The power of friendship

I've never written anything like this, but I've read fanfiction. This idea sort of came to my mind, and I couldn't resist. I'm not a native English speaker and I don't have a beta reader, so there will probably be some errors in this. I'm willing to continue this, but as I'm attending university, updates will be weekly – or at least, that's my goal. I'm planning to continue this until book seven, if I make it. Anyway, enjoy the first chapter!

Harry didn't like school. It wasn't that the subjects where hard or something, or that he found it to be boring like most of his classmates. On the contrary, the breaks where the worst. Because then Dudley and his friends ruled. And Harry was their favourite punching bag – if they caught him, for Harry was thin and small of statue, but fast. Today would be no different. Not that it had been any different, ever since they could walk. Dudley's parents, Harry's uncle Vernon and aunt Petunia Dursley, did encourage Dudley sometimes, though they never hit him themselves - save his aunt's frying pan every now and then, of course, but he always ducked it. Because of this, Harry could never connect with his year mates. As the bell rang and Harry walked into the school building, he wondered what chores he would have to do this week (as it was a Monday, he would get a list he should finish before weekend, and he knew better then to argue or worse – not to do them at all). He eyed Dudley carefully when they walked through the corridor, making sure to keep his distance, with the ease that comes with experience. He looked forward to going to school without Dursley, but that would have to wait until he turned eleven, and he was only seven now.

They all came into class and greeted their teacher, miss Jennings. Harry didn't like her (like all teachers, she saw what Dudley did and did nothing or worse, thought it was all his fault, no matter how many times he told them it was not). She didn't like him because she knew he wasn't "working up to his potential" as she called it. He didn't tell her what would happen when he did how the Dursleys would punish him for being better than Dudley – not that would be hard. Nobody would ever care for him, and it wasn't too bad, or at least not worse than an orphanage. That was what he kept telling himself, every time he was locked up, alone in the dark of his cupboard. Today's routine was interrupted with a polite knock on the door, and with that the headmistress entered. She accompanied a young girl, with short black hair and a pair of rectangular glasses. She was rather short of statue and rather thin, but not unhealthy thin. Her eyes looked at him, and he stared into a pair of light-blue orbs, watching him and everything else with sharp interest. The headmistress introduced her as Jane, originally from south-France. Miss Jennings tried to point her a seat in the front of the class, but she just shook her head and sat next to him in the back of the class. Harry noticed that during the welcome speech she hadn't said a single thing. Maybe she was shy. He turned his attention back to the math lessons miss Jennings was teaching.

Harry was trapped. As per usual, Dudley got bored during the break at noon and sought out Harry. He hadn't been paying attention, wondering why the girl would start the term in November and, more importantly, why she hadn't been verbally answering miss Jennings questions but instead wrote the answers down in a red book and showed it. And now, he would pay dearly for his mistake.

"Been thinking, freak?", said Dudley. "Staring at that girl in class, eh? She is not your deal, though. Wouldn't want to be associated with you. After all, your own parents drove drunk because you're such a piece of…"

Of what, they would never know (but Harry could guess), because the girl had not only managed to appear out of the shadows, but also had pinched Dudley on the nose. Shaking her hand calmly, she looked at him and dared him to get up. Dudley decided to stay on the ground and moaned. She pulled a blue book and wrote something, then showed Harry: "Don't listen to him. He's sprouting nonsense, though I do have the impression that's a habit of his… Jump aside when you're finished reading, if you would be so kind?". He wanted to ask her why, but at the same moment, she turned around with an annoyed face. Dudley had signalled to his friends to get her, while she had been distracted. Harry decided to clear the path for her, as she had asked, but stayed nearby. He didn't know anything of fighting, but maybe he would have to be a fast learner. The girl – Jane, he remembered - seemed unfazed at Dudley and his three friends, slightly cooking her head to the side. Pierce made his first move and tried to punch her, only thing he missed and fell onto his face. The other three now charged, but Jane ducked, placed a few fists here and there and took Dudley out seemingly without effort. The other two backed off and ran when she moved towards them. Snorting, she turned to him, and wrote: "You haven't answered my question".

"I'm fine. How did you know that?", he asked. Experience, she wrote back.

"Thank you. I'm Harry Potter.", he said, while wondering how exactly she had gotten experience in this, without voicing the question.

Jane was writing: "nice to meet you, Harry Potter."

"Nice to meet you, too, Jane.", he answered.

He looked up and saw a teacher approaching (for the life of him, he couldn't remember her name, as she was new in the school). Dudley's friends were behind her and Harry bit back a groan.

"What's going on here?", she asked, eyeing the scene before her with a strange look on her face. It was a strange sight, Harry had to admit. Dudley and his gang were rarely beaten, not because they were so good, but because nobody tried to fight them of. He noticed Jane raising her hand, as if to answer a question in class, and gesturing to her red book again. She was writing fast it appeared and showed the book to the teacher.

"So, they insulted you, miss Davidson? And when mister Potter tried to intervene, Dudley stepped wrong and fell on his face? Is this true, mister Potter?", she asked, now frowning outright. Behind her back, Jane was nodding, so he played along.

"Then why do these two here tell me that you attacked them, miss Davidson?", she asked. Jane was writing again, showed it to the teacher, who nodded and dragged the boys of for their punishment. Based on the look on Dudley's face, he would regret this, but for now he only felt joy. For once, Dudley would be punished… But why? What had she told the teacher? He decided to simply ask, and she showed him. She had written that they had tried to lure her into a fight, by insulting her late parents, that Harry had stepped in between, that Dudley had made a move but fell. Underneath that, she had written that she, a small girl in a big new school, in a country she didn't know, wouldn't want to make a fight on her first day.

"That's true, though. You have made an enemy today, Jane", Harry said.

"He won't come after me. And besides, I will not let anyone get beaten while I can help it.", she wrote.

"Your name doesn't sound French to me", Harry said suddenly.

"The headmistress said that I moved from south-France to Britain, not that I was born there.", she wrote.

"Why don't you speak?", he asked curiously.

"Because I'm grieving.", she wrote back after a hesitation.

The bell for the end of the break rang.