Minerva McGonagall sat at the desk in her quarters in her favorite comfortable chair, shoulders covered with a red tartan shawl, half full mug of strong peppermint tea just within reach. As Deputy Headmistress it was her job to see that all new students had received their Hogwarts letters, that Muggle born children knew how to get into Diagonalley or had someone that would take them to get their school things, and that all incoming first years had filled out the entrance interview. All of the acceptance letters had gone out last week, interview form included, and many of the interviews had come back, some filled out in childish scrawls, others filled out with the practiced hand of a parent. It was the same every year. Even though the instructions informed parents that their child should fill out the form, some parents insisted on filling it out themselves.

Minerva quite enjoyed reading the entrance interview responses each year. It meant she was the first staff member to get a look at incoming student's personalities. She tried not to imagine which house each would be placed in based on their responses to questions (especially since it was clear several parents had answered for their children), but sometimes she couldn't help it. Young Mr. Malfoy for instance. While his mother and father had both been in Slytherin, the responses to the interview questions made her think he'd be a good fit in Ravenclaw, if he allowed the hat to place him there. Under, ‘what do you hope to learn' the boy had given a detailed response about wanting to learn how charms interacted with other spellwork such as transfiguration. He seemed to have a keen mind. She'd put odds that Hermione Granger would end up in Ravenclaw too, since her responses had spilled over onto five pages of Muggle lined paper. She seemed inquisitive and excited, and half of her responses were questions instead of answers.

Minerva was most of the way through the stack of responses, and it had taken her several days to get this far. She'd made notes next to each student's name about potential conflicts or worries staff would need to check up on throughout the year, as well as notes on how some students might best be served by tutoring in certain subjects by older students, or about how some would be well served by mentoring by a prefect. Sometimes based on responses to the entrance interview, heads of house assigned prefects to check up on certain students or to take them under their wing. They'd started these interviews after Tom Riddle had left school in the hopes of identifying issues that students were having and preventing another student like Tom Riddle from passing through seven years of schooling without staff ever having been aware of issues students might be facing. Albus believed that if they could identify issues and gifts early, that intervention would prevent children from going down the wrong path.

It wasn't often that Minerva was surprised by student responses to these written interviews. The page and a half of questions was often answered with excitement to go to Hogwarts, hopes and dreams of becoming a prefect or getting on a Quidditch team, and idle chatter about which house the student thought they would best belong in. Today would be one of the times Minerva was more than surprised.

She'd just taken a sip of her tea and leaned back in her chair with a fresh interview at hand. It had Harry Potter's name on the top, and she smiled to herself, wondering just how much like Lily and James he would look. Was his hair a little wild? It had certainly been jet black like James' when she last saw the boy as a baby. His eyes had been green like Lily's, but in magical children eyes sometimes changed color as they grew older and came into their magic. Were his eyes still green? Had they grown deeper in color, or faded near to grey? She would love to have little Harry in her house, but knew she would have no say in the matter. The hat would put him where it wanted, and she thought sometimes that the hat put students in a house they didn't really belong in just to see what would happen and how the child and the house would fare.

Her eyes scanned down the parchment briefly. The boy's handwriting was blocky, but neat. It wasn't cramped or overly large like many of the interviews she'd read, nor in the neat prim cursive like the responses she always received back from children of proud pureblood families. It was serviceable handwriting, and she wondered if that was how the boy's Muggle primary school had taught him.

Many of the questions were straightforward, such as: ‘What date do you plan on going to Diagon Alley to get school supplies?' and, ‘Do you have any concerns about coming to Hogwarts?'

By answering questions like this that seemed simple, the children would have no idea that the staff at Hogwarts would be reading into the responses to find any hidden concerns. After students were sorted, their entrance interviews were given to their new heads of house.

When Harry responded to the first question about going to get his school supplies with, ‘I'm not sure where Diagon Alley is, can you please tell me? Do you know about how much school supplies cost?' Minerva wasn't alarmed. This was a typical response from Muggle raised children who knew little about the wizarding world. It would be simple enough to send an owl informing Harry and his relatives about how to get into Diagon Alley and the approximate cost of the supplies and how to exchange their Muggle money for wizarding coins.

Harry's response to: ‘What house do you think you would like to be in best, and why?' was also to be expected being raised Muggle. ‘What do you mean house? I get to live in a house? I'd like to live in a house with a bed and a warm blanket and a pillow.' Minerva chuckled and made note to recommend to Harry's family that they pick up ‘Hogwarts A History' while they were in Diagon Alley so Harry could begin to get a grasp of where he'd be going to school and some of the school's traditions. It used to be mandatory reading for all incoming students, but that hadn't been the case in almost twenty years. She moved on to the next question.

‘What is something you hope to learn at Hogwarts?' Harry's response was, ‘Hogwarts is a school for magic? If you're certain I have magic and can go to your school, is there magic that helps plants grow? Like tomatoes? I want to learn that so I'll never be hungry, because then I can grow my own food. What about magic for fixing broken things like glasses? I want to learn that too. I want to learn magic for telling me how to get somewhere I want to go so I'll never get lost. And a spell for keeping book pages dry in the rain, and a spell for keeping the wind out of my face. Are potions a real thing or just something in novels about magic? If potions are real I'd like to learn what that's about.'

Minerva reread his response to that question several times, trying to discern what she could. Did the child just have an interest in herbology and gardening, or maybe for cooking? Did he wear glasses like James and his were broken, or did he have a general interest in fixing things? What about wanting to learn how to keep books dry in the rain? Perhaps he was a bookworm like Hermione Granger seemed to be from her responses, and liked to walk home from school reading and didn't like getting caught in the rain and wind.

It wasn't until Minerva got to the question, ‘If you could have whatever you wanted, what would it be?' that she started to grow concerned and began to go back over the previous responses with a new outlook on what they might really mean. Typically children responded to this question with things such as, ‘the fastest racing broom ever' or ‘a vault full of Goblin gold' or things such as, ‘my very own pet.' Any of those wouldn't have raised alarm bells. The response she was staring at surprised her though.

‘If I could have anything at all? I'd really like to live someplace with a bed. You said I get to live in a house right? And a really warm blanket. I want three meals a day, really I'll eat anything, just something to eat at all would be good. I want some warm clothes. They don't have to be new, just warm and without holes. If they have holes I can patch them with a needle and thread, so I want a needle and thread too. I really want a friend. I've never had one before and I'd like to know what that's like. I want to go to school. I really hope I am magic so I can go to school again. I'd like to have school supplies... paper and a pencil, so I don't have to borrow.'

All thoughts of her tea or the chill in the room lay forgotten. She didn't read the response again right away, because her mind had gone blank for several moments. What did he mean he wanted three meals a day? The child had never had a friend? Not even one? He wasn't enrolled in school? Surely he just meant that he missed Primary school since it had been out for two months already for the summer. She did reread it again, looking for any possibility that she was jumping to conclusions, but she didn't see how she could be, especially when she went back over the responses to the previous questions. He'd mentioned wanting to live in a house before, and also wanting a bed with a blanket and a pillow. Did he not have that now?

Minerva rose with Harry's response in hand and went straight to the Headmaster's office, just a hall over from her own. She didn't need to give the password to the statue guarding the staircase as it seemed to be expecting her and opened of its own accord.

"Ah Minerva," Albus said, pushing paperwork of his own aside to greet her. "Are you finished with all the responses? I'd like to start sending Filius, Rolanda and Aurora out to take the Muggle born students who need help to Diagon Alley."

"Not quite," Minerva said. "I have a concerning student response you need to see. I need to know if I'm reading this wrong."

Albus' face grew serious. He took these interviews seriously. It wasn't often that they came up with students of real concern, but occasionally they did or there were students that needed looking in on. Severus, in fact, had been one of those concerning students. So had Remus Lupin, and several students since then.

He took the paper, scanning the name and looked up at her over his half moon spectacles. "Harry Potter?"

She motioned to the paper. "Please read it."

He did, and she could tell which question he paused on and reread multiple times. "This is concerning," he agreed, "have you sent a response to him yet?"

"No. I brought it straight here."

"Perhaps an unannounced visit to Surrey is in order," he said. "If you are not busy at the moment," he said, and she gestured that she wasn't. They flood from his office to a building at the edge of school grounds the teachers used often. Just a few steps from the building they were able to get to an apparition point. Albus offered his arm and Minerva took it so they could apparate together. They were expecting to apparate to 4 Privet Drive, where they'd last left Harry on the doorstep of Vernon and Petunia Dursley, and find out what the Dursleys and Harry had to say about the response. There may very well be a reasonable explanation after all. But they couldn't find the Dursleys or Harry. The house was there, the address was right, but a family named McCormac lived there now. They'd purchased the house from the Dursleys three years before, and had no idea where the previous owners had moved to. They also didn't know anything about Harry Potter or that the Dursley's had even had a nephew.

"Where is he Albus?" Minerva asked, anxiously.

"That dear lady, is what we must find out."

They went back to Hogwarts and Minerva did send off a response to Harry, asking where he was living now, but they didn't wait for a response.

"Where was his school invitation sent to?" Albus asked. Minerva brought out a huge book from a cabinet and flipped to the current year and then ‘P' for Potter. "London," she said. "The London Library."

"It wouldn't be the first time a letter had been delivered to a student while they were out of the house. Perhaps his family moved to London."

Minerva wanted to set off to find out right then, but it was already nearing dark and the London Library would be closed by now. As it was their only clue about Harry's whereabouts until they received a response from him or were able to go to the Library to see what they could find out, they decided to leave early the next morning. Minerva tried not to let her impatience get the better of her, but it did, and she didn't sleep a wink.

* * *

"Excuse me."

The Muggle man behind the help desk at the London Library looked up to find a woman dressed in very prim and proper attire standing before him. Her bun was so tight at the back of her head he wondered how she managed when it looked like there were no pins or hairspray holding it in place.

"What can I help you with today?"

"We're looking for someone that may have been here four or five days ago. Harry Potter," she said quietly. An aging man with a white beard that looked too long to be allowed, simply stood behind her with a serene smile. He was dressed a little more... extravagantly, and the man at the help desk wondered about the pair's story and how they'd found each other.

"I don't know the name," the man said. "We have regulars, but I don't know all of them."

"He's a boy, eleven years old. Black hair," she said, "and he has a scar on his forehead."

"Oh," the man said with a smile. "Harry. He comes in almost every day. Sometimes when the weather's a fright he doesn't show up, but he wouldn't."

"Why is that?" the aging man with the white beard asked.

"Well he has to walk. I don't know from where exactly, but when it's pouring out I can't say I blame him."

"Do you know where he lives?" Minerva asked.

"Probably under a bridge. That's where most of the homeless live isn't it? Weather's too mucky most of the year to live in the streets or at a park."

"Did you say Harry's homeless?" Dumbledore asked.

"Yeah, I figured you knew. You're from welfare or child services aren't you? If you're looking for him I mean?"

"We're relatives actually," Minerva said, smoothing down her blouse.

"Well I haven't seen him yet today, but that doesn't mean he's not here. The last few weeks he's been hanging around down in the gardening section. Whatever subject he's into reading he sits in the aisle and reads all day. Sometimes he comes and asks for paper and a pencil to take notes. All of us take turns bringing something extra in our lunch and when he comes to ask for paper around lunch time we give him something to eat. Yesterday I brought him a sandwich and an apple. Today's not my turn though." He pulled out a sheet of paper from under the desk somewhere and showed it to them. Across the top it said, ‘Lunch for Harry', and library staff had signed their names under certain days. Today someone named Amelia was supposed to bring food.

"Amelia's not in yet, but if you don't find him before twelve I'd come back here and see if you can spot him coming for paper and lunch."

"Thank you for your help," Minerva said, disturbed as she stepped away from the help desk with Albus.

"Gardening is downstairs," the man said helpfully, and pointed to a corner with a staircase.

Albus nodded and he and Minerva moved to go where they'd been directed.

Harry wasn't in the gardening section it turned out, or at any of the tables nearby.

"Can I help you find something?" a young woman rolling a cart of books asked.

"We're looking for a boy named Harry," Albus said. Minerva noted he seemed rather serious and didn't offer her a smile. He was as anxious to find Harry as she was after what they'd been told.

"Down there," she said, pointing a few aisles down. "In mythology. He said this morning he was reading about magic and dragons."

"Thank you."

Five aisles down they began looking down the rows of books as they passed. At first they didn't spot him in the towering rows, but Albus put a hand out to stop Minerva from continuing and pointed down an aisle to the end where a small form could be seen sitting with his back to them against the opposite end of the aisle.

They walked down the aisle slowly and found a small boy with dirty black hair hunched over a book about dragons, Arthur and Merlin.

"Interesting reading?" Albus asked.

The boy looked up, took in both of their faces, and then held up the book to show them. "Magic's real I think," he said. "Somewhere out there there are real wizards like Merlin. Arthur was a wizard too."

"Oh?" Minerva asked. Muggles always wrote about him as a Muggle, and it wasn't general knowledge anymore amongst wizards that Arthur was of magical descent as well.

"Merlin put the sword in that stone, and Arthur pulled it out. He had to have magic to pull it out, don't you think? He didn't even act like he was worried about it when he went up to it. He knew he'd pull it out."

"He was magic," Albus said. "Very observant."

"Do you think dragons are real too?" the boy asked, not perturbed at all about conversing with strangers. Clearly he knew everyone on staff at the library.

"Very real dear boy."

"You sound so sure."

Albus knelt down next to Harry, and Minerva wondered if he'd be able to get back up on his own with his aging knees. She knew they bothered him. Harry looked over, surprised the man was down on his level. "Are you Mr. Harry Potter?" the man asked, though Minerva could see the boy's lightning shaped scar as well as Albus could. They already knew the answer.

"Me?" Harry asked. "Yeah-" he said cautiously.

"I'm the Headmaster of Hogwarts, and I've come to answer your questions."

"Wow," Harry said, suddenly eager. "Did you send me the letter? Hogwarts is real? I'm really going?"

"Of course you are," Minerva said. She reached down to offer Albus a hand up, which he accepted and Harry practically hopped up off the floor. His clothes were mended in several places, but dirty. His face was mostly clean, but it looked as though he'd scrubbed his face clean in a bathroom sink that morning and missed a spot. His hair couldn't have been washed in recent weeks and looked too tangled to be taken care of without cutting it short.

"I didn't know how to get to that alley place. And I don't have any money for school supplies, but the last few days I've been asking for extra paper and not using it. I'm saving it up so I can do homework at school. I can't believe this is actually real. I actually get to go to school!" He beamed up at them, and after Albus gave the child a glowing smile he and Minerva exchanged glances.

"Harry, while we answer your questions, would it be ok if we asked you some questions? We had some questions about what you wrote on your entrance interview."

"Yes," Harry said excitedly, and the boy bounced back and forth on his heels as if he were ready to go to class that very minute. "There's a table in the nook at the end over there that I like," Harry pointed down the long rows of books. Albus nodded and held out his hand and Harry led them to the nook. It was a table with a bench seat on either side tucked into an odd space where no bookshelf would fit and looked as though it was rarely used.

"Harry, your letter was addressed to this library. Do you live here?" Minerva asked once they were seated.

"Oh no," Harry said with a grin. "I'm here most days though. I didn't know owls could send letters before, and when I left one night this owl kept pestering me. I tried to get it to leave me alone, because they have big sharp talons, but it wouldn't until I took the envelope it had. Boy was I surprised!" he beamed. "It came back the next day to take my letter back to you!"

"Where do you live Harry?" McGonagall asked.

"With my bridge family."

"Your what?"

"My bridge family," he said, as though this was the most normal thing in the world. "About a mile away, Ben and Natty and Gemma and me and some others."

"We were under the impression you lived with your aunt and uncle," Albus said softly.

"They moved," Harry said simply.

"Do you know to where?"

He shook his head.

"And you did not go with them?"

Harry scrunched up his nose as if the thought was unsavory, and then changed the subject. "Are we going to get my school supplies today? Is there something I can do to earn money for them?"

Albus and Minerva shared another look and Albus said, "If it's ok with you Harry, we would like to take you to lunch, and then to get your supplies. Then we would like to see where you live and gather any of your personal belongings and take you to Hogwarts."

"Today?" Harry said excitedly. "I get to go today?"

Minerva couldn't help but smile at his enthusiasm. "Yes Harry, today."

It was still only nine in the morning and too early for lunch, but that gave them time to sit and ask Harry some other questions.

"You don't go to school Harry?" Minerva asked.

"I go to school here," he said, motioning to the books, "at the library."

"Tell us about that," Albus said.

"I come every morning and read and sometimes I take notes so I can remember certain things."

"What do you read about?"

"Everything," Harry said. "Gardening and growing food, and dragons and making maps, and science and some history stuff."

"You teach yourself?" McGonagall asked.

Harry nodded.

"Many children when not in school might not take such an interest in learning," she said.

"My uncle said anyone who didn't get an education would stay poor and hopeless forever."

Minerva wondered just what context that had been said to Harry in. Had it been a warning or a threat?

"I don't wanna be poor," Harry said. "I gotta learn so I can have clothes and food and stuff and so my bridge family can move into a house."

"Harry, you do realize that no one can come with you to Hogwarts?"

"Well," he said, "it's a boarding school isn't it? I figured after I was all done I'd come back and use what I'd learnt to help the others."

"An admirable goal," Albus said.

At ten thirty they left the library and went into an alley where Albus briefly explained apparation to Harry and then apparated them directly into a restaurant on Diagon Alley. Harry was more than excited to be allowed to order whatever he wanted, and when hot fish and chips and a bread roll were set in front of him ten minutes later, Albus noted the boy tucked the bread roll away into a pocket for later.

"Would you like dessert?" Albus asked.

"I can have dessert?" Harry asked, eyes practically bugging out of his head.

"What flavor of ice cream would you like?"

In short order Harry had been given a chocolate chip mint ice cream cone and he had devoured it so fast Minerva wondered just how hungry the child had been. He seemed to have enjoyed it though, and didn't ask for more. She hoped he was full.

With a snap of his fingers Albus produced a vial with a blue potion and a list of supplies required for first year students.

"Harry, this is a potion. I'd like you to drink it before we go shopping. It will tidy up your appearance some for the shopping trip."

Harry didn't question what he'd been told and drank the blue potion down. He glanced at himself in the reflection of the restaurant window and found that his face looked different, and so did his hair. He looked like himself but not quite, and he looked clean for now.

"It will only last for an hour," Albus said. "It's called glamour in a bottle."

Albus and Minerva were pleased with how excited Harry was about the new things he was getting. He was fitted for new robes quickly, and then they got his new books, which Harry was more than excited for. He was also more excited than a normal child his age would have been over having rolls of parchment, quills and ink, Muggle pens and pencils with eversharp and always inked charms on them, and a lined Muggle notebook that promised to have neverending sheets of paper.

They split up after Harry got his wand and Minerva went to find Harry a trunk and a pair of dragonhide gloves while Albus took him into the apothecary to get the standard first year potions kit and a pewter cauldron.

Before they left Diagonalley an hour and a half after they'd arrived, they asked Harry if he was hungry again, and when he said he wasn't they asked him to describe the location of the bridge he lived under. Harry told them and they apparated away, Harry's head spinning with all the new things he'd seen and been told and been purchased that day that were all his.

* * *

Harry's ‘home' was as expected. There was a small encampment of homeless people under a bridge just over a mile from the library. Some of the people stirred when they walked under the bridge with Harry, and looked wary.

"Alrigh' Harry?" a man with a brown beard asked.

"Ben!" Harry shouted happily and ran over to him. He pulled out the bread roll from lunch and handed it to him. "I had fish and chips for lunch today and then an ice cream! And guess what, I get to go to school! I get to go today!"

"Erm-" Ben said as Albus and Minerva came over to he and Harry. "If yeh don' mind me askin' could I see some credentials or somethin? Yer from Child Services?"

"We're from the school Harry will be attending."

"An' what school might that be?"

"A school for people just like me!" Harry beamed brightly. "I'm gonna learn magic!"

"Hogwarts?" Ben asked warily, and looked up at Albus and Minerva again.

"You know about Hogwarts?" Albus asked.

He surprised them then as he laughed out loud. Then Ben said loudly, "Who ‘ere knows abou' the magic folk?"

Some people laughed and others seemed wary, but they all raised their hands.

"How many times we been raided by the Ministry?" Ben asked. "Three times the last two months?"

"Five," said a woman.

"Harry," Minerva said, "why don't you show me where you sleep and where your things are?"

Harry surprised her by taking her hand and leading her to a set of large boxes with a towel hanging down over the opening of one of them. After they were out of earshot, Albus asked Ben seriously, "If I may ask, what has the Ministry been looking for here?"

"Werewolves. They flash a badge on their chest an' come through an' look in everyone's box and tell us if we see anyone who disappears on the full moon teh report them when they come back teh check. An' they tell us teh stay in on full moon nights. We do," he said. "There's an abandoned warehouse a few blocks away all the homeless people go teh on full moon nights. Yeh seem surprised."

"I am," Albus said. "Non-magical people are not supposed to know about the Ministry of Magic or werewolves."

"Well werewolves are homeless too," the man said. "Can't find work can they? Have teh work out here with regular folk. We get ‘em passin' through every once in a while. The Ministry people said they didn' want hordes of werewolves roaming the streets. If yeh ask me don' make no sense teh keep ‘em poor an' homeless."

"If I may ask," Albus said, "how long has Harry been living here?"

"Few years," the man said. "Maybe since he was nine. He'd been on the streets a few weeks when he met up with us. Me an' Natty an' Gemma try teh take care of ‘im best we can, but we're not his parents an' can't enroll ‘im in school. We took ‘im to child services twice but they didn't take ‘im. Said there was no room the first time. The second time they took ‘im but he came back to us a couple weeks later an' wouldn' say what happened. Are yeh really taking ‘im to school?"

"Yes," Albus said seriously. "We already purchased his school supplies."

"All that boy wants is an education. Each morning one of us walks ‘im to the library an' he stays there all day an' teaches ‘imself. Sometimes he comes back an' teaches us." He motioned to a few plants that were growing at the edge of their encampment, just into the sunlight. "Been growing tomatoes last few weeks from seed, an' Harry made us go out an' look for raw potato scraps an' we planted them too. Each night when the library closes one of us goes and gets ‘im an' brings ‘im back. We give ‘im what we can for food but we don't have much. Some nights everyone goes hungry."

"Thank you," Albus said, "for caring for him."

"Not right having a kid on the street," Ben said. "There's a gang of street kids that lives on the other side of town. They sell drugs an' drink an' smoke. They take in the little ones an' teach ‘em teh steal in exchange for smokes an' food. If we didn't take ‘im he'd've ended up there."

Albus thanked the man again and then went to where Harry was still showing McGonagall his boxes and pulling out his few possessions. It was little more than a few dirty toys his ‘bridge family' had given him, two dirty t-shirts, a pair of pants, a pair of dirty socks and a blanket.

"You'll have a nice warm blanket at Hogwarts," Minerva was assuring Harry when Albus walked over to them.

"You're sure?" Harry asked.

"Very sure."

"Are you ready to go Harry?" Albus asked, unable to bring a smile to his face after everything they'd seen that day.

Harry nodded and Albus took his arm and Minerva's in the other hand. With a last look at his bridge and his boxes and Ben and Natty, Harry disappeared from sight with a pop, wondering what he'd find for himself at Hogwarts.