Author's Note: Hi guys! Just bear in mind during this chapter that, however intelligent Harry may be, he is still only eight years old so if he seems to be acting a bit childishly, its because he is a child. Thanks so much to those of you that took the time to write reviews. It makes me really happy to read them:)

so, without further adieu, here 'tis...

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It was January 10th, Harry's first day at university. Suffice to say he was ecstatic. His bags had been sitting, ready to go, in the corner of his room for three weeks. With a careless glance in the mirror, the child threw on his glamor with a mere thought and stared back at the brown-headed and be-freckled sixteen-year-old staring back at him from behind large, thick-rimmed glasses which made his already too big eyes stand out even more. He had realized almost as soon as he entered the superintendent's office that he had misjudged his age slightly but, unfortunately, the mistake had already been made and there was no going back on it now.

Mentally, Harry once again went over his checklist. He was all packed up with one suitcase (muggles used these like trunks, apparently) containing his clothes and other personal items and the other holding the essentials. True, he had a photographic memory, but there was just something about the feel of holding an actual book in his hands... Deciding which ones to leave behind had been one of the most difficult decisions in his eight years. Of course, the ones he did choose to take with him had had to be disguised. He had cast a glamor over them to make them appear to be the complete works of Charles Dickens, a British author, several of whose works he had read (and greatly enjoyed).

Harry Potter took his bags in his hands and, with one last glance in the mirror, turned on the spot and silently reappeared on an abandoned street several blocks from his new school.

Finally, after feeling as though he had signed his life away, Harry came to the door of his dormitory and read the sticky note, haphazardly slapped onto the wooden frame: Eric Meyer, John West, and Harry Evans.

Harry had been a bit hesitant about using his real name. The old man Dumbledore had come to the house multiple times since his first visit and had given the younger Potter twin several calculating looks that had disconcerted the child a bit. But, all that aside, the Potters had never truly been a family to him, not since Lily died at least, and choosing to go by his mother's maiden name was a way for him to get a fresh start in life.

So it was that Harry Evans, formerly known as Potter, opened the dormitory door and stepped across the threshold into his new life.

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In their defense, Eric and John did not really know what to make of the no-older-than-sixteen-year-old kid with huge glasses and shoulder-length hair that they found sitting idly on the bed when they entered their dorm room. Being from the same town, they had driven in together and, much to their annoyance, spent the majority of the morning filling out paperwork.

Needless to say, they wanted nothing more than to collapse on their beds and fall asleep. But, when they got to their room, they saw that their new roommate had already arrived and, on closer inspection of the book he had laid down upon their entrance, seemed to have been thoroughly engrossed in Great Expectations.

Harry looked up hopefully and a little nervously when he heard the handle turn. He had arrived several hours early and had gotten out a book on the theory behind the unforgivables to pass the time. As he waited though, the book was not able to hold his attention as it usually did.

Would they like him? That was the question of the hour. No one had ever seemed to like him before. But then, Aaron had always been there. These muggles knew nothing about Aaron so perhaps they would see him, not as the lesser of two twins, but just as Harry. He could hope, couldn't he? He gave a shuttering sigh and, closing his book, raised his eyes to the door to see what would happen.

"Hi", Harry started weakly. "I'm Harry. I'm guessing that y'all are Eric and John?"

"Eric", Eric replied lightly, indicating himself, "and that's John."

There was a brief spell of awkwardness before John tried "So, you like Dickens, huh?"

"Oh yes!" Harry responded enthusiastically. Perhaps a bit too enthusiastically as it caused both Eric's and John's eyebrows to shoot up but, Harry, in his eagerness to escape the awkward silence, did not seem to notice and went on. "I really admire his writing style. I mean, so many books are just plain, simple sentences which I guess makes sense seeing as it is not really necessary to add flourish and elegance to books when they're only meant to inform people about things, but Dickens. His sentences go on and on forever until you completely lose yourself in the midst of his words and completely forget about everything around you."

It is, perhaps, a tribute to Harry's otherwise lacking social skills that he decided to stop there. By this time, the eyebrows of the other two college students were completely invisible beneath their hair and a smirk was beginning to form across John's face.

"Oh really." John spoke, his voice light but with a biting sarcasm barely concealed beneath, "Is that how you feel about it?"

"John", Eric warned softly, knowing his friend's short temper and that this kid was probably just nervous being younger and everything.

"Oh its alright Eric. He's fine. So how old are you anyway kid? 13? 14? I'm surprised they let you come here without your mom. Or is she staying next door?"

"Umm." Harry started, looking down at his hands. "Actually, my mom is dead."

"Oh, I'm so sorry." Eric said. "We had no idea."

"That's okay." Harry responded, a small, childlike smile creeping onto his face. "I know that she loved me very much."

John choked and Eric had to hit his back to get him to breathe again. "So, umm. Do y'all want to pick your beds. You can have this one of course, if you want it. I just preferred being closer to the window." Harry said in an attempt to dissolve the tenseness in the room.

"Umm, yeah. Thanks. I'll take the one in the middle." Eric replied, eyeing John as he did so. While he doubted his friend would actually go so far as to hurt the kid, they were going to be spending the entire semester together and John and their new roommate had not hit it off well at all. It was better to put as much distance between the two of them as he could before things could go any farther downhill.

As the two older boys started unpacking their things, Harry turned back to his book to let them settle in. In all, he thought, things had not gone as terribly as they could have. True, John appeared to be a bit temperamental, but Eric seemed nice enough and, after all, it wasn't as though they really had to love each other. They were there for the teaching and the books. Where they slept did not really matter all that much.