He was a skinny, black-haired, bespectacled boy who had the pinched, slightly unhealthy look of someone who has grown a lot in a short space of time. His jeans were torn and dirty, his T-shirt baggy and faded, and the soles of his trainers were peeling away from the uppers. Harry Potter's appearance did not endear him to the neighbors, who were the sort of people who thought scruffiness ought to be punishable by law, but as he had hidden himself behind a large hydrangea bush this evening he was quite invisible to passersby.

He was in trouble now and he knew it. He would have to face his aunt and uncle later and pay the price for his rudeness, but he did not care very much just at the moment; he had much more pressing matters on his mind.

So far the news from the Daily Prophet has been disappointing but was there any point in continuing to take it? Harry merely glanced at the front page before throwing it aside these days; when the idiots who ran the paper finally realized that Voldemort was back it would be headline news, and that was the only kind Harry cared about.

If he was lucky, there would also be owls carrying letters from his best friends, Ron and Hermione, though any expectation he had had that their letters would bring him news had long since been dashed.

"We can't say much about you-know-what, obviously. . . ." "We've been told not to say anything important in case our letters go astray. . . ." "We're quite busy but I can't give you details here. . . ." "There's a fair amount going on, we'll tell you everything when we see you. . . ."

But when were they going to see him? Nobody seemed too bothered with a precise date. Hermione had scribbled, "I expect we'll be seeing you quite soon" inside his birthday card, but how soon was soon? As far as Harry could tell from the vague hints in their letters, Hermione and Ron were in the same place, presumably at Ron's parents' house. He could hardly bear to think of the pair of them having fun at the Burrow when he was stuck in Privet Drive. In fact, he was so angry at them that he had thrown both their birthday presents of Honeydukes chocolates away unopened, though he had regretted this after eating the wilting salad Aunt Petunia had provided for dinner that night.

And what were Ron and Hermione busy with? Why wasn't he, Harry, busy? Hadn't he proved himself capable of handling much more than they? Had they all forgotten what he had done? Hadn't it been he who had entered that graveyard and watched Cedric being murdered and been tied to that tombstone and nearly killed . . . ?

Don't think about that, Harry told himself sternly for the hundredth time that summer. It was bad enough that he kept revisiting the grave- yard in his nightmares, without dwelling on it in his waking moments too.

In fact Harry thought his behavior had been very good considering how frustrated and angry he felt at being stuck in Privet Drive this long, reduced to hiding in flower beds in the hope of hearing something that might point to what Lord Voldemort was doing.

Harry vaulted over the locked park gate and set off across the parched grass. The park was as empty as the surrounding streets. When he reached the swings he sank onto the only one that Dudley and his friends had not yet managed to break, coiled one arm around the chain, and stared moodily at the ground. He would not be able to hide in the Dursleys' flower bed again. Tomorrow he would have to think of some fresh way of listening to the news. In the meantime, he had nothing to look forward to but another restless, disturbed night, because even when he escaped nightmares about Cedric he had unsettling dreams about long dark corridors, all finishing in dead ends and locked doors, which he supposed had something to do with the trapped feeling he had when he was awake.

The injustice of it all welled up inside him so that he wanted to yell with fury. If it hadn't been for him, nobody would even have known Voldemort was back! And his reward was to be stuck in Little Whinging for four solid weeks, completely cut off from the magical world, reduced to squatting among dying begonias so that he could hear about waterskiing budgerigars! How could Dumbledore have forgotten him so easily? Why had Ron and Hermione got together without inviting him along too? How much longer was he supposed to endure Sirius telling him to sit tight and be a good boy; or resist the temptation to write to the stupid Daily Prophet and point out that Voldemort had returned? These furious thoughts whirled around in Harry's head, and his insides writhed with anger as a sultry, velvety night fell around him, the air full of the smell of warm, dry grass and the only sound that of the low grumble of traffic on the road beyond the park railings.

He really wished he wasn't alone. He wants someone to understand him to be able to help him take down Voldemort once and for all.

He hates being alone.

He hates that his parents decided to stay and fight Voldemort instead of fleeing and find a better place to protect themselves. They only left an orphan. An orphan who is hated by his relatives, relatives that should've tried to be fit guardians knowing that if Dudley was an orphan his parents would've done the best to raise him as family.

That's just a wishful thinking.

After all his parents are dead buried six feet under.

Now, that he has some semblance of someone who was close to his parents only left Azkaban to avenge his parents secret keeper instead of checking up on him. He understands why Sirius did what he did but still he could've done things differently.

Then, Remus also best friend of his father instead decided to be a coward. He could've checked up on him but decided not to due to guilt and wallow self pity for being a wolf who only changes during the full moon as if that stopped him from visiting on the "normal days" free of howling at the moon.

He does have people who he cares about but those people left him alone.

"Alone" he mutters bitterly. A word he starting to detest with all his might.

"I wish not to be alone to have others that understand me. I wish to have a family. A family who would be there through thick and thin."

He stayed like that for who knows how long, until…

As if something called to him, he took two steps forward. An invincible barrier shaped into a circle had been complete and suddenly a tingling sensation arose from his scar.

He pushed one of his hands against his forehead. The feeling was not at all the sharp pain he normally felt when Lord Voldemort preyed on his mind. It was a different feeling entirely. Harry wondered if he was just nervous. He tried to convince himself that was the thing that was bothering him.

Out of nowhere, an orb of pure, white light popped into existence at the center of the circle made up of what seemed like eight versions of himself. Harry must have been hallucinating but he wasn't for an orb had appeared before him.

Boom!

With a great burst of light, the orb erupted! Sound, energy, magic, and chaos jolted and flung him away.

When, he tried to stand again another pulsing wave of light and energy blasted him back as well. Debris filled his vision along with homogeneous light.

Then in an instant, all Harry knew was a painful darkness.

It's like as if the universe just told him, "Boom! You're looking for this?"

Please comment and follow. Also, can anyone guess the last line came from?