Author's Notes:

Well, I wasn't going to post this for another 12 hours, but I can't sleep and I've got some writers block as I'm trying to wrap up Chapter 6, so I thought I'd go ahead and post another one. I hope you like it, though to be honest, this is really just kind of a filler chapter for the most part.

I'm pleased to see that in less than 24 hours I've gained seven followers and two favorites. That's not many, but it's more than I thought I would get so very soon, anyhow.

Anyway, with no more ado:

Chapter 3

Brandon awoke, finding himself in what was a surprisingly comfortable position, under Hagrid's large coat. He opened his eyes and looked around and saw that the storm was clearly well gone. The sun had already risen, and could be seen through one of the windows.

As he was looking, a handsome tawny owl flew up to the window. That was odd, as Brandon had always thought that owls were almost always nocturnal creatures, only ever coming out at night. Then he saw the newspaper tied to its foot, and he remembered that Hagrid had sent a letter the night before with an owl.

It began tapping its beak on the window, and Brandon felt his cousin stir next to him. He quietly got up and walked over to the window, when the owl tapped again.

Behind him, Harry mumbled something that sounded like, "Alright, Aunt Petunia, I'm getting up." Brandon watched elder cousin pull himself up and look around, before saying in a quiet, happy voice, "It wasn't a dream, after all."

Grinning widely at Harry, Brandon asked him, "Thought you'd woken up back in your cupboard, did you?" His cousin grinned back sheepishly.

Brandon opened the window to accept the newspaper from the owl, which promptly flew inside, over to Harry, and began attacking Hagrid's coat.

"Don't do that!" Harry said to it, trying wave it away with his hands, but it snapped it's beak fiercely at him, before carrying on, savaging the coat.

"Hagrid," Brandon said to the sleeping giant. "There's an owl -"

"Pay him," Hagrid grunted, cutting him off.

"With what?" Brandon asked.

"Look in the pockets," Hagrid said. "Should be some coins in there somewhere."

Harry began digging through the coats many pockets. Honestly, the thing seemed to be made of nothing but pockets. Brandon went back over to help him. Finally, harry pulled out some very odd looking coins.

"Give him five knuts," Hagrid said sleepily.

"Nuts?" Brandon asked. "I thought we were paying him coins?"

"Not nuts," Hagrid said. "Knuts. They're the little bronze ones."

Brandon looked more closely at the small bronze coins. On one side, it read, One Knut, with a -K-.

Brandon took the newspaper from the owl's leg and found a small leather pouch tied to its other leg. He proceeded to count out five of the little bronze coins into it. As soon as he dropped the last one, the owl took off out the window again.

Hagrid finally sat up and stretched. "Well, Harry, we'd best be off before the Dursleys wake up an' try an' cause trouble. Yeh'd best say goodbye ter yer cousin fer now. Besides, we've lots to do today. Gotta get up ter London an' buy all yer stuff fer school."

"Um - Hagrid?" Harry began as Hagrid was pulling un his boots.

"Mm?"

"I haven't any money - and you heard Uncle Vernon last night . . . he won't pay for me to go and learn magic."

"Don' worry 'bout that," Hagrid said, standing up. "D'yeh think yer parents didn' leave yeh anythin'?"

"But you said the house was destroyed -"

"They didn' keep their gold in the house, boy! Nah, firs' stop fer us is Gringotts, the Wizards' bank. Here, have a sausage. They're not bad cold, an' I wouldn' say no to a bit o' yer birthday cake, neither. You too Brandon, have a sausage."

"So wizards have banks?" Brandon asked.

"Jus' the one. Gringotts. Run by the goblins."

"Goblins?" Harry gaped.

"Yeah, so yeh'd be mad ter try an' rob it," Hagrid said. "Now yeh'd best say goodbye to yer cousin. I'll send yeh on a train back home when we're done in London, but that won' be 'til the end o' the day."

Brandon gave his cousin a hug. "I'll see you later, Harry. Tell me everything when you get home."

"Sure thing, Bran," Harry said, hugging him back. "I'll see you later. I hope Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia aren't too hard on you."

"Now this is backwards. You're worried about what Mum and Dad are going to do to punish me."

"By the way," Hagrid put in, "it should go without sayin' that yeh're not ter tell anyone about our world. The muggles don' know about us, an' we'd like ter keep it that way."

Brandon nodded his understanding.

"I'm afraid I probably won' see yeh again 'til nex' year, Brandon, so farewell." Hagrid told him. And with that, he opened the door and Brandon watched from the window as they made their way to the dock, wishing he could go with them.

X X X

Later that day, after the long tired trek home from the shack on the rock, the Dursleys finally pulled back up to their house at Number Four Privet Drive. Brandon had expected to find the house flooded with letters as it had been when they had left it, but when the four of them walked through the door, they were all surprised found the house appearing every bit as spotless as Petunia usually kept it.

Brandon found himself feeling more than a little uncomfortable. His mum and dad had scarcely said more than three words to him all day long, and Dudley wasn't being his normal, bratty self either. In fact, he actually seemed a little afraid of him.

Everyone took turns taking showers, and changed into fresh clothes, Brandon took his last, and by the time he'd finished, his mother had made them all sandwiches in the kitchen, and was busy cleaning away. His dad was on the phone in the living room, clearly talking with someone from work, trying to catch up on what had been going on while he was on his vacation. From the sound of things, he'd be off soon to put in a partial day's work at the office.

Dudley wasted no time getting himself glued to the television. There wasn't much on this time of day, but he was probably suffering from withdrawal symptoms. Brandon snickered at the thought.

And so on the day went, leaving Brandon alone with his thoughts . . . wondering what Harry was up to in London . . . if they were done purchasing supplies yet . . . when he'd be home . . .

Finally, at the end of the afternoon, pressing toward evening, Brandon was looking out the window from up in his room when he saw his cousin walking down the sidewalk lugging a large trunk and what looked like a birdcage. He raced his way down the stairs and to the front door to meet him.

"Harry's home," Brandon told his mother when she gave him a look that silently asked what he was doing.

Brandon opened the door and ran outside to hug his cousin.

"How'd it go?" he started. "Where did you go? Where does one go to buy magical supplies in London? And what about the owl? What was the bank like? Did you see many goblins?" He shot question after question at his cousin.

"Slow down!" Harry laughed. "Come on, help me take this trunk upstairs to the bedroom, and I'll tell you everything."

"Can I look at your schoolbooks?" Brandon asked enthusiastically.

"Of course!" Harry said, and the cousins beamed at each other.

Once they'd managed to drag the trunk up the stairs and into their little bedroom, Harry told him all about his trip that day into Diagon Alley. All the things that he'd seen, how all the people behaved when they realized who he was, all he'd learned about the Hogwarts houses from the rude blonde boy - everything from brooms and Quidditch to the school uniforms and the equipment list.

When Harry told him about buying his wand at Ollivander's, Brandon made him show it to him.

"That's brilliant!" he exclaimed. "Have you tried to do any magic with it yet?"

"Hagrid says that I shouldn't," Harry explained. "At least not until I've started Hogwarts, that way I know a little bit about what I'm actually doing."

"That makes sense," Brandon said, a little disappointed.

"Boys, Vernon's home!" came Petunia's voice from downstairs. "And dinner is ready!"

If Brandon thought that the car ride home with his parents had been uncomfortable, dinner with Harry there was downright tense. Vernon completely ignored Harry, but was now awkwardly trying to engage in some small talk with his younger son. Brandon wasn't sure if his father was trying to ignore the fact that he was a wizard, or if he hoped to eventually win him over from actually wanting to attend the freakish school. It was probably a mix of the two.

Petunia was doing her best to act natural, but Brandon still noticed her fidgeting every once in a while with her silverware. Dudley, on the other hand, couldn't finish his meal fast enough. He scarfed down all the food on his plate and fled the kitchen immediately when he was done without even having a second helping.

Harry, meanwhile, just sat there and ate his food in silence.

Finally, towards the end of the meal, Vernon broke his silence toward his nephew, "So you're going to be going to that school." He bit that last word out like a poison. "Fine. I recognize that there's not a whole lot I can do about it at this point. But hear me now boy." Vernon's face became somewhat purple. "I will not have you practicing your - your abnormalities under this roof!"

Brandon looked over at his mother Petunia, and saw that she was looking at him, with a mournful expression on her face. She looked away when she saw him looking, but Brandon knew that she was thinking about her sister.

"Do you understand me, boy?" Vernon finished with Harry.

"Yes, sir," Harry told his uncle.

Vernon's little speech did little to cut the tension for the remainder of the meal. When they were done, Petunia disappeared down the hall into the laundry room, and Vernon went to the living room and made a few calls on the phone. Once Harry finished washing the dishes, Brandon drying for him, the two made their way upstairs to their bedroom.

"So the owl," Brandon began once they were upstairs, "is it a he or a she?"

"She," Harry replied.

"And you don't have a name for her yet?"

"Not really," Harry said. "I haven't thought of anything good yet."

"Well, you know, it might be best if you let her outside at nighttime," Brandon told him. "That way she can hunt, and won't be able to make any noise in here and potentially wake Dad up."

The white owl made a quiet noise, almost as if in protest.

"Not that you would, beautiful," Brandon said to her. "I'm sure you're very well-behaved."

She seemed to puff herself up in a way that suggested that she was pleased at that remark, and Brandon continued to Harry, "You do know, though, that if she should wake Dad up, even once, he'll likely insist that she has to go."

"You're probably right," Harry replied, opening first the owl's cage, then the window, where she flew off into the night.

"I can still scarcely believe that this is happening," Harry told his cousin after a moment. "I still keep thinking I'm going to wake up in my cupboard, and this will all have been a crazy dream."

Brandon put his arm around him comfortingly. "I know how you feel," he said. "Come on. We'd better get to bed. You know that Mum doesn't like having to tell us that it's time for lights out."

"Yeah," Harry yawned. "Well, goodnight, Bran."

"Goodnight, Harry."

X X X

In the following month before Harry left for Hogwarts, things between Brandon and his parents returned to normal for the most part. Sometimes his mother would look pensive, and Vernon would clam up if anything out of the normal happened or came up in conversation, but it seemed that they had decided to pretend that nothing had happened. It was awkward, but it didn't feel altogether too awkward.

On his birthday, his parents had a small party at the house with a couple of his friends from school, and he found himself very thankful that his Aunt Marge never showed up, merely sending a birthday card in the mail, with a couple of pound notes inside.

Dudley slowly started acting more normal around him, though he continued giving Harry a wide berth, which Brandon was thankful for, for his cousin's sake. Vernon and Petunia also seemed to ignore him for the most part, other than to make sure that he continued doing his chores every day.

When the day finally came that Harry was supposed to leave, Brandon was almost crying. "I hate to see you go. When you leave, it'll just be me and them," he had told his cousin when they had carried the trunk out to the car.

"I know," Harry said. "I wish we were the same age and you could come with me this year." They shared a hug, one of many that they shared that day.

The drive to Kings Cross Station was very quiet, but once they got close, Vernon finally broke the silence from his place in the driver's seat. "Funny way to get to a wizard's school, the train. Magic carpets all got punctures, have they?"

Harry didn't say anything, and Brandon thought it was funny that Vernon had said the words wizard and magic without turning purple and shouting.

"Where is this school anyway," Vernon said after a moment.

"I -" Harry began, "I don't actually know." He pulled out his ticket and looked it over briefly. "I just take platform nine and three quarters at eleven o'clock."

"Platform what?" Vernon said incredulously, looking back at his nephew in the rear-view mirror.

"Platform nine and three quarters."

"Don't talk rubbish," his uncle told him. "There is no platform nine and three quarters."

"It's on my ticket," Harry replied.

"Barking," Vernon said, "Howling mad, the lot of them. You, just wait, you'll see when we get there."

When they did get there at half past ten, Brandon was surprised when his father dumped Harry's trunk into a cart and wheeled it into the station for him, but understood once they were all inside.

"Alright, Vernon," said with a smile like the cat that swallowed the canary. "There's platform nine - platform ten. I don't see a platform nine and three quarters. But -" he clasped his nephew on the shoulder for a moment in mock encouragement, "have a great term." And with that, he turned around and marched his way back out. "Come on, Brandon, he said over his shoulder."

Brandon looked at his cousin and gave him some real encouragement, "Don't pay any attention to him. I'm sure you can figure this out. Ask one of the workers, and if that fails, try to find anyone you can that looks like they might be magical; there's got to be some around here somewhere. I love you and I'll miss you." He hugged his cousin, tears rolling down his cheeks, which he quickly wiped away, not wanting his father to see.

"I love you, and I'll miss you too." Harry said, a little moist-eyed himself. They broke apart, and Brandon ran off after his father.

Author's Note: I should probably tell you that having as many as three chapters up here, I'm now probably going to update a lot less frequently. Don't expect more than a chapter a week, let alone 3 in 24 hours. :P