Courage - Harry Potter

-127-

Book: Courage
Chapter 127
Word Count: 1893

Nineteen years later

Autumn seemed to arrive suddenly that year. The morning of the first of September was crisp and golden as an apple, and as the big family bobbed across the rumbling road towards the great sooty station, the fumes of car exhausts and the breath of pedestrians sparkled like cobwebs in the cold air. Three large cages rattled on top of the laden trolleys; the owls inside them hooted indignantly, and the small brunette girl with soft brown eyes trailed tearfully behind her older brothers and sister, clutching her mother's arm.

"Cheer up, sweetheart. You'll be off to Hogwarts before you know it," Layla told her, a three-year-old girl, Eliana Hermione Potter, resting on her hip.

"Two years," sniffed Lily Minerva Potter. "I want to go now!"

The commuters stared curiously at the owls as the family wove its way towards the barrier between platforms nine and ten.

The voice of Frederick Remus Potter drifted back to Layla and Harry over the surrounding clamor; their oldest children had resumed the argument they had started in the car.

"I won't! I won't be in Slytherin!"

"James, Ginny, give it a rest!" said Harry.

"We only said he might be," said James Sirius Potter, grinning at his younger brother. James had dark brown curly hair and deep brown eyes.

"There's nothing wrong with being in Slytherin," said Virginia Luna Potter, or Ginny as everyone referred to her as. She had lighter brown hair but the same brown eyes. She looked the most like Layla. "You never know with Freddie. Look at him—"

But Virginia caught her mother's eye and fell silent.

"Where's Teddy?" Layla looked around for her half-brother. The brother she had adopted when he was only a few weeks old and who was now nineteen and had completed his Hogwarts experience.

"I don't know," said Harry. "I'm sure he's already gone through the wall."

The seven Potters approached the barrier. James and Virginia reminded their parents so much of what Fred and George used to be like. The prankster twins.

James and Virginia exchanged smirks, muttering to each other about who could reach the wall first. They each began pushing their trolleys, sprinting towards the wall. James made it through first and Virginia groaned in annoyance as she, too, disappeared through the barrier.

"You'll write to me, won't you?" Frederick asked his parents immediately, capitalizing on the momentary absence of his older siblings. He looked the most like Harry, with his black hair and green eyes.

"Every day, if you want us to," said Layla.

"Not every day," said Frederick quickly. "James says most people only get letters from home about once a month."

"We wrote to James and Ginny three times a week last year," said Layla.

"And you don't want to believe everything they tell you about Hogwarts," Harry put in, thinking about Fred and George. "Those two like a laugh."

"Will one of you help me?" asked Frederick, looking nervously towards the barrier.

"You go," said Layla, turning towards her husband with a soft smile. "I'll take the girls."

Harry nodded with a smile and kissed his wife's cheek before pushing Frederick's trolley forward with him, disappearing behind the wall.

"Come on, pumpkin. Ready?" Layla asked Lily, who was gripping her mother's hand. The young brunette nodded. Layla then glanced at three-year-old Eliana in her arms, who had grown curly locks of black hair and had bright green eyes. "What about me?"