Everything was in boxes, and Mrs. Dursley was fit to be tied.

"That's a priceless replicate!" She shrieked, the clatter of her heels echoing on the wooden floors of their bare living room.

The movers were unimpressed, and the corners of the box filled with breakable valuables hit the door two more times before they turned it upside-down and grunted down the excessively long driveway. As soon as Petunia Dursley's heels clacked over the threshold of Number 4 Privet Drive and into the neighbors' view, she pasted her rouged lips into a patient smile as the movers kicked the last of the boxes into the truck.

Two little boys, bored with the commotion and upheaval of moving, resorted to physical violence as a means of diversion. One of the boys was actually little; he was barely more than elbows and knees. The seat belt was fit to burst on the other boy, and his every movement caused the fat on his arms to jiggle like pudding.

The little one was Harry Potter. The big one was Dudley Dursley, and he was extremely intolerant of boredom. In his intolerance, he was prone to attacks. On Harry.

"Settle down, settle down, little tyke." Mr. Durseley's jowls jiggled like Dudley's arms, and the effect was framed grotesquely by his stiff and lustrous mustache. Harry called him Uncle, and thought he rather looked like a walrus with all that blubber pooling about his starched collar.

"It's not the poor dear's fault," stated Aunt Petunia. She seated herself in the front and threw a besotted smile at her growing boy. "Mommy knows about your nerves, sweet angel. When we get to our new place, we will have pizza and ice cream and cable."

She was rewarded with a petulant kick to her seat.

"Well, the drive is long." Vernon Dursley fiddled with a gigantic folding map before "sodding it to hell" and taking off after the lumbering moving van.

Due to mysterious circumstances and Dursley's downward spiraling luck in the market of drills, the Dursleys and Harry Potter were moving to a nondescript flat outside of Little Whinging. From what he had seen of the place (since none of the Dursleys trusted him alone in the house), the flat required all the sprucing up that a neurotic home maker like Aunt Petunia would surely take upon herself.

Fat raindrops clustered on the windshield, and Harry sighed, wishing that he could enjoy the beginning of summer break. He didn't mind the rain, but hated the way Aunt Petunia blamed him for the mud Dudley tracked on her floors. His Aunt would be on high alert from weeks because she was the type to have everything so-so.

Harry allowed himself to entertain the notion that he would get a fresh start at his new school, and maybe his own room instead of the cupboard under the stairs. He rather liked the idea of going to a different school from Dudley, and the comfort that Dudley and Piers couldn't use him like volleyballs anymore. Dudley was unsurprisingly able to attend a private school while Harry settled for a public one with scratchy gray uniforms.

Fortunately, the new school was stringent about the brand of clothing on a pupil, and Petunia had been in a rage for a week about throwing away the smelly clothes she'd dyed gray.

He was rudely awoken by the obscene honk of a car horn, and hastily put his glasses into his breast pocket, knowing that vision was impossible in the torrential downpour. Only by his reflexes did he miss Dudley's ham-like calf stuck out to trip him.

There on the barren horizon loomed a monstrosity. Harry had thought it unique and run-down from a previous trip, but he'd formed that opinion in the safety of a locked car. Now that he considered having to live in such a place, a misplaced dread shivered up and along the nerve endings that sensed danger (i.e: when Dudley planned to sit on him). Harry touched the lightning bolt-shaped scar on his forehead, a self conscious gesture that belied a nervous habit.

"No lazing!" his uncle yelled over the gale force winds. Aunt Petunia and Dudley were already inside, dry and not needing to lift a finger. Harry, almost blown away, was expected to remove luggage from the trunk and floor of the car.

Drenched and congested, Harry hauled the last of the family's personal effects into the foyer. His eyes were stinging from the winds and the water from his hair trickling down. He was so cold that his glasses fogged up at once.

His trainers sloshed on a rug that had seen better and drier days. The movers had already left. All of their boxes were cluttered unhelpfully into a living room that was already heavily furnished. Most of these would probably end up in a landfill, if Aunt Petunia's appraisal of the worn furniture was anything to go by.

The TV would probably go first, as Dudley had already put his foot through it.

"I WANT SAMURAI PIZZA CATS!" Dudley howled. Though Harry was just shy of ten, he was glad the movers hadn't been privy to Dudley's tantrums. He was embarrassed by Dudley's lack of restraint, to make up for his oblivious aunt and uncle.

Conditions only worsened when Uncle Vernon had attempted the number to a pizza place. The phone cord, it seemed, had been chewed by rats.

"Just wonderful," Aunt Petunia muttered as she peeked into a fridge. "Mold and beets. Terrific." She turned on her heel and glared at Harry and handed him some quid. "Go to the store we passed and pick up bacon, eggs, bread, and juice."

"And cookies!"

"And some brandy," Uncle Vernon muttered, after looking at the bills that had been wedged on the fire place.

"I have to go out in that weather?" Harry exclaimed as the ground seemed to rumble under their feet.

"No dallying or buying treats for yourself," Vernon grumbled at him, his mustache twitching as he frowned deeply at his nephew. "Not a toe out of line."

Harry gritted his teeth and stomped out to the hall, trying to will his body not to catch sick. A door he hadn't noticed creaked open. Inside was a pair of yellow boots and a rain coat that looked to be the right size. They looked like they wouldn't have fit Dudley five years ago. Knowing that Petunia would never buy something so happy and yellow, Harry felt no pangs in his conscience to put them on before going out into the storm.

It was quite one thing to get a short list of groceries on foot and then by car. He himself was extremely hungry and barely had the effort to dredge through the mud. The cashier seemed concerned about his unaccompanied purchases, but Harry evaded his questions and hurried back to the Pink Palace Apartments.

He was truly grateful for the warm boots and the coat when he returned. Somehow, the house seemed chillier than before. A strange draft pervaded the hallway despite Harry's emphatic locking of the door, as though something breathed in the walls. Harry also thought he could hear the chattering of mice, and thought that maybe that was it.

Despite the best efforts of the storm, the Dursleys had not suffered a black out. Despite the best efforts of Harry's imagination, Dudley had not been electrocuted when he'd knocked the TV fully on to the floor.

"I'm bored, bored, bored," Dudley droned, then his piggy eyes landed on the bags of food hanging limply by Harry's arms. Petunia immediately took those away from him and ordered him to clean up.

Thank God she hadn't made him cook after that walk, although standing next to the stove didn't seem a bad option.

"What was that ghastly thing you were wearing?" she asked him when he'd changed into slightly soggy and cardboard-smelling clothes. "You didn't buy it with my money, did you?"

"I won't have a thief in this house," Vernon was starting in on him, too.

Dudley quieted, his eyes still fixed on the box of mini-donuts Harry had bought.

"I found it in a closet," Harry said, his fists curling in his pockets. "I think it was from someone who lived here."

Petunia shuddered delicately. "Toss it out. That tacky thing. Who knows if you've got lice or fleas on you now?"

Harry went up the stairs and immediately hid the coat and boots under the little cot they'd set up for him. The little bit of change he hadn't bothered giving back to Petunia jingled lightly. He put his hand in the pocket, and discovered a mysterious piece of paper.

Before reading it, Harry locked his door and turned on a lamp. The smell of bacon and eggs permeated the house, so he didn't worry about Dudley barging in. It's just that a part of him knew that he'd made a discovery that would change him. This was private.

He opened the paper and frowned because it was written in pencil and quite hard to read. In faint ghostly etchings, he could make out the words:

"Once upon a time, lived Coraline,

Blue of hair, and awesomely divine,

Who did not want buttons on her eyes.

The Other Mother insisted and devised,

Three Wonders, a trap, and many lies.

The Key and the Hand lurk well and by,

Beware The Doll, her spy in disguise,

And listen to Mr. B's mice as they advise,

You, do not pass, through little door.

Eyes, soul, spirit, yours no more.

Oh, and Why-Were-You-Bourne helped, I guess.

And the Cat after being a pest."

None of it made sense, but it sounded terribly like an adventure, with friends, both of which were strictly punished at Number 4 Privet Drive.

Stomach grumbling, Harry pocketed the treasured slip and went to the smell of bacons and eggs, though he expected that all that Petunia saved for him was the dry toast.

With the thunderstorm and Dudley howling about the lack of cable and the toast sitting like cardboard in his mouth, Harry decided that he was rather looking forward to more discoveries.

A/N: Wanted to do a decent crossover for HP x Coraline. May or may not go anywhere. Let your imaginations run wild on this guys. Don't own a thing.