Author's Note: Yes, yes, I know, another story. I have come to a realization about myself. Let me explain.

I have an anxiety disorder. So when I post a story before it's completed, I become anxious and obsessive, use up all my energy too quickly, feel too much pressure, and end up never finishing the story. I flit, as you've seen, from idea to idea, constantly anxious, never finishing a project.

Well, that has to stop.

So I have made a promise to myself - only one series or story at a time. And I'm only going to post a book or story after I've finished it.

This is my brand new Harry Potter AU series, and I am going to try to see it through to the end. Just this. Nothing else. This prequel included, there should be eight books, each with its own separate story and document. I have completely finished the prequel - this story - and am now posting it. I will let you know via a post in this story when book one is up, but be warned. I have not started book one yet, and I do not plan on posting it until I've finished it.

With that said, please enjoy this little prequel to my Harry Potter AU series.


Chapter One

Blue cloudless sky, hot sun, sucker punch, face eating ground packed dirt. Another day at school for nine-year-old Harry Potter.

He barely had time to sit up, watching blood drip from his lip onto the school playground floor, before he scrambled up and tried to make another run for it. Piers Polkiss grabbed his arms from behind and hauled him around, facing Dudley Dursley. Piers pinned his limbs behind his back, even as Harry struggled, and Dudley sunk a fist into his gut, making Harry gasp and keel over, feeling nauseous. Then there was another blow across the chin that would leave a blue and purple bruise and sent Harry's head flying back.

Piers was the scrawny rat, Dudley the gigantic bully. The other three were Dudley's personal cheering squad. Each had a perfect role in life, refined to a T, uniquely suited for their position.

Harry was also the perfect victim. Quiet and small and scrawny, all bony knees and elbows, passive, more interested in running away than fighting, in baggy old secondhand clothes, his glasses taped up at the bridge because of all the times Dudley had punched him there.

Dudley and his friends laughed and cheered as Dudley punched and punched Harry, a cruel grin eating away at Dudley's face. He leaned into Harry's ear and said, "You know what Mum and Dad call you, right? They say you're a freak. And that's what you are. You're a freak."

Dudley and Harry lived together. Harry was an orphan living with his aunt and uncle; Dudley was his cousin.

Hot, helpless rage filled Harry - and then in a great explosion all the other boys had been thrown backward by some invisible force. They skidded backward on their behinds, looking up in shock.

"You - you're doing your freak thing again, aren't you?!" Dudley snarled.

Harry was staring. "I - I don't know what happened, I've told you, I don't -" Strange things often happened around Harry, and he was always accused of making them happen, which just wasn't true. He didn't will anything to occur. Perhaps the wind had knocked Dudley and his gang back? It seemed the only rational cause.

(This was how Harry protected himself. He told himself he wasn't causing these things, so he couldn't control whether or not they happened.)

As Dudley stood up and stalked toward him, ruddy fury in his expression and his eyes gleaming, all Harry could think was that Dudley would tell on him. Harry would be sent home with a note and his aunt and uncle would lock him away in the cupboard under the stairs with the spiders again. Possibly with no meals.

And all over something he hadn't even really done.

Dudley kicked at Harry's shins and knocked him to the ground, scraping blood along the dirt again. Then he stepped on Harry's arm so hard it fell behind him, there was a large crack, and hot debilitating pain filled Harry's arm. He let out a single noise of agony.

All the other children on the playground had gone silent, watching fearfully, as always afraid of getting too close to that odd Harry Potter for fear of being beaten up themselves. This was how it always worked. Dudley and his gang always chased Harry, Harry always ran away, Harry was caught and beaten, Dudley was never punished at home or even seriously at school by apathetic teachers. That was life.

Then:

"Dudley Dursley!"

The new teacher, Harry registered distantly through his crippling, hazy pain. A young Asian American woman fresh at her first teaching job at St Grogory's Primary School. Miss Hanzen.

"He - he was trying to hurt me, Miss Hanzen, I -"

"Can it, Dursley, I saw the whole thing," came Miss Hanzen's voice flatly. "All of you, come with me." She spoke with the furious idealism of the young, unembittered, and unjaded.

Then suddenly there was a hand lifting Harry up. His good arm was slung over Miss Hanzen's shoulders, and he stumbled his way toward the school nurse's office, Dudley's gang moving uncertainly behind them, through the double doors and inside the school building, down screechy linoleum hallways. Harry saw Dudley smirk and move to make an invisible kick at Miss Hanzen's behind. His friends snickered, but said nothing.

Harry was dropped at the nurse's office. "I - I think my arm is broken," he managed. Miss Hanzen and the school nurse shared a look Harry couldn't decipher. He must look awful, he decided.

"Very well, then, let's get you cleaned up," said the nurse kindly, leading him behind a screen into the back. She sat him down on her rock-hard bed, gave his arm a cast, swabbed and patted and cleaned him up as nicely as she could. She didn't say a word the entire time, and in the soothing silence, with Dudley and his aunt and uncle gone, Harry finally started to relax.


Dudley Dursley and his gang followed Miss Hanzen down the hall toward the headmistress's office. "Miss -" Dudley began at last.

"Silence, Dursley. What you did was absolutely unacceptable," said Miss Hanzen frigidly.

Dudley's face reddened and his eyes narrowed.

They entered the headmistress's side office, the secretary sitting at her desk. "I need to see the headmistress," said Miss Hanzen. "Extremely urgent."

They were let within, and Miss Hanzen said without preamble, "Dudley Dursley had been bullying his cousin."

Dudley rolled his eyes and scoffed, looking away.

The headmistress's eyebrows rose. She was a stiff, dignified older woman - the kind who still wore lace collars and brooches. "Harry Potter? You know, we've been having problems with him. Odd incidents of misbehavior. He once climbed onto the roof of the school kitchens, if you can believe that."

Dudley knew this wasn't entirely true - his cousin had floated during a beating onto the roof of the school kitchens. Then the little dork had tried to blame the whole thing on wind currents. Even Dudley was smarter than that - smart enough to his know his cousin was a weirdo. But he said nothing. That information was only for his parents and their cupboard punishments.

"I think he may have been trying to escape his cousin, ma'am," said Miss Hanzen. "I watched from a window. With no provocation, those boys chased Potter across the playground, punched him, grabbed him, pinned him down, beat him up, and broke his arm. He's in the school infirmary right now, having a cast put on."

The headmistress was silent for a long time. "This is very serious," she said at last, quietly, her hands crossed. "Mr Dursley. Anything to say?"

Dudley shook, face reddening - his friends backed away - and he started a tantrum. At nine years old, he started a toddler era tantrum. Screaming incoherently, his fists flailing, he sent papers everywhere, sent a vase crashing and an end table falling over, pounded on the headmistress's desk. He made a horrible racket. He was crying and screeching and screaming.

"Mr Dursley! Mr Dursley!" said Miss Hanzen, the headmistress standing in alarm. Teachers came running. It took two grown men to hold down Dudley Dursley.

"Mr Dursley, you are already on academic probation for poor grades," said the headmistress coldly, her eyes flashing as she loomed over him. "You have now been accused of breaking a fellow student's arm, you have damaged headmistress property, and you have displayed marvelous mental instability.

"You and your friends are hereby expelled from St Grogory's. And no amount of crying and screaming will change my mind.

"I am sending you all to the local problem school for juvenile delinquents, and I am recommending that you in particular see a psychiatrist. It is my professional opinion as a former instructor that you badly need one."

"But - but -" Dudley stared up at her, horrified. "But Harry's the one you're supposed to be punishing. Not me!"

"This time, Mr Potter did nothing wrong," said the headmistress coolly. "He is a B student and the worst thing he's ever done is try to climb a school building once when he was seven. Perhaps away from you. I suppose I should have thought of that. He's also quiet and self controlled.

"Something that cannot be said for you, Mr Dursley," she whispered into his horrified face.

For once, Dudley Dursley's fearless gang looked terrified.


Harry stood in front of his uncle in the living room that night, being yelled at. The Dursleys' house was a nice, spacious two story suburban one, full of soft rugs, elegant furniture, and gleaming surfaces, paid for by Uncle Vernon's corporate job - hence his suit and tie.

"I don't know how you did it, but you've ruined Dudley's school career for him!" Uncle Vernon boomed, his ruddy face slowly going purple and a tic going in his temple. "I'll have you know if I decided to beat you, you'd fully deserve it!"

Harry was staring at the floor. He muttered something.

"What was that?!" Uncle Vernon snapped.

Harry sighed. "He broke my arm," he said, louder, but still quiet. "And then he had a tantrum in the headmistress's office. That's why he was expelled."

Between his uncle - who was also quite large - and his cousin, Harry had mastered speed and good reflexes. So he managed to duck out of the way of Uncle Vernon's arm in time just as he reached for his collar. He backed up, fast, as Uncle Vernon advanced on him, until his back hit the wall.

Uncle Vernon got very close into his face. "So you expect me to believe you're the innocent party?!" he spat.

"My poor Duddy is going to a school with awful children!" Aunt Petunia wailed, clutching at Dudley. "He's a boisterous boy, but he wouldn't hurt a fly!" She glared at him. "You must have done something, boy!"

"Precisely," Uncle Vernon growled. They all seemed to be ignoring the cast on Harry's arm. "Go to your cupboard. Stay there. No meals."

Harry slid sideways along the wall, and scampered off into his cupboard. His bruises and swelling lip were already healed. The arm, he knew, would heal in the next few days. Harry had always healed from things unnaturally well and unnaturally fast.

He sat in his cupboard in the darkness, getting lost in his own thoughts. Strange things were always happening to him. Once, Aunt Petunia, sick of Harry's messy hair, had shaved all his hair off. He'd hated the haircut, but for some reason it had all grown back overnight. Another time, a teacher had been making fun of him in class and her hair had suddenly turned blue. Yet another time, Aunt Petunia had been trying to force him into a revolting old sweater of Dudley's - all Harry's big, baggy clothes used to be Dudley's - and it shrunk before their very eyes until the biggest thing it might have fit was a hand puppet.

There must be a rational explanation for all of it, but don't tell his aunt and uncle that. They loved blaming things on him. It was always the same - cupboard punishments, no food, shouting. Uncle Vernon grabbed him and threatened to beat him a lot, but he never did. His aunt and uncle stuck to name calling and reminding him of how much of a burden he was and excluding him from things - when they paid attention to him at all.

Harry's entire living memory had been miserable. He'd spent his whole life with the Dursleys. Aunt Petunia had told him once that his parents had died in a car crash when he was a baby. That was where he'd gotten the lightning bolt shaped scar on his forehead, the one part of his appearance that he liked - he'd survived and they hadn't.

He couldn't remember being in the car when his parents had died. Sometimes, when he strained his memory during long hours in his cupboard, he came up with a strange vision - a blinding flash of green light and a burning pain on his forehead. This, he supposed, was the car crash, though he couldn't imagine where all the green light came from. Perhaps they'd been going through a stoplight?

He didn't remember his parents at all. His aunt and uncle never spoke about them, and he was forbidden to ask questions. (He was also forbidden to watch cartoons, talk about dreams, or show signs of imagination.) There were no photographs of them in the house.

When he had been younger, Harry had dreamed and dreamed of some unknown relation coming to take him away, but it had never happened. The Dursleys were his only family. Eventually, he gave up on that dream, and took to leaving the house as much as possible, taking buses into the city and wandering the streets to keep away from home. It was the only time he ever got out - it wasn't like the Dursleys ever took him anywhere.

He could see a tiny ray of hope now. With Dudley and his gang gone from school, and Harry's penchant for wandering the streets, he would now only have to interact with his relatives for meals and the chores he was assigned by his aunt and uncle ("to earn his keep").

Still, it was a dreary life.

Yet sometimes he thought, or maybe hoped, that strangers in the street seemed to know him. Very strange strangers they were, too. A tiny old man in a violet top hat had bowed to him once while out shopping with Aunt Petunia and Dudley. After asking Harry furiously if he knew the man, Aunt Petunia had rushed them out of the shop without buying anything. A wild looking old woman dressed all in green had waved merrily at him once on a bus. A bald man in a very long purple coat had shaken his hand in the street once, and then walked away without a word.

The weirdest thing about all these people was the way they seemed to vanish the second Harry tried to get a closer look.

At school, Harry had no one. Everyone was too afraid of Dudley to interact with him, and anyway Harry was "too quiet" and "weird." Perhaps some of that would change now, but somehow he doubted it.

He brushed some spiders out of his hair irritably, sitting on the camp bed inside the cupboard. It doubled as his bedroom. He had so few belongings of his own that they could all fit in here. He was not allowed pocket money and was never bought presents, or even new clothes - he "cost enough to keep around as it was" and "would just ruin what he was given" and some years his birthday wasn't even acknowledged.

Harry had thought about arguing a time or two that even with all the weird occurrences Dudley ruined far more than he did - given everything he ever wanted, Dudley had no concept of the true value of items and gifts - but there was no point. In his aunt and uncle's eyes, their Dudley was perfect. He wasn't a freak.

At last, it seemed silent outside and all the lights looked off. Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon always watched the evening news on the television, had tea, and then went to bed. He thought he'd heard their footsteps above him a few minutes ago.

Cautiously, he inched the cupboard door open and peered out. He had always wished he had a watch. It would have made ventures like this so much easier.

The coast was clear. All was black and silent.

His eyes already accustomed to blackness, he slunk out of the cupboard and crept silently down the hall to the kitchen. His stomach ached with hunger. He opened cupboard doors carefully, trying not to let them creak, and took out things that didn't need plates and wouldn't easily be missed: slices of bread, slices of cheese, and one of the many pieces of fruit from the fridge.

He hid all this underneath his baggy, ragged sweatshirt. It made him look even smaller and scrawnier than he actually was, but it did have its uses. He snuck silently back to the cupboard under the stairs, and shut the door. All the food would have to be gone, along with the evidence, by tomorrow morning, but that shouldn't be a problem.

School or no school, Harry could expect not to leave his cupboard except for bathroom breaks for a good several days.

He hissed and looked down, brushing a black widow spider off of his wrist. It had left a bite, but that didn't matter - Harry wouldn't get sick.

Harry never got sick. It may have been the only reason why he was still alive.

He had a very strange dream that night. His dreams were always bizarre and vivid, when he had them. In this dream, Uncle Vernon was trying to grab at him, but a gigantic medical clipboard kept blocking his way.

Like he'd said before. Weird stuff.


Miss Hanzen had been warned by other teachers to prepare for her scheduled after-school meeting with Vernon and Petunia Dursley.

Mr Krainer had chuckled humorlessly. "They think their son is perfect and they love complaining loudly about things," he said. "They're not looking for information or appropriate punishment or a compromise. They don't want to talk about their injured nephew. They want to argue with you on behalf of their son."

Miss Hanzen hadn't believed anyone could be so blind or horrible. Then she met them.

Petunia Dursley was in a very ugly flowery dress and a blonde chiffon bun. Thin and bony, she looked almost comical next to the large and rotund Vernon Dursley, with his alarmingly boring tie and large black mustache. Miss Hanzen could see Dudley in them - the smooth blond hair and blue eyes from his mother, the large girth from his father - but Harry must take after the other side of his family. They didn't even look related. Harry was naturally small and unhealthily thin, with messy black hair, bright green eyes, a thin diamond-shaped face, and spectacles. She was starting to suspect they'd tried hard to make him look as ugly as possible, between the glasses, the haircut, and the clothes, but he wasn't nearly as distasteful as they were themselves.

The Dursley couple looked displeased. Mrs Dursley's lips were pursed and there was a tic going in Mr Dursley's temple.

"Please sit down," said Miss Hanzen, giving a false, polite smile, and they sat down across her school desk from her in the classroom.

"My Duddy would never intentionally hurt someone," said Mrs Dursley immediately. "It must have been an accident. A mistake. He was just playing! He gets physical when he plays, like boys do!"

"I'm sorry, Mrs Dursley, I saw the whole thing," said Miss Hanzen sympathetically. "It was definitely intentional. Your son has actually had other reports of bullying incidents in the past - incidents that had nothing to do with your nephew."

"And what qualifies all of you to make those kinds of judgments?" Mr Dursley growled.

"We're teachers and adults. We have eyes and we listen to our students, looking them over for signs of injury."

Mr Dursley snorted skeptically.

"The decision to expel Dudley was the headmistress's. I merely made the report about what I saw, and after that it was out of my hands," said Miss Hanzen uncomfortably. The Dursleys were glaring ferociously at her. "There is nothing I can do for your son. I actually wanted to talk to you about your nephew.

"He often comes to class injured, and attends quite irregularly. There will frequently be full weeks when he doesn't show up." Miss Hanzen sat back, watching them cannily. "Is he sick with something?"

There was no doubt about it, that was panic in the Dursleys' face for a moment. Miss Hanzen's suspicions began to solidify. This may be a case of abuse.

"His health is… delicate," Mr Dursley muttered, his face reddening even further than it already was. High blood pressure, perhaps.

"That's good to know," said Miss Hanzen quietly, still watching them cannily. "You might want to get a doctor's note concerning that. I'm not the only teacher who has noticed. We've discussed it in the past. We all find it quite… peculiar."

The Dursleys had frozen stiff.

Miss Hanzen gave a big, cheerful smile. "That's all I wanted to let you know."

They knew, now - that she knew. And so did everyone else.


Harry was called out of his cupboard, surprised, on the second day of his punishment. He blinked, adjusting slowly to the bright lights of the living room, his limbs slowly becoming less stiff and uncurling.

"You're going to school," said Uncle Vernon flatly. "And if you ever do anything weird again, boy, I'll have to get creative, because there will be no more cupboard punishments. You'll attend school every damn day."

"Why?" Harry asked before he could stop himself.

"Shut up!" Vernon snapped. "You're going to school and that's final!"

Harry ducked his head, trying to hide how pleased he was. His aunt and uncle never liked to see him too happy. "Yes, Uncle Vernon."

"And Dudley." Uncle Vernon turned to Dudley. "You are no longer allowed to hit your cousin. At all."

Dudley and Harry both looked up in disbelief.

Dudley's face reddened. "But I want to play with him! I wanna!"

"Oh, Duddy," said Aunt Petunia emotionally, "I know, you're just playing, but you have to be a good boy for us, okay? And not hit your cousin."

Dudley glared sideways at Harry, his ploy for sympathy failing. He would try a series of violent incidents over the following days, but amazingly, he still didn't get his way. That was a first.

Later on that night, when they were going their separate ways and Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon couldn't hear, Dudley muttered, "Thank that stupid teacher of yours."

"What?" said Harry, caught off guard.

"Don't you get it, moron?" Dudley scowled and headed for the staircase. "She must have pulled the gossip card and threatened to expose them. What else could get Mum and Dad to stop behaving the way they do?" He stomped up the stairs toward his bedroom.

Harry stood there by his cupboard, stunned, both by the fact that Dudley had said something intelligent… and by the fact that someone appeared to be helping him. For the first time in his living memory, someone, and perhaps it was Miss Hanzen, was on his side.


Harry had a surreal day at school the next day. He was unbothered during class, allowed to eat lunch alone unfettered and even swing on the swing set, and overall he had the most wonderful day at school he'd ever had.

No more punches. No more cupboard punishments. Not even at home. It was amazing.

At the end of the day, Miss Hanzen approached him. "Harry," she said quite kindly, "I've scheduled after-school meetings with the school counselor for you. Because of the bullying incident."

Harry was almost amused. "That's alright, Miss Hanzen, I - I think I'm fine."

Miss Hanzen frowned, concerned. "Fine or not, it's required by the school that you attend the meetings anyway, alright? The first one is tomorrow at the counseling center at 3 o'clock. Free of charge, as per usual."

Harry knew she was trying to help. She just seemed naive to him. What good would counseling do?

Then again - what would it hurt? It was better than sitting in his cupboard with his thoughts and his bizarre dreams.

"Alright," he said, both to make her feel better and to avoid getting in trouble with the headmistress and his aunt and uncle. "I'll be there."

Miss Hanzen gave an internal sigh of relief. The only way she thought she could get Harry Potter to admit to abuse was through counseling.


The counselor's name was Mrs Harkiss, and she looked like a round old grandma with a cheerful face and a perm of silver hair. She held a clipboard, and when he entered, she said, "Have a biscuit and sit right there across from me." The chairs were across the office from one another, but there was no desk between them. Fantastical travel photos lined the walls and there were framed family photographs on the desk off to the side.

Harry took a biscuit from the platter and slowly took a seat, still looking around.

"You look quite intent, Harry," said Mrs Harkiss kindly.

"Do you travel with your family?" erupted suddenly from Harry.

Mrs Harkiss blinked. "Excuse me?"

"Those are hand-made travel photographs, and the pictures on the desk bear the similarity of your relatives." Harry ducked his head. "Sorry, I shouldn't have said anything." Trust him to offend the school counselor within five minutes of their first meeting.

"No, it's alright, I was just surprised. That's very observant of you," said Mrs Harkiss, blinking. She smiled. "My children are grown, but my husband is retired and I do often travel with him. We're going to the Grand Canyon this summer."

Harry smiled back tentatively. "These are good," he said politely, holding one up.

"Thank you."

"So, er - how does this work?" said Harry nervously.

"Well, first I'd like to ask you about your family," said Mrs Harkiss, going to the clipboard. "Harry, does your cousin often bully you? Is it a relief he's no longer here?"

Harry paused.

"Everything you say is between you, me, and the wall," said Mrs Harkiss. "Unless something criminal is happening or you're about to off yourself, that's actually the law."

"I… appreciate the honesty," said Harry, surprised. He didn't think there was anything illegal happening and he wasn't planning to off himself, so he decided to speak candidly. "Alright. Well. Yes, I suppose it's a relief that he's gone. He, er - he beat me up a lot. I could never enjoy lunch or recess in peace. And he kept me from making any friends."

"Did he call you any names?"

"Just what my aunt and uncle call me."

"And what is that, exactly?"

Harry realized too late he was caught in a bind. "Well - erm - you know - freak," he muttered to the ground.

Mrs Harkiss was silent for a while.

"What is it like, Harry," she said, "living with your aunt and uncle?"

"Do you really want to know?" Harry asked.

"Yes," said Mrs Harkiss, now impossible to read. The smile was gone. "I would very much like to know."

And so Harry told her - everything. About not being allowed too much food at meals, the cupboard punishments, and all the stuff in between. About his aunt and uncle's obsession with outward appearances and their all consuming fear of gossip, their perfect dollhouse home in which there were no photographs of him. He felt nervous as he was doing it. He was afraid, not of what Mrs Harkiss would do, but about retribution or derision from his aunt and uncle.

Keeping still and silent and never asking questions kept you alive in the Dursley household, and Harry had become an expert at it. Admitting bad treatment to a psychologist did not.

"What do you want, Harry?" asked Mrs Harkiss at one point. "What is it you want most of all in the world?"

"... Friends," Harry admitted. "Things to share, people to share with. Love. Does that sound stupid?" He winced and looked up.

"All things considered, Harry," said Mrs Harkiss, "I think it's positively remarkable. You're a little survivor, aren't you?"

"I try to be, ma'am," said Harry. "Surviving is all I'm good at."


Mrs Harkiss, Miss Hanzen, and the headmistress all sat down in the headmistress's office together. The headmistress was frowning, looking unusually worried and troubled.

"What's wrong?" said Miss Hanzen immediately. "Did you report the abuse to the authorities?"

"I did," said the headmistress. "And I have something very strange to tell you. I called someone, and they said they'd get right on it. I called them again the next day, and they claimed to have no memory of our conversation taking place. Furthermore, there was no file on record of any such abuse report ever having happened."

"Do you think his aunt and uncle are paying people off?" said Mrs Harkiss seriously.

"Perhaps, but there's something stranger. I did some digging. Harry Potter is supposed to be Petunia's sister's child, yes? Well his birth documents and papers are clearly forged, upon closer inspection. All evidence of Harry Potter existing before his aunt and uncle claimed hold over him are false."

"It's true he looks nothing like them," said Miss Hanzen, her mind spinning. "Could it be a trafficking case?"

"There's one more thing you should know." The headmistress frowned. "Harry Potter has government report paperwork attached to his name. But it's all sealed, blacked out. Only someone with high clearance can read it."

"What does he know about his parents?" said Miss Hanzen quickly, turning to Mrs Harkiss.

"She can't say -" the headmistress began, but Mrs Harkiss was silently shaking her head.

"Nothing?" said Miss Hanzen disbelievingly. Mrs Harkiss nodded and shrugged.

"The government is involved. They want Harry Potter with the Dursleys, to the point of blacking out every abuse report that is filed in his name," said the headmistress solemnly. "I don't know who he is or where he comes from, but one thing has become absolutely certain - he cannot leave. And I doubt he understands anything about why."

"We probably shouldn't bring it up," said Mrs Harkiss, troubled. "It would either confuse him, upset him, or both."

"So how are we supposed to help him?" Miss Hanzen asked disbelievingly.

"... By getting creative," said Mrs Harkiss in realization, determination forming over her face. She turned to Miss Hanzen. "And you're going to help me."

Miss Hanzen and the headmistress raised their eyebrows curiously.


"Harry," said Mrs Harkiss at their next meeting, "without going into too much detail, there are legal reasons why you can't leave your aunt and uncle's house."

She braced herself but he seemed unsurprised. "I expected that," he said with acceptance.

"So I am going to help you in a different way. Tell your aunt and uncle I want a meeting. Nothing you said will be discussed," she added, when Harry looked worried. "I'd like to speak to them about something quite different."

Her eyes gleamed.


"Thank you for the meeting, Mr and Mrs Dursley," she said politely, as they sat down across from her in her office.

"I'm sorry you have to put up with him," said Mrs Dursley immediately. "He's a troubled boy."

Mrs Harkiss was silent for a moment. "Can I speak with you frankly?" she asked. They looked hesitant, nervous. "You seem like the sort of people who care a great deal about how you come across. Right now, your nephew is interfering with this."

"That's right!" said Mr Dursley, looking enormously relieved that someone at last understood.

"Well I can fix that," Mrs Harkiss promised. "I can make him into the sort of orphaned nephew you may be proud to show off. Be warned - my methods will be unconventional. But I know what people like, as a psychologist, and I promise I can make your nephew into the kind of person people will be impressed by.

"I need two things from you - your permission to let Harry participate in after school hobbies and sports, and you may have to buy him new clothes. As I'm sure you know better than anyone, he has to have the right things to brag about and the right way to look.

"I may be leading him toward more youthful hobbies and looks than you're used to, but that will be positive in the long run. He'll look like a respectable young man of his own generation. More authentic.

"You will not have to be involved at all. I have an assistant who will be willing to help me to give your nephew a makeover, so to speak." She was thinking of Miss Hanzen, but decided not to mention that because they may already be suspicious of Miss Hanzen.

Vernon Dursley's tiny dark eyes watched Mrs Harkiss cannily for a moment, but Mrs Harkiss was a psychologist and an expert at putting up a polite, distant front. She gave a bland, cold smile.

"Very well," said Mr Dursley. "You know best. God knows the boy needs help."

"We'll trust your discretion," said Mrs Dursley.

"Excellent," said Mrs Harkiss. She wasn't sure how to bring up the cupboard bedroom, the chores, or the verbal abuse without getting Harry in trouble or seeming over-the-top and losing the Dursleys' trust. But many other things, she could help with.

She now had free reign in making Harry Potter's life considerably more pleasant. Miss Hanzen had gotten him no cupboard punishments and no physical abuse. Now the next step was making Harry a more functional human being who understood himself better, had wider friends and interests, and hopefully eventually had more food and better exercise. His look could use some updating, too.

She marched down the hall next to Miss Hanzen at the end of the day. "Let's get all this set in motion," she said firmly. "We have work to do."

Her job was making Harry Potter's life as livable as possible. With a flair for spy dramas, she privately called it Operation Makeover.