Muggles Rush In

As they walked outside, Harry gave another glance back in to see the Dursleys in furious conversation with each other, with Aunt Petunia looking torn and Uncle Vernon looking a strange mix of purple and green, testament, Harry supposed, of the same feelings his aunt had. Strangely, Dudley still smirked slightly as he looked towards the door. Shaking his head, Harry left.

Sarah had waited for him at the sidewalk and as he caught up, smiled wryly.

"Are they trying to decide whether I'm a good witch or a bad witch?" At Harry's startled expression, she laughed. "I remember how they treated me last time when I started becoming friends with you, Harry. It would not surprise me if they try to keep me from coming onto their perfect lawn in order to protect 'Dudders'." Continuing to laugh, she linked her arm through his, not noticing the look of relief on Harry's face.

After that, she was silent except for a few questions about school (which he answered as vaguely as he could), his family (which he answered honestly enough), and his thoughts on his future career (which he choked on and blamed on the lunch they had just eaten). If she noticed his face turning red and white at turns, or the fact that he stammered through some of his responses, she didn't let on and by the time he realized where they were going, she was a slight, introspective personage once more. As they strode into the park, he began to relax again, hoping that she had exhausted her supply of awkward questions (well, awkward to him anyway) and as they sat down, he began to ask her the same.

"What made you choose to become a transfer student? Did your uncle think this was a good thing to do what with high school and all?" he asked.

He was startled to see her flinch a bit before she answered.

"He didn't object at all. I decided that I needed a change of pace. I've had so many things happen- even when I was here- that I wanted to experience something new that was good." She tossed him a faint grin. "Besides, I noticed that we don't talk as much as we used to. I actually am not staying with you, by the way (Harry was relieved- he had been trying to figure out how that was supposed to work what with him and Dudley having their own rooms. He didn't think that Aunt Petunia would make her sleep under the stairs like he'd had to- Sarah had the benefit of being a Muggle, after all), I'm staying with one of your neighbors- the Pullistens. They were the closest family I could find in the transfer program to the high school here. Which reminds me, what is the high school like over here? Are the classes good?"

Harry took a slow breath. This was it. This was when he explained to her that he didn't go the high school- had not, in fact, ever been to the high school. That he went to private school...for gifted people. But before he could open his mouth, he saw Dudley walking by, with his little gang in tow. Sarah looked at them darkly for a moment, before turning her head away. That, unfortunately for Harry, wasn't enough for Dudley to leave. As he walked towards them, Harry added a glare of his own and then realized, to his consternation, that Dudley, though normally a few pounds off from a full load (though, to be fair, you couldn't tell from his bulk), still had excellent hearing and began answering Sarah's question before Harry could.

"Y'mean Harry never told you? He goes to a "special" school (Dudley's smirk left no doubt in Harry's mind to what "special" was supposed to refer to). One far, far away in the land of Nid. As in, stupid." His followers began to laugh, having been practiced in the art of backing up Dudley's lines. Harry was thinking about what to say to make Dudley shut up, when Sarah said it for him.

"Oh 'Dudders', why don't you run back home to your mother so she can teach some manners. Who knew- you not only look like a pig, you act like one too."

As Dudley, stunned, tried to make a reply (looking alarmingly like a fish trying to gulp oxygen), Sarah turned away and started to walk off, waving Harry along with her. Grinning, he fell into step with her, leaving his cousin and his friends behind.

As he opened his mouth to congratulate her on stumping his cousin on her first day there, she opened hers in a question.

"Why didn't you tell me that you go to a different school? I thought there were no other schools around here. I checked before I came. I knew you wouldn't be going to Dudley's school. What school do you go to?"

Her voice was soft, with, strangely a hard edge that was faintly appreciable. Harry stopped in his tracks, causing her to turn to face him. He was shocked to see her blue eyes reflecting a look of despair and hurt at him, and that, more than anything is what caused him to be able to speak.

"I go to a private school. I started there right after you left. I didn't think to tell you because I didn't know it would be an issue." After a pause, to see her face, he continued, now quietly as she. "I leave soon to go back. Our summer is shorter than yours. If I had known you were coming, I would have told you."

She looked at him for a moment, her eyes hard for a second, then crumbling back into the despair he had seen, before becoming hidden. She nodded.

"Well, I wish I had known that, but as I hadn't asked you before I came, I guess I have to make the best of it." This said with as much forced cheerfulness as she could muster. Harry felt worse. In an effort to change the topic, he quickly asked:

"How is your uncle? Do you like living with him? How's your school?"

To his growing horror he had said precisely the wrong thing as tears finally gathered in the corners of her eyes and her face fell, shuddering as if she'd been hit. Dismay filling him, he reached to hug her just as she burst into tears. Awkward (it wasn't everyday that a crying girl was in his arms- and the last crying girl he'd encountered, Cho, certainly hadn't left him with tips on how to handle it), he slightly patted her back, at first too busy with his own thoughts that he failed to notice what she was saying. He pulled back a bit and asked her to repeat it.

"My uncle's dead. He died when a bus exploded." Shaking her head helplessly, she continued. "The police are clueless. There was no reason, no reason at all for it to explode. It was as if somebody had just made it explode with thought. That's what made me come here. You were there for me the last time my family died. I had hoped you'd be here this time." Sobbing still, she pushed herself away, cursing herself for losing her composure. "Darn it, I promised not to do this."

Harry was torn by conflicting impulses. One impulse was sympathy and compassion, but that was slowly being outdone by a sickening streak of scorn. Yes, she had lost her uncle, but hadn't he just lost Sirius? He hadn't expected to have to help her- he didn't expect anyone to help him. Why should she show up and make him feel guilty because she had lost someone that she had known for longer than he'd been able to know his godfather? Her uncle had died in an accident. Sirius had been murdered right in front of him. Why would she feel that she could come unload on him? He suffered even more than she did. After all, she was a muggle. She didn't live under a death threat, like he did. Yet, he didn't cry about it.

If he was surprised at the vehemence of his thoughts, it didn't register in a mind that was venting about all of the hardships in his life- hardships that he was certain Sarah could never face. If he was shocked at labeling her a muggle in his mind and by using the same prejudice against her that he constantly fought for Hermione's sake, it was hidden so deeply in his churning emotions that it might not have existed.

He said no word, but she felt his body go tense, his arms stiff, and she raised her head to look at him. His thoughts, as always, were plain on his face. She stiffened in shock, her face losing what little color remained. He tried to hide it at the last moment, but she read it and understood his thoughts. She pushed herself away from him slowly, bewildered. What had happened to her friend? What had been done to him so that he was that cruel? She could barely put words together to form a sentence in front of his white-lipped countenance.

"Harry...wha? What's wrong?"

His pent up emotions (even though they were significantly lessened by his tantrum in Dumbledore's office) found a way to eliminate the problem Sarah represented before his mind could protest.

"I've changed Sarah. You don't know anything about pain. You came here expecting me, me, to help you? Well, sorry, I have my own problems, and to me they are a LOT more important than yours. If you were as strong as you should be, you would've stayed at home and fought it out, not come flying back here to 'start over'. As for what's wrong with me, I'm disgusted..."

His voice trailed off, but his face spoke the rest "...with you." She stood for a moment, her own anger and indignation beginning to rise as her face colored. Her eyes became like blue sapphires in her face, and she came close to slapping him. She actually took a step towards him, but stopped at the last moment.

"You have no idea what you're talking about. How dare you talk to me like that. You, who at least has some family left, as pathetic as they are. You, who have a home, and friends, and a "special school". I remember your letters, even if you don't. You talk about me not being strong? Who was that lived under the stairs in a cupboard for 10 years? Who was it that took everything that was given him with no complaints? Or did you like it when Dudley used you for a floor mat? Or a punching bag or a toilet bowl cleaner? That was you. Not me. You. I don't know what's happened to you, Harry, but I don't like it. You can think you're better than me all you want, but in the end you're just as weak as I am, more so because I, at least, earn my way through life. You, apparently, think it's handed to you!"

Yelling the last phrase, she spun and stalked away from him, furious tears streaming down her face, leaving Harry, just as angry as she standing where she left him, at a loss for words.