A/N: Since I'm lazy, the disclaimer in the first chapter will work for the whole story.


Summer and School

Five-year-old cousins Harry Potter and Dudley Dursley raced each other down the stairs.

"Boys, be careful! You'll break your necks!" cried an alarmed Petunia.

"We'll be fine, Auntie!" Harry yelled, before he tripped, crashed into his cousin, and made them both fall the rest of the way down the stairs. Petunia came running out of the kitchen to find the boys hovering a foot off the ground. Dudley's face was scrunched up with concentration as he lowered himself and Harry gently to the floor. "I told you we'd be fine," Harry told his aunt as he got up.

"Please tell me you won't be doing that at Uncle Remus' place. He'll have a heart attack—I nearly did."

"We'll be good, Mummy," said Dudley, as serious as a five-year-old could be. It was mid-August, and it had become a sort of tradition for Dudley and Harry to spend the week of August farthest from the full moon at Remus' house. They had first done it when they were three, at Remus' insistence that they needed a wizard's influence to help control their powers, and Vernon and Petunia could use a week to themselves anyhow. Neither boy wanted to lose this privilege.

Two small trunks came floating down the stairs. Petunia frowned. Remus had told her how rare it was to be able to control magic without a wand. Most wandless magic was the result of strong emotions. Children tended to have problems with it, because of temper tantrums and such. Dudley and Harry, however, were unnaturally adept at it. There had been a few close calls, when neighbours had seen one or both of them doing magic, but so far Vernon passed all questions off as 'a trick of the light.'

Dudley's trunk was lowered to the floor. "Sorry, Mummy. It's easier to float them than carry them." Flushing at his cousin's words, Harry also lowered his trunk.


The man that the boys called 'Uncle Remus' Apparated into the living room after they finished breakfast. He was instantly tackled by two boys, two trunks, and cup of tea that had been caught in Dudley's wake. Luckily he caught the teacup, or he would have been scalded.

"Can't you ever just use the door?" asked Vernon, barely holding back laughter as he rescued the werewolf from the youngsters.

"Where's the fun in that?" asked Remus. "Is this your tea?" Vernon shook his head.

"Petunia made it for you. She figured you would need it."

"Thank you, Petunia." Remus bowed to the woman now standing in the doorway. "Ready to go, boys?"

"Yeah! Are we taking a Portkey?" demanded Harry.

"Are you going to teach us Apparition?" asked Dudley hopefully.

"Are we riding broomsticks?"

"Are we taking the Knight Bus?"

"Are we using the Floo Network?" The adults laughed at the children's excitement.

"Portkey, this time," said Remus. He held out a scrap of paper. Harry and Dudley grabbed their trunks, waved to Vernon and Petunia, called out "See you next week!" and were gone.


They reappeared in Remus' living room. It was sparsely furnished, but the well-worn furniture had a friendly, welcoming air to it, as did the red-and-gold wallpaper.

"Welcome back," said Remus, hugging them both. "You two should dump your trunks in your room. Then, I've got a surprise."

The boys looked at each other, grinned, and sent their trunks flying to the bedroom they'd slept in on their other two visits. Remus blinked. The boys waited. They looked so different. Dudley was big for his age, withbright yellow hair, blue eyes, and slightly pointed ears. He looked like a Muggle's idea of a fairy. Harry was a tad small, looked a lot like his father (though no glasses… yet, anyway), and had his mother's bright jade eyes. In the winter, his hair darkened to jet-black, but spending most of summer outside bleached it to an extremely dark auburn.

"Well… we're going to Diagon Alley!"

The boys cheered. Remus had told them about Diagon Alley, but Petunia had been against them actually going there on the grounds that Harry would have been mobbed. (Remus had told Harry about the whole Boy-Who-Lived situation, but he had described the fame as an annoyance, and Harry had adopted this perspective.)

"Hold still, Harry." Remus added. He pulled what looked like a vial of putty from his pocket, and carefully applied it to Harry's scar. The putty became the colour of Harry's skin, efficiently masking his identity. "There, that should do it. We'll be using Floo powder—just say 'Diagon Alley', and you'll arrive at the Leaky Cauldron." He sent the boys ahead, then entered the fire himself. He let out a sigh of relief when he saw the boys waiting for him.

Remus had to keep a firm grip on both boys' hands to keep them from running off. He was trapped in Quality Quidditch Supplies for over an hour. Only the offer of ice cream budged the boys from that store.


Early the next morning, Dudley and Harry woke up and decided to play in the backyard until Remus woke up. Their idea of playing was to try and cast spells on whatever was handy. Harry gathered a bunch of rocks and twigs from Remus' garden. Dudley turned one of them blue, and made another one fly. Harry was focused on one stick, and one only. Dudley was working on keeping the flying rock in the air and changing the colour of the blue rock to purple at the same time, when Harry yelped with excitement.

"What did you do?" Dudley asked, forgetting about his rocks.

"I made a puppy!" Harry cheered. Sure enough, there was a red puppy wagging its tail at them. "Her name's Cherry."

"Wow. Can she fetch?"

Harry picked up another stick. "Fetch!" he ordered the dog, throwing the stick across the yard. Cherry ran after it. She returned with the stick in her mouth, her tail wagging, and a triumphant expression. Dudley and Harry clapped, and Harry threw the stick again.

Suddenly, Cherry tore out of the backyard, barking her head off. Harry chased her, yelling random commands: "Stop! Sit! Roll over! Shake hands! Down, girl!" Dudley chased his cousin, yelling "Wait up!" and "She's after Mrs Figg's cat!"

When the dog finally did stop, she continued to bark up the tree at the terrified feline. The cat hissed down at Cherry. The boys vaguely recognized the cat as Tibbles.

"Mrs Figg's going to be mad," Dudley whispered.

"Mrs Figg's not going to know," said Harry firmly. "Cherry! COME HERE!"

The dog ignored him. Harry sighed, ran over, and picked up the small puppy. "We should go back, Uncle Remus'll be worried."


Remus was more than worried. He was frantic. "WHERE WERE YOU?" he demanded. "I WAS PANICKING! I THOUGHT I'D HAVE TO EXPLAIN TO VERNON AND PETUNIA THAT I'D LOST YOU! I NEARLY CALLED THE POLICE!"

"We were chasing Cherry," said Harry meekly.

"Who?" Harry held up the dog.

"Harry made her out of a stick. She was chasing Mrs Figg's cat," Dudley offered.

Remus eyed Harry sceptically. "You turned a stick into a puppy?"

"Yup."

"You're joking."

"Nope."

"Change it back."

"But that'll kill her!"

Remus sighed. The last thing he needed was for Harry to have a temper tantrum. "Fine. Both of you, stay right where you are."

"Okay."

Remus went over to his telephone and dialled the Dursleys' number. "Hello, Vernon. No, nothing's wrong, but… how do you and Petunia feel about dogs? Oh. That's not good, because Harry says that he's turned a stick into a puppy. I know he's only five, I'm in shock too! I suppose I could keep it… He'd never change it back, he says that would kill the puppy. They're fine, both of them. Good-bye, Vernon." He hung up.

"Can we move now?" asked Dudley.

"Yes. Look, Harry, you can't keep the puppy."

"Why not?"

"Because your aunt doesn't like animals in the house."

"But Cherry'll be good."

"I'm sure she will, but you can't keep her."

"I'm not making her a stick again!"

"Relax, Harry, I'll keep her. Take it easy. You don't have to change her back. Just help train her, and we'll call it even, okay?"

"Okay."


August passed, and September found Harry and Dudley attending school. On October first, Vernon and Petunia received a note from the teacher.

Dudley and Harry are both wonderful kids, (the teacher wrote) but they aren't socializing as well as they could with the other children. It might be a good idea for them to be in separate classes in the future, if only so that they make friends instead of clinging to each other. Also, Harry squints quite a bit. I think he may need glasses.

"I don't want glasses!" Harry protested. "I'll look like a dork."

"Harry James Potter! Where did you learn that word?" demanded Petunia.

"One of the older boys called a kid in glasses a dork at lunch, we heard him," said Dudley.

"You'll look fine," said Vernon firmly. "You'll be able to see much more clearly, too."

"You're father wore glasses," Petunia pointed out, hoping to pacify her nephew. "Besides, you can choose the frames, so they'll look good on you."

"Isn't there a spell Uncle Remus could cast that'd fix my eyes?"

"No." Petunia didn't know if this was true or not, but she didn't like the idea of Remus casting spells on Harry's eyes.


"Hey, Harry. Nice glasses," said Remus, Apparating into the living room once again. It was nearly Christmas, and he had come over to drop off presents.

Harry's glasses had gold frames, no rims around the lenses, and lenses in the shape of rectangles with rounded corners. They were rather hard to notice, which was probably the whole point.

"Thanks, Uncle Remus. Happy Christmas."

"And to you. Glad school's out for the holidays?"

"No! I miss it. So does Dudley. We can't wait for January. Christmas is fun, though," Harry added as an after thought. "I can't wait 'till then, either!"

"You seem a mighty impatient little man, Harry."

"Yup. How's Cherry?"

"She's fine. It's actually kind of nice, having a dog."

"I told you she'd be good. AUNT PETUNIA! UNCLE VERNON! DUDLEY! UNCLE REMUS IS HERE!"


Before anyone jumps down my throat about the Cherry thing, this is AU, meaning alternate universe, so yes, Harry can turn a stick into a puppy, and in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Remus says that a werewolf is only a danger to people, so Cherry is perfectly safe with him.