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Due to the length of the Hogwarts Express' journey back to London the time of departure was decided to be early in the morning, something very welcome to most students, but not really at the moment.

Julius yawned loudly as he was walking to the station together with the other students, since no matter how modern Magical Britain was, every student had to travel with the Hogwarts Express if they wanted to get to Hogwarts or back to London.

He was still very tired from a last training in death magic on the last evening at Hogwarts but the chillly winter air made at least most of his sleepiness evaporate on the way to the station and though most were complaining about the cold and how early it was, he enjoyed the slight warmth of the few rays of sunlight appearing on the horizon.

It was after all a beautiful morning, with frost glittering in the grass and the trees when the sun touched them, just like the castle's windows behind them, while smoke rose from its many chimneys.

The air was fresh and much cleaner than in any moderately sized muggle city and even if the warmth of the sun might not be all that noticeable, the prospect of seeing his family warmed Julius enough, to him it felt almost like a perfect morning.

When the sillhouette of the Hogwarts express appeared around the last bend, the tempo of many students began to speed up a lot, wanting nothing more than to finally get into the warm compartments where they could take off their winter clothes and just enjoy the convenient warming charms, or just catch up on sleep; it was already the start of the weekend after all.

To the dismay of the students who had quickened their steps before, they had to wait in front of the train at first, until Professor McGonagall, who bore an unusually mild expression, had finally verified that all students who were to leave the castle were indeed there, and not one more.

After every student was accounted for, they quickly rushed into the train and began claiming their compartments where they would spend the last few hours with their friends before going home for the holidays.

Of course Julius and his friends also entered the train and again picked a compartment a bit off from most others, they wouldn't really appreciate some random pureblood trying to build a connection, even though it was far less likely for something like this to happen than when they travelled with the Hogwarts Express for the first time.

"Julius, are you sure it's really okay? Of course I don't want to bother your family, especially on christmas and they don't even know me", asked Habol. He had been nervous throughout the whole morning, as he had never really visited a friend and his first time was directly lasting the entirety of the christmas break.

Surprisingly the reply did not come from Julius himself, but from Lia:

"I don't think Julius is worried, I mean look at him; he hasn't been thinking or talking about anything but his apparently cute little sisters."

Even their usually silent companion appeared to have something to say for once:

~You don't need to worry about that, human~

With both, Lia and Rachel assuring him, Habol managed to calm down enough to at least enjoy the journey, though he was still noticeably nervous.

Julius on the other hand appeared to have completely missed the whole conversation and was just looking out of the window with an excited expression, a state in which he stayed for most of the ride, so Lia was able to use the time to talk to Habol in what would be the last time for a longer time than the trio had ever been separated since they had first met only a few months ago.

Though after a bit more than an hour Julius also began to insert himself into the conversation even if sparingly, after all he also wouldn't be seeing Lia for a while, though they would at least meet each other in their function as heirs during the yule ball organised by the ministry.

Habol was of course important enough to be able to attend the yule ball but he of course didn't want to utilise his family name like that and risk his father's attention just yet.

...

A few hours spent in comfortable conversation later the train arrived at King's Cross and Julius immediately began searching for his family in the crowd on the platform.

Unfortunately for him with the growth in the amount of students at the school the amount of parents waiting at King's Cross had of course also multiplied and he was able to find any of them while the train was still pulling into the station, opting to instead search for them out on the platform.

Due to the crowd the search proved difficult even on the platform, with Habol being unable to provide too much help, as he simply did not know how Julius' family looked with him never showing them any pictures on his mirror even while going on and on about them.

And of course he could have used his own mirror to find images of them, but he was never really all that fond of this strange invention.

Suddenly they heard a shout over the commotion:

"Julius! Over here!"

Julius, immediately recognizing the voice of his mother, barely managed to spin around before two small bundles of joy hit his stomach and buried their faces in his robe, while Adorabella and George made their way towards him much more slowly.

As Julius felt the warmth of his adorable little sisters through his robe he knew, he was finally home again, so he just continued to hold them silently while the two stumbled over their own words with how fast they tried to recount everything that had happened while he was away.

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It's been a while again, but I hope you enjoyed the chapter; I'm still working on the "feelings/relationships" part of writing a fanfic.

Thanks for reading :)