AN: Sorry about the delay, but the next chapter is giving me a lot of problems. I am writing it and it is almost done, but here's a short chapter to keep you satisfied until I get the next chapter finished. Also reviews are always very encouraging for me! Thanks.

Chapter 3: Summer with the Dursley's

Harry hurried up the alley toward the Leaky Cauldron; he was late enough for meeting Hagrid as it was. Harry walked along, his clothes package in one hand and the non-descript grey carrier in the other, taking his time absorbing the sights and sounds of Diagon Alley. His conversation with the store owner was already fading from his mind as distracted as he was. It was almost unbelievable that in the early hours of the morning Harry had been lying on the floor of a dusty decrepit cabin watching as Dudley's watch ticked over to his birthday. And now here he was, a wizard, and collecting everything he needed for his first year at Hogwarts. It was a little overwhelming, but Harry had always enjoyed new adventures, and it would get him away from the Dursley's for most of the year. So no matter what occurred at Hogwarts that would make up for anything that happened ten times over.

Harry was reaching the end of Diagon Alley when a display in a window caught his eye. Harry knew that the money Draco had given him was a gift from him to use on himself, but he wanted to buy Draco something with his own money to repay his kindness. So with a grin Harry stepped into the store, and in only a few minutes he was out again and continuing on to the Leaky Cauldron. As he got to the back door of the Cauldron it swung open and Hagrid began to walk out. He caught himself before he bowled Harry over, but then glowered down at the boy before him.

"It's been over half an hour Harry! I was just coming to look for you, what could have taken so long?" Harry looked down at the ground guiltily, he really hadn't meant to stay out so long, but he had gotten distracted, and how could he help it? There were so many things to look at, and he'd just—

"I'm sorry Hagrid! I got my stuff from Madam Malkin's and then I just got distracted on the way back. I lost track of time and before I knew it I was at least ten minutes late. I didn't mean to worry you." Harry really didn't want to disappoint one of the only people that had treated him like a friend, and he was relieved to see that Hagrid didn't actually look angry.

"Aw, it's alright Harry, I was just worried you'd run off or something. It wouldn't do to lose you just after we'd found you now would it?" Harry grinned up at Hagrid, pleased that the tall man was distracted enough to not ask about the extra packages he was carrying.

"No it wouldn't Hagrid, no it wouldn't." Hagrid motioned Harry inside the tavern and they sat down to a good meal. Harry was starving, as he hadn't eaten a full meal in months, and so after putting everything away in the trunk Harry devoured the soup and bread before him. He never noticed Hagrid's sorrowful expression as he watched the young boy consume a simple fair of beef stew like it was the best meal in the world.

*

As they ate Hagrid and Harry talked about Hogwarts and the wizarding world in general. Hagrid explained about the four houses and, eventually, about the wizard named Voldemort. Harry sat shaking in his seat, not from fear, but from a slow burning rage at the thought that some stupid war had taken away his parents and forced him to live with his Aunt and Uncle. Hagrid refused to talk about it anymore and Harry would have to live with the little knowledge that he about Voldemort until he got back to the Dursley's. He would have a month to read up on all the books he had gotten from Flourish and Blotts before dealing with any of the publicly he would apparently receive at Hogwarts.

As he left the tavern, Tom was kind enough to shrink his trunk, but he could do nothing about the owl and her cage or the gray egg carrier. Hagrid dropped off Harry at the train station in Paddington, exclaiming profusely that Harry should, 'Stick to his ticket.' Harry had agreed and boarded the train, never thinking about any problems with boarding the train to Hogwarts. When he had looked back for his friend, Hagrid had been gone.

Harry spent the train ride to Surrey in silence, his owl was asleep in her cage and Harry didn't dare bring out the snake eggs, and so he was left with a head full of questions and no one to answer them for the whole ride home. Harry walked rapidly back to the Dursley's; his hand playing with the shrunken trunk in his pocket, which held so many treasures that Harry couldn't wait to get it into his room so that he could begin to look through them again. He quietly entered the house and began to creep upstairs to his bedroom, hoping that his 'family' wouldn't notice his entrance, and that he could get to his new room without having to see them.

Harry heard shuffling noises from the living room and Dudley came around the corner, spotting Harry on the stairs. He let out a little scream of fear and raced back the way he came, hands clamped firmly over his bottom, Harry froze; sure that now his Aunt and Uncle would come and try to lock him in the closet. But a few minutes passed and no one came storming in from the living room, the only sound was the television and Harry breathed out in relief. He leapt up the stairs and to his room, counting his blessings that he had the room now to put his stuff in. Harry quickly placed his Owl on the desk in the room and then gently began to remove the snake eggs from the confines of the carrier. Harry built the nest up on the desk in the room and after some scrounging found a working lamp. He placed the lamp next to the eggs and turned it on; hoping the heat would keep the sand warm, something he remembered from his conversation with the menagerie owner had been about keeping the eggs warm until they hatched.

Harry satisfied with the safety of his pets, turned from the desk and began to arrange the items in his new room. He heard an irritated hoot and grimaced, remembering his owl. Harry turned and opened the cage door allowing her to hop out and rest on the head board of his bed. Harry grinned at the owl, moving to scratch at the feathers on her breast.

"Sorry girl, but this is home for now, you should make yourself comfortable while I clean up." The owl nipped gently at his fingers and crooned softly, eyes wide and bright in the semi-darkness of his room. Harry turned back to the piles of junk that Dudley had left in this room and began to sort through the piles. It didn't take him long and in the end he had scavenged anything remotely usable. He was able to find a table with a leg missing that he then propped against the wall next to his bed, it would serve as a nightstand. Harry moved all the junk into a pile behind the door and was then able to place his shrunken trunk on a clear space of the floor. As he stood back the trunk expanded to its normal size, easily four feet long, three feet deep, and three feet wide. Of course the true dimensions of the trunk could not be measured since it expanded to include whatever Harry needed it to.

Harry then pulled the lid of his trunk up to examine its contents, still being quiet so as not to disturb his new friend, or the other occupants of the house. Inside the trunk there were two removable compartments that held his quills, ink, parchment, and other small items that could get broken or squashed, such as broaches and pins. When the shelves were removed the trunk looked normal, his books stacked on one side, his robes from Madam Malkin in the middle and his cauldron with his potions ingredients on the other side. But Harry knew that the size of the compartment lied, as he went to pull out the stack of books in his trunk, in their place, another stack rose. Harry had to do this multiple times before all of his books were out of the trunk and on the floor. Harry left his cauldron, robes, scales, and other items in the trunk. Though he was intrigued by those items, he had an idea of what they were for and they didn't call to him like the information in the books did. Harry replaced the shelves in the trunk, but left out his blank book, one of his black ink wells, and a few of the cheap practice quills he had bought. Harry had also managed to buy some self sticking candles out of curiosity, and he remembered to grab those before shutting the trunk.

As the sun went down on number four Private Drive, Harry Potter stuck three candles to different surfaces in the room and then lit them with the matches that had come with the set. His owl hooted once and then winged out the window, on the hunt for food Harry guessed, and the two eggs remained quietly in place. Harry pulled his hard pillow from the bed and placed it between him and the floor, it was at least a little softer than the wood planking. He then separated his books, one pile was school related, and the other was for his own fun. As he finished sorting the stack he noticed that one of his 'for fun' books was about mythical creatures. Harry flipped it open to the index, wondering if he could find anything on magical snakes, or if there would be pictures of the eggs sitting on his desk in the book.

Harry was surprised to find that the book had a whole section on magical snakes, ranging from the most mundane of snakes to some that were twice as long as a man and three times as deadly. He was disappointed to realize though that neither of his snakes were shown in the book. With each species mentioned there were pictures of the adult forms, male and female, their adolescent forms, and then a picture of the eggs they hatched from and none of the eggs in the book looked like either of the eggs sitting on his desk. Though the eggs were the same size, one was silver with black spots and the other was maroon with black spots, so he knew the eggs were the same species, even if they didn't exist in his book. Harry flipped through the book to see if there were any other references, but found none, and none of his other books dealt with Magical Creatures. He had just wanted to learn about some of the creatures he might meet in his new world, not learn every nuance regarding them. But he had learned one important fact, that the snakes he now owned as pets were not well known creatures. It would be extremely fun to see what he had when the snakes hatched, the snakes in the menagerie had been so varied in size and color that he wasn't quite sure what he would get. And even if they weren't magical, Harry would still be able to talk to them, a bonus he was going to enjoy.

Harry sighed and put aside the stack of books he'd bought to read for pleasure and started on his school books. They might not be as interesting, Harry grimaced at his history book, but the others could prove to be very interesting indeed. He pulled his Herbology book off the top of the stack and placed the rest on the floor near him, settling in for a long reading session, content in his new world of magic and mystery.

*

It had been a couple of days since Harry had returned from his trip to Diagon Alley with Hagrid and learned of his real heritage. He and his relatives had settled into a routine. He would come down for meals, and they would completely and utterly ignore his existence. Harry found this to be a step up from their hatred, and was not one to look a gift horse in the mouth. So he took full advantage of the break, using all of his now free time to read his school books and practice writing with a quill. He had thought it wouldn't be that hard, but almost immediately he was getting ink on his fingers, and blots on the parchment. So Harry spent an hour each day writing in the journal he had bought and on a few sheets of parchment.

When he wasn't reading his books or practicing writing he was taking care of the snake eggs. Harry kept the eggs sitting in the middle of the sand nest he had created, the cloth strips helping to insulate the eggs and keep them warm. The lamp shed only a small amount of light, but the bulb produced a good amount of heat and so Harry placed the blub as close to the sand nest as possible. Harry felt it was better than nothing, but he was also afraid that trying to heat the eggs with the candles might actually being to cook them, so the lamp would have to do.

With only reading and writing and talking to Hedwig, the name he had given his owl, to occupy his time Harry began to get bored near the end of his last month with the Dursleys. Harry tried leaving his room and doing chores for his Aunt, but she refused to let him touch anything in the house besides the scraps she gave him for dinner. And whenever Harry tried to leave the house, to go to the library or to the park he was immediately put back in his room, by any means necessary, which had resulted in quite a few new and interesting bruises. So Harry was stuck in his room, with almost nothing to do. He had gotten through almost all of the books he had bought at Flourish and Blotts and he was no longer staining his fingers with the ink from his quill.

He was practicing his writing a week and a half before he was due to go to Hogwarts when his mind drifted to his day in Diagon Alley, and when it came back Harry was surprised to see that a not so reasonable dragon was drawn in the middle of his notes. Harry had been studying a Latin book before beginning his writing lesson and had come upon the word Draco. He frowned at the representation of his friends name, it was a pitiful excuse for a dragon, and decided that he needed to try and fix it. So Harry sat and drew dragons in his journal until the light faded from the room hours later. When it got too dark to see his pictures Harry put down his journal and lit the candles in his room. As the darkness receded he looked over the drawings in his book, and grinned in accomplishment. While the picture was by no means spectacular, it was a sight better than the first drawing had been. He ran his fingers along the name he had printed in flowing script under the latest drawing, Draco. He smiled and laughed softly.

"Dragon." He tried to keep a straight face, but burst out laughing at the thought of calling his new friend Dragon instead of Draco, and as the merriment lifted his spirits, Harry settled back against his head board, turning to study Hedwig before putting quill to parchment.