Blackberry Jam (A Drarry FanFiction)

Chapter One

September 1st 1940

Harry stepped off the train onto an unfamiliar platform thronging with people. He fiddled nervously with the cardboard tag attached to his coat button, his only possessions stowed in the small suitcase that he clung to his side as he attempted to prevent it being buffeted by the other children anxiously climbing down from the engine.

"This way, this way!" the billeting officer called, herding the children towards the exit. The train had been packed though, and there were only a few adults that had travelled with them from London, so it was a challenge to move everyone in an orderly fashion. Seeing as he was one of the older evacuees, Harry tried to help as best he could. He had argued sternly with his mother that he shouldn't have to leave at all, that evacuation was for babies and as had turned twelve in July that meant he was no longer a baby. But there had been no swaying her, so in order to feel a little less ashamed for running away from London, Harry took the hand of a little girl hair who was crying, the gas mask swinging around her neck almost as large as her head.

"There now," he said in his jolliest voice, pushing up his glasses as they threatened to slip down his nose. "There's no need for tears, we're going on a grand adventure."

He smiled and the little girl sniffled and wiped her eyes. "I don't want a grand adventure though," she whispered. "I want my mummy."

Harry tried to swallow around the thick lump that sprung into his throat at her words, but remained committed to his smile. "I'm sure you shall see your mother very soon. Until then you have to be brave, and make her very proud."

The little girl nodded solemnly as they slowly filed past a sign on the brick wall that announced this was 'Little Whinging Station'. Harry knew they were somewhere in Surrey, but he only knew that was to the west of London, and not much else. He had been so adamant he wouldn't be leaving, that when the bombs had started dropping he hadn't had a chance to check out a map from the library before he'd had to say goodbye.

He bit his lip and stuck out his chin, absolutely refusing to think of his mother waving him off at the station, tears running down her face as she made him promise to write the moment he got to his new home. Harry was a big boy, and he had to look after the littler children who were far more scared than he was.

He refused, too, to think of the way the ground had rumbled, and how the sky had lit up like a furnace where the bombings had taken place across the city. His mother had assured him that their street was perfectly safe, because with fierce Miss McGonagall on the neighbourhood watch nobody would dare let their blackout curtains slip, but when Harry had protested that meant he should be allowed to stay too if it was so safe, his mother had said 'you never could be too careful'.

Harry felt like a coward, leaving his mother behind when his father had already gone to fight in France. He flew Spitfires and when Harry was old enough, he was going to join the air force too and do just the same. But until then, that meant Mother was all alone and Harry hated it frightfully.

He tightened his grip on the little girl's hand, and she smiled back up at him, but the hundred or more children were now arriving onto the road outside the station, and were being directed in different directions based on what schools they came from.

"Hogwarts!" one of the billeting officers called, waving and pointing over to the right. "Anyone from Hogwarts to this bus please!"

Harry looked down at the girl. "Are you from Hogwarts?" he asked, but she shook her head. So Harry refused to leave her until he had paired her up with someone else from her own school, and as a result almost missed getting on the bus.

"Hurry up boy!" a man with greasy black hair snapped as he clambered up the steps, but the driver, a large man with a bushy beard tutted loudly.

"Oh leave him be," he said with the same kind of thick country accent Harry had heard once or twice down the market from the farmers. "He's had a long enough day without you scaring the poor chap!" Harry smiled gratefully at the driver, and dropped into the first spare seat he could find, kicking his suitcase under his legs and hugging his gas mask to his chest.

He may not like it, but there was no going back now. (He'd checked, there was no way to get back into London without a train ticket, and he didn't have that sort of money, only a shilling in his left shoe for safe keeping.) So he was going to have to stir his courage and face wherever he was going now with a brave face.

He had talked with many of the other children on the journey from Victoria, but now he and his companions were quieter, watching eagerly out of the windows as the town of Little Whinging flew by. There were no tall buildings here like in London, and the houses were bigger, all with gardens outside that Harry liked the look of very much with their colourful flowers. It was late in the afternoon and the weather was balmy, so there were many people walking by as the bus passed, and quite often they would wave cheerfully to the children. Harry found his heart warmed a little by their welcoming faces, and hoped he would be going to live with a nice family.