AN: I admit, I did not know where I wanted to go with the story (I wrote for the sake of writing and only sporadically at that), but now I have an idea. I also edited the previous chapters a tad (but not too much). Enjoy this new chapter! / I want to point out that I am not a native speaker, i.e. never properly learnt English punctuation, so commas might appear where they don't belong. Feel free to point out mistakes. Keep it civil. / Snape is not a Hogwarts professor in this story. I will probably elaborate at a later point in this story. / This chapter still needs a title. / Harry-centric chapter/POV. I might keep the story this way. / R&R please. –Em. (Monday, 19/03/2018)


Harry was nervous about starting school. In his old school he felt insignificant, tiny and practically invisible. Everybody avoided him, for fear of his bully cousin. His biggest hope was that this would change tomorrow. Despite all worries spinning in his head, Harry fell asleep quickly that night.

As usual, he woke up early. Draco was still asleep, a soft snore coming from his side of the room. Harry used his advance to take a shower, brush his teeth without having to fight for the bathroom. Back in his room he put on decent clothes for school. Right when Harry slipped into his socks, Draco's alarm went off and a ruffled blond head appeared among the sheets.

"Good morning, Draco," said Harry. Draco replied with nothing more than a sleepy yawn and Harry left the room. Downstairs, Severus had already prepared breakfast and sipped on a steaming cup of Darjeeling tea.

"Good morning, Harry," he greeted the boy.

"Good morning," he replied.

"Is Draco up yet?"

"Yes, he just got up, I think," said Harry.

"Good. Go ahead and eat your breakfast."

Harry seated himself and scooped up a few spoonfuls of oatmeal. After a short while, Draco also made it downstairs. After they finished their morning oats, Snape was instructing the boys to be friendly and look out for each other.

"Now go. And behave," said Severus as the boys left the house.

Draco was leading the way to school but did not talk to Harry except for the occasional "this way" whenever they took a turn from the main road. As Severus had mentioned, school was fairly close to their house and they reached it after a short walk. Harry was following Draco to their classroom.

"Good morning," Draco said in a flat voice to the teacher.

"Good morning, Draco," he replied, "and you must be Harry." Harry blushed a bit and nodded.

Standing in front of the class, everyone was staring at him.

"Listen children, we have a new student in our class," he announced to the class, "This is Harry. He just moved to our town a few days ago. I want you to welcome him and be friendly! Harry, please take the seat over there," his teacher said and pointed at the empty desk towards the right half of the room.

Class started and as much as Harry tried to pay attention, he couldn't help and look around a little to try and remember all faces later. In the back row, a girl was whispering something into her neighbor's ear, who then started giggling, quickly covering her mouth with both hands. In front of them, a boy was resting his head against the wall, yawning widely. One girl was poking her pencil into the stack of paper in front of her. The boy behind her was furrowing his brows, apparently already a bit lost with the lesson.

Taking this as a cue, Harry concentrated on his teacher and the ongoing lesson for a while, then his eyes continued wandering. Draco sat in the middle row and was scribbling on a piece of paper. Behind him sat a girl with an auburn braid hanging over her shoulder. She was writing on her worksheet but when she noticed Harry's stare, she smiled. Harry blushed and quickly turned his eyes back to the front to follow the lesson.

The classes ended as quickly as they started and soon all children left the room to head out to their break. For the first time in his life, Harry had a package lunch with food for him–and him alone–to savour. Entering the schoolyard, he looked around for Draco, not sure if he wanted to find or to avoid him. After all, he was the only boy he knew in this place, but at the same time, he wasn't a very friendly one. He did not have to find an answer for his question, because he could not spot the blond head at all. Placing himself on a bench he took a bite of his sandwich. Before long, he was surrounded by a few of his classmates, all curiously staring at him.

"Uhm.. 'ello," he said, mid-chewing.

"Hey, Harry was it?" asked the girl with the braid, Harry nodded. "I'm Polly, Polly Jenkins, and these are my friends," she introduced the other children. "We wanted to get to know you and have a few questions, you see, because you're new here and all?"

Right after she was finished, the questions started like a bombardement. They asked him for siblings, his favourite color, his birthday, where he was from, if he had a pet, where he lived now, his favourite ice cream and candy. Harry's head kept moving, focusing on a different classmate, it almost made him dizzy. Unused to being approached at all, Harry swallowed the bit of bread he was just eating, and started to answer one question after the other.

"I used to live with my aunt and uncle but now I live not far from here, in Crescent Road. I live with Draco, actually," he said.

"Oh.. so is he your brother or something? You don't look anything alike," asked Polly.

"No!" Harry shot out, "no, he's not."

"Then why do you live with him?" Her intonation implied a determined aversion.

That was a good question. Where would he start to explain? Should he try to explain at all?

"We have the same guardian, you see," he finally said, "that's why we both live in the same house."

"Wow, so you don't live with your parents at all? That's so cool!" someone said.

Harry wanted to object, cool wasn't exactly how he would describe not living with your parents due to the circumstance of, well, their death.

"Yeah, it's alright," he lied and took another bite from his sandwich.

"Wait a minute, isn't… isn't Draco living with this scary man, Snake or something?" asked one girl to no one in particular, "I saw them once in the supermarket. That man was scary, I tell you! All skinny and tall and pale with a long black coat." A few of them nodded in agreement and cast a glance at Harry.

"I heard he's a vampire," said someone.

"I heard, he's the boogeyman's brother!" added someone else.

"What?! No! That's ridiculous," said Harry and giggled at the thought of Uncle Boogeyman coming by for tea, although he had to admit to himself that the vampire-thought also crossed his mind when he first saw Snape.

"He's alright," he said, "He seems scary, but he's really not. He bought me all these clothes," he picked at his shirt,"and he gave me a big room," he chose not to mention that he shared it with Draco, "and books and..." he paused, looked around and figured that elaborating how Snape also gave him food on a regular basis was probably normal to all of them so he finished, "...all that." Silence. There were no other questions, so they changed the topic.

"Do you want to play?" Polly asked.

Apparently, their questions were answered to everybody's satisfaction. Harry took another bite of the sandwich, stowed away the leftover and ran off with the others for a round of catch. Throughout the whole break, he did not once see Draco. The schoolyard wasn't large, so he wondered where he had gone. Ringing bells announced the end of the break and all children ran back to their classrooms. Draco arrived at his seat right when the last bell rang. Harry was almost starting to worry and was happy to see the other boy but quickly averted his eyes. He concentrated on the teacher and did not have much trouble following the lesson. It was his favourite: maths.

The assigned problems were easy for him to solve and he finished them as one of the firsts in class. When he was all done, he glanced around. Many of his classmates were still scribbling, some were whispering and helping each other. He watched Draco for a while.

His teacher stopped to look at his finished work.

"That's very good, Harry," he commented. Harry beamed and his ears blushed lightly. In his old school, even the teachers were ignoring him for the most part.

"Since you're done, you should already get started on the homework assignments," his teacher advised and pointed them out.

After the last lesson had ended, he packed his books into his backpack, swung it on his back and walked outside. A group of classmates waved him goodbye and left in the opposite direction of where he would have to go. Harry smiled to himself. He had made friends! Not just new friends, but his first friends.

"What are you smiling about?" asked a familiar voice. Draco had waited for Harry near the schoolgate; not because he wanted to, but because Severus had told him to that morning.

"Nothing," said Harry.

"Let's go then."

They walked in silence. Harry tried to chat a little. "How do you like our teacher? He seems very nice to me."

Draco shrugged and said "He's alright." Well, thanks for the chat, thought Harry.

"Polly was talking to me. I think she's nice. Do you know anything about her?"

Draco did not reply.

"Who are your friends?" asked Harry, "I mean, you've been here for a while, you must have friends, right?"

Draco stopped dead in his tracks and turned to face Harry but before he could say anything, Harry concluded, "You don't have any friends here, do you?" I haven't seen you during the break and you never talked to anybody the entire day."

Draco huffed.

"What's it to you, anyway?" he asked and continued walking with a determined pace.

"Nothing, just curious." Harry ran a few steps to catch up again.

He didn't know whether he should feel sorry for Draco. After all, he was quite nasty, but Harry knew the pain of loneliness just too well.

Once back home, Draco dropped his backpack right where he entered the house, tossed his shoes near the entry and went to the kitchen to get some snacks. Harry went upstairs. It was only the afternoon and Severus had told them he would not be back home until shortly before dinner. Harry was already finished with his homework, so he took some time to relax and do nothing for a while. He thought about Polly and the other classmates who came to talk to him. They seemed to have quite some reservations when he mentioned Draco's name. What had happened between them? Why were they so averted? He would try and find out soon.

Steps on the front porch announced Snape's arrival back home. Draco quickly bolted from the living room to the hallway, grabbed his backpack off the floor and darted upstairs. Severus entered the house and walked upstairs to change his clothes. He glanced inside the boys' room. Draco was rummaging in his backpack, Harry was laying on his bed, reading.

"Good evening boys," he greeted, "Glad to see the two of you are still intact. Did you have a good day?"

"Yessir" they replied simultaneously as if practised.

"That's good to hear. Dinner's in half an hour. I expect you to come down and wash up before that."

Harry had barely finished his sandwich the whole day, but being used to go days with only a minimum amount of food, he only just then noticed some hunger pangs. Dinner was an unusually social affair.

"So tell me, how did you like your new school, Harry? Did you get along fine?" Severus wanted to know.

"Oh, it was great! Our teacher is nice and our classmates were talking to me during recess.. There was a girl, Polly, and she was asking me a few questions and then we played catch and had a lot of fun, and–"

"Try and breathe, Harry," Snape remarked with a smile, "But it's great to hear your first day went well," he said, "How about you, Draco?"

"What about me?"

"I was asking you how your day was. Did you make any friends?"

Draco poked his dinner with his fork and shrugged.


Unlike Draco, Harry was happy to go to school in the morning. During breaks, he met up with Polly to chit chat or play games with the others. On Fridays, lessons ended earlier than the other days. Draco was nowhere to be seen after school so Harry decided to go home on his own. Polly came running to him.

"Hey, wait for me!" she called, "Wanna walk home together?"

"Sure." Harry liked Polly and did not mind her presence one bit.

"Let's go here," she said, pulled him by the arm and turned into a narrow road.

"Where are we going?"

"The park of course. It's Friday, so let's do something fun this afternoon!"

"I'm supposed to get back home right after school."

"Oh come on, it's Friday, what's so important to do at home?"

Harry shrugged and agreed to join her. Polly grinned and started off. They entered the park, where many people were walking their dogs and a group of young mothers were pushing strollers.

"First one to reach the swingset wins!" she explained and sprinted off. Harry followed her quickly but despite being a good sprinter, he could not catch up. Polly already pushed herself up high when he dropped his backpack right next to hers and hopped onto the other swing.

"Let's see who can fly the farthest." Polly seemed to really enjoy competing with him.

"Fly? You cannot fly!" Harry said.

"Of course I can! Watch me," she said and swung higher and higher and finally jumped off the swing, flew a bit higher into the air and landed with a thud in the sand.

"Now you! Come on!" she called to Harry.

"What, no, I'll break my legs!" Harry had never jumped off, let alone sat on, a swing before.

"Come on, don't be silly! I'm fine, see?" she said, showing him her right foot then the left and turned around to prove she's still a fully functioning human.

"How did you do it? I'll just drop!"

"No, you won't. Just swing high and at the highest point, you let go of the swing and push yourself a little ahead and that's how you fly," she explained.

Harry tried and pushed his legs back and forth, pushing his swing just a little bit higher. He had a really tight grip on the swing chains. He felt his stomach lift and fall at every point of return.

"Come on!" Polly cheered him on.

He let go of the swing and fell for a short while, then landed in the sand, stumbled, and almost planted his face in the sand if he had not caught himself on his hands. He looked up into Polly's face. The girl shrieked with laughter.

"Are you okay?" she laughed, "That looked hilarious. You definitely need more practise!"

Harry got up and wiped the sand from his trousers and hands.

"I guess so…" he said.

"Sorry for laughing, but you looked like a sack of potatoes," she said.

"Stop laughing!" Harry said, but her giggling was contagious and he had to join in.

"Sorry, I'm sorry, I can't help it, I'm stopping now," said Polly with a last hiccup. "Let's try again!"

"Nah, I'm good for now," said Harry, "You go, but I've had enough of flying for now," and plopped down next to their backpacks.

Polly got back on the swing and started advancing up in the air again.

"Don't just sit there, Harry, tell me something about yourself," she demanded.

"What do you want to know?" he asked.

"I don't know…." she said, swinging back and forth, think of questions. Harry's head was following her movement. Back and forth. Back and forth. And back.

"How do you like this town? How is living with Mr. Snape?" she finally asked, "I've seen him the other day. He seems so bitter and grim, I think I would be so afraid of him all the time!"

"I know, he doesn't talk a lot and likes it when we don't bother him too much, but he isn't mean or anything, that's just what he looks like," Harry replied. It wasn't entirely true but he would certainly not admit that he was a bit scared sometimes, too.

"But why don't you live with your family anymore?"

"Well, I told you how I was an orphan, right?"

"Yeah, I remember."

"So, after my parents died, I.. I was brought to my aunt and uncle's. I was just a baby then but they didn't like me much." Despise him would have been the correct expression but Harry did not want to sound too dramatic.

"They did not take good care of me, I was living in a cupboard and they gave me chores over chores but never fed me properly."

"One day, there were social workers coming by the house. They were sent over to check on Dudley, my cousin, because he was always causing trouble in school, but when they came they kind of… found me in my room and…" he paused and looked away.

"And…? What happened?" asked Polly.

"And… well.. There was a long discussion and right when they left, my uncle got furious, he said I should not have been seen. I tried to run away but he got hold of me and pushed me into the wall. He told me he wished I had never come to live with them and how I should have died together with my parents." He made a short pause.

Polly gasped at that. "What? That's horrible, how can he say that?"

"I don't know, but he did."

"Hm-hmm," Polly hummed in agreement, for lack of fitting words.

"Apparently, the social workers heard the rumble and came back in the house. They took me away, obviously. They said I wasn't safe there and they would transfer me to another family and that I would never have to see my uncle or my aunt ever again."

"Oh.. but they are your family! Why did they not like you?"

"I… I don't know." Harry was gazing at the patch in front of him. He had been plucking grass without noticing before.

"I don't miss them though. They were mean and they hurt me and I am happy I don't have to go back there." Harry's chest sank as he sighed. "Sorry, this is probably not exactly the story you wanted to hear." His head dropped a bit.

"No no, it's fine, really," she replied. Polly had stopped rocking her legs and let gravity stop her motion. Her swing came to a halt. With her shoes she drew circles in the sand beneath her.

"I'm glad you told be, you know… Because… Because I also have a story for you," she said. Harry raised his head to look at her.

"Because I… I am adopted. Don't get me wrong, my parents are wonderful and all, but it's… I was just wondering how you felt…Being different than the other kids at school, you know."

"Oh… Yeah… I know." Polly got off the swing and sat down next to him.

"So, do you have any more siblings then?" Harry asked her.

"Yes, I have a sister and a brother.. Well, my sister's also adopted, but she's my sister nonetheless. She's five and can be a real pain sometimes but I love her most times. And then there's Jamie. He's just turned fifteen and he's our parents' biological son. He's super cool and he knows it," she laughed.

"That sounds great, I'm happy for you!" replied Harry. "How long have you lived here?"

"I can't remember not living here. I was adopted when I was a tad over one year old, so I don't remember my real parents at all. And also… it's weird right? I mean, calling them my real parents… I don't even know them. My adoptive parents are much more real to me, so they would deserve this title much rather than the ones who didn't want me…"

"I'm sorry," Harry offered.

"No it's fine, I'm sorry for unloading this all on you. I have one more question though. What's the deal with Draco? I know he's not your brother, but why is he living with Snape?"

"I.. I don't know really. All I know is that Snape had always been his godfather and that he was taken from his parents. I don't know why, though. He doesn't talk to me, he's always bossing me around or ignoring me altogether. I think he kind of hates me, but I don't know why, I didn't do anything to him."

"Yeah, he's always so angry."

"I think he might be lonely. I mean… you've seen him, right? You've known him longer than I have… Did he ever talk to anybody? I never see him talk, he's always silent when we are at school."

"We tried to talk to him on his first days here, just like we did to you, but he told us to bugger off and called us names. He said he wouldn't talk to mugs like us. What's that even supposed to mean?"

"Mugs?!" Harry snorted.

"Yeah, mugs. That's an odd thing to call somebody, isn't it?" she asked with a grin. "I'm not even sure it was really an insult, but he said it in a really mean way. Of course, nobody bothered talking to him after that."

"Oh.. that's.. Understandable," said Harry, "and you're definitely not a mug!"

"Oh why, thank you!"

"You're welcome," he said with a cheeky grin and they giggled.

"It's getting late, I think we should go," said Polly. They picked up their schoolbags and left the park.

"I really enjoyed talking to you, Harry. Do you think we could hang out sometime?"

"Sure, we are friends, aren't we? Friends hang out with each other and they tell each other things," he said. Not that he had much experience with friends, but that's what he always imagined having friends was like.

"Cool! Well, I have to go one street further. See you on Monday?" Polly said.

"Yeah, see you on Monday," said Harry and quickly ran home. He hoped Snape didn't mind him spending the afternoon with his new friend. As Polly said, it was Friday after all, so nothing urgent awaits at home anyway.