Fabula Post Bellum:

A Potter Fanfiction

Chapter 1: The Departing

The throng of waving spectators had long disappeared into the distance, but he continued staring out of the window, almost in the hopes that in doing so he could turn back the clock. All he wanted in this moment was to see their smiling faces for a few seconds more…

Which was a funny thing, really, because he had been looking forward to this day since he was a quite small boy, barely able to understand that he was a wizard. As the days wore on, though – as summer ended and August gave way to September – that anticipation had melded with a sense of apprehension, even perhaps fear.

He could barely see his reflection in the window as the train chugged along around the edge of London. A dark-haired boy looked back at him with bright, startlingly green eyes.

A lot of people told Albus Potter nowadays that he was not unlike his own father had been at eleven years old – kindhearted, a bit quiet, and curious.

Albus knew the truth, though. He and his father, although they looked rather alike, had several deliberate differences.

Albus had spent months preparing for this day. Today was the first of September, and not just any first of September; it was the first of September after his eleventh birthday, which was an important day indeed for wizards in his part of the world. Today was the day he started his education at one of Europe's foremost institutions for people of his ilk: Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. There was very little mystery to young Albus's life. He showed his first traces of magical power during his toddler years, leaving no doubt that he was indeed a wizard.

His father hadn't been that fortunate. His father had grown up around Muggles – nonmagical folk – with no idea that this world existed, let alone that he had always been meant for this world.

"…But that was until a ten-foot-tall half-giant knocked down our door, handed me my Hogwarts letter, and told me that I was a wizard… all to the tune of about five minutes," his father had recounted on several occasions, almost always with a chuckle. It seemed that now, more than twenty years removed from the events, he had come to terms with the bizarreness of his own story. Even as wizards went, his father was unique; still, Albus had learned very quickly to take his father's word on things.

Albus, on the other hand, was much like most wizards. He grew up around wizards his entire childhood; he didn't need anyone to explain to him about the Ministry of Magic (after all, his father and several of his relatives worked there) or what Diagon Alley was. Being a wizard was part of his identity. It was normal for him. It was the Muggles that were different. Not worse, just… different.

Of course, the one thing that did make Albus different from most wizards was his name.

(He heard his father's voice from about an hour ago saying it in full:) Albus Severus Potter.

He sighed as he leaned his head back against the cushioned chair. He loved his father dearly, but honestly, what had the man been thinking? Having the Potter name as a collar was bad enough… but Albus Severus Potter?

He was named after not one, not two, but three of the most famous wizards of their generations. Not to mention "Albus" wasn't a particularly common name, even among wizarding folk. (That was part of the reason everyone called him "Al" for short.)

"All right there, Al?" a somewhat sneering voice from directly across the compartment rang out. Albus tore his eyes from the window and stared straight into the brown ones of a slightly older boy. This other boy's hair was brownish and quite wild. A shadow of a smirk sat on his face. "You're awfully quiet."

"I feel like I'm gonna be sick," Albus admitted. He never did know whether anything he said to his older brother, James, would prompt a compassionate response or laughter at his expense. James Sirius Potter was every bit like his namesakes, especially with his rather brutal penchant for humor. James had teased him the entire trip about one of his main fears – up until their mother had chewed him out, that is. "Are you sure you didn't –"

"I told you," interrupted James, mildly annoyed. "I don't know that jinx. I begged Uncle Ron to teach it to me, but he wouldn't. I dunno why, he knew it his second year –"

Albus sighed loudly. It was his way of letting James know that he wasn't interested in knowing why they weren't allowed to learn a jinx that made its target belch slugs.

"Are you still on about the Slytherin thing?" James asked with a smirk. "I mean, I'm sure Mum and Dad would still love you if you were on the fast track to be the next Vol—"

"That's not funny, James," Albus snapped, and James stopped immediately. Albus rarely ever snapped. "But… really… out of all our cousins, how many have been in Gryffindor? Almost the whole family."

"Too right, the 'whole family'," James repeated. "They might as well rename Gryffindor the 'House of Weasley.'"

James and Albus weren't just part of the Potter family. Their mother, Ginny, was a Weasley – one of seven children of Arthur and Molly Weasley, who lived in Ottery St. Catchpole.

Well, six children – Albus never had the chance to meet his Uncle Fred, who died in battle years before he was born. But everyone always talked about his sense of humor. He thought his Uncle Fred and James would have gotten on very well.

In any case, the fact that their mother had that many siblings meant that they had many cousins as well. Their Uncle Bill and Aunt Fleur lived at Shell Cottage on the coast and had three children. Victoire was the oldest (and the exception to the rule – she had been sorted into Ravenclaw). She was in her last year at Hogwarts. Albus hadn't thought to go see her on the train. She was probably in a compartment with a bunch of her giggling girlfriends, after all. Dominique was a third year and may have been in a girl group of her own. Louis was unfortunate enough to turn eleven on September the second. If he'd been born a couple of days earlier, he'd be on the train with them right now. As it was, he had to wait another year.

His Uncle George (Fred's twin) and his wife had twins – Freddy and Roxanne. They were both… fourth years, Albus was reasonably sure.

Uncle Percy's children – both girls – were too young to attend Hogwarts. Aside from the one Weasley brother who remained a bachelor to this day, Percy was the last to marry by a considerable margin.

Their mother, Ginny, was the youngest. Albus and James had a little sister – Lily – who was a nine-year-old miniature of Ginny herself.

Then there were Uncle Ron and Aunt Hermione –

THUMP. Albus jumped.

"Bloody hell, Al," swore James. Albus had to suppress a guilty laugh; their mother would have thrown a fit if she'd ever heard James talking like that. "You're making me nervous now. Calm down, will you?"

He stood and walked over to a door, sliding it open. A smiling girl with slightly bushy, reddish-brown hair was already in her dark Hogwarts robes. Albus's heart leapt a bit.

"Oh – hi, Rose," James said casually.

"Hey," she said a bit breathlessly. "You don't mind if –"

"Are you mental?" interrupted James. "Only boys allowed!"

Rose frowned.

"…Which is what I'd say if I weren't in a good mood," James laughed, stepping aside. "Come in!"

She planted herself directly next to Albus, leaning on him semi-jokingly by way of a show of affection. Rose was the first of Uncle Ron and Aunt Hermione's two children (her brother, Hugo, was two years younger) and the other member of the family that was to start Hogwarts this year. She was one of their many cousins, but she was almost as much of a sister to Albus as Lily. Rose and Hugo Weasley might as well have grown up under the Potters' roof, as much as they visited.

"So what's the matter?" James asked. "Couldn't find any girls to sit with?"

"Of course I could," said Rose, looking uncomfortable. Rose was extremely intelligent, but a bit socially awkward. "But I just wanted to be with family instead. Is there something wrong with that? I don't see you with your friends."

"They're around," said James, stretching himself out on the seat that he had all to himself. "I just had to make sure ickle Al here didn't soil his trousers on the train."

Albus frowned.

"So what House do you think you'll be in?" she asked very quickly.

(A loud hissing noise issued from James's general direction. Albus tried to ignore him.)

"Dunno," Albus said. "Probably Gryffindor, I guess. Almost all our family have been…"

"Whatever decision the Hat makes, I hope it's quick," Rose commented, her brow creasing in a frown. "I'd rather not be a Hatstall."

"Yeah, nobody likes a Hatstall," James agreed. "Partly 'cause we can't eat 'til the Sorting's done."

Hogwarts was split into four Houses, or 'teams', as it were – each named after the school's four founders: Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff, and Slytherin. First-year students were placed into these Houses based on certain character traits seen in them by a centuries-old, sentient, mind-reading hat.

That was the way of wizards, so Albus had no problem believing it. But he did wonder how his father, who hadn't been brought up a wizard, must have reacted to hearing something like that.

"Sorry," Albus uttered, "but what's a Hatstall?"

He'd never heard the term used before.

"It's where the Sorting Hat can't decide where to put you. Usually it takes about fifteen seconds, but with Hatstalls it's known to go on five minutes – or longer," Rose explained. "Mum was almost one. She ended up in Gryffindor, but the Hat thought of putting her in Ravenclaw for a moment."

"Makes sense," commented James. "Aunt Hermione's, like, a genius. But a bit lucky she ended up in Gryffindor, really. Otherwise, she and Uncle Ron might have never got to know each other, and you wouldn't be here talking about it."

Albus winced. James might have had a point. Still, there was no such thing as a gentle way to theorize a person out of existence.

"There's no guarantee of that," Rose said, her voice a bit clipped. Albus had been around her long enough to know she only did that when she was annoyed. "Just because you're in different Houses doesn't mean that you can't… well, you know…"

"O…kay, can we talk about something else now?" James asked. "I don't wanna talk about… that."

Albus never voiced his opinion, but he always thought he'd had a more mature view on romance than his older brother, whose twelve-year-old mind seemed torn between curiosity and revulsion whenever it was brought up. Albus simply accepted that it was something – perhaps something good – that happened in the lives of people, and that maybe one day it would happen to him as well. Aside from that, he was largely indifferent.

"Well, I do," Rose piped in. James stared at her reproachfully. "Or, what I mean is – how long have Victoire and Teddy Lupin been together?"

Albus's heart jolted again. Teddy Lupin was his father's godson, and might as well have been an older brother to the Potter children. He was over for dinner about every other day most weeks. James had come running back onto Platform Nine-and-Three-Quarters with the news that he had caught Teddy snogging Victoire on the train. Lily was keen on having Teddy in the family – as in, she wanted Teddy and Victoire to stay together and marry at some point. Albus wasn't so sure. He liked Teddy, and he supposed he liked Victoire, but Victoire was the kind of person that was best in small doses.

"I don't know," said James impatiently. "I just caught them snogging on the platform this morning. It can't have been long. You think he would have mentioned—"

James trailed off and exchanged a significant look with Albus. As different as Albus and James were, they still had that brotherly way of communicating without words, and Albus knew exactly what James was thinking. Teddy, who probably should have been visiting more than ever (as his godfather was helping him in finding a job) hadn't come over for about a week or two, which was extremely uncommon.

"Yeah, it must've happened recently," James finally murmured, almost to himself.

"Do you think it's… you know… real?" Rose asked James. James frowned because he knew what Rose was trying to say. Victoire and her little sister, Dominique, were both quite pretty girls, probably owing to their mother's ancestry. Each of the girls had a trace of veela blood in their veins, and veela were humanoid creatures whose beauty had a very profound effect on men.

"How should I know?" asked James with an air of wanting this conversation to be over.

Rose simply frowned. She turned to Albus.

"You heard about the changes, right?" she asked. Albus raised his eyebrows.

"Changes?"

"Blimey, Al…" James kneaded the bridge of his nose. "Hogwarts has a new Headmaster. Professor McGonagall retired at the end of last term."

"It was a bit of a shock, really…" Rose said. "She's not young at all, but she didn't seem to show any signs of slowing down. She probably could have gone ten, fifteen more years if she'd really wanted to."

"But she didn't want to, so there you have it," James answered.

"So who got the job?" Albus asked. He already knew some of the professors by name and was looking to hear the name of someone familiar.

"Old Flitwick," James said. "Probably set a record for the shortest Headmaster if nothing else…"

"Oh, come off it!" Rose snapped scoldingly. "Professor Flitwick's brilliant! Not to mention he's the longest tenured professor Hogwarts has—"

"No, he's not," James interrupted flatly. Rose's mouth gaped for a moment. "You're forgetting Binns. History of Magic. He'd been teaching about fifty years when our grandparents were at school."

"Yeah, but Professor Binns is a ghost, isn't he?" asked Rose a bit dismissively. "Besides, can you imagine him doing start-of-term announcements?"

"Merlin's pants, you're right," uttered James darkly, punctuating his remark with a shudder.

"What's wrong with Flitwick?" asked Rose.

"Nothing," James said defensively. Looking down at his trainers, he muttered, "Although I wish Professor Longbottom – Neville, I mean – had gotten it…"

Professor Longbottom, at least outside of Hogwarts, was known simply as "Neville" to the family. He was a dear friend of their parents.

"He's still way too young, everyone knows that. He's the same age as our parents," Rose said. "But he is head of Gryffindor House now, so there may be hope for him as a Headmaster a few years down the road. Professor Flitwick's not exactly in the spring of his life, after all…"

"Neville wouldn't be the first wizard to become Headmaster of Hogwarts in his thirties," James said impatiently. "Didn't-"

"Those were… special circumstances," Rose interrupted. "Not to mention he'd been teaching almost twenty years at that point. Neville's only been there about five years. He's done well to become Head of Gryffindor House so quickly."

"Good point," James said with a momentary frown. "Oh, well – I'll keep rooting for him! I wonder, if he ever did become Headmaster, whether he'd still live over the Leaky Cauldron? That'd make him the coolest Headmaster that ever lived – next to Dumbledore, of course."

"Don't know," Rose said. The three sat in silence for a while. By now, they were well into their trip, the Hogwarts Express snaking through Britain's countryside as it wound its way north into Hogsmeade Station.

Albus became lost in thought again. He wondered what sort of welcome would await him. He knew he'd be seeing Rubeus Hagrid, the gamekeeper and another dear friend of the family. The first-years traditionally sailed across the Black Lake to the castle, shepherded by the gamekeeper. Hagrid also happened to be the half-giant that had introduced Albus's father to the wizarding world.

Albus's father… Harry Potter. He had once been known to the wizarding world as "The Boy Who Lived" – as if simply surviving was a great achievement worthy of legend. Then again, as powerful and as dangerous as the wizard who had tried to kill him had been, perhaps it was. The man known as Lord Voldemort had already claimed hundreds of lives, including those of Harry Potter's parents. It was through a strange combination of magical circumstances few could fully explain that the darkest Dark wizard of his age had not only failed to kill Harry as an infant, but had been defeated utterly and driven into hiding. Still, though, Harry had been left an orphan, and left in the care of Muggle relatives.

Then, when Harry was about the same age as Albus was presently, Hagrid appeared. It just so happened, though, that as Harry found his own way back into the wizarding world, his mortal enemy was seeking to do the same. After two attempts and two failures, Voldemort succeeded in returning, sparking a second war in wizarding Britain that finally ended three years later when Harry, by then a young man, defeated Voldemort for good.

That was the legacy that came with the Potter name. To say nothing of the fact that Albus was named for two Headmasters of Hogwarts and two of the most powerful wizards of their time.

"One of them was a Slytherin… and he was the bravest man I ever knew," Albus's father had told him. Still, that did little to assuage young Albus's fears. Slytherin House, whatever it was now, had been largely hostile to his parents and older relatives during their time at the school.

His trip to Ollivander's hadn't helped matters, either. Ollivander was a quite old wizard whose shop had been selling wands to wizards for thousands of years. Actually, Ollivander himself was so old Albus often wondered to himself if he had been the same Ollivander that started the shop. Albus was naturally excited to acquire his wand. Most of that excitement was extinguished, however:

"Nine-and-a-half inches, yew…"

Fortunately for Albus's sanity, the core of the wand happened to be dragon heartstring as opposed to the feather from a phoenix tail. But the wand that Lord Voldemort himself had used for nearly all of his life also happened to be made of yew. This fact was not lost on Ollivander, who insisted on discussing it with Albus before Harry mercifully ended the conversation so they could go to the Apothecary and look for potion ingredients.

Speaking of wands, James had his out and was sort of twirling it, making red sparks dance harmlessly off the ceiling. Rose, who had immersed herself in a rather thick book, heard the crackling sounds and looked up.

"James, you're gonna put out a light," she said.

"Where's your wand?" he asked Rose. "Dad's always told me that not having your wand is pretty much like not having your right hand."

"Well, Uncle Harry's an Auror, isn't he? Of course he'd think like that," Rose replied. For once in her life, Rose was only half-right. Aurors had the task of capturing Dark wizards. Harry Potter, though, was no ordinary Auror. He was the head of the Auror Office, which meant that every Auror in wizarding Britain reported to him. It was a fitting job, Albus supposed, for the man that had brought down the most dangerous Dark wizard in several generations. "Besides… if I'm going to lose a hand, I'd rather it be the right one. I'm left-handed, remember?"

"Being left-handed is the mark of a Dark wizard," James said with a glint in his eye – but Rose had been around James and his humor for years. She quickly shut him down.

"Rubbish. That's nothing but an old superstition from the Middle Ages," she sniffed.

"Anyway… what's your wand?" James asked.

"Eight-and-a-quarter, hawthorn, unicorn hair," she said very quickly, as if she had memorized it by heart. "Springy. Ollivander said it's good for charms, but not so great for Transfiguration… which has me a little worried."

"It's you. Of course you'll be able to do Transfiguration," scoffed James. "Mine? Twelve inches, holly, like Dad's, with a hippogriff's feather core—"

"Twelve inches?" repeated Rose, gaping at the wand in James's hand. James had a strangely smug expression on his face. "I didn't know there were even wands that long."

"You kidding me?" laughed James. "Dad says he's seen one that's eighteen before. I wonder if he was talking about Hagrid's wand? Hagrid would probably need one that big…"

"I wonder what poor tree had to give its right arm to provide Hagrid with a wand?" Rose asked. James and Albus both burst into laughter. While Rose had taken after her mother's bookish tendencies, she also got just a small bit of her father's sense of humor. Albus spent most of the next few hours trying and failing to suppress the mental image of Hagrid channeling magic through a wand the size of an oak tree limb. For the first time in several weeks, his nervousness about not being a Gryffindor – or, worse, being in Slytherin – was not the first thought at the forefront of his mind.

Eventually, night began to fall upon the advancing train. Rose politely went on a convenient walk as James and Albus changed into their robes. The latter looked himself over.

"They fit better at Madam Malkin's," he remarked.

"Oh, come off it, you look fine," James intoned. "You just feel like nothing fits because of your nerves."

At that moment, Rose came back into the compartment.

"You're not gonna believe who I just saw," she said breathlessly.

Yes, it's a bit slow getting started, but I can promise that things will pick up in short order. You'll see some familiar faces and their offspring, and maybe if you look close enough, some relatives of characters you may have forgotten about. Feel free to read and review - next chapter will probably be up in about two weeks, but if there's enough demand, I'll probably post sooner.

- MH