Chapter 2

At eleven thirty the next morning Sakura headed out on her bike to find and play with the first kid she had met and liked since moving here. She was determined to find him and, if he didn't want to play with her, she was going to make him. She reached the house she had seen Dudley go into the day before and skidded to a stop in the driveway and dismounted. She was about to head to the front door when she heard a muffled yelp from around the back of the house. She stood for a moment in indecision until she heard a whimper. Quietly as she could she wheeled her bike to the side of the drive way and snuck around back. There was Harry kneeling in front of a rose bush. She could see his bare arms were scratched from the thorns and as she watched he reached into the bush again and clipped off a dead rose and threw it into a small pile by his side.

"You know it hurts less if you wear long sleeves." she said. Harry jumped, lost balance, and fell forward into the rose bush. Sakura ran forward and helped him pull him out and sat down beside him and examined the small scrape on his cheek. "That's not that bad." Then her eyes traveled around the rest of his face and stopped when they reached his forehead. There, half hidden by sweaty hair was a scar shaped like a lightning bolt. Something jolted in her mind, something important about a lightning shaped scar, a story she had heard long ago, but she couldn't quite put her finger on it. She was startled out of her thoughts when Harry pulled his face out of her hand. "Oh, sorry, what are you doing, anyway? I haven't seen you in days."

"I was grounded for a bit, for staying out too late." Harry mumbled the last part while going back to work on the bush. "Aunt Petunia wants the rose bush pruned before lunch."

"If you've got another pair of clippers I'll help. I love helping Ojiichan in his garden."

"No, it's okay; it's my chore so I'll do it."

"Okay then, I'll sit here and keep you company. So, you live her with your cousin, Dudley, your aunt Petunia and…"

"Uncle Vernon, but he's at work right now." He looked at Sakura with a question in his eyes, but he looked away without saying anything.

"Ah, it's just mamma and me right now, we used to live in the U.S. with dad, but then mamma got offered a really good job here and… and dad didn't want to move. So he stayed there, and mamma and I came here."

"What about your grandparents?" he seemed to understand that Sakura wasn't going to get offended if he asked her questions about her family.

"Ojiichan and obachan live in Japan. That's where mamma is from. We usually visit them in the summer, but not this summer. Mamma had to work. But we talk all the time on the computer. What about your grandparents?"

Harry never got a chance to answer because Dudley came around the side of the house licking a Popsicle. "Are you talking to yourself again, Potter?" He stopped when he saw Sakura sitting next to Harry. "You're that girl from the other day! What are you doing here?"

"You know, I have a name, you don't have to keep calling me 'girl' all the time. It's Sakura. And, I'm talking to Harry, not that it's any of your business!"

"It is my business because this is my house! You can't talk to Harry; he isn't allowed to have friends over!"

"Get your mom to tell me to go away. I don't take orders from kids." She said standing up. Dudley was a lot bigger then her, and possibly stronger, too, but she was faster. If she had to she could take him, but she really didn't like sparring and had never been in a real fight, so she avoided them as much as she could.

"MOM!" Dudley yelled at the top of his lungs, running around the side of the house as fast as he could. "Harry has a friend! Mom, he's not allowed! You said…" The rest of Dudley's words were lost when the front door slammed. Sakura looked at Harry who had the same frightened look on his face as before when his aunt came to pick him up, and something clicked. The year before her grandfather had taken her to help at a shelter for abused women and children, and they all had the same look as Harry when they came in.

"I just made things worse for you, didn't I?" she asked. Harry looked at her and nodded his head once. "I'm sorry. You can come to my house anytime you want, okay?"

Harry nodded again and the woman who had picked him up the other day came into the back yard. "You," She bellowed, pointing at Harry "Inside! And you." She said turning her horse-face to Sakura "I think it's time you go home. Harry isn't allowed to have friends over, he is being punished."

"When will he not be punished? Only I'd like to see him again and play with him." Sakura said, standing up and righting her bicycle.

"GET OUT!" The woman yelled, running towards Sakura. She jumped on her bicycle and tore out of the yard and headed up the street without a backward glance.

Sakura didn't see Harry again over the next few weeks. She saw plenty of Dudley, who took to walking past her house when she was out front practicing Kendo, looking smug and superior. Even though she rode her bike past number four almost every day, Harry was never outside. July turned to August, which turned into September in turn and it was time for Sakura to start her new primary school. Sakura was no stranger to new schools. Her father had had a job that made him move around every year, so Sakura had never attended the same school two years in a row, so starting over in a new school didn't bother her. What she was scared of, what she really hoped for was that nothing weird happened this year.

Ever since she could remember, strange and unexplainable things happened around her. When she was in Pre K another kid took her milk at snack time and somehow the milk, which had been fine when Sakura was drinking it, went sour when the boy took a sip. Another time at a different school a boy pushed her off the jungle gym at recess and, instead of falling and breaking her arm or leg; she bounced back up to the top and kicked the boy in the stomach. Even though ten other kids saw exactly what had happened, they didn't believe that Sakura had been pushed at all, and that she had pushed the other boy, and she was suspended. But by far the weirdest thing that has happened to Sakura was the time the class took a field trip to a museum. It was a very interesting museum, and Sakura was having fun learning about dinosaurs and archeology until someone pushed her into a large exhibit filled with all different skeletons of dinosaurs that she had been looking at. Instead of crashing through the bones and destroying the entire thing, Sakura seemed to go through them, and came to rest in the rib cage of a Triceratops. She had been expelled for 'climbing on the exhibit' and the school had been banned from ever returning to the museum again.

So many impossible things happen around Sakura that she always felt like there was something wrong with her. Every time she shared her feelings with her mother, all she said was "There is nothing wrong with you, baby. It's just the family gift." 'The family gift' is the only thing that anyone ever said. She asked her grandfather, her grandmother, her aunts and uncles, and even her father and they all told her the same thing. "There is nothing wrong with you. It's just the family gift."

Sakura sighed and picked at her eggs while her mother bustled around, gathering things for her to take to school.

"Pens, pencils, paper, notebook, you know, you really should have gotten all this together last night like I asked." Sakura sighed again. She never really wanted to go to a new school and had been putting off getting her stuff together. "Eat, Sakura. It's your first day; you should start off with a good breakfast." Sakura took a bite of toast and jam.

"Can we go now?" Sakura asked. She made the excuse that she didn't want to be late, but the truth is that she just wanted to get it over with. She has noticed that how the first day at a new school goes sets the tone for the rest of the year. So far only bad things had happened on the first day of a new school, like turning milk sour, or kicking a kid off the jungle gym. She grabbed her backpack and headed out to her mom's car.

When they arrived at school Sakura told her mom that she could find her classroom on her own, and not to worry about it, but she went in with her anyway. Once they found her classroom Sakura sat in the seat closest to the back and looked out the window. Her mom was talking to the teacher, and Sakura was watching as other kids pulled up in front of the school. One family in particular caught her eye; the large, beefy man she hadn't seen before, but the skinny woman she recognized as Harry's aunt. Sure enough, Harry's fat cousin, Dudley, climbed out of the back seat of the car, followed by Harry, himself. He looked worse for wear. The baggy clothes seemed even baggier on him now than they had when they first met, and he seemed to walk with a slight limp.

A few minutes later Harry barreled into the classroom alone, almost knocking Sakura's mom down. He muttered an apology as she helped him up. "It's quite all right, dear, why don't you go have a seat by Sakura? She missed you."

Harry took the desk to the right of Sakura. "Hey Harry, how have you been?" she asked.

"I'm fine, thanks. How are you?" They made small talk for a little while longer as the classroom filled up with other kids. One child Sakura recognized from Dudley's gang took the desk directly behind Harry. He looked like a mouse, and she thought his name was Polkiss or something like that. He reached up and pulled Harry's hair and when Harry turned around he glared at him, almost daring him to say something. But at that moment a bell rang somewhere and the teacher stood up and started taking roll.

Sakura watched the Polkiss boy pull Harry's hair again and she thought 'this is going to be a long day.'

Hello Readers.

Thank you for reading Chapter 2 of my story. Any constructive criticism is greatly appreciated. I'm writing this story for two reasons. One is because this idea has been marinating in my head for a long time now, and the second reason is because I want to become a better writer and one of the best way to do that is to write and get others to read it and give you feedback, so reviews are awesome!

~DragonRider22