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The Potters and Weasleys waved goodbye to their family from the Hogwarts Express opened windows until they were no longer visible.
“Well, we’re off, see ya little Asp.” Said James and he made snake like motions with his tongue, while his best friend and favorite cousin, Fred, snickered.
Their oldest cousin, Head Girl, Victoire, approached them and James, Fred and some other Weasleys made kissing faces at her. Victoire ignored them and commanded the group to go look for compartments. “Albus, Rose, come with me,” she said.
The first-years followed her, Rose trying to imitate Victoire’s way of walking, Albus peering into compartments until he saw people pointing at him and gawking. Albus was somewhat used to this rude behavior; it was usual that people stopped his father and remarked how similar Albus looked to him. “My mirror tells me so every day,” he said impulsively just a few weeks ago while his family was on Diagon Alley buying his and James’ school stuff. Harry had laughed and said: “Looks like he got my cheek too.” Albus smiled remembering this, even though he didn’t like strangers talking to him and comparing him to his dad every single time, he did like making him laugh.
At the moment he wasn’t at all happy about looking so much like his dad though, he wanted people to know him as Albus and not as Harry Potter 2.0. Victoire noticed a group of girls gawking at him, “You’ll get used to it,” she said.
“Doesn’t it get to be… a bit much?” asked Rose who was receiving pointing fingers as well.
“A bit, sometimes. Just come to me if someone makes you feel uncomfortable and I’ll deal with it” answered Victoire.
“Thanks, Vic, but I can handle it” replied Albus. Victoire just rolled her eyes, it was well-known that Albus like to be ‘independent,’ something practically impossible with a family as big as theirs. “Is it one of your Head Girl duties to escort first-years? If yes, where are the others?”
“No. It’s the oldest cousin duty to do so.”
“Says who?” asked Albus and Rose.
“Teddy.”
The other two just nodded. Teddy’s word was rule among the cousins. He was the one that created the Lupin-Potter-Weasley meeting back when Victoire was a first year. He was in Hufflepuff and Victoire in Ravenclaw, so they didn't have a common room where to chat and relax. That’s why the Room of Requirement transforms at least once a month, almost always weekly, into a bigger copy of The Burrow’s living room. With every passing year more and more cousins came to Hogwarts, all sorted into different houses, even though a slight majority where Gryffindors, which make it difficult to keep in touch while also taking care of homework, exams, Prefect duties, going to Quidditch practices or one of the many clubs created after Hogwarts was rebuilt. So, Teddy made it mandatory to attend the Lupin-Potter-Weasley meeting at least once per month. The name ought to be changed as many family friends attend too. Victoire set the rule that three family members had to vouch for your friend before they can attend. She set it up after Molly brought her one-week boyfriend, a fan of Rita Skeeter who gave her lots of inside info on the family’s going-ons. Now, Victoire, as the oldest cousin, was on charge of scheduling the monthly meetings. She was about to explain this to Albus and Rose, when a retching sound caught her attention.
On the last compartment there was a blond boy, a first-year apparently, throwing up slugs all over the floor. Victoire opened the compartment’s door, pointed her wand at the boy and said “Finite!” The boy stopped throwing up immediately, he was drive- heaving and tears were leaking from his grey eyes. “Evanesco!” she said then, pointing at the slugs on the floor. Rose pulled out her handkerchief and sat down next to him. “Here” she said giving it to him.
“Who jinxed you?” asked Victoire, her usually pale cheeks were red due to her anger.
“I don’t know their names.” The boy answered with a timid voice.
“More than one person attacked you?” Albus yelled, sitting in front of the boy, who had just realized who these people were and his embarrassment grew tenfold. “How did they look like?”
“It was three of them. Two identical twins with shoulder-length black hair and a very tall, very big one with short blonde hair. He looked older than the other two.”
“Not older, just big. I know who they are.” With this Victoire stepped out of the compartment and threw its door, breaking the window’s glass and repairing with a sweep of her wand.
“That’s Vic, Victoire, she’s Head Girl and our cousin, she’s brilliant, she will take care of everything,” said Rose really fast, “I’m Rose Weasley and this is my cousin Albus Potter.”
“Hello!” Said Albus, weaving excitedly until he saw his reflection on the window and dropped his hand quickly. Rose giggled.
“I’m, em, Scorpius, em Malfoy,” said the blonde with a questioned tone, looking at his knees.
“You sure?” said Albus with a smirk. Scorpius looked up and smiled, seeing that Albus wasn’t being mean. “Sorry, yes, I am Scorpius Malfoy. That’s me, that’s my name,” Albus and Rose laughed. “I will shup up now.”
“Please don’t, you’re funny,” said Albus smiling. “Any idea why those gits attacked you?” Scorpius blushed and looked out the window.
“I sort of expected it but not this early into my Hogwarts career. I guess you know about my family, the Malfoys?” he said sadly.
“Come to think of it, Uncle Ron, that’s Rose’s dad, pointed out at you on the platform.”
“Told you to stay away from me, I expect.”
“No, he told me to beat you on every test,” replied Rose.
Scorpius looked up, astonished and gave a little smirk. “You can try,” he said, still timid but testing if he would give her a little joke.
“Rude! Bet you five chocolate frog cards that I get house points before you,” she said.
At this, Scorpius’ smile grew and he gave her his hand, “Deal.” I hope she doesn’t have eidetic memory like me, probably not, would have read it somewhere already, he thought and smirked again.
Just then James reappeared. “Oi, Snakey! Mum gave me your sandwich instead of mine. I still can’t believe that my own brother likes pickles, uck.”
“Don’t call me Snakey!”
“Why not? That’s your name. Asp. And you’re going to Slytherin or you better, I have a bet with Louis. Ten galleons and haven’t got them.”
“He betted that I won’t be sorted into Slytherin?”
“No, I betted the hat would take less than 45 seconds to put you in Slytherin and he said 60 seconds. Now, give me my sandwich, I’m starving.”
Albus decided it was best to get rid of his brother quickly, before he noticed-
“And who are you?” James asked Scorpius.
“Here’s your sandwich!” Albus yelled, pulling a slim and long package from his backpack. But James, seeing that Albus wanted him to go away, decided to stay. He sat down next to his brother and repeated, “Who are you?”
“Scorpius” the other mumbled, shy once again.
“What?” Said James loudly.
“Scorpius, he’s Scorpius!” Answered Rose, fearing that James would react in a bad way, after all most of her family had verbally abused the Malfoys at one point or another and Scorpius is not a very common name.
But James had another joke in mind. “Blimey, you three would make a club, The Weirdly Named club.” Scorpius frowned, while Albus and Rose rolled their eyes, at least James wasn’t being a git, or not as much as they expected. Maybe he hasn’t realized he’s Scorpius Malfoy, thought Rose.
“Albus and Rose are normal names and Scorpius is a constellation, it’s a family tradition to use constellations as names, that’s not too unusual on Wizarding families.” He thought better to stop there and not mention his second name, Hyperion was just awful.
“Like Sirius,” said Albus smirking.
James laughed, “Yeah, but Sirius at least sounds normal, whereas you-
“Don’t!’
“Albus Severus Potter, terrible, just terrible. Better change it for Snakey.”
“Don’t call me Snakey!” Albus yelled again and James, seeing that his ears had turned red, always a dangerous sign, decided to concede. “Asp it is then.”
“Asp is fine, just not Snakey.” Albus mumbled.
“Alright, sorry,” James said smiling at Albus and patted his hand. “As for Rosie here-“
“Not Rosie!”
“What?” said the Potter brothers. “But everyone calls you that. Don’t tell me you now prefer Nymphadora.” James continued.
“Ahhh, get out! GET OUT!” Rose yelled, taking James’ sandwich and hitting him with it.
“Not the sandwich!” James exclaimed and ran away from the compartment.
“Stupid,” said Albus, “if you want to keep a happy friendship with Rose don’t call her by her second name. Dora is fine, or is it? How come not Rosie?” Asked Albus while Scorpius processed all the commotion that had just happened. Having siblings is weird and very loud, he thought.
“Rosei is childish. Rose is more…dignified. Dora is fine too.”
“Dignified? You’re eleven years old!” Said Albus laughing.
“Shut up! I want to be Head Girl and I have to start making a good impression early.”
“Oh, I see. This is just part of your fascination with being like Vic.”
“Nuh-uh,” mumbled Rose, her cheeks becoming a bit darker.
“It’s a losing battle, Rose. Someone, actually everyone, will call you Rosie at some point, including Uncle Nev, you know our Herbology teacher?” Rose just took out her book and didn’t reply.
Scorpius took advantage of the lull in conversation and general noisiness to ask a burning question he had based on what James said. “Albus, you don’t want to go to Slytherin?” Rose went very still, all summer James and other cousins, even complete strangers too (there was a poll on the Daily Prophet) had been discussing Albus’ sorting.
Albus sighed and looked out the window, “I’m not sure.” Rose looked up, this was a different answer from what Albus had said so far, in fact he always remarked that he was going to Gryffindor. She had an inclining of the reason why for this change. Their grandpa and uncles said all Malfoys always go to Slytherin. “What about you?” Albus asked Scorpius and Rose smiled knowingly.
“All my family had gone to Slytherin, but if I would choose, I would got to Ravenclaw.”
“Me too!” Exclaimed Rose. Albus was thinking of what his dad said on the platform, would be able to choose Ravenclaw? Nah, that’s bending the hat’s will too far I expect, he thought. He got good grades on muggle school but just because it was easy and he cheated on the exams of any subjects he disliked, math and science mainly. That’s Slytherinish, he thought.
“I just don’t want people to judge me because of my last name and going to Slytherin won’t help. Although, just based on how the train ride started, it won’t matter where I go, people will still judge and try to hex me.” Scorpius said morosely.
“I will hex back whoever is rude to you,” Albus said without thinking and blushed.
“How gallant and very Gryffindor of you, Albus,” Rose snickered.
“That won’t be possible if you’re not sorted in the same house as me,” said Scorpius, choosing to ignore Rose’s remark. He was filling a bit hot under his collar. No one had ever promised to defend him, well no one outside his family, but he didn’t know a lot of people either, so maybe that was regular friendly behavior; which made him realized that he got friends!
“Well… you will be sorted before me, so we’ll see,” said Albus cryptically. He was determined to make the hat sort him wherever Scorpius goes.
Then the trolley with came over, the three friends bought candies to share among themselves. When Scorpius got Harry Potter on his chocolate frog card he remarked, “You do look a lot like your father, except for the freckles on your nose.” Albus wouldn’t remember anyone ever mentioning his freckles and for some reason it made him very happy that Scorpius did.