A/N: HEY GUYS!! I'm so excited for this year and i hope you are too :3
It was finally time for Aly's third year at Hogwarts and she couldn't be more excited. This time, her parents drove her to Kings Cross Station where she found Kim, Madi, and Noia already waiting by the entrance.
"Aly!" They all exclaimed as she went up to them.
"Hi!" She grinned.
"Are you ready?" Madi asked. To which she nodded. They waited till the muggles weren't looking then ran through the wall one by one. Aly took a sigh of relief when she actually got through this time. They were pretty early, so they managed to find a somewhat empty compartment. It only had one other person in it, but he was sleeping.
They sat there for a while, just talking about their summers and telling each other stuff that they didn't already know. Suddenly, a couple minutes before the train was set to leave, the doors were aggressively opened by Ron and Hermione. They grew a lot over the summer Aly noticed.
"There you guys are!" Said Hermione, sitting down next to Noia. She had a fluffy brown and orange cat that sat on her lap.
"Aw it's so adorable," Madi gushed. "What's it's name?"
"His name is Crookshanks," she grinned, petting the furry creature while he purred.
"He's awful. My poor Scabbers," Ron whined.
For the next few minutes, the six of them all got caught up, and even told them how Harry blew up his aunt by accident. Of which sent Madi into a 2 minute laughing fit.
The train whistle rang, which meant it was now 11am. The train was leaving and Harry still wasn't there. Aly was getting worried (although she wouldn't admit that).
Like on queue, the compartment door open which caused Hermione to turn and shriek, "Harry!" She jumped up and embraced Harry, who returned the hug while looking over her shoulder at Aly.
There was a still a touch of the owl about Harry, still some of the angelic cherub to that pale face. But the baby fat was giving way to the beginning of a sharp jawline, the jawline that made his eyes stand out all the more under those thickened dark brows. He had grown several inches, and his face had started to grow into that nose, turning it from childish and cute and dominating his face, to something closer to aristocratic or even elfen.
Elfen was the word for Harry now, so ethereal it seemed only right for him to be the one apart, watching but not part of the children's meaningless chatter. Harry had a birthday since they last met. The image Aly had so obsessively fixated on over the summer months, Harry wielding the bloodied Sword of Gryffindor, changed to wear this older face in Aly's mind.
"Let's see, we've grown over the summer, haven't we?" Aly chuckled, remembering how she was the taller one out of the two. She stood up, and walked about 2 inches towards him, since the compartment wasn't that big. Harry had several centimeters on her. "Guess you've grown more, huh? Advantage Gryffindor in the Seeker department... Potter? You there?"
Harry blinked. "Er. Yes. Hello, Aly." He didn't seem to have registered Hermione was there, much less that she'd hugged him, as if the months with his Muggles had addled his wits. "You have, er, grown."
"Yeah," Aly said, raising an eyebrow at his strange behaviour. "So have you," she chuckled then sat back down beside Madi. He sat down as well, squeezed in between the wall and Aly, since the room in there wasn't very spacious, especially for eight people. On one side was Kim, Madi, Aly, and Harry; and the other was Noia, Hermione, Ron, and the stranger.
"So Weasley told us you're staying at the Leaky Cauldron, aren't you?"
Harry seemed only then to notice the extremely ginger presence of his best friend in the world. "Oh, er, Ron! Hello!" They exchanged friendly kicks to the shins.
