Once, when Harry was very young and he was stumbling along behind the Dursleys as they walked to the store, there had been a man on Privet Drive. He didn't live there, and he had worn funny clothes that were so dirty and patched Aunt Petunia had said he must be homeless. Uncle Vernon had said he was a lazy bum who would rather beg than work, and clapped Dudley on the back when he kicked the man.

"Good one, my boy. People like that are beneath you. Like him," he'd said, jerking his head in Harry's direction. The man had begun to look worried, watching the Dursleys with wide eyes. Harry thought he must be afraid of the Dursleys, because Harry hadn't yet figured out that not everyone was.

As they passed the man, Harry muttered a quiet apology, making sure Uncle Vernon and Dudley were far enough ahead they wouldn't hear him. "I'm sorry, sir," he whispered. The man's eyes widened even further, and he watched Harry carefully as he hurried to catch up.

Several days later, an unexpected cold front had come though, and Aunt Petunia kicked Harry out of the house after he burnt the eggs. He was only beginning to learn how to make eggs, because Aunt Petunia said eggs were expensive, and he couldn't be trusted to cook them when he was younger. He'd been so proud that morning, sure he'd do it right and they would like him, sure that being allowed to make eggs meant that Aunt Petunia didn't hate him like Uncle Vernon did. She'd scathingly told him that Dudley was getting tired of having pancakes, toast and bacon for breakfast every morning, and he needed to learn more if he was going to earn his keep. When he burnt them, she pushed him out the door without his coat (which was really Dudley's coat, and if Dudley got cold, sometimes he came and took it back, but Harry got to use it) and Harry went because usually she hit him if he messed up and if Aunt Petunia was in a good enough mood not to hit him, she might let him eat the burnt eggs later, after Dudley had eaten his pancakes.

The man was walking by number four when Harry turned around, but he stopped when he saw him. "Harry," he said. "What are you doing outside without a coat?"

"Who's Harry?" Harry asked. The Dursleys didn't like him asking questions, but maybe the man wouldn't mind. His preschool teacher had called him that, but he didn't understand. He wasn't hairy, Aunt Petunia always shaved it off.

The man looked confused and a little worried. "You're Harry, Cub." He said 'cub' like it meant something, and a part of Harry remembered that it did. 'Cub' meant quiet and story time and feeling even safer than he usually remembered.

"Oh," Harry said, deciding not to argue. It was usually better not to disagree. He reached up and felt his head, though, looking for any hair the man might be talking about. Dudley had way more hair and no one called him hairy.

The man frowned.

"No, Cub, I don't mean hair like on your head. That's your name, Harry."

This confused Harry. Freaks like him didn't get names, only good boys like Dudley got names. He wondered if the man thought he was a good boy and almost set him straight, but he liked being called Cub so he didn't.

"Oh," he said.

The man frowned again, and Harry wondered if this was a test, if maybe he was supposed to explain why he didn't get a name, if the man was going to tell Uncle Vernon now and Harry would be punished.

"I'm sorry, sir," he whispered fearfully and ran away, sure he had failed something important.

The man watched him go, aghast.

When Harry decided it was safe to go back, it was after dark and his lips were blue. He had been huddled under the slide in the park, so he wasn't as cold as he could have been, but he shivered uncontrollably. He wondered if he could get so cold he would turn into a block of ice like in Dudley's cartoons, which Harry sometimes watched through the crack in the door of his cupboard. He wasn't really allowed, but they made funny noises and no one had caught him yet.

But before he got to Number four, he saw the man again. He was talking to a man with a beard and gesturing at the Dursleys' house. The man with the beard looked really strange. For one thing, his beard was really long. It reached all the way down to his belt. He was wearing funny clothes, even funnier than the man who called Harry 'Cub'. They looked sort of like a dress, or a bathrobe or something. It was dark purple, but there were splotches that were deep red and dark green, like Harry's eyes. He had on half-moon spectacles, and they weren't all taped together like Harry's were. He looked like he was arguing back, but he kept offering a bag of what looked like sweets to the other man, who declined with increasing impatience. Harry wondered if there was something wrong with the sweets, like the time Dudley had covered one in the stuff Harry used for cleaning and then given it to Harry. He'd thrown up for hours after eating it. He hoped the nice man who made him think of safety and story time wasn't going to get sick. Harry hid behind a garbage can to listen.

"Albus, it isn't safe for him! He didn't even know what his name was! I told you they were horrible, but you never listen!"

"You have to trust me, Remus, this is the only way to keep him safe."

"I'll protect him, Albus, you know I could, he'd be safe with-"

"No. What kind of a life would that be? You know why you can't do that."

"Anything is better than here! Anything! Give him to a nice Wizarding family then, like the Weasleys, or the Patils. They both have children around his age."

"He has to grow up normally, my boy, any of those families would treat him like the Boy-Who-Lived, it wouldn't be good for him."

"This isn't good for him, Albus! He doesn't have any sort of normal life! They treat him horribly!"

"It's the only way. We have to keep him safe from Voldemort."

The man who called him Cub silently fumed for a moment. Finally he said, "Alright, Albus. But if they hurt him, I hold you personally responsible. And I'll be checking on him. If they hurt him, I'm taking him away."

"Remus, you know why-"

"No! That's the end of it, Albus!" the man cried, and then he did the strangest thing. He disappeared into thin air.

The man with the beard sighed. "So hot-headed. This is for the child's own good. He knows that." he muttered, then he disappeared too.

Harry stood there for a while, wondering what they were talking about. Finally he went inside, where he was awake until midnight doing all the chores he missed.

But every so often, Harry would see the man, watching him with concerned eyes. The year he turned eight, the man stopped coming. Harry didn't understand why, but sometimes when it was cold and he'd been kicked out of the house, he found a coat under the slide. It was always gone when he came back, but on those days, Harry knew that he was not alone.