Disclaimer: Yeah... you guys should know the drill by now...

A/n: Hello everyone! For those of you who read my other version of A Muggle Side, thank you! I do hope you enjoy my new version of it, a story that was somewhat inspired by Paffy's Behind Blue Eyes and Wishweaver's Realizations, two stories that I highly suggest you give a shot. If your a new reader than I hope you enjoy as well. And remember! Constructive Criticism is Good!

A Muggle Side of Things

Chapter One

Good Intentions Mixed with Bad Driving

Rain.

It was quickly becoming the main factor for this portion of her summer vacation being ruined. Other factors included, but were not limited to, boring family visit, the fact that they visited said family more than doing other activities, the fact that other activities were no longer any fun… Not that the constant rain gave them any chance to do anything. Dagger sighed. These yearly visits to London, and the surrounding suburbs, may have been exciting the first few times, but the past couple years had been absolutely miserable. The weather seemed to be agreeing with her these past two years.

From the moment she and her family had arrived in England, the weather outside had done nothing but be either cold and misty or cold and rainy. Check that, Dagger thought as a chain of lightning forked through the sky. Cold and Stormy. In fact, she hadn't seen the sun since the plane had gone down through the clouds as it was landing. The year before had been the complete opposite, and she had spent most of her time for those two weeks staying indoors and trying to beat the heat wave that kept threatening to make her pass out. That, at least, had been preferable to the rain because she could make herself feel more attractive by wearing extra short clothing (much to her mother's annoyance) that clung even tighter to her body as she glistened in the heat. She had turned quite a few teenage boys' heads as they also braved the heat that summer (as well as a number of disapproving looks from older folk).

Dagger noticed her mother's startled look and quickly realized she had slipped over to the wrong side of the road. Quickly swerving back into the left lane, Dagger cursed Europe and their opposite lane driving ways. Not that it mattered at the moment, as there were no other cars around and the pouring rain meant that she was already driving at a snail's pace.

The summer had more things that made it miserable then just the weather. While the people had been very quick to anger last year, they had still been themselves. This year was different. The people were afraid. There was definitely an unusual depression in the air and no one seemed to be immune to it, not even her normally upbeat family. The time spent here was spent mostly in silence, whether at the hotel room or her aunt and uncle's house, only broken by an occasional game or joke.

The events that had occurred over the past week had taken even those moments and made them far and few between. Disasters had pretty much been a common occurrence, starting with that freak hurricane that caused major damage in the western part of the country, followed by the destruction of the Brockdale Bridge and the pedestrian Millennium Bridge that had killed over fifty innocent people. There had also been a few brutal murders, one of which had happened just one street down from Downing Street, which had been all over the news. The atmosphere of panic was so thick that even her own parents had gotten their ticket home changed and they were now leaving two weeks earlier than they had planned.

"Sammy?" asked a concerned voice on her left. Another loud clap of thunder sounded as she took a quick peek at her passenger. "You doing ok?"

"Yeah," Dagger replied weakly. "This damn rain is just messing with my brain." She sent a quick smile to her mom in the hopes of reassuring her. The smile was returned, although it did not last for long. They were returning from an evening visit to her aunt and uncle's, a quaint little house in Little Whinging, where apparently anything that was considered out of the ordinary or different was a crime. Part of the reason they stayed at a hotel instead. Some of these people here were just so… uptight! Dagger would even go as far as calling them assholes!

"You just seem like you're a hundred miles away," her mother said. Dagger didn't respond. There was no need to. Her parents both knew that she was quite secretive when it came to talking to them specifically. Her mom called it "new age teenagerism" but she had stopped questioning it. At the moment, Dagger was certain that she already knew what was bugging her. It had been on everyone's mind in the last few days anyway.

The rain seemed to be picking up, something that greatly irritated Dagger as it made her slow down even more. It pounded hard against the windows, prompting her to make the windshield wipers move even faster and making a move to turn the radio on. Lightning flashed as she leaned over to turn the volume up, blinding her momentarily.

Dagger was just looking up when her mother exclaimed in terror and tried to take the steering wheel. Her yell of 'Honey, look out!' was not so much being helpful as it was very distracting. Especially when she really couldn't see anything that was past the hood of the car, which made it much more terrifying when a large branch, complete with a thick complement of leaves, slammed into the windshield. Panicking, Dagger slammed on the brakes, something that was generally a bad thing to do when it was pouring rain. While still driving an excruciatingly slow pace, the car disagreed with the way Dagger crushed the brake to the floor and shuddered as it hydroplaned across the wet concrete. But slow down it did. Or maybe it was just time that had slowed down. Dagger never did figure out which.

THUNK

Dagger's head nearly went into the steering wheel, not having expected the car to come to a stop that suddenly. Exchanging an uneasy glance with her mother, they simultaneously unlocked their door. Dagger paled. It hadn't been a something that had stopped the momentum of the car. It had been a someone, a raven-haired boy that looked no older than her. He wasn't moving. She hadn't hit him that hard had she? Her mother knelt down next to boy, so Dagger flicked her frightened, guilty gaze from him to the car.

Neither the branch, which she ripped of the windshield and tossed into the nearest yard, nor the familiar looking boy had put a dent into the car, something she hoped was a sign that he was not seriously injured. There was another strong gust of wind, which blew the already freezing cold rain straight into her face. Ducking her head and looking away, Dagger noticed that there was a little debris in the form of clothes, books and what looked like one extremely broken birdcage that was being rolled down the street by the wind. In no mood to chase after it, Dagger instead gathered up some of the scattered items and kneeled next to the source, a caved in trunk that sat slightly underneath one of the tires. Not paying particular attention to what she was throwing into the trunk once she had gotten it open, Dagger wondered what exactly this Harry Potter (she had found the inscription 'Property of Harry J. Potter' written on the outside of the trunk) had been doing, carting around a trunk in the middle of a downpour.

"Samantha! We need to get him to the hospital!" In her shock, Dagger hadn't noticed her mother dragging the boy to car and had already gotten him into the backseat. Dagger quickly picked up Harry J. Potter's luggage (as best she could anyways. It was quite heavy) and threw it into the trunk of the car and got into the seat next to him. Mom had already taken the driver's seat.

The storm hadn't let up at all, turning what normally was only a half an hour ride into a much longer, although Nicole was doing her best to push the limit as much as she could.

"Does the name Harry Potter ring any bells?" Dagger asked, breaking the silence about fifteen minutes later, only a quarter of the way to the hospital.

"Harry Potter?" Dagger saw her mom's eyes peer into the mirror at her and the boy. "I think he's the boy who's related to the Dursleys." Nicole wrinkled her nose at the name. That was one family that she could stand to never think of again. "Vivian tells me that they try to pass some bull story about him going to some criminal school, and blatantly ignore the fact that their own son is part of gang that beats up eleven year olds." She shook her head in disgust. "Is this him?"

"Yeah." Silence followed her statement. It went on for a few more minutes before something hopped into her head, a piece of information that she had heard from her slightly gossipy relatives when they had arrived this summer. "Mom? Didn't Aunt Vivian say that the Dursleys had packed up and moved away recently?" Her mother's eyes quickly snapped back to the front mirror so quickly that she jerked the steering wheel with her. A deeply troubled look had appeared in her eyes. She however did not answer. Dagger didn't need one anyway. She understood the implications of that. Harry Potter been abandoned. Whether he was some "Incurable Criminal Boy" or something different, this was just plain cruel. Her hatred of this family, a family she had not even met (other than the insufferable Dudley character) grew tenfold.

Seeing a small dribble of blood slide down from Harry's forehead, a worrying cut that she found in his hairline, Dagger grabbed one of the towels that they had been keeping in the rental car to dry off and started to clean Harry up a bit. Please be ok, Dagger chanted to herself, also making a mental note of the lightning bolt shaped birthmark on his forehead. Please be okay please be okay please be okay…

Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived, The Chosen One or Chosen Boy or some other such name that made him uncomfortably famous was most assuredly not okay. In fact, he was fully aware, or as aware as one could be under the circumstances (which was very little), that he was most likely in shock. He dully noticed the thunder that rumbled of in the distance, the sign of another approaching storm.

He didn't react to it though, instead simply stood there and stared blankly into the window in front of him. Hedwig, Harry's snowy white owl, hooted worriedly at him from somewhere behind him. Like the thunder, though, it was only dully heard. Until a sharp pain came from his hand that is. Hedwig had taken a more direct approach. It worked to an extent. Harry collapsed to the floor, leaning his back against the wall. Watching the lightning flash, Harry reflected back on the day he was having, trying to see if there were any clues to how or why this particular day continued to get worse.

The day had at least started out okay. He had woken up feeling not overly depressed, not overly fine which was a good compromise in his opinion. Not that his mood would have been noticed by the other students, as the news that Voldemort had returned had greatly lessened the entire mood of everyone inside of Hogwarts. Since the Dark had gone public he had been more… well public. At least the Death Eaters had anyway. The Ministry of Magic was in absolute chaos, let alone the muggle world, and it had only been a week and a half since that night in the Department of Mysteries. Dementors leaving Azkaban Prison, giants wreaking havoc on the western side of the country, a handful of attacks on highly trafficked muggle areas, and a few deaths of highly prominent members of the Wizarding World.

More troubling on Harry's mind was the death of his godfather, Sirius Black. He had conceded a few points to his friends (mostly Harry's ministry crew, but Remus Lupin had kept in constant contact since the incident) and no longer believed it was entirely his fault, although he still maintained that it was still mostly his fault. They all had very good points.

Hadn't Sirius, after finding out that Harry was in trouble, done the exact same thing that Harry, after he had thought that Sirius was in trouble, had done? Sirius had been itching to get out of the house that he was trapped in and would have gladly jumped at the chance to save him. And how was it Harry's fault that Sirius decided to insult his mentally challenged, psycho cousin, Bellatrix Lestrange, instead of focusing on the duel? Ron had taken a little bit of abuse from Hermione for the tactless way he had said it, but neither she nor Harry could fault that piece of logic.

Still, Harry couldn't help but feel responsible for his friend's injuries as well as Sirius. If he had only tried harder to contact Sirius! Then all of the mess would not have even happened! Finding the two-way mirror in his trunk had felt like a monstrous slap in the face and his mood had certainly reflected it to the school.

Also on his mind was that damned Prophecy, and the fact, in true Hogwartian fashion, that everyone seemed to have found out that it had been about Harry and Voldemort and christened him 'The Chosen One'. A name that was as equally ridiculous as Boy-Who-Lived and You-Know Who. The Wizarding World really needed to get a life if that's the best they could come with. Harry himself refused to believe that he would be the one to bring Voldemort down. He was Harry. Just Harry (He could hear the sarcastic comments from his friends, "Okay, just Harry…"). He had also completely disregarded Dumbledore's request to at least tell his closest friends about the prophecy. They just didn't need to know.

The train ride home had begun the downhill slide the day had taken. The usual Malfoy visit to his compartment had occurred, with Malfoy insulting his godfather in ways that the annoying blond boy shouldn't even know about. It had ended on a high note, at least, because Malfoy and his cronies had been cursed into next week by at least nine different DA members. However, Harry had eventually realized that he would still have to live with the Dursleys for two more years, nor could he even threaten them with Sirius, lest he wanted the new hole in his chest to grow even bigger. Harry had remained silent for the remainder of the trip, moping in his own head.

A whole slew of Order of the Phoenix members met him at the train station, all apparently with the intent of scaring the Dursleys into treating him better. But his Uncle had clearly been late. And so he, his friends and the Order waited. And waited. And waited. After exchanging pats on the back and hugs with his friends (guys and girls respectively), his friends had eventually been ordered to leave. The Order had been next to leave, emergencies cropping up all around the muggle world and they had been needed elsewhere. Remus Lupin remained with him the whole time and when it became clear the Uncle Vernon wasn't planning on picking him up this year, they'd bought train tickets to the local train station near Surrey. Remus had suggested simply apparating him there, but Harry felt that the longer he was away from the Dursleys the better.

Harry had also managed to convince Remus that scaring his relatives would be a bad thing in the long run and, when Number Four had come into sight, that he didn't need to accompany him all the way there, especially when he was needed elsewhere. So Harry had finished his trek to his dreaded house alone. He braced himself for all the scathing comments he would most likely receive like "Oh you made it? We were hoping that you had died" or "So the freak is finally here? Oh well I suppose. Even a mongrel pup can find his way home at times". Definitely something to the effect of putting a padlock on Hedwig's cage and threatening to make him wish he had never been born.

A dreadful feeling had occurred after he had rang the doorbell the third time with still no one answering. Are they ignoring me? Maybe they had seen him from a window and were simply being the welcoming family that they had always been to him. On a whim, Harry checked the window to see if could see any sign of life within. It had become night by the time Harry had arrived in Privet Drive, but it certainly wasn't late enough to take away the thought of somebody still being awake. Not as such. No lights. He couldn't even see anything inside although he felt as though the room looked strangely empty. And that's when the shock had hit him.

Pressing his face into the glass so hard that it hurt, Harry realized why he felt that way. Because the room was empty. No furniture, no items, not even any pictures were left. Harry had been standing there in shock for a good ten minutes before his hand had gotten close enough to Hedwig's cage for the owl to nip him.

Harry sighed. There had certainly been no clues as to why today was 'everything's going to go wrong for Harry Potter' day. Now he needed to find clues as to where his "loving" relatives had gone. Maybe the place had been infested by bugs and they had been forced into a temporary living situation. That wouldn't explain the missing furniture. Maybe they'd been recently robbed and were still explaining it to the police. Harry amused himself with the thought that it could have even been Dudley rebelling against his parents and his Aunt and Uncle were still out looking for him. He had a sneaking suspicion that none of these were it though.

It was drizzling now, the thunder and lightning growing ever closer. Harry realized that he needed to figure out what to do and fast. He hesitated at the thought of walking back to the train station and staying at the Leaky Cauldron. His mind had instantly refused taking the Knight Bus, not wanting to deal with the hero worship that most of the witches and wizards placed upon him. Besides, Dumbledore had told him that he needed to stay with his Aunt and Uncle at least to begin the summer so that he would be safe. Well… Safe from Voldemort and his Death Eaters anyway.

A crack of thunder that seemed a lot closer than Harry had been anticipating sounded caused him to jump violently out of his sitting position and look around. He was looking for a sign of another wizard when something caught eye. He paused. Has there always been a sign in front of the house? Dragging his trunk with him, Harry walked quickly over to it so he could read it.

Wondering if it was a bad sign that the lightning had stopped as he tried to read the sign, Harry gathered his courage and pulled out wand, muttering "Lumos," a spell that didn't even require enough magic to be considered a breach in underage magic. And he felt himself becoming quite pale as he read the notice.

Number Four Privet Drive was for sale.

Harry blinked. Then he closed his eyes and counted to ten. That didn't bring about a change in the sign. Harry tried again.

Nope. Still no change. Like the doorbell before, the third time still didn't bring about any different results. Harry slumped to the ground once more, a number of expletives exiting his mouth.

The Dursleys had willingly moved away without taking him. Without telling him even. Harry Potter had been abandoned by the only blood relatives he had. If only the world could see me now! Harry thought, throwing his head back onto the ground and letting the rain splash right onto his face. Oh! The irony! They all think I'm a pampered prince. Sighing once more, Harry sat back up and let Hedwig out of her cage. He needed to contact someone. But who? The Order is probably still busy. Maybe I'll send it to Ron and he can be the middle man. I'll be fine at the Cauldron even if they don't get the message right away. Harry pulled out some parchment and ink from his trunk and did his best to keep it dry.

Ron, Ginny, or any other Weasley,

I need you to get a message out to the Order. My 'loving' family is gone. And I mean gone, gone. The Dursleys have apparently decided to move away without me. I'm going to go stay at the Leaky Cauldron.

Harry

He looked at his work and scowled in annoyance. The rain was already starting to blur his hand writing. He tried rewriting the letter again but that turned out even worse and his original letter was slowly becoming unreadable. The important words (get, message, Order, Dursleys, move, and away) were still in good shape, so Harry folded it up a few times in hopes that would help.

"Sorry girl, but could you get this to any of the Weasleys as quick as you can?" His owl hooted an affirmative at him and grabbed the folded up message with her beak. She didn't waste any time and flew off. "I'll be at the Leaky Cauldron!" Harry shouted at Hedwig as she left.

Harry sent one last scathing look towards Number Four as though it had offended him deeply, swore at it as though it had started bad mouthing him, and finally stormed off in the direction he had come from an hour earlier, the actual storm picking up in his place.

It wasn't as though he had thought the Dursleys wouldn't someday leave him behind. Oh, no. When Harry hadn't known of his magical ability and after he had learnt that he would never gain their love, Harry had dreamed of running away from the extremely normal family. He had also secretly hoped that they would simply kick him out. He supposed, in a way, that their moving away was them kicking him out. Harry didn't quite understand why it hurt either. Harry figured it was simply because they were his closest relatives (although Harry painfully remembered that Sirius had told him that most Pure-Blooded families were related at least a little). More than that was, once they still kept Harry after he started Hogwarts, he had figured they just hadn't had the guts to do it. They certainly didn't want to be implicated for abandoning him. If anyone had found out about him, and there were signs of his existence despite how much the Dursleys tried, then they would be in heaps of trouble.

He wondered what changed their mind. Perhaps they just needed an opportunity. The older, sadly less fat one must have actually gotten a promotion. Or fired. Another viable option was that the Dementor incident, coupled with Aunt Petunia realizing that her sister's killer was alive and after Harry, had finally driven them over the edge.

It took Harry a few moments, but he realized that the hurt feeling he had experienced at finding his family gone had already come and left. Shortly after that, he pushed his pet-peeve of leaving things un-figured out away. He simply did not care enough. There was certainly no love lost between him and his blood relatives.

About damn time! Harry thought. Good riddance I say! My summer was gonna be rough enough without them pushing me into blowing their house up…

Harry felt as though he was thoroughly soaked to the bone by the time he came remotely close to being anywhere near the train station. The rain had just continued to increase in strength, making it increasingly harder to see. Coupled with the cold, it caused Harry to shiver violently, which only made him get hit with more rain because it slowed his pace to a crawl. Hello common cold… Harry thought sarcastically. Maybe hypothermia… It certainly didn't help that Harry was now sporting a number of minor cuts, courtesy of a number of flying sticks being blown into him.

Harry entertained ideas of taking shelter in one of the muggles' houses, which was quickly squashed. Harry was almost there and besides. The muggles around here all thought he was some sort of criminal.

Spotting a covered bus stop across the street, Harry eagerly started over to it, planning on changing into less wet clothing. So tired and cold was he that he didn't even bother with looking both ways before he crossed. He could barely see down the streets in the first place and he hadn't even seen a car the entire walk bit back to the the train station. No one was stupid enough to be driving in this weathe-

SLAM

Harry's right side exploded with pain as something extremely heavy slammed into him. He registered it only for a few brief seconds before his head hit the ground.

It had taken an entire miserable hour and a half before Dagger learned the full extent of the injuries she had inflicted on that poor boy. Nothing serious, thank god, but still enough to make her insides squirm uncomfortably. A pretty nasty bruise on his right side, his right wrist had been fractured, and had sustained a minor concussion from hitting the ground the way he did.

Dagger sighed. Even one of those injuries would have the guilt eating away at her. The fact that she only had her driving permit (her driving this rental car had been quite illegal, especially since the driving age was slightly older here than in the States) and had already hit another human being, caused her confidence level to dip significantly. She thanked her lucky stars that the storm had slowed her down so much, although she figured that no storm would have meant no injured Harry Potter. Another reason to hate this yearly summer visit I suppose.

Currently Dagger was sitting next to his hospital bed, waiting for Harry to wake up so that she and her mother could take them back to their hotel room. Having had it confirmed by her Aunt Vivian that the Dursleys had indeed moved away without Harry, Nicole had decided that he would stay with them while they decided what to do with him. She was now discussing options with her husband, and Dagger had distinctly heard her express her displeasure at the idea of sending a boy his age into foster care before she had taken the call somewhere more private. Dagger had had to repress an urge to ask the childlike question of 'Can we keep him?' that she wasn't quite sure where it came from.

Instead, she opted for putting a hand on his arm in a sign of comforting him, even though he probably wouldn't notice it yet, and using the other to bring strands of the pink and blue colored part of her hair to her mouth to nibble on. A nervous habit. While not the objective of the first gesture, Dagger secretly admired the deceptiveness of his muscles. He definitely had them, at least in his arms. He was still well on the scrawny side, probably only an inch or two taller than her. She had seen them rip off the shredded shirt the boy had been wearing when he arrived. He had definitely shown signs of being underfed. It certainly didn't match the level of underfed that some of the other teenage abandonees she'd read about endured. Either way, her mother was not happy. The fact the both male Dursleys were fatter than whales had let them come to the conclusion that they withheld food from the boy.

Hmpf. And they're the ones calling Harry the criminal… Assholes…

Examining Harry once more, she once again found her eyes drawn to the lightning bolt on his forehead. Briefly wondering if the Dursleys had lost their minds one day and branded it into his forhead like someone marking a slave in the old days, but Dagger decided that it was highly unlikely. The branding part not the slave part. She'd ask him about it later.

Harry chose that moment to open his eyes. Very slowly, he reached around for his glasses (which fortunately for him were on his uninjured side), and then equally slowly looked around his surroundings. Dagger could have sworn she that saw him roll his eyes at the ceiling as though the fact he was in a hospital bed was a common occurrence. She must have imagined it because Harry was now looking surprised as he registered where he was. He tried to sit up, gasping in pain as his side disagreed with the movement, and succeeded, bringing his left hand across his body to absentmindedly rub his side.

His rubbing eventually met up with the point where he hand had been stationed on his arm, and he jumped a little when he realized what it was. He found her quickly enough, and went about using both of his hands to push his legs over the side of the bed so that he was sitting on the edge of it, wincing some more as he got used to his bruised side. He stared curiously at her, but didn't say anything. Dagger was too caught up with his eyes to start a conversation.

His eyes were gorgeous! They were an emerald green color that Dagger would have immediately thought were the result of colored contacts had Harry not taken the effort to find his glasses before looking around. With his thick eyelashes, Dagger had a few seconds of feeling threatened of this girl's natural beauty before realizing that it wasn't in fact a girl that she was feeling threatened by. Still, the eyes that were staring at her made her feel very self-conscious about her own natural eye-color; a rather unflattering grey color. She of course had gotten lightish-red (they've already have a color for lightish-red, Dagger thought automatically, quoting from an internet webshow she liked. Know what it's called? Pink) colored contacts when she had been allowed too. Dagger shook her head to clear it.

"Hey," she said to him slightly cautiously. He cocked his head to the side and peered at her with a quizzical expression. He opened his mouth and closed it.

"You're very cute," he told her once he had decided on what he would say. Dagger blushed. There had been a slight slur in the way he spoke as well as a childlike quality to the way he said it, both signs of the concussion that she had given him. He seemed to realize that this wasn't a normal response to 'hey' because he shook his head a bit and looked slightly embarrassed. He elaborated a little bit more anyway, though to the floor instead of her face. "I like your eye color. I've never seen pink eyes before."

Dagger blinked. Was he psychic? "Oh, I have colored contacts." He shrugged in a way that said 'so what?' and she responded by giving him a small smile. "So, how are you feeling?" She watched him wince and return to absently rubbing his bruised side again.

"Like I had hot date with an angry hippogriff," Harry replied, now examining the small cast on his wrist and experimenting with his fingers briefly. Dagger giggled, both nervous and amused at his comment. Hippogriff? Dagger thought, confused but Harry was already glancing back towards her, a small smile on his face. "You wouldn't happen to have caught the license plate of the car that hit me would you?" He had definitely intended it as a joke, but Dagger's eyes drifted to the floor on their own accord.

"Actually… yeah… I did. In fact, I can guarantee it's in the parking lot as we speak." She could feel Harry's curious and probably confused eyes on her but she couldn't look up at them. "Harry, I was the one that hit you. Mind you, you should have been watching where you were going and you're very lucky that that storm had me going a lot slower than I prefer to be driving." Pause for breathing. "And you have a giant bruise on your side, and a fractured wrist, and something of a concussion. I'm so sorry and I'm glad you're ok!" Not the best apology in the world… Dagger thought, hoping that her eyes would show him just how sorry she actually was as she looked back up at him.

He was looking a little overwhelmed by her two breathless sentences, but his reply wasn't something she had expected. "You know my name?" Harry had said it so cautiously, as though it was either a bad thing or an annoying thing that she had learned his name before they had spoken. Dagger blinked. He was worried about her knowing his name and not the fact that he had been hit by a car?

"I saw it on your trunk." Dagger said in response. "Which I'm also sorry for. I may have… totaled it." Harry gave her an extremely startled look, though he had relaxed at her first statement. "Don't worry! I saved most of your stuff! A few books blew away in the wind. And I swear your bird cage gave me a dirty look as it hobbled away." He laughed weakly.

"That's good to know," Harry said and went back to being silent. Dagger wondered if it was normally this hard to talk to him. And if she should be offended by the fact that he didn't seem to care who she was. She decided that she shouldn't be, guessing by Harry's curious stare.

"My names Dagger Jovanovich by the way!" Harry raised an eyebrow at her, giving her a skeptical look.

"Dagger? As in a bigger than a knife, smaller than a sword dagger?" Dagger saw her mother peering at them through the window outside the room and smirked.

"Well, my parents are sort of like…" Dagger paused as though searching for the right word. "… Anti-hippies. 'Stead of naming me in the name of peace and love, my parents named me after a weapon!" Her mom threw her an affronted look and stormed into the room.

"Samantha Faye Jovanovich! How many times have I told you not to go around telling people that! It's completely untrue!" Dagger snickered at the look on Harry's face, a combination of wanting to laugh and not knowing if it was okay to. He eventually gave into it; most likely figuring out that her mom hadn't actually been serious about it.

"Hello Harry," She said to him, her tone changing into a sweet tone. "I'm Nicole Jovanovich, and this is my daughter Samantha." Dagger rolled her eyes. Her mom didn't understand why she preferred the nickname she gave herself instead of her real name. There wasn't much to understand really. She just liked it better.

Her mother seemed to grow a little flustered when Harry turned his emerald gaze to her. She had a feeling that a similar look had crossed her face when she had first seen his eyes. Although Dagger had managed not to blurt "Please tell me you have your mother's eyes?" Harry looked highly amused as he nodded at her mother. "Good!"

"Anyways," Nicole continued. "Would it be okay if I asked you a couple of questions?" The smile that Dagger had been enjoying slid off his face, and that was all the proof that she would need that Harry had been abandoned by those monsters. He knew what questions were coming. He nodded apprehensively, and then shook his head, hoping to clear some more cobwebs it looked like.

"I've tried to contact your guardians, the Dursleys but it seems as though this storm has knocked the phone lines in that area. Could you give me another way of contacting them? Cell phone? E-mail? Work phone? I want to let them know that you are at the hospital but will be ok." Dagger watched him panic slightly at the mention of contacting the Dursleys but she saw that it had morphed quickly into what she thought of as dull embarrassment. Out of the corner of her eye she saw someone outside the room taking notes and wondered what it was all about. She turned her attention back Harry, who was opening his mouth to talk but decided against it. He looked away instead.

Dagger exchanged a look with her mother, who mouthed something along the lines of "Comfort him." Dagger put a hand on Harry's knee, throwing him a reassuring smile as he looked at her. He sighed, his embarrassment becoming mixed with anger. "They weren't home when I got there. I don't know where they are."

"You didn't try calling them?"

"I don't know any of their out of the house numbers." Harry said with a shrug. Nicole simply raised an eyebrow, asking a question that didn't need to be put into physical words, why would a child not know all of his or her guardians' phone numbers in case of emergency? His shoulders slumped a little bit. "Because they didn't want me to bother them. I don't know where they are because they've apparently moved away without me. Happy?" He certainly didn't act like he didn't know that the Dursleys leaving without him had been a possibility. He looked more irritated by the questions. Dagger wasn't sure if she believed his flippant attitude about it yet…

"For now," If Dagger had not been her daughter she would not have noticed the furious edge to the smile her mom had presented Harry. It softened considerably when she noticed Harry shrinking away slightly. "Well, I need to sign a few things and talk to the doctor. Harry, be a dear and be ready by the time I get back okay?" Nicole pointed him to a set of clothing (the jeans he had been wearing were still in good condition, but her mother had had to go to a nearby store to replace the boy's shredded shirt and jacket while they waited) that had been left out for him and then stalked quickly out of the room. Harry sat quietly on the bed for a moment, looking as though he was struggling to understand what was going on.

"Samantha-"

"Dagger," she supplied innocently, receiving a mildly amused look from the boy.

"Dagger," he began again. "Why does your mum want me to be ready?"

"Well, you're going to come to our hotel with us aren't you?" Seeing the bemused look appear on his face, Dagger decided she should probably elaborate. "Mom thinks- and me as well- that a hospital isn't the best place for you to be while we sort this out. Unless you'd rather stay here while they try to find you a place to stay?"

"I have- uh… No. No I don't want to stay here." He made a hesitant gesture, as though he wasn't sure if he should want to go with them.

"It's the least we could do, Harry," Dagger pressed. Harry's intense emerald eyes met her soft pink ones and she had an uncomfortable feeling that he looking for something far past the surface. He must have found what he wanted because he eventually managed a hesitant nod. With a little help from her, he stood up and shuffled his way to the bathroom to change.

"Umm… Sam?" a voice, sounding embarrassed, called from the other side of the door about minute later.

"Yes?" Dagger responded, turning red as she realized Harry might need help dressing himself.

"Why do you go by Dagger?" Dagger blinked. And then threw her head back and laughed.

A/N: Yeah... I probably could have ended this chapter before switching back to Dagger...

SO... I hope you enjoyed my new version of A Muggle Side of Things! I apologize once more to the people who enjoyed the first version of it but it just wasn't working for the following.

A) Dagger learning Magic early took away from Harry's mystery when I could have spread it out over many chapters. It also had the issue of how in the world was I going to have Dagger let Harry know that she knew in a believable and not crappy way.

B) For a story that was going to be nice and fluffy, Dagger's past seems ridiculously violent. That's definitely not what I wanted.

C) Well, if you read the note before the chapter, you would know I had inspiration for this fic. Behind Blue Eyes was always the inspiration but after reading Realizations, I found myself enjoying the relationships Harry had with the people around him. I suggest you give them a shot as well!

If I didn't mention it before, this fic is also in my bumped up timeline. If I did my math correctly then it should be summer 2011. I also realize that the events I skirted over may not match up with Half-Blood Prince, but thats how I decided to do it.

X's and O's

MB