Daddy Dearest

Chapter 2 - Platform Nine and Three-Quarters and the Hogwarts Express

September 1

"Now, Harry, I'll be there tonight when you arrive at Hogwarts, but after this evening I'll be at home with Lenora except for when I have duties at the school."

"I understand, Dad."

Severus smiled at his stepson. "Harry, I know you'll do well. Now, say good-bye to your sister and we'll get home."

"Good-bye, Lenora."

Lenora sobbed, flinging her arms around her half-brother. "Don't go, Harry!"

"I'll be back at Christmas, Lenora, and maybe Easter! I'll write every week!"

Lenora looked skeptical. "Promise?"

"If you write me," Harry replied with a grin.

"All right, then." She put on her 'brave face' and released her brother, letting him board the train. Still, she was crying as her father led her away.

"Honestly, you'd think I was never coming back, the way she carries on," Harry muttered as he entered a compartment.

"Who?"

Harry looked up and saw a tall, red haired boy with a long nose and freckles sitting by the window.

"Oh... my little sister. She's only seven, but still..."

"I've got a little sister, too... she'll be coming next year, and she's so upset that we're all leaving..."

"All? How many of there are you?"

"Seven," the boy said glumly. "I've got five older brothers."

"Really? There's just me and Dad and Lenora at home." He looked over the boy carefully. "You're a Weasley, aren't you?"

"Yes. My name's Ron."

"I'm Harry."

"As in, you have the same first name as Harry Potter?"

"Yes. Mind, it's a very common name."

"I'll say. I think I've got at least three cousins and an uncle named Harry. I might be forgetting some, mind. I've got a lot of uncles and cousins."

"Exactly." Harry was glad that his stepfather had charmed away his scar and taught him how to do the charm himself.

"So... what house do you think you'll be in?"

"Gryffindor. Padfoot and Moony will be disappointed if I'm in another House, and Dad would like me to be in Slytherin, but I don't think I'd get on with that lot, if the boy I met in Diagon Alley is anything like the rest of them. Besides Dad, that is."

"Your dad's a Slytherin?" Ron asked distastefully.

"He's my stepfather, really. My father died when I was a year old."

"I'm sorry."

"I don't really remember him. I've got Dad and Lenora, and we get along fine, especially with Padfoot and Moony helping out with me... though Dad says it would be easier without their help. Especially after they teach me a new prank or show me a new joke product." He grinned, remembering them pulling him aside just before he'd left that morning, and presenting him with the Marauder's Map. "Too bad Romulus and James aren't coming until next year."

"Who are Romulus and James?"

"Romulus Lupin and James Black, my best friends."

"As in, the sons of Remus Lupin and Sirius Black, James Potter's best friends?"

"The same."

"So you know their fathers?"

"Yes. Moony and Padfoot."

"What kind of nicknames are those?"

"All four of them had them. Remus is Moony, Sirius is Padfoot, Peter Pettigrew is Wormtail, and James Potter was Prongs."

"So that's why he's called 'Wormtail the Betrayer.' I thought it was just some weird Death-Eater name!"

"No, but it was only really known around the school while they were there. You stepped a little lightly around the Marauders, because two of them were apt to steal your girlfriend if they got the notion, the third could, and the fourth... er... Wormtail was good for distractions when they pulled a prank. Now there's only two left. Prongs is dead and Wormtail in Azkaban."

"But you actually know the last two!"

Harry shrugged. "So do lots of people," he said uncomfortably. That was getting a bit too close to who he was.

"Anything of the cart, dears?"

Harry, glad for the distraction, leapt up immediately, but Ron slumped in his seat, his ears going pink. "No, I've brought sandwiches."

Harry got a some Pumpkin Pasties and Cauldron Cakes, as well as Drooble's Best Blowing Gum, a box of Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans, and as many Chocolate Frogs as he could carry.

Ron stared at his armload of candy. "Hungry are you?"

Harry shrugged. "Sort of, and I've got to send Lenora some Chocolate Frogs once I get to Hogwarts."

"You're going to send your little sister all those?"

"No, just some, and she'll send me the cards. They're our favorite candy, and Dad started me on collecting the cards when I was four to... keep my mind off Mum's death. I've got a very large collection by now."

"Really? I've got about five hundred, but I haven't got Agrippa or Ptolemy."

"I've got those. I'm just missing two of the rarest seven. You know, Harry Potter, James Potter, Lily Potter, Sirius Black, Remus Lupin, Wormtail the Betrayer, and Voldemort. I don't have Harry or Voldemort yet."

"You've got all of them but Harry and You-Know-Who?" Ron asked, shocked. Then he realize what, exactly, Harry had said. "You said You-Know-Who's name!"

Harry shrugged again. He seemed to be doing that a lot that day. "Moony and Padfoot wouldn't have it any other way. I've got duplicates of everyone but Lily and the Marauders. In fact, I brought all my duplicates, and the others are all properly displayed in the top of the North Tower, above my room."

"You've got all of them, Light and Dark, except for Harry Potter and You-Know-Who."

"Actually, I've got You-Know-Who. Dad gave it to me for my birthday a few years back. There's a really rare card out there, though, that actually says 'Voldemort.'"

Ron flinched again. "I wish you'd stop that."

"Take it up with Moony and Padfoot. Come on, let's eat." He tossed Ron a Pumpkin Pasty. "Skip the sandwiches unless you really like them."

Ron hesitated, then bit into the Pumpkin Pasty. After a moment he brought up the cards again. "How'd you get so many cards?"

"For one thing I was given my father's collection, and Moony and Padfoot gave me theirs. Dad never collected them, though. Then Dad and Moony and Padfoot have all given me rare cards for Christmas and my birthday and stuff. In fact, the only one of the seven I've found was Wormtail, and that was a lucky find, because I wouldn't have it if not for that. They all think its an outrage that he got a card."

"Yeah, I heard that Remus Lupin and Sirius Black were especially upset that he was put on a card and tried to get it taken out of print. Only a hundred were made, and half of them were destroyed. The rest were to be put out at ten a year, and since then about twenty or thirty have been destroyed when they were found."

"Seventy nine have been destroyed. I got mine in the last year that they were put out." By this time they had finished the pasties and cakes, and were moving onto the Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans. "Have you ever played the Every Flavor Bean game?"

"I don't think so."

"It's a whole lot of fun. Padfoot taught me. We each pick a bean, give it to the other. If you refuse to eat one or spit one out, then you loose."

"Sounds like something Fred and George would do."

"Who?"

"My twin brothers. They're in their third year. I think they're trying to break the record for the most detentions."

"How many do they have?"

"I think around fifty between them. You'd have to ask them."

"I don't think they're going to break it. Padfoot and Prongs had seventy five by the beginning of their third year, and a hundred and thirty-two by the end."

"One hundred and thirty-two detentions in three years!"

"Yes. They had seven hundred and three by the time they graduated."

"Seven hundred and three?" asked a new voice.

"We're going to have to hurry up."

Harry grinned at the identical red heads that had just entered the compartment. "You must be Fred and George. Even if you beat Padfoot and Prongs, which I doubt you will, there's still two hundred and four to go before you beat the Marauders, plus whatever the new generation adds."

"New generation! That's not exactly fair."

"If there were no Marauders at Hogwarts, then the teachers wouldn't have anything to do. We keep them busy, and before long we're blamed for everything. We're usually guilty, too."

"Usually guilty!"

"They sound like us."

"No, you sound like them. Want to play the Every Flavor Bean game?"

"What's that?"

"You pick a bean, pass it to your neighbor. If you refuse to eat one or spit it out, you're out. Last one in is the winner."

"Sounds like fun!"

"All right then, pick your beans!"

There was a little shuffling around, and then everyone had one, passes them, and popped them into their mouths one by one.

Ron was first. His light green bean had been picked by one of the twins. He chewed it for a moment, then swallowed and smiled. "Mint."

"Rats, it looked like booger!" He ate his technicolor bean and gagged, but managed to swallow it. "Vomit."

The other twin looked disappointed, but popped his gray one into his mouth and spit it out immediately. "Pepper!" He ran off to get a drink.

Harry grinned. "I should have warned you, I'm good at this." Then he ate his, an unevenly colored orange one. "Marmalade. Ready for round two?"

The two Weasley boys looked at Harry uneasily, but this time the twin went first. The bean Harry had given him looked like it should be toffee. He looked at it suspiciously for a moment before he ate it. "I think it's ear wax."

Harry shrugged and ate the grayish green one he'd been given by Ron. "There's the booger flavored one you were looking for."

Ron put the reddish one his brother had given him in his mouth and spit it out immediately. "Corned beef!"

Harry grinned at the remaining twin. "Two down, one to go. I never would have suspected that corned beef would do it."

Just then a girl with bushy brown hair came in with a little round-faced boy, both of them about Harry's age.

"Have any of you seen a toad? Neville's lost one." Besides her bushy hair, she had a bossy voice and rather large front teeth.

"We haven't seen a toad," Ron said.

"Yeah, not even his."

"I think it's in the pond at home. Don't care, anyway."

"Yeah, well, Percy's old toad isn't the best pet."

"Are you... are you Harry Potter?" Neville asked.

Harry pushed up his bangs to reveal his blank forehead.

"Oh. Sorry. You just kind of look like James Potter."

"Don't worry about it. I hope you find your toad."

"I'm Hermione Granger, by the way, and this is Neville Longbottom."

"Longbottom?" Harry asked lightly. They had been tortured for information on Voldemort's whereabouts shortly after his father's death. "Are you related to Frank Longbottom?"

"Yes," Neville said nervously. "He's my father."

"I see," Harry said, dropping the subject. Neville's parent's torture was a worse fate than his father's death had been. They had been driven mad, and were still alive, but beyond help. "Anyway, this is Fred or George Weasley, I don't know which. The other one's off getting a drink because of the pepper Every Flavor Bean I gave him. And this is their brother, Ron. I'm Harry Snape."

"Snape? As in, you're related to the Potions Master?" The twin asked incredulously.

"He's my stepfather. My parent's were both Gryffindors."

"Really? They say that's the house that Albus Dumbledore was in--greatest wizard in the world. None of my family's magic at all, but I've been asking around and that sounds like the best house. Ravenclaw wouldn't be to bad either, I suppose."

"All my family's been in Gryffindor," Ron said. "Even these two." He motioned to the twin. "We're all witches and wizards."

"Mum's got a second cousin who's an accountant, but we never talk about him," the twin put in. "I think he was a Squib."

Harry sniggered. "Well, My dad was a pureblooded, really old family. Of course, I never really knew him."

"What about your mother?" Hermione asked.

"She died when I was four," Harry said quietly.

"I--I'm sorry."

"It's all right, you didn't know. It was just very sudden, the way she died. I don't really want to go into it."

Shortly after that, Hermione and Neville left to look for the missing toad and the other twin returned. The boys changed into their Hogwarts robes and sat for a while in near silence. After a while, however, Harry pulled out an Every Flavor Bean and gave it to the twin that he hadn't given the pepper one to.

"If you can eat that one, I forfeit."

The twin gave him an unbelieving look. "Chocolate?"

Harry shrugged. "Vomit didn't do it."

The twin shook his head and popped the bean in his mouth, then promptly spit it out. "That was NOT chocolate."