"'Lo Piers, Malcolm, Gordon" 'D' called back. Jen looked down on four boys from a large oak tree that had small acorns growing all over the branches.
"Why the heck did you want us here so early, D? It's 7:30 on a Saturday during the summer," another boy complained.
"Piers said he had something important to tell us," 'D' replied.
"What is it Piers?" the boy asked again.
"You know how a new family moved in yesterday?"
"Yeah, what about 'em?" another boy asked. Jen couldn't figure out the names of two of the four boys, and looking at the four of them through the thick foliage of the tree she and Harry were sitting in didn't make it any easier.
"Did you see the family that moved in?" Piers asked, a smirk on his face. Jen had an idea where this was going, and for their sake she hoped she was wrong.
"Get on with it Piers!" one of the boys exclaimed.
"Keep your head on, Gordon," 'D' said, "it gets better. You were saying, Piers?"Jen could just tell which of the two unnamed boys had said that. Three down, one to go.
"As I was saying, did any of you see the family that moved in?"
"Does it bloody sound like we do?" the only boy she still didn't know the name of said.
"You better tell Malcolm and Gordon before they explode," 'D' said, a smirk to match Piers' on his face.
"Alright, fine," Piers sighed and then said excitedly, "There's a girl our age who is absolutely gorgeous! She was a little short, but she had these enormous-" He was cut off by a minute yet pointed acorn that was growing on the tree hitting him rather hard on the head, then another, then another. He would have gotten pelted by a few more if Harry hadn't restrained Jen. He gave her a look that said "do that much more and they'll see us". She knew he was right, but that didn't make her want to hurt them any less. By now the other three guys on the ground were cracking up.
"It's not funny, those things are ruddy sharp!" Piers muttered angrily. This just made the other three crack up more.Jen noticed that he had a pretty good scratch on the side of his face. Serves him right. "Fine, I won't tell you lot the rest then," Piers said.
Immediately, the laughing stopped. "There's more?" Malcolm asked.
"There's still the matter of how we get her," Piers stated. Screw hitting him with acorns, where's my knife? Jen reached into her pocket only to have Harry reach aroundher and grab her wrist, shaking his head. She rolled her eyes angrily and then looked back down at the morons. Dead morons if they ever come near me. However, she decided not to throw more stuff at the boys; it just wouldn't end well.
"'Get her?" Gordon inquired.
"Y'know, like one of us being her boyfriend," Piers responded. 'D' said something, but Jen couldn't quite hear it because of the height difference and the branches. Though from the laughter afterwards, both she and Harry had a pretty good idea about what he had said. "I figure one of us is bound to get her," Piers continued, "For one thing we're all great looking." If she hadn't been worried about them catching her and Harry,she would have cracked up then and there. "And for another thing the only other guy around our age is Potter, and it's not like he's gonna get her anytime soon." The rest of the boys chuckled. Logically it was Harry that they were talking about: he was the only boy their age that wasn't with them. Also, he wouldn't be hiding from them if he was in their crowd. This all made Jen even more ticked off, and Harry looked even angrier than before.
"I know," 'D' said smugly, "I'll suggest to my mum and dad that they invite the new neighbors over to dinner. I can charm her and screw up Potter's chances with her all at the same time." He had a triumphant grin on his face that Jen was just aching to smack off with a couple more acorns. The others congratulated him on a great plan and started back down the road that they had come up. By now Harry had both of her wrists in his hands and waited until the boys were around the corner to let go.
"I take it you know them,"she stated. Still resisting the urge to go off and throw more acorns at them, even though they were pretty far off by now.
"Yeah, the big one is my cousin, Dudley; the others are his friends," he responded as if he was repressing a great anger. Just then Jen's stomach growled loudly. "Hungry?" Harry asked, seemingly happy with a change in subject.
"How did you guess?"she responded. UsuallyJen had breakfast around 5:30 or 6, but she had gone straight outside today. It was now around eight, sos he had reason to be hungry. Since it was Saturday, her parents would probably be making breakfast and then head off to work at around twelve. On weekdays, they would both leave around nine. She was honestly surprised at how little their schedule had changed.
"Are you gonna leave then?" he queried.
"Yeah, let's go eat breakfast. I'm starving and you look like you could use a good meal,"Jen said. He looked very familiar to her and she knew he would always seem to be a little scrawny, it was just the way he was built, but it looked like he had been too miserable to eat an entire meal in about a week.
He looked a little confused and then said, "I'll just stay here. I really don't feel like seeing Dudley any time soon."
Now it was Jen's turn to be confused. "Why would Dudley be at my house?"she asked.
"Your house?"
"Yeah, I thought you might be able to finish showing me around the neighborhood after we both ate. If you have other plans I can understand, though."
"It's not that," Harry replied quickly, "I don't have anything to do. I just didn't expect you to invite me over."
Jen could tell that Harry seemed a little uncomfortable.She knew why. It was one of the things she hated about herself, but he would get over it in a day or so. The more time he spent with her, the sooner he would get over it. Most of the time Jen wouldn't have the patience to spend enough time with the person for them to get over it quickly, but Harry looked like he needed someone to be there for him without feeling sorry for him.She could sympathize; as much as Jen hated it when people couldn't understand why she felt the way she did,she hated it even more when they felt sorry for her.
Harry couldn't figure the girl out. One minute she was violent, ready to fight, and the next she was random and happy. If this had happened only once in the short time he had spent with her, he might not have been as confused by it. But it had happened twice in about the span of an hour. It was almost as if she was expecting a fight. He also felt the same, small attraction to her that her had felt the night before. He still had no idea why it was there at all. She was nice to him, and she looked nice, but he had still just met her. He decided he would write to Hermione about veela looking different if they were from different places. That could clear a few things up. Wait, I can't do that. He had been told not to send anything by owl because it could be intercepted. Supposedly he was going to be out of here so soon that it wouldn't matter, but for all he knew they would decide that it was safer for him to stay here for the whole summer. He felt anger rising at the thought of people deciding it was best for him to stay completely cut off from the world he belonged in.
"You ready to leave?" Jen asked, bringing Harry back to reality. Almost immediately, he felt his anger lessening. Why did she have this affect on him? She looked at him with knowing eyes. "It takes a little while to get used to it," she said calmly, almost soothingly. Now he could've sworn she was able to read minds.
In his confusion he flat out asked, "What?"
"Moving. Going to a new town. Meeting new people. It takes a little while to get used to it all," she responded and then said, "Sorry, I can be a bit random sometimes."
"Yeah, I've noticed," he replied, feeling somewhat happy now. The emotion seemed strange to him; he hadn't had much to be happy about for a while now. It seemed even stranger when he had been angry just minutes, possibly even seconds, ago. Being around this odd girl made him feel happy, though still a little strange. So far, she was definently leaning more towards being a witch, or perhaps something else, than being a muggle, but he couldn't be too sure just yet…