Harry Potter sat in a dark corner booth in the Leaky Cauldron, nursing his butterbeer and muttering to himself. Luckily it was early in the day and not yet in the busy part of the shopping season, so there was no one sitting near him to hear.

He had escaped from the Dursley’s house almost immediately, and on his own, since it was clear from the beginning that the old bat Dumbledore was not going to help him get over the loss of another father figure or allow anyone else to do anything useful to help him. That spent he had spent most of the summer living above the bar again, ignoring communications from Remus Lupin, Hermione, and various Weasleys, and actively hiding from Dumbledore when he came to talk. Now on his 16th birthday, he was sitting by himself, writing a manifesto for the next year of his life and drinking butterbeer alone.

“Point the first,” he muttered to himself, “never trust Albus Dumbledore, or anyone else over the age of a hundred, again.” All his association with Dumbledore had gotten him was almost killed numerous times, the ability to watch everyone he loved die one by one, and good reflexes. Also, the older he got the more he realized that Dumbledore saw him and everyone else as chess pieces in his private game with Voldemort, not people.

“Point the second,” he continued, “from this point forward, everyone has to earn the trust of The Chosen One. The past doesn’t matter. The period of me controlling my own life starts now.” He had been hurt too many times in the past. It had to stop now.

“Point the third,” he continued at a slightly raised volume, his passion growning,” honor Sirius’s memory in everything you do.” There would be no yelling and whining this time like in years past after bad things happened. He was going to honor Padfoot every day and his life was going to be awesome.

“And finally, point the fourth,” he almost shouted, “I am going to get rid of Cedric Diggory’s ghost if it’s the last thing I-“ he cut himself off abruptly and shoved the manifesto he had been scribbling on out of sight. He didn’t know who was approaching his table, but a lot of people didn’t need to see this document, and no one needed to see it just yet. He sat quietly, waiting for whoever this was to announce themselves. The new Harry Potter never gave up the element of surprise.

The Leaky Cauldron. The young witch half glared up at the sign as if it had personally wronged her in some way before she entered the small and cramped pub. Letting out a breath as she crossed the threshold into the establishment, Skyler paused for a moment to look around. She silently thanked her lucky stars that it was alot less packed than it had been on her previous trips. She noted though that this hardly had an impact on the cramped quarters. The room gave off the impression that one was trying to stuff as much furniture into it as possible, leaving barely any room to move around. And Skyler had never been the most graceful girl if she were being honest with herself.

Oh sure, put her on a broom in the air and she's perfectly fine. But on the ground with her own two feet she was rather accident prone. Another thing her grandmother had been only too happy to point out. Skyler had been rolling her eyes so much lately that she hardly realized when she did it anymore which was why she never noticed herself rolling her eyes just then. Moving further into the room, the witch went along at a slow pace, being careful not to trip over a chair or table leg.

She was almost to the table which she had picked to sit at when suddenly a rather loud mutter startled her as she was passing a different table and she started a bit, which unfortunately was enough for her right foot to catch the leg of a chair, sending her to the ground with wide, purple eyes. "Oompf." She landed, sprawled, on the dusty floor of the pub.

She might have gotten angry if it weren't for the fact that if it were anyone else on the floor and she had observed the incident she would have laughed. So the witch shook her head good naturedly and looked up grinning at the person who had startled her into her current situation. "How does one go about getting rid of ghosts anyways?" She lightheartedly questioned as she pulled herself to her feet and dusted off her jeans.

It quickly went from a mysterious person approaching his table, possibly due to his rising volume to an unfamiliar girl around his own age sprawled on the floor and grinning up at Harry. Odd that someone that close to his own age and magical enough to be in the Leaky Cauldron was entirely unfamiliar. Most of them had spent considerable time staring at him, and a large portion of the girls had attempted to ask him out at some point in the last couple of years. This stranger was the perfect test of his new resolve to not rush to judgements on people.

He was pulled out of his own head when it clicked what she had actually done to get into her current position. His Gryffindor strain and saving people thing kicked in, as much as he fought to keep it down until he decided if she deserved saving or not. Helping her up couldn't hurt anything, right? "That looks like it might have hurt," he said, holding out his hand in case she did in fact want help up.

"As for ghosts," he continued while waiting on her to make a decision on his hand, "I really have no ruddy clue. If I did, I likely wouldn't have spent the better part of the last year arguing with the bloody git of a Hufflepuff when no one else was around." The damn ghost only approached when Harry was alone, but the dark haired young man refused to entertain the idea that he might be a delusion, even if that would be easier to get rid of.

Suddenly he became aware that he was sharing way too much information with a stranger, even if he felt uncomfortable sharing it with anyone he already knew after Dumbledore's betrayal. "I'm Harry Potter, by the way." That generally left anyone who didn't actually know him dumbstruck enough to get out of any situation. Hopefully it would do the trick here.

Skyler took the offered hand with a thankful grin, noticing what was probably belatedly the rather shocking color of green the boy's eyes were. It wasn't that she had never seen anyone with green eyes. It wasn't exactly uncommon to have green eyes. But this pair was more the emerald color, and that was a shade of green you didn't normally get in eyes. If she hadn't been happy with her own unusual shade of purple one, she might have been a tad jealous of the boy.

The girl had to shake her head to dispel her thoughts, taking a moment longer to regain her sense enough to realize what he had said. She easily waved away his concern. "Na. I've taken harder falls, believe me." She advised in an easy going tone that indicated it was no big deal. "Appreciate the concern though." She added on in her American accent,  grin taking over her face.

It was amazing how a day could make a difference. Had this taken place yesterday she had been in such a frustrated mood she might have been less friendly, but as it was she was in an especially good mood today, being a bit more excited about the upcoming school year now that it seemed she would atleast know a few people there. She was a bit put out that she hadn't actually met anyone that would be in the same house as her, and she had gotten the feeling from The red head she had met just the other day that Slytherin housed an unpleasant lot. Skyler supposed she would just have to wait and be the judge of that herself.

The witch amused herself with dusting off her clothes as she tried to follow the boy's words. If she were meant to understand what he was talking about, she ended up having no real clue aside from the fact that he apparently had a ghost problem. Cocking her head to the side, Skyler's purple eyes did a circuit around the room, checking for the entity. It wasn't really that she doubted the boy. She knew ghosts did exist and she looked more interested than anything. Not spotting any ghosts that she could see, the girl mused aloud. "That's an interesting problem to have. She stated, as if this were a common thing to be talking about. Skyler had, in fact, never known anyone to have such a problem, but between having conversations about Santa Clause and dropping insects on people's heads, it seemed to her not too out of the ordinary.

"Maybe you could ward him away?" She said off handedly, shrugging her shoulders a bit. That could be a possibility right? There had to be some other occasion where one needed to did themselves of a ghost in the history of wizards and witches. Skyler was drawn out of her thoughts by the boy's introduction. She flashed a wide grin. "Well it's good to meet ya Harry Potter. Im Skyler Riddle." If the girl had ever heard of the boy before, she didn't give any indication of it. She simply greeted him much the same way she would greet any other person her age.

Wards and maybe personal shields, Harry thought to himself. He had been so busy trying to banish Cedric the way you would a ghost, then deciding there might not BE a way to get rid of a ghost with no motivation to leave, that he had never stopped to try and get rid of him the way you would an annoying first year who stared at you like it would be the highlight of their life if you would just touch their robes. "That just might be my next move," he muttered, half to the girl, who he now knew as Skyler, and half to himself.

Then the name she had given really sank in and Harry did a double-take. Riddle as in...? No, it couldn't be. Sure, he had never known any Riddle besides Voldemort, never even heard of another besides the Dark Lord's long dead father, but he knew for a fact that from childhood Voldemort had had no family at all, even step things. His father had moved back in with his own parents after his divorce, if you could call it that, so there was no danger of second cousins once removed coming to learn the family trade of Harry hunting.

Then again, all of that no family information, and really everything he knew about Voldemort's family, came directly from that untrustworthy git Dumbledore, who claimed to be the only one besides Voldemort who knew any of it. For all Harry knew, it was utter lies meant to steer Harry in the direction the manipulative old crackpot wanted him to go. On the other hand again, this girl seemed to legitimately have no idea who he was, or at least to not care. While both of these ideas were highly suspicious, if either was true it significantly lowered the odds that she was here to kill him.

Either way, he decided that he needed to approach the dark haired girl with the eyes odder than his own with extreme caution, and possibly to make sure people actually knew who the most famous underage wizard in the world was before he gave anything away in the future. For now he would settle for getting to know Skyler better. It would be a good test of Manifesto point the second.

"Have a seat," he said, beckoning the seat across from him at the table. He also slid the manifesto back out and onto the table, the better to glance at and motivate himself before he raised his eyes back to Skyler. "Tell me a little about yourself."

For a moment Skyler didn't know whether to respond or not to the boys' muttered words,  not really sure if he were talking to her or merely thinking aloud. As she hooked her thumbs in the back pockets of her jeans in a move to do something with her hands so they weren't just hanging like dead weights at her sides, Skyler thought that this sort of thing happened from time to time. People thinking aloud. Then again, she reflected mentally, he could always be talking to this ghost of his.

At that thought, her eyes looked searchingly over the room, looking almost warily, as if she expected to see a ghost appear suddenly. But when nothing of the sort happened, she returned her gaze to the boy named Harry Potter. But Merlin the name sounded familiar now that she thought about it. She couldn't put her finger on it, but she knew she had heard it somewhere. Maybe someone in one of the many shops she had been recently had mentioned the boy? Skyler accepted this as a possibility, considering there had been lots of what she assumed were Hogwarts students roaming about.  Either way, the witch shrugged it off. No use wracking her brain about it. Eventually it'd come to her.

"Well I hope you find something that works. Maybe you should try runes." She offered thoughtfully, finally deciding to respond. "I think they can be used in wards. But I wouldn't really trust me to know. " She added on . "It's not exactly my best subject, despite my interest in it." Skyler admitted sheepishly. It was rather sad, liking something you were practically terrible at, but it was mostly her lack of focus that held her back in most areas. The brunette was more a kinesthetic learner. If she wasn't learning in a hands on approach there was probably little chance of her retaining the information.

Skyler noted the double take at her name and wanted to question the boy on it.  But instead one dark eyebrow rose as he told her to take a seat. It wasn't a request, yet she couldn't say it was a command either. Her face became impassive as she stood for a moment, indecisive, torn between being offended at being told what to do, no matter how it was said, and being curious about that reaction to her name. In the end, as it so often did with her, curiosity won out and she chose to take a seat. Chose being the operative word there, because of course Skyler would never do something simply because she was told to.

But she drew the line when he told her to tell him about herself. For a split second her purple eyes flashed angrily as she burned with hostility, but it was gone as quickly as it had come, and she amused herself with a new plan, even though the desire to take that piece of paper from him, ball it up and throw it at his head did not leave.  "Of course." She said simply. Smirking, the witch leaned back in her chair, extending her legs and crossing them at the ankles as she crossed her arms over her chest in a show of getting comfortable. Like she might be there a while.  In truth, the girl had no intention whatsoever of leaving without knowing why he had reacted so to her given name.  "For every piece of information you tell me about yourself, I will oblige with a fact about myself." It was only fair. "I give as good as I get." She advised him in a nonchalant manner with a smirk that suggested that this applied to her in more areas than just the mutual exchange of information she now set before him.

Unlike most, including maybe himself two months ago, Harry was cheered by the brief look of rebellion that was turned at him. It was gone before he could comment on it or really prove it, but Harry knew. This was one that you didn’t want as an enemy, and someone who could be an excellent addition to his team if she could be trusted despite her name.

She settled in, and Merlin, she was flirting with him. This was a girl who knew nothing about him apparently, so she wasn’t doing this for the fame, as every girl with the exception of Ginny had been for at least the last two years. She might be genuinely interested in Harry the person, not Harry the walking puppet scar of Dumbledore who was the most famous teenager in Wizarding Britain. Sadly, now was not the time to do anything with this information, so he filed it away for later, hoping he would be able to put it to some use at school.

For now, he needed to focus on whether or not Skyler could be trusted and what the last name Riddle meant, if anything. For trust the best method was probably to just get her talking and see what happened, unless he could actively catch her in a lie, and he really hoped he didn’t have to drop her as quickly as all that. His focus, then, needed to be on the family thing, but carefully placed as getting to know her in general.

“People much more knowledgeable about customs than me keep telling me that blood is the most important thing there is,” he began, trying not to let the sneer he felt towards Malfoy in his mind make it into his voice, “so I guess I’ll start there. My parents died when I was a baby, though the method is disputed depending on who you ask.” He didn’t really want to give away enough for her to guess who he was yet if she knew him by reputation and not name, and Petunia technically did still maintain that a car crash killed his parents. “I was raised by my aunt and uncle, who are muggles and hate magic. And…I just recently was with my godfather when he died.” That last one stung still and Harry hadn’t really meant to say it. He tried to keep the tears from his eyes and hoped Skyler didn’t notice anything.

When he was composed enough to talk again, he continued. “So that gets me, what, three facts about you and your family?”

Skyler had started out with a grin, happy he had decided to play along with her game. However, the grin soon began to fade until it was gone completely and replaced with a frown. At first, she looked for any indication that he was joking, yanking her chain or something. But no. There was no faking that look of loss. Skyler for once had no idea what to say. What did one say in these situations anyways? Sorry for your loss? What good was a sorry anyways? And it wasn't like they were really lost was it? I mean, they weren't lost with a chance of being found like a pair of keys or something. In the end, Skyler decided on saying exactly what she thought, as she so often did when she found herself navigating a place she'd never been.

"Well, I'd say I'm sorry for your loss, but a sorry doesn't help anything in my experience. And I suppose they're not really lost are they? Because its not like their a pair of favorite socks you have a chance of finding again..." Skyler thought she had started out good, but she trailed off as she realized that other than that she didn't really know what to say. In the end, she couldn't help the sheepish grin that bloomed despite the topic of conversation. "Well, I thought I had a point somewhere in there." She offered, with an apologetic look on her face.

For once she honestly wished she knew how to be comforting or something along those lines, but it just wasn't something she was good at. Actually, it wasn't something she had much practice with. Make someone laugh, sure. That was something she could do. But how did one make someone, who had literally lost everything before they could even remember what it was they lost, laugh? Was it even ok?

The whole thing was beginning to give her a headache. In the end, she decided that probably the best thing to do at this point was to make good on her promise and to give as good as she got. But this would leave a bad taste in her mouth she could tell because she still had both her parents, and therefore could never understand his situation.

The brunette witch decided to address the blood thing first, since this was the one thing she knew without a doubt they probably agreed upon, if his tone when he said it was anything to go by. "Ridiculous if you ask me, the blood thing. I mean seriously, who cares? We've all got blood with magic in it. That should be enough if you ask me." There was a bit of disdain in her tone, aimed at those who thought they were better than everyone else simply for the fact that magic ran in both sides of their families. "So three things about my family. Well, my mom's what they would call a pureblood witch, and my dad's a muggleborn. They raised me in America, in California to be exact, until this summer when my mom decided she wanted to regain her role in pureblood society, to the extreme delight of my grandmother who hates me." She said all this in a nonchalant way, but her dislike for her grandmother showed through. She didn't really want to hide it. The boy had been open with her, not hiding his pain, and so she was open with him. Something that  was pretty much unprecedented.

That had come out considerably sadder than Harry had intended it and seemed to upset the girl more than he had intended. Having never known his parents, talking about them upset him, but he would never fully understand the whole level of sympathy he got from people who either still had or once had their parents. Apparently on some level Harry really didn’t know what he was missing due to the whole orphan thing. The older he got, the more he suspected men like Sirius, Lupin, and Hagrid were only pale comparisons to what James would have been to him.

He shook himself mentally, trying to get back in the moment. Dwelling on James and Sirius was likely to make him cry, and he felt the need to salvage this encounter somehow, for the sake of his new Manifesto. “I’ve never heard someone whose reason for moving somewhere was ‘to restore the family’s proper standing’ say that blood status doesn’t matter,” Harry said with something that was almost a chuckle. “I take it that you wouldn’t have left America at all if you had the choice?”

So she was foreign. That explained the whole not seeming to know who he was thing, and reinforced Harry’s desire to not give her anything that would cause things to click into place. She was also old money of the kind Sirius and Malfoy was apparently, which usually led to Slytherins. This encounter was getting more and more into the realm of dangerous, and Harry was beginning to wonder if he had made a mistake in picking up on her as a potential ally and not just a potential threat.

Then he remembered that judging ideas like that were the old Harry, as well as the way of Dumbledore and Voldemort. Maybe a calmer topic would set things right so that he could figure this situation out and get his mind to stop spending. “I don’t know if you follow Quidditch being an American and all, but do you have a favorite team?” Sports was always a good fallback. Yeah.

Skyler took confidence from the slight chuckle the boy gave. It was the first normal thing in the conversation so far. "Hey! I don't care about all that pureblood mumbo jumbo." She responded earnestly, pulling a face. "Bunch of hypocrisy if I ever heard it. It's my mom that suddenly does." She added on, her tone suddenly bitter as she rolled her eyes.

She honestly didn't know what was going on with her mother, but she knew something was. Her father too. Otherwise he never would have agreed to come here in the first place. She had vowed to figure out just what exactly was going on, but she hadn't gained a clue so far, something that frustrated her greatly. She pushed thoughts of her parents away for now, cocking her head to the side as if in thought as she considered Harry. "It's really hard to say what I would've chosen to do actually." She finally admitted with a small sigh.

There was no doubt that she did miss home, or that she could care less about what anyone thought of her. But since she had been here, she had met a few people, some good and some not so good, that had made life more interesting. And she was looking forward to going to Hogwarts. Skyler didn't necessarily not like change. She just didn't like not understanding it. She liked to travel and experience new things, so she wasn't exactly miserable because they had moved. But she couldn't say  that she would've moved if it had been up to her. Nor could she say that she wouldn't have moved either.

At his question about Quidditch, a full blown grin grew on her face, forming itself from ear to ear. "Now you're talking." She said, sitting up in her excitement at this new direction the conversation had taken, purple eyes brightening considerably. "And yes, by the way, I do.  The Fitchburg Finches." She advised with a nod of her head. "The Sweetwater All-Stars aren't too bad I suppose. But they're not exactly in the same league as the Finches are they? I mean who is? They've only won the United States League cup seven times!" She rambled on with something akin to awe in her voice.  Catching herself, Skyler didn't blush in embarrassment at her excitement like many girls would. Instead, she grinned unapologetically at the boy. "Though if you're talking nationally, I'd have to put my gold on the American National Quidditch Team. It's all about the home team my friend."

It was clear that Skyler could be quite the chatterbox when prompted, something she was not ashamed of in the least. Quid ditch was a safe enough topic, and she had already pretty much given away her life story for the most part. It wasn't like this information could come back and bite her in the ass. Unless her teams lost to one of his or something. But bragging rights were apart of the game. She hated when conversations sounded forced, or when you got stuck talking to someone who was so utterly boring you had nothing to say. Skyler usually had more than enough to say for a few people however, so she rarely got caught in those kinds of situations. In fact, it was a running joke with her father that the witch could easily have a conversation with only herself because she always had so much to say, and rarely paused between her rambles once she started to allow someone else to partake in the conversation.

Harry couldn’t help but chuckle again. He knew that the Americans did play quidditch, but from the way older wizards talked about it when they were debating the World Cup in its early stages a couple of summers ago, it was a fairly recent development, and Harry hadn’t known they had their own professional league. Apparently that was the case, as he wasn’t familiar with the two names she mentioned. Though he owned three different editions of Quidditch through the Ages, he generally skipped the parts about overseas leagues and thus had very little idea what was going on over there.

“I’m not sure that you Yankees could give the Welsh National team a good game, much less England or Scotland,” Harry said cheekily. “You need to go see a game in the British and Irish League if you get a chance. I’m partial to Puddlemere United, as I played with their reserve Keeper when he was at Hogwarts. They’re playing the Tornadoes over Christmas break, and it should be the match of the year.” Harry was about to go so far as to offering to get Skyler a ticket before he remembered that there would be time for that later, if she could be trusted.

Besides, the level of her excitement made him think of something else. “Do you play? I happen to be the best Seeker to have been at Hogwarts for at least the last decade.” He could tell from the look on her face that she did in fact play, but just at that moment the door of the pub opened and a familiar head of red hair made its way inside.

“You’ll have to tell me about it some other time,” he said hurriedly, standing and gathering his things as he prepared to dash. “I’ll see you at school, yeah?” Without waiting for an answer, he practically ran to the stairs that led up to the room he was living out of, needing to get out of the way before Mrs. Weasley saw him. “I’m not here,” he mouthed urgently at Tom the barkeep as he gained the sanctuary of the stairs. He thought he had gotten away cleanly, but it was a shame to duck away from Skyler in such a hurry. The conversation had just taken a turn into the interesting, after all.

Skyler was beginning to like this Harry. He seemed like an alright guy, and someone she could be friends with. He seemed just as interested in Quidditch as she was, and that was always a plus. She rolled her eyes at his remarks to yanks playing Quidditch, but couldn't keep from grinning as he told her about his favorite team and how they'd be playing over Christmas break. Skyler filed this away for future use as Harry went on to tell her he was the best seeker at Hogwarts. The witch absently wondered if this was true while she grinned wider at the fact he would be at Hogwarts too. Maybe they would be friends after all.

She had just opened her mouth to tell that she did indeed play and had played seeker as well at her old school but Harry ducked away, running off probably just as quickly as she had fallen into the scenario. Skyler blinked and nodded slowly to his question, though she knew he wouldn't see it. Well that was...interesting. The witch thought, her brows drawing together as her lips turned into a frown. She wondered why he would suddenly leave like that. Maybe it was something she said? Thinking back, she couldn't pick anything specific out that might be cause for his sudden departure.

Skyler shrugged it off, deciding she'd find out at school hopefully and pulled herself to her feet and headed to the door, passing a red headed woman on the way. The brunette did a double take. Wasn't that Ginny Weasley's mom? Skyler could swear it was. The witch stuck around long enough to witness the woman asking for Harry, to which she received a 'no, he wasn't there.' Skyler easily slipped out, not ashamed for her eavesdropping. Why was Harry hiding out from the red haired woman? This must be a smaller world than she had thought. Skyler wandered off with much on her mind, and more eager to get to Hogwarts.