You know how people are always saying that first impressions are usually wrong and that you really shouldn't judge on them? Well, I hope to God that those people are right, because Sarah, Carrie, and Kate are the three most stuck up, brattiest, self absorbed girls that I have ever met. Well, at least that's my first impression of them.

Sarah is basically "Daddy's Little Princess". She gets everything she wants, no matter how much it costs. You see, her dad works for this oil company or something- he's apparently one of the owners, so they have enough money for pretty much anything. The only reason they haven't moved from Privet Drive to a bigger house, is because they already have three other homes- one in Paris, one in New York, and one in Tokyo. Sarah stays here through the year while her family goes to the other houses so that she can be with her friends. I admire the girl's devotion to her friends, but honestly, I would rather be in Paris.

Carrie's pretty much drama on steroids. Seriously. Everything's a big deal for her. She gets a B on a test; she's going to die. She loses an earring; she's going to die. Her daddy comes home 2 seconds later than normal; she's going to die. Okay, well maybe not that bad, but she does go over top a lot. Not to mention that she's also uber-smart, not necessarily logical, but smart nonetheless.

Kate reminds me of one of those old ladies who sits in a shop drinking tea all day and gossiping with her old lady friends- except that none of us are particularly old and I don't think she really likes tea all that much. But, anyway, you can almost never get her to shut up about anything. I mean, I found out stuff about half the neighborhood- and I don't even know them!

For instance, about thirty minutes ago, she was telling me who to stay away from around here. Apparently, there's this guy who lives with the Dursleys. He's not their son or anything (I think they said he was their nephew), but he stays there anyway. I think she said his parents died in a car crash when he was a baby or something. I don't remember. Well, anyway, this guy, Harry, attends some school for "criminal boys". Oh joy. I live on a street with some maniacal axe murderer.

Okay, so he's probably not an axe murderer, but I just felt like pulling a Carrie for a minute there.

While they were catching me up on all of this great information about the people I live by, a group of five or six guys comes walking down the middle of the road. The one in the front has to be at least 100 pounds heavier than Mr. Dursley, and his face was red as he walked up to the four of us.

Great. More lovely suburban company.

Note the sarcasm.

They walked straight up to us, and started talking with the other girls as if they were hoars or something. I thought of joining in for a minute. . . and then I saw the three other girls practically seducing the guys right in the middle of the street. I'm sorry but I have more self-respect than that.

So, basically, for about ten minutes I was stuck to entertain myself by seeing which house could have had little children in it (Numbers 2, 3, 6, 8, 9 and 11 all had small children's toys) , or picking out which houses had the greenest grass (Number 7 and Number 12). Finally, this guy in the back with champagne blonde hair and bright blue eyes noticed me standing all alone and awkward in my little space. He walked forward a bit and nudged the big one in the side. "Hey, D, there's a new girl here," he whispered quite loudly into the other teen's ear.

The pink-faced boy looked up from down Sarah's shirt (PERVERT!) and stared at me. He got one of those 'cool' looks on his face (You know, like from the 50s when the guys would raise one eyebrow, nod their head slightly, and smirk or something? Yeah, that kind of look.) and pushed between Sarah and Carrie so that he was directly in front of me.

"Hey," he said simply, still shaking his head up and down.

'Oh my God. If he doesn't stop doing that I'm going to cut his head off.'

"Uh. . . hi. . ."

He smirked, looking me up and down. "Name's Dudley Dursley. What's yours?" he asked, stepping closer to me and making me feel uncomfortable.

I backed up a few steps. This guy was really freaking me out. "I'm Kat," I responded, eyeing Dudley in disgust. "Sorry, but we have to go, right?" I looked toward Carrie, Kate, and Sarah; waiting for them to respond.

They looked at me as if I was crazy.

Yeah. Thanks guys.

I sighed. "Yeah, we have to go," I said; reinforcing my position before walking away from the small circle of teenagers, praying that my only friends would follow me.

They did.

Thank the Lord.

Unfortunately, they started berating me as soon as we were out of earshot of the guys.

"Kat!" Sarah practically screamed at me. "What are you thinking? They're some of the best guys around here!"

I turned to glare at the tall blonde girl. "If those are some of the best guys around here, I don't even want to meet the others," I snapped, slightly harsher than I had meant the words to come out.

"Oh come on, Kat!" Carrie exclaimed. "Why are you so mad about it? He was practically falling all over you! If I were you I wouldn't be complaining."

"Well, I'm sorry but I have more self-respect than that," I snapped again. Wow, I was really being a brat. "I don't particularly want to be fawned over by some idiotic womanizing pig!"

I stormed away from them in disgust. How could they expect me to go along with that? I'm not some kind of cheap slut! Who do they think they are anyway? Ugh! I want to go back to the city! At least there I wasn't treated like I should be a whore!

Ugh.

Okay, so maybe I was overreacting a bit, but come on! I want to keep my dignity, thank you!

Apparently, I was so upset that my feet were leading me pretty much where ever they wanted to go. This, at the moment, was a deserted park. Pretty weird for 3 in the afternoon, eh?

And then I saw why no one was there. . .

All but one of the swings were torn down, the slide was tipped over, and the sandbox was now more of a sand-mound-of-crap. If I had to give one guess as to who had done this, my first would have been, well, probably that Harry boy (or whatever his name was) that went to the criminal school. . . that is, if he really was as bad as Kate described him. Which I doubt.

So, anyway. My feet had decided to get all tired on me, so I decided to sit on the last swing left in the playground. Wouldn't that make a great picture? It would be kind of depressing. Probably good in black and white. You know, a girl sitting on a swing, everything around her is broken. Yeah, so anyway. . .

I don't know how long I sat there. My guess would be a good thirty minutes at least, because when I finally snapped out of my thoughts, the sun was setting and the streetlamps had just flickered to life. Oh joy. I get to walk home alone to the house across the street from a juvenile delinquent. Fun fun.

Not.

I got up from the swing and jumped the low fence surrounding the park. As I walked down the dim street, I could still hear the creaking of the swing I had just left in the cool calm of the young night. For a while, I felt like something out of a horror movie. Those American ones from the '80s. You know, like Freddy Krueger or something. But once I let myself get used to it for a minute, I discovered that walking at night is actually pretty nice. I mean, it's a perfect time to just think about things. Which, aside from photography, is one of my favorite things to do. Plus, it seems like you're alone, which is nice when you just pretty much blew up all the relationships you had made in the past week.

So, I just walked for a while. Mom was probably going to kill me as soon as I got home because I didn't call, but oh well. I had my cell phone if she was really desperate.

The park was about ten minutes away from Privet Drive. And for about six of those ten minutes, I was lost in my own little world and not paying attention to see if there was anything ahead of me.

Unfortunately, there was.

When I was about 4 minutes away from home, I ran into something. Well, it was a someone really, but I couldn't tell all that well in the dark.

I was pushed backwards (partly from being jolted out of my thoughts and partly from the fact that I had just ran into a random object/person) and fell to the ground (yes, it did hurt). There was a loud smack as my bare arms hit the pavement, and a following clang as the person I had ran into fell into stumbled backwards into the lamppost.

Oops.

I leaned forward, holding myself up with my hands, to get a good look at the person who was standing in front of me and rubbing their head (which had been the thing that hit the lamppost). He had dark hair, light skin, and glasses. It seemed like he was pretty tall, then again, maybe I'm just short. He was also pretty skinny, like one of those emo guys you always see at Coldplay concerts.

That, unfortunately, is all I could tell in the flickering light of the lamp above us. He turned, hand still on the back of his head, and held out a hand to me, smiling. "Sorry about that, I guess I wasn't watching where I was going," he said in his thick British accent.

I would have totally swooned if I was the swooning type. But I'm not.

Now you may ask, "Okay, Kat. You're from the UK, shouldn't you be used to that accent?"

And I have an answer.

Yes. I am.

I just don't show it. For some odd reason, I have always loved my voice, and the accents of the people around me. Weird, huh? You'd think I'd want to talk like an American or something since I'm from London.

Right, back to the mystery guy.

I accepted his outstretched hand and he pulled me up with ease. Wow, he must play rugby or football or something, because he's pretty strong for such a skinny guy.

"Are you alright?" he asked, putting his hands on my shoulders and looking down at me.

I looked up at him.

He has green eyes.

Beautiful green eyes.

Wow.

"Y-yeah," I answered dazedly.

Green eyes.

Oh my gosh.

Green eyes.

I thought I was going to faint.

He smiled at me and took his hands off my shoulders. "It's nice to meet you," he said, holding out one of his hands for me to shake. "I'm Harry Potter."

Soooo. What do you think? I think I like this story more than my other one, but, hey, that's just me. So, let me know.