June 8, 1992

Harry groggily opened his eyes, feeling a lingering stiffness in all of his limbs. He blindly reached out for his glasses, quickly realizing he was not alone when someone placed them in his hands.

"Headmaster?"

"Harry, I'm glad to see you awake. How are you feeling?"

Before Harry could respond, the no-nonsense mediwitch, Poppy Pomfrey interrupted, "I'll determine that, thank you very much."

After a lengthy round of diagnostic charms, Pomfrey declared him 'well enough' and withdrew, allowing Dumbledore and Harry some privacy to resume their conversation.

"Are Ron and Hermione all right, sir?"

"They are indeed. Mr. Weasley was released the morning after the incident with nothing more than bumps and bruises, while Ms. Granger was banned from the Hospital Wing within hours of your arrival. I suspect you'll have quite a bit of explaining to do before she is satisfied." Dumbledore smiled genially at the young Gryffindor.

Harry's expression didn't change. "Sir, what happened beneath the Third Floor Corridor…"

The Headmaster interrupted, "I understand, Harry. Judging from the remains, or lack thereof, of Professor Quirrell, your distress is perfectly reasonable. Please, though, trust the wisdom of an old man when I say that you did not kill him. Quirinus forfeited his life the moment he accepted Voldemort's possession. From then on, there was only one way his story was going to end; unfortunately, you happened to have a front-row seat for the event."

Harry stared emotionlessly at Dumbledore, memories of his cries of rage mixing with Quirrell's screams of agony; of feeling the flesh slough off the Defense Professor's neck, Harry's hands eventually breaking through the skin and muscle until he felt the wet, solid bone of his spinal cord. Maybe Quirrell was dying, but Harry certainly hastened the process along.

"Harry?"

"He-, Voldemort, he said that my mother and father died because they wouldn't step aside. He was after me, not my parents. Why?"

Dumbledore sat down on the edge of the hospital bed, stroking his beard and seemingly weighing his options. "It is true, that he came to your family's home for you, alone. He was given information that you would one day be a threat to him, and he sought to end your life as an infant."

"What information?"

Dumbledore stood from the bed, adjusting his own spectacles. "I'll ask that you please, yet again trust me that for now, you are not ready to hear that. Enjoy your summer, Harry; there is plenty of time in the future before you need concern yourself over this matter. Now, allow me to fetch Madam Pomfrey to see about your release."

Harry sat pensively, hardly responding even when Madam Pomfrey pronounced him cleared to leave the Hospital Wing. It was the last day of classes, so he made his way to the Library. There was no way he'd be able to stand not having some sort of answer before he left for summer. Harry stepped up to Madam Pince's desk, cursing his reputation as a rule-breaker as the librarian glowered down at him.

"What is it, Potter?"

"Ma'am, I was wondering. Are there any books about telling the future?"

Harry, following her instructions, quickly found himself before an entire row of books under the heading "Divination". He grabbed one that didn't look too thick, sat down, and started to read.

June 10, 1992

"You sure you're all right, mate?"

"For the last time, I'm fine, Ron. Look, your family's waiting."

"Want to come over and say hello? You know Mum'll be pleased, and Ginny'd go spare if I didn't at least offer."

Right, the younger sister who apparently thought the sun shined out of his arse. "I'd better not keep my relatives waiting. I'll just follow Hermione out the portal; have a good summer, Ron!"

"You too, Harry!"

"I'm really glad you're okay; you know, after everything that happened at the end of term." Hermione had been hovering over him like a second shadow ever since his release from the Hospital Wing.

"Don't you start, too. Like I told Ron, I'm fine."

"Okay. Do you think you'll be spending so much time in the Library next term?" Harry had been practically camping out there, devouring as much as he could about Divination, and… prophecy.

"Probably, at least until I find what I'm looking for."

Hermione screwed up her face, about to launch into another speech about the dodginess of that particular field of study when a handsome couple in their early 40s called her name. "Oh! That's my Mum and Dad. Would you like to meet them?"

Harry started to walk in their direction, before he caught sight of Vernon, eyes narrowed in anger at being made to wait for his loathsome nephew. "Maybe next time, Hermione, I better not make my Uncle wait any longer." He secured Hedwig's cage to his trunk and hurried away.

Hermione tracked his departure, a deep frown present on her face. 'Poor Harry.'

"Your cousin will be back from Smeltings in the morning; Your aunt spent the night at a motel to make sure she was able to pick him up bright and early. Now, I'll expect you to get to work right away with your chores. I've left a list for you on the refrigerator."

Harry popped into the kitchen and came back holding his assignment. "Is this for the summer?"

Vernon's eyes flashed. It had been downright pleasant not having Petunia's nephew underfoot the last year. He'd been almost able to forget that one abnormality in his otherwise pristine life. "It's for today, you lazy sod! Now get to it!"

Several hours later, Harry came back inside having weeded the garden and pruned the roses. "Uncle?" The man, seated in front of the telly, responded with a grunt. "Shall I make dinner?"

"I went and had fish and chips, so you won't be cooking this evening. Pet will prepare some lunch for Dudley's return. I'm sure you have some of… your kind's food to tide you over." Vernon clearly had censored his preferred term for wizards.

"Okay." The sun now having set, Harry got to work, polishing all of the brass before making his way up to the smallest bedroom. Checking on Hedwig, he gave her some owl pellets and refilled her water before falling asleep, stomach grumbling all the while.

The next day, he cooked breakfast for Vernon and had just finished scouring the pots and pans when Petunia and Dudley made their entrance. Vernon's mood, up til then as dour as ever at being stuck taking care of Harry, instantly did a 180-degree turn. Dudley regaled his parents about all of the things that had changed since Vernon went to Smeltings, and the two of them compared experiences like old chums.

"Hi, Aunt Petunia, did you have a good year?" Harry took two of Dudley's schoolbags that he had left in the car from her arms.

His relationship with his aunt was probably the only thing that kept him sane during his difficult childhood. Harry didn't understand the legal definition of 'child neglect', so he was unaware of the depths that his relatives descended to in denying him basic needs like medical treatment or regular meals. Given that he lacked such basic things, love, care, and affection were certainly absent as well.

"It was fine, Harry. I saw you pruned the rose bushes. You need to be more careful when you're weeding, however; it looks like you pulled up some ivy that I had planted last week."

"I'm sorry, I'll pay closer attention this afternoon. Would you like to see the horoscopes? I saved the Telegraph for you." Petunia was a firm believer in astrology; every Sunday morning, she'd force Vernon and Dudley to listen to their horoscopes. Sometimes, when she was in a good mood, or when Harry had done well at cooking the family dinner, she would read his to him as well.

For Harry, this small token act of kindness had become a lifeline throughout his years at Privet Drive, the sign he'd searched for since his earliest memory that his mother's sister cared about him. He savoured every time that she would tell him to be quiet and learn what was in store for Leos that day. After all, if she read the horoscopes for her family every week, that must mean that she loved him at least a little bit. It was the kind of thing that made life bearable for Harry Potter.

"Not today. Take Dudley's things up to his room."

"Just a sec. My phys ed teacher says that I've got the perfect build for a heavyweight boxer, Da! Look, he lent me some of the school's gloves," Dudley reached into his bag and removed a pair of bright-red boxing gloves. "He said there's no way I wouldn't make the junior team by my third year if I practised with a bag all summer."

"My son, a boxer! Well, I can tell you right now, you don't need a bag. You won't improve that way."

"But, Da, the teacher said-"

"Dudders, hitting a punching bag is nothing like real boxing. You need to experience the real thing. You can practice with your cousin, an hour a day."

Harry recognized the numerous red flags that rose with that idea. "But I haven't any gloves, Uncle."

Vernon turned, nostrils flaring in annoyance. "Didn't your aunt tell you to take Dudley's things upstairs? Well? Get moving!"

Harry hurried up the stairs, dragging all of his cousin's things into his room. He hoped his aunt would talk them out of this whole boxing idea.

Unfortunately she was overruled (he assumed), and a half-hour later, he stood shirtless in the back garden, his fists up around his cheekbones, while Dudley strapped on his gloves with a malicious gleam in his eyes.

"Now listen here, boy, Dudley has his gloves on, so his punches will be padded. You don't have gloves, so no hitting my boy bare-knuckled, understood?"

"What am I supposed to do, then?"

"Just try not to get hit. There you go, hands up. All set, Dud?"

"Ready."

'This is a bad idea' Harry thought. His cousin outweighed him by at least two stone, and Harry knew from personal experience how hard Dudley could hit. Running away had always been the best option, but that had been taken away in the fenced-in garden.

Whomp! Harry's head snapped back as Dudley's jab impacted his face, the followup cross knocking his glasses to the ground. A strong hook into his chest finished the job, sending Harry flat on his back in the grass.

"Get up! It hasn't even been a minute, how is Dudley supposed to improve if you can't stay on your feet?"

"It hurts, Uncle, I-"

"Get. Up." His uncle's beefy hand grabbed onto his thin arm, yanking him to his feet. "If you don't want it to hurt, then don't let him hit you full on. I told you to block, didn't I? Go ahead, Dudders."

Xenophilius Lovegood watched his daughter play in the grassy field surrounding their home, chattering away to the butterflies and beetles.

'She spends too much time alone' he thought sadly, wishing that the Weasley girl would come by as she had in previous years. Since his wife Pandora had died, four years before, Xeno was hesitant to allow Luna out of his sight. He'd switched his magazine, The Quibbler, from reporting on cutting-edge magical research towards more… fanciful aspects of magizoology. It enabled him to stop spending so much time researching at the Ministry or with interviewing experts, and more time to take his daughter on trips to enjoy her youth in different parts of the world.

The unfortunate byproduct of his overprotectiveness, though, was that Luna so rarely interacted with her peers, or with anyone who took a real interest in her, for that matter. Reporting on snorkacks and wrackspurts didn't do much for his professional reputation, which had never been all that esteemed, to begin with, given his longstanding proclivity for publishing research in areas of magic that weren't deemed respectable. The end result of that was that Luna had adopted his eccentricities as her own.

For all that he was protective of her, though, Luna exceeded with her own ironclad devotion to him. She refused to let anyone speak ill of him or The Quibbler, and her vivid imagination gave life to many of the creatures that they travelled in search of. With her leaving for Hogwarts for the first time at the end of this summer, Xeno realized that he'd run out of time to try and acclimate Luna into dealing with the expectations and behaviours of her peers.

'And of course, now of all times, the Weasley's girl is too busy to spend time with her', he grumbled, somewhat unfairly. Both Ginevra, the youngest of the Weasley brood, and her mother had been generous with their time and attention when Pandora had died. They came over regularly to cook and clean and make sure that he was taking care of himself and Luna. Merlin knows that he'd been in no shape to do so, completely lost to his grief.

Luna was no better, having watched her mother die before her very eyes. The girl was near-catatonic for weeks, unresponsive to all but her father. But in the intervening years, he'd brought her out of grief with joyous experiences, searching out every creature he was tipped off to. It didn't matter that they never found what they were looking for; it was all about the journey, about returning that smile to his dear daughter's face.

Maybe if he owled Molly, she'd bring Ginevra over for tea. Luna would need a friend at Hogwarts.

July 31, 1992

Boxing practice was the worst part of summer. Harry couldn't believe he used to think that gardening, or mending clothes was a bother; he'd gladly spend every waking hour doing either, just to escape Dudley's fists.

Vernon was right - Dudley had improved leaps and bounds. The boy had a seemingly preternatural instinct in knowing which way Harry would block or dodge, and was able to instead hit him in a vulnerable and unguarded spot. The lout had put on considerable muscle over the course of the summer, making his blows that much harder.

They were nearing the end of practice, and Harry was, as usual, bleeding from the nose and lip. Aunt Petunia was out, buying ingredients for the dinner he was to prepare for Vernon's business associates that evening, so he wouldn't even be able to have her tend to his injuries with rubbing alcohol, the sole positive daily interaction he had.

Jab, cross, cross. Harry was just so angry, so tired of the pain, the aches, the never-ending soreness.

Uppercut, hook, jab. Why did he have to put up with this? He was good, he did his chores, cooked the meals; he was quiet and never caused trouble. Why wasn't it enough?

Cross, jab, jab. Harry felt a flash of determination, a strange feeling settled in the pit of his stomach. He wasn't going to be beaten down anymore.

Crack! Dudley's head snapped back, his bulky cousin teetering on one leg and finally collapsing into the grass as Harry executed a perfect American hook, his fist too fast for Dudley to react and striking his cousin directly under his left eye.

"Daaaa! He hit me!"

Dudley needn't have cried out, because before he had even hit the grass, Vernon was on Harry, his meaty hands wrapped around his nephew's throat. "You little shite! What did I tell you about bare-knuckled hits?!"

Harry felt his tongue loll out of his mouth, his body jerking and flopping involuntarily as it struggled against his uncle for oxygen. Through the adrenaline-tinged haze, he couldn't help but feel a strange sense of deja vu, as he had been in the same position as his uncle when facing Quirrell two months before.

"LET GO OF HARRY POTTER!" Vernon was blasted back by some unseen force, smashing through the fence. Harry, coughing and gasping for air through his abused windpipe, caught sight of an unusual creature standing on the back stoop. He was in for it now...

A/N: Well, those of you who have me on author alert are probably a little disappointed that I started a new story instead of putting out the next chapter of ASAoV. Sorry, I couldn't resist the call of my muse any longer.

This one's Harry/Luna, as you might have guessed from the tags. It won't be the epic that ASAoV is; I'm guessing probably somewhere in the ballpark of 150k. Not action-focused, though jeez I kind of ramped up the violence for Chapter 1.

Thanks to Nauze for beta-ing this on the fly and responding to my dictatorial demands (EDIT THIS NOW, I'M PUBLISHING IT TODAY!), so if you ever run across him, spare some sympathy. He's "brit-ifying" it, so hopefully the language differences turn out well.

I'm all about this idea, so I'm hoping to update it somewhat frequently. Cheers!

-Frickles