The Harry Potter series does not belong to I, but to J.K. Rowling. Coverart is a combination of screen shot and a google image search from a while back. A first attempt at Harry Potter having a sibling story. Also, now that I think of it, first Harry Potter story at all.

Chapter One: Life at Privet Drive

"There you are Harry. Now your hair is no longer a mess. Aunt Petunia can die happy now." The girl giggled at her handiwork and he grinned back. The few other children at the playground looked over to the freak Potter kids. Most ignored them, but a tiny toddler laughed and stepped toward them. Far too used to the scorn of others, the Potters didn't notice as the toddler's mother swooped in and gave them a look of disgust. Harry reached up and felt the numerous hair ties gathered about his black hair. Typically his hair was wild beyond compare. This probably was the tidiest it had been for the boy. Abnormal methods aside.

"Lightening Harriet and thunderous Hattie to the skies," he quipped.

"We'll make your hair stand up on end," she responded.

"Look at how fast the Potter duo flies."

"You left far behind will be how our story will be penned."

She sighed and tossed a pebble off of the merry-go-round they sat on. Harry gave it a push with his foot and looked up at the sky. "Until we have to return," he grumbled. "How many years do we have left after this summer?"

"Seven," she grumbled back.

The tiny girl lay back, letting her hair dangle off the side and drag through the dirt. Her strawberry blonde locks nearly never gave the sheer amount of trouble Harry's did, but she often went without pulling it up as a way to stand together with her brother. It drove Petunia mad. But Hattie knew her Aunt Petunia wouldn't treat her any nicer when she did. Knots seemed to magically not affect Hattie though, despite her attempts to get it magically messy like Harry's hair.

On a couple of past situations, they had actually discussed if they were freaks. There had certainly been some beyond strange moments that seemed to affect them. Once, Aunt Petunia had gotten fed up with Harry's hair and practically butchered it off his head. In solidarity, Hattie had used a paring knife while they were preparing a meal to slice her own hair short. They had both been yelled at, their Uncle Vernon saying it was just more proof of how there was something inheritably wrong with the Potter brats.

The next morning, Aunt Petunia shrieked at seeing Harry's hair back to the length before it was cut. Hattie had jumped out from behind her brother with a gleeful shout. Both her and Harry were sent straight to their cupboard after school was out for a week. For laughing at their aunt when she jumped backwards in fright and then flipped spectacularly over the couch. Well, that and their freakiness, even if they had no utter clue how their hair was back to normal.

Hattie breathed in deeply, enjoying the smell of fresh cut grass in the park. She looked over to her brother, her head still dangling upside down as she did so. Strange things always seemed to happen with them, magically straight and magically messy hair aside. She could recall a time about a year ago when Aunt Petunia had been attempting to get this ugly brown and orange sweater over Harry's head. In the end, their aunt threw it away and complained lightly over how certain things shrunk in the dryer like that. It was laughable. The sweater that had once fit their overlarge cousin Dudley, too small to fit Harry?

There was another time when Harry had been on the run from Dudley and his gang that her brother had suddenly found himself on the school building. Hattie had been racing over as they had finally cornered him, Harry taking a leap over the kitchen dumpsters. When all of a sudden, he vanished in mid-jump. Dudley had spun about and given her a look as though Hattie had been part of it, but she was just as baffled as any of them to hear Harry cry out in surprise from up above.

On the merry-go-round, Harry looked at her and grinned before giving another push of his foot. The merry-go-round spun with the burst of speed. It was not just Harry though. Hattie remembered when she and Harry were younger, even tinier than now, outside taking care of Aunt Petunia's garden. Harry had told a worm sized snake to leave, when their aunt stuck her head out the house window and asked what was going on. In looking up at her aunt, Hattie missed a different creature and shrieked in fright at the large rat on her hand. It then let off a loud meow and ran off as a tabby striped kitten.

There was also something that happened last summer. It still caused her nightmares and a bit of Aunt Petunia's softer side to show, but Hattie wondered if it was really natural Harry forgot that day. He had run in to help her, but ended up being thrown into the wall. Knocked silly, Hattie had been scared at what her brother had seen and realized before he ran headfirst into the situation. Aunt Petunia put it down to a concussion, but Hattie had been petrified when it became obvious her brother had forgotten it all. He still had a prominent bump where his head had struck the wall.

Being called to start heading back, the Potter siblings took their time with Miss Figg. She was an older neighbor with a great love of her cats. Every year on Dudley's birthday, they had been carted off onto her. Every year on Dudley's birthday, she pulled out her albums and showed off all her photographs of her cats to them. This year had been different. Miss Figg had called up their Aunt Petunia about a recent broken leg. Hattie had been berated speaking out of turn, but suggested her and Harry be put to work helping her run errands.

It had gotten them out of the usual affair. Miss Figg had huffed, but Hattie caught a brief smile when the three of them had headed out for the day. It seemed as though their neighbor was well aware of how dull she must be to them. A slow rambling walk around town was what occurred, Miss Figg insisting she not leave them unwatched. The day had actually turned out well thanks to Hattie's suggestion, conversation interesting with the older lady when she wasn't rambling on about her cats.

Harry and Hattie said their goodbyes and waved after helping her carry in her newly checked out library books, and then dragged their feet to the Dursely household.

Privet Drive was the same as it had always been in all their years spent here. As if the people there were frightened of change or any developing imperfections, in denial of the fact that time forced both of these. Hattie could practically hear the ticking of the clock as her and Harry made their way back. She sighed, not enjoying the pressing eyes and feelings of entrapment of this road. It wouldn't be long until she would feel as though the people there had won the fight against change, she knowing exactly what would happen when her and her brother arrived at Number Four.

Hattie peered closely at one of the many pictures adoring their cousin Dudley. She beamed at it before continuing on. At the edge of the photograph lay the only hint that a child other than their cousin lived there. The tip of Harry's scuffed shoe. It went ignored in favor of Dudley's bright smile directed to the camera atop his perch on a bicycle.

"There you two are," Aunt Petunia fussed loudly. "Get going! The oven has already started; your cousin's birthday cake is not going to make itself!"

Harry groaned.

"What did you say?"

"Nothing, nothing."

The pair of them hurried along, quickly dashing about the familiar kitchen. Harry wrinkled his nose when he noticed Hattie placing a thin cord with a red trinket under Dudley's plate. He carefully pulled out the finished cake and set it to cool.

"I can't believe you are doing that again this year."

"Why not?"

Harry shook his head. "I still can't see how you can get along with Dudley."

Hattie shrugged. It was true. The two boys had never gotten along with each other. Dudley would often take to what he called 'Harry Hunting' and Harry would often take to snappy insults. But there was no abuse between Dudley and Hattie. She often became a mediator with them. It became frequent enough that when he'd find them without his gang along, Harry was okay to ignore for a while and he'd insist upon Hattie reading a story out loud.

Somehow, it had started years ago between them to get each other small things on important days. As it was Dudley's birthday, Hattie had done so yet again. Last year on her birthday, Dudley had given her some chocolates. His pudgy face grinned as he watched her eat one. "I knew you'd like it. It's the best kind," he said importantly. She had shared the leftovers with Harry in their cupboard.

It made living with the Dursleys more tolerable. Hattie actually liked her waddling cousin. He may be not the greatest person in the world, but he was a child like Hattie was and he had parents who acted like snobs. Aunt Petunia had her moments, but she and Uncle Vernon were not television model parents for him. Besides, Dudley was the only one who treated them as if they were not one person and regarded as worthless servants.

He was also the only one who cared to remember Hattie and Harry's birthday. Little as it was.

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