Meet Harry Potter

Marley awoke the next morning to a loud knocking on her door. She bolted upright, for a moment forgetting where she was, before stumbling sleepy-eyed to the door and whipping it open just to stop the banging. Her head hurt enough already.

Blinking due to the accursed sunlight streaming into her room thanks to all the bloody windows, she had to wait a moment for her eyes to focus. When they finally did she was faced with none other than Harry Potter. Suddenly she felt shy, wearing nothing but her night clothes, which weren't exactly modest, while Harry stood fully dressed and robed.

He smiled nervously. "You missed breakfast and Dumbledore suggested I bring you some." He held out a breakfast sandwich wrapped in a napkin and continued. "Also, you ran off last night before I had the chance to meet you. It's nice to know there are other folks who aren't enrolled or employed here visiting. I'm Harry."

He stuck out his other hand and swallowed nervously. He too was a bit shy, especially since this woman was standing in front of him in not much more than a silky tank top and matching shorts. He smiled, as the dark haired woman swept her mussy curls out of her face (she still looked great with bed-head) and stuck out a thin, rather pale arm. Her grey-violet eyes were only half open and the expression on her face led him to believe that she had only absorbed half of what he said. After a moment of shaking hands she spoke.

"Harry, of course you're Harry. I can tell by the scar." Indeed, the lightning bolt scar was where it always was; peeking out from under his mop of messy black hair. And as Marley introduced herself, "Marley Black!" she thought he looked as tired as she felt. Her remembrance of him was fuzzy, but she was sure he didn't look as pale and haggard as he did now, with thin limbs and dark circles beginning to form under his eyes.

Marley was still holding the sandwich and looked at it for a moment, hunger suddenly seizing her stomach, while an odd sensation overcame the rest of her body and for a split second she felt lightheaded.

"I'll...uh, be going now. It was nice meeting you." Harry mumbled, looking down at his feet. He was about to turn around when suddenly he asked, "Hey, we're having a picnic out by the lake for lunch, Ron, Hermione, and myself. Would you wanna join us?"

Marley stared at the younger boy, only a year younger, but younger none-the-less, and smiled sleepily. She wasn't much for socializing, and the thought of eating with Hermione (which she would have to do for the remainder of her stay because of the seating arrangements) did not exactly make her jump for joy, but she decided to give it a go anyways.

"Sure, need me to bring anything?"

Harry suddenly perked up, glad that she hadn't rejected his offer. He was hungry for friendship. Sure, he loved Ron and Hermione, but it was tiring to only have two people on your side when the rest of the world seemed filled with dark wizards ready to kill you. "Nah, we've got all the food we need. Dobby, the house elf, gave us three baskets full. Perhaps you could just bring an extra blanket."

"Right. See you at lunch. Outside. By the lake." Marley mumbled, for she'd already begun to eat her sandwich, not wanting it to get too cold.

It was a beautiful, warm, sunny September day, perfect for a picnic. Marley strode across the grounds, smiling when she saw the giant squid propelling itself across the surface, clutching an old blanket to her side. Harry and his friends were easy enough to spot, seeing as they were sitting under a large willow tree, all wearing robes, and they were the only others on the grounds since everyone else was eating lunch in the castle.

Marley suddenly felt awkward for not having worn her robes. She'd merely thrown on a pair of old ripped jeans and a plain blue t-shirt, and while Ron and Harry had muggle clothes on, they still had them under black robes. Hermione of course was dressed like a proper witch, in all deep red and gold robes, still flaunting her undying support for Gryffindor. Marley sighed and for a moment had the urge to run back inside.

But it was too late, they had spotted her. "Marley!" Harry called and waved. Ron waved too and even from a distance Marley could make out the scowl on Hermione's face. Marley noted the bushy hair and rather large front teeth; scowling certainly didn't improve things.

"Hey," She said, trying to make her smile convincing while she spread out the blanket. Ron and Hermione said their hellos (Ron's was clearly more friendly) as Harry moved some of the piles of food onto the new blanket.

They began to eat in silence, Marley sticking to sandwiches, for she wasn't very hungry. Hermione was the first to break the silence. "So you work in the Ministry do you?"

Marley wondered how she knew, and then decided she must have overheard herself and Snape talking the previous day. "Yes, I do."

"That's great," Ron sputtered through a mouthful of cake. He obviously didn't care to have dessert last. "My dad works there too and he's working on getting me a job. Doubt it will be anything big. Probably something in his department. But it's better than nothing; we need more wizards who don't support the Dark Lord. What do you do?"

Marley swallowed thickly. I work for two of the Dark Lord's best supporters. "I'm...I handle mail..." she trailed off, knowing Hermione would comment.

There was a smug grin from the beaver-toothed girl. Her eyebrows rose so high they disappeared into her bushy hair. "You handle mail? How exciting! Well I just recently applied for a job here at Hogwarts after spending some time traveling. Dumbledore said I'll be new librarian by next year. I'm already helping out a lot now. And in fact, I have to be there to help some Hufflepuffs, so I'll catch you later, Ron and Harry."

And before anything could be said to her she huffed off. Marley frowned.

"Don't mind her, yeah?" Ron said, offering Marley some chocolate cake. "She's...well she's the same as she's always been. She tends to favour Gryffindor over all the other houses and she's sore that you were a better student than her."

Marley simply shrugged and ate the cake, while looking at Harry. He wasn't paying attention, and was staring into the depths of the Forbidden Forest. On impulse Marley laid back on the grass, staring up at the clouds in the sky. She pointed upwards, her arm wobbling slightly. "That one looks like Dumbledore."

That got Harry's attention. He looked up and squinted. "I don't see it."

"You're not at the right angle. You have to lay down." Marley wasn't sure why she was being so friendly, but she felt bad for Harry; so much had happened to him. She was depressed too, and knew how it felt. It was always nice when someone took your mind off things.

Harry did as he was told and Ron followed suit. The three of them took turns pointing out different clouds and what they thought they looked like. Marley even laughed a few times. It felt good. She hadn't laughed in years.

She awoke to a cold drop of rain splattering onto her cheek just below her right eye. Dazedly she put a hand over her face and took a deep breath of the now cooler air. Another rain drop met its doom on the back of her hand, causing her to sit up. When she'd done so, she saw that Harry and Ron were asleep on either side of her. All that cloud watching was so relaxing that they'd all dozed off.

Marley took a moment to wake up, realizing the sky was now dark, filled with black rain clouds, and there was a cold wind blowing. She cursed the temperamental weather as the rain began to fall harder. Harry and Ron were beginning to awake.

A rumbling of thunder was heard as the three rushed to gather up all their things while the pouring, freezing rain beat down on all of them. When everyone had grabbed everything, they raced across the castle grounds, slipping and sliding on the wet grass. Each of them fell at least once. But when they got into the entrance hall of Hogwarts they got a good look at each other; soaked and covered in mud, and it was just too much work to keep their laughter contained.

As they stood there, dripping and laughing, footsteps were heard and none other than Snape appeared wearing his usual black robes and scowl. He raised and eyebrow at the three adults behaving like first years. Of course it was Potter and his friend, but he hadn't expected Miss Black to be part of the ruckus.

"So, Potter, Weasley, out for a bit of mischief for old times sake? You're lucky I didn't mistake you as students, for surely you're behaving as such, and remove points from your houses."

They had all stopped laughing at the sight of Snape and at his comment, the smile quickly fled from Potter's face and he looked weak and tired as he once had before. Marley sighed. "We had a picnic for lunch, fell asleep watching clouds, and woke up to the pouring rain. In our rush to get back to the castle we slipped many times. We're all here to have some peace in our lives, and enjoy not having to work, so I don't see how laughing or having fun should cause you such disdain, Severus. Unless of course you're too old to remember what it's like to have fun?"

Marley hadn't mean to be so harsh, especially to a man she barely knew, and rather admired, but her stress as of late had been bottled up and slowly turned to anger. He just happened to be the unlucky victim. As soon as the words left her mouth (especially calling him Severus) she'd regretted them.

Snape was shocked to hear such a thing from such a girl-woman-but of course he showed no sign of his shock or that his feelings had been somewhat injured. True, he was usually the one to ruin any fun students were having, but no one had ever dared point that out. And it wasn't that he was too old to remember fun, he thought bitterly, it's that he'd never really had fun.

Still his resentment for the Potter family was deeply embedded in his veins and though he would not wish any irreparable harm on the boy, he could not find it in himself to be kind.

"Potter," He said, still using his old name, feeling much as though the boy-man-was still his student. "Dumbledore has given me the unfortunate task of finding you and bringing him to his office. You are here for safety reasons, and running off without warning hardly shows that you understand precisely the kind of danger you are in. And now that I have found you, I would like to complete my task and get on with my life. So if you would be so kind as to follow me."

Snape turned on his black-booted heel, robes and hair swirling, and strode off towards the Headmaster's office without so much as a backward glance. He knew the troublesome lad would follow him.

"Geeze, the git still acts as if you're his bloody student." Ron mumbled, gathering the soaked picnic things and heading off toward the Hufflepuff wing. Harry looked at her sadly, shrugged, and rushed off to catch up with Snape. Marley found herself alone in the hall, soaked, cold and feeling worse than before. Couldn't she just have one purely happy day?