Chapter 1

Author's Note: This is my second fanfic, but only my first shot at using the non-magic world as a setting. Also, I'm English born and bred, so my knowledge of American life is a little, er, shaky, so bear with me.

"Same crap, new year," Harry Potter muttered irritably, staring into the mirror at his scruffy black hair, which as always refused to lie flat. Bugger. It was September 7th, the first day of another school year. It wasn't his favourite time of year. Judging from the crashing coming from down the corridor, his younger sister wasn't too delighted either. It was funny; she was famously smart, but hated school with a passion.

"Harry! Debbie!" Harry turned away from the mirror as he heard his mother Lily yelling from downstairs. "If you guys want breakfast that isn't stone cold, get down here NOW!"

Reluctantly, Harry abandoned his endeavours with his hair, and went downstairs. He wasn't surprised to see he'd beaten Debbie to it; his sister usually needed yelling at several times before she did as she was told. He sat down and started on his breakfast.

Several minutes later, Lily was losing patience. "Harry, will you get your sister down here please?"

Harry stood up and went to the foot of the stairs. "Debbie, your breakfast's getting cold!" There was a pause. "Get your ass down here!"

"Harry!" His mother reprimanded him as he sat back down at the kitchen table. "Language, please..."

"It works, though, doesn't it mom?" Harry grinned as he heard Debbie coming down the stairs.

The Potter siblings had mixed feelings towards each other. At times, they bugged the hell out of each other. They had a strong siblingly bond, but sometimes California just wasn't big enough for the both of them. It was a shame, Harry contemplated, that they had to attend the same school. Minster High was, fortunately, big enough to contain both of them while avoiding close proximity, but they had to travel in the same car.

And this was exactly what they found themselves doing half an hour later. Debbie was mercifully quiet for once, and Harry found time to think about seeing his friends again. Now starting their sophomore (is that right?) year, he, Ron and 'Mione had been friends since kindergarten. That was, he calculated with the speed of a tortoise on sedatives, 11 years. Yeah, they'd met when they were 4 or 5, and now they were 15. He'd seen them both over summer break, but 'Mione had been in Tahoe for the last week, skiing. And there were other people he would shortly be seeing again. Melfin for instance... he cringed. He wasn't looking forward to seeing her again. Melfin was a girl in his class who he had been dating up until a few weeks ago, when he'd broken up with her. She was bloody strong willed. She hadn't liked letting go, and seeing her made Harry want to flee the country, but he'd known her since kindergarten so he had to make some sort of effort to remain on peaceful terms with her. Oh well. Take the bad with the good.

When Harry arrived, he went straight to his homeroom, on the second floor of the main building. He entered to find both his friends already there. 'Mione had shocking panda eyes from a week of ski goggles, and Ron's hair was redder than ever due to the sun. They spent a long time talking; it wasn't long since they'd seen each other last, but they could always find something to talk about.

Harry and Ron couldn't help noticing that several of the guys in the class were eying up 'Mione; she had grown up quite a lot over the summer vacation. She was wearing a shortish skirt she wouldn't have dreamed of wearing last semester, and a tight red T-shirt with 'Heavenly' written across it in silver. The two boys had done a bit of a double-take at this before realising it was the name of the ski resort she'd been to. Harry smiled to himself as he noticed Ron's none-too-subtle efforts to make it clear that 'Mione was his. The two of them were a close couple, and 'Mione would never have given any other guy a second look, but Ron could get jealous at the drop of a hat. At times, their closeness bugged Harry; he spent a lot of the time feeling like the metaphorical third wheel.

Eventually their chat was broken off as their homeroom teacher swept in. Ms McGonagall was one of the best teachers in Minster High for making dramatic entrances. The best was, of course, Snape, the evil Chemistry teacher. This morning though, their attention was diverted to the person who entered behind her.

The boy was about 5' 10" and slender. He had straight blond hair that fell into his grey eyes, and looked a little apprehensive. He looked painfully conscious of the fact he was on show; the whole class was sizing him up. He looked OK actually, not too bizarre, not too boring. He was wearing pale jeans, scuffed sneakers and a black T-shirt.

"We have a new student this year," Ms McGonagall explained briskly. "I'll allow him to introduce himself."

The boy looked as if he wanted the ground to open and swallow him. "Um, hi... My name's Draco Malfoy. I just moved from Connecticut with my mom 'cos of... just because. My dad lives in Canada." He shuffled slightly awkwardly. "So, that's me." He looked at the floor.

Ms McGonagall then saw fit to release him. "Mr Malfoy, take a seat..." She looked around the room, her eyes eventually lighting on the spare seat next to Harry. "Over there please, next to Mr Potter." Harry smiled encouragingly as Draco came over and sat down. Ms McGonagall then took roll call and handed out timetables. The students quickly started to talk among themselves.

Harry turned to his new neighbour. "Hi, I'm Harry." He held out his hand and the blond boy shook it. "And this is Ron next to me, and 'Mione. So, why did you say you moved here again?"

Draco smiled slightly. "I didn't. Um, I had some problems at my school in Connecticut, and then my mom and dad split up..."

"Sorry." Harry said quickly. "Nosy question."

Draco smiled a genuine smile. "It's OK. Hey, what lesson do you have first thing?"

Harry looked down at his timetable. "Geography with Mr Lupin. You?"

Draco looked at his own timetable. "Same! OK if I walk with you?"

"Yeah, sure. I think 'Mione and Ron have got that lesson next too, right guys?" He spoke to his friends as they both manoeuvred their chairs round to make conversation easier.

They both nodded.

The day passed reasonably uneventfully. Harry was pleased to see he didn't have Chemistry till Friday (today being Tuesday), and it transpired that Draco was in all his classes. Melfin spoke to him at lunch, but it wasn't an in-depth conversation. She seemed as reluctant to bring up their break-up as Harry was.

At 3.30, Harry and Draco walked out of the gates together.

"You waiting for your lift?" Harry asked.

"Yep. I'm guessing you are too." This received a nod from Harry. "I never did finish telling you why I moved, did I?"

"You don't have to," Harry interjected quickly. Inwardly though, he was curious.

Draco smiled at him. "I'll give you the edited highlights. Some bozos at my old school – Wilton High, near Hartford - found something out about me and started spreading it. They even put it on the school's unofficial website, I think it's still in the archives, and things got kind of unpleasant. And my mom and dad had just split, so we came here. My mom got a job in Minster and my dad moved to Quebec. That's basically it."

That evening, Harry was in his room, seriously bored, when he remembered what Draco had said about the website. If it was archived, it would still be on there... He didn't want to betray Draco's confidence, but he couldn't help wanting to look. Before he had time for second thoughts, he switched on his computer, logged onto the internet and started looking for the site. It didn't take him long to find it, and he began looking through the Archive section. This part took longer. More pages, more gossip... It had to be here somewhere-

"James! Harry! Debbie! Dinner's ready!" Harry's thoughts were interrupted again by Lily's voice from downstairs.

"Coming mom!" He switched off the computer, already feeling guilty. He shouldn't have done that, and he wouldn't try it again.

"Harry, can I use your computer please?" Debbie asked him after dinner. "I have homework to do, and I need to use the net."

"OK," he agreed. He could stay downstairs and watch TV for a bit. Granted, he'd left the website address on his Favourites list, but his sister wasn't that nosy. He had his mother's flair for nosiness; Debbie took more after James.

A/N: R & R! Cookies for those who do! Hope you like, and please feedback: how's my American stuff? Draco is totally OOC by the way, but it's a parallel universe, I can do what I want. Do you want Debbie to find out Draco's secret? (I think she will anyway, but do you guys want to know yet?)