FicWad

A/N: hey, this is Try_This comin' at ya! This is my first time posting on FicWad but I've got a few more stories on ff.net if you wanna check them out.

This story is not HBP compliant. It contains scenes of child abuse, possibly some sex later on and adult language. If you can't deal with that then it's best that you leave, because I will not change it unless I have to. It will under no circumstances contain a Super!Harry or any Mary-sue's it will, however have a GreyAndPowerful!Harry and a PartSlytherin!Harry.

This is NOT an Au fic. It follows cannon up to and including the end of harry's fifth year at Hogwarts, giving an alternate look as to who Harry really is. At least, who I imagined him to be one day while eating Skittles.

Disclaimer: I own nothing that you recognize from any other public works, I have been inspired in part by So You Want To Be A Wizard, and various works of fanfiction so, here's your credit. I am making no money off of this, only personal gratification.

Enjoy and Review!


Mr and Mrs Dursley, of number four Privet Drive, were proud to say to anyone who would listen that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much. They were the last people you'd expect to be involved with anything strange, mysterious or violent, because they always told everyone that they just didn't hold with such nonsense.

Mr Dursley was the director of a firm called Grunnings, which made drills. He was a big, beefy man with hardly any neck, although he did have a very large moustache. Mrs Dursley was thin and blonde and had nearly twice the normal amount of neck, which came in very useful as she spent much of her time craning over garden fences, spying on the neighbours. The Dursleys had a son named Dudley and in their opinion there was no finer boy anywhere.

The Dursleys had everything they wanted.

But their nephew, Harry Potter, did not.

Harry Potter had been dropped on the Dursleys doorstep when he was barely 15 months old after his mother and father; Lily and James Potter, had died. The Dursleys had never wanted him, they told him as much as often as they could and even in his earliest memories, Harry knew that they hated him.

When he was younger, Harry did everything he could to be good, to be normal, to be everything that they wanted. He couldn't help all of the... things that happened all around him! Clothes would grow or shrink; hair change colours or Harry would end up places that he really shouldn't be. His Aunt and Uncle especially hated him for that.

They hated him for doing those things and would always punish him whenever they happened. Harry tried to be as good as he could, hating the pain, pain, pain that came with the punishments. It was useless to try and hide though, his Uncle would always find him and the beating would be twice as bad. After his punishment his Aunt would hand out the chores that Harry had to complete if he didn't want to be punished again. Tend to the garden, Cook dinner or lunch or breakfast, wash the windows, sweep the floor, paint the fence, wash the car, sweep the walk, polish the doorknobs...

No matter how hard the Dursleys tried to prevent it, as they wanted to keep their free caretaker on full time, Harry eventually grew and with his acquired age came the need to go to school. Grudgingly, they let him attend the local public school where Harry came to discover the first of his many loves.

He loved reading. He loved books. He loved learning. He loved School, everything about it fascinated him. He picked up on everything very quickly and within the first two months he was progressing far ahead of his classmates in terms of all their subjects. His teachers soon began to call the Dursleys, gushing about how absolutely gifted their nephew was. His relatives were not pleased that he was doing better than their precious Dudley and after a week of missed school and continual punishments; Harry learned to be average, hiding his intelligence away from the world.

Harry was without friends at school but that really didn't bother him, he didn't know how to be close with anyone and at least being alone left him more time to read. By the time he was nine Harry had read every book in the schools library and was well on the way to finishing them a second time.

By the time he had turned ten, Harry had decided that life sucked, it wasn't going to get any better for him unless he changed it for himself, but knew that if he ever tried to tell anyone about his relatives his Uncle wouldn't hesitate to kill him. And no matter how much he hated his life, he knew that he would only have to live there until he was 18 and being alive was a far better option then being dead. He swore that he would never tell anyone. Adults were not to be trusted; they saw only what they wanted to see.

Harry grew self sufficient, surviving purely on his own cunning, resourcefulness and intelligence. When he was eight he began to discover that he could control the things that went on around him. He had been doing his homework, purposely making mistakes, when his pencil broke. Already feeling frustrated Harry just focused his attention on the pencil. Fix, please. He concentrated very hard for a few moments, and then, right before his eyes, the pencil had repaired itself! He began to experiment after that, mending broken stitches, healing the smaller injuries he got, lifting things, making things move, even making things explode or catch on fire. He never did any of it in front of his relatives though, if his Uncle knew....

"Hurry up Boy!" Harry quickly finished drying the last of the dishes, putting it back in the cupboard silently. His Aunt Petunia was waiting in the hallway impatiently. "My garden society is coming over in an hour and I don't want you or your freakishness anywhere near the house tonight! You'll spoil my gardenia's!" she sniffed.

Harry ducked his head and moved silently toward the door, not commenting that it was his work that everyone praised. His Aunt wouldn't react well if he said that, not at all.

She opened the front door and practically shoved him out onto the step. "I don't care where you go, boy, just don't come back anytime tonight. You better be back here by the time your Uncle and Dudders want their dinner tomorrow though..." she warned and Harry nodded. He knew what would happen.

With one last derisive sniff down at him, his Aunt slammed the door in his face, leaving a skinny ten-year-old Harry Potter to ponder just where he would be sleeping for the night.

This wasn't the first time his Aunt and Uncle had thrown him out of the house for the night; usually they did it whenever they hosted dinner parties with their friends or with people from Uncle Vernon's work. They only made him stay with Mrs Figg during the day. Thankfully it was mid-June this time and not the icy November evening that they had shoved him out in last time. He had caught a fairly bad case of pneumonia then and still found himself short of breath at times.

Harry sighed and mentally took inventory of all the places he knew he could go for the night without getting caught by the police or nosy passers-by. There was the alley behind the bakery where Harry knew he could always get a few scraps of bread or a bit of cake if he was lucky, but unless he wanted to sleep in the dumpster there was nowhere else that wasn't completely open. The roof of the music store and the library were out as well, Harry had heard that they had both installed security cameras.

That left the park by the old Thorne house.

It was an old park; more of a weedy forest with a swing set in the middle of it but hardly anyone went there except for Harry. He liked to sit there, looking up at the remains of what had been the grandest house in Little Whinging. The Thorne house was more of a modest mansion and he had heard his Aunt say more than once that she would love to live in a place like it if it weren't so dilapidated. It had been abandoned for decades, since the mid 1890's, and it apparently hadn't been touched since then. The outside was completely rotted and black with weathering, broken windows and cracked shutters, missing roof tiles and a collapsed chimney. The large 3-acre lot was weedy and unkempt, fenced in by a rusted rough iron fence.

The neighbourhood kids always dared each other to go and spend a night alone there but no one had ever gotten passed the gate. Harry liked to look at it and imagine what it must have been like before the land around it had turned to suburbia. The biggest house for miles, sitting grandly up on a hill with stables and a huge garden. He made it differently each time but loved each outcome just as much as the last.

So Harry trudged along down Privet Drive, then up and along Laurel Wood Lane to the park. He knew of an ancient oak tree that he would be able to sleep under that would give him some cover if it started raining. It was one of Harry's secret places, a spot shaded and peaceful in summer and winter both because of the pine trees that roofed the hollow. But there was nothing peaceful about it today, Harry noticed. Something was in the air and the trees were swaying in a breeze that Harry couldn't feel.

Where the path from the sidewalk met the first of the wall of pines he stopped, looking around himself nervously, and that was when he saw her. The girl was standing beneath Harry's huge oak, staring down intently at the ground where Harry noticed a long line of pinecones and rocks set out in front of her. She was shorter than he was, and looked slightly younger.

Now who is that? He thought, feeling more nervous still. No one had ever been in one of his secret places when he came there.
But the girl just kept frowning at the ground, as if it were a test paper and she was trying to scowl the right answer out of it. She was a fairly scrawny looking girl, with long slightly wavy black hair and a distinctly Hispanic look to her face, wearing a baggy and worn, clean blue t-shirt, jeans and sneakers.

The girls' scowl deepened, making her dark eyes flash as she stared intensely at the pinecones in front of her. Harry stood stock still, not knowing if he should leave, but soon his stillness came from astonishment rather than fear. The girl had raised her hand, still staring at the ground, lifting it beside her. She snapped her fingers suddenly and there, engulfing her entire hand, were what looked to be bright blue coloured flames. The girls' face began to contort in concentration but she kept her eyes glued on the pinecones.

Harry watched in fascination as her hand suddenly shot out, pointing down at the line of pinecones and the same blue haze-fire surrounded all of the objects in the line. The girl flicked her fingers upward and Harry watched, slack jawed, as the objects began to float, high up off the ground and began to spin in a circle, faster and faster until they were a blur. The blur got smaller and smaller, the blue light growing brighter, until it all suddenly stopped and hanging in midair, just where the multiple pinecones had been, was a small figurine of what looked to be a horse.

The girl, now looking exhausted, flicked her fingers again and the figurine floated down to her. She let out what looked like a breath of relief and ran her hand through her hair. "Finally!" she muttered, shaking her head- and halfway through the shake, she caught sight of Harry.

She looked surprised and embarrassed for a moment, then her face steadied down to a simple worried look. There she stood regarding Harry, and he realized with a shock that she wasn't going to yell at him, or chase him, or call him names, or run away herself. She was going to let him explain himself. Harry was amazed. It didn't seem quite normal.

"Hi," he said.

The girl looked at him uncertainly, as if trying to place him. "Hi."

Harry wasn't sure quite where to begin. The girl could do the same things that he could, but she seemed so much more practiced. Like she knew what she was doing... maybe she could teach him... "Uh," he said, "Uh- When I do that, my- uh, my hand doesn't glow. Do you think that's normal?"

The girls' eyes widened "So that's how you got in!" she exclaimed, then her expression grew thoughtful "But I didn't think that any wizards lived near here..."

Harry frowned "A wizard? Is that what I am?"

The girl nodded "Uh-hunh. You must be muggle-born then, if you don't know. Muggles are what witches and wizards call people who cant do magic, by the way." She explained frankly but Harry could see from the way she was clutching the figurine to her chest that she was still anxious. "And yes, it's normal for your magic not to glow blue. That's just me. If you can control your accidental magic though, you must be pretty powerful." She sent him a calculating look.

"Why is it just you?" Harry asked, his curiosity piquing at the prospect of learning what he could do with his magic. Soon his questions were all fighting to get out but he kept his mouth shut.

The girl bit her lip, looking fretful. "You have to promise that you wont tell anyone without my permission. Do you promise?" she was almost begging, which was a severe change for Harry as he was used to being the one begging. Harry nodded, fully intending on keeping his promise. If he kept his mouth shut, then she probably would too. There were another few moments of her examining him, starting deeply into his eyes, and then she sighed and sat down, patting the ground beside her for him to sit as well.

"It's a long story." She said as he sat beside her, surprisingly he only felt a little uncomfortable at being so close to another person, but she was so much smaller that Harry just couldn't register her as a threat.

"I've got all night." Harry admitted with a shy smile. "I don't mind."

The girl regarded him solemnly. "I'm trusting you never to breathe a word of this." She announced "Ever. You won't believe me now, but if you tell anyone, muggle or magical, you could cause the destruction of the Universe."

"Really." Harry said, wondering about the girl's sanity.

The girl just turned those big dark eyes on him again. "Really." She sighed, "Do you know anything about entropy?" She asked.

Harry nodded, he had read about it from reading a few astronomy books, but he had no idea what it had to with anything. "It's where the Universe is running down; all the energy in it is being used up. Eventually the Universe will end because there will be no energy left."

"Well," she said, "That's the muggle bit of it at least. Wizards have a bit more knowledge on it. Well, no, that's a lie really. Only a few special wizards have any sort of grasp of it, me included. Soon, you'll be included in that list I guess."

She took a deep breath and Harry listened intently "50 or 60 eons ago when Life was just beginning to come about, all of the Powers and Possibilities came together and began to plan what they were going to give. They made planets, stars, gravity... you get the idea. One of them, the most powerful, gave two things; Magic and death. Both were tied irrevocably to the world but so that the process of entropy wouldn't come into its full power and destroy Life immediately, the Power also created a being with immense magical ability who would use their magic to give life back into the Universe. A sort of battery if you like.

"There would only be one in the world at a time and they'd be reincarnated into a new body when they died. They'd be born with the knowledge of what they are but would have to practice to be able to use their powers to their full potential. Also, these beings would have to find something called a Focus, a physical object that they can use to filter their raw energy because they really wouldn't have any restriction on their powers. They would be able to anything magically, as long as their will power was strong enough.

"These beings wouldn't be able to stop the Universes death, but they could slow it down. Magical people know of these beings as "Indigo's" because their magic glows blue. Once, Indigo's used to be well respected and honoured, but with time the wizarding world actually started to lose their belief that they even existed and now Indigo's are just a myth told to children as bedtime stories."

It took only a moment for Harry to gather his thoughts about everything she had told him. It was very hard to believe that he was sitting next to the most powerful person in the world, and she was wearing jeans. It just didn't fit. "You're the Indigo." He said, "But why are you telling me this? I thought you said it could mean the end of the Universe if this got out!"

The girl shrugged, looking down at the ground. "It could mean the end of the world. See, if muggles found out about my powers, I'd be taken to some sort of military base and dissected or something equally horrible. If magical people found out that I'm the Indigo, then they'd take me and use me as some sort of weapon against their enemies, whomever they might be. Either way, I'm screwed!" she looked agitated and anxious, nervously clutching at her figurine.

"But why are you telling me?" Harry asked again, he knew he was being bold, but he couldn't help it.

She didn't look at him. "I'm telling you because I can see the fingerprints around your neck."

Harry's eyes flew open wide and his hand moved up to his neck. Damn it! His heart began to pound. He hadn't realized that people could see passed the collar of his shirt, he had been extra careful to cover the marks of his Uncles last punishment. But how could she tell that those were fingerprints?...

"I'm telling you, because I know exactly how that feels." She continued on, not letting him say anything. "Because you seem just as scared as I am and because I want to believe that you wont tell anyone." Harry saw her smile "We all need to believe in something, don't you think?"

"My grandmother was the one that hit me." She continued, "She was Catholic, devoutly so. She thought that magic was the devil's work and tried to beat it out of me. I got sick of it about two months ago and I ran away to London. It was a stupid idea, I ended up sleeping in a dumpster for a week until I got a letter from this wizarding bank called Gringotts telling me that I had an inheritance due to me through magical blood on my mothers side, and that I had a family home to claim. I followed the directions, found my house, and I've been practicing using my magic as much as I've been able to since then. If I'm ever going to go public about my whole Indigo thing, I better be powerful, right?" she smiled ruefully "I'm a fast learner."

Harry felt his heart being torn between wanting to fill up with happiness because he had found someone who understood what he was going through with his relatives; or break, also because the small girl beside him knew what pain really felt like. At least she had found a way to escape though. He settled for a happy medium and gave her a sad smile. "Me too." He said, "Maybe it's a wizard thing?"

The girl shook her head "I don't think so. There's plenty of stupid people, magical and muggle, but I've read that all really powerful witches and wizards have a love of words." She smiled at him; a sly Mona Lisa smile and Harry felt himself blush. Him? Powerful? "I'm Maria, by the way." She said. "Rosamaria Romero, but I hate Rosamaria."

"Harry," he said "Harry Potter. Also known by my Aunt and Uncle as boy, freak, thing... you get the drift." His voice had turned out a lot more bitter than he wanted it to, but that was forgotten when he saw Maria's eyes grow wide.

"Harry Potter?" she exclaimed, her eyes narrowing. Suddenly she asked. "Do you have a lightning bolt scar on your forehead?"

Slowly Harry nodded, confused as to how she could possibly know that.

"But you didn't know you were a wizard?" Maria sounded incredulous. Again, Harry nodded. Suddenly Maria's face changed to resemble a cat that had just swallowed a canary. "Well then Harry, do I have some news for you..."

Maria Romero and Harry Potter, the Indigo and the newly informed Boy Who Lived, sat outside beneath the large oak tree for hours, well into the evening with Maria answering as many of Harry's questions as she could. They compared things that they had been able to do with their powers and Harry found himself dreading the moment that Maria would leave for the night. Even if she lived alone, Harry had his doubts that she would let him stay with her for the night.

They talked about everything that Harry had always been too ashamed to admit to everyone else. He told her about his Uncle's punishments, and she told him about some of the many violent home "exorcisms" that her grandmother had performed on her. He told her about getting kicked out of the house that night, she didn't say anything but Harry saw her eyes dull slightly before she changed the subject to something happier. Soon though, it grew dark and a chill wind began to blow.

"So where do you live, anyways?" Harry asked, by know they had moved backward and were leaning up against the trunk of the tree. Maria had moved do that she was sitting close beside him, the horse figurine in her lap. "I don't remember hearing my Aunt gossiping about any new neighbours."

"Thorne Manor." Maria smirked "I know, it looks ruined but that's just wards to keep everyone out, I can key people in as well though. The bank says that it's been in my mother's family for centuries but wizarding law back then said that only a male heir could inherit and my family's only produced girls so the Manor had been put under a Preservation Charm since the last male heir died so that it would stay intact. My mother had a half brother, named Severus Snape, he works at Hogwarts as a Potions Professor but I'm nervous that he'll wind up like my grandmother, that he'll wind up hating me because I'm the Indigo and sell me out. I'm not going to be abused again. Thankfully the law changed a few years back and I was able to get the Manor without him knowing." Her eyes grew dreamy "It's amazing... It has this almost 200-year-old enchantment on it; it's so cool! The house will actually change its layout depending on how many rooms and what kind of rooms the owner needs. It's like their waiting in storage somewhere until you call them out, they even come decorated and with furniture you want! I have no idea how it works... but I don't care, it's awesome!"

Harry hugged his knees to his chest, staring off into the distance sadly. He was feeling jealous that all he had to go home to was a cupboard full of spiders and she had a wonderful house all to her self. "It sounds wonderful."

Maria got up off the ground, brushing the dirt off her jeans "It is, you're going to have the best nights sleep of your life tonight, let me tell you! Marta, the house elf, will be so thrilled to have someone else to fuss over."

Harry blinked up at her "What?"

Maria flicked her dark hair out of her eyes and smiled shyly down at him. "It's just that I don't really think you want to sleep outside tonight... and I've got a really big house, and your Aunt and Uncle will never be able to find you... and I wouldn't mind having a friend over every now and then, and you and I could practice using our magic together! Or if your Uncle gets really bad, then you can come and I can heal you! I've got a lot of potions in stock that'll help... But," she said quickly "It's completely up to you. I can understand if you don't want anything to do with me now that you know what I am-"

Harry truly couldn't believe was he was hearing, Maria was offering everything he'd ever wanted and she thought he'd refuse just because she was powerful? Fat chance of that! They both knew that he couldn't run away completely from the Dursleys, they would rather Harry be dead then have any chance that he'd tell someone about how they abused him, but Maria was offering a haven that Harry could run to.

"No!" Harry said, scrambling to his feet "No! I'd- I'd love to! Are you serious?"

Maria broke into a huge grin, nodding vigorously. "Of course I am! Oh this is going to be great! You're going to love the library! And the grounds are awesome too; I've got a huge garden full of flowers and 5 horses in the stable! They were put under the Preservation charm too so they stayed alive for all these years, maybe we can learn how to ride them? What would you like for dinner? I've always wanted to try Chinese food, do you want to ask Marta to make some?" Maria tugged on his sleeve, chatting happily. Harry's head was reeling as he followed her out of the grove and over toward the rough iron fence, feeling the slight prickling sensation of what he now knew to be magic as the wards let him in.

He had a friend, he was a wizard, he was going to learn magic and he found a place where he could be safe from his Uncle.

The Dursleys had everything they wanted.

And quite suddenly, so did Harry Potter, even if nobody else knew it.




Harry began to spend as much time as he could at Thorne Manor, thankfully the Dursleys didn't care where he went as long as he came back to do his chores and have his Uncle Vernon take his frustrations out on him. With the food that he got at the Manor, Harry began to grow and soon was on par with other boys his age in terms of size.
Quickly, Harry devoured everything he could about magic, Maria always by his side. There were hundreds of books in the Thorne library, maybe thousands, but Harry couldn't keep track. He and Maria swiftly went through them all, Dark, Light, Neutral; no bit of information was out of bounds.

"People are going to expect us to be great." Maria said once "You're the Boy Who Lived and I'm the Indigo so for us, there's no such thing as useless information."

Being great, however, was one of the things that Harry wasn't used to being. He was Boy, Freak, Thing... a tool to use and abuse and throw away. In his opinion, he was nothing special but people would have expectations of him and Harry knew that he would have to meet them so he wouldn't disappoint anyone.

He and Maria worked their was through Geography and History in the Wizarding world, did the theory and wandless application of various Charms, Hexes, Curses and Transfigurations spells (Maria told Harry that he would have to get a wand before he went to Hogwarts) They did both the theory and practical application of Potions (mainly making healing draughts for Harry to use) Essentially they were schooling themselves at such a rapid pace that Harry's mind actually felt sore after his study sessions.

To take away from what Maria dubbed the "brain twinges" they would take breaks and would watch movies and television on the muggle TV that Maria made appear in the living room. They would go outside and play catch or tag, all of the games that Harry had never been allowed to play with the kids at school, or they would go and hang out in the barn, grooming and riding the horses. They picked up on how to do small, fun things that helped Harry forget about the bruises and cuts he would often arrive with.

By the time Harry's 11th birthday was rolling around, he and Maria had progresses to what some of the books said was a fourth to fifth year level at Hogwarts in some areas. Which, they realized with horror, was not a good thing.

"You should be getting your Hogwarts letter any day now." Maria remarked. They were sprawled out on the floor of the library, a large pile of books littering the Oriental rug covered hardwood. Her voice echoed slightly through the large room, it was three stories tall with floor to ceiling bookshelves full to bursting and balconies with comfortable chairs to read on. It was so echo-y because all of the bookshelves were made of some sort of dark wood.

Harry sighed and rolled his eyes. "Yeah, I'm really looking forward to Uncle Vernon's reaction to that. He's never going to let me go!" Harry slammed the book he had been reading (Coincidently it was Hogwarts; A History, but that was besides the point.) in irritation.

"Oh, please Harry!" Maria said, "You're the bloody Boy Who Lived! If you don't send a reply to your letter then they'll probably send someone to come and get you!" Harry smirked at his irate friend; over the past few weeks he had found that she had quite the foul mouth on her. She could even give Dudley and Vernon a run for their money! Unfortunately her speaking habits had begun to rub off on him as well and he caught himself swearing at his Uncle in his mind, only barely restraining himself from actually swearing out loud.

"I wish you could come too." Harry said sadly "I don't want to leave you all alone for an entire school year."

Maria snorted, not looking up from her book; 'The Intermediates Guide to Medical Charms' "I'll be fine, Harry. My grandmother couldn't find me even if she wanted to, and I really don't need to go out into London at all unless I want some new clothes or a haircut. So, I'll be stuck inside the house while you're out traipsing around Hogwarts, astounding everyone with how advanced you are for being raised by..." she looked up sharply and met his eyes, which were wide with understanding. "Muggles..." she ended softly.

"They'll realize something." Said Harry quietly, feeling his heart begin to pick up speed "They'll start asking questions about how I grew up. If my relatives helped me learn all of this."

"And if you tell them the truth," Maria cut in, "And you tell them how bad your relatives really are then there'll be a big trial. They'll want to make sure that you aren't lying. So they'll probably pull you out of Hogwarts and have you go back to your relatives while they get proof...."

Harry swallowed down the huge lump in his throat that formed at the very thought of it all "And my Uncle will kill me, he'll make sure that it looks like an accident so that they can't pin it on him. They'll take me on vacation with them and watch as Dudley pushes me off a cliff or something."

"But if you lie?" Maria questioned, looking just as nervous as Harry felt. "What if you lie?"

Harry thought for a moment, but the answer that he came up with was actually a bit worse then if he told the truth. "If I lie, then they'll ask questions about where I did learn it all from and they'll wind up finding about you. They'll ask me how I met you and that would bring up the whole uncle Vernon thing again and I would end up dead and you would be taken and used as a weapon."

Silence stretched for a few moments, Harry's heart pounding in his ears so loudly that he almost missed what Maria said next.

"You'll hide it then," Maria said firmly "You'll act like everything is new for you and you're just an average powered wizard. You're a good actor; you fool your relatives all the time! We can make you into the model Boy Who Lived, you'll be everything that they expect you to be, it won't be too hard. You'll be Harry Potter while you're in public and around your relatives, but you can be just Harry when you're with me." She said, actually sounding quite frantic. Harry couldn't blame her, if he couldn't pull it off then they'd both be found out.

"Alright." Harry said hesitantly, there was one thing that was still bugging him "But I don't want to have to do this for the rest of my life Maria. I want to leave them hints, small hints, about what I'm really like. If they figure out what my life is like for themselves then they'll probably take me away from the Dursleys without having to send me back and gather proof because they'll already have it. I also think that it would be a good idea for you and I to have some form of communication so that I wont go insane and I can let you in on what's going on without anyone knowing."

Maria bit her lip in thought. "Ok," she said after a while "Ok, I think that sounds good, but we need to get moving then. We hardly have any time to do this and so much to do. We better get started straight away. We can put all of the training on the back burner for now, this comes first, right?"

Harry nodded, getting up off of the floor "Right. So, what do you think the public wants from the Boy Who Lived?"

Maria got up as well, looking him over critically. "You look a lot like that picture we found of your dad in that history book with you in it. The public would probably like it if you looked so much like your dad, it'd pull on their heartstrings, you know? So, a Glamour that only you can take off, and you wanted a small hint? Keep your clothes too big and looking worn. The public would want you polite, nothing much to change there, brave, again there's nothing to change..." Harry made to comment that he was by no means brave but Maria continued.

"They'll want you in Gryffindor of course, just like your parent were, so do your best. By being in Gryffindor you need to be reckless, we can work on that, and as the Boy Who Lived they'll be expecting you to get into dangerous situations but come out alive."

Harry sighed. This was going to be tough. He didn't normally get into dangerous situations if he could help it. "Something makes me think that that wont be too much of a problem, trouble seems to follow me around." He muttered.

Maria laughed "True. Well, that's one less thing you'll have to think about then. You'll hide all of your intelligence from the friends you make there, and of course as a Gryffindor you can't be friends with a Slytherin. That would be against, like, every social rule there is at Hogwarts. Other than that though, I can't think of anything else. Oh! Wait!" she said excitedly "Get into Quidditch! The public will adore you if you play Quidditch!"

Harry rolled his eyes "Is that all?" he remarked sarcastically then sighed. "Alright, I should probably excel at Defence against the Dark Arts, at least give me that. I am the Boy Who Lived after all!"

"Prat!" Maria exclaimed, lightly punching him on the arm. It didn't hurt and Harry knew that it wouldn't hurt even as he saw it coming but he couldn't stop the flinch that escaped him. Her eyes narrowed "That's another thing that we're going to have to work on. People are going to want to touch you, you know, shake your hand, maybe even hug you. You have to stop flinching like that."

Harry raised an eyebrow. "Fine, I will if you will." He said.

Maria looked flustered. "What? What do you mean? I- I don't..." Harry pulled his fist back and punched her arm as lightly as she had punched his. She flinched visibly, her eyes snapping shut and her whole body tensing. She stayed that way for a moment before sighing. "Ok, so I do. All right, we'll both learn. Happy?"

Harry smiled "Very. Now let's get to it. Make me into the Boy Who Lived!"

A/N: So? You like? You hate? Review and let me know!