Chapter four:

Dre Parker collapsed exhausted onto his bed, after a long day at school. His school uniform covered in sweat and his muscles aching beyond belief – today had been a full-school P.E. day, six hours of physical exercise, added to the thirty minute run home, after he had practiced sparring with Mr Hans straight after school. Since the run to try and reach Mei's audition, Dre had taken to running home from Mr Hans instead of using his skateboard. Of course, he still used the skateboard to get to school and to go to the shop etc. but he hated the fact that he had allowed himself to get out of shape, he used to be able to outrun his cousin and his friends easily when he was younger, without getting too much out of breath.

Rolling onto his side, he looked at the snowy owl that was perched, still sleeping, on the back of his desk chair. Hedwig had arrived last night, she was a very smart owl, being able to find him despite never knowing that he had left the country or ever being to China before…or from what he knew anyway…Dre glanced towards the pile of letters that Hedwig had brought with her, still unopened and barely touched. After so many weeks of trying to find a way to contact his friends back in Britain, he wasn't sure he wanted them to know where he was – it was nice, being able to be himself, without the pressures of the title of boy-who-lived, people prejudging him in every aspect of his life, be it academic or personal, just because of who the public thought he was or because of who his parents had been, and what they had been like in school.

He did want to go back to Hogwarts, he wanted to go back to England – back to his life of magic, instead of learning boring mundane subjects. Only two weeks ago had he wanted to get out of China, but now…now wasn't too sure. He was getting very good grades within school, nearly the top of most of his classes, and he was enjoying learning Kung Fu from Mr Hans. Learning a new language was challenging but fun, and he wasn't restricted in how much time he could spend learning and reading his books on magic.

Although, he did wish he had more books on magic – a wider range of subjects, and higher levels, since he was almost done with most of the books he had now, even after revising all of his old ones.

Of course, his friends and teachers were probably wondering where he was right now. They had been told he would be gone for two weeks, to mourn for his cousins death – they had been out of the country now for just over two months. To be exact, seven weeks longer than had originally been planned and approved by his teachers; and from the looks of the pile of letters, one of them was from the headmaster, one from his head of house, a few from his friends and even one from the Ministry of Magic.

All of them just had his name on, none had his address on it.

Apparently they thought they could track him through his own owl – Dre smirked a bit at the thought, it would appear as if the magic had attached itself to the bird, but the moment they were over a mile away, the magic would be removed rather forcefully thanks to the chip that was implanted into Hedwig's neck under the skin. He had purchased it after 1st year, seeing that it protected his owl from minor hexes and jinxes. It also prevented anyone using Hedwig to find his exact location, something he was now glad of – the chip also disabled any tracking spells on any packages that Hedwig was carrying. He had known a few days ago that they had tried to put tracking spells on Hedwig because the chip sent a pulse signal to him despite the vast distance. He hadn't expected Hedwig to turn up in the middle of the night though.

Rolling off the bed with a small thud, Dre crawled across the room to the desk, sitting down leant against the desk, pulling the pile of letters down so he could look at them. Throwing the others to the floor, he carefully opened the letter that he knew was from Hermione – he recognised the handwriting.

Harry!

Where are you?! You were meant to be back at school weeks ago! All our other letters just return unopened, and Dumbledore went to your aunts house, but some new family lives there now! Why aren't you back at school, you are missing vital lessons that will be on the end of year exams!...

Two long pieces of parchment later just caused Dre to grimaced, it was basically the first paragraph repeated over and over again in different words; he hadn't really expected any differently, although he had expected her to at least ask if he was ok. What if his aunt had done some harm and he was unable to get back to Hogwarts due to injury or illness? No, they probably wouldn't have thought about any of that. After all, to them his family was perfect, the abuse and neglect was very easy to overlook.

The letter from Dumbledore just repeated what Hermione had said, but adding that he was in danger because of Sirius Black being on the run, and targeting him along with Voldemort still being alive. The Ministry basically just tried to order him back to Hogwarts, something to do with the policy that all magical born British citizens were required to attend a magical school, or submit a petition to be home-schooled by parents or students, which may be denied if the circumstances weren't correct. Ron went on and on about how the Gryffindor Quidditch team was losing badly, and how he didn't have anyone to protect him from Hermione's wrath when it came to homework and messing around between classes, and getting into mischief constantly.

Professor McGonagall's letter was, perhaps, the only one that seemed like they were truly concerned. She asked his location of course, but also about his wellbeing and if he was dealing well with the loss of his cousin, along with the divorce of his aunt and uncle. Along with the letter from his head of house, was a photograph – wizarding of course, that moved. It was a picture of James, Lily and himself as a baby. On the back was a note, stating that she thought he would like the picture that she had managed to dig out, it was a copy of the one that his parents had sent her on his first birthday.

There was also a line that caught his attention, just underneath her note.

Magic is in the most unexpected of places.

What exactly did that mean?

"Is everything ok?" Aunt Sherry asked,

Jerking his head up, Dre looked at his aunt who looked rather worried, as she stood in his doorway. He hadn't even heard the door open, if he was rather honest with himself and he jumped a bit at her unexpected arrival. Nodding slowly, he motioned to the pile of opened letters,

"Letters from Britain." Dre stated, unsure how to explain it all. Aunt Sherry nodded at this too, having expected it at some point anyway. "They are demanding my return to Hogwarts. My head of house, she sent a photo that my parents gave her when I was younger."

"That was nice of her," Sherry stated,

There was silence for a minute or so,

"Why did you bring me with you? Why not just leave me in England?" Dre asked after a while, "And why the name change? You never said…"

Sherry sighed as she moved to perch, very ladylike, on the edge of his bed looking thoughtful. It wasn't often they had a meaningful conversation, nor actually spent much time together talking about anything.

"I did it to protect you." Sherry finally answered, pursing her lips in disapproval as she looked at the pile of letters. "Dumbledore told me about Voldemort. And his followers, being after you, and how the public had put you on a type of pedestal as their hero. I changed our names, so it would be harder to track you down, to give you a taste of what a normal life could be like."

"…oh,"

"I got letters from your school, you know." Sherry stated – a faraway look in her eyes, Dre could see something akin to horror in their depths. "About your grades, and your…misadventures, and detentions. A lot of letters from Severus Snape, about how incompetent you were. I could see you were holding back, like you always did, and you were in so much danger. When I decided to leave Vernon after Dudley died, I decided you needed a fresh start too. To discover who you are,"

Dre thought about it as his aunt got up and left the room. What did she mean by discover who he is? He did know, right? He was Dre Parker (Harry Potter) average student, average magical talent, normal 13 year old boy, who hadn't even passed his third year of Hogwarts yet.

But was that him?

Sigh.

Hi all!

So, chapter 4, Just as promised!

Next chapter is a lot more interactive with other characters, I'm not sure which direction to go yet, but have some pretty good ideas in the mix right now. It will be up in the next few days, possible Sunday, as I am busy all day tomorrow! If you are lucky and I get some spare time, It even could be available tonight, but I highly doubt it at this moment!

As for some questions that occurred (or rather some comments) in the reviews,

- I changed the names of Dre/Sherry because, as Sherry explains in this chapter, it was so Dre would try and have a normal life for a little while. someone commented that "The name change thing is just stupid", no it really isn't. The name Harry Potter would, I feel, have been known even outside of Europe due to being the first person ever to survive the killing curse. There wouldnt be as much hype around him, but if he appeared in the asian magical community, someone was bound to recognise the name, and it would get back to Britain where he was.

- Dre / Harry was half way through his second year when Dudley died and his aunt pulled him out of Hogwarts.

- No this is not just going to be a rewrite of the latest Karate Kid, whilst the basis of it is based on that film along with the Harry Potter series; it is not the full story. This is about Dre working out who he is, without the manipulations of crazy old coots who think everything is done for the greater good.

Noon-Stories-Limited.