The Magic of Family

Chapter One: New Neighbors

A.N.- bold italics are lines pulled directly from the book Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling. I do not own the book or any version/copy/sample of Final Fantasy which is owned by Square Enix. This is for entertainment purposes only.

Harry Potter was a highly unusual boy in many ways. For one thing, he hated the summer holidays more than any other time of year. For another, he really wanted to do his homework but was forced to do it in secret, in the dead of night. And he also happened to be a wizard.

It was nearly midnight, and he was lying on his stomach in bed, the blankets drawn right over his head like a tent, a flashlight in one hand and a large leather-bound book propped open against the pillow. Harry moved the tip of his eagle-feather quill down the page, frowning as he looked for something that would help him write his essay, "Witch Burning in the Fourteenth Century Was Completely Pointless-discuss."

The quill paused at the top of a likely-looking paragraph. Harry pushed his round glasses u p the bridge of his nose, moved his flashlight closer to the book and read…Harry put his quill between his teeth and reached underneath his pillow for his ink bottle and a roll of parchment. Slowly and very carefully he unscrewed the ink bottle, dipped his quill into it, and began to write, pausing every now and then to listen, because if any of the Dursleys heard the scratching of his quill on tier way to the bathroom, he'd probably find himself locked in the cupboard under the stairs for the rest of the summer.

The Dursley family of number four, Privet drive, was the reason that Harry never enjoyed his summer holidays. Uncle Vernon, Aunt Petunia, and their son, Dudley, were Harry's only living relatives. They were Muggles, and they had a very medieval attitude toward magic. Harry's dead parents, who had been a witch and wizard themselves, were never mentioned under the Dursleys' roof. For years, Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon had hoped that if they kept Harry as downtrodden as possible, they would be able to squash the magic out of him. To their fury, they had been unsuccessful. These days they lived in terror of anyone finding out that Harry had spent most of the last two years at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The most they could do, however was to lock away Harry's spell books, wand, cauldron, and broom stick at the start of the summer break, and forbid him to talk to the neighbors.

Harry had been fairly good at following the Dursleys' rules this summer, except for smuggling a few of his spell books up to Dudley's second bedroom, until yesterday that was. Yesterday morning after Uncle Vernon had left for work and Dudley had left to go spend time with his friends, Aunt Petunia had locked Harry outside with a list of chores and orders not to talk to any of the neighbors while she went to the weekly meeting of the Garden Club.

Harry yanked a weed out a little more viciously than was probably necessary as he thought about Aunt Petunia going to hang out with the other housewives of Privet Drive and discussing the award winning garden of Number Four. Aunt Petunia had never worked in Number Four's garden once since Harry had turned four and was able to hold a shovel, but she still received all of the accolades for how beautiful the garden was.

"Did the weeds insult you?" piped up a small voice to Harry's left causing his to lose his balance as the weed finally came out of the ground and sprawl backwards onto the grass. He found himself looking up into a pair of eyes whose green rivaled his own and seemed to almost glow in the morning sunlight.

"Ummm…" Harry pulled his eyes away from green eyes to more clearly take in who exactly was talking to him. The boy looked to be close to Harry in age with skin so pale Harry wondered if he had been sick recently and had not been outside in awhile. The pale skin was offset by a waist length braid in the most shocking silver color that Harry had to believe was real because no dye could get hair that color.

The boy tilted his head to the side, causing his braid to slip over his shoulder, "Are you deaf or something?"

"Umm…no," stuttered Harry standing and brushing the bits of grass from where he had mowed the lawn earlier off his back. Standing now next to the boy, Harry realized that he was several inches taller than Harry himself and held himself with a rigidity that almost reminded him of Draco, especially with how blunt and rude the boy had been. However, before he could begin to bristle in defense, Harry caught how the green eyes quickly flicked to the house across the street and then back to Harry and his hands twitched as though they were looking for something to grab.

Harry looked in the direction that the boy had glanced and saw a man with spiky black hair leaning against the door to number five watching both of them, when he saw Harry looking across the street he smiled and raised his hand in a two finger salute before making a waving motion with his hand. Out of the corner of his eye, Harry saw the silverette's shoulders slump before he turned back to face Harry again.

"So did the weed insult you? Is that why you were so violent with it?"

"No, no it was just stuck that's all," answered Harry smoothing his fringe to cover his scar, "uh, no offense but who are you?"

The green eyes widened and shot another look across the street before turning back to Harry, "My name is Sephiroth. My parents and my brothers and I moved across the street the day before yesterday." Another glance across the street, "I saw you working out here yesterday and the day before. My mother does gardening so I thought we could talk."

Harry felt his mouth fall open in shock, usually within a day of any new people moving into Privet Drive, the Dursleys would have the new residents so thoroughly convinced of Harry's delinquent status that they would be more likely to sneer in disgust at the sight of him than try and strike up a conversation with him.

Harry must have been staring in shock for too long because the boy began to fidget minutely and back away toward number five.

"You do not have to talk if you do not want to."

"No, no we can talk. I just have to get the garden finished before my Aunt gets back from the garden club meeting," said Harry gesturing to the half weeded front flower bed.

The boy, Sephiroth, looked at the bed and shocked Harry by kneeling down and starting to pull weeds. Wondering green eyes glanced over their shoulder at Harry, spurring him into kneeling back down in his spot before the flower bed and beginning to pull weeds again.

Harry had never realized before how quickly work could go with someone else there helping and talking with him. Apparently Sephiroth and his family had moved to England from Japan for his father's work. They had chosen Privet Drive because his mother had wanted somewhere the four boys could spend time with other children their own age and she could have her garden, while still being close to London where Sephiroth's father was working. Sephiroth was the oldest of the four boys at thirteen with his three younger brothers being ten year old triplets. Sephiroth said the oldest of the three was the most effeminate of the triplets and could often be found curled up in a quiet corner of the house with a book and a cup of hot chocolate-something Sephiroth claimed all of the boys and their mother enjoyed very much, even in the summer- and was named Yazoo. The middle one was the smallest of the boys and could often be found attached to their father's hip when he was not attached to Sephiroth's and was named Kadaj. The youngest of the boys was a tall and muscular boy who often intimidated children his own age because they judged him for his size before getting to know him. Sephiroth stated that Loz was the gentlest of his brothers and enjoyed helping their mother in the garden and could often be found with some wounded animal that he was attempting to nurse back to health. All four boys apparently shared the same silver hair, but whereas Sephiroth kept his in a waist length braid, Yazoo and Kadaj kept their hair unbound down around their shoulder blades and chin respectively. Loz was the odd one out of the boys keeping his hair cut short in an almost military style.

By the time Harry and Sephiroth had finished weeding the garden, Sephiroth was regaling Harry with a story of a time Loz had been nursing a bird back to health in the room that he shared with his brothers and it had gotten into one of Yazoo's books and started using the pages to try and make itself a nest. Kadaj had apparently gotten into the middle of the resulting fight and it was still unclear whose side he had been on in the resulting conflict, but he had apparently bitten Loz and broken Yazoo's wrist. Needless to say, all three boys had ended up grounded and Loz had to keep all rescue animals in a closet that their father specifically remodeled for him to use.

The ending of the story saw both Harry and Sephiroth sitting in the shade of the side of the house and laughing at the trouble the younger boys had caused. As they were calming down, Sephiroth's father came to the door of number five and called for Sephiroth to come home, and allowed Harry to catch a glimpse of who he assumed was Kadaj based on Sephiroth's description. Sephiroth had gone home after asking Harry if it was okay for him to come back over and hang out with him tomorrow, Harry had confirmed that as long as he was outside Sephiroth was more than welcome to come over.

Harry had finished the rest of his outside chores just in time for Aunt Petunia to return home and order Harry to start making dinner for the family, minus himself. Somehow the old bread and cheese and cold tap water that made up his dinner seemed better than it had every other day because of how much fun Harry had had that day spending time with Sephiroth and how much he was looking forward to spending time with him again tomorrow.

Smiling to himself, Harry screwed the cap back on his ink container and began putting his homework essay, spell book, and supplies back under the loose floorboard in his room. Glancing at the clock as he crawled back into bed, Harry was surprised to realize it was already one in the morning. He had been thirteen for an hour without even realizing it.

Humming softly, Harry opened the window enough that any post owls could enter and crawled back into his bed pulling the blankets up snug around his chin.

"Happy Birthday to me."