Disclaimer: No, as much as I wish I did, I do not own Harry Potter. Anything you recognize from the books belongs to JKR, and anything stupid probably belongs to me.

Now that that's over... Please R&R. I accept flames, but I dunno how much good it'll do :)

In this chapter I'm setting the the scene for the story. Hopefully the next chapter will be more interesting. Keep an eye out for updates!

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Fifteen years ago, two best friends were sitting together in a kitchen. They both had infant babies in their arms, and were talking over evening coffee. Then, without warning, there was a crack, and a flash of lightning lit the house. It had been aimed for the two women, but instead, it hit the babies. It pushed the two friends apart as it hit. They were both thrown backward onto the floor; one would never rise again. To this day, no one knows why it happened, but it is still said that the two children have a bond, as a result of that night...

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... The train rattled along towards King's Cross, and most of the compartments were filled up, except one. Dan Potter and his three best friends walked toward it and stuck their heads in.

     "Hello, girls, mind if we join you? This is they only compartment left."

     One of the girls inside nodded her head, and the boys walked in and sat down. Dan surveyed the now full compartment, and wondered what the coming summer would have in store for him. He was the son of the famous Harry Potter, and was the "spitting image" of him. Dan knew full well about the prophecy placed upon his father, but for the most part, they still lived relatively normal lives. Harry had grown up in a childhood with no parents and by no means had had a normal life. Dan himself had no mum (she had died under mysterious circumstances shortly after he was born), so Harry tried quite hard not to let his job as an auror or anything else get in the way of their father-son relationship.

They had lots of friends in the wizarding world. Harry was still in touch with his old friends from school, Ron and Hermione, who were now married with three kids. The youngest was named Rush. He was Dan's age, and they were good friends. Rush was sitting on Dan's left side now, on the train, talking with Thien Malfoy, one of Dan's other good friends. Harry and Thien's father Draco had been enemies for most of their years at Hogwarts, but when Voldemort killed Draco's father, Draco and Harry teamed up against him, and came to be friends. Thien and Dan had met at Hogwarts, and become fast friends.

To Dan's other side was his best friend, Sirius Black II. The original Sirius had been killed when Harry had been fifteen, by his own cousin, Bellatrix Lestrange/Black. Bellatrix had a son, Bailey Black. Bailey was older than Harry; about ten years older, in fact. When Bailey was a child, Bellatrix didn't care in the slightest what her son did. She was too busy carrying out Voldemort's orders. Luckily, Sirius had been a big influence Bailey. When Bailey was out of the house, which was often, it was likely he could be found with Sirius, wherever he was. When Sirius was captured and accused of murder, a then nine-year-old Bailey didn't believe that Sirius would do anything like that. Twelve years later, word of Sirius's escape from Azkaban got out, and Bailey immediately began to search for him. The fact that Bailey never managed to find Sirius was probably good, because it meant that Sirius had a good cover. Shortly after she murdered Sirius, Bellatrix got divorced, and changed her name back to Black, therefore changing Bailey's name to Black as well. Bailey took no more time in moving out and getting married. His wife had died soon after little Sirius was born. In that way, Dan and Sirius were in the same boat. Like Dan, Sirius had never known his mum either, but he felt no real hole for her in his heart. From his father's descriptions of her, Sirius got the feeling that she wasn't a very remarkable character anyway.

According to Harry, Dan and Sirius were a lot like Harry's father, James, and the original Sirius. They had been best friends for as long as they could remember, and were known all over the school for their pranking and trying to break the school record number of detentions.

Looking across from him, Dan saw the real reason he had wanted to sit in this compartment. Her name was Kate Longden, and she was a fellow Gryffindor. She had medium length dirty blonde hair, and stormy blue eyes. She wasn't strikingly beautiful, just a bit above average. Besides, it was something else besides her physical features that made her different to Dan. Ever since first year, they had sort of been enemies. The original enmity between them had arisen after a certain experience which ended in Kate's hair being turned Slytherin colors. It hadn't exactly been an accident, and Kate had gotten her revenge. This resulted in mutual dislike, until Dan had fallen for her in fourth year. He made it very clear that he liked her by asking her out over fifty times in the past two years. She had made it very clear that she did not like him, by turning him down every one of those times. The Levans' and Rush's family, the Weasleys, were old friends, which made her and Rush quite well acquainted. Kate thought of him as the brother she'd never had, but the fact that Rush was one of Dan's best friends made interaction between Dan and herself almost impossible to avoid, although she would have preferred it that way. She tolerated him at times, but that was as far as it went. Most of the time, she expressed a strong-dislike-approaching-hate attitude toward him. She was not without further reason for this dislike either. In addition to the hair incident, she thought Dan was way too big headed,. He loved to show off for her and play the hero in every situation. Everyone just liked him for his jet black, unruly hair, chocolate brown eyes, and the fact that he played Seeker in Quidditch. Kate being a fellow Quidditch player herself (a Chaser), this did not impress her. The one piece of good that she could find in him was that he was wicked persistent, even though she was not overly pretty or popular. However, Dan did not know she thought this, and she did not plan to tell him.

Presently, she was trying to ignore the way Dan kept glancing at her, by talking to her friends, Ellie Grayer and Rae Simmons, who was Thien's girlfriend. Their conversation was interrupted by a platinum blonde Ravenclaw prefect, who poked her head into the compartment, letting everyone know that they would be arriving at Kings Cross in a half-hour or so. She turned her back and tossed her hair over her shoulder.

"Nice legs on that one," Sirius said, staring after her. Ellie coughed something that sounded like a cross between "ditz" and a slightly more insulting comment. Sirius gave her a scandalized look. Rush, the self-proclaimed peace keeper, saw a fight coming on, and quickly changed the subject.

"Did you get those invitations I sent you?" he asked to the general public.

"Yes," everyone said together. This caused quite an uproar. The invites were to Rush's brother Arran's wedding. Apparently, the boys had not told the girls that they had been invited, and vice versa. Of course, Rae was overjoyed to know that she'd be seeing Thien again over the summer, and Sirius began asking whether or not there would be any cute girls there. Ellie was busy telling him off, leaving Kate to talk to Dan about the wedding. She just glared at him, and turned to Rush.

"That reminds me," she said. "My friend Lian's coming in a week before the wedding, and we'll probably be at your house later that day."

Before Rush could say anything, Dan said,

"You'll be at Rush's a week before Arran's wedding?"

"Yes..."

Dan had a huge smile on his face. That smile was widely known as his "pranking smile" because he often had it pasted onto his face when he was thinking about a particularly nasty new prank to play on someone.

"I will be too! Stuck with you for a whole two weeks, in the summer..." Dan said, smiling even wider.

"Wait, I have to waste two weeks of my summer with you?" she asked disbelievingly.

Ellie smiled over at Kate.

"Sucks for you," she said, still smiling. She loved to see her friend ticked off by Dan, because that meant she couldn't ignore him, and hating him was the only suitable alternative she could come up with.

"Would all prefects please report to the prefects compartment immediately," came a magically magnified voice. Kate and Dan both stood up. They were the prefects for their year, much to Kate's dismay. She had wondered how in the world Dan had become a prefect, but when you thought about it, he had the best grades out of the Gryffindor boys, and the teachers hoped it would help turn him responsible.

"See you when we get there then?" Rae said.

"Meet you at the barrier?" Kate asked.

"Sure," Rae answered, as Kate and Dan left the compartment. She walked slightly ahead of him on the way there. Suddenly, another compartment door opened, and out stepped Vance VonSeverin. Now, Kate found herself in between the two people she least wanted to be around. Vance looked at her with his signature sneer.

"Going somewhere?" he asked.

"We were going to the prefects compartment, VonSmell, and you're in the way. We'd especially appreciate it if you'd vacate the area so we can get through."

Vance didn't say anything for a moment, and Dan took advantage of the silence by saying,

"Here let me put it in terms you can understand. Move your arse!"

He took Kate by the arm and pushed past Vance, dragging her with him. As soon as Vance was behind them, she shook him off.

"Hey, I saved you from a sticky situation. You should be thanking me," he protested, tilting his head slightly and running a hand through his hair.

"Well, we can add that to the list of things you're good at then: showing off, being a prick who needs a serious head deflation, and coming up with stupid comments" she said sarcastically, as she pushed open the door to the prefect compartment.

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That's it for this chapter. I know Dan's being a bit of an idiot, and that'll probably be true for a while, but hopefully not forever!

Next chapter will be at Rush's house. Who knows what kind of chaos could ensue!