The stinging of his forehead made him wince and peer at Lupin's expression. The medical scissors snipped angrily at some stubborn stitches and the noise seemed worse that the occasional sting. After the man turned away, Harry ran two fingers over his forehead and felt the slight bump of the scar. When the doctor showed how the cut had healed, he saw that it resembled a lightening bolt. It was all too perfect, and it disgusted him. He'd lost his parents in a flash and now he had lightening permanently imprinted on his head. "I think it healed fairly well." Lupin comforted, and Harry gave a half smile in response. As they exited the office, Harry rearranged strands of hair to cover the constant reminder of easily the worst day of his life.

***

From the doctor's office, Lupin drove Harry to his new high school. As he pulled up in front of the school, he gave Harry a few words of encouragement and spoke unsteadily, "Call frequently and respect curfew. And don't listen to anything Sirius tells you to do." Ever since the accident Lupin has become increasingly awkward and Harry assumed it was due to that he couldn't hide how he felt in front of Harry because he understood the absolute shock and numbness all too well. Dragging his feet across the pavement, he analyzed the students around him and how he couldn't recognize a single face. Out of guilt at how he didn't respond to Lupin, he turned around in front of the front doors and waved one last goodbye.

Scrambling through the hall of the dorms—barely familiar considering he'd only wandered them once to walk his schedule—he fought a nasty crowd. No one seemed to be aware of personal space. Not that they were very conscious of it at his past school, but he happily pushed his way through with the rest of them. No one seemed necessarily malice, but every slight bump made Harry want to recoil. Seconds seemed to stretch and he realized he wasn't even past the first hallway, before he heard a loud boy complaining. His voice kept raising in pitch—not necessarily telling but almost out of embarrassment. He turned around, fighting the current, and looked amusedly at the bout that whined loudly from the doorframe. Two taller figures laughed mischievously as the rolled his eyes intensely at his mother. Once the sassy boy seemed to push her off, he quickly tried to get rid of the brothers as well. To be completely, it was absolutely freaky how similar they all looked. If he didn't know any better, he'd assume they were in some ginger cult and the woman that fussed before nervously leaving was the cult leader. His joking suspicions were almost confirmed when a petite girl with a similar look stole one of the eldest boy's books. The girl was downright gorgeous. Her hair seemed as fiery as her personality. Well, all of there's did. They were seemingly a feisty bunch. One of the taller boys pushed the more nervous looking boy forward and gave a reassuring smile, it was the first glimpse of kindness Harry had seen in the school.

The boy glided through with the rest of them. No, he was a bit too awkward to and his tall, lanky frame seemed to be an easy target to hustle; the problem of touchiness ended very quickly for the boy. Despite not having much muscle on his bones, he pushed back and harder. When he noticed Harry staring his mouth shot into a half angry and half calm expression. Harry made a face right back though and yelled so that he could head over the bustle, "Feisty!"

The boy chuckled a bit, pushing past a few more people to come closer to Harry. "You would be too if you had as many brothers. I prefer to call it expressive because 'feisty' seems like something you'd call a bloody feline." He said, almost teasing himself, and Harry took this as a peace treaty. None of the boy's fiery wrath would be his problem. After the light exchange, the boy stared oddly at Harry like he was examining him. "I know you." He recognized, pointing accusingly at Harry's chest. His finger bobbed a bit like he was considering the option of people that Harry could be. A lightbulb seemed to go off and the boy quickly said, likely before thing to hard, "James!" He seemed proud of himself, but then he weighed the possibility and remembered a crucial fact about James.

With a halfhearted laugh, Harry gave a puzzled expression. "Do I look six feet under to you?" He joked, but a lump seemed to well to replace the words.

The boy cursed under his breath and couldn't seem to look directly at Harry after that. Trying to find words to recover smoothly he teased, "Do you really want to know the answer to that?" Clearly, that was not what the boy meant to say and his use of humor in bad situations was put on display. "My mother and father were very close with James Potter and he recently passed away so I guess I've gotten messed up."

"Right, or I look exactly like James and..." Harry grinned, but was quickly shut down by Ron's perplexed expression and quirked, "You're a git for not figuring this out yet." The boy's expression remained fixed, so Harry—out of the kindness of his heart—filled in the blanks, "I'm James' son, Harry." As proof he reached to push up strands of hair, revealing the disgraced, healed wound. "It's from the car crash."

"That's ironic." He muttered to himself, but his muttering was about as soft as his speaking—equally as smooth.

Considering this was the first being to not treat him like fancy china serving platters, he nearly jumped in relief. "That's what I said!" Harry nearly laughed out, causing his fellow student to feel more at ease.

With a sense of newfound confidence the boy happily introduced himself, "I'm Ron. Ron Weasley." The boy's hair was messy but not nearly as inconsistent as Harry's, his lips curled up to his cheeks that contained freckles that spanned from there to the top of his forehead, and Harry couldn't help but notice his attire seemed grungy.

As soon as the halls had filled, they'd became as desolate as a desert. Ron nodded his head to a nearby staircase, Harry approached slowly due to him checking out his surroundings. The walls were covered with murals that would mesmerize any child if they entered the building; recognizing that Harry have lost focus and seemed more interested on a mural he decided to fill the clueless boy in, "That one there," He faces towards the wall that the stairs faced, "Is the headmaster, and it's him as a wizard because he's a crazy old man who likes wizards. Absolutely mad, I tell you." Ron criticized with almost disdain. He shook is head—partially—at the painting. With a closer inspection Harry noticed the way the gray beard hairs curled upward in a majestic manner, his old hands wrapped around a twig with detail carved in, and a gorgeous red bird took flight near the headmaster's head. The bird had wings that seemed to catch fire in the wind, but had a calm and almost sleepy expression.

"Oh, and these," Ron grabbed Harry's attention by bouncing impatiently on the staircase, "Is the staircase with the faulty first step that gives in a lot. Avoid that, mate." He informed, before sprinting up the rest of the staircase. Without hesitation, Harry followed.

One floor up and three rooms down sat the noisiest room. Harry could swear that they were getting so overly excited that Harry could feel the vibration through the floor. There were sounds that sounded like cheering, stomping, and laughing but to a point of utter hilarity. As they strolled past—Ron not even seeming to acknowledge the sounds of an entire stadium of anxious fans—the door slammed open and revealed the girl with hair like Ron's but her eyes were truly where the fire was shown. Despite being blue, they showed the passion of an intense flame. She stumbled out, latched onto a tall, black boy that she happily pushed up against the wall and gave him a kiss that showcased the amount of passion she possessed in her small frame. The boy's eyes fluttered as she held his face against her's and kept him close to the wall. Ron soon jumped in, grabbing the girl and yanking her away. "No! Ginny, no!" Ron screamed, holding Ginny firmly but she elbowed him away from and gave a purely snotty expression towards Ron. Surprisingly, when she glimpsed at Harry for a fraction of a second she gave a subtle but seductive wink and smirk, before grasping the other boy and pulling him away. The boy complied happily. Ron waved an angry finger—his face turned the color of a ripe cherry—and he yelled after them, "Dean, you stay away from my sister or I will personally make sure that-that—just stay away from my sister!" He roared, but Dean didn't seem to react much and Ginny only turned around and happily stuck out her tongue at her older brother.

"Blimey, you've got a say in that one."

"Don't sass me on that! It's my sister and my friend...it's just bloody awkward." Ron grimaced as he spoke, "That is the dorm my brothers and some others share."

"Is this whole school just your siblings?"

Rom shrugged and joked, "A good portion, I'd say. There's a surplus on Weasley's." Harry laughed along with Ron, and they continued down the strangely long hallway. A few doors down, they approached a staircase and they walked up it. "The floors go by grades, so we're on this one. Each grade has their own common room too, but...well, let's just say our commons will be on the second floor where my brother's stay." Harry didn't protest, after all he happily accepted this human contact. With his parents gone, Lupin distant, and Sirius deeply depressed his social needs were not exactly fulfilled. The few friends he'd had at his old school disappeared as soon as things got rough with Harry. A bit after the incident, he rode his bike to his friend's house and to Harry's surprise he was having a party. When he finally found the person he'd been looking for, he claimed that he thought it would be best if Harry left because others might feel awkward with Harry's "situation". Phony gits.

"The most important part, the vending machine!" Ron snapped Harry out of his walk down memory lane with by screaming about the food, and sticking one of his thin arms into the machine from where the dispenser was. With clawing motions—along with odd expressions that looked like he'd been constipated—he wrapped his hand around an unknown candy bar and yanked it out. "Oh, you don't have to do that. It takes money too."