Thanks for reading, and please review! The evidence of your attention sustains me.
And hey, if you like this fic, you might like some of my others, so check them out!
...
There was a new girl on the playground.
She had white hair, and red eyes, and she wore a long sleeve dress with cat print leggings underneath, and topping it all off was a large, homemade crown, made of cardboard and glitter.
And of course, this being Private Drive, all the other children were avoiding the weird girl with the strange coloring and the eccentric clothes like she had the plague, (much in the same way they avoided Harry himself).
Dudley and his gang were particularly mean in their rejection.
The girl had come here with her older brother, and from where he sat on the benches in the shade, he didn't look too happy about the other children's rejection of the little girl. He was giving dirty looks at the other kids as the girl went up to groups of them one by one, and was summarily rejected. The older boy's lip curled as Dudley laughed outright at something the little girl says to him, and her tremulous smile falls. Her little fists ball up in anger, her face twists, she huffs, but ultimately she moves on, looking for friendlier reception where there is none to be found. Her shoulders drooped more and more as this song and dance went on. By the end of it, she looked near to tears.
Harry watched the girl's older brother call her over to him with a loud bark in a stange language that made Harry's head itch to listen to. It sounded like it could be Chinese, but Harry really wouldn't know-Uncle didn't appreciate the family spending a lot of time around 'squinty eyed foreigners'.
The girl shuffled over to her brother with her head bowed and shoulders slumped, fingers twiddling together in front of her dress.
The older brother was equally as strange as the girl. Harry's Aunt Petunia would call him a 'delinquent punk' with the tips of his black hair dyed purple, and the fact that he was wearing sunglasses outside on a cloudy day, and the fact that he was wearing all black. Even with all that though, Harry thought the weirdest thing about him was his scarf. It was a ratty old grey scarf, which was strange because the rest of his clothes were new and nice, even if they were all black.
Harry looked up from examining the boy's scarf, only to start in suprise as he met the boy's gaze through his blacked out sunglasses. Harry blinked from where he sat alone in the grass away from the other kids. Harry turned to look behind himself, first one way, then the other, at first assuming the older teen was looking at something behind him. But no, turning back to meet the teen's hidden stare, the boy was definetly looking at him, at Harry.
Uh oh. Harry thought. Attention was usually a bad thing in Harry's experience, attention from (other) freaks even more so.
The purple/black haired teen bent down to whisper to his little sister, and she followed his gaze to look at Harry when the older teen pointed him out.
Harry picked at his nails nervously, awkwardly. Harry imagined he knew what the boy was saying already. Why don't you go make friends with the other kid who is all alone?
It was a good strategy, generally speaking. Two kids who had trouble making friends with anyone else could make friends with eachother, in order to not be the odd one out. Harry had seen this method work out for several other nearly outcasts amongst his age group. But see, the thing was...
Most other kids didn't have a cousin Dudley.
It was too late though. The girl was already making her way over to him, her older brother slumping back onto the park bench, though with his head still turning in their direction.
Harry glanced around nervously as the girl approached, but as luck would have it, Dudley was actually taking that very moment to sneak away from the park with a few of his friends in tow, not bothering to look back. Probably off to vandalize the neighborhood or harass the local cat population.
Harry will be blamed for that later, but for now...for now, perhaps it wouldn't hurt...just for a little while...
Harry's eyes shifted guiltily as the little girl trotted up to him where he sat cross legged against the chain link fence around the park. Harry knew he really shouldn't, Dudley would do something awful to the girl when he caught wind of this to make sure Harry stayed friendless, but...
"He-hello." The girl stuttered out in a strange accent as she stuttered to a stop in front of him. She started to sketch a half bow, but then seemed to catch herself and held out her hand instead. "My name is Eri! It's nice to meet you!"
Her lip was jutted out with a stubbornness designed to hide a tremble, and her big red eyes were soft like velvet and shining precariously.
She was terrified of another rejection, but...she was brave enough to try anyway.
Harry really shouldn't, but...
He slowly reached out to take her hand, their identically young, chubby fingers clasping sweaty between them. His brow was still furrowed with conflict, but that ultimetly didn't stop him from stuttering equally nervously,
"Hello, Eri." Emerald green eyes flickered up to meet velvet red, and then quickly dart away. "It's nice to meet you. My name is Harry Potter."