Britain, Year Twelve
From a distance, the scene on platform nine and three-quarters looked the same as it had twenty years ago: the big red engine waiting patiently like a sleeping beast snoring steam, the knots of students surrounding their taller parents, the collisions of trunks, the hooting of annoyed owls. He hung back, staying on the margin of the crowd near the spot he'd held in memory as he Apparated.
No one noticed the wizard in shabby robes with the traveling cloak folded over one arm and the battered case in the other. No one took note of the fact that he, unlike all the other adults here, did not have some child in tow and was not handing out last minute instructions or money for sweets on the train. That was just as well, he thought as he skirted the crowd, lurching slightly from exhaustion.
This very morning he had stood in the isolated mountains of Romania as the sun rose, first on four legs, and then on two. It was still morning here in London (thanks to a two hour time difference), but it might have been ten thousand miles and a hundred years distant, given the close atmosphere of cacophony at the train station. If he had been less tired, perhaps he would have been nervous or excited, but as it was he could barely keep his eyes open. Apparating from the airport had taken the last bits of energy he possessed.
Twenty-three years suddenly shrank to a pinpoint as he saw, falling casually through the barrier, Arthur Weasley and a teenage James Potter. For a moment Remus believed he was thirteen too, and half expected the eccentric Potters to come tumbling through the barrier after James.
Instead there came unfamiliar young Weasleys, panting with exertion, one with a Head Boy badge and a girl no more than twelve who must have been the family's first daughter. And of course it wasn't James. The first difference Remus noted was his pet, which was a large snowy owl, very different from James's brown Barney. As the boy raised his head, he could see, too, that Dumbledore was right: he had Lily's eyes.
More Weasleys joined them, including a beaming Molly who, like Arthur, hadn't changed since she had come here to see off her first-born. Last came the girl with bushy hair -- he recognized her immediately as the Muggle-born who was the best Hogwarts student in a decade, the daughter of dentists, lugging in a wicker basket an enormous orange cat.
Remus followed at a discreet distance as the three best friends made their way towards the Hogwarts Express. They stored their luggage and pets in the compartment at the far end of the train, then jumped off to rejoin Arthur and Molly on the platform. Smiling to himself as he watched them, he slipped into their compartment and placed his case overhead in the rack. He would have the chance to meet Harry very soon, he thought as he took the seat by the window, if he could just stay awake...