Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or any of the other characters that appear in this story. I am just playing with the plot. Please don't sue me, because I don't have any money. This story is simply for the enjoyment of other ambitious readers and writers like myself.

Chapter 1

The small bedroom was hot; too hot. The tiny window was stuck half- open, so the gentle breeze which shook the leaves on the tree right outside couldn't get in. The desk beside the window was littered with half empty bottles of ink, quills, and a few stray rolls of parchment. However, the remainder of the room seemed unnaturally empty for an inhabited bedroom. The walls were plastered a stark white, giving the room a hollow, lonely feel. The bed was old and creaky, and was made up with moth-eaten blankets. The only noises in the bedroom came from the whispering breeze outside, and a soft scratching on the corner of the desk.

The only living creature inside the room blinked her eyes blearily form the confines of her metal cage, waiting impatiently for her master to return. She glanced at her empty water bowl in yearning. Her master hadn't been back to the room to feed her since he left at dawn, and she had grown quite hungry. She shook her white feathers and gave a small hoot of alarm when she heard a loud CRASH coming from downstairs.

"BOY!" a loud voice boomed, echoing up through the floor. The white owl closed her eyes in exasperation.

Downstairs in the kitchen, a skinny bespeckled boy with extremely messy black hair scurried around in a panic, trying to scoop up the broken fragments of his aunt's vase before his uncle could see what had happened. The usually spotless kitchen was now littered with shiny, glittering pieces of porcelain. He reached for a particularly large and jagged piece, careful not to slice his finger on it. Just as he was standing up, the enormous bulk of his uncle appeared in the doorway.

"What on earth is going on in here?" Vernon seethed. When he noticed the sharp fragments scattered across the linoleum floor, his face began to turn a nasty shade of purple.

"Nothing," Harry said quickly.

"Nothing?" Vernon was glaring at the piece in Harry's hand.

"It was an accident. I- I tripped." This was only partially true; Harry was not clumsy at all. Uncle Vernon seemed to realize that this was a lie, and gave the boy a punishment for it. No one tells Vernon lies in this own house.

"After you clean up this mess, you are to weed the flowerbeds, mow the lawn, and mop the kitchen. If I hear any sound from you, boy, you will wish you had never been born." He slapped Harry across the face once, causing a resounding crack, and stomped from the kitchen. The more labor the dreaded boy did, the less he had to do later.

Harry slowly brought his hand up to his cheek to feel if it was swollen. The skin was stinging badly, but not nearly as badly as the lightening bolt scar on his forehead. It was this scar which had been the reason Harry had stumbled into the vase in the first place. As he pressed his hand against it, he could feel an even larger panic spreading throughout his whole body, making his limbs numb. The only times that his scar hurt had been when Lord Voldemort was near Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, the school Harry attended. But he couldn't possibly be near Privet Drive, could he?

Harry was about to enter his third year at Hogwarts. He had been in the face of danger several times throughout the past two school years, but Harry wasn't sure if he could hold off Voldemort yet again. In their past two encounters, Harry had escaped Voldemort's clutches purely on luck, or so he thought.

His instincts were telling him to alert Dumbledore, his headmaster, about his scar. But would Dumbledore believe him? Harry had already sent about a hundred letters off to his headmaster, begging to let him stay with the Weasleys for the remainder of the summer. After replying to the first twenty letters with the answer 'No', he had ignored all the rest that had been sent. Harry wasn't even sure if Dumbledore was reading them anymore.

Instead, Harry finished cleaning up the now worthless vase, and then quietly bounded up the stairs to grab his wand. If there was any danger around, he at least wanted to be ready. As he entered the room, Hedwig gave a soft hoot of hunger. He grimaced.

"I know, girl," he murmured, hovering in the doorway. Hedwig's large eyes rested on his helpless face. She hooted again.

Harry shook his head, and walked to his bedside table and grabbed his wand. He hated not being able to care for Hedwig properly. The last two times he had been caught, Vernon's wrath had been frightening.

"He's watching me too closely right now," Harry whispered to his owl. "Hang in there until I'm done. I promise I'll be quick." Harry turned and stealthily crept back down the stairs. Then he went into the garage, grabbed the weeding tools, and got to work on the flowerbeds.

The late afternoon sun beat down on his exposed neck as he labored. His sore arms dripped with sweat, and he wearily whipped his brow on his sleeve. The dirt in the flowerbeds was almost rock hard; it had been baking in the sun for days now, so the surface was caked and crumbling. His fingertips were sore from the dirt under his fingernails, and the skin raw from scratching against the hard surface.

Harry yawned. His eyes itched from fatigue. But no matter how tired he was, he couldn't seem to get rid of the feeling that he was being watched. Every time he sat up and looked around, however, his eyes were greeted by a deserted street and a few scattered rain clouds in the sky. He forced his mind back onto the task at hand.

On and on he worked. At least there's a bit of a breeze, he thought wearily. He wiped his brow with his dirty sleeve, and snorted. Great. I probably have a nice dirt stain across my forehead now. Let's hope I don't meet any strangers and embarrass myself. On second thought, maybe it'll hide my scar….

A bee was buzzing around one of the rose bushes. The sound was hypnotic.

There aren't even that many weeds in here, Harry thought grumpily. Why couldn't Dumbledore just let me g-

"Hey, you there!" Harry whipped his head around in search of the voice's owner. His wand was out of his pocket before he could even stand up.

The man leaning on the front gate looked youthful, with light brown hair and cheery eyes. But when Harry got a closer look, he noticed that the man's hair was flecked with grey, and his face was lined with premature wrinkles.

"Er- can I help you with something?" Harry stuffed his wand back into his pocket as he approached the man.

"Yes, er, I'm a friend of one of your neighbors. Actually, er, she was wondering if- whether or not you would be willing to do some chores around the house for her. She lives down at number six."

Harry knew perfectly well who lived at number six. It was Mrs. Figg, the batty old lady who was obsessed with cats. Harry almost snorted again, but caught himself quickly. He was being asked to do even more work? Couldn't this man see that he already had enough on his plate?

"Sorry, but I've got loads to do around here. I don't think I can spare any more time." Was it just him, or did this man look slightly disappointed? He regarded Harry with interest.

"Alright. I'll just deliver on the message, then." There was a brief, awkward silence, and the man still didn't leave. What's he waiting for? I can't stand around all day. Uncle Vernon will kill me.

"Why are you working outside on such a hot day like today?"

"Erm…," Harry didn't know what to say. 'I broke my aunt's favorite vase because the stupid scar on my forehead started burning really badly, which means that Lord Voldemort might currently be on this street, and I got punished for it' didn't seem like the right thing to say, for some reason.

"What happened to your face?" The man was peering closely at the ominous bruise on Harry's cheek, which had swelled up to the size of a golf ball.

"Nothing," Harry answered quickly. When the man raised an eyebrow, Harry quickly made up a story. "I tripped over a chair in the kitchen, and hit my face on the stove." The man simply stared at the bruise some more.

"Well, it was nice meeting you, er, Mr-?"

"Remus Lupin," the young man stated, holding out his hand. Harry stared at it for a second before shaking it. It was also lined with wrinkles. He noticed Lupin glance at the scar on his forehead (apparently it hadn't been hidden beneath the dirt streak), and quickly withdrew from the handshake.

"Well, I'd better get back to work now. It's almost dark, and I'm not even halfway finished." Harry turned and walked back to the flowerbeds. When he glanced over his shoulder, Lupin was gone.

??

Remus Lupin was worried. Very worried. Harry was not the happy kid that he had expected him to be. In fact, he was nowhere near what he had imagined him to be.

The instant he had laid eyes on the boy, he had known who he was. There weren't too many people in the world that had hair like James Potter. Harry's mop of black hair stuck up in the back just like James' had. But his reaction to meeting Remus had been nothing even remotely close to what Remus had been expecting.

The boy was being neglected. That much was clear. Even if he wasn't severely abused yet, Harry was still in danger. Remus wouldn't put it past the Dursleys to kick Harry out of the house, and once he was on the streets, the game would be over.

No less than a week ago, a man named Sirius Black had escaped from the wizard prison, Azkaban. Nobody knew how he achieved it, but Black was known to be both sneaky and dangerous. There were rumors circulating all over the country that Sirius Black had helped Lord Voldemort return to his body. Whether that was true or not, Remus didn't particularly want to find out.

He had to come up with a plan. He had to protect Harry. There was no way that he was losing the last Potter to Voldemort and Black. They had both lost enough already.

??

The rain started around six o' clock that night. It wasn't the light kind of rain that makes a soothing sound on your roof at night. It was a hard pounding, like a thousand little fists, threatening to break into your bedroom and wash you from your bed.

Harry had dismissed the idea of sending Hedwig out to Dumbledore. He didn't want her to get lost in the freak storm raging around the house, and she hadn't had anything to eat until a few minutes ago. His poor owl hooted at him in restlessness from being cooped up for so long. As he grabbed her empty water bowl from inside her cage, she gently nipped his finger.

"I know, I'm sorry," Harry told her quietly. "You can't go out tonight. I don't want you to get lost." Her large amber eyes blinked up at him for a moment, before she tucked her head beneath her wing and went to sleep.

Harry opened the door of his bedroom and tiptoed down the hall to the bathroom to fill up Hedwig's water bowl. He let the water run for a few moments before placing it under the faucet. As he glanced around at the photos of Dudley in distaste, his thoughts strayed to the man he had met earlier. Lupin…. He had a strange feeling he had met the man before….

"BOY!" A dangerous shout came up the stairs. Oh no. What did I do now?

Harry quickly turned off the sink and leapt across the hall to his bedroom, spilling water on the carpet on the way. He deposited the water bowl on his desk just as his uncle got to the top of the stairs.

"What did I tell you to do earlier?" He hissed in a dangerous voice, his enormous bulk blocking the entire doorway to Harry's room. A vein was throbbing in his neck, and his moustache quivered.

Harry was bewildered. "You, er. You told me to-"

"MOW THE LAWN!" His uncle screeched. He grabbed Harry by the collar of his shirt and bodily dragged him down the stairs. Harry was slammed face first into the kitchen window.

"Look out the window. What do you see?"

"Er." What did he see? What were those gleaming eyes doing on the opposite side of Privet Drive? Harry peered closer. "I see a dog."

"A dog? NO, you idiot! You see the unmown grass! WHY DIDN'T YOU FINISH YOUR CHORES?" Vernon shook Harry's collar.

"It was raining! I didn't want to break the lawn mower!" Vernon slapped Harry's cheek again, and tugged the flowered window curtains shut.

"Well guess what, you little freak! I'm not paying for your food and shelter if you don't work it off! I want you out of this house, NOW!" And with that, Vernon threw open the front door, and shoved Harry out off the porch steps. Then the door was slammed shut, and Harry was left in the hard, cold downpour.

"Damn."

What was he going to do now? All of his belongings and Hedwig were stuck in his room upstairs. Harry tried to remember whether or not he had closed his bedroom window. He could always climb the tree outside his window and grab his stuff-

As he had been thinking, Harry had walked over to the tree and looked up at the dark, wet house. The bloody window wasn't open. Great. Now he was stuck in the pouring rain, he was sopping wet, and locked out of the house that held his most precious belongings. He had an alarmingly swollen cheek and a split lip, his scar was burning, and-

Wait. His scar was….

Bloody hell.