Harry dragged his torn, wet schoolbag with him into the bus, ignoring the disapproving look of his head teacher and the grumbling of the driver. It wasn't his fault that Dudley and his gang had decided to hang Harry up on the fence of St. Grogory Primary School right before the time of departure, so the adults might as well have minded their own business as far as he was concerned.

The boy cast a quick glance at his classmates, already seated comfortably in their seats, munching on sweets that the Dursleys would never have bought him. Not that he minded that in particular… more so the fact that Dudley and his lovely companions had managed to alienate everyone their age who would have tried to befriend Harry. At this point, the green eyed boy was nothing more than a target, and who would be stupid enough to share that fate with him? No one even remotely sane for sure…

He took the only empty seat left, next to the quietly snoring Tim. The other boy was probably the next up on Dudley's list, right after Harry.

The engine, which had been on stand-by until that point, roared into life once again and the yellow school bus pulled onto the road, fighting against nature's obvious dislike for its intentions, namely the heavily pouring rain. Harry would have gladly done without soaking to the bones, but knowing that he would dry up at some point, it was no longer a concern. Some of his classmates whined that they could not see a thing outside, but as for him, he couldn't have cared less. What counted for most kids as adventure was nothing more than another day of survival in the company of his cousin. There was no winning, no matter what. So what if he couldn't see the scenery passing by? Did it matter at all?

He reached for his bag, which had enough water oozing from it to make a decent puddle under his feet, and unzipped it to see how badly the contents were damaged. The notebook he had been required to bring seemed beyond saving and the boy let out a groan at the thought of uncle Vernon learning about it. As for the food, Petunia had packed him some of the stalest bread she could find in the house, wrapping two slices around a questionable piece of cheese. Never mind being unappetizing, Harry wondered whether it was even fit for human consumption. He shrugged, guessing that if it was a class trip, then even his aunt wouldn't risk landing him in hospital with food poisoning or some really severe diarrhoea. On a second thought… well, she just might have.

Harry was just about to shove the sorry excuse for a sandwich back into his bag when a thought occurred to him. Spending a few days in a hospital sounded much better than staying with his relatives, and frankly, eating the slightly miscoloured cheese suddenly didn't even seem like such a bad idea.

'...my cake…' mumbled Tim next to Harry in his sleep, making the bespectacled boy jump a bit. Harry had no idea that his plump classmate had talked in his sleep up until then. Oh well. This was going to be such a fun ride…

Roughly an hour and a half later the bus came to a stop, somewhere seemingly in the middle of nowhere. The teacher ushered them all out into the still pouring rain, telling the boys and girls to put their raincoats on, or at the very least use an umbrella. Harry glanced at the remnants of his raincoat covering his normal clothes. Some of the holes torn by the fence were big enough that his head would have comfortably fit through them, and the boy had seriously doubted that it would do much good to protect him from the rain, but who was he to argue?

As he passed the teacher near the door, she grabbed his shoulder and held him firmly in place.

'You, my boy, will not be causing any trouble today, am I right?' she asked in a tone that resembled anything but a question. Harry acknowledged her threat and answered with a 'no, miss Harper'. She didn't seem convinced at all.

'If I catch you climbing anything again…' she said as her final, looming threat when she let the boy go. Harry had no idea what that was even about. A week earlier he had tried to duck behind some rubbish bins, and all of a sudden he found himself on top of the chimney. He had literally no idea how he got there, but any answer he could have given ('it was an accident', 'I don't know either', 'um, magic?') would have gone into one ear and out the other when it came to adults. He knew that reasoning with them about things that even he couldn't understand was ineffective ever since that incident when he had turned a teacher's wig blue.

The students were instructed to follow their Arts and History teacher, Henry Browning, a stocky man with a ridiculous neon yellow umbrella. While some of the students poked fun at the man and his odd choice of accessory, Harry, and some of his classmates with glasses were thankful for being able to follow a bright blob at least. In his case, the glass was even a bit cracked, so really, the umbrella was much appreciated.

'This, kids, is the…' the teacher started, sounding really eager to teach the bunch of eight year olds a lesson about whatever they were going to see.

'Out of the way!' Dudley yelled and shoved the unsuspecting Harry aside, who landed ungracefully in a nearby puddle. It was only thanks to his (recently improving, thanks to a certain bully) reflexes that he managed to avoid falling face-first into it by breaking the fall with his hands. His clothes were beyond saving though, covered in a mixture of rainwater and fresh mud.

He heard snickering, but didn't bother to look for the source. For one, he had a very good idea who they were, and there was the additional factor of wearing cracked, water streaked and slightly dirty glasses. Besides, he really didn't fancy looking at Dennis, Malcolm or Gordon more than necessary.

Miss Harper took a sharp breath, making a very irritated whistling sound in the process, then informed Harry about just how unsuitable his conduct was, and that he should have been banned from taking part in that trip. For once, Harry agreed with her. Even the cupboard would have been better, provided that he got a break from Dudley.

'At the very least try to keep up,' she said sternly, then walked away, telling the students to take their notebooks out. Harry suppressed a very angry comment about how she should try to be a little more fair when handling her students. While she might not have given Dudley the extra treatment some of the others did, miss Harper still seemed ready to blame Harry just as much as any other teachers did given the opportunity. She probably believed in the theory of Harry being a little troublemaker who would grow into a hooligan of some sorts if not handled strictly at an early age. Except Harry wanted nothing more than to be left alone, by the teachers and Dudley's gang alike. Apparently he was asking for too much.

Harry tried to wipe some of the questionable substances off his glasses, but without much luck. His sleeves were about as wet, if not worse by then. Giving up on the whole thing, he shoved his glasses back on and tried to make out whatever the class was supposed to be looking at.

At a safe distance from the path designated for tourists lay a bunch of grey rocks, some of them on their own, while others were placed on top of standing ones. Harry recalled those shapes as what he had seen in his books under the name of 'Stonehenge'. Truth be told, he had expected something more impressive, but then and there, it was just him, a bunch of other kids, a group of Chinese tourists completely ignoring the weather, and a bunch of stones in the rain. Wiggling his slowly numbing toes in the wet sneakers (the Dursleys would never buy him a waterproof one) all Harry wished was for their teacher to stop talking and to go somewhere warm and dry. His thoughts were slowly drifting from bits of information about astrology (or whatever the Arts teacher was talking about) to the warm heating panels in the school library. Oh, wouldn't it be nice…

Then suddenly the pale boy shuddered, and it had nothing to do with his wet clothes or the cruel weather. For a split second he felt something unexplainable, something he had never felt before, yet it seemed so natural, so inviting as if the feeling had been one with him from the start. There was no mistaking the source; it came from the direction of the giant stones.

Whether he did something strange like moving from one place to a different one as he did back in school or simply just walked over without paying much attention, Harry didn't know, but he suddenly found himself in the middle of the inner circle of rocks.

It took him quite a few seconds to realize that it wasn't raining anymore. Taking his glasses off, and attempting one more wipe, he noticed (even if his vision was still a tad blurry) that the rain hadn't actually stopped, it just… avoided the inner circle of rocks. He let out a small 'wow' sound upon realizing that. Now that was odd; he certainly didn't remember anything like that from the geography books.

'What the…' he heard an unfamiliar voice coming from the right and he turned his head that way. A boy with light hair was standing there, with what seemed like a large, black book in his hand. Well, Harry guessed that it was a boy anyway, because of the voice, but it might as well have been a she for all he knew. His vision was far from the best, after all.

'Um,' Harry managed to say, and mentally kicked himself for not being able to come up with much more. He really sounded every bit as pathetic as his cousin saw him, which wasn't exactly a thought he would have wanted to dwell on. 'Hello…'

'Hello…', the stranger across him answered in a slow, deliberate tone, as if sizing Harry up to see if he was a threat. It was a laughable thought, really, when was Harry ever a threat to anyone?

They stared at each other for a couple more seconds before the light haired stranger moved closer. Standing just out of arms' reach of Harry, this time he could see the other person more clearly. The boy had blond hair, skin just as pale as Harry's and he wore some really strange clothes that reminded Harry of the play his class was taken to see in a local theatre last year.

'What are you doing here,' the boy grunted, sounding irritated… or maybe there was something else to his tone, but Harry couldn't quite understand.

'I don't really know…' Harry answered honestly with a shrug, 'I just sort of found myself here?'

The answer he got was an amused sort.

'Found yourself here, huh? Nice try, but I won't believe you. No one crosses these barriers just like that, I know that much.'

He sounded proud, smug and arrogant as he spoke, but there was something hidden in that confidence, a wish to prove himself, most likely, that reminded Harry a bit of himself. He had tried to prove that he was worth something for so long, being an excellent student and always trying his best at school, about until last year when he had finally given up. This boy though… he hadn't. Well, that was his first hunch anyway, but Harry quickly reminded himself not to dream up anything that could shatter any moment. He had learned his lesson about trusting people or expecting much of them already, yet he kept finding himself hoping to connect to someone…

Better stop that train of thought before it's too late, right?

'Barrier? Um, you mean the fence by the road?' Harry asked with a quizzically raised eyebrow 'there is actually another way to get here, you know.'

'Not the fence, you fool,' the blonde said, stomping on the surprisingly dry ground, taking his irritation out on a poor, innocent patch of grass. 'The magical barrier around the stones! There are charms around it to keep those muggles from wandering inside or seeing us, obviously.'

Alright, never mind the unknown word (what on earth was even a muggle?), the blond had just said something about magic. It would have been easy to write it off as a childish game, he had seen many kids his age pretending to be wizards and warriors in the name of fun, but this stranger in front of him… Somehow Harry got the feeling that the other boy was not joking about this – in fact he seemed like someone who would laugh at anyone playing such a game, yet there he was, talking about magic.

'Yeah, magic,' he repeated impatiently, and only then did Harry realize that he must have actually said some of his thoughts out loud.

'Um…'

'Don't tell me you can't feel it. This place is full of magic. It's not the kind we use, just an ancient, weaker one, but magic nevertheless. What, you didn't know that?'

Know-it-all tone aside, Harry had just heard this boy talking about magic in the most serious way possible. Something was certainly going on. He had to take a closer look at those stones…

The green eyed boy took his glasses of, deciding that he wouldn't need it anyway for observing the stones up close. Walking up to the closest one, he leaned towards it to the point where his nose was almost touching the grey surface, trying to see if there was any indication of it being magical. There wasn't.

'What are you even doing?' came the question of the other boy who sounded a little shocked, but Harry ignored him in favour of keep examining the stone. He laid a hand on it, wanting to feel the surface. Where it should have been cold to the touch, it was almost lukewarm, and laced with something… invisible, but it was there, he could feel it. Something was moving under his fingertips, and he brought his hands back to his side with a very confused expression on his face. Just how…?

Could this place actually be… magical? Did such a thing exist? What if...

His thoughts returned to the physical word when he noticed a hand waving up and down in front of his face like a windscreen wiper. His eyes focused on the white fingers first, then on their owner.

'Um, you said something?' Harry asked seeing the stranger up close for the first time. Ten inches away, he could finally see the more detailed features of his new acquaintance. The other, slightly shorter boy had a sharp nose and a pointed chin as well as sleek white-blond hair… but more than anything, the cold grey eyes stood out. Harry had never seen anyone with such a shade, or more like he hadn't seen anyone with grey eyes that weren't dull, but shone with intelligence. It was a bit unsettling, if he wanted to be honest with himself.

'…one more time. I can't believe you!'

'Sorry?' he tried, refocusing his attention on whatever this stranger was saying. He didn't seem to have much patience left from the looks of it.

'Oh in Merlin's name wha-', he stopped in the middle of saying what was sure to be a string of swearwords, then took a breath and levelled his glare at Harry. Being at the receiving end of that was kind of scary, actually.

'I was saying that you should have felt bursts of magic already, airhead,' the blond explained, clearly running out of patience at an alarming rate.

'I'm not really sure that…', Harry began, but he couldn't finish his sentence, or rather; there was no one to listen to him. The grey eyed boy who had been talking to him until then suddenly disappeared, and then started waving at him… standing at the bottom of a very different stone. Oh how glad Vernon and Petunia would be if they learned about him hallucinating about teleporting elementary school students! That would finally give them the right to lock him up in an asylum or something similar. Come to think of it; it might really have been better than living in Privet Drive…

'See?' the blonde yelled smugly, his former irritation giving place to enormous pride 'I can do this. I bet you could too if you tried. Well, not as well as me, but…'

As the other boy trailed off, Harry closed his eyes. He could do that too. Those words kept ringing in his head as he thought back to that incident with the chimney. If what he had seen just then was real, bizarre as it may be, then he would have an answer to many strange things happening to him…

Willing himself to be at the feet of the stone across him, Harry concentrated with all his might to shift places. When he opened his eyes, nothing had changed, so he gave it one more try. This time around he appeared right in front of the other boy. Coming face to face with the stranger so suddenly, Harry let out a frightened scream that would have put their school's leading soprano to shame. The blond boy did just about the same, both of them taking a step back. In Harry's case it meant stumbling and falling on his rear, while his new acquaintance hit his head hard on the ancient rock behind him. Both of them spent the next few seconds hissing in pain and rubbing their aching body parts.

'You know what, don't do it again', the blond grumbled after a while once he looked at Harry.

'Will not', Harry agreed fairly easily. As wonderful as it was to discover such a talent of his, he didn't want to risk any accidents, and especially not harming someone who knew the answer to many of Harry's questions.

'So… what are we?' the black haired boy asked, for which he was awarded with a look that could not be misunderstood. The shorter of the two basically had 'you are an idiot' written all over his face at that moment.

'What are you even talking about?'

'Um, teleporting?' it sounded stupid to his ears, and apparently the blond shared his sentiment because he didn't seem impressed with Harry's level of intelligence.

'Tele-what?'

'Teleporting,' Harry repeated dutifully, although not gladly. There was really no need for more humiliation that day.

'What's that?'

It was Harry's turn to look baffled. Really? How could any boy growing up watching cartoons not know about that?

'Changing places… at will, you know,' he tried tentatively, 'just appearing somewhere else. Like you just did.'

After a few agonizing moments, realisation seemed to hit the blond.

'Right. You mean apparating… well, almost apparating anyway. We need a license to do that later but the Ministry doesn't do anything about it before you get enrolled at Hogwarts so you can get away with it until you're eleven, actually. Not that they bother sharing this, it's only important people like my father who know.'

Harry was starting to feel extremely out of place now. Apparating? Hogwarts? Had it been anyone else, he would have assumed that they were just talking gibberish to pull a prank on him, but the grey eyed boy had just teleported from one place to the other – like Harry himself! It was unbelievable to have finally found someone who was the same kind of weird as him. Then it wasn't just Harry being a freak, there must have been others too, right? One person at least, who was currently standing in front of him, seizing him up for some reason…

'What in Merlin's name are you wearing?' he asked in a condescending tone which hurt a lot more than it should have.

'I… my raincoat got caught up in something…' Harry mumbled, not exactly eager to tell this stranger (if he could still call him that anyway) how Dudley's gang had their way with him early in the morning. It was embarrassing enough to live through that, there was really no need to talk about it as well.

'A rain-coat…', the shorter boy repeated, scrunching up his nose. 'Are you kidding me?'

'No,' Harry answered simply.

'There aren't any clothes for rain. You just put a water repellent charm on your robes, everybody knows that. Only stupid muggles would-' he abruptly stopped talking at that point, his body language shifting from moderately relaxed to an almost fighting-stance like posture.

Harry had no clue what a muggle was (or a water repellent charm for that matter, the last water repellent thing he had seen were uncle Vernon's working shoes that he once threw after the boy), but it didn't sound like a good thing.

'Don't tell me you are,' the blond all but hissed and Harry immediately shook his head fervently, raindrops falling all over the place from his still wet hair.

'I'm not!' he insisted, and hoped for god that it was true, because his new acquaintance didn't seem to like them.

'Better not be,' Draco grumbled, but he seemed a bit more relaxed, 'I don't think any muggles would be able to walk in here anyway. And you've just shown me you can do magic too. Yeah, now that I think about it, you can't be one of them. No way.'

So he wasn't a 'muggle' then. It was probably a good thing, he decided when he saw the blond relaxing at the latter thought. Besides there was this talk about magic. As unbelievable as it normally sounded, it explained a lot and Harry was tempted to believe it. Aunt Petunia had always called him a freak anyway, but even if he was indeed one, then at least he would be proud to say that he had… some strange powers. And more than anything, he was not alone.

His gaze fell on the leather bound black book laying forgotten on the ground.

'What were you reading?' he asked curiously. The other boy walked over to the object and picket it up, dusting it off a little.

'The history of the Black family.'

'Okay… is it any good?' Harry tried. He wasn't exactly great at small talk, since Dudley made sure that no one their age would actually talk to him when he tried to initiate a conversation.

His answer was a look of utter disbelief on the other boy's face.

'Are you serious?'

'…yes?'

'If you're going to tell me now that you don't know who the Blacks are-'

'I don't,' Harry answered truthfully, and very quickly because he really had no intentions to hear what the other boy was about to say in case he didn't know. 'Well, I know a lot of Blacks by name, but I'm not sure which one you are talking about. It's a really common surname, so…'

'No it's not!' the other boy protested, 'it's an ancient, noble family! Blacks are purebloods, got it? One of the most ancient and the purest bloodlines in wizarding Britain! There's no way you could mistake them for anyone else!'

Harry was lost for words. Not only was this boy stating his opinion in a way that would have put any screeching politicians at the height of their campaigns to shame, but he was also talking about something that seemed… somewhat ridiculous. Harry couldn't risk telling him that tough. Who knew if he would make it out alive if the glare directed at him was any indication. Dear god, what a glare that was! If the blond had Dudley's build as well, Harry would have made a run for it immediately.

'Alright,' he tried a neutral tone. 'Got it.' No, he didn't, which was apparent for both of them. 'So you are reading this book about them because…?'

'My heritage, of course,' the boy said, head raised so high up in pride that Harry had to suppress a laugh at the sight. This boy was quite something. And apparently… a Black?

'So… your last name is Black then,' Harry concluded.

The blond boy was so different from any kid their age Harry had seen, that the last thing he would have expected of him was to facepalm himself, yet there the Black heir (?) was, doing just that.

That was the moment Harry knew that he had said something really stupid.

'You're unbelievable,' the shorter of the two groaned, 'obviously there is no underage wizard with the surname Black. Where have you been living until now, under a rock?!'

'More like stairs,' Harry murmured, confusing his companion for a moment.

'Huh?'

'Never mind that,' he said quickly, refusing to describe his pathetic sleeping arrangements to this person, 'who are you then?'

'A Malfoy, obviously,' came the immediate answer. The boy raised his chin high up again haughtily, waiting for a strong reaction from Harry that never came.

'Okay.'

A few seconds of silence followed before any of them spoke up.

'Are you telling me… that you don't know my family?'

'Nope' Harry answered, shaking his head. This time barely a few drops escaped, his hair slowly drying, but he was obviously concerned with something more important than that.

The expression on the blond's face went from affronted to angry, followed by hurt, confused, and settled for something resembling concern, probably regarding Harry's sanity. It happened in a flash though, and may or may not have been Harry's imagination.

'You mean it, huh?'

'Yeah' Harry shrugged, 'this is the first time I hear that name. Sounds foreign too.'

'Well aren't you a strange one…' Draco said absentmindedly. 'That, or as stupid as a gnome…'

Harry had yet to see something called a gnome, but decided that he didn't like the insult. It must have shown through his bright green eyes, because the other boy seemed to flinch a bit when looking into them.

Serves him right, Harry thought, for calling me that.

'Anyway, how old are you?'

Harry was a bit surprised at getting a normal question for a change, one that he was actually able to answer, so much so that he started to wonder if there was a trick in it.

'Eight,' he answered curtly, to which the other boy nodded.

'My age then. We will start Hogwarts at the same time. Unless I go to Durmstrang and you to Hogwarts… Do you know where you will go after elementary school?'

Harry shivered at the thought of the most dreaded high school in town.

'My uncle wants to send me to Stonewall High.'

It was Draco's turn to be perplexed.

'Stonewall High? Never heard of that one. Must be even worse than Hogwarts then. My father keeps saying that the headmaster has finally lost it, so I should go to Durmstrang instead'

Harry blinked at him, trying to understand what the other boy was going on about. Hogwarts? Durmstrang? It truly sounded like gibberish, but he seemed so serious about it…

'What are those muggles doing?' the blond asked abruptly. Harry followed his gaze, finally seeing his teacher, Miss Harper and Mister Browning running up and down in a frenzy, in the middle of what seemed to be a brewing storm. The sky had turned dark by the thick clouds and Harry had a sinking feeling that it was him they were looking for. Oh shit. Just how long had he been talking to this boy?

He really would have liked to stay and ask a lot of things, but if he waited until the adults gave up, then there was no way he could make it back home alive. Interesting as the stones may have been, it did little to change the fact that Harry's food was – unfortunately – located in Little Whinging, so he actually had to go home at some point, no matter how much he hated his relatives.

Reluctantly though, but knowing what he had to do, Harry turned to face the other boy.

'I have to go. It was nice to meet you… um, Malfoy.'

Having said that, he started running, not even giving a chance for the other boy to respond. As he reached the invisible barrier, he felt as if something cold had seeped into his veins all of a sudden – and it had nothing to do with the pouring rain that could finally soak him without the magical protection.

Miss Harper saw him from a few feet away and started screaming at him, but Harry really didn't care. Tuning her shrill voice out, the boy glanced back in the direction of the stones. Malfoy had either hid very well, because no blond hair was peeking out from anywhere, or the barrier could do a little more than repelling rain. Whatever the case was, Harry found himself relieved that at least the other boy would not get into trouble. Not that he would not be able to get out of it, he reminded himself later as he was practically shoved into the school bus. It seemed that he was not destined to use that certain vehicle in any presentable state.

The class was supposed to stop at Salisbury for a little sightseeing (and no doubt, another history lesson) but the teachers decided to head straight home instead, given the upcoming storm.

Harry spent his ride home shivering in his wet clothes (the raincoat apparently didn't help too keep water out, but did a marvellous job at keeping it trapped inside) and he found himself wondering if whatever repellent thing Malfoy talked about was actually a better solution than that. Of course not getting hung on the school fence might have helped too.

Or…

… teleporting very far away from Dudley. A thought was forming in his head already.