, changing subject. "I do think Scabbers whiskers look a bit lighter." Ron smiled as I wondered aloud what Ron's oldest siblings careers. Having five of them, they can't all still be at Hogwarts.

"Charlie is in Romania, studying Dragons, and Bill's in Africa doing something for Gringotts." Ron replied, "Did you hear about Gringotts? It's been all over the Daily Prophet. Someone tried to rob a high security vault."

Harry and I stared at him. "Really?" I knew mum and Dad did read The Daily Prophet, but I suppose they wouldn't feel the need to mention that to us. "What happened to them?"

"Nothing, that's why it's such big news. They haven't been caught. My dad says it must've been a powerful dark wizard to get around Gringotts, but they don't think they took anything. That's what's odd. Course, everyone gets scared when something like this happens, just in case You-Know-Who's behind it."

Harry and I shared an astonished glance, our thoughts seeming to be the same as we thought over this news.

"What's your Quidditch team?" Ron suddenly asked and we looked at him in confused surprise at the sudden change of subject. After a moment though, we both grinned and answered him.

For the rest of the train ride, we talked of Quidditch teams and games that we'd seen, matchups we'd like to see and about the World Cup that was coming up in just a couple years. Even if we all couldn't play in our first year, all three of us decided as we now changed into our robes, that we would try out in our second year and all hopefully play on the same team.

As we pulled into the station and the cars came to a stop, I grinned at Harry and Ron, glad that despite everything, this first year so far was turning out to be a good one and hoping that no matter what happens, I will continue to have my friends with me through the school year. Yes, Harry James Potter was practically my brother and technically my cousin, but in most other ways, he was more than that, he was my best friend.