Nearly ten years had passed since the Dursleys had woken up to find their nephew on the front, but Privet Drive had hardly changed at all. The sun rose on the same tidy front gardens and lit up the brass number four on the Dursleys' front door; it crept into their living room, which was almost exactly the same as it had been on the night when Mr. Dursley had seen that fateful news report about the owls. Only the photographs on the mantelpiece really showed how much time had passed. Ten years ago, there had been lots of pictures of what looked like a large pink beach ball wearing different-colored bonnets – but Dudley Dursley was no longer a baby, and now the photographs showed a large blond boy riding his first bicycle, being hugged and kissed by his mother. The room held no sign at all that another boy lived in that house, too. Yet Harry Potter was still there, asleep at the moment, but not for long. His aunt Petunia was awake and it was her shrill voice that made the first noise of the daym but what he didn't know was that he was being watched under the eyes of Ella Jade Cullen and her mate, Edward Anthony Masen Cullen. It was one of their duties from Hogwarts to keep an eye on him until it was time for him to attend Hogwarts School. It was one of those rare days where Harry attended an outing with the Dursleys, the family that both Ella and Edward hated. From where they were sitting, Ella relied on Edward to hear the minds of the Dursleys. "Up. Get up! Now!" he did Petunia's voice perfectly. Dudley's birthday – how could he have forgotten? Harry got slowly out of bed and started looking for socks. He found a pair under his bed and, after pulling a spider off one of them, put them on. Harry was used to spiders, because the cupboard under the stairs was full of them, and that's where he slpt.

"Wake up, cousin! We're going to the zoo!" he said as he ran down the stairs. He paused before going down the stairs. He went back up a few stairs and then jumped up and down on one of them to bother Harry. He ran down the stairs just in time to see Harry come out of the cupboard, he pushed him in and closed the door before running to the kitchen.

"Here he comes, the birthday boy!"

"Happy Birthday, son," Vernon said.

Ella sat there disgusted, "How could they do that to him?" Edward shook his head.

"Cook breakfast and try not to burn anything."

"Yes, Aunt Petunia."

"I want everything to be perfect for my Dudley's special day!" she gushed. Edward pretended to gag and Ella laughed softly.

"What's happening now?" she asked.

"Hurry up! Bring me my coffee, boy!"

"Yes, Uncle Vernon."

"Aren't they wonderful, darling?"

Dudley looked around at his gifts, "How many are there?"

"36, I counted them myself."

"36?! But last year, I had 37!"

"But some are bigger than last year's…"

"I don't care how big they are!"

"This is what we're going to do. We're going to buy you two new presents. How's that, pumpkin?"

"Spoiled brat!" Ella spat. "If anything, Harry should get presents too, but no, they think he's being a spoiled brat. They don't anything! If he was my son, I'd loved him."

"I know you would, Ella, but he's not living with us," he said.

"I know that," she said softly. "He deserves to know who his parents are. I mean the Dursleys haven't told him anything about them or even about the magical world that he should rightfully know."

"Agreed, but what can we do about it?"

"Obviously we can't do anything now… at least not until he gets to Hogwarts, then I can show him so much," Ella replied.

"You know that Albus will do," he said.

"Don't remind me!" she sulked.

"He's only looking out for Harry. The time will come where you'll have the opportunity to talk to him about Lily and James. I mean, you were close to them as well as the others," he replied.

"I know," she said. She looked at where the house was and saw that they were leaving the house, "They're getting ready to leave. Let's go"

"It's going to be a lovely day at the zoo. I'm really looking forward to it," Petunia said.

"I'm warning you now, boy. Any funny business, any at all and you won't have any meals for a week. Get in," Vernon said. Ella growled as she heard him say that to Harry. Edward put his hand on her shoulder as to prevent her from doing anything drastic. They all went to the zoo. It was a perfect time for both Ella and Edward to mingle with the crowds without being noticed by the Dursleys and since it was cloudy, they didn't have to worry about standing out from the crowd.

They were in the reptile house as they heard Dudley say, "Make it move!"

"Move," Vernon said as he pounded on the glass.

"Move!"

"He's asleep!" Harry scolded him. Ella smiled at Harry's rebuke.

"He's boring," Dudley said before moving on. He was standing next to Ella without noticing that she was really watching Harry. The snake suddenly opened its beady eyes. Slowly, very slowly, it raised its head until its eyes were on a level with Harry's. It winked. That was then she heard Harry talk in a different language one that was not recognizable to the people around them, but only to her. Edward nudged her and silently asked her what he was saying. They moved around to make it look like they were lovers but she was whispering to him what he was saying. The snake jerked its head toward Vernon and Dudley, and then raised its eyes to the ceiling. It gave Harry a look that said quite plainly: I get that all the time.

"Sorry about him. He doesn't understand what it's like, lying there, watching people press their ugly faces in on you," he was shocked when the snake raised his head and was looking at him, "Can you hear me?" The snake nodded. "It's just… I've never talked to a snake before. Do you…? Do you talk to people often?" The snake shook his head. "You're from Burma, aren't you? Was it nice there? Do you miss your family?" The snake turned his head and pointed to the sign that said that he was born in captivity. "I see. That's me as well. I never knew my parents as well."

Dudley turned around and saw that the snake had woken up from his nap, then pushed Harry aside, which made him land on the floor and shouted, "Mummy, Dad, you won't believe what this snake is doing!"

Edward had to hold Ella where they stood and not allow her to not run to Harry and help him up. Harry was frustrated to the point where the glass magically disappeared before his eyes and Dudley fell into the man-made lake and the snake slithered out of his prison and looked at Harry and said, "Thanks."

"Anytime," he responded.

People around him were shrieking "Snake!" as he slithered out of the reptile house. Ella relaxed and hid her face in Edward's neck to prevent her from laughing out loud in front of the Dursleys. Right when Harry looked up, he saw Dudley looking for a way out. Somehow, the glass had come back.

"Mum! Mummy! Help me!" he cried out as he pounded on the glass.

Petunia had walked up and saw where Dudley was and screamed, "My darling boy! How did you get in there? Who did this? How did you get in there? Is there a snake?" Then Vernon looked at Harry and he was upset because he had a feeling that Harry had something to do with it. They had arrived home after getting Dudley out of the snake's prison and entered their home. "It's all right, sweetheart. We'll get you out of these cold clothes."

Vernon was dragging Harry into the house and asked, "What happened?"

"I swear, I don't know! The glass was there and then it was gone, like magic."

He shoved Harry into the cupboard and said, "There's no such thing as magic." He'd lived with the Dursleys almost ten years, ten miserable years, as long as he could remember, ever since he'd been a baby and his parents had died in a car crash. He couldn't remember being the car when his parents had died. Sometimes, when he strained his memory during long hours in his cupboard, he came up with a strange vision: a blinding flash of green light and a burning pain on his forehead. This, he supposed, was the crash, though he couldn't imagine where all the green light came from. He couldn't remember his parents at all. His aunt and uncle never spoke about them, and of course he was forbidden to ask questions. There were no photographs of them in the house. When he had been younger, Harry had dreamed and dreamed of some unknown relation coming to take him away, but it had never happened; the Dursleys were his only family. They had stayed the night and took the time to hunt.

The next day, Edward read Harry's mind when he had gotten the mail. Three things lay on the doormat: a postcard from Vernon's sister, Marge, who was vacationing in the Isle of Wight, a brown envelope that looked like a bill and – a letter for Harry. Harry picked it up and stared at it, his heart twangling like a giant elastic band. No one, ever, in his whole life, had written to him. Who would? He had no friends, no other relatives – he didn't belong to the library, so he'd never even got rude notes asking for books back. Yet here it was, a letter, addressed so plainly there could be no mistake. Harry gave the other two letters to Vernon. He immediately read the postcard and said, "Marge is ill… ate a funny welk."

The envelope was thick and heavy, made of yellowish parchment, and the address was written in emerald-green ink. There was no stamp. Turning the envelope over, his hand trembling, Harry saw a purple wax seal bearing a coat of arms; a lion, an eagle, a badger and a snake surrounding a large letter H. "Dad, look! Harry's got a letter!" Dudley shouted and took the letter away from him and gave it to his father.

"It's mine!"

"Yours?" he asked "Who'd be writing to you?" He looked at the address on the backside of the letter and noticed that it was from Hogwarts. His face went from red to green faster than a set of traffic lights. And it didn't stop there. Within seconds it was the grayish white of old porridge. Petunia looked over Vernon's shoulder and gasped. For a moment it looked as though she might faint. "Dudley, go to your room."

"I don't want to," he whined.

"NOW!" he roared. Dudley immediately ran to his room. Vernon went up to Harry and dragged him by his ear to the cupboard and locked him in there. Harry strained to hear Vernon and Petunia's hushed and heated discussions. "We'll just ignore it. If they don't get an answer… yes, that's best… we won't do anything…"

"But –"

"I'm not having one in the house, Petunia! Didn't we swear when we took him in we'd stamp out that dangerous nonsense?" After hearing that, Harry started to wonder if everything that Vernon and Petunia had told him was true.

Both Ella and Edward had stayed longer than necessary to see what was happening. After a few days of getting the same letter for Harry, Vernon was becoming a bit crazed, "No more mail through this letterbox." He nailed a piece of wood to block the mail slot that was on the door. Both Ella and Edward had stayed for a couple of days to make sure that Harry was being taken care of when they had received an owl saying that they were both needed at Hogwarts to attend important matters.

When they had arrived, Ella and Edward immediately were called to a meeting with Dumbledore and the rest of the professors about the upcoming term. Once that was done, Dumbledore had pulled both of them into his office alongside McGonagall and said, "It's time, Ella. I need you to go with Hagrid to bring Harry here. I sense that the Dursleys are ignoring Harry's letters. Do whatever it takes to bring Harry here but do not resort to physical violence."

When Ella and Edward received Dumbledore's permission, they immediately got things situated. Edward was going to get the Cullens ready for Hogwarts. Ella needed to meet Hagrid as soon as possible to get things started because the Dursleys were no longer living at their house on Privet Drive. Once they had finished getting ready, Ella hugged and kissed Edward, "I'll come back to you safely. I promise!"

"You better! Every second away from you is a second too long," he said.

"I'll do my best to come back to you as soon as I can, okay?" she asked him and he nodded. They kissed one last time before Ella had gone to meet Hagrid at the main entrance hall of Hogwarts.

Harry was wide awake and was lying down on the floor on his makeshift bed in a shack. Dudley was sleeping on the couch. Harry drew a cake on the ground and drew 11 candles on the floor. He looked Dudley's watch as it counted down to midnight. "Happy Birthday, Harry," he said as soon as the watch stroke midnight. BOOM The whole shack shivered and Harry sat bolt upright, staring at the door. Someone was outside, knocking to come in. BOOM They knocked again. Dudley jerked awake. There was a crash behind them, "Who's there?" Vernon said as he came down the stairs with a rifle. Petunia had turned on the light that was next to the stairs.

There was a pause. Then – SMASH The door was hit with such force that it swung clean off its hinges and with a deafening crash landed flat on the floor. A giant of a man was standing in the doorway. His face was almost hidden by a long, shaggy mane of hair and a wild, tangled beard, but you could make out his eyes, glinting like black beetles under all the hair. He walked in and allowed a female come in and picked up the door and put it back in place, "Sorry about that."

"I demand that you leave at once. You are breaking and entering."

"Dry up, Dursley, you great prune," he said as he bent the rifle upwards and Vernon accidentally shot it and hit the ceiling above them. He turned to Dudley, "I haven't seen you since you was a baby, Harry. You're a bit more along than I expected. Particularly in the middle."

"He's not Harry," the female voice said behind him.

"I'm Harry," he came out of his hiding place.

"Of course you are," he said, finally recognizing Harry. "How did you know that?" he asked the female behind him.

"The boy you spoke to doesn't have her eyes," she replied. She was petite compared to the giant man. She stood gracefully. She had light brown hair that flowed all half way down her back. Her almond shaped topaz eyes stood out of her slender figure.

"Well, anyway, I got something for you. Afraid I sat on it, but I imagine it'll taste fine just the same. Baked it myself, words and all," he said, handing him a squashed box from inside of his pocket coat.

Harry accepted it, opened it and saw a large, sticky chocolate cake with Happy Birthday, Harry written on it in green icing, "Thank you."

"It's not everyday your young man turns 11, is it?"

"No, it's not," the voice said. The man had sat down on the couch, used his umbrella and shot fire bullets into the fire place to warm himself up. The female stood next to him.

"Excuse me, but who are you?"

"Rubeus Hagrid, Keeper of Keys and Grounds of Hogwarts. This here is Ella Cullen, Assistant to Hogwarts Headmaster as well as the assistant to Gryffindor's Head of House. Of course, you know about Hogwarts."

"Sorry, no," he said shaking his head.

"Didn't you ever wonder where your mum and dad learned it all?"

"Hagrid," Ella said and shook her head when he looked at her.

"He knows," he said stubbornly.

"Learned what?"

"You're a wizard, Harry," Ella said.

"I'm a what?"

"A wizard," Hagrid replied. "A good one, I'd wager, once you're trained up.

"No, you've made a mistake. I mean, I can't be a wizard. I mean, I'm just Harry. Just Harry."

"Well, Just Harry, did you ever make anything happen? Anything you couldn't explain, when you were angry or scared?" Harry thought back to what happened at the zoo and looked at Hagrid who winked at him. Then he stood up and handed him his letter.

He took the letter, opened it and read it, "Dear Mr. Potter, We are pleased to accept you at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry."

"He will not be going! We swore we'd put a stop to all this rubbish," Vernon said as he stood next to Harry.

"You knew? You knew all along and you never told me?"

"Of course we knew. How could you not be? My perfect sister being who she was. My mother and father were so proud the day she got her letter. 'We have a witch in the family. Isn't it wonderful?' I was the only one to see her for what she was… a freak! Then she met that Potter and then she had you and I knew you would be the same. Just as strange, just as abnormal. And then she got herself blown up, and we got landed with you," Petunia said with distaste.

"Blown up? You told me my parents died in a car crash."

Ella was enraged, "A car crash?! Did you really think a car crash killed Lily and James Potter? I was there the day they died! How could you say something like that?"

"We had to say something."

"It's an outrage! A Scandal!" Hagrid said.

"He will not be going!" Vernon said as if that was final.

"Oh? A great Muggle like you is going to stop him?" Ella asked.

"Muggle?"

"Non-magic folk. This boy's had his name down since he were born. He's going to the finest school of witchcraft and wizardry. He'll be under the finest headmaster Hogwarts has seen, Albus Dumbledore," Hagrid said with pride.

"I will not pay to have a crackpot old fool teach him magic tricks."

"Never insult Albus Dumbledore in front of me!" Ella said. Hagrid had seen what Dudley was doing and used his umbrella and made him get a pig's tail out of his behind. Dudley, Petunia and Vernon were all shrieking and freaking out as they were running up to the second floor.

"I'd appreciate it if you didn't tell anyone at Hogwarts about that. I'm not allowed to do magic," Hagrid said and Harry nodded. He looked at his watch, "Okay, we're a bit behind schedule. Best be off," he said as he opened the door and turned back to Harry, "Unless you'd rather stay, of course." He turned around and allowed Ella to go outside before following her. Harry looked up at where his uncle, aunt and cousin was, then grabbed his jacket and followed Ella and Hagrid. Hagrid got onto the motorcycle whereas Ella picked up her Firebolt broom.

"Harry, sit on the side car of the motorcycle," Ella informed him.

"Miss, what are you riding on?" Harry asked as he sat straight up against the sidecar.

"This is a Firebolt broom, Harry," she said, "I'll explain brooms when we get the chance, okay?" Harry nodded and they took off.