Do you believe in magic?

Harry Potter was in a rather foul mood that day.

That was hardly anything worth noting. In the Dursley family, misery was the norm. The occasional reprieve was what came as a surprise.

But today was Christmas Eve.

For him, a holiday that should have been full of laughter meant nothing beyond extra dishes to wash.

Before dinner, he had been told to wash the serving plates.

He had no choice but to stand on a little stool, put his hands into the soapy water, and wash them one by one.

On the third plate, his hand slipped. The ceramic plate fell from his grasp and shattered into three pieces.

"You useless thing!" Aunt Petunia's shriek nearly pierced his eardrums. "Do you know how much that plate cost? Do you know what I needed it for tonight? No, you don't! You don't know anything! All you know how to do is eat and sleep!"

Harry did not argue.

Arguing would only make things worse.

But even without arguing, he still lost the right to eat dinner.

That sort of thing was nothing new to him.

In his nine years with the Dursley family, he had missed one meal-or even two-more times than he could count.

With practiced ease, Harry washed and dried every plate in the kitchen, then crouched in the doorway of his cupboard, listening to the laughter from the living room upstairs and Dudley's squeals as he opened his presents.

"Twenty-six! Twenty-six!" Dudley's voice came through the floor, making even the light bulb in the cupboard tremble slightly.

"There are two more on the way. They'll arrive tomorrow." Aunt Petunia's voice was coaxing. "My darling Dudders, you have more presents than anyone else on the whole street this year."

Harry drew his knees up to his chest and rested his chin on them.

His stomach was growling, and his ribs showed clearly through his oversized old T-shirt.

He had never dared hope for anything like presents.

For him, having enough to eat would have been good enough.

He had understood from a very young age that he was an orphan.

Aunt Petunia said his parents had died in a car crash. She said his father had been a drunk who drove off a bridge after drinking.

If she and Uncle Vernon had not kindly taken him in, he would have frozen to death in some orphanage long ago.

Sometimes Harry thought that perhaps living in an orphanage would not be so bad.

Poor food was still better than going hungry. He would not have to be Dudley's punching bag, and perhaps he would not have to do so many chores either.

Besides, all he ate at the Dursleys' were leftovers. They were not necessarily much better than what he would get in an orphanage.

But he only ever thought about it.

He did not even know where an orphanage was. Even if he did, he could not get very far on foot.

And he had a vague feeling that if he really ran away, Uncle Vernon probably would not bother looking for him.

That hurt more than hunger did, as though something had lodged in his chest and made it hard to breathe.

"Harry!"

Aunt Petunia's voice came from upstairs, as shrill as a cat whose tail had been stepped on.

"The rubbish bag is still in the kitchen! Do you think it's going to walk outside to the bin by itself?"

"Coming," Harry answered, climbing out of his cupboard.

The rubbish bag was stuffed full, almost half his size.

Inside were turkey bones, potato peelings, half a pudding Dudley had left uneaten, a few empty tins, and a huge pile of crumpled wrapping paper.

Harry gripped the top of the bag with both hands and dragged it outside. It scraped across the kitchen floor with a rustling sound and nearly tripped him.

The cold wind outside rushed straight down his collar. He shivered and pulled his oversized coat a little tighter around himself.

The coat had belonged to Dudley too. Its down filling had clumped together, and it offered barely any warmth.

"Phew. When will I finally be grown up?"

Harry breathed out a cloud of white mist, watched it slowly fade beneath the dim streetlight, then kept dragging the rubbish bag toward the bin by the road.

On his way to the rubbish collection point, he came across two people.

A boy who looked about his age was crouching on the ground, playing with a sparkler. Golden sparks traced arcs of light through the night, and the boy's face was full of smiles.

The other boy was probably a little older than Harry and looked more than a head taller.

The taller boy stood to one side with his hands in his pockets, staring blankly at him.

The instant their eyes met, Harry instinctively lowered his head, not daring to look again.

That boy wore clean winter clothes and looked wonderfully warm.

He must have lived a life completely different from Harry's.

He had a warm home, enough food, and clothes that fit.

And what did Harry have?

A sense of inferiority rushed into Harry's chest like a sudden gust of cold wind.

He lowered his head and dragged the rubbish bag faster, wanting to get out of their sight as quickly as possible.

Gerald had never imagined he would meet Harry Potter under these circumstances.

He had considered finding an excuse to take a stroll past Number Four, Privet Drive.

But reason told him not to invite unnecessary complications.

Sometimes, though, fate simply gave you no time to prepare.

He had only come outside to keep Bill company while he played with sparklers. He had merely glanced down the street while waiting for Bill to finish, and there was that small, thin figure.

He was even frailer than Gerald had imagined.

Harry Potter in the films had not exactly been sturdy, but at least he had looked like a normal ten-year-old boy.

The child dragging a rubbish bag before him was as thin as a reed bent by the wind.

He could not pretend he had seen nothing.

Gerald stared at the child for about three seconds.

In those three seconds, he made a decision.

"Need a hand?"

Harry Potter froze for a moment.

He lifted his head, clear surprise in his eyes.

The streetlight fell across his face, and only then did Gerald get a clear look at his features.

He looked rather different from his film counterpart-or rather, more malnourished.

Then Gerald noticed Harry's eyes. They were emerald green, so bright beneath the dim yellow light that they almost seemed to glow.

"Er... no, I don't..." Harry refused instinctively.

He was not used to accepting help.

In the Dursley family, help always came with conditions.

Uncle Vernon had helped him once.

The price had been an entire weekend locked in the storeroom.

Ever since then, he had learned to refuse other people's kindness.

But Gerald did not wait for him to finish. He grabbed the heavy rubbish bag with one hand and lifted it.

Harry Potter was startled.

He knew all too well how heavy that bag was.

He had spent so long dragging it that both his arms were aching.

Yet this boy, who looked only a year or two older than him, lifted it without the slightest effort.

"Nice to meet you, Harry Potter." Gerald turned to him with a smile. "My name is Gerard Green."

Those words were like a pebble dropped into a still lake.

Harry's body went rigid, and he instinctively took a step back.

"How do you know my name?"

He had never seen this person before.

He knew very few people. Apart from the Dursleys and a handful of teachers and classmates at school, he had barely ever spoken to anyone else.

Yet this stranger had addressed him by his full name the moment he spoke.

Gerald did not answer directly.

He turned toward Bill, who was still playing with his sparkler nearby. "Bill, could you go back inside and find Luke? This older boy and I have something to do."

Bill was crouching on the ground, holding a sparkler that was about to burn out. Golden sparks crackled at his fingertips.

He looked up at Gerald and nodded.

"Okay, big brother."

Gerald watched Bill go inside before turning back to Harry.

"Come on. Let's throw out the rubbish first, then we can talk."

Harry opened his mouth, wanting to say something, but in the end, he said nothing.

Seeing his hesitation, Gerald smiled. "As you can see, we live here too. There's nothing to worry about."

Harry's face reddened slightly, as though Gerald had guessed exactly what he was thinking.

They walked to the nearby bin. Gerald tossed the rubbish bag inside and closed the lid.

Then he turned toward the rather frail boy before him and spoke.

"Harry, do you believe there's magic in this world?"