"Colin!" Lily yelped as she grabbed his arm and dragged him alongside her, "You're so slow! We're going to be late for the train!"

"The train doesn't leave for another five minutes, Lily," Mr. Creevey chuckled amusedly.

"Yeah," Albus agreed with a nod of his head, "You're going to rip his arm clean off if you keep that up."

A heavily panting James hurried up to them, loaded with Lily's trunk, owl cage, and violin. He stopped next to Albus and said while gasping for breath, "You— could've helped— with— me— with her— stuff."

"I was too busy saving Colin from having his arm ripped off," Albus replied casually.

"Oh, sorry, James," Lily apologized and grabbed Artemis's cage and her violin case.

"What house do you think we'll be in?" Colin asked excitedly.

"My bet is Gryffindor," Ginny said when she and Harry had caught up to them.

Harry laughed, "You bet Gryffindor all the time!"

"I'd say Ravenclaw," Ron interjected with a firm grasp on Hugo's shoulder as if he would run off in excitement like Lily.

"I second that," Lily's father said, nodding his agreement.

"What do you think, Aunt Hermione?" Albus asked, "You're usually right."

Hermione looked at Lily and her eyebrows knitted in deep thought and she answered, "Hufflepuff."

"Hufflepuff?" Colin repeated questionably.

"I don't see why not," Hermione said, shrugging, "The kind, the loyal, Lily would fit right in. And now that I think about it, you would too, Colin."

"And Hugo would make a great Gryffindor," Ron announced proudly.

"Yeah," Lily replied, "He's not much Ravenclaw material though."

In response to this, Hugo smacked her on the arm none to gently.

Harry checked his watch and said, "Three minutes until you leave, you should board now."

She put down her cage and case. Lily gave her parents one last hug before grabbing her possessions once more and began to follow Colin. She gave one last look back at her parents and called, "Remember to write to me!"

"We will!" Ginny called back and her father said, "Of course! Don't get into too much trouble."

Lily tried to suppress the urge to roll her eyes. Harry Potter, of all people, was telling her to not get into trouble. Lily smiled at them one more time before following Colin and Hugo on to the train. Rose and Albus were in conversation ahead of them. And as Lily took one step into the train, she heard her mother say, "And tell James to stop blowing up toilets!"

Albus and Rose had left them on the train with a quick wave when they spotted Scorpius Malfoy. Lily, Hugo, and Colin found an empty compartment. James stayed with them to help them with their trunks before leaving to go find his partner in crime, Fred. He told them, "Have fun, first years! I'm going to go blow up some toilets with Fred!"

"Mum told you to stop doing that," Lily pointed out.

He gave her a cheeky smile and replied, "Fine. I've always wondered how explosive urinals were anyway." And then he left.

Lily looked out the window and saw her parents, Hermione, and Ron waving them farewell with broad, happy smiles. She grinned and waved back as the train began to move. Lily continued to look at them until the train went around corner and she lost sight of them.

"Agh! Frank, your trunk is so heavy," came a voice from outside their compartment.

"Yours isn't exactly the lightest trunk either," another voice grumbled back.

Hugo got up and slid open the compartment door. A boy with dirty blond hair and bright brown eyes poked his head in from around the corner. Frank Longbottom asked, "Can we squeeze into your compartment, Lily?"

"No problem," she answered, "Where's Alice?"

"Right here," said a girl with the same color hair and eyes as Frank. Her hair was just much longer. The two were twins and almost looked identical, despite their opposite genders. She heaved a trunk in and, at the same time, the train rounded another corner. Alice lost her balance and fell while Frank steadied himself by grabbing the handle of the compartment's door. Lily quickly stifled a giggle by pretending she was coughing.

"Let me help you with those," Colin said kindly while casting a half-amused, half-irritated glance at Lily, "Since Lily obviously isn't going to."

He extended out his hand to help Alice up. She grabbed it and pulled herself up nodding gratefully at him. He took her trunk while Hugo helped with Frank's. Colin took a deep breath before lifting Alice's trunk and placing it in the overhead bin. Afterward, he slouched back into his seat breathlessly and panted, "What do you keep in there?"

"Every book she could find," Frank muttered.

"Who do you take me for? Rose? Anyway," she switched her attention to Colin, "it's nice to see you again, Colin."

"Why're you taking your violin to Hogwarts?" Frank said and pointed to Lily's violin case overhead.

"She's got to practice," Hugo said with a tone that made it seem like it should've been obvious, which it was. "And keep up with her lessons."

"How're you going to manage to do that?"

"The Room of Requirement," Colin and Lily answered simultaneously.

"Oh, yeah," Frank in obvious contemplation.

"Oh! What house do you think you guys will be in?" Alice exclaimed in excitement.

The five first years talked animatedly for a while about their expectations of the long awaited Hogwarts. A witch came by pushing a trolley loaded with magical sweets. She left their compartment looking fairly harassed and more than half of the trolley had been emptied. Lily, Hugo, Colin, Alice, and Frank spent the next few hours playing Exploding Snap, wizard's chess, chatting happily, and stuffing their faces with sweets.

They had lost track of the time when fifteen year old Pandora Longbottom opened their compartment door. She took in the scene of the jovial first years with a gleaming Ravenclaw prefect's badge pinned to her chest. Not for the first time, Lily thought girl looked almost exactly like her mother. Her clear blue eyes twinkled with a odd curiosity identical to Luna Longbottom's. And her brown hair inherited from her father, Neville, was tied back neatly.

"Hey, big sister," Frank said as he played an intense game of Exploding Snap with Colin.

Pandora seemed to not have heard him and picked up a Chocolate Frog out of their pile. "This many Chocolate Frogs can't possibly be good for you guys."

The five younger children shrugged as she rolled her eyes. She threw the Chocolate Frog back into the pile and told them, "You five had better change into your school robes. I expect we'll be arriving soon."

As she left, Alice called out, "Pandora, how's James?"

Her sister spun around to glare at her but her face was steadily growing red. She stomped off grumpily muttering about nosy siblings.

"What was that all about?" Lily asked with genuine confusion.

Frank and Alice exchanged slightly devilish smirks and said at the same time, "We think Pandora fancies your brother!"

Lily and Hugo couldn't help but laugh, much to Colin's confusion (Lily didn't blame him. He had, after all, just met Pandora).

The twins joined in and Colin still sat there trying to find what was so funny, "I don't get it."

"Well—" Hugo began with a hiccuping gasp as he tried to stop laughing to explain it to Colin, "you've just met Pandora so you don't know what she's like. But you know what James is like by now, I'm sure."

Colin nodded and Hugo continued his explanation, "James is a troublemaker and doesn't set much store by the rules, as you can tell since he told us earlier that he was going to go blow up urinals. Pandora, however, she's—"

"Uptight, a perfectionist, star student, worships rules, and loathes getting into trouble," Lily finished for him.

He nodded his agreement, "Exactly. They don't have much in common."

Colin finally grinned and said, "I get it now."

"They have one thing in common, though," Frank pointed out.

"What's that?" Colin said.

"They're both mental," Frank stated as if it were obvious.

Alice raised an eyebrow. "What do you mean?"

"Insanity is part of James's nature, you've met the guy. You know what he's like. No offense, Lily," he added and Lily inclined her head to tell him to continue, "And Pandora is always going on those crazy expeditions with Mum to prove the Wrackspurt Conspiracy or something about Nargles. She even researches that stuff and always goes on and on about that sort of thing. Wrackspurts, Nargles, heliopaths, you name it."

The rest of them laughed at that.

"Well, it's just what Pandora and Luna do. I wouldn't say they're mental, though. Just very... Abstract," Lily said as she pulled down the blinds, "Now get out, I'm going to change in here."

Alice stayed (seeing as she was a girl too) and the three boys marched out. They stood outside the compartment and faced the other way out of courtesy. Lily still didn't trust them to stay like that the whole time she and Alice were changing so she grabbed a spare cloak and pinned it to the door to cover them as an extra precaution. After the two girls had finished changing into their robes and school uniforms, they switched with the boys.

A few minutes later, the train came to a stop. The five of them excitedly left their belongings there to be taken to their dorms and got off the train. Lily gave a hesitant glance at her violin, hoping it would be in good hands, and then followed her friends.

A large man named Hagrid, whom Lily had known since she was very young, led them to some boats awaiting for them. Luckily, the night was crisp and clear and their journey was smooth. Lily, Hugo, and Colin had gotten into one boat while Frank and Alice got into one shared with another first year.

And then Lily got her first true look at what she knew would be her second home. The castle stood tall and proud. Bright, joyful light came from the windows. The whole scene filled her with warmth and a feeling of merriment. She loved everything about it. Even the name felt right and blissful on her tongue.

Hogwarts.