When Harry was six years old, the boggart appeared.

(He later found out that she was, in fact, only distantly related to the boggart, but her defences were like enough that most wizards couldn't tell the difference ... right up to the moment that Riddikulus failed.)

He was lying in his cupboard, stripped down to his pants on his stained old crib mattress, wishing and wishing for someone to play with. It was evening in July, one week before his seventh birthday, and Dudley was playing with friends in the garden. Their voices came through the open window, and a bit of sunlight leaked round the edges of his cupboard door: sunlight, and the smell of a summer breeze.

I wouldn't care what my friend looked like, Harry thought fiercely. His thin yellow blanket was twisted in both hands; it was close and much too warm in his cupboard. I wouldn't care whether they're a person, or an animal, or even a monster …

He knew all about monsters from movies on the telly. When Dudley was away on playdates or sleeping safe upstairs, Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon would watch whatever they liked, and sometimes this included monster movies (for Uncle Vernon) or very confusing soap operas (for Aunt Petunia). The monsters sometimes roared in a way that echoed with sadness, and then there was gunfire, followed by men speaking in solemn voices about abominations and freaks of nature not meant for this world. Harry felt very sorry for the monsters, and for himself.

But now he was not feeling sorry for himself – he was wishing as hard as he could, bending all his energy toward a single thought, a tiny point of light in the dark. I want a friend, one that Dudley can't scare away. A real friend that's just mine. Any friend at all.

Even a monster.

In the darkest, dustiest corner, something stirred.

###

As the light faded, he realised something was wrong.

It happened too quickly for sunset. When Harry sat up, he saw a black mist building like thunderclouds, blocking even the cracks in the door.

His jaw dropped, but he was suddenly too scared to make a sound.

You wished for a monster, and a monster appeared. He nodded at this very reasonable thought. Be polite and introduce yourself.

"Huh-huh-hullo," he said. "I'm Harry James Potter. I'm almost seven years old. Who are you?"

The mist seemed to pause, then suddenly whooshed and swirled. A green light shone out, almost the same vivid shade as his eyes.

"Wow!" Harry said. He felt a moment's primal terror – the green light, the light that flashed like fire and then the pain – but shook his head and resolved again to make friends. He was six-almost-seven years old, his memory of that terrible night was very hazy, and the most important thing was that he could see again.

The light hung there for a moment, as if confused, and then whooshed again. This time it took the form of a playful wind. His yellow blanket danced up from the mattress, and Harry watched as the creature seemed to gather itself underneath.

"Don't destroy it, please," he said, suddenly worried. "I haven't got another."

The creature twirled, fanning out the ragged hem like a fancy dress. It was the blanket he'd been wrapped in as a baby, the only comforting thing he'd ever owned.

Harry laughed – quietly, so as not to disturb his aunt and uncle.

"If you really like it, I guess you can keep it. It's summer anyway."

The green glow faded. In the light from the door, Harry saw that the creature had sort of bundled itself underneath his blanket. It appeared to have a base, or possibly a single foot, with claws all around. It had found (or torn) two holes in the weave and was peering through them. Its beady black eyes held a gleam of intelligence – and, Harry thought, friendliness.

"You are a wonderful monster," he said sincerely. "What's your name? How old are you?"

The monster jumped up beside him on the mattress. He felt its very slight weight, and saw those midnight eyes lift to meet his.

I am Mimikyu, it thought. Its voice reminded him of dried rose-petals, dusty and dry and still lovely. I don't know how old I am, or how I came to be here. But I want to be your friend.

"You do? You really do?"

More than anything. And do you want to be my friend?

"More than anything," Harry said, his green eyes glowing (literally, although he didn't know this). "I will always be your friend."

Mimikyu set one dark claw, very gently, on Harry's arm. We will always be together, it thought firmly. A spark jumped between them, tickling, and then winked out.

"I promise," Harry said. "Um … what do you eat?"

His worries that he might not be able to feed his new pet proved unfounded. Mimikyu assured him that so long as Harry was careful to express his feelings, both good and bad, then she would have plenty to eat, and that this wouldn't hurt him. (He'd asked his new friend if it was a boy or a girl, and she told him she was female. He promptly named her "Mimi," which made the little Mimikyu twirl in her blanket dress before snuggling up to keep watch as he slept.)

At his new friend's request, Harry snuck in a handful of blackberries from the garden, looking away politely as Mimi painted a cheerful face on his old blanket. His friend had told him that she didn't really like to be seen, and that if Harry hadn't been so special, he'd have fallen sick from his brief glimpse of her true form. Harry didn't know about that – how could a freak who lived under the stairs be "special"? – but was very grateful not to get sick. Aunt Petunia gave him medicine when she absolutely had to, but he still had to do his chores, even with a fever.

When he looked back, Harry saw that his friend's dress was crowned by a blackberry-juice lightning bolt, just above the eyeholes. He couldn't help grinning at that.

"You look so pretty," he said, and Mimi bobbed happily.

The summer flew by. Harry loved talking to Mimi, who sometimes responded (if he was making eye contact) and sometimes simply listened. He told her all about his days, and she never seemed bored or impatient. When Dudley bruised his arms, Mimi would set her cool claws gently on his skin and make it better. When his hands blistered from working in the garden, she would burble angrily while dabbing his tears with a corner of her dress.

On July 31st, she hummed "Happy Birthday" and did a funny little dance to make him laugh. It was the happiest birthday he could remember. The happiest day he could remember, excepting when his friend first appeared.

And then, on Halloween night, Uncle Vernon opened his cupboard and discovered Mimikyu.

They'd talked about this. What to do, if Aunt Petunia or Uncle Vernon or even Dudley happened to see her.

(Stay very still. Pretend to be a ragdoll. Hope they couldn't see her for the shadows.)

Unfortunately, when Vernon opened the cupboard, she was comforting a distraught Harry. He'd just learned (from Dudley) that his parents' drunken, fatal car crash had happened on Halloween.

Mimi was sitting beside him, her shining black eyes fixed on his, saying I love you, Harry, and you know we're friends forever, even if your parents are gone, I'm always here, when Vernon threw the door open with a crash.

"BOY, IF YOU PUT ONE TOE OUT OF – HOLY MOTHER OF MARY! WHAT IS THAT THING?!"

Mimi shrank into Harry's side, and he curled his arms around her. He was a small boy, small enough to sleep on a crib mattress with room to spare, but she was smaller still and he had to protect her.

"It's just a stuffed animal, Uncle Vernon. I made it out of my old blanket."

Uncle Vernon swore. "Give it here, boy!"

Harry froze.

"I SAID, GIVE IT HERE!"

Then three things happened very fast:

Mimi rose into the air, spinning like a miniature tornado.

Uncle Vernon shouted "PETUNIA!" and Aunt Petunia skidded into the hallway, dressed in an absurd pink dress and purple crown for Beggars' Night.

Harry grabbed for Mimi and succeeded only in pulling off her makeshift dress, revealing her shifting form to his aunt and uncle.

(And all hell broke loose.)

###

He hadn't known, before, that Mimi's true form (which looked something like an oily black cloud) could shift quick as thought into whatever vision would best defend her.

For Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia, she took on the form of a man with a very long, white beard holding a long, white stick. When she brandished the stick, Harry realised it must be a wand, because red sparks flew out of one end and a spell shot out.

Aunt Petunia shrieked and dodged, dropping her own pink plastic wand. (She seemed to be dressed up as a good fairy, which Harry thought was pretty rich.) Uncle Vernon made a sound like a wounded bull and tried to charge toward Mimi, which meant running straight into the spell.

Ropes lashed around his body instantly, like a spider wrapping an especially juicy fly. They were so thick that Harry could hear him gasping for air, and it was impossible to see where the ropes began or ended. He wobbled for a moment, off-balance, and then crashed face-first into the cupboard, banging his head on the floor.

Aunt Petunia was screaming, and Uncle Vernon seemed to be knocked out, and Dudley was thundering down the stairs – and then the owl arrived.

It flew in through the open window by the garden and dropped a piece of paper on Uncle Vernon's back. Harry leaned down, fingers trembling, and unrolled it.

He couldn't read all of it, but the words "use of magic" and "by your house shortly" were easy. It seemed to be written with a real ink pen, and the paper was nice and crinkly.

The doorbell rang.

Mimi had shrunk quietly back into her dress. Aunt Petunia was kneeling by her husband, checking his pulse and yelling for Dudley to call 999. In her panic, she'd forgotten that earlier that day, her clever Dudders had busted up every telephone in the house (as well as the vacuum cleaner) to make his robot costume.

"I'll get it!" Dudley yelled back, and stomped to the door.

Before Aunt Petunia could stop him, he'd opened it and let in two people: a tall, handsome black man with an earring (Harry was instantly impressed) and a rather frightening older white man with an eyepatch and a wooden leg. At first Harry thought, quite naturally, that this must be a pirate costume, but there seemed to be a chunk of flesh missing from the man's nose, and the leg was very realistic, and how would you fake a missing leg, anyway?

"Mr. Potter," the handsome younger man said gravely, walking right up to Harry's cupboard door. (Aunt Petunia had dragged Vernon to the hall carpet and was desperately trying to untie him; the younger man casually waved his hand and the ropes fell away, leaving his uncle gasping.) "It's an honour to meet you at last."

"Quiet, Shacklebolt," the older man snapped. "You'll be wanting his autograph next. We're here to investigate the unauthorised use of an Incarcerous charm, in the presence of Muggles – great Merlin's ghost, what in blazes is going on here?"

He even curses like a pirate, Harry thought.

"Is this – tell me this isn't where Harry Potter sleeps," the older man said. He craned his neck to read a crayoned sign on the wall. "'Harry's Room.' Oh, sweet Circe's bumcrack."

"Moody," Shacklebolt hissed. "Children present."

"How did you cast it?" Moody demanded, swinging abruptly towards Harry. "It must have been accidental – you don't even have a wand. But accidental magic doesn't register with the Ministry …"

"Mimi did it, sir," Harry said. He didn't know why – perhaps it was the obvious outrage Moody felt on seeing his cupboard, and the way both men clearly knew him by name – but he felt as though he'd better be honest. "She's my best friend. She didn't mean to break any rules."

Both men stiffened. "There's a witch in the house?" Shacklebolt said.

"No, sir," Harry said, confused. "She's not a witch, she's just Mimikyu."

Mimi crept out from behind his back. Her blanket bobbed in a timid curtsey, and her painted mouth smiled.

Shacklebolt swore under his breath. "It's a magical creature," he said. "Moody, you ever seen anything like it?"

"No-one knows what a boggart looks like, when it's at home," was the older wizard's cryptic reply. "Well, Mimi, were you trying to protect young Harry, here?"

"If you look her in the eyes, she can talk to you," Harry offered.

Moody squinted suspiciously. "Shacklebolt, attempt communication via Legilimency. I'll cover you."

He drew out a wand, and Harry's eyes widened.

"You're witches?"

"Wizards, son," Moody said. "So're you. Knew your parents, I did, and they were two of the best –"

"I forbid you to say another word!"

They'd all forgotten Aunt Petunia. She stood, eyes glittering with rage, and pointed at Moody with one long, bony finger.

"You take that freakish talk out of my house, and the boy with you for good measure!"

"Ma'am," Shacklebolt said in a calm, rolling voice, "I know this has been a stressful evening, but surely you can see it's not Harry's –"

"I never wanted him in the first place," Petunia said viciously. "My dear sister certainly never would have left him with us. We didn't even get the will, just the boy – dumped on our doorstep like a basket of kittens. Take him and tell Dumbledore we're moving house, no forwarding address. I'll not risk anything like this happening again."

The odd name seemed to alarm both men. "What does Dumbledore have to do with anything?" Moody demanded. "The Ministry determines child placement and foster care, not the Wizengamot and sure as hell not the Headmaster of Hogwarts."

"This is the first I've ever heard of your Ministry," Petunia spat. "The boy came to us with a letter from Albus Dumbledore, saying we had to take care of Harry or else we'd be hunted down by insane dark wizards, Death Greeters or Death Cheaters or whatever silly name they call themselves." (Dudley looked simultaneously thrilled and terrified.)

"That can't be right," Shacklebolt said.

The adults kept talking as Harry, ignored for the moment, gathered his things together. They made a very small pile: a few broken toys that Dudley hadn't missed, his favourite crayon drawings, a piece of schoolwork that his first-grade teacher had marked "Terrific Work, Harry!" with a smiley-face sticker that Mimikyu loved, and of course Mimi and her blanket. He held her on his lap, something she allowed only when he was feeling very anxious or frightened, and they waited to see what would happen next.

He didn't just feel scared and overwhelmed. As he hugged Mimi, and she patted his wrist gently, Harry felt a bright tendril of hope. He might leave Privet Drive. Today, six years after his parents' death, he might actually be rescued. He felt, for a moment, as though he could almost hear them, as though a thick veil had parted briefly to allow their voices through.

"Stay strong, Harry," his father whispered.

"We love you so much, my darling," his mother told him. "Only hold on a little longer."

###

He was on his way to the Ministry for Magic.

Aunt Petunia had been adamant: Harry must go. Shacklebolt and Moody had put up only a short fight, Moody distracting his aunt and uncle with loud, arm-waving expletives so that Shacklebolt could take a few surreptitious photos of his cupboard. Harry didn't mind, although he was a little embarrassed by his mattress. The sheets didn't fit right and a few stains were always visible. Even though he was seven years old, he still wet the bed sometimes. Since he was allowed a single bathroom break before getting locked in every night, Harry felt strongly that this wasn't his fault.

They passed trick-or-treaters in the street, dressed in fantastic costumes, and Harry couldn't stop grinning. He'd never been out on Halloween before, although Dudley had shown off pictures of himself with his friends, all dressed up. And of course he'd seen the tremendous hauls of candy, dumped out and lovingly sorted before disappearing into Dudley's room, never to be seen again.

"Arrr, matey!" a small girl yelled at Moody, and the wizard flipped up his eyepatch in response. Beneath it, a wild blue eye rolled and spun. The girl screamed and ran, orange witch-heels tapping down the pavement as Moody guffawed.

They had to go through a turnstile to get into the Ministry, and a little machine spat out badges as they entered. Shacklebolt (whose first name was "Kingsley") read his badge aloud, at Harry's request: "Harry Potter – Emancipation."

Once there, the Aurors (as Shacklebolt described himself and Moody) were at something of a loss. Minister Bagnold wasn't in – not surprising, as it was now well past eight o'clock – and failed to respond to her Floo (whatever that meant). Shacklebolt sent her a letter by barn owl, allowing Harry and Mimi to see him write it out with a quill pen before tying it onto the patient bird's leg, and they all waited in his office for awhile before giving up for the night.

"You can come home with me, if you like," Shacklebolt said. "I live with my sister, Reina. She just graduated Hogwarts last year and went right into Healer training. She keeps late hours, but I know she'd be pleased to meet you."

Harry nodded, unable to keep himself from yawning. Mimi, too, seemed quite tired, her little dress drooping against his arm.

"I can keep Mimi with me, right?"

"Of course," Shacklebolt said firmly. "I wouldn't separate you from your friend."

She let out a little purr, and Moody jumped. At his nudge, they moved slightly back from the boy and his familiar.

"Good wards on your house?" the old Auror asked his partner, frowning thoughtfully at a half-asleep Harry.

"The very best," Kingsley replied smartly. "My father's business is custom-made wards, and his father's father, and so on down the bloody pureblood line. Hence the name 'Shacklebolt.' You-Know-Who himself couldn't break 'em."

Moody grunted. "Just remember: constant vigilance. It's not out yet that we've got Harry Potter, but it will be. Likely a tracking charm on the boy that's outside Ministry regulation, if I know Albus."

"If Dumbledore put protective charms on him," Shacklebolt muttered, "I have to wonder, why didn't they go off when his relatives shoved him in a cupboard for six years?"

"That's a damned good question," Moody said. "I'll be sure to ask him myself."

###

Harry slept on the long cab ride to Kingsley Shacklebolt's house. When they finally reached it (the driver's startled "Thank you very much!" awoke him), he stumbled up the walk to the red front door.

"We're in Kent," Kingsley told him as they went inside. "It's an easy floo to St. Mungo's for Reina's work. My parents live just up the street."

There was a neat little guest room, all made up with blue striped sheets. Kingsley (who had invited Harry to call him by his first name) set out a wicker basket with a pink silk pillow for Mimi, who settled in without even opening her eyes.

"I've got a Quidditch tee that would do for pyjamas, if you don't have any," he told Harry. "Bathroom's through there, and I'll set out a spare toothbrush. Let me know if you need anything – my room's right next door, and Reina's down the hall."

He disappeared before Harry could stammer, embarrassed, that he'd never slept in a bed and wasn't quite sure what to do. When Kingsley returned with the T-shirt, he found his young charge asleep on the floor by Mimi's basket.

"Poor kid," he murmured. "All right, up you get."

He lifted Harry in both arms, noting clinically that he was clearly underweight, and put him to bed. He opted to leave the T-shirt on the pillow next to him, rather than attempting to undress and redress a traumatized child he'd just met, and turned out the light with a wave to Mimi. She lifted her head and waved a claw back at him. He closed the door with an absurd feeling of gratitude: that the Boy Who Lived was safe, tucked away behind some of the best wards in the wizarding world, with a vigilant friend at his side.

Author Note:

This story is a WIP with several chapters completed. The story will remain Gen, although it will span several years (not sure yet about goal word count, as I'm still seeing where the story goes), since it's a gift fic for BrilliantLady's daughter. My own young children also love Pokémon, and since pre-TV Mimikyu is one of their favorites, I'm using a less-creepy/frightening version for this story. (She's also been tweaked, power-wise, to fit in the HP 'verse a little more smoothly.) Thank you for reading, and I appreciate all of your reviews!

Note Two: Updated to correct the formatting (hashtags instead of asterisks to mark section breaks - asterisks vanish without a trace).