The woman let out a frustrated sigh, resisting the urge to bury her face in her hands. Just be strong, she told herself firmly as she settled on her plastic seat, waiting for the bus to begin rumbling along. All the same, she felt sharp tears prick the corners of her eyes, although she was too proud to let them fall.

She had been thinking of leaving her husband for some time now; the complicated feelings twisting her stomach into knots; after their argument today, she was certain it was over between the two of them. Oh, Mackenzie, she thought sadly, thinking of their daughter. There was a sharp screech as the bus driver pulled the door closed. I don't want her to grow up without a father, but what can I do?

A voice broke through the chattering of her fellow bus passengers."Hello." Joann gave a start; on what had previously been the empty bench across from her now sat a young boy. She nodded a greeting to him, her motherly instincts taking over as she surveyed his clothes—too big and shabby—and his glasses—broken, barely held together with tape.

"Are you alright?" the boy asked. He couldn't have been more than eleven years old.

"Yes," she replied, puzzled. When she had been that age, she'd avoided talking to strangers at all cost. He self-consciously attempted to flatten his unkempt black hair and she imagined herself combing it out. Honestly, does his mother really let him go out like that? She thought, instantly wishing she hadn't as she remembered her own mother's illness.

"Sorry, just, you looked sad for a while there," he told her. Air streaming through the open bus window as they traveled along the countryside caused him to shiver, and she bit her lip. Would it be odd for her to offer him her jacket?

"Where is your mum?" she finally asked him, finding herself worried for this skinny little waif of a boy. He frowned, looking shyly at his lap.

"I haven't got one," he mumbled. "I don't have parents. They're dead."

The blonde woman inhaled a sharp gasp. "Surely you're not here all alone!"

He looked at her. "I just had a feeling I should get on this train, you know?"

"No, I don't know!" Joann's anger was a tad unreasonable, almost certainly misdirected. "You shouldn't be on a bus by yourself! What if someone were to take you, or…"

"Maybe I just wanted to meet you," he told her, and there was something in his green eyes, something not quite young; these eyes had seen pain and tragedy, and yet hope gleamed within their emerald depths. These were not the eyes of a child.

Joann stared at him for a moment, stunned. "Who are you?" she finally asked. He gave her a shy sort of smile; if nothing else, he really seemed a sweet enough boy.

"I'm Harry, Harry Potter," he told her. "But I suspect you knew that." He held his small hand across the aisle and, befuddled, she took it in her own; it felt surprisingly warm and comforting, and he met her gaze with an intense look burning his eyes, so intense that she had to close hers; it was rather like looking into the sun.

When she opened her eyes again, the boy was gone, and in her hand an ordinary ball-point pen rested, glinting slightly in the waning sunlight. A small piece of paper was wrapped around the pen's barrel. She unfolded it.

See you soon, the note read.