Title: Harry Potter and the Next Generation: Year One

Author: CosmicalMadison

Summary: Follow Albus Potter, Rose Weasley, Scorpius Malfoy, and Laura Longbottom through their first year of adventures and misadventures at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

Spoilers: DH epilogue

Setting: Nineteen years after DH.

Rating: K+

Disclaimer: All recognizable characters belong to JKR, and not me. It's sad, I know, but true. Laura Longbottom and anyone else you don't know, however, do belong to me. Yup, it's my little corner of the Potterverse.

Author's Note: Okay, I'm gonna make a vow here I've actually written an outline for this story and I really, really, really hope to finish it. If you've read any of my longer things before, you probably know that I'm not too good at that. Anyway, the vow: I promise that I'm going to post a new chapter at least once a week. If I don't, you have the right to complain, poke me with sharp things, or do anything else to make me get the next chapter done. Okay, now that that's over: Hope you enjoy Chapter One!

Chapter One: Train Ride

Albus Potter stood on Platform 9 ¾, starting up at the Hogwarts Express. In a matter of minutes the dark red steam engine would be carrying him off to his first year at the magical school. He was a little nervous, yet excited all the same. After all, he wouldn't be alone. His cousin, Rose Weasley, and their good friend Laura Longbottom were also starting school this year.

At that moment, a voice said in his ear, "Are you ready?"

Albus started and whirled around to see Rose standing there. He glared at her playfully. "Next time warn be before you do that sort of thing." His cousin smiled innocently as he continued, "Yeah, I'm ready. Let's go."

The two turned and said their last goodbyes to their parents and younger siblings before hoisting their luggage and boarding the train. As they walked down the hall searching for a compartment, they were met about halfway down by an older boy with messy brown hair and blue eyes.

"Hey, Teddy," said Albus with a smirk. "So you're finally done snogging Victoire?"

The other boy didn't even blush. "Yup," he said, as he reached up to straighten his hair. He smiled down at them. "So, you two are leaving for your first year, then?" Rose and Albus nodded. "Fantastic! You two will like Hogwarts. It'll take some getting used to, but you guys will do fine. People will try to tell you horror stories, but don't listen. First year isn't that hard."

Toward the front of the train, a whistle blew. "Whoa!" Teddy cried, glancing down at his watch. "I need to get going. Good luck, guys!" he threw over his shoulder, already halfway down the corridor.

"Goodbye, Teddy!" Rose called after him. "Come on," she said, turning back and grabbing her cousin's arm and pulling him down the corridor. "We need to find somewhere to sit. The train'll be leaving any minute!"

"Let go of me; I can walk myself," he replied, giggling as she let go of him. The two spend another few moments walking down the train before they came to a compartment toward the end that held only one girl.

Rose immediately slid open the door, poked her head in and said, "Hi, Laura! Do you mind if we join you?"

The girl in the compartment looked over at them, her white-blonde curls swinging with the motion. A soft smile lit on her face when she recognized them. "Hey, Rose, Albus, of course you can come in."

The two entered and stashed their trunks in the luggage rack beside Laura's before sitting down. Rose set her owl cage, holding a small bird in it between herself and the window.

At that moment, the train began to move. The three kids gathered at the window and waved to their parents and Hugo and Lily down on the platform. They laughed as the little boy chased the train to the end of the platform, then stood there waving enthusiastically after them.

When the station, full of well-wishers, had disappeared around a corner, Albus turned back to his friends. "So, which house do you guys want to be in?" he asked.

"I'm hoping for Ravenclaw, like my mum," Laura answered.

Rose said, "I want to be in Gryffindor, like my parents, though I'm not sure if I could really be considered brave enough…"

"Hmm," Laura said thoughtfully. "You seem more like a Ravenclaw to me. You're smart and witty and – "

Rose cut her off. "That's what people said about Mum, too, but she was a Gryffindor." She sighed. "Well, whatever. As long as I don't end up in Slytherin, I'll take whichever house the Sorting Hat thinks is right."

"Yeah, about that…" said Albus softly, all of his worries bubbling up to the surface again. "I've been thinking – "

"Albus," Rose chided him, "you need to stop worrying. If the Sorting Hat puts you in Slytherin, it'll be for good reason. You're not going to turn dark just because you're in the house. Besides, not everyone in there is as cruel as the people our parents knew while they were at school."

"You're right," Albus sighed, "but I still worry."

An uncomfortable silence filled the compartment until Laura, deliberately trying to change the subject, piped up. "So, Rose, is this your new owl?"

"Yeah," the girl said as she patted the cage. The tiny brown owl inside blinked at her with large black eyes. "She's a pygmy," Rose explained, "and her name is Minnie. Mum and Dad bought her for me in Diagon Alley a few days ago."

Laura squinted at the animal. "You know…she's not going to be all that good for carrying letters. I don't suppose that being so small she can carry much weight."

Rose sighed. "Why does everyone keep saying that? It's not like I'm going to be sending ten page letters home everyday. If I have something heavier that needs delivering, I'll borrow a school owl. Minnie's my pet, and I like her just the way she is."

"Hey, I didn't mean anything by it," Laura said, raising her hands in a gesture of innocence. "I was just stating a fact."

"I know," said Rose with a smile. "I'm sorry. I just get annoyed because that's like the dozenth time I've had someone tell me that."

"It's okay," Laura told her. "I understand. Anyway, my dad promised that he would get me a pet for Christmas – anything I wanted. I told him I'd like to have a crumple-horned snorkack, but since no one's every seen one and they couldn't be kept at school anyway, he said to choose something else." The girl shrugged. "I'll probably just get a cat. It's a little boring, but it's better than not having a pet, right?"

The other two nodded, and the compartment fell silent. After a few moment, Albus asked, "So, Laura, what do you think about your dad being a professor this year?"

"I don't know," she answered. "I supposed it'll be nice if I have extra questions and stuff. I'll just be talking to my dad instead of a teacher I hardly know. But it could be embarrassing too. I just hope he doesn't do anything stupid."

"Yeah," Rose said, "but you forgot something. You won't ever have to be homesick either, because your dad will always be there."

"Hey, I haven't thought of that," said Laura with a huge smile. There was a knock on the door. "Come in," Laura said in a friendly tone, but the moment a long, thin face framed by pure blonde hair and filled with bright blue eyes entered the compartment, it turned to ice. "Never mind, Malfoy," she said coldly. "We don't want you in here."

"Wha-?" the boy asked, looking hurt.

"Get!"

Startled, the boy stepped backward and slid the door closed.

As soon as he was gone, Rose and Albus rounded on their friend. "What did you do that for?" demanded Albus.

"Don't you know who that was?" Laura shot back. When no one answered, she continued, "It was Scorpius Malfoy, son of Draco Malfoy. Don't you know who that is? The one who was so cruel to our parents when they were in school, the pureblood fanatic?"

Rose narrowed her eyes dangerously. "And?"

"And?" Laura said in disbelief. "This is his son! We don't need anything to do with him."

"Laura, I can't believe you!" Rose cried. "How dare you say those things? Just because his father was like that doesn't mean Scorpius is too!"

"Really!" Albus agreed. "You didn't even give him a chance to talk. That was just mean."

"Whatever," Laura huffed, turning away. "If you want to believe that someone raised to be cruel like his parents can turn out any other way, fine. Be my guest, but you're deluding yourselves. Anyway," she said, abruptly changing the subject, "We should really put our robes on. I expect we'll be arriving soon."

Once again, awkward silence reigned as the three turned their backs to each other and slipped on their robes. When finished, they sat down again without speaking. Albus caught Rose's eye, then looked to Laura, trying to convey that they should talk to her, but his cousin shook her head. Not wanting to argue anymore, he didn't say anything.

After what seemed like a very long time, the train began to slow, then stopped. Rose, Albus, and Laura gathered their things and excited onto a dark platform on the edge of a small village. People milled about everywhere. None of them knew where to go. Albus tried to catch sight of his older brother, James, to ask where he was supposed to go, but couldn't see him anywhere.

Suddenly, a booming voice rose over all of the commotion: "Firs' years this way! Firs' years over here!"

Albus, with Rose and Laura trailing him, followed the voice to its source, a huge, hairy man who must have been nine feet tall.

"That's Rubeus Hagrid," Rose whispered. "Mum and Dad told us about him."

"Yeah." Albus nodded, remembering all the stories his parents and Uncle Ron and Aunt Hermione had told him about Hagrid and his creatures.

At that moment, the huge man caught sight of them. "Well, 'ello there!" he cried, shaking the boy's hand to hard and felt like his arm was about to be ripped from its socket. "You mus' be Albus Potter, Harry's boy!"

"Yes, I am," Albus confirmed, rubbing his shoulder.

"I knew it!" Hagrid crowed as his eyes moved over to rest on his cousin. "An' yeh'd be Rose Weasley?"

"Yes, sir," Rose said softly, a bit intimidated by the half-giant who was now speaking to her.

Hagrid winked at her, then turned to Laura and frowned in concentration. "'Fraid I don't know yeh," he said, sounding a bit puzzled.

"My name's Laura," she said. "My parents are Neville and Luna Longbottom."

"Ah, so yeh are!" Hagrid cried. "Shoulda known – yeh look jus' like yer mum." Laura smiled at this. Hagrid said, "Well, stay righ' here, and once we've gathered all the firs' years we'll be makin' our trip teh the school." He looked up over the heads of the milling students and started yelling again, "Firs' years! Firs' years over here!"

When his attention was gone, Laura turned Rose and Albus looking sorrowful. "Okay," she said regretfully. "I'm sorry that I acted like that to Scorpius. It's just that I'm not going to believe he's any different than his father until I see it for myself, all right? But I don't want to fight with you guys. Will you forgive me?"

Albus looked into her pleading green eyes and knew he couldn't stay mad at her. "All right," he said. "I forgive you." He couldn't stand the thought of only having a few people he knew at Hogwarts and one of them not talking to him.

Laura smiled gratefully. "Thank you, Albus." She turned to Rose, her face full of trepidation.

The other girl heaved a huge sigh before answered. "Well," she said slowly. "I don't think I can forgive you for how you treated that boy before he had even said or done anything. I mean, how would you like it if someone did that to you?" Laura's face fell. "But," Rose continued, "I don't want to fight either. Just agree that we'll at least give Scorpius a chance, all right?"

"Definitely," Laura said. "Thanks."

At this point, the kids looked up to see there was a crowd of at least fifty or more boys and girls their age now gathered in a rough circle with Hagrid in the center. The professor was looking around, appearing to count in his head. "All righ'," he said finally. "Tha' seems to be ev'ryone. This way!"

The group began to move, Hagrid now in the lead. Back toward the middle, Albus, Rose, and Laura were unable to see where they were going. After several minutes, Hagrid's voice floated back to them again, "Here we are!" The group stopped and spread out. Moving forward, Albus saw that they were on the bank of a large lake. There were two dozen boats or so spread a long the shore, each with a tiny lantern hanging off of them.

"Four people per boat, please," Hagrid instructed as students began to move forward.

"I remember Dad and Mum telling me about this," Laura said as the three of them climbed into one of the tiny craft.

Albus looked around the crowded shore, wondering who would join them. Several boats over, he saw Scorpius looked at them. When their eyes locked, the other boy quickly looked away and climbed into a boat with a couple of other boys. Albus felt bad for him. He was sure Scorpius couldn't be as bad as Laura thought.

After a while, another boy came over and said, "Hey, I'm Tavarias. Do you guys mind if I join you?"

"Of course not," Rose answered, patting the empty seat next to her. "Get in."

"Thanks," Tavarias said with a smile as he sat beside her.

"Um, I think we're supposed to go," Laura said, pointing. The others followed her gaze to see that about a dozen of the boats had already left the bank, with Hagrid in the lead.

"Oops," Albus said as he grabbed one oar and handed the other to Laura on the opposite side of the boat.

Seconds later, they too had left the shore, and the fleet of boats was off. It only took them about ten minutes to cross the lake, but they enjoyed. Rose kept spouting off about how poetic it was the way the crescent moon and the stars reflected on the black lake until the boys (and finally Laura too) decided to just ignore her.

When they arrived on the other side, Hagrid led the group up a steep hill to the entrance of the Hogwarts. Soft gasps came from the first years as the magnificent castle with its towers and turrets came into view. "'Ere we are," Hagrid said finally as they stopped in front of a huge set of battered wooden doors. He knocked, and a moment later the doors opened to reveal an elderly witch with white hair wearing emerald green dress robes.

"Good evening," she said, and the assembled students immediately fell silent. Her voice was soft, but carried an air of authority enough to fill the grounds. "Welcome to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry," she continued. "I am Minerva McGonagall, headmistress and professor of Transfiguration here at the school. In a few moments, you will be led into the Great Hall, where your fellow students now wait, for the Sorting Ceremony. Now, I know this experience can be a little frightening, but try to remain calm. I will call you up one by one and place the Sorting Hat on your head. The Hat will call out your house, and once it has done so, I will remove it and you may sit at your house table. Are there any questions?" She looked over the students, and the students looked at each other, but no one said anything. "No? Then follow me, please."

Albus moved forward with the rest of the first years, worrying, he thought, more than most about which house he was about to be placed in. The moment of truth was drawing near.