I was six when I first met them...well I guess that technically I didn't really 'meet' them, at least not face to face, as it was more of meeting them in my mind...I just realized that makes me sound crazy. Great. Let me explain this...but how? Oh! I know just how!

~Flashback~ 'September 23, 2004' *Age 6*

I winced, biting my lip to keep any sound from escaping, as Aunt Petunia used the pair of scissors to cut my hair. If I made any noise I would be punished and she would make this hurt more. It wouldn't have been bad, if she wasn't going as close to my scalp as possible all the while causing a lot of pain and I was most likely going to have scars after this. Although I was sort of looking forward to seeing how she tried to explain the haircut and cuts all over my scalp. I was pretty sure she was doing it purposely as painfully as she could without seeming like she was. She had gotten mad, or annoyed not sure which, at my constantly messy hair that doesn't ever lay flat or even change if I brush it, and decided to deal with it by cutting all my hair off. I'm going to hate going to school tomorrow with my new haircut. I think the worst part is she wasn't cutting my bangs, something about not wanting to see my scar, so it will make me look even weirder.

If I had any friends I would probably be even more embarrassed to go to school tomorrow, but my cousin Dudley made sure I didn't. He and his little group of friends, or morons as I called them in my head, would go after anyone who even talked to me so after the first few times the other kids in our class realized that it was safer to stay away from me. Although they never made fun of me, well at least the ones who tried to be my friend at first, and would even send me sympathetic looks when Dudley and his morons bullied me.

It didn't help that all the teachers had been told that I am a problem child or something like that, so they never believed me when I came to them. Aunt Petunia or Uncle Vernon had apparently told them that I always lied and things like that. I hated it because one time I had come to school with a bruise on my face and when the nurse, who before that hadn't been told, asked me what happened and I told her she talked to Aunt Petunia about it. Which I don't get at all, do teachers often talk to the adults of children that they believe could be being abused? And...let's just say I missed school for about a week and she never believed me again nor did she seem to find it strange that right after she talked to Aunt Petunia about the bruise I got 'sick.' I'm not sure what they said to make her believe them and not me, even though it was clearly made by a large fist that had caused the bruise. It was after that, that I stopped trying to get them to believe me about the abuse. It would have been useless and would have just caused Uncle Vernon to be really mad and he is bad enough when he isn't.

Besides not having friends, having teachers who thought I was a problem child and having to wear my cousin's old and far too big clothes, I still liked school as I was able to learn new things and I loved learning. I am also very smart, and no that isn't an overstatement, I am very smart and am able to understand things very easily. As well as have an almost photographic memory, which I read about in the school library as Dudley would never step inside one even if he had been chasing me with his morons not a minute earlier. A game that he termed 'Harry Hunting' when we were four. Anyway, for the first few months of first grade that Dudley and I got our first report cards, I of course wasn't going to show Aunt Petunia or Uncle Vernon as I knew they would say I was cheating for getting better grades than Dudley. Which wasn't hard when he got only C's or D's and I got B's or more likely A's. Unfortunately Dudley had to tell them we got out report cards, they were proud of his C's and D's...don't know why...and when they saw my report card, Uncle Vernon had to grab my backpack as I didn't want them to see if, they got really mad and starting yelling at me for cheating and how dare I do that just to get better grades then Dudley. Please an monkey could get better grades than him most of the time. So after that I had to made sure I never did better than Dudley. Even a point better. So as he usually got C's or sometimes D's, I had to get D's and F's. Fortunately they couldn't stop me from learning so I was still able to learn, just not do better than Dudley.

I'm also surprised that they never seem to find it strange that Dudley is really fat, is always in nice clean and fairly expensive clothes while I am clearly far too skinny, have crappy glasses that barely allow me to see any better with them than without and my clothes look like it came off a whale. Or why I suddenly stopped getting really good grades like I used to. Did they think I suddenly got really dumb or something? How do they not see that something is wrong? Well it wouldn't surprise me if Uncle Vernon was briding them since my Aunt and Uncle obviously have a lot of money. They had to with buying Dudley toys about every month. Which included computers, that he usually broke within three months, a bunch of video games for his consoles, he had the newest ones, and a bunch of other things that he broke after about the third time playing with them. And that we had four bedrooms in the fairly large house. One was Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon's, it was obviously the master and was about twelve feet by fifteen if I remember the one time I had to clean their bedroom. They didn't have me do it again because Dudley stole some money and blamed it on me, so they don't want me anywhere near their money. The next room was the guest bedroom which smelt really bad as it was the room that Uncle Vernon's sister Marge used whenever she visited, with her evil dog Ripper. Then their was Dudley's bedroom, which was about the same size as Aunt Marge's, and then his other room that he kept all his broken toys and stuff in.

Yes you did hear, or more of read, correctly. There are four bedrooms and I don't have any of them. You're probably wondering where I sleep...well in the front hallway is the cupboard under the stairs that is about three feet by two feet at the largest and that is my 'room.' That is one reason why I am so small and skinny, and why I have such bad eyesight. It isn't good for your eyes to be in the dark all the time and I also don't get much food. My normal meal, if I am able to finish all my chores, which an adult wouldn't be able to most of the time, I get a piece of bread, maybe a slice of cheese and water for dinner. The only time I always get food is at school because it would be suspicious if I never ate lunch.

On average I had to clean the house, make sure the garden was weeded and watered as Aunt Petunia liked to show it off while claiming all the credit, cook breakfast and dinner and clean Dudley's rooms. Which allowed me to steal some books and tiny toys that he would never even notice had disappeared. The books because, well he wouldn't read even if his life depended on it and the toys because he had so many of them.

Anyway, by the time Aunt Petunia had finished cutting my hair, I was almost crying from the pain and it didn't help that right after Uncle Vernon came over and threw me into my cupboard without even dinner. Apparently I did something that angered him.

I curled up on my little mattress, which I'm pretty sure was from a crib or just barely bigger than that. I had just wrapped my thread bare blanket around my shoulders as I silently cried when I first heard it. "I'm hungry." Came a young boy's voice, causing me to jump and squeak. After which I froze hoping that Uncle Vernon didn't hear that as I would be in trouble if I made any noise and bothered them while they were watching TV. "Someone there?" Came the voice again, but I was too afriad to speak. Both of the strange voice and just making any noise and getting punished for it. "Maybe I was just hearing things." The voice said and sounded like they were leaving, which scared me as I didn't want to be alone even if I didn't know where the voice was coming from.

"Don't go!" I thought desperately knowing it would be too dangerous to say that out loud.

"Who are you?" The voice asked after a minute or so of silence.

"I'm Harry."

"Hi, Harry, I'm Nathan...you can call me Nate though."

"Hi." I thought softly quickly realizing that I could hear the voice...er Nate in my head.

"Are you alright?"

"...Y-yes...why?" I asked hesitantly worried that somehow Uncle Vernon would discover that I was talking to someone in my head. Which did seem strange even for me.

"Because your hurt." Nate said matter of factly and I froze again while listening for Uncle Vernon thinking that he somehow knew what I was doing.

"N-no I'm n-not."

"Really? Then why are you scared, Harry?" He asked and I was unable to ask knowing he was right. "Did someone hurt you, Harry?"

"..."

"I thought so."

"How...h-how do you know?"

"Because I live at an orphanage and one of the caretakers often hurts me too. And I can feel your pain."

"H-how is that possible?"

"How is it possible for us to be speaking to each other in our minds?"

"..."

"..."

"Has this ever happened to you before?"

"No..."

"...Oh."

"Has it ever happened to you before?"

"No...at least I don't think so."

"..."

"..."

"..."

"..."

"...Ow...dumb dog..." Came a second voice and I could feel both my shock and Nate's. Which also made me realize I could feel a faint pain in my leg and I knew that my leg hadn't been hurt in over a week so it had no sense.

"Hello." I heard Nate say after a few minutes of silence and could feel a sudden wave of a foreign emotion like when I felt Nate's shock before.

"Wha...?"

"Hi, I'm Nate...I...I'm speaking to you in your head..." I heard Nate explain somewhat hesitantly.

"How?"

"We're not sure if just happened to us not long ago."

"We're?"

"Oh right. Harry...you should say something."

"...Hi..." I thought after a few seconds.

"I have two voices in my head..." The other boy said confusion clear in his voice...er thoughts.

"Yes...yes you do...but don't worry we do exist." Nate said somewhat chipperly.

"How do I know you're telling the truth?"

"Um..."

"..."

"..."

"..."

"...Oh! I know!"

"...And?"

"Right...My name is Nathan Thomas Johnson, I'm six and I live in America." Nate said and I realized that he didn't have the same accent that I did. I read somewhere that accents often depend on where you grow up so if he did live in America that would make sense.

"Where in America?"

"California."

"How does that prove that you exist?"

"Would you have been able to think of my full name?"

"...No."

"See?"

"So...Harry, was it?" The other boy asked and I nodded before remembering that they couldn't see me.

"Yes."

"Where do you live? And what is your full name?"

"I live in Surrey, Uk and my full name is Harry James Potter."

"Oh."

"What is your name and where do you live?" Nate asked.

"My name is Mathew Phillip Greene and I live in Townsville, Australia. When are your birthdays? Mine is July 31st."

"So is mine!" Nate and I said together.

"Cool."

"..."

"..."

"...So, why are you in pain, Harry?" Nate asked and I felt a same wave of shock and...something else coming from Mathew when he asked that.

"...I...um...my...um..."

"You can tell us, Harry, we won't tell anyone." He said and Mathew quickly agreed with him.

"My Aunt Petunia got tired of my messy hair as it never lays flat so she cut is off and she cut my scalp many times. She only left my bangs as she doesn't like looking at my scar. And after she was done, my Uncle Vernon threw me into my cupboard."

"Cupboard?" They asked together, both sounding angry. But instead of feeling scared like I usually am, I felt protected for some reason.

"It is my bedroom...my aunt and uncle always said that I was a burden and they took me out of the kindness in their hearts after my parents died in a car accident as my dad was drunk driving. Although whenever Aunt Petunia said that, it doens't seem true."

"So because they took you in, they make you sleep in a cupboard?" Nate asked sounding even angier.

"That's what they always said..." I said yawning.

"What time is it there, Harry?"

"I'm not sure...I know it is after eight at night though."

"You should get some sleep, it's late for you." Mathew said sounding a bit happier than he was ealier. "I have to get to sleep soon too."

"Plus we could talk tomorrow." Nate said a smile in his voice.

"...Alright...night, Nate, Mathew." I said yawning again.

"Night, Harry." They both said before the link closed and I fell asleep. Not realizing that while we had talked, my hair had been growing back and the pain had faded.

~End Flashback~

Every night and throughout the day Nate, Matt and I talked to each other. Learning about the each other and comforting each other when it was needed. It seemed all three of us had fairly similar lives. Nate lived at an orphanage that while normally was save, a few of the 'caretakers' were rather abusive to the children who weren't 'normal' to them. Nate was one of the and the way he was treated at those times seemed just like how Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon treated me. Matt on the other hand lived with his adoptive mother and her new husband. His adoptive mother was really nice by what he said, but her husband was very mean and he liked sicking his dog on Matt. Like Aunt Marge did with Ripper. Only less harsh as with Matt, his adoptive mother would get angry when that happened and had threatened to get the dog put down, or at least sent to the pound. With Aunt Marge and Ripper, Aunt Petunia, Uncle Vernon and Dudley all found it funny when Ripper attacked me.

Over the next five years, Matt and Nate decided for whatever reason that while we all had the same birthday, they were older than me which made me the baby brother. I always pretended to be angry when they called me that, but in reality I liked it as they always made me feel safer our link was open even if they couldn't really protect me. The best they could do, and often did, was take most of my pain through the link and divided it between them so I wasn't barely in pain. Even the few times that Dudley or Uncle Vernon had broken a bone before I was thrown back into my cupboard.

We also shared things we learned in school, most of which was identical, but some things like history wasn't so we got to learn the history of three different places at once. We even sometimes had the link open during class, but since Nate lived in America it was difficult since usually while he was at school Matt and I were either asleep or getting ready for bed.

We were eight, and it was just over two years since we first 'met', that we discovered that all three of us weren't as odd as we thought. All three of us had, had strange things happen around us. Like when I turned my teacher's hair blue, when I my hair grew back that night I first met Matt and Nate, how I somehow ended up on the school roof when running away from Dudley and his morons and other things like that. Nate and Matt had similar things happen to them, only a bit more often than I did, which was odd. Anyway Matt had been given a talk by his adoptive mother when she witnessed one of the strange things that happened to him. If I remember correctly he had thrown his adoptive mother's husband's dog across the yard and into the fence when it tried to attack him. He was told that he was a wizard, she had to prove it to him before he realized she wasn't joking, and explained the wizarding world to him. Which he of course then told us.

He was also told about the wizarding schools for when he, we, turn eleven and all three of us were annoyed and slightly depressed when he was told about the schools. Apparently the main wizarding school for Australia was The OutBack Magical School. For America it was Salem Academy of Magic which was in New York and for the UK it was Hogwarts. Which Matt had read about, telling his adoptive mother that he wanted to know about all the schools and not just the ones in Australia, and discovered that it wasn't nearly as good as Salem or OutBack.

I realized that was most likely the school I was going to have to go to if I wanted to learn magic, so we decided that we would continue to share lessons like we did now so we would be well rounded and so I wouldn't be too far behind them.

Now it was a week away from Dudley's birthday, which meant I was going to Mrs. Figgs while they went to the Zoo or something, but that also meant my birthday wasn't too far behind and soon I would be off to the magical world.