James Potter could not sleep, no matter how hard he tried. His room in Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place was softly lit with the first rays of the sun, which had begun to creep through his window at least an hour ago. His snowy owl, which he had christened Hedwig, in honor of his father's old owl, was perched calmly in her cage, head under her wing.
James' heart was beating with excitement. In a mere four hours he would be sitting on the Hogwarts Express with the rest of his friends, after what seemed like the longest summer he had ever had. Not that anything bad had happened over the summer. It had simply been unbearably boring.
James was resembled his father in many ways. He had the same untamable messy black hair, the same scrawny body, the same nose, and the same glasses. In fact, the only difference in appearance between father and son was their eyes; James had inherited his mother's sparkling blue.
His room was decorated with posters of his favorite Quidditch team, the Green Dragons. Summer clothes were strewn across the floor, despite his mother's warnings that she would make him clean them up before she would let him go to Hogwarts. He could do it by magic.
More than anything else, James had missed most of his friends, except for his cousin, Molly, who he saw every other day. Aside from him, there were four other third-year Gryffindor boys; James Finnigan, Seamus and Lavender Finnigan’s son, Trevor Longbottom, the son of Neville and Luna, Sean McGummery, and American exchange student, and James’ best friend in the whole world.
Scorpius Malfoy.
James and Scorpius’ friendship had puzzled the elder generation of Potters and Weasleys for three years now. According to the Howler Scorpius had received from his father a day after being placed in Gryffindor house, he was the first Malfoy in five centuries to be placed in any house other than Slytherin. The two boys dared not speak to each other in Draco Malfoy’s sight. His mother was already threatening to send him to Durmstrang if he continued to hand around “that Potter boy”.
Scorpius, however, really was different from any Malfoy in the last five hundred years. Besides the normal white-blonde hair, straight nose, and sneer, Scorpius was as different from his father as could possibly be. Blood was of no concern to Scorpius. He despised the dark arts more than anyone James knew, except for his own father.
“James!” his mother’s voice came from the other side of his door. “It’s time to get up! The Hogwarts Express leaves in an hour!”
James looked at his clock. He had been so absorbed in his thoughts, three hours had slipped by like seconds. He hurriedly got up, grabbed his wand, and muttered a few words under his breath. The clothes on the floor folded themselves and shot up into his dresser drawers. He grabbed some Muggle clothes, changed, and shot out the door.
The rest of the family was already in the dining room, the smell of freshly cooked bacon rising from the stove. James’ father had had the sense to pack James and his younger brother, Albus, ’s trunks in the family car the day before.
“Hurry and eat,” Ginny chided James, handing him a piece of bacon. “It takes thirty minutes to get from here to King’s Cross, and we don’t have any time to waste!”
Albus did not look like he had slept at all. His emerald green eyes shone above his mug of hot chocolate, full of fear. James had been teasing him the other night about being placed in Slytherin house. Apparently, Albus had taken him more seriously than he had original thought. James wolfed down his bacon and drink, and glanced up at his mother.
“Are we leaving yet?’
“As soon as we can. Where is your father? I thought I woke him up an hour ago!”
“Daddy ‘s at the car,” Lilly, the youngest sister said. She alone had inherited her mother’s red hair, but, along with it, her temper. “He’s waiting for us.”
“Well, for heaven’s sake, let’s go! We’re running out of time!”
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James rushed through the magical barrier between platform nine and three quarters as quickly as he could without attracting too much Muggle attention. Despite his mother’s fears, they still had a good fifteen minutes before the Hogwarts Express left the station, but he had no intention of pointing this fact out to his mother in her current state of mind. Ginny had inherited her mother’s temper, as well as her cooking skills. All his friends from school were already waiting, saying good-bye to their parents, saying hello to their friends, or, in the case of new students, throwing up in the bathrooms.
Scorpius was leaning against the wall in one corner of the station, his eagle owl hooting in its cage. He had stationed himself as far away from his parents as possible, but James knew that they still wouldn’t have the chance to talk until they were on the train. James headed immediately for the train, hoping Scorpius would follow, but he was intercepted by his parents before he was half-way across the station.
James sighed and dragged his trunk up onto the train, searching for the compartment he, Molly, and Scorpius usually used going to school. All the way in the back, he found it, and pushed open the glass door to meet a sight he had not really wanted to see.
His cousin Victoire Weasley and his god brother, Teddy Lupin, were wrapped in a tight embrace, kissing fiercely, as if the world was ending. Upon hearing the sound of the glass sliding door open, they broke apart nervously. Victoire blushed deeply.
“Teddy,” James began, his natural curiosity trumping his better judgment, “what are you doing?”
“Just telling Victoire good bye,” Teddy snarled, angry that the moment had been interrupted. “Go away.”
“But this is our compartment-“
“I said go away.”
Blushing, James turned around and went to find another compartment to put his stuff down in. Getting on his god brother’s bad side was not how he had wanted to start the day.
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Fifteen short minutes later, James was sitting in a different compartment with Molly and Scorpius. They had just finished waving good-bye to their families, and had settled down to wait for the food trolley. Molly had promptly buried herself in a book she had borrowed from her aunt Hermione. Much to her George Weasley’s dismay, his daughter was a bookworm, though she did not have a huge respect for rules either.
“This summer was absolutely awful,” Scorpius muttered. “Dad was trying to get me to go to all these dinner parties, granddad was trying to teach me how to run the family business…”
“Well, it couldn’t have been too bad,” Molly said, flicking a strand of red hair from her eyes. “You survived, didn’t you?”
“Oh, that’s easy for you to say,” Scorpius shot back. “You were at James’ house every weekend, from what I heard, and it seems you all forgot to invite me.”
“Scorpius,” James began, but Scorpius held up his hand.
“I know, I know. My father would never have allowed it anyway. Still, it would have been nice to at least get an invitation…”
A knock at the door stopped any conversation that would be to follow. James, who was sitting closest to the door, hopped up and opened it.
In the hallway stood a black-haired wizard, maybe six feet tall, with blue eyes and a short goatee. A scar ran down the side of his face and over his eye. He was well muscled, and had the look of someone who has seen far more hardship and suffering than he should in a short period of time. He was young looking as well, no older than twenty.
“I’m sorry to interrupt,” the man said, “but all the other compartments are full. Is there room in here?” His accent was American.
James nodded and stepped to one side, allowing the stranger through. He sat down in the seat opposite Scorpius, and dug out a wand from one of his pockets and began twirling it in little circles, leaving a thin trail of violet sparks.
“It’s nice to meet some of my future students,” he said once James had sat back down again. “I’m supposed to be teaching Defense Against the Dark Arts this year. My name is Professor Blade.”
“Do professors normally come on the Hogwarts Express?” Scorpius asked. “I’ve never seen one here before.”
“Not normally, no,” Blade answered him. “But I figured that, this being my first time seeing Hogwarts, I should see it from a student’s point of view. It helps to know the mind of those you are going to instruct.”
“I have never heard so much crap in my life,” Scorpius said bluntly. He had a reputation for never softening his words with anything.
“Nevertheless, that is why I am here. I could not possibly be here to meet James, nor could I be here to offer him an invitation.”
James wasn’t sure if Blade was making fun of Scorpius, or if he was simply a terrible liar.
“I’m not telling any stories about my father, if that’s what you came to hear,” he muttered. That was why everyone ever talked to him; to hear some tale of the legendary Harry Potter from his son. Molly shot him a sympathetic glance.
“Why would I care about your father? All he did was fight a Dark Lord, and he didn’t even kill him properly. I just wanted to see if… if what they said about you was true.” Blade smiled. “They were right. Kaein will be proud.”
“Who?” all three students asked in unison. Blade, however, had leaned back against the comfortably padded seatback and had fallen fast asleep.
“What the heck was that about?” Scorpius finally said out loud, voicing the question everyone had been wondering about for the past half-hour. “I know professors don’t just show up on the Hogwarts Express, talk for about thirty seconds, and then fall asleep. You had better be careful, James; he could be some sort of stalker.”
Molly laughed softly, turning a page in her book. “I doubt that, though I do wonder why he came on the Hogwarts express. He would have had to get special permission from Headmistress McGonagall, and that wouldn’t have been fun. And, no offence, James, but I wonder why he wanted to meet you personally?”
“None taken,” James muttered. “It is really weird, though… I guess we’ll have to ask him when he wakes up.”
Scorpius shrugged. “Just as long as he answers eventually.”
James glanced out the window. It had begun to rain, streaking the window pane with tiny droplets of water. The sky was full of nothing but dark clouds which seemed never to end. It seemed to him that, from the moment Professor Blade had walked into the compartment, that there had been a weight pressed against his mind, some sort of weird déjà vu…
The hours passed by slowly, since no one dared to break the silence, lest they wake the sleeping professor. James tried reading the book his Aunt Hermione had given him, entitled Hogwarts: A History, but couldn’t get through the first three pages. Just as his Uncle Ron had warned him, Hermione had been the only person ever (besides Molly) who was capable of reading the book.
“Look,” Scorpius said, pointing out the window. “Is that Hogsmead?”
A shrill whistle-blast came from the head of the train, signaling the students to change into their robes if they had not already. The three students dressed quickly, and hurried out into the hall with the rest of the students who were eager to get the first glimpse of Hogwarts.
“Is that it?” a blond first-year boy called out a little too loudly to his friend. “Is that Hogwarts?”
Molly followed his finger out the window and made a face. “That’s the Shrieking Shack,” she said. “Are you expecting for Hogwarts to be that size?”
The first year blushed and shook his head. The train finally slowed to a stop, and the doors all along the train opened simultaneously. The three friends slipped through the crowd without much difficulty, making their way off the platform toward the Thestral-drawn coaches. Scorpius pointed at an old, wrinkly witch who was calling for the first years to follow her, and demanded,
“Where’s Hagrid?”
Scorpius, being the most un-Malfoy like Malfoy had taken to the half-giant instantly their first year, following him almost everywhere, clinging to him like a leech. James laughed at the look of suppressed rage on his face. He was probably the only student in the whole castle of Hogwarts who believed that Hagrid was actually a great Care of Magical Creatures teacher.
“Didn’t you hear?” Molly asked. “He and Madam Maxim finally tied the knot. They’re on their honey-moon. Don’t worry, Professor Grubbley-Plank is a great teacher, too.”
“But she’s not Hagrid,” Scorpius muttered as he climbed into the carriage. James laughed with Molly as the Thestrals began to drag the carriage slowly forward. None of them had any idea what lay in store for them this year, what would affect the rest of their lives.
Blade of Darkness by Lord of Night
Story Notes:
The only thing in this fic that isn't just like the seventh book is Scorpius Malfoy's age.
Chapter Notes: The story starts kind of slow. Hang on for me. Just as a disclaimer, I do not own Harry Potter or any of the characters from Rowling's books.
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