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1 - New Friends And Bad News

It was August 28. It was officially the worst day of Harry's life. He had always been very accepting of situations, most likely because of living with the Dursleys, but this was just unfair. Life could be so cruel sometimes...

For Harry, the summer after his fourth year began as a living hell. Apparently, the Dursleys hadn't been as forgiving with the Ton-Tongue Toffee incident as they had with previous ones. Now, along with the usual punishment of being weighed down with chores, they had started abusing him as well. Now, Harry was used to Dudley and his gang roughing him up a bit, and the occasional slaps and hair-grabbings from his aunt and uncle, but now it was different. He had never been truly afraid of his uncle before, but now, as Harry's "punishments" got worse, he noticed a strange gleam in his uncle's eyes that gave a plain message to Harry: even though his uncle was beating him with more passion than he had ever before, he clearly was restraining himself from doing what he really wanted to do: kill him.

However, Harry had a streak of pride, or maybe it was embarrassment, that would not allow him to ask for help. So, he continued to write to his friends like nothing was going on, saying "Yes Dudley is still a big fat cow" and the occasional "Can't wait for Hogwarts" but nothing that could give his friends the slightest clue about his situation.

As life for Harry was gradually declining, a family moved in a few houses down, the Stensons. One day, while Harry was trimming the hedges, the girl came and talked to him. It was a brief conversation as Harry insisted he needed to finish his chores. (He also was afraid of what the Dursleys would do to him if he were found talking with the new neighbor. What if Harry's abnormality affected what they thought of the Dursleys?) She was a year older than Harry, with curly brown hair and freckles and was a little pudgy (though if she had two clones, they could still all hide behind Dudley standing side by side). A few days later, after a few other brief visits by the girl, her mother came over saying that Dakota, her daughter, had seen Harry working in the yard and wondered if he could do some work for them. He could even stay for dinner. Well, the idea of getting rid of Harry for a whole day, along with making a good impression with the new neighbors appealed to his uncle and so Harry somberly followed the lady back to her house.

'Great,' he had thought, 'Now I get to do all of the neighbors chores too.'

But when he got to the house, there were no chores to be done. Mrs. Stenson proclaimed that, from what she saw, he was "doing far too much work around that house for a growing boy's own good. By the looks of you, you've already pulled your weight, now it's your cousin's turn, and he could pull the whole house!" She giggled at her pun and left into the kitchen. Dakota walked in carrying a few movies asking him which one he would like to watch. At this point, Harry was utterly confused, as any normal person would be. This girl that he had met just the day before for about two minutes had him being treated as if he was part of the family. Instead of answering her question he just blurted out one of his own.

"Wait, I'm not here to do yard work?"

She looked at him with a look that was cheerful but still a bit nervous. "Umm...no, I thought you'd like this better than doing chores all the time. From what I've seen, that's all you do all day. I thought that this would be a nice little surprise, unless you don't want to be here. I won't be offended if you go home."

"Oh no, this is great! I was just a little confused at first. Are you sure though?" he quickly recovered. He was relieved. At first he had thought it might have been some cruel joke.

"Of course. So do you like action or comedy?" She smiled holding up the videos.

That night he met Dakota's dad over dinner. Harry enjoyed himself immensely. They had asked him questions with genuine interest without being nosy like many of his other neighbors (Aunt Petunia being their ringleader).