Disclaimer: Nothing related to Harry Potter belongs to me except for this fic.

A/N: I would like to apologize for the short chapter/long wait thing. As I said in my profile, I was working out the rest of the story, but was going to put the first chapter up anyway because I really needed some encouragement and input. Again sorry, but I'm also trying to apply for college and scholarships, get my auditions ready, prepare for a contest, and then all my other schoolwork. You probably don't care, but I'm telling you anyway.

Mcnugget~See I will post more often. Feel free to complain in reviews if I start taking too long again. I promise, that the Weasley's won't come to rescue him, and neither will Snape, Dumbledore, or Sirius. They also wouldn't see his bruises because Vernon /usually/ only hits him where it doesn't show and Harry would just lie about it anyway.

Shayla~I'm sorry, but Sirius is /not/ going to find out for a while. But if it makes you feel any better, there is some of the 'Isn't Harry cool' parts coming up real soon.

Allocin~He's taller than me too! I'm only 5'2"!!!

And thanks to all who reviewed with encouragement to keep going. I need that.

Chapter 3~It's off the work he goes
The next morning dawned warm and quiet. The trees were green, the tulips had bloomed, and the birds were singing. Just as the colors of the sunrise faded into an early morning blue sky, the stillness was shattered. Harry woke up after a restless night of whimpering and talking in his sleep. Harry ran his hand through his hair and sat up. He hated the nightmares and he hated waking up from them, because he always woke up screaming. 'It's a wonder Uncle Vernon doesn't hear me,' he thought.

As Harry silently thanked any gods who might be listening, he heard a loud thumping noise. Shortly after it ended, he heard the lock on his cupboard being unlatched, and the door was swung open. Uncle Vernon hissed at him, 'Get up! You'll be late to work. If you get fired because you're late, you'll regret it!' Harry almost jumped in surprise. He had completely forgotten about going to work. He hurriedly got up and got dressed after a very quick shower in the bathroom. He was dressed and ready to go before Uncle Vernon could say anything else. He was out the door in no time.

Harry stretched as he walked down Privet Drive. It felt so good to stretch out again! That awful cupboard really was too small for him now. It wasn't so bad when he was sleeping and didn't notice it, but you noticed it in the morning when you woke up stiff. At least the stiffness went away fairly quickly as he walked to the newspaper stand. Harry realized he had never really known what kind of shops there were in Little Whinging. He hadn't gone anywhere much at all, and then it was always by car. Harry was surprised at all the different kinds there were: grocers, shoe shops, clothing shops, a post office, a television repair shop, and even a martial arts dojo.

Just then Harry got to the newspaper office. He hesitated to go in. He wasn't sure who he was supposed to talk to or see. After Harry stood there for a few minutes, he realized he wouldn't solve anything by staring at the building. He went inside, and saw a neat room with stands of newspapers and a clerk behind a counter. Harry nervously flattened his bangs over his scar, before reminding himself that she was a muggle and would have no idea who he was.

As Harry walked up to the counter, the young woman who was the clerk smiled at him, "May I help you sir?"

"Er.I'm supposed to deliver some papers, only I'm not sure what I'm doing," Harry nervously stammered out.

She gave Harry a reassuring look before telling him, "Just go through that door right there. You'll want to talk to Joe. Just ask someone and they can point him out to you. He'll tell you what to do. I'm sure glad they finally got someone to take that route though! John sure had a hard time getting' all them papers delivered in time. He's been right grumpy about it too!"

Harry wasn't quite sure what to say about John so decided to play it safe saying, "Thanks," and hurrying through the door to the next room. As he walked in, he saw bundles of paper everywhere, and people of all different ages gathering stacks of them and putting them in bags, bicycle baskets, and carrying them out to cars. It seemed everyone was really busy. As he started to walk towards a man a little ways to his left, he almost got run over by a young man carrying a stack of newspapers he could barely see over. Harry hurried over to the man he had been heading to after being thoroughly admonished not to get in people's way.

Harry nervously tapped the man on the shoulder to get his attention, as he had his back to Harry at the time. The man jumped around with a start, "Goodness! Don't startle a man like that son! Whooeeee! Got my heart racin' ye did!" After a few more seconds of calming down the man finally asked, "Now, what can I do for you son?"

"I was looking for a man named Joe. The lady out front told me to ask for him." Harry managed.

"You don't have to look far. I'm Joe. Nice to meet you!" he said as he held out his hand for Harry to shake. "You must be Harry! Your Uncle said you would be coming by today. I usually like to start people on shorter routes, but we're a bit pressed for help now, so I was going to jus' stick you on this here one." Joe pointed to a route in blue on the map behind him. It started a few blocks from the office and wound a good ways down. "You're Uncle told me you'd be walking, so I rearranged a bit and put you on a route where you wouldn't have to walk so far, just to get to it!"

Joe beckoned Harry over to where all the newspapers were stacked. "Now. It's really quite simple." Joe handed Harry a sheet of paper with his route traced on it and all the houses he was supposed to deliver to were marked with a red marker. "You just take these papers, see it says here how many you need for this route, and put one on each house's front porch. You might want to roll them up and throw them if you've got a good arm. That way you don't have to walk up everyone's walk and some people are right grouchy about walking over their lawns. If it rains and the porches are all wet, sometimes we put them in mailboxes or on top of something, so as the customer don't have soggy papers. Over here are some rubber bands for rolling the papers up. Nothing to it, right Harry?"

By this time Harry was feeling a little overwhelmed by Joe's longwinded speech, but he realized that Joe was right and there wasn't really anything to it. You get the papers there, roll them up, put them in your bag, and throw them on these people's porches. Easy. "Sure Joe. Nothing to it," he replied. If nothing else, Harry would get some experience throwing things for if he ever had to play chaser. Not very likely, he figured, but there had to be some sort of advantage to working here.

Harry quickly rolled up his papers, stuck them in his bag, grabbed the map, and started towards the beginning of his route. Harry reached the first house a few minutes later and pulled a paper out of his bag. He looked doubtfully from the paper to the front porch. Harry shrugged and chucked the paper towards the porch. It wasn't quite where he'd planned it, but it /was/ on the porch. Barely. He walked up the porch, and put it where it was supposed to be and where it wouldn't fall off if a slight wind blew past it. Harry continued down the street, chucking the papers on porches every few houses or so. As he went on his aim slowly got better, but he still had to walk up and fix them. Harry didn't mind too much. He /did/ have all summer to get it right after all.

When Harry got to the end of his route, he swung his arm around in an arc and winced as he realized how sore his shoulder was going to be tomorrow morning. Harry trudged back to the newspaper stand and handed in his paper bag. Joe asked if it was really all that bad, to which Harry replied, "Depends on which arm you ask. The one I threw with, or the one that didn't do anything?" Joe just smiled, and muttered something about 'nice kid' as Harry walked out of the office.

Harry wandered down the street until he found the burger stand. He hesitantly walked inside and walked up to the counter. "Can I help you?" came the automatic response from the teen behind the counter.

"I'm supposed to see Mr. Downey about working here. He said to ask for him as soon as I came in." Harry said, while hoping that the people here would be as easy going as at the newspaper office.

The boy grumbled a bit as he asked Harry to follow him and the led the way down a short hallway to a small, neat office at the end. "Mr. Downey? There's a kid here to see you about a job." He motioned for Harry to go in as a voice told the boy to show him in.

Harry walked into the office and the man looked up from some paperwork and gave Harry a startled look. "I thought you're uncle said you were going on fifteen?" Mr. Downey queried.

"I /am/ going on fifteen," Harry replied. 'Do I really look that little? It must be all the time in the closet,' he thought. As Harry abruptly steered himself away from that thought and back to the meeting, Mr. Downey began talking once more.

"Well, alright then. I'm Mr. Downey. I'm the head manager here. The other managers are Amalie and Michael. You are to do whatever they say. Understood?" Mr. Downey went on as Harry nodded. "You're going to be working as a cashier and maybe sometimes at the drive thru window."

Mr. Downey went on and explained all the duties of the job and then they went out front and he taught Harry how to work the cash register. Harry realized it was all very simple and nothing mind taxing or even very interesting. Then they went back to the office and they arranged Harry's hours for the next few weeks. Harry was going to work about thirty hours a week. It was a little more than part time, but not quite full time.

Harry easily managed all the things he had to do. It was all really very simple and also quite boring. Most of the other workers alternated between goofing off when there were no customers and Mr. Downey or Amalie, wasn't around. Michael didn't care as long as the customers were happy and everything got done.

The others seemed perfectly willing to let Harry join in their little group of fun. The only problem was, the first question they asked him after his name, was where he 'got that wicked scar'. Harry gave a short answer about a car crash and abruptly turned away to wait on a customer. After that, the others, who were part of a tight group that went to Stonewall High, all decided that Harry was standoffish and a regular stick in the mud. "Probably that private school he goes to," Harry heard one of them mutter. Dudley's old clothes and the glasses that were taped once again didn't help either.

After work, Harry started walking back to the Dursley's, once more window-shopping as he went along. As he passed the newspaper office, he reflected that it was much nicer working there than the hamburger stand. At least people were generally pretty nice, instead of making snap judgments.

As Harry kept walking, he spotted one place that was open and had a fair number of people in it. He stopped for a moment to see what they were doing. At least it started out to be just a few minutes. He actually stood there close to a half hour. The longer he stood the more fascinated he became. 'Hey,' he thought, 'Imagine if I could.' Then Harry recalled himself to his senses and continued his way home still thinking about what he had just seen.
A/N: Took me a little longer than expected, but I got it out. I can't seem to write for any reasonable length of time except late at night. I apologize for any weirdness as I was writing this at four in the morning instead of doing my Calculus. Now I am going to bed because I have to get up in two hours.

Please review and tell me what you did or did not like! It's hard to write without any outside opinions! Feel free to be particular! Thank you!!