Wizarding Royalty

Chapter 18: Train

After the trip to Diagon Alley, the children had two weeks to prepare. The wizards took that time. Hermione read through her books for the school year. Fred and George worked on more prank shop items (which Molly tried to stop). Ginny mostly helped her mother with the cleaning. Harry and Ron played Wizard's Chess or some other game. Percy, Thalia, and Nico were occasionally training out in a clearing a few miles away that they had found. It was away from prying eyes magical or mortal. 

Sally had taken up most of the cooking with Percy helping her at dinner most of the time. When they were both in the kitchen together they looked happy, and Percy looked better than he had since Tartarus. His eyes would twinkle with delight while joking with his mother. After Tartarus, his eyes had not twinkled with that same mischievous spark as often as before. Now in the kitchen helping his mother he looked so happy and relaxed. He wasn't on guard the whole time. 

When training the Little Big Three would use anything from powers (which led to some nasty freak storms and low-level earthquakes) to weapons, to hand-to-hand combat. Thalia would win hand to hand most of the time but Percy would dominate in the weapons. Nico and Percy would draw quite a bit in powers, but Percy had more wins under his belt in the sparring sessions. 

Percy had taken to keeping the water bottle Frank had given Percy on him at all times. He kept a decent supply of water in it. It was enough to heal any of his small cuts and bruises but also enough to manipulate when he needed to. 

They all kept the beads on them. Nico had a camp necklace and had started wearing it since they had placed the beads from both camps and Leo on it. Thalia kept her beads on a new bracelet that she had made. It was placed right behind her bracelet that turned into Aegis. It was made out of the same material as the camp necklaces but only had four beads including the one she got after she was brought back by the Golden Fleece. 

Finally, it was September first and people were rushing around to get to Kings Cross before eleven when the train would leave. 

"Come on," Molly called frantically up the stairs. Thalia had packed the night before and was ready to go. Percy and Nico were calmly packing up their stuff. They knew rushing around with no order would do nothing to make them leave faster if anything it might slow them down because people would forget something and have to go find it. 

Fred and George tried to magic their trunks downstairs but had ended up knocking into Ginny and were now being scolded by Mrs. Weasley. Luckily, Mrs. Black's portrait had been removed or the chaos would have increased tenfold. 

Hermione was running trying to catch Crookshanks, when she finally caught the creature he squirmed in her arms trying to get out. Then Hermione was trying to get Hedwig to Harry without dropping the squirming cat. 

"Here," Hermione panted as Hedwig flew to her perch, "I just got her back." 

"Thanks," Harry told her. "Is Ginny all right? I heard Mrs. Weasley's yelling from up here." 

"Yeah, she's all patched up. The boys are still being scolded by Mrs. Blofis for being irresponsible." 

"Is anyone ready?" 

"Yeah, Thalia is ready, Fred and George are mostly ready they just have to survive the scolding. Ron is heading downstairs with his bag. Percy and Nico are finishing packing. Ginny is patched up and ready and I only need to get Crookshanks in his kennel." 

"Alright. I just need to get dressed. I'll be down in a minute." 

"Good." 

"Anything else I should know before going down there?" 

"No. Mad-Eye was complaining about Podmore not being here but then Mrs. Blofis volunteered to take his place in the guard. Especially since she'll be coming with us anyway. Said she didn't feel like Apperating the distance to Hogwarts."