Harry rose from his bed, stretching. Any minute now. He thought, standing up. Sure enough, there was a loud rap on his door signifying that Aunt Petunia was calling him to make breakfast.

"Coming!" he called, changing out of his pajamas.

When he got downstairs, Petunia was already there. "Start the bacon, boy!" she barked, "Vernon has to leave for work in an hour!"

Harry sighed as he prepared the bacon. Truth be told, he was glad he was cooking breakfast. While Petunia's baking may be the best on the street, her bacon…not so much. The last time she cooked breakfast, the bacon looked and tasted like shards of iron, and the eggs could have been repurposed as charcoal in a grill. Just remembering it made his tongue turn to lead in his mouth.

Breakfast went as well as normal, which is to say not well at all: Dudley stared at the telly, his numerous chins wobbling, as he ate his triple share of bacon, and he took any opportunity he could to steal more from Harry. Uncle Vernon read the paper, making snide remarks about the people in it, and Aunt Petunia stared out the window as if she could see through the hedges into the new neighbours' garden.

After breakfast, Uncle Vernon left for work, Dudley to his best friend Piers' house, and Harry was left alone with Petunia. She put him to work in the house during the morning, vacuuming rugs and doing the laundry. Vernon had a prospective buyer for his company's drills coming to the house that evening, so it was important to him that the house be perfect. After his lunch of cheese and bread, he went out to weed the garden.

It was hot outdoors, the heat beat down on Harry like a hammer on an anvil. Sweat dripped into his eyes, stinging them. He was almost done with the rosebushes, only a few plants left. With a grunt of exertion, he pulled yet another weed out, cursing its long roots. He heard a splash on the other side of the fence, and then a yell.

"Percy!" yelled a female voice, "Stop being an idiot and concentrate! Otherwise, you won't be caught up by the beginning of the semester!"

"Sorry, Lou." Said a male voice, "Let me dry you off."

Shaking his head at his neighbors' antics, Harry went back into his aunt and uncle's house for dinner. The neighbors never seemed to show their faces, even to Aunt Petunia's constant staring which could be considered a type of magical surveillance in itself. He had heard several similar outbursts over the past couple days, enough to gather that there was a man or boy named "Percy" or "Perseus" living with a girl named "Lou".

His dinner was a meager one, just bread, cheese and some beef, but it was filling enough anyway, and he got his fair share of tasteful food at school. Finishing his dinner, he looked out the window. For a second, he thought he saw a pair of large green eyes staring back at him, but he blinked, and they were gone. Deciding it must have been a reflection, he shook his head and went to his room to wait out Uncle Vernon's business meeting. It was apparently a very important matter, something about buying a large number of drills, but Harry hadn't really paid attention. He gathered enough to know he would be sent to his room and tuned out the rest. Figuring he could take a nap for a bit, he lay down on his bed and closed his eyes, adjusting the pillow as he drifted off.

33333

It was a little later when Harry's eyes snapped open to a sound. Voices floated up from downstairs, so Vernon's meeting had yet to finish. Since Dudley was supposed to be eating with them, it ruled out any of the Dursleys. He opened his eyes slightly, keeping his eyelids mostly closed. What he saw surprised him, to say the least. He jumped up from his bed, and grabbed a coat hanger from the closet. In retrospect, he wasn't sure what he hoped to accomplish, but in the moment he held it defensively in front of his chest.

"What the fuck?" was all he could say when he saw what was in front of him. Long, pointed ears which folded down at the tips, and tufts of hair in the bottom sprouted from an almost comically large head, a torso like that of a child, and long, gangly limbs. The overall appearance of the thing was a child that had aged a respectable number of decades but retained its original proportions.

"Master Harry is using bad word." said the thing, "Master Harry is needing to wash his mouth out with soap."

Dumbfounded, Harry could only gape in shock at the creature.

"But Dobby is not here for this." it continued, "Dobby is here to give Harry Potter a warning. Harry Potter must not go to Hogwarts this year, for school will be dangerous. He must stay home until the danger passes." the thing frowned. "Dobby must go, his master calls." it said, "But Harry Potter will not be leaving this house."

Having delivered its message, the creature disappeared with a loud crack, making Harry jump. He poked himself, wondering what was in the cheese Aunt Petunia gave him.

Harry stared at the spot where the creature vanished, still unsure of his sanity. Putting the coat hanger down, he noticed a small cut on his finger from where he picked the hanger up in a hurry. Frowning, he wrapped it in his shirt and climbed back on to the bed, hoping he would wake up from this dream soon.

33333

On September first, Lou Ellen dragged Percy to King's Cross at eight in the morning. She said it was to learn about the magic that disguised the Hogwarts platform, but he suspected she just wanted to bore him to death. It was a quarter to eleven now, and Percy was waiting impatiently to be done with it,

"Tell me what stops mortals from stepping through the barrier." she said.

Returning from his thoughts, Percy reached out with his new senses and felt the magic around the barrier.

"There are wards on it." he replied, "They seem to be keyed to recognize magic in someone's blood and only allow those with active and awakened magic through."

"That is correct." she said, "But take a closer look. What else can you tell me?"

He frowned, concentrating. "There is a second layer, a proximity ward keyed to a specific magical signature, that will trigger some kind of spell. It was set up using the blood of the target, and is tied in to have an effect on the other wards."

A large group of redheads and one black haired child walked by as Lou Ellen nodded in affirmation.

"Watch the wards as this family walks through, and tell me which ones react. Then we will go board the train." she commanded.

Percy closed his eyes and felt the wards. "The proximity ward is reacting to something, and the other ones seem to be unaffected beyond the usual. One of the illusion wards is active, probably because of the family talking about magic, and everything else is doing the usual passive scanning. Who is causing the reaction with the proximity ward?" he asked.

"The young man with the black hair is triggering the ward." said Lou Ellen, "See how the disturbance in it is centered around him? It also seems to be having a secondary smaller reaction to the tallest redhead, probably from being close to him for so long."

The two she mentioned began to walk towards the barrier, and Percy winced as he felt the impact of their trunks on the brick of the barrier. The proximity ward had triggered a temporary collapse of the other wards and the spell which made the barrier immaterial.

33333

"Why can't we get through?" Harry grumbled, "It's always let us through before."

"I don't know mate," said Ron, "Hermione would know."

"Well, Hermione isn't here." said Harry, "Is there another way to get to Hogwarts?"

"We do have the car." said Ron, "Want to give it a shot? We can follow the train."

"I don't think that's such a good idea." said a voice behind them.

Harry spun around, hand at his wand. "Who are you?" he asked the man behind them.

"I'm a fifth year." replied the young man, "I happened to overhear your conversation and I don't believe that taking a car to Hogwarts is a good idea." he tilted his head, "I could be wrong, of course, and it would make an interesting entrance. But I doubt the professors would take kindly to it."

"Well, what do you want us to do?" Ron butted in, "We can't use magic, so how do we get there?"

"You have an owl." pointed out a girl who had followed the boy over. "You could send a letter. Or you could wait for the adults to come back out, I'm sure they could think of something."

Harry frowned. She made a good point, he had to concede.

"And what will you do?" he asked, "You're stuck here as well."

"I was going to wait with Percy here." she said, putting her arm around the boy, Percy's, shoulders. "We were going to wait for one of the parents. In the meantime, how about we introduce ourselves? I never got your names and I doubt Percy remembered common courtesy." she said, with a pointed look at the boy in question.

"I'm Ron Weasley." said Ron.

"Lou Ellen." she shook his hand. "Pleased to meet you. And you?" she said, turning to Harry.

"Harry Potter." he said, ignoring Ron's stunned look, "Pleasure to meet you as well."

"How did you not know him?" asked Ron confusedly, "Everyone heard about him and what he did last year."

"We just moved from the States." said Lou Ellen, "We haven't caught up with happenings here."

They stood in awkward silence for a few minutes. Harry was on the verge of opening his mouth, but Mr. Weasley exited the barrier. He ran over to Harry and Ron.

"Why didn't you get on the train?" he asked, "It already left! Your mother is worried mad about you two, we thought you had gotten on without us!" He continued to rant, fretting over Harry and Ron.

"Dad!" Ron interrupted, "The barrier wouldn't let us through. We were thinking about using the car, but those two-" he indicated Percy and Lou Ellen who were standing to the side, amused. "Convinced us to wait for you or send an owl."

"Well, then I must thank you." Mr. Weasley said to them, "I hate to think what would have happened if they took the car."

"It was no problem sir," said Lou Ellen, stepping in front of Percy as he opened his mouth to speak, "We were waiting as well, and we didn't want to let them do something foolish."

"Well, thank you anyway." said Mr. Weasley, "I am Arthur Weasley, and this is my youngest son Ron." he pointed to Ron, "And Harry Potter, who was staying with us this past week."

"Pleased to meet you Mr. Weasley." said Lou Ellen, "I am Lou Ellen, and this is Percy Jackson standing next to me."

Mrs. Weasley came out of the barrier, and ran to Mr. Weasley. She opened her mouth to speak, but Mr. Weasley cut her off.

"They're fine, Molly." he said, "I already spoke to them and they couldn't get through the barrier. This fine young lady and her friend here" - he waved his hand to Lou Ellen and Percy - "made sure they waited for you and I to come out. We can send an owl to Dumbledore, I'm sure he will think something up. In the meantime, how about we all return to the Burrow?" he asked, looking at Lou Ellen.

"That would be very kind of you, Mr. Weasley." said Lou Ellen.

And...we have a new start! Hopefully this will be better than my older writing, all of which I will leave posted but is henceforth left on permanent hiatus to be either rewritten, reused, or adopted by anyone who would like to adopt them. I won't totally abandon them, but I can't keep writing them as they are. Percy and Lou Ellen's backstory will be explained in time, but this is primarily Harry-centered so I'm not going to focus on them too much. They will be major characters, and I will use their POV sometimes, but their backstory will come later. Ships are as yet undecided besides

-Spoiler Alert-

. Perellen (Percy x Lou Ellen)

. possibly Haphne

-Spoiler Alert Over-

but no promises.

-IRUNH

(No update today (11-21-21), just a few things edited. Sorry if it gave you an update notification, chapter 2 should be done this week, maybe even today depending.)