I do not, in any way, shape, or form, own Harry Potter.

Adeleine White was sitting alone in her room when she heard the sounds that would forever change her life. Her room wasn't particularly large, and it seemed even smaller than it actually was thanks to the fact that every available inch of the floor was covered in various art supplies: easels, canvases, paints, coloured pencils, sketchbooks, brushes, palettes, pencils, erasers, and almost anything else anyone interested in art could ever want.

Like every other house on her street, her house had four rooms: a master bedroom with an attached bathroom, two more bedrooms that were the same size as each other, and one that was slightly smaller than the others. Being that Privet Drive was the perfect picture of conforming suburbia, most every family on the street consisted of a working father, a housewife mother, and their two children, who occupied the two same-sized bedrooms.

Adeleine's father, who felt that his dislike of his daughter outweighed his need to fit in with his neighbors, had given her the smallest bedroom, which most families used either as an office for the hardworking man of the house or as a guest bedroom for whatever relatives deigned to visit them. Because of this, she had to store a lot of her paintings and sketches in the cupboard under the stairs, which was otherwise unused.

All told, Number Nine Privet Drive was exactly like every other house on the street, which was a source of infinite irritation to Adeleine.

Fitting with the sameness of her neighborhood, her days, when she didn't have school, were stuck in a monotonous cycle: wake up, shower, get dressed, have breakfast, art, have lunch, art, have dinner, art, shower again, and go to bed. Adeleine desperately wished that something would come along to break this all up, but nothing ever did. Until, of course, one day in mid-June.

The day had started off as any other: Adeleine woke up, showered, dressed, had breakfast, started a painting of Dudley Dursley punching her older brother in the face, and had lunch. After lunch, Adeleine went back to her room, as she always did, to finish her new painting, which she was quite pleased with. Dudley Dursley had been completely insufferable her entire life, until the summer before her fifteenth birthday, after which he became much more quiet and bearable. He had even stopped hitting on her, which he had done consistently since he had turned thirteen.

While Adeleine contemplated Dursley's new, and much improved, attitude and worked on her painting, she started hearing odd noises from a way off. She had trouble identifying the sounds at first, but after listening to them for a few minutes, she realised what they were.

Explosions, shouting, crashing, and more explosions, which weren't the sort of sounds one should typically investigate. This was something of which Adeleine was very aware. That said, she was a naturally curious person, a trait which had never yet gotten her into serious trouble. Others, yes, but never her. After all, it wasn't like she had wanted to walk into her father cheating on her mother with a woman she had never seen before. It just sort of . . . happened. And, at the time, she had been too young to recognise the sounds coming from his room, so it really wasn't her fault.

Regardless, the sounds of what seemed like a massive battle were far too interesting (and unlikely to be embarrassing for her) for her to resist finding out what was causing them. And so, not seeing much choice in the matter, she left her house and walked down the very ordinary streets towards the source of the mysterious noises.

Harry Potter had been having a surprisingly peaceful day. He knew that he would have to spend several months, probably the entire time before school started, with the Dursleys, but he also knew that he could now perform magic with impunity. Granted, the ability to do so two months before his seventeenth birthday had required him to pull a few strings at the Ministry, but it had been completely worth the many favours he had had to call in.

Being able to perform magic outside of school meant that, rather than leaving him alone when he did the same and antagonising him when he didn't, the Dursleys never spoke to Harry at all. It was a very nice change of pace, as their usual conversations were really nothing more than Vernon ordering Harry to do various chores outside the house, Petunia ordering him to do various chores inside it, and Dudley trying very hard to speak and failing utterly to do so.

Not exactly the sort of family dynamic that leaves one feeling warm and fuzzy. As Harry had never once considered any of the Dursleys to be his family, nor had they, him, the four of them were perfectly content with this fact: neither happy nor unhappy, simply unperturbed.

So all in all, Harry had actually started to get rather bored over the holiday. He had no intention of returning to Hogwarts, but he had been told that he would be with the Dursleys until September first, the same date that Hogwarts always started, so he couldn't quite help himself from thinking as though he were on vacation. In a way, he supposed he was, although it wasn't a vacation from school. Rather, it was a buffer in between his student life and his adult life, an extended holiday between his schooling and his career.

Unfortunately for him, his "career" was actually hunting down pieces of Voldemort's soul, which most people would hesitate to call a career. Harry himself rather thought that the phrase "self-appointed suicide mission" was a more apt, if less succinct, description. Regardless of what he called it, he was committed. Or rather, he had been committed, ever since Voldemort had singled him out when he was a child. Bloody prat could've chosen Neville, but nooo, he had to choose Harry. Prick.

In any event, it had been a rather peaceful, if somewhat boring, day. Until, that is, Harry received a very unwelcome message from Professor Flitwick, his charms teacher, in the form of a talking Patronus charm. "We have learned that the ancient magic protecting you while you make your home with your relatives will last one year longer than Albus had predicted; until your eighteenth birthday," the duck said. Exactly why Flitwick's Patronus was a duck, Harry neither knew nor wanted to know. Some things, he had learned, were better off as mysteries.

"We have therefor decided to slow the warding process on your new home. The result is that, while you will be unable to move in until next summer, the house will be much better protected when you are finally able to move in." With that, the duck Patronus disappeared, slowly evaporating until there was nothing left.

Harry stared at the empty space it had occupied in utter horror. Another year with the Dursleys? What could he have possibly done to deserve this? Granted, they would almost certainly leave him alone the entire time, and it would be very bad for them if they didn't (Harry never relaxed his grip on his wand unless he was alone in his room, which was carefully and heavily warded to prevent muggles from entering without his permission). Even so, they were simply unpleasant people whom Harry liked to avoid wherever possible.

Harry thought for a moment before pulling out his wand. "EXPECTO PATRONUM!" he bellowed, sending messages to Ron and Hermione, informing them of this latest development. No way in hell was Harry hunting down fragments of the soul of the evilest wizard of all time based in Number Four, Privet Drive. Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place, maybe, but never Privet Drive.

After a moment, he realised just how loudly he had shouted. He was suddenly rather glad that he had placed permanent silencing charms around his room earlier that week. The neighbors were already under the impression that he attended a school for "incurably criminal boys" (albeit one that didn't actually exist. Harry's neighbors weren't a particularly intelligent bunch), and he shuddered to think what they would say if they heard him screaming Latin at the top of his lungs for no apparent reason.

After calming down very slightly, Harry kicked his door open and stormed down the stairs. "I'll be here until next summer," was the only thing he said as he left the door, pulling on his new duster as he went, confident that Petunia had heard him. The terrified squeak she had made was something of a giveaway.

Without thinking about where he was going, Harry stomped around the neighborhood, mostly at random. C'mon, Potter, a voice somewhere in the back of his head berated him. Surely you were expecting something like this? After leaving early ever summer since you started school, surely you must have known that the other shoe would drop sooner or later? And that voice, as obnoxious as Harry found it, was completely right. He should know better than to expect anything less.

If he had been thinking, he would have realised that the man he was a few seconds away from walking into looked vaguely familiar. Actually, if he had been thinking, he would have noticed said period, but he would have also noticed the odd similarity he bore to someone whom Harry knew rather better than he would have liked to. Or rather, that somebody whom Harry knew rather better than would have liked to bore an uncanny resemblance to the man in front of him.

But he wasn't thinking, and thus walked straight into Crabbe Senior without noticing it.

Fortunately for him, Crabbe didn't notice, either, as his back had been turned to Harry. When he turned to sneer at the idiotic muggle who clearly didn't know any better than to simply walk into someone, he was caught completely off-guard by the presence of Harry Potter, number one on his master's "kill very slowly and painfully, preferably in front of a large audience" list, which he updated regularly and furiously. Crabbe was just about to force his face into a mask of calm when Harry whipped his wand out and sent a stunner at him.

Crabbe, unable to draw his wand to conjure a shield, was forced to dodge the spell, putting him on the defensive as Harry launched a series of blasting curses at him, which he struggled to block and dodge.

The instant Harry was forced to pause for breath, Crabbe sent a series of bone breakers at him, shifting the momentum in his favour. Harry, who had spent most of his childhood dodging punches was able to avoid Crabbe's spells easily, but had trouble getting in any time to send any of his own. Neither noticed the muggle girl watching them in utter fascination from behind the cover of a parked car.

Adeleine had no idea how the fight had broken out, and she had no idea how the fight was possible. All she knew was that two people, one a teenager several inches taller than her, the other a grown man several inches shorter, were each waving around a nondescript stick, shooting out blasts of light at each other. The boy was using almost exclusively red and blueish-purple lights, with the occasional white one, while the man was using a much greater variety. Every so often, one of them would give their stick an odd little flick, and a lilac-coloured circle of light would appear in front of them, absorbing one of the lights that the other sent out.

The man, she noticed, used the lilac-coloured lights, which Adeleine thought must have been shields, much more than the boy did, as he preferred to dodge. Neither said a single word to the other, though they were shouting what sounded like Latin almost constantly. The two of them went back and forth, neither seeming to have much of an advantage, until the man sent a massive wave of dark purple light at the boy. His eyes widened when he saw it, and he pointed his stick straight forward and bellowed "PROTEGO!" Another one of those lilac-coloured circles appeared, although this one looked much sturdier than the others.

The wave of purple light crashed into the boy's shield and seemed to push against it for several seconds. Adeleine could see the strain on the boy's face as he struggled to keep his shield up, but she could also see cracks starting to form in it. Before she knew what happened, the shield shattered like a pane of glass and the purple light slammed into the boy, sending him flying backwards down the street. He hit the road and rolled a few times, though he didn't look nearly as badly hurt as he should have been. He groaned as he pushed himself to his feet and turned to face his opponent again, who had fallen to his knees, seemingly from the strain of whatever he had done to the boy.

The boy flicked his stick a few times, sending a pinkish-red light at the man, which was immediately followed by an orange one, a white one, and finally a crimson one. When the first light hit the man, his stick flew out of his hand and into the boys, the second one made his arms and legs snap to his sides, the third one wrapped him in ropes that Adeleine was certain hadn't been there a minute ago, and the last one didn't seem to do anything at all.

"You know," the boy said to himself, still thinking that he and the man were alone, "I think I'm feeling a bit better, now."

Harry walked over to the man he recognised as Vincent Crabbe's father and crouched in front of him. Harry wordlessly tapped his nose with his wand, canceling his body-bind on the man's face, before pointing it at his chest and muttering "renervate."

Crabbe groaned as he opened his eyes, which widened in terror when he saw Harry. "Hey," he greeted casually. "I've got a few questions, if you don't mind."

Crabbe sneered up at him, masking his fear better than Harry would have expected him to be able to. "And what makes you think I'll tell you anything, Potter?" he demanded, sounding somewhat sullen.

Harry sighed irritably. "Listen, either you tell me what I want to know the easy way, or I Imperious it out of you. Your choice." After a few moments of silence, Harry tried for a more amiable approach. "How about an exchange? I'll tell you what you want to know and you tell me what I want to know? I'd bet your wondering why I wasn't hurt when I went rolling down the street, right?" Harry tugged at the sleeve of his duster. "Dragon hide. Hungarian Horntail, actually."

When Harry's offer was met with silence, he sighed aimed his wand in between Crabbe's eyes. "Just so you know, I've never used this curse before. Hope I don't screw it up and cause any permanent damage." Harry forced himself to sound cheerful, hoping to scare Crabbe into cooperating. When it became clear that wouldn't work, he reluctantly followed through with his earlier plan. "Imperio."

Crabbe's eyes glossed over as Harry felt an odd sensation crawling down his wand arm. It took him a moment before he recognised it as the same feeling he got when Moody had used the Imperious Curse on him in his fourth year. Harry gave his wand a little flick, conveying his wishes to Crabbe, and sat down to listen to his explanation.

"I live nearby. The Dark Lord is based in Malfoy Manor. I do not know why you were here today. You dueled better than I expected. I didn't use any spell at all, I just forced magic out of my wand at you."

"Better than Veritaserum," Harry said, rather smugly. Aiming his wand at Crabbe again, he cast three spells in quick succession. "Stupefy. Finite. Obliviate." Then, aiming his wand at the ropes he had conjured earlier, he muttered "diffindo," cutting them away. As an afterthought, Harry replaced Crabbe's wand in his pocket.

Walking away, Harry said, rather cheerily, said to himself, "Think I'll ask Hermione about space enhancement charms, if I'm stuck with the Dursleys for another year."

He never noticed the girl crouching behind a car, watching him like a hawk until he disappeared down the street.

AN: Expect infrequent updates, since I'm working on a metric ball-tonne of other content. I realise that I should really be working on VTW, or the sequel to EDN26, or my still unnamed AU rewrite, but eh. This idea just wouldn't leave me alone, and I think it has the potential to go to some pretty interesting places, particularly where Dudley and Petunia are concerned. Vernon'll probably never change, but the other two Dursleys might finally grow up with regards to Harry! Yays!

In case anyone was wondering why Adeleine isn't named Adeline (the former being pronounced add-a-lane, the latter add-a-line), which is an actual, if uncommon, name, she's named after a character from Kirby 64. Oh snap, Harry's gonna buy an N64 in the next chapter! What'll happen if he gets a copy of Kirby and the Crystal Shards? Will the universe explode as a result of the celebrity paradox?! Unlikely, although that might actually be an entertaining way of closing this story out. No, not really! Stop looking at me like that! At any rate, thanks for reading! Duke out!

PS: I just looked it up, and Kirby 64 wasn't released outside of Japan until 2001, so I find it pretty unlikely that Harry will pick up a European copy anytime in '97 or '98. Ah well, such is life, yes? Again I say, thanks for reading! Duke out!