A/N: In which I end up posting two one-shots in a month instead of finishing up another story of mine which should have been done months ago. Forgive me, and instead enjoy this which I have written due to lack of it in this section.
Disclaimer: I have no claim in either fandom, except for, of course, being a fan.
1938
"Peter, Peter! You got a letter!" Exclaimed a scrawny little brunette boy as he tramped across the wooden floor boards, making his way to where his elder brother was finishing up his breakfast.
"Oh, really, Ed?" The older blonde brother queried, setting down his bowl of porridge on the six-chaired oak table. "From who? None of my mates would bother mailing anything to me when they could just visit."
"Maybe it's from the school?" Peter glanced left to where his younger sister sauntered into the room with the rest of the mail. Edmund had apparently deemed it worthy for Peter's letter to be the only one he brought to the kitchen. "Did the teachers catch you doing anything foolish? Probably wanted to tell Mum and Dad you've been naughty."
"No, I haven't!" The elder denied indignantly, scowling lightly at her. "So don't go saying that to them, Susan. And if you would be so kind as to examine it closely." He snatched it from Ed's eagerly outstretched hand. "There's a wax seal on it. Who uses those anymore? Definitely not our principal."
"Well," the younger boy chimed in as he clambered into his chair. "He IS really old."
Peter groaned, "Whose side are you on?"
"I know who brought the letter," a voice piped up, all giggles and smiles. Popping out from the hallway, a petite girl skipped up to her siblings, eyes alight with excitement.
"Really, Lucy?" Susan asked genially, bending down to her little sister's height. "It was the mailman, yeah?"
Lucy shook her head, "I saw it! It was an owl!"
The taller girl's expression froze, "Pardon?"
"You heard her," Edmund snickered. "An owl decided to write a letter and fly it to Peter."
"The owl didn't write the letter, silly" Lucy grinned. "He just delivered it."
"Oh, you two," Susan sighed, shaking her head and straightening up. "It's too early in the morning for such nonsense. Peter, tell them."
"'Dear Mr. Peter Pevensie,'" the eldest read aloud, eyebrows scrunched together, perplexed. "'We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry?"
1939
"This is absurd," Susan protested as she looked through her supplies list. "I can't be magic. It isn't real!"
"Then, how do you explain me, Su?"
"I don't know why, but this must be a gigantic, convoluted prank you've decided to pull. Somehow, you convinced Mum and Dad to buy you all of that useless junk. This has gone too far. Why go through such trouble? It's inconceivable!"
"Listen to me," Peter interjected, his voice gentle. "Haven't you ever wondered why odd things have happened to us sometimes?"
"Well, I-"
"Remember when your book fell in the fountain?" Edmund piped in, sat midway up the stairwell next to the entrance hall. He was toying with a red bauble Peter had given him the other day. Lucy was perched besides him, peering over his arm at the shiny sphere.
"I do!" The youngest sibling provided, turning her attention from the item to Susan. "You were very upset as you were going to pick it up. Then it came out completely dry! We were all very confused."
"Even baffled you could say," Edmund added, tossing his present into the air so he could catch it as it fell. The ruby globe filled, then, with equally colored smoke.
"Aren't you forgetting something, Ed?" Peter asked, inclining his head at the changed object.
"Oh, right!" The boy hopped up from his seat, handing Lucy the gift before skipping down the stairs and through the front door.
Lucy giggled, "So THAT'S why it's called a Remembral!"
"I- wh-" Susan sputtered, searching her mind for an intelligent retort.
"Don't worry, Su," Peter assured her, slinging an arm over her shoulder. "Just wait until you see Diagon Alley!"
1940
In the middle of a fine and sunny afternoon, the Pevensie children found themselves standing inside an unused room of a large, old manor.
"Quick, Susan!" Peter whispered urgently. "Use Reparo!"
"But we're not supposed to use magic outside of school," she shot back just as strongly, holding her wand hesitantly in front of the broken window.
"Come on!"
"I wanna see!" Edmund whined. "You never show us any spells."
"That's because underaged wizards and witches are not allowed to when they're not at Hogwarts! We could get in trouble!"
"Shh!" Peter held a finger to his lips. "Do you hear that?"
Thump thump. Footsteps were drawing ever nearer to their location.
"It's the Macready!"
"Oh, enough of this," the eldest huffed, rummaging through his pockets for his own wand. "I'll do the spell myself."
"There's not enough time," Lucy reasoned from the other end of the room, opening the doors to a nearly ceiling-high wardrobe. "In here! Come on!"
Edmund, surprisingly, was the first to follow the youngest Pevensie child through the wooden frame. Peter and Susan only took a moment to glance at one another before dashing after them, pocketing their wands as they did so that their hands were free for them to shut the doors. With the footfalls drawing ever closer, the quartet back-pedaled further into the wardrobe, trying their best to stifle indignant complaints as they bumped into one another. They barely noticed the odd size of the furniture's insides until they had traveled past the copious number of coats into the frosty branches of winter pines.
"No..." Susan gasped, shaking her head as they ventured into the clearing with a curious lamp post. "I was positive the wardrobe wasn't a Vanishing Cabinet."
"I suppose this means we owe you an apology," Peter admitted sheepishly to his youngest sister. Edmund stood off to the side, pointedly avoiding their eyes.
"Yes, you do," Lucy agreed, happily ignoring the cold as it nipped at her nose and revealed her breaths as little clouds. "Like I told you. Narnia is real."
1941
"I really wanted to see the Hogwarts Express," pouted a morose little brunette dressed in uniform as she stood with her siblings inside of the station, waiting
"You'll see it next year, Lu," assured Peter.
"Definitely," Susan nodded, fretting over her sister's appearance by smoothing out the folds of her outfit and checking and double-checking her braids as a mother hen would. "Maybe we can even sit in the same cabin."
"Can't say the same for the Houses, though," Edmund added, shifting his weight from one foot to the other a bit in excitement. For they, sans Lucy, were to be at Platform Nine and Three Quarters tomorrow. He pointed at Peter. "Gryffindor." Then Susan. "Ravenclaw." Before stopping his index finger to indicate Lucy. "Who wants to bet you will be in Hufflepuff?"
"Now, hold on," Susan protested good-naturedly, ceasing her maternal fussing. "You don't even know what House you'll be in!"
Edmund shrugged, "Slytherin most likely."
"You're not going to mind that?" Peter queried, tilting his head minutely to one side.
"It's just a House," he stated sagely. "And I'm quite happy to even have received my letter. The owl took ages to deliver it."
"You were practically screaming in our ears when you finally got it. Your voice nearly went hoarse," Susan grinned.
"Well, I'd done a lot of waiting."
"Like we've been waiting to return to Narnia?" Lucy murmured.
The casual, familial air that had surrounded them darkened into melancholy. Despite all that Hogwarts could offer them, the Pevensie children would never forget the years that they had lived and ruled in Narnia, an entire world they had stumbled upon through an unassuming wardrobe. Throughout the entire year since they had left the Professor's home, they frequently idled over their memories of adventures passed and wondered how much time had elapsed in the lands they had once ruled. Would they ever return?
The Magnificent King grimaced. The Gentle Queen sighed. The Just King frowned. The Valiant Queen sniffled.
In the near distance, the low wail of a whistle sounded. The children rushed to compose themselves, swiping hands and arms over wet eyes. They settled for goodbye hugs as the wind caused by the approaching train swept by them. Lucy was promised frequent letters to be sent by their owl, Aeolus (once he'd been purchased, the elder two Pevensies had scored through several texts for a perfect name until they decided on this title, which meant 'God of Winds'). A moment passed before the children began to notice something odd.
"How strange," Peter remarked. "I would have expected to see the train by now."
"Ouch!" Susan squealed, shooting an exasperated glare at her younger brother. "What did you do that for?!"
"It wasn't me. I swear!" Edmund defended, wincing as he felt the same pinch getting him in the arm. Soon enough, all of the Pevensies were fidgeting from the tingles of pin-pricking pain, pulling them from an unseen source. The disembodied train whistle rose in pitch, and a gale began to gush forth from the track tunnel, swirling around the four children. The elders suspected magic, but Lucy knew better.
"This is it, isn't it?" she enthused, eyes bright in anticipation despite the awful tug.
"We're going back?" Susan breathed, disbelieving.
"We're going back," Peter laughed.
"Not together, we won't, if we don't hold hands," Edmund reasoned, grasping his brother's palm, who in turn took hold of Susan's as she did the same with Lucy's. And as if by magic, for that was exactly what it was, the Pevensies disappeared. If only for a moment on Earth, but weeks in Narnia.
1942
Eustace Clarence Scrubb had endured many extraordinary things in the past few days. Being thrown into a strange sea by a moving painting along with his cousins. Climbing aboard a ship, the Dawn Treader, filled with sentient, talking animals. Discovering a green fog of evil which whisked it's victims away to an unknown, yet probably horrifying, fate. All of these he had stubbornly denied. 'Had' being the operative word. Now, the boy was resigned to the fact that he had either gone crazy or a magical land known as Narnia really did exist, and he believed himself too sensible and educated to have simply gone crazy.
This was the reason he was merely startled by the sudden, and loud, appearance of an owl alighting on a handrail near the cabin door. The nocturnal fowl glanced at him for a second before focusing its sights on the door once again. Edmund blinked once, making note of the wax-sealed envelope in its beak and the address and name scrawled on the paper, before re- entering the cabin to where his cousins and Caspian were gathered and bent over the map.
"Lucy," he called, alerting all of their attentions. "There appears to be a letter for you outside."
The petite queen gaped at him as the words processed in her mind. She shared a look with Edmund, who was grinning widely, and Caspian's eyes darted between them, curious of this exchange. Lucy whooped joyously and bounded past her cousin and through the door, slamming it shut as she went by. For about a minute, the boys stood there in silence until an ecstatic, muffled shout was heard through the wood.
"Oh, yes! Edmund! My owl's arrived! I've been accepted into Hogwarts!"
A/N: Yeah. So, that's done. This is just meant to be something small. I don't plan on writing anything more, but if inspiration strikes, I will write. I hope you enjoyed this. Have a nice day and a happy new year.