Albus Potter: The Journey Begins

Chapter One

"I won't! I won't be in Slytherin!" I yelled defiantly at my older brother James as he began to taunt me once more. I could hear my younger sister Lily's gentle sobs coming behind us, where she was being rocked from side to side by our mother, he arms wrapped firmly around her neck as her tears leaked down onto mum's new robes. She wanted to go to Hogwarts too, however I knew that she'd soon get over the longing and wait the two years she still had left before it was her time.

"James, give it a rest!" I heard mum shout at my brother, who's smirk instantly slid off his face as he turned and scowled.

"I only said he might be," James clarified innocently, grinning deviously at me the minute he turned away from our mum. It was the look he always wore which made me dread whatever he was planning, and I had absolutely no desire to pry into his minds in the near future to discover what it was. Gradually, the five of us neared the barrier, and I began to feel my heart pounding inside my chest, my brain hammering against my head the way a desperate, starving child would bang on someone's door to beg for a place to stay. With his usual arrogant glance directed at me over his shoulder, James positioned his trolley, which comprised of his school trunk and his large barn owl, Hank, and broke into a rapid run towards the wall situated directly between platforms nine and ten. Before I knew it, he had vanished. I won't deny, I was exceedingly apprehensive about the apparition, yet it could in no way compete with my increasing fear of being placed in Slytherin house. Slytherin is one of the four Houses at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, along with Gryffindor, Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw, and is traditionally home to students who exhibit such traits as cunning, resourcefulness, and ambition. Founded by Salazar Slytherin, the house is composed mostly of pure-blood students, due to its founder's mistrust of Muggle-born witches and wizards, and so Slytherin house has a negative reputation, with many claiming that it is the source of most Dark Wizards in Britain, including Lord Voldemort himself, as well as a large majority of his Death Eaters.

I took his momentary disappearance as an opportunity to express perhaps the smallest of my many concerns. "You'll write to me, won't you?" I asked my parents, my mother still clutching tightly to my weeping sister, my father stood with his hand around my mother's shoulders. They both shot me their familiar watery smiles, of which I returned almost immediately.

"Every day, if you want us to," My mother replied, beaming encouragingly, however I was unsure if this was true or sarcastic.

"Not every day," I exclaimed, eager to make my point clear. James, who had started at Hogwarts the previous year, said that most people only get letters from home about once a month. It was as if mother could read my mind.

"We wrote to James three times a week last year," She pointed out, and my father chuckled.

"And he replied about once every couple of months, if we were lucky," He chipped in. "And you don't want to believe everything he tells you about Hogwarts. He likes a laugh, your brother,"

Side by side, my father and I pushed my trolley, stacked high with my huge red trunk and beautiful coal-black tawny owl forward progressively gathering more and more speed. I winced, as we approached the barrier, though, much to my relief, which I showed by releasing a large outtake of breath of which I suddenly realised I had been holding onto, no collision came, and instead, the two of us, closely followed by my mum and Lily, emerged onto platform nine and three quarters, which was covered in thick, white steam that was billowing from the scarlet Hogwarts Express. James had already disappeared among the people roaming in the smoke, more than likely having spotted one of his many school friends; he is extremely popular.

"Where are they?" I asked, becoming nervous that we wouldn't find them before the train left. I peered around in search of the recognisable faces through the hazy mist, as we made our way down the platform.