Albus Potter only stopped looking out the window at his father waving goodbye to him from Platform Nine-and-Three-Quarters when the train had finally left the platform and started on its winding path along the tracks that would bring the students to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. When he did look away, it was slowly, and only in response to his cousin, Rose Weasley, calling to him from her place down the hall of the train.

"Al, come on! We'd better find a compartment!"

Albus turned to her, the excited smile he'd been giving his father through the window still hopelessly stuck to his features.

"Sorry, Rosie."

He hurried to catch up with her, able to move much faster now that his suitcase and his owl had been loaded into the luggage area. Although it had been awesome to buy Wendelin himself with the allowance he'd saved up so he wouldn't have to plead to borrow James's owl, Hawksworth, Albus thought it would probably be much more comfortable for her to sleep in the luggage compartment with the other owls. Plus it meant he didn't have to carry her cage around the train awkwardly.

"Oh, all full, all full," Rose lamented, giving a greatly miffed pout as she finished peeking into the compartment windows on either side of her. "I knew we should have gotten on sooner..."

"It'll be fine, Rosie," Albus reassured. He was glad he was able to stay on the platform a bit longer to say goodbye, especially for what his father had said. "If all else fails, we can try to find Victoire or Fred somewhere..."

The Weasley clan was amazing in its size. Since most of Molly and Arthur Weasley's children had been boys, they now had many grandchildren that held the Weasley name or at least, in the case of the Potter children, had the Weasley freckles. Albus could only imagine what it would be like to go to school with most of his cousins there; he fancied it would be awfully like a big family reunion, though without any parental supervision. Even if it were, however, he would still stand out - out of everyone in his family, only his father, Harry Potter, had the black hair, skinny frame, and almond-shaped green eyes that he had, since his older brother James and little sister Lily took more after his red-haired, brown-eyed mother, Ginny. In fact the only thing he shared with his siblings and most of his cousins, including his red-haired, blue-eyed cousin Rose, were the copious freckles all over his nose and face.

"What did you say to me, Potter?"

Albus gave an involuntary jump at the sound of his last name.

"You heard me," shot back a very familiar, brash voice. "If you want to talk about bad breeding, maybe you should look in the mirror; I don't think anyone really wants Death Eater pups."

Rose and Albus's attention shot to a compartment a little ways up that had a door open. Two tall and very intimidating-looking boys with dark hair and Slytherin ties hung back outside of it while another one (obviously Slytherin as well, though Albus couldn't see his face) stood just inside the doorway, talking to the people within.

"Oh no," Rose whispered, obviously also having recognized the obnoxious voice. "He's picking fights already? We haven't even gotten to school yet - "

"Shut your mouth, Potter," the first voice growled. His voice, which was low in his throat like that of a bullfrog, sounded a bit dangerous now.

Several laughs came from inside the compartment.

"'Shut your mouth, Potter!'" an unfamiliar voice mocked in a high-pitched voice that sounded like a rat's squeal.

The voice of the Slytherin inside the compartment did not sound amused. "Just because you think you're king of the school does not mean - "

"King? I wouldn't necessarily say that," the brash voice replied coolly. "A lord, maybe. Though of course hell of a lot better than the lord your family was groveling under - "

The two Slytherins outside the compartment rushed forward and grabbed the shoulders of the third, who had clearly made as if to take out his wand, and the laughter echoed again from inside the compartment.

"Good one, Jay!" another voice sneered through his laughter.

Albus swept past Rose, his face scrunched up with annoyance.

"James!"

The tall boys outside the compartment looked down at him; the surprise of him speaking, although it was apparent in their eyes, did not appear on their faces, which remained oddly blank. Now that Albus was closer, he could see the boy they were holding onto, a Slytherin with broad shoulders and a pair of very thick eyebrows over his very small, beady black eyes, as well as inside the compartment where James Potter and two other third-year Gryffindor boys were lounging.

Albus's older brother, in essence, was everything Albus was not. He was tall and strapping, and had messy scarlet hair, a pair of rectangular glasses casually resting on his long nose, and a cocky smile that made him resemble old pictures of his namesake, his and Albus's grandfather. While Albus was small and skinny with bony wrists, knobbly knees and smooth jet black hair, James already fit the perfect image of a Keeper, his position on the Gryffindor Quidditch team, with his strong chest and thinly muscular arms. Even though he was only thirteen years old, the elder Potter boy was dashing, and confidence exuded from him as he slouched offhandedly in his seat.

James was only surprised to see Albus for a minute, and then reacted quite brightly.

"Hey there, Al! Was wondering when you were planning on getting on, I thought at first you decided to stay home so the thestrals wouldn't get you!"

The smaller of James's friends, who had dirty blond hair and a nose the size and color of a pink button, snickered as Rose dashed up beside Albus, her short bushy red hair flouncing a bit behind her.

The younger Potter, however, didn't laugh.

"Stop picking on peoples' families. You know Dad would be mad if he heard you."

The Slytherin with the bushy eyebrows glanced over, obviously in response to the mention of James's father; very often people couldn't guess Albus and James were brothers from looks and certainly not by temperament, so the slight surprise was predictable. Even so, Albus couldn't help but feel a bit awkward under his gaze, so he looked at James and nowhere else.

"Aw, shove off," said James. "Don't be a daddy's boy here, Al, it makes you look like a baby."

"And you look like a jolly old prat," Albus shot back, his face going a bit pink but his green eyes staying sharp. "Now quit it."

James exchanged an amused look with the dark-haired Gryffindor sitting across from him, before he, pressing his middle finger into the nose-piece of his glasses to adjust them on his face, grinned again at Albus.

"Geez, little bro, you really are getting into that whole thing about you being a Slytherin, you're already trying to stick up for them - "

The reminder of his teasing from earlier was enough to make Albus take out his new wand, even if he didn't know any spells that he could cast on James to make himself feel better. Rose, however, said, "No!", grabbing hold of Albus's arm and making him lower it before fixing James with a reproachful blue-eyed glare worthy of their Grandma Weasley.

"Gryffindors aren't supposed to be bullies, James. You're acting more like a Slytherin yourself right now - "

Unfortunately Rose said this before she could consider that, in fact, she was standing next to three very tall and very strong Slytherins - and naturally, they took offense at this.

"Is that so?" one of the Slytherins outside the compartment said, his tanned face almost harshly blank as he stared down the red-haired first year.

Rose's blue eyes went wide and terrified upon realizing what she'd said, and at once tried to apologize.

"I - I merely meant - "

"I suppose the Weasleys would know a great deal about how Slytherins behave," the tanned Slytherin said toward his friends rather sardonically.

"They would be expert in it," the boy next to him responded coldly, his icy blue eyes showing hatred on Rose rather than any kind of amusement. "Everyone is so determined to worship the filth that they are that they must be right in everything they think."

Bang.

A flare of red light zoomed right past Albus and hit the blue-eyed Slytherin right in the chest, knocking him roughly against the edge of the hallway. The two other Slytherins pulled out their wands and immediately made as if to retaliate as James's dark-haired friend pulled out his wand and shot a white spell that just grazed past the broad-shouldered Slytherin's left ear.

"What's going on here?"

At that moment Victoire Weasley came strolling down the hallway, already dressed in her robes adorned with Ravenclaw colors and a Head Girl badge. Her honey blond hair was cut into a manageable bob with bangs curling along either side of her pale, freckled face to frame her Weasley-brown eyes.

James immediately spoke up, his freckled face blazing with righteousness and his grip on his wand never slackening. "Slinkhard insulted our family."

"We did not start this," the tanned Slytherin retorted as he pulled up on his blue-eyed companion's arm to help him to his feet.

"You started it by coming in here, Alameen - " James's dark-haired friend snapped back.

"Whoever started it, you did not have to reciprocate."

Albus turned around to see another boy standing behind him. This one, dressed in Ravenclaw robes and a prefect badge, was taller than all of the other boys with a black ponytail and a slightly large nose that was almost a stain on an otherwise handsome face. His amber-brown eyes were so endless and cold when they brushed over Albus that the first-year couldn't help but shrink back a bit.

"I must say, Mr. Slinkhard," the prefect drawled, "I would have thought you, Mr. Alameen, and Mr. Macnair would act more maturely upon being insulted...especially considering you are fifth years. Of course - " he then rounded on James and his friends with a cold eye, " - I would have also thought that Mr. Dane and Mr. Shefter would be smart enough to not pick fights with older students. I can expect it of Mr. Potter, but I thought that two extra brains would be enough to fill the void in his head."

James flushed almost as red as his messy hair and reacted angrily, but Albus couldn't help but bite back a smile at his brother being reproached for what he did - he hated that Slinkhard had insulted his family, but James had been a real jerk.

"When we get to the castle," Victoire said seriously, "I will deduct five points each from Gryffindor and Slytherin."

"What?" yelped James. "But we won't even have any points yet!"

"Then you'll be at five under," Victoire replied coolly. "And if I see you or your friends starting any more fights, James, I'll consider putting you at twenty-five under."

James looked as though he wanted to argue further, but knew it would only make him lose more points, and so he settled with grumbling under his breath.

"Just because I caught you and Teddy snogging at the station - "

"That has nothing to do with it and you know it," Victoire snapped, sounding angry for the first time as her face flushed a dark red. She then added to the three Slytherins a bit more sharply, "Move along and find a compartment, you three, go on."

Slinkhard, Alameen, and Macnair, with dirty scowls toward Victoire, moved past Albus, Rose and the Ravenclaw prefect, and continued down the hallway without another word.

"It really wasn't fair for you to take points off, Victoire," Rose said once they had gone, looking a bit meek. "It was my fault that it happened - if I hadn't insulted them - "

"Don't worry about it, Rosie," Victoire stopped her. With the departure of the fifth-year Slytherins and the ending of the conflict, her face gained a warm smile that made her more resemble the red-haired members of her family. "As Llyr said, they retaliated - that's just as bad."

Albus glanced upward toward the prefect called Llyr, who was still standing behind him, and couldn't keep himself from recoiling again when he looked down at him.

"So this is the younger Potter, hmm?" the older boy inquired. His amber-brown eyes were so unreadable they were almost hollow.

"Yup, that's my brother!" James said proudly, giving a big, cheesy grin despite himself.

James's dark-haired friend, the one presumably called Shefter, poked his head out of the compartment to look at Albus better. "He looks scrawnier than I would've thought - I know you said he was small, Jay, but I figured he'd be at least a little bigger than a Pygmy Puff."

Albus went red and fixed him with his most indignant glare as the button-nosed boy called Dane sniggered in response. Seemed James's friends were just as much bullies as he was.

But Llyr didn't pay any mind to the third-year Gryffindors. Instead he kept his focus on Albus and, after a moment, his mouth curled up in a rather handsome smile.

"Victoire has told me that you are less of a troublemaker than your brother," he said, "so I suppose I can hope that we'll be on pleasant terms, Mr. Potter, whichever house you end up in."

It was strange to Albus, being called "Mr. Potter", as that title was usually reserved for his father. Still, it seemed at least that Llyr was a friend of Victoire's, and so he offered his best, brightest smile in return.

"Y - yeah!"

He certainly didn't want to be on this prefect's bad side, after all.

Llyr then brought his hollow eyes around to study Rose. "And you must be Ron Weasley's daughter, yes?"

He glanced at Victoire as if check to check that this was true, and the Head Girl gave a nod of assent.

"You know me?" Rose asked, a bit surprised.

"Victoire has understandably mentioned her family a few times in the seven years I've known her," Llyr answered lightly. "And of course both of your parents are rather well-known in the Ministry of Magic."

"Ah - yes."

Rose looked as though she was sheepishly thinking she should have guessed that.

Victoire, smiling slightly at Llyr, then brought her hands onto her and Albus's shoulders.

"Well, come along, then," she said. "The others are in a compartment at the far end of the train. I'll have to patrol the hallways with the other prefects and Winslow - that's our Head Boy, he's a good chap - but I'll check on you in a little bit, all right?"

"All right," Rose and Albus said in unison.

As they walked off, they heard James call after them, "See you at school, you two! Look out for the Giant Squid!"

"Giant Squid?" repeated Albus.

"In the Hogwarts lake," Rose replied smartly. "If we'll be going in the boats when we get there, I suppose we'll see it - Dad said sometimes the Squid overturns boats, but I'm pretty sure he was kidding - "

The two first years, black-haired and red-haired, squeezed past a duo of fourth-year Hufflepuff girls on their way toward the far end of the train. Albus glanced absently into the windows of the full compartments as they passed them - gosh, a lot of them seemed overly full, was it normal for girls to be sitting in their friends' laps on the Hogwarts Express? - and couldn't help but wonder where the other first years were.

Albus stopped a bit abruptly, backtracking to a compartment that he'd given only a short glance. Through the window, the compartment looked empty except for one lone small figure.

"Hold on, this compartment only has one person in it - I think it's a first year!"

Rose doubled back and curiously peeked through the hazed-up window. Almost at once, though, the interest left her face, to be replaced with dullness.

"We don't want to sit with him, Al," she said. "That's Malfoy's son."

Albus blinked. "The one that Uncle Ron mentioned?"

He'd seen Mr. Malfoy a few times before, mostly at Ministry Christmas functions that he, James and Lily were dragged to by their parents. He'd never seen him talk to his parents - which Uncle Ron said was appropriate considering he had been a Death Eater and was a "good-for-nothing git" - in fact, Mr. Malfoy didn't seem to talk to much of anyone at all.

"Scorpius is his name, I think," Rose said, looking quite disapproving of the fellow first year. "I'm sure he'll be in Slytherin - his father was too, they look just like each other."

Albus sneaked a better look through the window, his nose pressing up against the glass as he looked in.

He supposed the boy in the compartment did have more than a passing similarity to his pale, gray-eyed father, but his light blond hair was a lot looser and wavier than Mr. Malfoy's. The boy's posture was only modestly straight, lacking any of his father's rigidity, and he currently had a pair of small glasses resting on his nose as he read a book, his eyes boring into the page with absolute focus. Really, aside from him being all by himself like his father often seemed to be, the two Malfoys seemed quite different.

Albus came away from the window with a mellow look on his face. "People say I look like my dad too, Rosie. Looks don't mean much."

"That's different," Rose insisted. "Your father is a great man and his is - well - he's just sure to be trouble!"

"Sure," Albus answered a bit sarcastically, "he'll no doubt read us all to death."

Rose pretended to ignore this and started again down the hall.

"Come on, we better go find the others - oof!"

She had moved before looking where she was going, and in doing so had collided with someone walking the opposite direction.

"Ah - sorry!" said the stranger. "Guess I should have been looking where I was going..."

Stumbling backward, Rose looked up at perhaps the strangest girl Albus had ever seen in his life.

Although she wore first-year robes, she was quite gangly, towering a good half-a-foot over Albus, who was likewise several inches taller than Rose. Her messy pigtails and eyebrows were as pitch black as Albus's, but it couldn't have been natural, considering how starkly the color sat against her pale skin and her bright blue eyes, outlined with dark eyeshadow and eyeliner that made her look like she had two black eyes. She had several stickers on her face, including a heart-shaped one on the apple of her left cheek and a star by the corner of her smiling mouth, which was marked in pale and unnatural-looking lavender lipstick. Her black-painted nails looked like tiny beetles on the ends of her long, bony fingers and from her ears dangled a large pair of bright pink skull earrings. Even with how dark her appearance was, however, the girl's face was as alight and cheerful as a happy toddler's.

"I was just so caught up in my book," the girl continued pleasantly, holding up the paperback book she'd been reading in explanation and not seeming to care that Rose was left speechless by her appearance. "You know how it is, when you get so close to the end that you just can't put it down? I can't even really look for a compartment all that well, I've been so distracted by it - I'm Sam Fina!"

She cheerfully offered a hand to Rose as if to shake hands. On her fingers were several cheap, plastic rings, all of which had shades appropriate to colored highlighters.

Rose looked down at Sam's hand dumbly, at first not quite sure how to reply. Albus gave her a light poke in the ribs, and finally she extended a freckled hand to shake it.

"Rose - Rose Weasley."

"Weasley..."

Sam absently shook Rose's hand as she considered the name, as if trying to remember if she'd heard of it.

Her face then lit up again.

"Ah, right! The woman at the Leaky Cauldron mentioned the name Weasley - Percy Weasley, I think! Is that your dad, then?"

"No, he's - my uncle," Rose replied awkwardly as she finally detached her hand from Sam's. "My dad is Ron Weasley."

Sam gave a strangely excited smile that made her heavily stenciled eyes go as bright as a car's headlights. "The Weasleys must be a big wizard family, then! That must be awfully exciting - I don't know many wizards, you see, my parents were Muggles - 'Mudblood' would be your term for me, right?"

Rose and Albus were horrified by this question, and stumbled over each other trying to correct her.

"N - no, no, that's certainly not it - "

"That's not right at all - "

"That word wouldn't be what we'd - "

"We'd call you Muggle-born," Albus finished at last, very firmly. "A Muggle-born student."

Sam seemed curious as to why they were stammering so much, but took more interest in Albus's answer.

"'Muggle-born' - ah, well, that works! It certainly matches the word 'Muggle' a lot better than 'Mudblood', but some other first-year girls near the front of the train called me it, so I thought that was what we were called - guess they must have made a mistake. Maybe they're Muggle-born too!"

Sam gave a short, strangled laugh that sounded like a yowling cat just as a toddler decided to jump on its back and flatten it against the floor.

"Well, I think I'll just sit down somewhere and finish my book - see you at the Sorting, Rose!"

With this, she yanked open the door to the compartment Malfoy was sitting in. The opening of the door visibly startled the blond boy, making him jump a bit as his eyes shot up to Sam.

"Hi there!" she greeted cheerfully. "Mind if I sit here?"

For a moment Albus wondered if Malfoy was going to tell her to get out. After a brief moment, however, he shook his head silently, and Sam immediately took the cue to shut the compartment door and plop down on the seat across from him.

Rose, looking immensely relieved that the strange girl was now Malfoy's problem, exhaled very loudly before starting up the hallway again.

Albus watched Rose walk down the train-car and gave one more glance inside the compartment where he expected to see both Sam and Malfoy reading in intense silence.

When he did, he was startled to see Malfoy looking up from his book and right at him. His gray eyes weren't exactly hostile, but they were still penetrating enough to make one anxious.

Albus gave a weak smile through the compartment window, before hurrying to catch up with Rose at the end of the train. She had opened up a door, obviously having found the rest of the Weasleys.

"There you are, Rosie!" came the voice of Fred. "We were wondering where you and Al had gone off to - "

"Well, it would have been good if you'd made some friends with the other first years," the voice of Lucy pointed out diplomatically. "But it is good to see you, anyway - where's Albus?"

At that moment the dark-skinned face of Fred poked out of the compartment. He grinned seeing Albus coming down the hallway toward them.

"Ah, there he is, there he is - come on in, Al, we got us a nice bunch of stuff from the trolley!"

Albus followed Rose into the compartment so as to join their cousins. As Fred had hinted, the cushioned benches were nearly covered with stacks of Chocolate Frogs, boxes of Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans, tied bunches of Licorice Wands, and all other manner of magical sweets. Albus rather thought it made it look like his cousins were drowning in junk food.

"Did you really need to buy this much?" asked Rose, trying to bite back a smile.

"Well, what else was I supposed to do with the allowance I saved up?" Fred asked in return.

He and his second-year sister, Roxanne, were the only Weasleys without freckles, standing out even more than Albus with their coffee-colored skin and curly black hair. Fred's hair was a trimmed ball of fuzz on his head, while Roxanne's was a large, shoulder-length mane around her face. Appropriate to their parents George and Angelina, both of them wore Gryffindor robes.

"It's a better idea than trying to put it in your Gringotts account so you can save up for your future," Roxanne teased her brother, acting as though she were three years older than him rather than a year younger.

Shoving aside a bunch of Pumpkin Pasties, Albus picked up a Chocolate Frog and moved to sit next to Roxanne with a grin.

"Isn't there supposed to be a big feast when we get to Hogwarts? That's what Dad told me."

"Yeah, there is," assented Dominique, the eldest Weasley in the compartment, as she took a large bite out of a Cauldron Cake that her mother Fleur would have greatly disapproved of. "But it's a long train ride - it's better to buy too much and save it for later than be stuck waiting for dinner."

Like her older sister Victoire, the sixteen-year-old Dominique had brown eyes, robes adorned with Ravenclaw colors, and a pale, freckled face, but her blond hair was long and silky and she was willowy enough that she looked quite a bit more Delacour than Weasley. She also had a voice that hinted Delacour more than Weasley, one that sat very lightly at the top of her throat, which could hint to the small amount of Veela blood in her.

"Not if it makes you sick," Lucy chastised lightly with a laugh.

Percy's younger daughter, who was the only Hufflepuff in the Weasley family and was starting her fourth year, had brown hair just as dark as Dominique's hair was light and tied into a large braid that ran down her back. The blue eyes that sat behind her rectangular glasses were identical in color and shape to her father's, but held a sweeter and softer light that made her look younger than she actually was.

Albus bit into his Chocolate Frog and pocketed the Agrippa card that had been inside the wrapping. Perhaps when he got to the castle, he could let Wendelin out and send the card to Lily with a letter to his parents. At the very least, it might make her feel better about not being able to come with him and James to Hogwarts - at least until she randomly decided to be upset about it again.

As she sat down next to Dominique, Rose glanced around the compartment.

"...Where's Molly?" she asked after a moment.

"Prefect duty," answered Roxanne. "Prefects have to patrol the hallways during the first half of the train ride, so I guess we'll be seeing her later."

"If she doesn't spend the entire ride with the other prefects," Fred scoffed slightly. "You know how much she loves bossing everyone around..."

Albus knew. Lucy's older sister Molly, who was a sixth-year Gryffindor, became a prefect like Victoire had in her fifth year, but unlike Victoire, Molly was bossy and very much liked being in charge and took the chance to do so whenever she could. Uncle George often compared her to her father, Percy, as a kid, who had also been a prefect and a stickler for the rules. Albus never knew Molly to tell people to do things without a good reason, but he could absolutely see her enjoying the power of a prefect as well as its duties.

Lucy crossed her arms, her eyes very patient even through her amused smile. "'Bossing people around' is part of her job, Fred. Besides, she has good reason to be happy about what she does...being a prefect is special."

"Only if it helps get us out of trouble, if you ask me," drawled Fred, lounging back in an attitude that reminded Albus of James.

"Prefects are not supposed to be your ticket out of detention," Dominique said coolly, her brown eyes narrowing just slightly.

"Maybe not, but it certainly helps, doesn't it?" Fred answered with a playful grin. "And hey, people can't really expect you to sell out your own family - "

Again the memory of James mocking Macnair, Slinkhard, and Alameen panged through Albus's mind, and he gave a greatly disapproving frown.

"You shouldn't be let off just because your family catches you doing something - that's pathetic."

He at once felt as though he'd been a bit harsh, as his cousins all looked at him with surprise. His face flushed the color of a beet.

"Well, I mean, think about it - what if some - some really nasty family had a kid, and that kid became a prefect or Head Boy or Head Girl - you'd think that they were pretty nasty blighters if they favored their family over everyone else, or their house over everyone else..."

He broke off, feeling embarrassed, and leaned over to grab another Chocolate Frog so he could be distracted by unwrapping it.

Lucy came to his rescue.

"You're absolutely right, Albus," she agreed gently. "It would be incredibly unfair."

Fred and Roxanne were frowning slightly, but did not vocally disagree; Dominique and Rose, however, gave Albus slight smiles as well.

"Ha, with that kind of attitude," said Dominique around the Licorice Wand dangling from her mouth, "maybe you'll end up in Hufflepuff, Albus."

"I don't know about that," Roxanne argued. "Rosie and Al are both pretty bright, I could see them in Ravenclaw."

"Rosie, maybe, but mostly logical sorts go to Ravenclaw," Fred commented lightly. "Al can get real wussy - 'specially if James riles him up."

Albus stuck his tongue out at Fred, but gave a slight smile anyway as he bit into the new Chocolate Frog. "...Well, it would probably be best if I were in Gryffindor, right?"

"Not really," Dominique replied, turning her blond head to frown at Albus. "Why would you think it would be best?"

"Not because of Uncle Ron, I hope," Lucy added, looking dismayed.

"No, no, not really - " Albus said quickly, choking down the rest of his chocolate so he could answer, "Just - well, my dad was in Gryffindor and he's - anyway, I don't really care - as long as I'm not in Slytherin," he finished somewhat lamely.

Roxanne grinned a white grin that shone starkly against her dark skin. "Well, you won't have to worry about that, Al - only prats go to Slytherin."

Rose, however, looked a little more thoughtful as she looked at Albus.

"...Why would you think that you'd be in Slytherin anyway, Al?" she inquired at last.

Albus was visibly startled by this question.

"Oh, no reason," he denied at once, giving his best winning smile.

But his reddening face slightly betrayed that statement. In an attempt to make it less obvious, Albus looked away from his cousins and tried to casually focus on eating the rest of his Chocolate Frog.

In all honesty, there was a very good reason why he thought it, but it'd been something he hadn't wanted to mention to anyone. It was bad enough that James knew about it and had decided to torment him in response - he didn't want to think about what anyone else would think, if James decided to blab.

The memory of himself entering Ollivander's wand shop with James as his escort rippled over his mind again. Ollivander had gone through many wands to find one that might suit him - even trying wands similar to James's and to his father's, to no avail - it had been among the last of his wands that he finally found the one that flooded the entire room with light when Albus touched it.

Absently Albus found his wand inside his left jean pocket, his fingers sliding over the black wood of the magical instrument.

Ebony and unicorn hair, eleven-and-a-half inches, temperamental - the wand in itself was rather standard, looking no different and being built no differently than any other Ollivander wand. Nonetheless there was something odd about it, something that Ollivander had mentioned to him when he had asked why the wand-maker was so reluctant to sell him the wand.

Although the ingredients came from different sources, Albus's wand was the exact same measurement and made of the exact same materials as the wand of Severus Snape.