Authors note: Just a reminder that I don't own Harry Potter.
"This is speaking while signing."
'This is just signing.'

Prologue

We had been friends since third grade. Dudley thought he ruled the school but no one could rule Natania. It was a Saturday and I was weeding Aunt Petunia's yard when she came and hid behind a bush in order to talk to me. "Do you like to garden?" She had asked me without even saying hello.
I didn't even look at her, fearing what the Dursley's would do if they saw me 'slacking off' I kept doing my job. "No." I murmured. Somehow she understood what was happening with that one word.
"I want to be your friend." She stated. "You understand why we have to do it in secret though right?"
I kept weeding. "Yes." I knew what would happen if the Dursley's found out I had a friend, if I was ever loved.
"Do you ever get any free time here?" She asked me quietly.
"After dinner," I said a little unsteadily. I was excited and scared. She was the first person who had willingly spoken nicely to me. She said she wanted to be my friend and somehow she knew that we had to keep it a secret, somehow she seemed to guess what my life was like. "I am to stay outside from five thirty to eight, if I am not back on time the doors are locked and I will sleep outside."
I could almost imagine her smile. "Meet me at the corner by number ten, as soon as you're let out. Then we'll decide how to trick everyone."
Uncle had given me a beating for not cooking quickly enough but at five forty-five I was out the door and running towards number ten. I had told her five thirty, had I missed my chance to have a friend?
I reached the corner and quickly started looking around. No one was there. Sighing I sat against the tree and stared at nothing in particular, I knew this was too good to be true.
"Psst!" I heard someone hiss. "Hey, up here!" I looked up and there, in the tree, sat Natania. Her wavy blond hair fell in her face as she looked down on me. "Get up here, we have to talk."
I looked up, I had never climbed a tree before and my new bruises would make it really painful. "Oh never mind," She sighed as she saw my hesitation. "You go to the park and sit in the tunnel, no one should be there now. I'll come by in a few minutes so that it doesn't look like we're going together."
With wide eyes I followed her instructions. We talked and planned for hours, we each knew exactly what we were supposed to do to keep our friendship secret. I slept outside that night but I didn't notice the fall cold. It's amazing how warm your first good memory can keep you.
The next day at school Natania and her friends had taken up their own version of Harry Hunting. Where Dudley and his gang went for physical pain Natania and hers went for emotional. It hurt but every time the girls started walking away Natania would throw me a smirk what no one noticed was that I would return it.
"No one will think of your worst enemy actually being your best friend." Natania had said, making it sound like I had more than one. "We'll fool the world Harry!" She laughed. "Just think of every mean thing I every say to you as a message for your cousin, you can tell him when you move out."

Our friendship grew, we learned each other's secrets and we met every day possible. She was rich and ignored. I was abused and neglected. Sometimes we were so different and sometimes we were just the same but no matter what we never left each other, we would always support the other in the end.
I remember when I became deaf. Uncle Vernon had thrown me down the stairs and I hit my head. I was out for three days. When I told her I thought she wouldn't want to be my friend anymore but her and I learned sign language together. She wasn't going to let a tiny thing like hearing break our friendship.

"My parents are trying to get me to be their perfect little heiress again!" I sent her a pity glance and watched as she spoke and signed the rant again. She almost always spoke out loud while signing. "Natania, come to the fundraiser with us, you need to socialize more… Look at this young man Natty darling… Natania do as your mother says… Natania listen to your father… Natania be our perfect angel and have no personality whatsoever, you know what, don't even have any thoughts of your own!" I could see that she ended up shouting the end. "I'm only ten."
'What did they do this time?' I ignored the last part, neither of us were children, we never got the chance to be.
She looked at me with sadness filling her eyes. 'They're sending me to a finishing school in london.' She signed to me. I felt like uncle was strangling me, I couldn't move, I couldn't breath, I couldn't think. It had happened, we were being separated. "I did everything I could but they're sending me away and now you'll be left here with the Dursley's." She started crying and on instinct I reached out and hugged her.
"I'll be okay." I said out loud, not hearing the words I spoke and not even bothering to sign. She didn't respond at all so I made her look me in the eyes. "I'm going to be just fine and I'll see you in the summer. We'll send letters and we'll still be best friends." She nodded but kept crying.
The next day is when I got my first Hogwarts letter. I was sitting in our tree at the park when Natania came and climbed it. We didn't always meet up there, sometimes it would be too hard for me to make it but we would go up there whenever we could.
'You won't believe what happened today.' I signed excitedly. She just stared at me, waiting for me to continue. I wasn't one to talk much but my hands had a mind of their own just then. 'I got a letter! I don't know who it was from but it was addressed to Mr. H. Potter, Number 4 Privet drive, the cupboard under the stairs. After Uncle read it he moved me into Dudley's second bedroom. I saw him screaming, 'I need that room! He can't have it! Make him move!' It was great.'
"No way." She told me. "What did it say?"
I instantly deflated. 'Uncle Vernon wouldn't let me read it.'
She sighed too. "I'm glad you got a real room still I wish we knew what it said." I sighed and nodded along with her before she suddenly perked up. "Let's have fun today."
I raised my eyebrow and looked at her, 'By…?'
"Playing tag." She stated before reaching out and tapping my shoulder. "You're it," She screamed as she dropped out of the tree. We played full on tackle tag until I had to go home.

I don't know what she thought when all of us suddenly disappeared off the face of the planet to hide from the letters but I remember our conversation when I got back. 'I got accepted into a boarding school in Scotland.' I told her the second we met up.
She stopped dead. "The Dursley's are letting you go?"
I grinned at her. 'They don't have a choice, my parents wanted me to go so they made arrangements but you don't even know the crazy part yet.'
She stared at me waiting but I decided to give her a little tease. "Well what is it?"
'It's called Hogwarts,' She snorted, 'School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.' She stared at me as if I was crazy and I started the long explanation of Wizards, Hogwarts and my parents. In the end she started believing that maybe I could be a Wizard. It would explain the Dursley's reaction to anything 'abnormal' and all the weird things that happened around me.

"Good bye," I told her before she left to go to London Ladies Learning Academy. 'Don't let anyone push you around.'
"No one ever will." She promised me.
I reached out and gave her a hug. 'You're always my best friend. No matter what.' "And you're mine you little freak." I laughed at her insult. She decided that it was best to throw in a few more insults every now and then just so that I could tell them to Dudley when I moved out.