Story title: Copied

Rating: M

Disclaimer: Harry Potter is not mine.

Prologue

My name is Harry. But that is all I know of that. I do not know my parents and asking never gets me anywhere good. So I've stopped asking. My name is Harry and that is all I am. I am nothing to nobody. I live on a farm in the middle of nowhere, far from any civilization either magical or muggle.

I don't know how I came to be here, or why I am here. Mostly the people who run the farm ignore me. Except when they decide to discipline me. I have lessons each day with my teacher, I get a new one every year. I don't mind them so much, some have been nasty, some kind. Sometimes it's easiest when they are nasty. When the kind ones leave I always feel cold and lonely, its something I am still not used to.

I have one friend called Sarah; she came to live here when I was five and she was eight. The owner of the farm, a man whose name is never mentioned, adopted her. Her parents were killed in a war that she was not supposed to tell me about. Murdered by a man whose name she could not tell me.

She was taught and kept separate from me. We both got punished if we were seen together so our friendship is a secret one. It is also the most precious things that I have.

I do not know much of anything in the outside world, what I do know was told to me by Sarah when she felt brave or wanted to make up with me after a fight.

I always listened to what she told me though it was never whole or enough. She told me things like wintertime is when people decorate trees and that in spring people eat lots of eggs. But she was too scared to tell me why. I had been taught about where people come from but it was Sarah who told me about families. It was then that I started to wonder about mine. She never told me their purpose, only that they are the people related to you, she told me about mums and dads and sisters and brothers. Parents. Sometimes I dream about what mine might look like.

I have been a bit curious about them since the moment I learned that they were out there from my teachers. But since Sarah told me about families it has become an obsession. I dream about them in my lessons and when I do my chores. I dream about them in my sleep as well.

When I was eight and Sarah was eleven she taken away from me. I have heard nothing of her since. No one will tell me what has happened to her. I tried running away to find her. I did not get far. There are wards around the farm and guards that patrol. At first my punishments were not bad. But one day they whipped me good and hard and then locked me up in one of the basement storage sheds for a week. That was when I gave up trying to leave. But I have never given up on Sarah. She is my friend and the most precious thing that I have ever had, even though she is gone.

I am eleven now and my new teacher is yet to arrive. He is late, much latter than usual. I have had no lessons for a month. I am beginning to wander if the same thing that happened to Sarah is going to happen to me. I always dreamed of leaving and finding my family, but suddenly I find my self frightened at the thought. I have never been away from the farm. I do not know what is out there or what the world is like. I don't want to leave any more. But I don't think I can stop them from taking me. My only wish is this, that wherever I end up, I will be reunited with my friend again and maybe – maybe I will find my family.