Disclaimer: I am not J.K. Rowling. I do not own Harry Potter.

Note: The following little sketch takes place in an alternate universe, on board the Hogwarts Express, during Harry's first ride on it to Hogwarts in September 1991. Harry and his cousin, Dudley (who is also a wizard in this timeline), are in a compartment with Ron Weasley, whom they met for the first time earlier in the day, and someone else has just called by as the scene opens. The viewpoint in this sketch, insomuch as there is one, is that of Harry Potter.

Further Note: This story is a one-shot. It is rated 'T' to be on the safe side on account of the underlying background.

"I…" The boy in the doorway of the railway carriage compartment paused and frowned. He had clearly been about to say something, but he was instead now staring at Dudley, hard.

Dudley was staring back.

Like Dudley, the boy in the doorway had blond hair; like Dudley, he had grey eyes.

Unlike Dudley, though, the boy in the doorway was dressed in very expensive looking robes, and had well-coiffed hair. There were a couple of other boys lurking somewhere behind this new blond boy, out in the corridor, who seemed as taken aback by the situation as the new blond boy and Dudley were.

"Who are you?" the boy in the doorway and Dudley demanded at practically the same time.

Harry noted that the boy in the door had a 'posh' accent, which went with his clothes, and his voice was very obviously different from Dudley's.

The two blond boys glowered at one another, each apparently expecting the other to speak first.

"That's Draco Malfoy – the boy I first mistook you for." Ron intervened, directing this remark at Dudley. He sounded a bit embarrassed about it now. "Err, sorry about that."

"A Weasley." the boy in the doorway said, shooting an unpleasant look at Ron. "I suppose it's too much to hope for, if you're associating with them, that these two are 'the right sort of wizard'?"

"And what's that supposed to mean, Malfoy?" Ron shot back.

Harry could feel the tension rising. He remembered his Mum's stern injunction that he was to do his best to make sure that neither he nor his cousin got into any kind of trouble before they even got to Hogwarts.

What was he supposed to do?

In a moment of inspiration, he opened a chocolate frog packet and let the frog escaped, and the next moment he was diving after it.

"Hey, it's getting away!" he cried, diving for the door, as the runaway confection obligingly hopped in that direction. The boy in the door (the one who had been identified just now by Ron as Draco Malfoy) was forced to get out of Harry's way – and to release his death-glare on Ron in the process.

"Come along, Crabbe and Goyle." the probable Draco said. "Clearly Longbottom's not in this compartment…"

Author Notes:

Although they are otherwise dissimilar, there is a considerable resemblance about the face between Harry's cousin, Dudley, and Draco Malfoy in this universe.

In this universe, Lily Potter quit the Order of the Phoenix late in the summer of 1979 to look after her sister, Petunia, after a rather nasty Death Eater attack killed Petunia's husband, Vernon Dursley, and left Petunia in a highly damaged mental & physical condition. (Petunia and Vernon had been deliberately targeted by the Death Eaters, because they were muggles and relatives of an Order of the Phoenix member. The Death Eaters would almost certainly have killed Petunia too, had they not been interrupted in their activities that night.)

James Potter fought on in the Order, but was killed towards the end of the Wizarding War, saving one of the Prewett brothers.

Lord Voldemort never even considered Harry Potter as a possible target when this universe's version of Trelawney's prophecy turned up. Neville Longbottom is (however it happened) this universe's Boy-Who-Lived.

Lily has spent much of the past decade raising her own son (Harry) and her nephew (Dudley - named after one of Petunia's favourite film stars), and looking after her seriously handicapped sister (Petunia), well away from any magical communities. Whilst Lily's explained quite a lot about the magical world to Harry and Dudley over the years, she hasn't been able to bring herself to mention to them yet that Dudley's father may well be one of the wizards who attacked Vernon and Petunia that night in 1979...

As in canon, Lucius Malfoy avoided Azkaban assisted by the claim that everything he did as a Death Eater during the war was done because he had been placed under a string of Imperius Curses, and had been quite outside of his control.

Severus Snape disappeared in November 1981, with Magical Law Enforcement hot on his trail. Albus Dumbledore is the last witch or wizard known to have seen or spoken to him, and Albus said something which subsequently caused Magical Law Enforcement to abandon their hunt for Severus Snape.

Peter Pettigrew, Remus Lupin, and Sirius Black are all at liberty, although Peter Pettigrew has for some reason been somewhat remote from Sirius and Remus (or Lily and Harry) ever since the end of the war. The others assume that being around them brings up memories of James which are too painful for Peter to bear.

Ron has a pet owl called 'Ludo' in this universe - bought for him by his uncle.

For what it matters, Horace Slughorn is the head of Slytherin and Potions Master at Hogwarts in 1991.

This story is a one-shot.