Prologue

Harry was having a hard time believing this was real. A part of him still expected that this was just a vivid dream, that he would wake up at any moment still under the stairs. He walked along with his very first friend, coins jangling in his pocket, a smile stretched across his face.

"Might as well get yer uniform," Hagrid commented with a gesture toward Madam Malkin's. "Listen, Harry, would yeh mind if I slipped off fer a pick me up in the Leaky Cauldron? I hate them Gringotts carts."

Harry nodded his approval, and watched for a moment as Hagrid shuffled off down the alley. Heart pounding, Harry slipped into the shop. Nervousness welled up inside him.

"Hogwarts, dear?" The cheerful witch toddled up to him. She was short and had a round build. "Got the lot here - a young man and woman getting fitted up just now, in fact."

She led him to the back of the shop which had a long, rectangular shape. Along one wall had mirrors across the whole thing. Pedestals stood at intervals near the center of the room. A line of chairs faced the other wall.

A boy with a pale, pointing face was standing on a pedestal as another woman pinned up his school robes. A girl with long, dark hair and light skin sat on one of the chairs, reading a magazine titled, "important wizarding bands in the modern age." A wrapped parcel sat beside her, asserting that she had already been fitted.

"Hello," the boy commented. "Hogwarts too?"

"Yes." Harry replied.

The girl looked up from the magazine at Harry's response.

"My father's next door looking at books and mother's up the street looking at wands." The pale boy responded. "Then I'm going to drag them off to look at racing brooms. I don't see why first years can't have their own. I think I'll bully father into getting me one and I'll smuggle it in somehow."

At this the girl let out a slight snort of laughter. The boy turned around and glared hat her darkly. He turned around and continued talking.

"Have you got your own broom?"

"No." Harry responded.

"Play Quiddich at all?"

"No."

It didn't pass the girls notice that Harry was getting more and more nervous by the second.

"I do - Father says it's a crime if I'm not picked to play for my house, and I must say, I agree. Know what house you'll be in yet?"

"No." Harry stated.

The girl opened her mouth to cut in, but was interrupted by the pale boy.

"Well, no one really knows until they get there, do they, but I know I'll be in Slytherin, all our family have been - imagine being in Hufflepuff, I think I'd leave, wouldn't you?"

The girl's head dropped as her magazine fell to the floor.

"Mmm." Harry muttered out of a lack to say. He hoped he'd have something to add to the conversation.

"I say, look at that man!" the boy called out suddenly, gesturing to the shop window. The girl whipped around in her chair to see a massive man clutching two ice creams.

"That's Hagrid." The girl grinned slightly at Harry's newfound pleasure. "He works at Hogwarts."

"Oh," the boy responded. "I've heard of him. He's a sort of servant, isn't he?"

"He's the gamekeeper."

"Yes, exactly. I heard he's a sort of savage - lives in a hut on the school grounds and every now and then he gets drunk, tries to do magic, and ends up setting fire to his bed."

"I think he's brilliant." Harry snapped coldly.

"Do you?" sneered the boy. "Why is he with you? Where are your parents?"

The girl's head snapped up, ready with a question, but was cut off as Harry responded shortly.

"They're dead."

"Oh, sorry." He continued, not noticing the girl's gasp of recognition. Her hands balled into fists, not noticing her magazine was still on the floor.

"Stop talking." She commanded.

"No one asked you." The boy sneered at her."But they were our kind, weren't they?" He continued to Harry.

"They were a witch and a wizard, if that's what you mean."

"I really don't think they should let the other sort in, do you? They're just not the same, they've never been brought up to know our ways. Some of them have never even heard of Hogwarts until they get the letter, imagine. I think they should keep it in the old wizarding families. What's your surname, anyway?"

"That's you done, my dear." Madam Malkin stated before Harry could reply.

Relieved for an excuse to go, he hopped off the footstool, and as the witch wrapped up his robes, he stepped toward the girl, picked up her magazine, and handed it to her.

"Thanks." She muttered under her breath with a smile. "Sorry about him, by the way."

"Well, I'll see you at Hogwarts, I suppose," the boy said at his back as he left.

A/N: This is my first fanfic so please review! I think I need some constructive criticism. I promise I have a very good reason for my OC! If you are anything like me, I don't really care for OC's because I feel like they're always too Mary Sue-like. I posted the first chapter at the same time, so give it a read and let me know what you want to see in later chapters.