"Oh joy," Nicolai sighed, "I absolutely hate being under the duress of walking through Kings Cross Station. However, I am truly going to miss it. All these—I'm sorry, excuse me—all these muggles bustling around, the train fumes, I'm going to miss it all."

"I feel like the part about the train fumes was sarcastic," chuckled Florence, "And this isn't our last time going through Kings Cross, unless you're not going home for the holidays then maybe it is."

"Yeah but it's the last first day of the school year where we get to ride the train. It's always a very sentimental scene." the barrier between platforms nine and ten came in to view, and Florence crossed through with her trolley first. The train whistle pierced the air as soon as she made it to the magical platform, Nicolai and Xander following close behind. There were lots of parents, waving at first-year looking children, and looks of utter doom on some other people.

The other Haddlowe children were among the crowd of people. Asher, looking as energetic as ever, was tugging on Adrianna's hand, wanting her to let him go to be with his friends. The blonde girl's eyes lit up at the sight of the three approaching.

"Dri! It's so good to see you," Florence gushed as she and Nicolai were pulled in to a rather crushing hug, "Xander didn't say you were home?"

"Oh, he didn't know." she smiled, patting her brother on the shoulder, "He's been over at your house for a month, remember? And besides, I just got in last night."

"Where's mum and dad?" inquired Xander, looking around for his parents, who would have never even considered missing Asher's second time boarding the Hogwarts Express. "They came home from an overtime shift. Said they needed to rest so I offered to take Asher." she looked around for the boy in mention, only to spot him far away with a group of his own, "And he didn't even bother to say goodbye. They grow up so fast, you know?"

"You bet," chuckled Nicolai, "I mean we've grown up pretty fast ourselves. It seems like it was just yesterday that we got on the train the first time."

"Don't you know it. I remember my last start of year train ride. I felt extremely sentimental because I knew that Hogwarts was just a chapter in my life, and as much as I didn't want it to end, life still needed to go on, you know? Admittedly, you guys will feel lost the first few weeks out of school, but it's just part of everything." Adrianna sighed, before chuckling, "Sorry, it's just, I always feel very nostalgic whenever I visit the station."

"It's fine. We feel the same, too." Nicolai replied, a neutral look on her face, "Good things come to an end, unfortunately."

"Well, it hasn't ended yet," Adrianna smiled, "You three have a long year ahead of you. It may be the last, but there's so much you can do. Don't leave the school without a bang." she winked.

"Sounds like you definitely left it with a bang, Dri. Do tell." Alexander nudged his sister.

The look on her face was one of reminiscing. Adrianna simply shook her head, "That story is for a different time. The train's about to set off, I suggest you get on board."

The three bade her goodbye, before pushing their trolleys past more people.

After securing their stuff into the baggage compartments, the three found a nice empty compartment, only a few feet away from the train door. They settled in, Nicolai immediately flopping down onto the seats, her legs occupying the whole thing. "Well damn, Nic, where am I supposed to sit?"

"Beside Flo, obviously." she rolled her eyes, "Oh boy, I'm going to miss these seats too. As uncomfortable as they are."

"Florence," said Xander, "If you really love me, then you'll give up the window seat without putting up a fight."

"Alexander," replied Florence in a mocking sweet tone, "Unfortunately, I don't love you enough to do that. I'm sorry." she continued to look out the window, her eye catching sight of an over enthusiastic black dog, barking at her window. Florence hurriedly scampered out of the compartment without a breath of explanation, running down the train as fast as she could.

"Hang on, miss, the train's going to leave in a few minutes. I suggest you settle in." the conductor said, stopping her at the exit point. "Please, sir," she said desperately, watching Padfoot trot over closer, "I just want to say goodbye to my dog. Just a few seconds."

He let her pass almost hesitantly, telling her she had about thirty seconds before the train left her for good. Florence scrambled over to Sirius, petting his head before giving him a big hug. "I'll write to you, I promise."

Padfoot licked at her face, before gesturing to the little money sack tied to his collar. She smiled, unfastening it, "You didn't have to..."

"Miss, we have to go."

"Bye!" Florence said finally, before rushing back inside the train. She came back to the compartment to be greeted with questioning eyes.

"Why was your dog at the station without your mum?" asked Nicolai, "Infact, why haven't we seen your dog over the whole month that we were in your house?"

"He...." Florence's voice trailed off, her brain still buffering for a valid and believable explanation, "Padfoot decided to stay at Julien's for the rest of the summer. Yeah. Julien liked him very much and begged for him to stay another month. Um, Emmy, she—she took Padfoot over to the station. I mean, you couldn't see her because she was a little bit far away... I told my mum I wanted to see him before I went." she rambled, looking at both her friends to see whether they believed her or not. They stared back at her skeptically.

"I didn't know that your mum bought you a dog..." Xander finally said, breaking the seconds-long silence.

"Oh, it completely slipped my mind to tell you about him. Nic saw him, though, a few days before I left for London."

The compartment door swung open, "Ah, see Jordan? I told you they were very easy to find." The sound of Fred Weasley's voice echoed inside the compartment, a smile painted on his lips as his eyes landed on Florence, "Hello, love. I've missed you."

She stalked over to where he stood, before wrapping her arms around him, "Just for the record," she whispered, "I spent the better half of my summer with you so this isn't really that sentimental to me. I'm just hugging you to make it look like it."

Fred chuckled, planting a kiss on her temple, "I'm hurt. I actually really did miss you."

"Okay," Lee Jordan barged in to the compartment, knocking Fred aside, "We're going to have to stop this reunion, as beautiful as it is, before it escalates in to something else." he eyed Nicolai, who was sprawled out on the whole seat, "Scoot, Clearwater."

"Make me," she said, her voice muffled.

"I'll sit on you," George chimed in, barging in to the compartment as well. Fred scoffed at this, "So manners aren't a trend these days? An excuse me would have sufficed!"

"Seriously, Nicolai, I wasn't joking. I am going to sit on you." George said again, noticing that the brunette hadn't budged from her lying position, but immediately sat up as soon as she felt someone crushing her leg, "Merlin's beard, George. You weigh a ton."

"Told you," he chuckled, George and Lee plopping down on to the seat. "So, how did your summer go?" he asked to the people in the compartment, sharing a rather mischievous look with Fred and Florence. "Fred and I had a rather unusual one."

"Well, we visited my nan, as usual. Then Florence's house for nearly a whole month." Nicolai spoke, silently trying to stop Lee from taking the window seat.

"Same here," Xander replied, "Well, only the Florence's house part. But apart from that I went to Berlin with my sister for a few days. What about you, Jordan?"

"Oh, nothing much. Just at home, and a couple visits down to the beach. It was pretty nice actually." he said, "And I had just found out we had a couple relatives from France. I wanted to visit and maybe look for Alanna there? But I didn't know where to start, France is a pretty big country."

A small smile appeared on Florence's lips, "You two still write to each other constantly, don't you? Why not ask her?"

"Well you see that would be kind of creepy, wouldn't it? I mean, going to France just for her? She'd think I crossed the line."

"How do you know that? Maybe she wanted you to randomly visit France just to see her?"

"Nah, better safe than sorry. Besides, I don't think she likes me that much."

"Aww, he's smitten." Nicolai cooed, pinching Jordan's cheeks, "Little Lee has a big crush on Alanna Fransson. Flo, why don't you put in a good word for Lee? Try to get Julien to like you so he'd give you permission to date his sister."

"You're in contact with Julien Fransson? How?" Jordan asked skeptically, "I heard that he's going to be staying in London but I don't suppose you live in London..."

"Well," Florence started, "He was born as Julien Price, actually. He's, ah, he's my cousin."

Jordan eyed her skeptically, before she gave him an insisting look.

"Oh you weren't kidding?"

"No. He really is my cousin. My father and his father were brothers."

"That's...interesting. Must be cool to find out about other relatives, yeah?"

"Unless they're really annoying ones." George chimed in, "Remember when we first met Aunt Muriel, Freddie? Dreadful woman, she was. Kept pinching our cheeks and saying how scrawny we were back then."

"Ah, good thing I don't have relatives like that anymore." Florence chuckled, "I think. Not really sure, since mum hasn't been very open about my other relatives."

The rest of the time spent on the train flew by with a nifty game of chess between Xander and Lee, which was essentially played in order to prove which house was better at chess. Xander's victory, after a good thirty minutes, was celebrated with a bag of sweets from the honeydukes trolley which in the end, they decided to split generously with the losing team.

The sun began to set outside as the six continued to strike up conversations and play mini games, something that usually didn't occur when it was only Florence, Nicolai and Alexander. They were always just so content with the comfortable silence, each of them reading a book or sleeping, with an occasional conversation here and there. But the dynamic that the twins and Lee brought along was not all too bad, and they found themselves having a really great time.

Florence noticed something missing as they got off the train, as the half-giant gamekeeper of Hogwarts was nowhere in sight. Hagrid was very hard to miss, with his grunt-like accent beckoning first year students over to the boats almost every year. But now he wasn't, and it seemed strange. She tugged at Fred's sleeve lightly, catching his attention, "Where do you suppose Hagrid's at?"

The redhead simply shrugged, "Dunno."

Upon boarding the carriages at the Hogsmeade station, Nicolai caught sight of the ever so familiar head of blonde hair, talking animatedly with one of her friends as she carried an owl cage. Her gaze wandered around for a bit, and had caught Nicolai staring, which made her blush and look away.

The brunette huffed, before hopping in to the carriage beside Florence, trying to shake Jillian out of her train of thoughts. She stared up ahead at the road, immersing herself in random thoughts.

The carriage ride was rather quiet compared to the train ride, seeing as Fred and George were separated from the trio and Lee, and now they were sharing a ride with a Slytherin student.

"Hogwarts, I've missed you!" Florence declared, as soon as she hopped out from the carriage, "Well not really that much. But I still missed you..." she paused, swiveling around to look at her friends, "Is it weird that I'm talking to an inanimate object?"

"Not so much, Flo," chuckled Nicolai, "I'm sure the castle misses you just as much."

"It better. Right now I want nothing more than to stuff my face with food and fall asleep right after..." she groaned, catching up with Lee Jordan as they started to talk about bramble jelly.

"She looks quite lovely today, doesn't she?" Xander said quietly as he walked beside Nicolai, his words nearly making her trip on her own two feet. Nicolai goggled at him, "What? Who looks quite lovely today? Florence?"

Alexander rolled his eyes, "You know who I mean, Nic, stop playing stupid. I saw you staring at Jillian."

They shared a brief look, Nicolai bore the face of being caught red handed while Alexander's bore the expression of smugness. "Okay fine. So maybe I was staring at her. I just got caught off guard, Xan, don't worry about it."

"But you still like her, don't you?"

He heard Nicolai sigh, readjusting her grip on her bookbag. "Xander. You know I don't—I won't—look, let's just drop this, yeah? She's in the past, and she's not to be mentioned ever again."

She looked down at her shoes scuffing against the soil, avoiding her friend's gaze at all cost.

"Nic."

"What?"

"Nic, look at me." Xander stopped in his tracks, grabbing her by the hand and swiveling her around to face him, "I just want you to know that I'm okay if you still like her. If you want to pursue a relationship with her, I'll support you wholeheartedly. Whatever makes you happy. Got it?"

She looked for any trace of hesitation on his face, but found nothing but genuineness. "Won't I be breaking the girl code—I mean boy—um—the best mate code?"

"The only best mate code that will ever apply to us is that we support each other's happiness. You, Florence and I. We're a team no matter what. And you deserve to be happy."

"You deserve to be happy too, Xan. What about you?"

"Well," he smiled cheekily, eyeing a black haired girl at a distance, "Like Florence once said, I'm not all too bad to look at. Maybe I'll try my luck elsewhere."

////
a.n: Hey guys! My George Weasley fic will be up tomorrow (hopefully). I know that I've announced a lot of works of mine on here then took them down a few days later. It's because I find it really hard to write two things at the same time. But I'll try my hardest in keeping up my upcoming GW fic!

Any guesses as to who his love interest might be?

-Denise