Additional warnings: This chapter, and future ones I expect, contains a few swear words. Nothing too excessive - just the type you would expect 12yr olds at a boarding school to use (when teachers aren't listening).

Also don't read this story if you want Harry to be best buddies with the Marauders and go spend his school years pranking Slytherins. James and Sirius are going to be annoying little bullies in this story (which there is plenty of cannon evidence to support). Sorry.

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A train whistle screeched as Harry dragged his trunk through the barrier to the station. He felt a pang of loneliness at the thought of being at school without Ron and Hermione, along with the familiar ache at the sight of all the parents tearfully saying goodbye to their children. He carefully kept his expression blank. It wouldn't help to dwell on things he couldn't change, and besides, he really needed to focus on making new friends. In his own time, being 'the-boy-who-lived' was a blessing and a curse. It had been easy enough to find admirers, but very few people in the Wizarding World actually wanted to be his friend because they liked him. Most were too busy trying to get an autograph or to extract unpublished details of his 'heroic defeat of Voldemort'. They didn't care that he had only been a baby at the time and definetly hadn't done anything heroic. They didn't care that his parents had died that day. It occured to Harry that his parents must have been about twenty years older than him, though he wasn't quite sure. They would be alive though, so he might be able to meet them! That would be a dream come true. Of course, he couldn't actually let them know that he was their son - that would be a bit scary for the poor kids.

Harry pushed his way onto the train, determined to find an empty carriage to change into his Hogwarts robes. It hadn't occurred to Harry to buy muggle clothes while he was shopping for school supplies (not that he had any money left over, anyway), so he was forced to wear Dudley's hand-me-down shirt through the Muggle station. The black school shoes and trousers (secondhand and slightly threadbare) didn't quite match the huge, frayed orange t-shirt and Harry felt very self conscious.

“Look, James, it's a scarecrow!” came a voice to his left. Harry turned to see two smirking, dark-haired boys, one instantly recognisable as James Potter.

“Oi, Scarecrow-Boy!” called James. “What's your name?”

“I'm Harry Miller.” He replied nervously. This was not how he expected James Potter to be! His heat sank.

“Miller? Never heard of it. Bet you're a mudblood.” This came from the other boy.

That was inexcusable. Harry narrowed his eyes. “Excuse me, but I do believe my heritage is none of your concern.”

Next thing Harry knew he was pressed against the wall of the carriage with a wand between his eyes. They were faster than Dudley's gang, or maybe Harry was just out of practice.

“How dare you speak to us like that, you little shit!”

His rescuer came in the form of Severus Snape. Snape's hair was as limp as Harry remembered, and his nose was still crooked, but this Snape was nowhere near as imposing as the older version. He was short and painfully thin, with a black eye swollen shut.

“Black and Potter. How unsurprising. You losers can't even wait until school starts to begin bullying the firsties.”

“Shut the fuck up, Snivellus!”

“Oi! What right do you have to lecture us on ethics? You're a Slytherin for Christ's sake!”

“Levicorpus.”

James Potter, now cursing loudly, was hanging upside down by one foot. Harry used the distraction to pull his wand out and cast a bat-bogey hex on Black. The resulting screeches were oddly satisfying. Snape and Harry left the scene (rather quickly) and found an empty carriage near the rear of the train.

“Thanks for bailing me out.”

Snape gave him a suspicious look. “I would have done it for anyone. I just hate those bullies. You should probably avoid them in future. The two you met were James Potter and Sirius Black. They also have two spineless sidekicks – Peter Pettigrew and Remus Lupin. They are less likely to attack without provocation, but it'd be best to stay out of their way too.”

The train began to pull away, and neither boy made any move to wave from the window.

“I'm Harry Miller, by the way.”

“Severus Snape. If you call me Snivellus I'll hex you.”

“Thats a bugger of a nickname.”

Snape only shrugged. The silence stretched awkwardly for a moment.

“That was an interesting spell for a first year.”

“Actually, Dumbledore's letting me skip straight to second year. I'm old enough, and apparently I know enough of the coursework.”

“Oh... How did you practice spells without going to Hogwarts? Did your parents find a way around the underage magic laws?”

"I'm a ward of the Ministry of Magic." Harry sighed. “It's not a very interesting story.”

“I'm sure it is.”

Harry sighed. “Well, maybe. But it is confidential information protected by the Secrecy and Indemnity Clause in Subsection 34 of the Child Protection Act of 1969."

“Bugger.”

Just then, the carriage doors sprung open, admitting a group of seven hyperactive twelve-year-olds.

“Sev! What on earth happened to your eye?!” said a red-haired girl with a Gryffindor tie.

Her Slytherin friend continued before he could answer. “Don't they sell bruise balm at that bloody apothecary you work at? You look bloody awful!”

Snape ignored their question, but seemed pleased to see them. He seemed to even be smiling.

“This is Harry Miller. Apparently he'll be joining our year. I thought he might as well join the 'Black and Potter are Gits Club'; they've already started targeting him.”

Harry watched the red-haired Gryffindor curiously. Could that be his mother? She smiled kindly at him.

“Welcome to the Club then! A lot of our year think they're Potter and Black are cool, or are just not brave enough to stand up to them. If you don't like them, then you'll fit in well with our group. I'm Lily Evans, by the way, and this is Aiko Nakagawa,” (a pretty Slytherin girl waved at him),

“Frank Longbottom,” (Harry shook hands with a muscular and confident version of Neville),

“Pradnesh Patil,” (he wondered whether this Ravenclaw boy was a relation of the future Patil twins),

“Xeno Lovegood,” (a pudgy blond Ravenclaw, who regarded Harry curiously),

“Elspeth Greenleaf,” (another Ravenclaw, this one with ash-blond pigtails and glasses),

“Marco Mancini,” (a very tall Hufflepuff),

“and you've already met Sev.”

They all crowded into the carriage. There weren't quite enough seats, but Marco seemed quite comfortable lounging on his trunk. Harry felt more than a bit nervous meeting all these new people, especially his mother, but Lily seemed to go out of her way to make sure the conversation flowed easily. He soon felt like part of the group, and fell into conversation with Pradnesh about his holiday to India for a muggle cousin's wedding. Making friends was actually easier than he expected, though he supposed it would have to be different when he wasn't 'the-boy-who-lived' and Dudley couldn't scare everyone away. It was disappointing that his father was so awful; in his mind, Harry had always painted a picture of James as a heroic, kind figure, and now that dream was well and truly shattered. At least Lily lived up to his expectations; she seemed to even be mothering him a little. That was probably because he was the shortest in the group, and Dudley's massive shirt made him look even smaller (he hadn't managed to change yet). He wasn't quite sure how Lily could possibly end up marrying James though. Perhaps this alternate dimension was different from his. Harry shrugged. All this deep thinking wasn't really his forte. He thanked Frank for the chocolate frog. He was too grateful to be embarrassed that someone had taken him on as a charity case. Everyone else but Severus insisted on paying for their own.

“What house do you reckon you'll be in, Harry?” asked Marco.

“I dunno.”

“My bet is Ravenclaw.” said Severus.

“Nah, I don't think I'm studious enough. We'll just have to see.”