The suburbs weren't a horrible place to live. Not at all. No one really had problems, and were, for the most part, full of happy families or content loners. They were, however, completely and utterly all conniving, nosey, snobbish frauds who were obsessed with their own idea of "normalcy."

One of the worst examples of such people were the Dursleys. On the outside, they were quite normal and happy– and only half of them were overweight! Except that according to the Dursleys, they were a family of three. The matriarch of the family, Petunia Dursley, had brought one of the worst misfortunes upon their perfect little family– an orphan. Her sister had dared to selfishly die and leave Petunia to provide for her own nephew. The very nerve of her.

Harry James Potter was a skinny boy, who was shorter than most of his peers, either due to malnutrition or an ill fate of being short and a freak. His black hair was in a persistent unkept rat's nest. His aunt had once viciously chopped it off only for it to return to its natural state the very next day, and ever since then she avoided even touching him. His cousin Dudley made sure that Harry's glasses obscured his vibrant emerald eyes with cracks, rendering them very nearly useless to the youngest member of the family.

Harry didn't know why they hated him so much. He was sure that they were family, but the other children at school didn't get beaten by their uncles or fathers. They weren't forced to cook, work in the garden, and wash the dishes by their aunts or mothers. And their cousins definitely didn't enjoy partaking in any game similar to "Harry Hunting."

Harry Hunting was a simple game, and was a favorite pass-time of the boys that lived on the street. It required anywhere between two to six "hunters," and one Harry. The hunters would set Harry loose outside his home, count to ten, then chase after him. The Harry's sole goal and ambition during the game was to hide, not get caught, and hence survive the ordeal. Harry was never a willing target in the thinly veiled fox hunt, and he was never allowed to refuse. Why would he want to back out, anyway? It was always such fun for the hounds wearing pudgy little boy skins. Harry was hiding from his cousin and his gang in the branches of a tree he had climbed at the corner of Privet Drive. He was perched perhaps too high, his knees drawn up to his chin with his hand bracing against the trunk. He kept an ear peeled for the thudding footfalls of Dudley and his meat-headed friends. He rubbed at his eyes, taking his shattered spectacles off to wipe the drizzle off of what little effective space the lens had left.

It wasn't hard for his ears to pick up on the approaching crunch of fallen leaves being ground to dust under Dudley's boots. No one waddled about like Dudley did while trying to lug around all his access fat. Harry's heart thudded hard in his chest when he heard Dudley's footsteps stop right under Harry's hiding spot. He hadn't climbed up high enough, surely. All it would take was one glance up towards the overcast sky and then the brutes would be kicking and shaking the tree to force Harry down one way or another.

"Dudley, the rain will start pouring any minute now. My mum'll be furious with me if I get my new clothes all wet! Besides, he's probably already run to your house by now." Harry recognized the complaining and whining voice as belonging to one of Dudley's out of breath followers..

"It's just water!" Dudley snapped back in response, peering around the tree. "Did he break the rules? Where'd he go off to?" Harry chanced peering down over the branch he was so precariously perched on. He could make out the top of Dudley's blond and quaffed blond hair, but it appeared as a blob of yellow to his damaged vision.

"Maybe, but both my mum and yours will pitch a fit if we catch a cold."

"Yours might, but my mother will just blame Potter. It's his fault for not playing fair anyway." Harry rubbed at his eyes with his sleeve, the misty downpour clinging to his eyelashes. Both he and the gaggle of boys below jolted when thunder boomed in the distance. Harry clung to the tree for dear life, barely able to keep his breathing relaxed and slow.

"Look, see!" The third and final hunter for this game of chase exclaimed, pointing at the western horizon. "We'll get struck and die! Let Harry get soaked and fried, I'm going home! This game isn't even fun!"

"What did you just say?" Dudley growled, taking a step towards his goon. All traces of Dudley's intimidation were quelled when the western sky lit up with blinding white light. The ground shook as booming thunder crackled in their ears and drowned out their shrieks of fright. Harry was pale as a sheet, clinging to the tree like it was a mother's leg. His feet scraped against the bark of the branch he was half laying on at this point, pushing his glasses off the edge. He inwardly begged them to run screaming for their beds and tender-hearted mothers, just so he could scamper down and find a literal fox hole to crawl into.

The glasses hit Dudley's head, and bounced down onto the sidewalk by his brand new boots. The chubby child yelped, rubbing his head, and searched for the offending missile. Finding his cousin's spectacles, he scowled. Dudley reached down and plucked them up in his clumsy sausage fingers, having to take a second to recognize them. He tilted his head up with a creaking of his neck, and was immediately blinded by another flash of light. He screamed in fright and discomfort. His fingers crushed the pair of glasses and dropped them to the cement. He ran home with his crying groupies, tears falling down his pudgy cheeks.

He left the tree with no thought of his cousin in his stunted by coddling brain, abandoning the only trace of Harry in the world to be washed away by the coming storm. The tree sat empty, scorched black by the lightning that had killed it.