Original story material is the property of the fanfic author; other material of Rowling et al. falls under the usual disclaimer.

1. Betwixt and Between.

Hut-on-the-Rock, Celtic Sea;
Monday, 30 July, preceding First Year.

It was very kind of the Queen to lend us the royal beach resort for my birthday. I wonder if she'll sail in with a gift tomorrow.

Boys can be so sarcastic at this age -- which, at the moment, was 10-3/4.

In truth, it was a very boring day, and Harry Potter could not have been more miserable. The heat and humidity felt extremely high, even for late July, and an evening storm was coming. Soon they would be cooped up inside, and the shore boat wasn't due to return until morning.

There was absolutely nothing to do on this dopey pile of rocks.

He sat sweating in the shade of the stone hut, listening to the lapping waves, watching the silent lightning flashes on the horizon and letting his mind wander.

He had been 10 for a whole year, but today he could picture the odometer rolling. This morning he had been age 10-1/4; by Noon, 10-1/2. Now he was 10-3/4, and at midnight tonight, it would click into place for another year, and he'd be a big 11.

But he was mad at himself, because he had not thought to bring a school book, a toy soldier -- or even his hand-me-down deck of cards, with the piece of paper substituting for the missing king of diamonds (that card being presently taped to Dudley's bike to make a motorcycle noise). He would have been happy for a pencil and paper so he might go off in some dry nook of the hut, and draw, or write, or do something to keep himself from going barmy!

Then too, Harry was still in a snit about the mysterious letters, addressed to him. Uncle Vernon had been in a rage about them for days, with no explanation. Each day when they arrived, Harry was immediately locked in his cubbyhole while an ever-increasing number of letters was gathered for destruction. He knew nothing about their origins, save the letter H on the red wax seal.

So far, the odd envelopes had gone to ashes in the Dursleys' little-used fireplace. Once we're over this, thought Harry, I know who'll end up having to carry out the ashes, and scrape the wax from the bricks.

Oh, and I'll probably have to clean up the owl poop too. And who invited them to hang around our house, all of a sudden? Are owls supposed to flock?

Then his pudgy, beady-eyed, cabbage-brained cousin stepped outside, and made it a very curious day.

Dudley, of course, was not one to ever say anything conversational to Harry. If it wasn't an insult, it was a taunt about what he was going to do next to spoil Harry's life. The Dud was looking for something, all over the rocks, even scanning the choppy waters.

Poor Dudley. He misses his telly.

No, no, no -- a seagull must have carried off his biscuit stash! That's it! He's already starving, isn't he!

It would be a treat for Harry to watch his whale of a cousin try to swim to shore for a pudding. Perhaps a whaling fleet will sail up, and he'll have to duck harpoons! Oh, bad luck for that; no whaling schooners happened to be handy.

Besides, it would be more likely that the Dursleys would throw Harry in, and tell him to fetch take-away to feed the lot of them. He'd have to swim through ten-foot waves, with lightning bolts striking all around him, and fight off schools of blood-thirsty, orphan-eating sharks. When a shark is swallowing you, do you punch them on the nose, or their eyeballs? I forget.

Harry, too, was rather hungry. Aunt Petunia had made a corned beef sandwich for him that morning, as they rushed to get him out of the house. Knowing how generous the Dursleys were with food, he had thought it best to pocket half of the sandwich all afternoon.

He was keeping it for the moment he would find himself at death's door. There he would be -- crawling across the desert island to where the Dursleys sat at a full dining table laden with beef, lamb, greens and mackerel, consuming a sumptuous candlelight meal, and he would beg them for the merest scrap, and they would contemptuously brush half a corned beef sandwich off the table.

Harry was still off in dreamland when Dudley intruded.

To be more precise, Dudley yelled in his face. As usual, he didn't say the name so much as he expectorated it. "POTTER! What did you do with those letters?"

What now, thought Harry. "MY letters, do you mean? I never got any of them, you know that! They burned them all."

Dudley's face turned purple. He grabbed Harry by the shoulders and pushed him down. Harry might have fought it if he could even move, trapped between Dudley's tonnage and the angular rocks digging in his back.

"Get off me!"

"Dad put all those dumb letters of yours in his luggage, so he could burn them. Now they're gone, and so is the hotel receipt. We've looked everywhere, and we can't find them. YOU took them, didn't you?"

"I don't know what you're talking about!"

Dudley persisted. "The letters that came to the hotel! Where are they?"

"What hotel?"

"YOU PRAT! WHERE DO YOU THINK WE WERE YESTERDAY?"

"WE WERE HOME!" yelled Harry, "THEN WE CAME HERE!"

"HAVE YOU BEEN ASLEEP THE WHOLE TIME? Oh, Potter, you are so -- useless!" Dudley shoved off, struggled back into uprightness and waddled away into the stone hut. Apparently, he had tried to be his mother's little darling by bullying a confession out of Harry, but it hadn't had the desired effect.

Well, that was different, thought Harry. He sat up, and wiped the residue of Dudley's two POTTERs and one PRAT off his glasses.

After years of living with these three demented people, he was ready for almost anything -- but why should they all be thinking they stayed at a hotel? We never stay at a hotel. How could I sleep through that? They've finally lost it!

Hunger came to mind again. Well, I'd better eat what I've got, he thought, before Telly-tubby grabs it. He reached to his shirt pocket for the remaining half of his two-course dinner.

But, the rest of the sandwich wasn't there.

Instead, his hand came up with a half-eaten packet of crisps, somewhat crushed by Dudley's shoving. Now, Harry was really disoriented. Dudley wouldn't swap my sandwich for a treat -- he'd eat both.

He only noticed the rain when the first drops ran down his glasses. Rumbles of thunder were finally heard in the distance. A very puzzled Harry Potter, aged 10-3/4 or so and counting, shrugged off his confusion. He took a last glance around his island prison, brushed himself off, retied a shoelace and went into the hot, dusty hut.