Harry is in a state of bewildered awe. The Wizarding World – his true home. Everything around him is fantastical and magic. The boy from Madam Malkin's was even pretty cool, despite his arrogance – he clearly knew what he was talking about, with that house and Quidditch stuff. All Harry wants to do is go through his stuff, wave his magic wand and-

"'arry!" Hagrid thumps him on the shoulder, pressing a rectangular cage covered by a cloth into his arm, "Look 'ere what I got ya! Now, you'll want to take special care 'o her, but she should be plenty friendly, so long as you treat her right – an' I even got you one o' those translator tooths! All ye got to do is-"

"Hagrid, what is it?" Harry shuffles his paper parcels and the cage, which shuffles in his arms dangerously on its own. "It's moving!"

"Course she's moving! She's alive, ain't she? Not going to stick like stone all the time," Hagrid shakes his head before reaching over, pulling up the cloth, revealing what looked like a baby crocodile – but it's so very different to what Harry's seen before on television. Instead of dark brown, her rough skin is a shiny blue-silver that reminds Harry of the sun shining on water and her reptilian eyes look at him with startling clarity, visibly shrinking and widening as the crocodile seems to peer at him.

Harry's eyes are wide as he swallows nervously, staring at her. "Hagrid, are you sure I'm allowed a crocodile at Hogwarts?"

"Pfft, you get kids coming to Hogwarts with rats an' tarantulas an' eagles instead o' owls. I've not seen a croc since, oh…must o' been a couple of decades," Hagrid shakes his head, letting the cloth go, causing the crocodile to disappear from view. "Patil, I think 'is name were. His twins are coming this year an' all. Ye might even be in the same house! Ravenclaw, I think he were. Maybe not, then."

However, Harry had picked up on another part of his words. "Decades, Hagrid? How old are you?" Hagrid's beard twitches, the only thing to reveal the movement of his lips.

"Old enough that I've seen the world, or as much of it that I can, at least. The muggles have changed a lot, I'll tell you that."

"But when were you born?" Harry questions, eyes bright because just by spending such a short amount of time with Hagrid, he has figured out that Hagrid loves questions – not like the Dursley's, who hate him asking anything. "Did you take part in world war two?"

"No. Only a kid, back then. Born nineteen thirty, I was."

Harry's eyes somehow widen even more. "Nineteen thirty? But that means you're sixty-one."

"An' looking fine, if I do say so myself – ah an' look who that is? Some coincidence," Hagrid starts to lead Harry off to the left, diverting from their slow path to the Leaky Cauldron. Harry sees a set of wizards with skin the same tan colour as his own, though the one not braiding a young girl's hair with his wand is a little paler. The wizards wear matching blue robes with two capes – one long one and one short one with dark buttons, the robes reminding Harry more of coats than anything. Certainly, their sleeves are far tighter than the loose, baggy robes the general populace seems to wear with their shiny bronze belts.

A girl beside them turns and Harry is briefly awed by how she matches the girl getting her braid done. They have the same coloured skin as the darker of the two wizards and their robes too are the same royal blue, but cut off just below the knees to show off identical black leather boots, tied all the way up past the ends of their robes.

"Patil!" Hagrid crows, the braider looking up briefly at his call. "We were just talking 'bout you, weren't we 'arry?" Hagrid thumps Harry's shoulder and morbidly, Harry wonders if his knees are okay after all the pressure being put on them every time Hagrid does that.

"Good day, Keeper Hagrid," Patil says shortly, before finishing the braid with a quick wrist-flick, a tie appearing from nowhere to bind the end of it. "Padma, Parvati, meet the Keeper of the Keys of Hogwarts and its Groundskeeper, Rubeus Hagrid."

In sync, the girls lift the sides of their robes, curtseying briefly. "Keeper Hagrid."

Hagrid blinks at them for a moment before cracking a grin. "Just Hagrid, little 'uns. Harry Potter," Hagrid looks down at him and Harry frowns slightly at how he pronounces his name completely right, with no missing consonants. "Meet Mr Div Patil, his partner Girish Patil-Lagheri and their daughters, Padma and Parvati."

"Uh," Harry swallows, becoming all too aware of his many packages, before he nods his head politely, trying to copy what the twins had done earlier. "Mr Patil, Mr Patil-Lagheri, Padma, Parvati."

"Girish and Div are acceptable stylings," Girish says.

Harry swallows again. "O-Okay, Mr Girish."

"Oh my," the man says, voice light as he puts a hand to his ear lightly, a smile tugging at his face. Even with the amusement leaking from him, Harry tenses, feeling the familiar urge to bolt. I messed up, I messed up. "Miss Padma, am I hearing formality from the young man in front of me?"

Padma – Harry assumes she's Padma – smiles widely, eyes narrowing in amusement as her lips open to reveal white teeth. "Pita does not like formality, Potter. He asked you to call him his name."

"Oh, uh…okay, Girish, uh…" Harry stalls slightly. I have to be given permission to call them their first names, but, oh no… "Miss Padma."

Parvati giggles and even Hagrid lets out a chuckle. "Do you not know anything?" she asks, laughter bubbling out of her throat. Harry immediately glares.

"Would people stop saying that? I do know things, I don't not know anything or nothing and I don't know what Quidditch is, but I'm not a complete idiot," Harry snaps it out, quickly and with a hot irritation burning in his lungs. Immediately though, at Parvati's taken-aback expression, he regrets its. "Sorry. I- I didn't mean to be mean," he mumbles, tightening his grip on his packages.

Hagrid ruffles his hair lightly, but the wary expression informs Harry he's still in some form of trouble. "'S'nothing, Harry. I should o' given ye a proper talk before bringing you t' Diagon – business in Gringotts, though, jus' had t' be dealt with. 'S'like yer a muggleborn, but withou' the obscurity."

"A muggleborn?" Div raises an eyebrow. "I heard that Lily Evans had a muggle sister, but I didn't realise you were placed with her. Magical law states you must be placed with either a close magical relative or respectively, a squib relative, due to cultural differences. It is strange that they would consider your aunt a squib, seeing as she had no magical parent."

Hagrid, then, gets visibly shifty. "Right, we've gotta be off – come on, 'arry." He starts to pull him away.

Harry manages to raise a hand to wave as the Patil's blink and wave back hesitantly.

"Bye Potter," Padma gets out.

"Call me Harry!" He calls back, getting a faint but audible, 'Call us Parvati and Padma!'

Once back at the Leaky Cauldron, Hagrid pays for them to stay the night and Harry gets to sleep on a real bed – one with fluffy pillows and a thick mattress that didn't dig into his spine. It makes him think of the Dursley's and his cupboard, with its thin mattress more suitable for a cot than the floor.

Click.

Harry flinches slightly at the loud noise, sitting up in bed with difficulty, only to hear another noise, this one unfamiliar and chilling to the bone. It makes his skin crawl and Harry brings his knees up to his chest as he hears a thump and then a pitter-patter of claws on wood. Moonlight streams through the uncovered window and he sees a fuzzy shimmer of blue silver and stares at his blurry crocodile as it moves across the room, stopping just out of sight, by the bed. Harry hesitates, before leaning over to look at it.

"I am female," the crocodile snaps its jaws. "Treat me with respect, monkey."

Harry's eyes widen. "You can speak?"

"Yes. Now pick me up, monkey, so that I might guard you properly. Stupid monkeys with their stupid cages…you are a hatchling and my sacred charge. I will guard you, as my mother guarded her hatchling. Pick me up."

Harry does as the crocodile says, wondering if he's dreaming as his hands slip over her surprisingly moist scales. She's heavier than he would have guessed and far less balanced. As he sets her down on the bed beside him with difficulty, she grumbles.

"I will teach you how to pick me up. That was uncomfortable. My bones will break and my organs will be crushed if you still do that when I am larger and more majestic." The crocodile manoeuvres over the white covers, coming up to settle beside his pillow. "Lie down, monkey. Hatchlings need to sleep in times of darkness."

Harry lies down obediently, but doesn't shut his eyes. Having a crocodile right next to his head seems altogether a recipe for disaster – both for him and the crocodile.

"Will- will you be okay there? You won't fall off, will you?"

The crocodile snaps her jaw again, "No, monkey, I will not fall. I will be your guardian and I will guard you in your times of sleep – which is now! Sleep, stupid monkey!" She pads closer, nipping his wrist and Harry lets out a slight yelp, more surprised than hurt. "I tire of your stupidity. Sleep."

Harry can feel a sudden draw to sleep, a tingling that reminds him of the energy in the air when Hagrid gave Dudley a tail running down his spine. Panic begins to envelope him right before he loses sense of reality and falls into slumber, a final thought running through his head with stark clarity.

Hagrid should have just gotten me an owl.