(6 months later...)

There came a knock at the door around noon, waking Harry from his sleep. He now lived alone up in the mountains in a log cabin. His eyes slitted open and he waited for a moment, wondering if it had only been a dream. There was nothing, and he rolled over again, closing his eyes and trying to sleep.

BANG! BANG! BANG!

Harry opened his eyes again. Whoever was out there was in a hurry to see him, and he slowly got to his feet, cursing under his breath. This had better not be another crazy fan, trying to hunt him down. When the door opened, the man standing there didn't look like a fan at all. In fact the man looked ready to take his head clean off his shoulders. He was a tall, stalky type, dark eyes glaring at him menacingly, and a hat that looked similar to the one the Quaker Oatmeal man wore.

"You stole my story," said the man with a southern twang. Harry squinted his eyes and stared at him in confusion. He was not fully awake yet, and this was a sudden and heavy accusation. A simple, "Hi. How are you?" would've been nicer.

"I'm... sorry...?" he muttered, looking at him groggily. "Do I...? I don't believe I know you." The Quaker man sneered.

"That doesn't matter. What matters is that I know you Mr. Potter. I know who you are and you stole my story. " He held out a bundle of papers in front of him, handing them to Harry. Harry merely glanced at them and back at the man.

"You must've made a mistake, sir. I don't read manuscripts."

"You read this one and then you stole it from me," said the man. "What I'd like to know is how you did it? How the hell did a big money maker like you come down to a little shit-splat land in Mississippi and steal my story?" Harry made a face.

"Mississippi?"

"It's in the US you stupid plagiarist."

"I know where it is," he spat, rubbing his eyes. "Listen, you can talk to my literary agent if you're accusing me of plagiarism..."

"This is between you and me," growled the man. "There's no need to get anyone else involved. It's just between you and me." He tried to hand him the manuscript again, but Harry stepped back.

"Goodday, sir," he said, starting to shut the door.

"This isn't settled," said the man, giving him a dangerous look.

"As far as I'm concerned it already is. Goodday." With that he closed the door and slid to the side so the man wouldn't spy on him through the window. He waited for a moment, jumping when his dog, Chico, snuck up on him and started licking his hand. There was a small thump on the ground outside, and soon footsteps walking away. Harry walked to the kitchen, watching as the man climbed into his rundown car and drove off. The license plate read: CTO 270, and he quickly jotted it down incase he ever needed it.

"I didn't steal his story, Chico," he muttered as he made his way to the couch where his pillows were and the blanket he only used in the winter. "I don't think I did," he muttered, right before drifting back to sleep.

Downstairs, a vacume was running, and the maid, Wendy, hummed to herself as she cleaned. Harry sat in front of his laptop, reading the mediocre paragraph he had spent the last hour writing. After the defeat of Voldemort, he had taken to writing stories to get his feelings out. Cho had been his support the entire time when he started. And since he was the great Harry Potter, everyone was in line for every book to be released. It was only the muggles that he listened to when the reviews poured in. They didn't have a clue as to who he really was and he wanted to keep it that way. He sighed and looked at what he had written.

After the weeks went by, Chad had come to the conclusion that his wife had been cheating on him. He also came to the conclusion that the only way to solve it was to get her out of his life forever.

Harry sighed again and tried reading it outloud to himself, just to see how it sounded. "After the weeks went by, Tom had come to the conclusion that... that this is just bad writing." Shaking his head he sat back and glanced at Chico who was sitting on the ottoman, watching him with interest. "I'm open to suggestions," he said to the dog. Chico only whined and looked away. Harry glanced over the banister, to the downstairs and saw Wendy with her vacume. He looked back at Chico. "If you don't bite her I'll kill her," he said. He was in a less than friendly mood after the surprise visit from the Quaker man the day before. There never was a reason why he hated his maid, when he stopped to think about it. He just couldn't wait to have her gone for the day.

His eyes strayed back at the screen at the bad writing. You know what to do, he thought to himself. So do it. No bad writing. Smirking, he highlighted the paragraph and deleted it. "Guess that solves that," he muttered to himself.

Standing to his feet, he headed to the kitchen and took out a Mt. Dew from the fridge. When he turned to the table there was a manuscript sitting on it.

"What the?" he muttered, stepping up to get a better look.

Sewing Season

by, John Shooter

"Oh," came Wendy's voice. "I found one of your stories laying on the front porch and thought you might want it."

"It's not mine," muttered Harry. It must've been Quaker's. He decided to see what the fuss was about for the heck of it, and lifted the first page, reading what it said:

"A woman who could steal your love away from you when your love was all you had, wasn't much of a woman in Todd's mind. He then decided to kill her. He would bury her in the garden, over looked by a secret window. He would bury her in her favorite garden. A secret garden. The garden she loved more than she loved him..."

"Oh, shit!" muttered Harry, recognizing the words almost immediately. He reached to pick it up, completely forgetting about the can of Mt. Dew in his hand and it spilled all over the table. "Oh, shit!" he said again, moving to find a paper towel. Wendy looked in to see what had happened.

"Oh thank goodness it's no emergency," she said anxiously, moving in front of him to grab a wash cloth. "It sounded like something bad was happening in here to you."

"That's very kind of you, Wendy," he said, pointing his hand in the shape a gun at her when her back was turned. She walked to the mess and started to clean it up. He picked up the manuscript before she could read it. "I didn't write this," he said, pointing to it.

"Oh," she said, seeming a little surprised. "I thought you did."

"No. This said John Shooter. That's not me."

"Well, I thought it was one of those... oh what do you call them...? Pen names! That's it."

"No. Never used one. Never have." She nodded and continued to clean the mess. "What I'm trying to tell you is I never wrote this."

"Okay, Mr. Potter." She stood up to fetch some paper towels, and he realized how stupid he was being about the manuscript. Carrying it with him, he headed up the stairs to his desk and set it down, and turned to the bookshelf, looking for the book with his story, the one Shooter was claiming he stole. Briefly his eyes passed the words, "Everybody Drops the Dime," and grabbed it off the shelf. Opening it, he read the contents till he found the right story. Secret Window, Secret Garden. He flipped to the right page and started reading, surprised how much it was alike to Sewing Season:

"A woman who would steal away your love when your love was all you had, wasn't much of a woman in Frank's mind. He then decided to kill her. Her death would be in secret, and he'd bury her in the garden she loved. He'd bury her in a secret garden, over looked by a secret window. The garden she loved more than she loved him..."

Harry blinked a few times, becoming nervous. Why were the stories so much alike? He knew he hadn't stolen it, and even Cho could prove it. She was there when he had been inspired for it. It was when they had bought the cabin as a summer home and discovered the previous owner had left ugly looking furniture for them.

"Let's get this stuff out of here," he remembered Cho saying. "It's no wonder they left this junk here. It's so ugly!" She started to push a dresser out of the way when she uncovered a window. "Oh look!" she gasped. "It's a window. A secret window." She looked through it and down at the ground below her. "That's where I'll plant my garden. We'll have our own secret window, looking down on a secret garden..."

That had been a long time ago. Back when he actually liked talking to Cho. Lately, he spent any phone conversation with her, just waiting for her to hang up.

"I didn't steal that story," he muttered, turning to Chico. Reaching in his desk, he pulled out an old pack of cigarettes he had gradually been smoking over the last few months. He saved them for moments like this when he was under stress. There were footsteps on the stairs, and he quickly held the cigarette under his desk so Wendy wouldn't see.

"I've finished Mr. Potter," she said with a smile.

"Really?" he asked. "Well that was fast. Okay. See you next week then." She nodded but gave him a serious look.

"Mr. Potter, there's something I have to say. Some women don't know a good thing when they've got it. They have the whole world at their feet and they don't realize it." Harry smirked, not meaning it though.

"That's very kind of you, Wendy," he said, eager to get her out of there.

"There," she said softly. "I said it. Not another word from me. Good-bye."

"See ya," he said, waiting till she was heading down the stairs to smile. He raised the cigarette to his lips when he heard her come up again and quickly hid it under the desk.

"Mr. Potter, can I make you something to eat?" she asked kindly.

"No thanks, I already ate," he said with a smirk. "I mean, I ate before, but I'll eat again later and I'll make it myself." She smiled and nodded.

"You're a good man Mr. Potter."

"You too, Wendy," he said, smirking when he realized she hadn't caught that. When she finally left, he slipped downstairs, grumbling under his breath as he smoked. "Stupid hag," he muttered. "When will she learn to leave me the hell alone?" You hired her, his mind retorted. "She moved around my pillows," he growled as he walked to the sofa, stamping out his cigarette on the coffee table. He tossed two pillows onto the floor and flopped down, taking off his watch and placing it on the table.

"Now," he muttered. "Where was I?" and with that he drifted off.