They left Madame Ripoff's much poorer than when they had entered. May and Claire each were holding a new paper bag with a picture of a half-nude male model on it. The shoe boxes were inside, but really, it was the bags that you want.

"Let's sit down for a bit. My feet are tired." Claire suggested.

The three of them sat on the ledge of a fountain in the middle of a walkway. Claire and May discussed their shoes.

Harry let his eyes wander. First he watched the water spray out of the handbag shaped fountain. Then he watched a mother try to pacify her toddler by doing a little jig.

Then Harry turned his head to the right a little. He noticed a group of people that looked to be about his own age. There were three girls and two boys in the group. He could not see any of their faces until the red-headed one turned around.

Harry was embarrassed to have been caught staring at the girl. She really was quite pretty, but he hadn't been staring at her because of her prettiness. Harry gave her a weak smile and turned back to watch the fountain spray out of the handbag shaped fountain.

Harry began to notice pennies on the bottom of the fountain, he was staring to count when he heard a female voice close by asking him,

"Your name is Potter, right? Henry?"

Harry nearly fell in the fountain, he was so shocked. It was the pretty red head. She had left her group to come talk to him!

"Yes, I mean no. Well I mean, yes my name is Potter, but my name is Harry, not Henry" Harry stammered. Boy was he feeling stupid.

"You don't recognize me do you?" The girl asked.

"Umm, no I don't. Do you go to Hogwarts?" Harry asked. He immediately felt stupid. What if this girl wasn't even magical! What if she was a muggle. Had he just blown the big secret?

"No, I go to the local high school. My name is Millie Andrews. We went to elementary school together."

Harry thought way back to those horrible days of hiding from Dudley on the playground, worrying about Dudley during class, and giving up his graham cracker to Dudley at snack time. But suddenly he remember the other students, who were never mean to Harry, but who only ignored him because Dudley was so fat and intimidating. Harry then remembered the red-headed quiet girl named Millie.

"Millie Andrews. You shared your scissors with me when Dudley threw mine over the fence." Harry said, suddenly smiling for real.

"I'm so glad you remember me! I was worried when you suddenly left school. I heard that you went to that St. Brutus school." Millie said with a funny look on her face. She was wearing a green shirt.

"Oh you mean the place for 'incurably criminal boys.' No, I don't go there." Harry laughed a little and looked down at her feet. Gold toe nail polish and red flip-flops.

"So did you move out of your aunt's house? Why don't you go to my school?" Millie asked, crossing her arms. She bent her head and as her hair fell over her shoulders Harry saw that the sun gave her a golden aura.

"Well, I live with the Dursely's over the summer. I go to a boarding school. It is really far, you won't have heard of it."

"Is it that Hogwarts place you mentioned earlier?" She flipped her hair back behind her. Her shirt was dark green, like a foresty color.

"Ye—…no! No, you won't have heard of it" Harry said quickly.

May and Claire had been watching Harry become transfixed with this auburn haired girl. They were none to happy about it, but they knew better than to make a scene. This Millie girl was a muggle. How could she forget his first name? "Henry?" Please!

"Hi, you said your name was Millie? Mine is May. This is Claire." May said, standing up. May had hoped that she would be taller than Millie, but nope. Millie was good two or three inches more intimidating.

"Hello. Are you girls with Harry?" Millie asked.

"Yes, we are his friends" May said.

"Do you go to school with him?"

"No! We wish" May said, rolling her eyes.

"Ha! Yeah, we just met him today" Claire said,

May nudged Claire, "don't say that!" she whispered

"I already did" Claire whispered back.

"Damn-it"

Harry didn't know what to say now. On the one hand, he wanted to shrug off May and Claire and go wherever Millie was going. But on the other, May and Claire were the ones who had befriended him and led him to this place. They idolized him. They were going to play Quidditch. He owed them some respect. But Millie was running her fingers through her hair again, blinking her eyelashes calmly, and softly biting her lip. She was looking at, judging May and Claire, judging him. What did she think?

"Um, yeah. I sort of just met them. May and Claire are really nice, though. You know, to befriend me and all. I haven' t got many friends here in the summer to hang out with. My school friends live far away." Harry stammered.

"That is so nice of you girls!" Millie said, flashing her lovely smile, "And Harry, if you didn't have any friends to hang out with over the summer, why didn't you call me? You know plenty of people from elementary school and we all remember you. You were pretty odd back then. You did some crazy things."

"I was sort of afraid to I guess. And I didn't really know how to reach you." Harry explained.

"You aunt should know the phone number." Millie reminded him.

"She doesn't really like to help me out." Harry said, averting his eyes back down to Millie's red flip-flops.

"Well, anyway, that is all in the past. Why don't you three come have lunch with us? I'm here with some of my high school friends" Millie invited.

Harry gave a quick look to May and Claire for approval, they weren't really reacting. They had noticed a piece of lint on Claire's shirt and were fantically trying to pick it off. So Harry just accepted enthusiastically, "Yes!!! Millie, we would love to join you."

Claire pulled Harry's arm, I thought we were going to play Quidditch?" She whispered.

"Umm, we will play Quidditch later, Claire, I really want to meet her friends for lunch. I'm hungry" Harry said.

Harry smiled to himself as he, May, and Claire, followed Millie back to her friends. He remembered the silly love note that Dudley had written to Millie when they were nine years old. Dudley had never given the note to Millie. Harry had found it in the trash. But Harry could not help but think, as he entered the circle of cool, pretty people, "If only Dudley could see me now."

Hey readers!!! First of all, thank you for making to the end of the chapter. I am so sorry to have introduced another new character. I know that it can be really confusing when an author creates a whole bunch of new things because you can get it mixed up with other fics. Well, I will try really hard not to introduce any more new characters. So you just have to keep track of May, Claire, and Millie as well as the characters that you already know from the books. Whew. Now please stop reading and start typing: that means I want some reviews, people!