Harry knocked on the door to the large house before pushing it open without waiting for a response. He called out, "Aunt Sissy, Sirius bullied and beat me up this morning, and I need healing before we leave!" He then ducked under said bully's attempt to grab him, laughing as he did so.
"I'll be there in a minute!" a voice called back from somewhere further into the house.
As they waited, Draco came down the stairs, already dressed in the first-year uniform provided by the school. Joining them in the foyer, he greeted the two adults before giving Harry a look up and down and stifling a laugh, much to Harry's consternation.
"Laugh it up, Draco. You're going to be my sparring partner for the next week," Harry said, making Draco choke on his laugh and begin denying. "It was because you're not wearing your uniform yet." He said to no one's belief. "I'm serious! I was just thinking about the face you'd make when you're the only one not dressed." Harry snorted at that before replying. "First, you're not serious; he is." Earning a barked laugh from said man. "And second, you're a terrible liar when it's on the spot." He finished, earning more laughter from the adults and making Draco sulk.
After another minute, Narcissa, or 'Aunt Sissy', walked into the room. Seeing everyone present, she gave her sister a hug and Sirius a withering glare before greeting Harry. As she did, she performed a scan of his body, the feeling like the time Sirius poured a bowl of eggs on him, and started healing him. As her magic did its work, she started talking. "Hello, Harry. Don't you think you should know better than to spar with that mutt on an important day like this by now?" she gently admonished him, causing his head to duck slightly in embarrassment.
As his surrogate mother figure, she was the only one who was ever able to get that sort of reaction out of him.
"I know, but he woke me up several hours early for a prank, and I figured, 'if I can't sleep, why should he be allowed to?' Plus, every extra bit of practice helps."
Nodding her head in understanding and shooting Sirius a look that promised misery, she finished healing the last of his bruises, and they made their way to the Floo before heading straight through to the shuttle site.
Time to get this show on the road.
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Seeing almost no one else wearing their uniforms yet, Harry leveled a smirk at Draco, causing him to huff and turn away.
"I still maintain my answer. Even if I was wrong."
"Man, sticking your foot in your mouth, admitting you were wrong, and still going to be my punching bag for the next week. I wander what you did to deserve this recently. Oh well, nothing for it now. Sucks to suck, I guess."
"What do you mean 'nothing for it'? You could choose not to beat me up!"
"I mean, I could, but you brought it on yourself."
"Yeah, yeah, Just shut up."
After their spat was over, they quietly made their way to the departure board.
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The departure board was an area of barely controlled chaos. Thousands of students were in lines impatiently waiting to find out what shuttle they would be on and their compartment number.
As they waited, many took the chance to show of any magic they might know, hoping to impress their friends or establish themselves as superior. Harry found it amusing, Draco found it vexing... Which only amused Harry more.
The only saving grace was that the whole morning was reserved for student departures. Otherwise they'd probably lose a third of the students in the chaos.
After making their way through the line, getting a message halfway through from Sirius that they left to avoid Bella causing a scene, they went to one of the waiting areas to sit, joining other waiting students with no one seeing them off. As they waited Harry listened to some of the conversations going on around him. Some talked about their favorite sport or team, others about what subject they were most looking forward to, he even heard someone expressing his excitement over Albus Dumbledore being his headmaster and the strongest wizard from earth. (Hogwash of course. Powerful he may be, but at tier six, he was far from the strongest. Credit where credit is due though, he held the record of fastest ascension to demigod of any mage from Earth in the last thousand years, for almost eighty years. Only beaten by his former apprentice, who edged him out by just shy of three years.)
Broken from his thoughts by an elbow to the ribs, he turned to Draco, a brow raised in askance.
"Our shuttle will be here soon. We should head to the boarding station now if we don't to wait in line forever." Draco said. Clearly he had been zoned out longer than he thought.
Getting up, they made their way over to the boarding station just in time, because looking up, they could see the massive shuttle as it slowly descended. While not his first time seeing or even riding a shuttle, watching the flying behemoth move through the air was always an awe inspiring sight. It was a vessel almost two-hundred meters tall and built kind of like a Jenga tower in that it had clear lines of separation between the different compartments and they could detach from the rest at will.
After boarding, finding their compartment and waiting thirty minutes, in which time they were joined by two others, they finally departed. Looking out the window, they watched as the ground got smaller and smaller as they rapidly approached the world membrane and into transition space.