All right, now that we've thoroughly made Harry's life a living Hell and then rescued him from self-same Hell, I guess the next logical step would be to fix him back up. Completely.

In the span of a single Summer.

Because that's not contrived or anything.

Enjoy. Or don't.

xxx

xxx

Harry came to the realization that he should probably be saying something right around the same time as his uncle had. He was essentially being kidnapped, after all. Though, considering the alternative, this was probably the most welcome kidnapping that one would ever experience.

He stared at the generic-looking woman driving beside him. "…So, uh…"

The woman smiled. "Oh, I'm sorry. We haven't been properly introduced. I'm Emma. My daughter Tracy is in the same year at Hogwarts as you."

Harry stared blankly at her.

"Tracy Davis?" Emma prodded. "You've seen her before, haven't you?"

More blank stare.

"She's a Slytherin?"

"Uh...I've heard of a Roger Davies, but he's a Ravenclaw," he said lamely.

Emma rolled her eyes. "Yes, that's her."

After a few minutes of riding in silence, Harry couldn't help but wonder. "Why in the world is this happening? I mean, you just deciding to visit me like you did?" After all, what on earth were the chances of some parent of a girl he barely knew anything about all of a sudden deciding to take an active interest in his personal life at this stage of it?

"Well, Tracy talks about you all the time, you see?" she explained.

"Oh. …Why?"

"Well, you may not know this, but my husband is a muggle, which makes Tracy a half-blood. And when she started school, she was sorted into Slytherin, where half-bloods and muggle-borns almost never end up. Of course, that means that her housemates all hate her, so she's never really had any friends and is forced to keep a low profile so as not to draw unwanted attention to herself."

Harry nodded. "I suppose that could explain why I've never seen or heard of her before."

"Possibly, but due to being half-blood, she also doesn't subscribe to all that pure-blood supremacy garbage like the rest of them. She's tried making friends with other houses, but they all see her as just another Slytherin, while the Slytherins don't think she's worthy enough to associate with them. So she ends up being all alone."

"Wow, I can totally relate to that," Harry said, sadly reminded of his own horrible lonely existence before coming to Hogwarts and meeting Hagrid and Ron and Hermione.

"That's good to hear," Emma smiled. "It's only natural that a person have some common ground with their potential love interest."

"What?"

"So naturally you and her will be able to find some common ground and become good friends while you're staying with us."

"Oh. Thought you said something else." He thought for a moment. "But you never really answered my question."

Emma furrowed her brow in confusion. "Hmm? What question was that?"

"Why you decided to just come and visit me at my muggle relatives today even though we've never actually met before. Not that I'm complaining, mind you; you showed up at a pretty damn convenient time. Just seems kind of...coincidental, is all."

"Oh that. Don't worry about it."

Harry blinked. "Don't worry about it? But what-?"

"Harry, dear, sometimes in life, there come times where it's just best for everyone if you don't question how or why things happen, okay?"

"...So I'm not supposed to question how or why you managed to appear at just the right time to rescue me from one of the top five most horrible moments of my life?"

"That's right, dear."

"Huh. Well...okay, I guess. I mean, it's gonna drive me crazy trying to figure it out on my own, but...whatever."

Emma smiled. "All that aside, you didn't seem too opposed to coming with me, despite us being complete strangers as you've mentioned."

"Yeah well, it was either come with you and hope for the best, or stay there and have my uncle rape me."

"Merlin's ingrown toenails!" Emma shouted, completely scandalized. "It's going to be even harder to rehabilitate you than I thought." She turned back to the road, shaking her head. "Kids and their wild fetishes these days."

Harry spent much of the trip hitting his head against the passenger window.

xxx

And so began the remainder of the summer with the Davis's. Harry was introduced to Emma's husband Daniel, who was every bit as generic as his wife, and their daughter Tracy, who was basically a younger version of Emma but with larger breasts.

Things were a bit strange at first, what with getting small misunderstandings, such as Harry convincing them that he wasn't really an incestuous masochist or anything of the sort. But before too long they were all bonding, with Emma even taking time to teach Harry various new spells, jinxes and hexes, which would no doubt come in handy later on.

Even better than that was the relationship between he and Tracy, who, after only a few days in her company began to wonder how he could have possibly gone so long without noticing her before. Despite her overall genericness, Harry found himself inexplicably drawn to her more and more with each passing hour. It could have been the awkward time when Harry walked into the bathroom while she was there and caught a flash of naked boobies for the first time in his life, or possibly the nights they spent outside, gazing up at the stars, laughing together about the strange experiences they'd each had in the past, or shedding tears as they traded stories about all the terrible things that had happened to them in their lives, whereafter they would swear a magical vow upon eternal loss of their magic to always be there for one another, so that no matter how horrible things ended up, they would always have at least one other person to care for them.

But who are we kidding? It was the boobies.

xxx

As the summer drew to a close, the school lists arrived, and it was time to take a trip to Diagon Alley. Harry and the Davis's Floo'ed their way to Gringotts to make their withdrawals. As they approached the front desk, Harry had an inkling. The goblin helping them seemed familiar.

"Your name was Griphook, right?" he asked.

The goblin's eyes narrowed. "No, it's not. Griphook is in the back right now."

Harry frowned. "Oh, sorry. But you do look familiar. …Ripclaw?"

The look of indignation grew darker. "No, and I take offense to that. Despite human stereotypes, all goblin names are not the barbaric combination of a verb and a noun."

Harry could suddenly feel several irritated goblin eyes focused in on him. "S-sorry. Uh, so what is your name then?"

"Emma."

"…R-really?"

"Yeah, really. Is that a problem?"

"Well, no. It's just that Emma is usually a girl's name."

"I AM a girl!"

"Oops," he muttered as even more glares of annoyance fell upon him.

"This is why most wizards don't try to get too chummy with goblins, Harry," Mrs. Davis informed him once they had moved on to the vaults. "They get so touchy about things like that. It's not our fault they all look alike."

They quickly gathered their galleons and returned to the front desk.

"By the way, Mr. Potter, there's to be a reading of one Sirius Black's last will and testament in a few weeks. As one of his prime beneficiaries, you'll want to make sure you're here for it."

Harry nodded his appreciation. "Thanks, Emma."

The goblin glared at him. "Emma left. I'm Griphook."

Harry cussed under his breath. "Sorry, I keep confusing the two of you-"

"How could you confuse me with Emma? We look nothing alike! We're not even the same gender, for Pukeblood's sake! Though, I suppose to a big, important human like you, we must ALL look alike, right?"

Harry glanced around at the half dozen goblins present. "Well…" Thankfully, Tracy dragged him outside before he could make an even bigger fool of himself.

xxx

With that embarrassing scene behind them, the group spent the rest of the day buying supplies.

Since they were a truly generous sort, the Davis' not only helped Harry buy all his school supplies, but also a brand new wardrobe, a new snowy-white owl to replace Hedwig (Harry named her Hedwig to avoid any confusion), a special quill that would do his homework for him, an extra wand so that he could dual-cast spells, a Parseltongue-to-English dictionary in case he wanted to cast spells like a snake, a brand new Firebolt Mach2 which could fly just as fast as the name suggested, a pack of remedial growth potions guaranteed to fix his lifetime of malnourishment in two weeks or his money back, and a collection of books, including such titles as "Potion Brewing Made Simpler Than Boiling Water" and "Forbidden Arts and How to Cast Them Without Getting Punished", from a small shop on the corner of Knockturn Alley.

"You know, Harry," Emma mentioned, giving his face a cursory look as they all sat eating their lunch at some random restaurant. "We should take you to a magical eye doctor. Those irresponsible muggles have probably been forcing you to wear glasses with incorrect prescription lenses, so we should see about altering them for you."

Harry frowned, removed his glasses and looked around, then put them back on again. "Actually, I can see just fine with these. I mean, I'm a Seeker in quidditch and I can spot a golfball-sized snitch from as far away as-"

"Well then," she interrupted. "Why don't we just have them alter your eyes so that you don't need glasses at all? Or maybe we can go all out and give your eyes X-ray and night-vision?"

"They can do that?"

"Of course, Harry. Magic can do anything. Except explain how it's able to do the things it does. But then, 'magic' itself is the answer to that, too."

"…Okay, I guess. But why do any wizards even bother wearing glasses if there's magic that can fix it?"

"Well, there is the eighty-five percent chance that your eyeballs will explode during the procedure, and another sixty percent chance you'll spend the rest of your life bleeding from your sockets, not to mention-"

"You know what?" Harry said with a shiver of discomfort. "Maybe I'll just invest in some contact lenses or something."

"X-ray contact lenses?"

"Well, of course."

xxx

xxx

Oh, those kooky goblins. Wouldn't it be great if you could earn the respect and devotion of an entire race of creatures simply by remembering one of their names? That sure would make fighting a war and gathering mass amounts of riches pretty easy, wouldn't it. Yep...sure would...

Hm, kind of a weak chapter, if I do say so. Oh well, hopefully the next one should make up for it.

Anyway, now that Harry's armed with a loving (though generic) girlfriend, a boatload of new spells and a trunk full of super-awesome magical goodies, looks like it's time to return to Hogwarts. What new mockeries could possibly await us along the way? Find out next time.

Til then.

LL