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•• Strange Strangers ••

Like really, really strange.

§Parseltounge§

(Muttering under breath)

Harry Potter was having the best morning that he'd had in his life, ever.

Which wasn't exactly saying much, considering the Dursleys and stuff, but still…

The novel experience of being able to wake up in a comfortable bed and know that there wasn't anyone around that was going to be demanding his attention and making him get up was soo good that he just took a moment to stare up at the ceiling sleepily and sink back down into the sheets.

He drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly, relaxing further and taking the moment to get his thoughts in order. For the first time in his memory he was free – free of his relatives, free of being watched and told what to do at every moment of the day, free to just enjoy having a peaceful holiday where the only rule was to avoid the muggle world, which was something that he didn't really have any complaints about considering that in the two years he'd been in the Wizarding World he'd never gotten the chance to really explore Diagon Alley… he was also looking forward to the chance to get his homework done for once without having to worry about getting ink stains on the sheets because his relatives couldn't know that he was practising magic, ignoring the fact that he really wasn't because there were laws against doing that over the holidays anyways.

He heard a tapping noise and sat up, rubbing his eyes and fumbling for his glasses (which were on the nightstand) before searching for the origin of the sound.

"Just a second, Hedwig." He mumbled, springing out of bed and to the window that he hadn't noticed the night before in his haze of sleepiness and turned the catch, allowing the owl to fly into the room and receiving a cuff over the head with a wing for his trouble.

"Sorry girl." He said to his owl contritely, eyeing her regal posture on the perch as she snubbed him in a very un-owlish way …just in case she decided that he needed a few beak marks to go with it as punishment for shutting her out (never mind that he didn't, or at least didn't think he did).

Harry rubbed his head and sighed, deciding that since he was now out of bed he may as well go and take care of his stomach (which was loudly making it known that it didn't appreciate the meagre rations he'd gotten the last couple of weeks) and so he rummaged around in his trunk for something that was at least half-way decent, and only coming up with and old pair of Dudley's jeans that had a large hole on one knee and had to be cinched up by a belt with a large t-shirt that he'd gotten anonymously for Christmas (he'd gotten a few gifts that way, and the Weasley twins were always teasing him about having 'secret admirers' and a 'fan club' …both of which possible outcomes being very disturbing to him, so he preferred not to think about it).

He grabbed the sack of wizarding money that he'd received last year (it was getting pretty light, so he'd have to go refill it later) and put it in his pocket, casting one last glance back at Hedwig, who had shifted around so her back was to him by now, before he opened the door to the landing.

Glancing out and checking that no one was there, (a habit formed from living with Dursleys) after being satisfied that the coast was clear he moved out of the room, carefully locking the door behind him. He took the stairs lightly, not wanting to disturb anyone else and more than a little nervous now with approaching his first encounter of Diagon Alley unaccompanied – what if he was mobbed like the first time but with no Hagrid to keep them away?

With this in mind, he smoothed his fringe over his scar automatically and paused before he reached the end of the landing, hearing the sounds of quiet talking and eating.

Mentally berating himself for being nervous over something as silly as this, he walked out into the bar and looked around. No one was glancing his way (thankfully) as they all seemed to be intent on their own conversations to care about his entrance, and although he felt a little silly because of his clothes choice (he was the only one wearing muggle clothes, making him stand out quite a bit) and was thinking seriously about going back and trading his clothes for his school robes – at least he was, before a shout caught his attention; "Harry! Yeah, Harry, come over 'ere!"

It was Tom the bartender motioning at him from the bar, grinning from ear-to-ear and flagging him down, preventing his escape back into the safety of his rooms. Harry inwardly cringed at the man's attention-grabbing hail but consoled himself with the fact that the man hadn't mentioned his last name – he didn't want to get stared at like some zoo exhibit during breakfast on his first day of being free.

"Alright Harry?"

Harry blinked and smiled more naturally at the honest smile on the man's face and nodded, "Yeah. It's just… a little overwhelming, I guess."

Tom nodded, "Ah, you'll get used to it lad. Now, what did you want for breakfast?"

"Umm… bacon and eggs, I guess. Thankyou, sir."

"It's no problem lad! I'll go get those for you – and please, call me Tom."

Harry was left alone at the counter where Tom and seated him, bored now that he wasn't worrying about his reception. He resorted to looking around at the groups huddled around tables to cure this boredom, and finding that there wasn't really anything interesting happening, his mind drifted.

His food arriving, having been levitated and set in front of him fairly loudly, startled him out of his odd state and he stared at it stupidly for a few moments (it was a really large plate, and he was kinda intimidated by the amount of food Tom thought he could eat) before he managed to shake off his daze and pick up the utensils, digging in and finding out that it tasted brilliantly.

"I'll have what he's having."

Harry glanced back almost involuntarily from hearing a voice so close behind him, and furrowed his brows when he saw the man behind him, pointing at his barely-eaten meal while talking to Tom. The man was tall, especially when compared to the short bartender. The wizard had hair as messy as his own, only it was dark brown and longer than Harry's had even been. He was wearing muggle clothes as well, making Harry feel better about his clothes choice, and had pale blue eyes that seemed to sparkle in good humour. Harry found himself likening the man to the twins – they had the same kind of air about them – easy-going, good humoured and friendly, which admittedly put him at ease when, a moment later, the man pulled up the seat right next to him.

The man was talking, and Harry got the distinct impression that he was talking to him, although he didn't really know what he'd done to warrant hearing about the man's misadventures with what sounded like a very confused jarvey having a confrontation with a phoenix, that apparently had a hat and a pencil as weapons and an 'epic battle' had ensued… and he was really lost by this point, because he had no idea what a 'jarvey' was and he didn't know of any phoenix besides Fawkes although there had to be one, somewhere). He waited for some kind of introduction, or confirmation that the brunette was talking to him. Upon coming to the realisation that the man wasn't going to introduce himself, he (as politely as possible mind you) took the initiative, cutting off the man's rant; "Erm, excuse me sir… but… Who are you?"

The man didn't answer (but he did stop talking, and Harry found this a good trade-off), and he was completely confused because the man seemed to be just staring blankly at a spot past his head – possibly thinking about something. Harry waited a bit awkwardly for a few moments, when the man seemed to snap out of whatever trance he'd been in and questioned; "Er, what was that again?"

Harry felt a little bit silly, so he just kind of shook his head and turned back to his meal, deciding that it had been a stupid idea to talk to the person that had sat down beside him and talked at him and resolved to try and eat as quickly as possible to avoid as much awkwardness as possible.

It wasn't to be, because before he could go back to his meal, Harry found a hand presented to him; "Name's Daniel."

"…Harry." He answered after a moment, figuring it couldn't hurt to at least be civil to the man and accepted the hand, half-glad that he hadn't been snubbed. He turned back to his meal, while the man – Daniel – seemed to lounge on his seat, ruffling the back of his hair in a casual gesture and glancing around at the patrons of the bar.

"So, kid, whatcha doin' all alone in a dive like this – oh, er, no offence Mr. Tom Barman Sir… heh heh…"

Harry pretended to scratch his nose so he could hide his smile from the man next to him as he playfully cowered from the glaring Tom, who had whacked the brunette mid-sentence on the back of the head as he passed by.

"I meant…" Daniel continued in a placating tone, his hands spread wide in front of him comically, "that such a young kid probably shouldn't be without his parents and/or guardians in a public area. What are you; ten?"

Harry found himself bristling and gritting his teeth at the implied insult – in no way did he look ten! Sure, he was a bit shorter than the other boys in his year (and a lot shorter than Ron, but the Weasley's had to have some giant blood in there somewhere) but he didn't look ten! "I. Am. Thirteen."

"Thirteen? Are you sure?" Daniel asked obnoxiously, and Harry glared at the brunette man sitting beside him upon seeing the disbelieving look on his face.

"Yes." He stated stiffly. It was weird – he was used to people singling him out and being picked on, but his height hadn't been attacked since he'd been in primary school and Dudley's Gang has been after him. He'd gotten used to being sneered at for things that he didn't quite understand – like being a parseltounge, or being famous, or about his parents or friends – not once had his appearance been mentioned aside from the occasional remark on his scar or glasses by Malfoy. So the insult had gotten under his skin more than he would have liked.

"Sure sure?" the man prodded, and Harry tried to emulate Snape's Glare of Annoyance. He'd noticed that the professor seemed to have different glares to convey different emotions, but he'd never actually tried one out for size.

From the twitching of the man's lips, it didn't work well. Daniel's light blue eyes were laughing at him, and he attempted to batt away the playful hand that was ruffling his hair, "Stop it!"

"Sorry, sorry!" The man laughed, allowing his hand to be dislodged, "Oh, you're just soo cute! It's too much, it's too much!" and Harry thought he was muttering something about a kitten that he decided not to interpret – he'd really rather not know.

He shifted backwards a bit, wary of a repeat attack and rapidly coming to the conclusion that this 'Daniel' was strange – although he couldn't shake just how strongly the man reminded him of the twins in that moment, with that gesture of good humour.

…He'd never met a person quite like Daniel – that he could conclude after spending a further five minutes with the man, who was now in the process of acting more like a kid on a sugar rush than any adult he'd ever met.

Daniel was laughing in his seat, one hand resting on the bench in front of him, the other clutching his fork, which was waving about as the man had started relating a story about a half-kneazle his friend had owned and how the cat had tried to smother him in his sleep because he had charmed it purple with orange polkadots. He hadn't thought that was possible, and couldn't help but be dubious over whether a cat could premeditate homicide at all …but he couldn't help finding the tale funny nether-the-less, and found himself riveted to the wizard's retaliatory anti-mouse ward cast on the cat. He decided that he'd be willing to let the comment about his height and age slide by the time Daniel's demeanour changed mid-sentence; "…so I spent three weeks watching out for guerrilla attacks from the kneazle's recruited army of all the other cats in the school, but where was your guardian again?"

He almost chocked on his eggs at the change – it came out of nowhere, and why did Daniel – who was practically a stranger (he didn't even know the man's last name yet!) – think it was his place to poke into his business? But Daniel was in the process of staring him down, and Harry wondered distantly why he hadn't noticed just how strange the man's eyes were before now – strange and scary, but a different scary from Snape or even McGonagall – the blue was so light and piercing that they were kind of creepy, and even though he couldn't understand why, he answered the man honestly. "Um… Oh, I'm on my own."

"On your own?" Daniel echoed while Harry was busy mentally wondering just why he'd answered, and honestly, at that. "Kid, you're thirteen. It's illegal for you to be on your own without a guardian of some kind."

The voice carried the same tone that he remembered from Hermione when she pointed out the Cerberus was guarding a trap door – you know, the one where you can hear the 'well duh, moron' tacked onto the end. It would therefore come as no surprise to find his cheeks burning slightly in embarrassment as he responded defensively, "Yeah, so? The Minister of Magic said it was okay." He almost winced after he blurted that out – was he even allowed to tell people why he was staying at the Leaky Cauldron? And why did Daniel care, anyway? And why did the man feel familiar? – or was it just him, inventing strange rationalisations as to why he kept answering the man, and honestly to boot?

Daniel quirked an eyebrow at him, and Harry crossed his arms over his chest defensively. "What? He did!"

Daniel spoke in a slow voice, and Harry felt himself shrinking with every word. "Look kid… Harry. I wouldn't trust Fudgy-boy looking after a flobberworm, let alone actually listen (God forbid) to what he says! You are a minor, and what if some person decided to take advantage of you, or kidnap you?! No one would know you were gone! And the Minister isn't in charge of child services, so what would he know?"

Yeah, he felt just a bit stupid right now. But still, there was no way in the world he was going back to the Dursleys – Uncle Vernon would probably murder him – and he definitely did not want to have this almost Gift from God cruelly taken away from him before he'd even had the chance to enjoy it! And what did Daniel, a stranger, (because the man was still a stranger, weird 'you-are-familiar' vibes aside) know about him to say that he needed to be with guardians?! "I'm not going to go back to the Dursleys!" He found himself snapping sharply, glaring at the man for good measure.

Harry caught Daniel's eyes widening for a moment, almost too fast for him to see, before the man grimaced and waved his arms around in a wild negative gesture; "You think that I – Hell No! Look, kid, I'm NOT saying you should go back to these 'Dursleys'."

All that righteous indignation from having Daniel even allude to the suggestion that he'd be better off with the Dursleys flowed out of him, and he deflated in relief – he'd been gearing up to fight the man if necessary over the issue – now he was just glad that he wouldn't have to. Daniel had a sour look on his face as he continued, "Yup, I'm not one of those 'kids-can't-take-care-of-themselves-so-let's-wrap-them-in-cotton' people. (God no, kids are vicious little shits when they want to be.) I'm just pointing out that that's what the 'law' is." Harry found himself confused at the tone that Daniel put into the word 'law' and how the man had made air quotes with his fingers to emphasise it – he privately thought it was kind of like the tone Ron used when he said 'Snape'.

The man smirked, clapping his hands suddenly; "I know! Kid – " Daniel pointed a finger straight in his face, and Harry flinched involuntarily away from it because of how unexpected it was and how close to his nose it had been " – I, Daniel Harrison Bennett, will be your acting guardian till you get sent off to Hogwarts!" he then glanced sideways at him, still keeping his arms pointing ridiculously in the air as he muttered, "…er, you do go to Hogwarts, right?"

"…Hogwarts. Right." He muttered, because he was in a state of shock/incredulity/disbelief as he just stared. He found it pretty easy to ignore the strange stares that Daniel was drawing from the other occupants of the bar, who seemed to be staring as if primarily thinking 'is he for real?' – mostly because he was thinking it as well. Although he did wonder just why he got the image of the world recoiling from them in Unholy Terror at the (strange, weird and utterly insane) Exclamation.

"Y-you don't have to do that…" He offered rather more timidly than he'd admit to and in the place of saying something along the lines of 'I don't want you to do that'. It wouldn't do to make the nice – if somewhat psychotic – young adult angry at him. "I can stay out of trouble myself… it's only Diagon Alley after all…" he added, desperately trying to dissuade Daniel from his decision.

Daniel waved a hand, "Nah, it's cool! But… what do you mean, it's 'just' Diagon Alley?"

Harry noticed that the man had narrowed his eyes, but couldn't think of anything he'd said that could have caused it, and decided to answer with the obvious, "Er… you know? The street that the Leaky Cauldron opens into? Diagon Alley?"

Daniel's jaw slackened slightly and for a reason that escaped him started counting off something with his fingers. He looked quite ridiculous, actually. The Boy-Who-Lived stared, wondering just what the heck Daniel was doing.

Very suddenly, Daniel seemed to give up on whatever it was he was doing and focused on him again; "What do you mean, only Diagon Alley?! Kid, what about Vertic? Horizon? Hell, the Limos District is where all the Hogwarts kids your age hang out, isn't it?"

Just what did Daniel mean? Surely… surely he couldn't be saying that there was more than Diagon Alley, right? Harry felt deeply confused… well, confused, and kind of strange – something he couldn't quite put a finger on.

"What? Did you think that there was a magical opening into the magical world from the muggle world through a seedy bar and that that was the only entrance, and the magical world consisted solely of a street that sold school supplies?! …Uh. You… actually did, didn't you?"

There was more to the magical world than Hogwarts and Diagon Alley? But… no one had ever said anything about it – he would definitely have remembered had they mentioned something like this. Oh. That's what that was. He was angry. Not the normal type of anger for him – the type that came quickly and was expelled, usually pointed at the person or thing that had been the cause of the emotion – no, this was a deeper anger. It boiled in his chest and he felt disconnected as his line of vision narrowed down to the brown-haired wizard beside him and he parroted; "There's more than Diagon Alley?"

Daniel might have been surprised by the urgency in his tone, but Harry didn't care one bit – he was wondering, over and over, just why he'd never known. The wizard nodded silently and Harry clenched his fingers into a fist. When would he ever just get the facts straight? Why did he keep learning new stuff out of the blue when he'd first been introduced to the wizarding world by Hagrid years ago?

Harry wordlessly turned away from the concerned-looking Daniel and picked at his meal, ignoring the other wizard's attempts at conversation – he didn't particularly care at the moment for politeness. He spent a while digesting the new information presented to him, trying to envisage what these previously unmentioned areas of the wizarding world looked like.

He'd finished his breakfast, the drink and another kind of 'smoothie' thing that Daniel had bought for him wordlessly and without prompting, (he didn't particularly want it either, but it tasted like pineapples so he drank it) the fact that he'd finished all of that food confusing him greatly – how the heck had he managed that? – when a hand on his shoulder shook him out of his slump.

He glanced up, only to be met with Daniel's pale eyes giving him the third remotely serious expression he'd seen on the wizard that morning. Expecting some kind of lecture or 'talk', he was pleasantly surprised when the man said nothing and only pinned him with a sympathetic look – not pity. Harry was very glad that there was no pity in Daniel's eyes – only understanding. He didn't know what Daniel, the happy-go-lucky-lunatic, could possibly know about being left in the dark about so many things in a society like the wizarding world, but Harry certainly appreciated not being prodded and poked about his thoughts, like would have happened had Hermione been in the room – well, probably that and chiding him for not researching the wizarding world properly.

"Ok kid!" Announced a loud and buoyant voice from beside him, while he was pushed forwards from the friendly slap to his back, "It is time, as your stand-in guardian, for me to properly introduce you to the wonders of the wizarding world!" Harry was worried that the twenty-something man beside him would start bouncing at any second – and wait, why was Daniel muttering something about 'corrupting' under his breath?

"Come on, Harry; I'll do this properly for you since apparently the blowha-er, person who did this first was horribly remiss in their duties!" Daniel stood up, and Harry found himself summarily dragged out of his seat as well.

Daniel started walking towards the exit into Diagon, and Harry stood indecisively, completely off-balance and unsure if he should follow. He glanced helplessly up at the bartender, who was standing next to him, and received a reassuring smile and pat on the back, "It's ok lad, Daniel seems like the good sort – if a bit off in the head. Go on."

With that… reassuring(?) recommendation, as well as the loud call of his name from where Daniel was now apparently waiting for him, Harry made a decision.

A decision that was based on some totally screwy logic and not very much information at all, and one that would change his whole future, without his even realising it.

He gathered all of his Gryffindor courage and followed (unknowingly) his future self out into Diagon Alley.

A/NHeya peoples! Chapter: complete. Finally, yes I know. Heh. I'm surprised only one person caught that I (loosely) based his new appearance/identity off of Daniel Radcliffe – I thought it would be terribly ironic to do so, but didn't think anyone would get it. So kudos to -ALittleDifferentFromTheRest- for pointing it out. This chapter is from Harry's POV, so I hope that I've gotten it all straight, and I'll warn you that I'll be switching between their views, mostly because what they think about the situations will be so different that it's interesting. I'm not going to be repeating the scene from Daniel's point of view – I'll leave it to you guys to fill in what they might be thinking from certain cues that the other picks up but may misinterpret and stuff. Well, thanks for all the reviews, hope you enjoyed this :)

Extra: a few moments of Daniel's POV-

"Erm, excuse me sir… but… Who are you?" The horribly timid and so cutely and utterly confused recipient of his rant that morning asked, (quite rudely, mind you) abruptly cutting off what Daniel saw as a good lesson for his sparkly-eyed awed soon-to-be devoted subject of his complete and utter awesomeness.

Seriously, sometimes it shocked him how completely and utterly awesome he was – he'd sparkled in the dark, once.

…Of course, that may have had something to do with the Weasley bookends. They'd looked a little shifty, and he seemed to recall convincing them that it was perfectly normal to inquire about the 'mile high club' while on their very first aeroplane trip (Potter-funded) to Vegas that one time and that said 'mile high club' would really just get them free drinks… he still snickered even thinking about their horribly confused expressions upon asking him why that male flight attendant had wanted to chuck them off the plane (mid-flight) and avoided them the rest of the flight, not giving them their meals.

Oh, he knew he was evil, but he'd come to firmly believe that a little evil now and then was a-ok. Without evil there can be no good, and he'd had more than his fair dose of being good, so he had to be entitled to a bit of indulgence once in a while.

After all, they'd been the ones to originally point him towards that place in Knockturn Alley that one time, so they deserved it really.

The subtle shifting directly to his right recalled him to the spectacled kid (and what horrible glasses they were too, he'd have to do something about those…) that seemed to be staring at him expectantly. "Er, what was that again?"