My Best Friend Ana / Marauders Era

Chapter Three

Chapter Three

"Please don't forget to write!" Tom's mother sobbed into a wrinkled handkerchief. Tears brimmed her eyes and spilt down her cheeks, she couldn't believe her baby was in his last year. At first, he was embarrassed by her - back in first year when he was eleven and scared and the last thing he needed was the attention his mother gave with her loud sobs and over-dramatic.

As the years went on it hardly phased him, he was used to it at this point and he had even gotten past the staring. All he could think about was his friends, and the Hogwarts express in front of him. The new year was so close he could practically feel it...could smell it in the Smokey air of king's cross station, platform 9 ¾. He could grab it with two hands at this point, it would start officially in ten minutes at exactly eleven o'clock when the train would leave the station - never late, always on time.

Just like the new year. On time, perfect down to the last second.

"Of course, I won't, mum!" he patted her arm, and soon wrapped his arms around her tightly. She was a head shorter than him, and he had definitely taken after his father in the height department which he was rather grateful for. She was clutching onto him for dear life, reluctantly letting go after a long time and only when Tom's father pulled on her shoulders.

"Be good, Tom." He knew his dad was trying to hold it in. He wasn't the most emotionally sensitive man in the world and Tom knew this. He smiled, shook his dad's hand and patted his back, "listen to your teachers - or professors, or whatever they're called these days. Do well with that...sports thing, just don't get yourself killed!"

"I won't dad, I promise," he laughed, finally caving and pulling on his dad's hand so he could hug him. His parents could be a pain sometimes but so could all parents, that's just how it was with most families but at the end of the day he loved them with all his heart - he'd do anything for them.

"You better write," his dad whispered, "or I'll march up to that school in god knows where and make you!"

"I will dad," he could only mutter back. He was getting emotional himself, it was hard to be with his family all summer and then suddenly leave them. It wasn't a fair deal, especially considering his family weren't magic in any way, shape or form except him.

"Say hi to Cassandra for us!" his mother winked, and Tom waved her off with a mere chuckle. His trunk had left him, sitting with a pile of many other trunks at the far end of the station to get loaded onto the train and all he had to do was board.

He could see Mitch a little down hugging his baby brother who was just three. The boy was practically sobbing into Mitch's chest and Mitch looked just as sad to have to leave the poor boy too.

It was like this every year.

Happiness and sadness go hand in hand sometimes, maybe even joining together to create bittersweet moments like platform 9 ¾ on the first September morning. It was a pain that Tom wouldn't miss, and when he finally bid his parents a last goodbye, he allowed a single tear to fall down his cheek before boarding the train and hurriedly wiping it.

As much as the platform was not a fond memory, it was as though the atmosphere completely changed when he boarded the train. It was the same every year. The dark and dreary platform with dull clouds rolling in the skies above to be seen down below instantly disappeared when he boarded, with a warm glow from the train wall lights and the smell of chocolate frogs and pumpkin pasties wafting down his nose and beyond him.

It was a perfect balance. The sweet part of bittersweet that was the Hogwarts express, that allowed the sadness to melt away and replaced with warmth and light and happiness and sweet. It was everything that he loved about magic and Hogwarts rolled into one perfectly wrapped present - or train, in this case - that let the smile widen on his lips.