Young Writers Society

This is based on Harry Potter (c) JK Rowling/Warner Bros. In fanfiction speak, it's AU HPxOC, and it will switch chapter to chapter between flashbacks to show Harry's relationship with my OC Tate, and the present day, 12 years after the Battle of Hogwarts, from Harry's POV. Enjoy!

This fanfic can be read fully updated here: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/9404717/1/My-Blood-Approves

Ta. :)

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I. “the deepest secret nobody knows”

"here is the deepest secret nobody knows . . .

and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart"

--e. e. cummings

*

She first saw him, a bird-thin little boy with black hair and makeshift glasses, drowning in oversized clothing, when he hit the other boy in the mouth.

She was plucking dandelions that grew along the chain link fence ringing the primary school’s grounds.It was spring, and she crouched in the mud, pretending to focus on the bouquet she was forming, when actually she was watching the other children play. She liked to watch them clamber over the jungle gym, whirling like dervishes on the merry-go-round, shrieking as they soar higher and higher on the swings.

She watched them because she couldn’t join them. She didn’t go to school, and any child the teachers on recess duty didn’t recognize would be tattled on.She had tried playing with them before, but they only looked at her, thinking her strange with her dark eyes that seldom blinked and the wild, deep red hair that fell straight as a pin to her waist, and then they would call for the teacher.

So instead she watched.It was almost as fun; she liked watching things because you could learn just as much and imagine you were there, only you weren’t humiliated.

She was watching when the smallest of the boys, a wriggling toothpick of a boy with messy, poorly cut black hair, was pushed to the ground by a bigger boy. This fellow was not so much tall, but round.She imagined there would be a lot of him to look at from the small boy’s perspective, on the ground looking up. The fat boy was winged by several other, bigger boys, all of them with unpleasant expressions.

She had developed an ability to understand what people were saying by watching their mouths as they spoke. She didn’t need to actually hear them.

“Quit following us, Potter,” sneered the fat boy. He liked saying the name; she could tell by his face he said it like a dirty word.

She couldn’t see the little boy’s face, but she assumed he tried to deny ever doing such a thing.

“You trail after us like an ugly dog. Nobody wants to be friends with an ugly, stinky orphan like you. That’s why you have to live with me. Your parents didn’t even want you; they hated you so much they left you and ran away and then died!”

The fat boy and his friends found this very funny, though she suspected they didn’t really understand what they were talking about. She wasn’t pretending to pick flowers anymore.She was pressed against the fence, her pale fingers curled around the links as she watched, transfixed.

The little boy struck fast as a snake. His small fist was quivering with energy, and he hit the boy across the face. He didn’t do any damage. She surmised the fat boy had too much padding on his face and not enough teeth in his mouth to cause bleeding. But he was stunned.

And realizing his mistake, the black haired boy took off running quite fast. The gang of boys followed, and for all their longer legs and larger size, they couldn’t keep up with the littler boy.He ran to a gap in the fence and managed to squeeze through, only possible because of his size, and disappeared behind the school building.

The fat boy and his friends tried to follow, but there was no getting through that gap with their sizes. She watched them turn instead to the teacher, and then she threw down her dandelions and followed the black haired boy, brimming with curiosity.

She found him behind a rubbish bin, his eyes blinking wildly behind the warped glass of his spectacles. When he saw her, he started but he didn’t bolt.

“Hello,” she said.

He hesitated. “Hello,” he replied.

“You don’t have to hide,” she said. “They aren’t following you anymore.”

He didn’t looked convinced. “How d’you know?”

“I was watching from the fence,” she explained. “They couldn’t get through the gap. Why did you hit him?”

The boy wriggled out from behind the bin. His T-shirt was so large he had it bound around his waist with a piece of twine, but still it was falling off his skinny shoulder. His shorts were nearly wide-legged trousers, and his trainers were much to large for his feet, it was a wonder he could run so fast in them.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I’m in enough trouble already. Not that I ever have to do anything to be in trouble, but last week I turned—“ but he stopped dead, his eyes wide.

“Turned what?” she asked, coming closer. She hefted herself up onto the bin, swinging her bare legs idly. When he paused, she said, “It’s alright, I’m your friend.”

“Friend?” he asked, almost as if he didn’t know the meaning of the word.

“Yes, silly.Now, what did you do?”

“I turned the teacher’s wig blue!” he said in a rush. Then he looked to her for a reaction.

She was grinning. “Wicked. I’ve never done that. I’m not sure if I could handle blue just yet.”

He gawped at her. “You—you mean you can—”

“I can do some stuff. But I’m young and I’m still practicing. What about you?”

He shook his head incredulously. “I’m not allowed to try. It—it just happens when I’m upset.”

“Want to see something cool?”

If a child usually said this, they meant something rather mediocre, like a frog or a cartwheel.But she meant something rather different, and she knew he knew it.

She closed her eyes and thought feather wings, thought birds soaring, thought children swinging and flying through the air, and the next thing she was floating into the air to touch on the roof of the school. She turned and sat on the edge, grinning.“I love doing that,” she said.

“Who are you?” asked the boy in a voice of wonder.

“My name’s Tatiana, but my dad calls me Tate. What’s your name.”

“I’m Harry,” he said. “Harry Potter.”

“Well, come on, Harry Potter,” said Tate. “If you can turn a wig blue you can certainly get up here.”

The boy screwed up his face, and it took a minute, but when he opened them he was sitting next to the girl with the long crimson hair.

She smiled at him, and he smiled back.

“D’you go to school here?” he asked.

“No. I don’t go to school.”

“Not at all?”

“No. My dad says I don’t need to. He says I’ll learn what I need to on my own.”

“You’re lucky. Where do you live? Near Privet Drive?” He said this in a hopeful tone.

She shook her head, and his face fell. “I live in London, on Charleston Street. But only in the summer.”

“How did you get to Little Whinging?”

“I like riding trains and buses.”

“Don’t you have to pay?”

She grinned at him. “They don’t see me if I don’t want them to. Where do you live?”

“Privet Drive. With my aunt and uncle.”

“And that fat boy.”

“He’s my cousin, Dudley.”

She laughed at the name. “He’s horrid. Is it true you’re an orphan?”

He blinked. “Yes,” he whispered.

She put an arm around his shoulder. “There’s worse things to be.”

“Like what?”

“Like Dudley!”

They both laughed. Just then, voices could be hear around the corner of the building.

“He went this way, Ms. Skiffins!”

“He hit Dudley right on the face!”

She turned to Harry.“I have to go; if they find me, they’ll telephone my father.” In a blink she was on the ground. She turned to leave but then doubled back.

“I’ll come back and find you,” she said with a grin. “I promise. Bye!” And she bolted into the trees and was gone.

“Tate!” called the boy, but it was too late. Several faces peered up at him, both triumphant and flummoxed.

“Harry Potter! Come down from there at once! When your aunt hears about this…”

Tate watched from the trees as Harry Potter refused—or was unable—to come down. She grinned.She’d made a friend, someone like her. She memorized everything about him and everything he said and then she left.

It was not the last time she saw Harry Potter.

Not in the least.