The Next Generation

The Hogwarts Express

Albus was woken by his mum, who rushed him out of bed and reminded him that today was the day he would be leaving for Hogwarts. He sat up, excited, and rolled his trunk full of school supplies down the stairs and to the door. They had visited Diagon Alley several days before, and he had purchased his wand, robes, textbooks, potions supplies, and a handsome young barn owl who he'd named Bandit. He set his trunk next to the door and rushed back up the stairs for Bandit. This time when he came back down the stairs, he was greeted by a smirking James.

"You're gonna get sorted into Slytherin," he sneered. Albus ignored him, and began rolling his trunk and owl out to the muggle car they had borrowed from some neighbors. "Look, I hate to break it to you, but it's true," James persisted.

This time, Albus took the bait, and said "no, I'm not."

"I know this is hard for a scrawny first year like you to take in, but I've looked into it and all the signs show that you're bound to be a Slytherin." They had stopped walking, and James looked down at Albus with a fake pitiful face.

This time, he retorted with "so what if I am? Dad said not all Slytherins are bad."

"Dad said," said James in a fake whiney voice.

"Look, I'm not stupid. I know you're just saying all this because you're jealous I got the invisibility cloak instead of you!" This time when he looked at James, a look of rage shone clearly on his face.

"You are so lucky I'm not allowed to use magic yet. You just wait 'till next summer," he said in a quivering voice. And with that, James stormed back to the house.

Albus angrily threw his trunk and owl into the back of the borrowed muggle car, and took off back toward the house as well. He checked his room for anything he might've left behind, and when he didn't find anything but an old pair of socks, he followed his parents and Lily back to the car. When he saw James was already there, he purposefully took the seat furthest from his elder brother. It wasn't a long drive to the train station, he thought, relieved. That was mostly due to the fact that whenever they ran into a red light, dad used a charm to turn it back to green, since they were running late as usual.

Whey they all bustled out of the car, Albus spotted his uncle Ron, with Hermione and their kids. He let the others know, and they rushed forward to meet them.

"Hey, Ron, UNCLE RON!" he yelled over the roaring crowd of witches and wizards hurrying to get their children on the train.

He grinned, and said "If it isn't my favorite nephew!" and with a glare from Hermione, "joking!" At that moment, Rose already in her school robes, appeared next to her mother, grinning. Lily rushed off to talk to Hugo, Rose's younger brother. Rose left to take her luggage to the train, and Albus followed. When they both returned, Albus said goodbye to his parents, and Rose to hers. They then hopped on the train just as it started moving, and hurried to find a compartment. Rose joined a compartment with a few friendly looking girls, first years from the look of it. He passed a compartment where he saw James with a few of his Gryffindor friends from his year. He looked around for a compartment he could join, and saw one with a young boy sitting alone.

He slid open the glass door, and asked, "mind if I sit here?" When the boy nodded, he took the seat across from him. With a closer look, he noticed the boy had neat blond hair and pale skin.

"Hey," said the boy.

"Hey, what's your name?"

"I'm Scorpius, you?" he asked politely.

"Albus," he replied.

"So is this your first year at Hogwarts?" asked Scorpius.

"Yes, is it yours?"

"Yep," he replied. "Hey, is it true that invisible horses pull the carriages up the school every year?"

"Yeah, I think so. Well, that's what my brother says, anyway. But he isn't the most reliable source," he told Scorpius, who laughed. "Do you know if there really is a poltergeist that lurks the corridors and plays pranks on all the students?"

"I hope not," said Scorpius. The two of them talked a while longer of rumors about Hogwarts, and the food trolley soon came along. Between the two of them, they bought everything there was. They had a laugh over Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans, and when they got to the chocolate frogs, they had a good time looking at all the famous wizards on the cards. Albus ate the last chocolate frog, and when he glanced at the card from within, he found himself staring down at his father's smiling face. He gasped.

"Hey, that's my father!" he exclaimed.

Scorpius looked slowly from the card to Albus, and then he stared at him as if something important had dawned on him. "I-I'd better go," he said, and tried to step out of the compartment.

"Wait, why?" Albus asked, confused and a bit scared. When he didn't answer, Albus pressured him, slightly angry now. "Spit it out, Scorpius."

"W-well, you s-see, our fathers were kinda hated each other when they were in school-" Then something dawned on Albus as well.

"Wait, you're not Draco Malfoy's son, are you?" he stared at Scorpius, shocked. His father did say that Malfoy had blond hair...

Scorpius nodded. "And my grandfather warned me to stay away from any Potter children. So I'd really better go." Scorpius Malfoy left Albus alone in the compartment without another word. Albus didn't know what to think; he was angry at his new "friend," but also disappointed that he happened to be the son of Draco Malfoy. He thought about the small bit of information his father had told him about the Malfoy's; he hadn't sounded as if he was fond of the strange family, but he certainly hadn't told Albus to stay away from the Malfoy's. He wanted to go and find Scorpius, maybe talk to him about it and figure something out. They'd been getting along great until Albus found his father's card... is there something his dad hadn't told him? However, there wasn't much time left of the ride, so Albus left to get changed into his school robes. He returned to his empty compartment for the remaining few minutes of the trip, puzzling over why his father hadn't told him a seemingly important bit of information. What had he done to become famous enough to land himself on a chocolate frog card? Perhaps this explained why his father was always so keen to keep Albus and his siblings away from the magical treat.