Time to take a chance

The vanishing glass

Hello, everybody! I'd like to thank darkquill98 and freddiest for what they told me about how my previous story had probably been taken down because, technically, the book was written there. So, I followed their advice and now I'll only include the first and last few words of each paragraph. I'm sorry if it annoys anyone, but I think it's the only way I have to try to make sure it's not taken down again.

Some people have asked me about the pairings. Well, let's get that issue out of the way as soon as possible. There'll be some, of course, that's inevitable, and they'll be the canon pairings (even if I'm not a fan of all of them) because they're reading the books. That said, they won't suddenly fall in love and kiss and live happily ever after once they read about it in the books. That's ridiculous. They'll fight and argue and deny it and blush and cry and threaten each other, and some may even accept it and be happy. Either way, these pairings won't be the main focus of the story. If you take a look at the tags, they say friendship and family, not romance. It's basically because I think, in the books, friendship and family are much more important than romance and also because I've never written romance and I'd have no idea where to even start.

Now that I've finished with that, thank you so much for all the reviews and all the support and everyone who has decided to give this story a chance! It's really incredible!

Anyway, here's the first chapter where they read the books. I hope you like it!

Disclaimer: all the text in bold and the characters belong to J. K. Rowling. This is just a story written by a fan who doesn't get any kind of compensation for it except for a few reviews from time to time.

Time to take a chance

The vanishing glass

"Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone," Harry answered. Murmurs broke out across Great Hall. "I know it doesn't make sense right now, but it will when we're further along in the story."

"Very well," Madame Maxime nodded.

"Then, let's begin," Dumbledore said satisfied. "Filius, please," he said nodding towards the book.

The tiny professor happily waved his wand at the book and it opened on the first page.

The vanishing glass

"Vanishing glass? Are we sure that this is the book from Harry's first year?" Percy asked with a frown. "Vanishing Spells aren't taught until fifth year."

They looked at the boy in search for answers, but the sight that greeted them was unexpected.

"He's asleep?" Bill blurted out baffled as he stared at the boy who was leaning against his stunned little brother and breathing deeply in sleep. "He was awake and talking literally ten seconds ago!"

"How can he sleep now?" Lavander asked, somewhat annoyed. "I mean, it's one thing to fall asleep in class, but he said himself that these books are important and..."

"Don't be daft, Lavander. The letter warned us about this," Hermione snapped, unconsciously pressing closer to Harry protectively. She knew that Harry rarely allowed himself to be asleep in front of others because he felt like he was leaving himself vulnerable.

"Whatever happens to him in the book happens to him here," Remus realised with wide eyes.

"Including sleep?" Ginny asked perplexed. It was weird to see Harry like this. He looked... younger, or more like his age. He didn't look like the hero he usually resembled.

"Apparently," Remus nodded, staring at the slumbering boy. He looked so much like a young James with his green eyes closed.

"Maybe we can wake him up?" Dean suggested tentatively. Reading books about Harry while Harry was asleep was... odd.

The twins grinned and shot to their feet immediately.

"We can take care of that," George said.

"It'll be our real pleasure," Fred nodded, pulling his wand out. Before anyone could stop him, he began to shoot fireworks, only to frown when Harry didn't even stir. "That didn't work out like it was supposed to," he huffed disgruntled.

"This will do the trick," George said with a mischievous smile. He had moved behind the couch Harry, Ron and Hermione were sharing while everyone was distracted with his twin's fireworks. He put a horn right next to Harry's ear and blew it hard.

Everybody jumped at the loud noise, especially Ron and Hermione, but Harry just mumbled something unintelligible and turned his face a little to hide it against Ron's arm.

"Stop that!" Ron snapped, snatching the horn out of his hand, trying not to dislodge his best friend even more. He glared at his brother furiously. "What's wrong with you?!"

George rolled his eyes and took a step back with his hands raised defensively. "Relax, Ronnikins. We're just trying to wake him up."

"Well, it's not gonna work like that," their little brother snapped annoyed.

"We know," Fred said gleefully. "It'd be the perfect time to prank Harry."

"We can rarely catch him asleep and he always wakes up at the slightest noise," George said, sharing a look with his twin that didn't promise anything good.

"You're not pranking Harry when he's like this!" Ron shouted at them, his ears red with fury.

George raised an eyebrow. "Of course not."

"Who do you think we are?" Fred asked. "We're not dicks, you know."

Harry was like a little brother to them, the eighth Weasley kid, and, while they were all for pranking their siblings, they wouldn't even think about doing it in this situation. It just wasn't fair.

"We mean it, Fred, George," Hermione warned them seriously. She would not tolerate jokes about this.

"We know," George rolled his eyes.

"Jeez, that's the opinion you have of us?" Fred asked offended as they went back to their seats.

"To be fair," Angelina chipped in from a bit further away. "You can sometimes get carried away."

"We'd never use this spell against Harry, Angie," Fred said, sending her a betrayed look.

"We'd never stoop that low," George huffed annoyed.

There was an awkward pause before Percy broke it. "Nobody's answered my question. Vanishing Spells are taught in fifth year. Are we sure this is the book about Harry's first year?"

"Yes, Percy," Hermione cut in before Ron could snap at his brother. The redhead's patience was even thinner than usual with his best friend asleep and vulnerable. "I don't know what Vanishing Spells have to do with this, but I have no doubt that this book is about our first year."

"Well, if you're sure..." Percy let it go reluctantly.

"Now, can we keep reading till we get to the part where Harry wakes up?" Ron demanded. As much as he knew that Harry needed his sleep since he had spent most of the night turning and tossing in bed, he knew that his best friend would loath to be asleep in front of the Great Hall.

Nearly ten ... the front step,

"Who are the Dursleys?" Dean asked.

"Harry's relatives," Ron spat. He refused to call them Harry's family. They didn't deserve that title.

"They're his Uncle Vernon, Aunt Petunia and his cousin Dudley," Hermione explained briefly, but her face didn't show any kindness or patience.

"Petunia?" Remus repeated, perking up at the familiar name. "Lily's sister?"

"Harry's living with Lily's sister?" Sirius asked horrified. "That bitch hated her!"

"Mr. Black!" Molly screeched angrily. "I will not tolerate that kind of language around my kids! And you can't judge Harry's family without having met them. I agree that they aren't the friendliest people, but..."

"You've met them?" The animagus asked, latching onto that.

"Just briefly," the woman huffed. "Not enough to have a proper conversation."

"You aren't missing anything, mum," George assured her darkly. Ever since they had seen first hand the conditions Harry lived in when they had gone to rescue him in the Ford Anglia, they had wanted to pay those muggles with their own medicine. They had done that a bit that summer by giving those sweets to Dudley, but it wasn't enough in their opinion.

"They aren't the nicest bunch there is," Fred scoffed at his own understatement.

"Hold on a second," Bill said, raising a hand to stop them with an alarmed expression. "The book says they found their nephew on their doorstep."

There was an awkward pause as the words sunk in and the anger grew.

"I don't suppose they have another nephew, do they?" Charlie asked, eyeing his parents warily. He wouldn't want to be on the receiving end of the stinking eye his mother was going to give whoever was responsible for leaving Harry on a doorstep.

"No," Ron growled.

"Why was he on their doorstep?!" Molly shrieked, her control breaking.

"Hagrid!" Sirius roared outraged. "I gave Harry to you! I trusted him into your care! What the hell happened?!"

Hagrid cowered at the fury on the animagus' face. "I, uh... I took him to Dumbledore and..."

"Dumbledore!" Sirius roared again, going after the next culprit. He was going to continue this way till he found out why his godson had spent the night on a doorstep.

"I left him there, Sirius," the headmaster said resolutely.

"Why would you do that?" Molly asked horrified.

"It was imperative for Mr. Potter to go live with his relatives as soon as possible," he explained soothingly.

It did nothing to calm them down.

"Albus, would it have been such a problem to knock on the door and talk to them instead?" Arthur frowned disapprovingly. He didn't like to think about the boy who had spent many weeks in his family's care sleeping on the street.

"We did what we had to do, Arthur. Don't worry. Harry was safe," the old man assured him.

"'We'?" Remus repeated. "Who's 'we'? Just Hagrid and you?"

"I was there that night, too, Remus," McGonagall said, metaphorically stepping forward to take her part of the blame.

That night she had been too distraught, she had only been able to think about James and Lily and how she wasn't going to see Harry for another ten years. She hadn't been able to bear looking at the child anymore and she had fled as soon as possible to go mourn in peace. She hadn't really thought about what they had done that night. Now, though, now it sickened her.

"You were?" Remus said incredulous. Their head of house had left Harry on a doorstep?

"Minnie?" Sirius said without thinking.

Despite her current beliefs about the man, the thick betrayal in his voice was enough to make her wince. She didn't even find it in herself to scold him about the nickname James and he had given her years before.

"I can only say that I wasn't myself that night," she said. She looked at her student, who was slumbering oblivious to the world around him. Her remorse was shining through clearly and she knew that she would have to apologise to him when he was awake to hear it.

but Privet ... about the owls.

"Reports about owls?" Seamus asked perplexed. "Muggles have reports about owls? I thought they didn't use them to send their letters."

"They don't, Mr. Finnigan," McGonagall said with pursed lips. Even after so long, she still believed that they had been foolish to risk the exposure to muggles so much. "People were so excited about You-Know-Who's disappearance that they grew reckless. Obliviators had their hands full for days afterwards."

"It was a big day, Minerva," Flitwick said. "The news about You-Know-Who's demise rocked the wizarding world in a way that few things ever have."

"I remember that day. Everyone was a bit crazy," Charlie said. He had been just eight, but he remembered perfectly how their house had seemed to breathe a little easier after that day.

"We don't. Not much," Fred said with a frown. They had flashes of a day when their mother hadn't seemed able to stay angry with them in spite of the prank they had pulled. She had laughed and cried and attempted to scold them unsuccessfully. It had unnerved them enough that they hadn't caused more trouble that day.

"Wish we could remember it better, though," George said, thinking about the mayhem they could have got away with.

Only the ... the house, too.

Remus frowned. "Are you sure that he lives with his aunt and uncle?" He asked Ron and Hermione, who seemed to know him best. "Maybe he didn't go to live with them permanently until much later?" He suggested. Perhaps something had happened. Perhaps Harry had not spent with them as much time as they thought, visiting only on holidays and from time to time.

"He does," Ron replied, not looking at him.

Hermione, the twins and he were beginning to look positively murderous while Mr. and Mrs. Weasley were frowning slightly. They knew that Harry's family was wary of magic, that they didn't trust it nor did they want their nephew to have anything to do with it. They also knew that they weren't particularly fond of Harry, something that irked Mrs. Weasley greatly from time to time. But they didn't know how far the neglect went.

Yet ... Get up! Now!"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold your hippogriffs," Charlie interrupted wide-eyed. "What was that?"

"That... I don't know," Flitwick said shocked. "That's never happened before."

"You've never used this spell on books like these," Dumbledore pointed out. "They're connected to Harry."

"So, what? This is how Harry's aunt sounds?" Charlie asked with a faint grimace.

"I believe that's the case, Mr. Weasley," the headmaster nodded.

Seamus made a face and looked at his sleeping housemate. "Now I feel sorry for him. I've just heard a single sentence from his aunt and my ears are ringing. I'd wake up in a bad mood if that woke me up everyday."

Dean rolled his eyes and elbowed him. "Don't be dramatic, Seamus."

"I'm not," the boy defended himself, sulking. "It's annoying."

"I wonder how we'll sound," Hermione mused, sending his best friend a pensive glance. "Although, I suppose I'm more eager to see the first impression he had of us."

Many people fidgeted nervously. That was true. They weren't just going to read Harry's thoughts, they were going to read his opinion about them.

Harry woke with a start.

The boy almost leapt to his feet, startled beyond belief. He only stayed on the couch because Ron and Hermione grabbed his robes and pulled him back down before he could rise more than an inch.

"Easy, mate," Ron said as he saw Harry blink sleep out of his eyes. It took only a couple of seconds. It had always amazed him how his best friend could go from dead to the world to up and alert in a few seconds, but now that they had read how he was usually woken up, it didn't surprise him anymore.

Harry looked around him, founding a lot of faces staring at him with either curiosity or a bit of concern or some amusement. He went beat red in two seconds flat.

"I fell asleep?" He asked mortified.

"It was the book," Hermione said, trying to erase some of the embarrassment.

Harry groaned and hid his face in his hands. That meant that it was going to happen again and he was going to be powerless to stop it.

"What happened? What have you read?" He asked warily.

"Not much," Ron shrugged. "You haven't missed anything. You were only asleep for a few minutes."

"We've learnt that Dumbledore and McGonagall left you on the doorstep for your uncle and your aunt to find," Sirius said, scowling at the two adults. He didn't know if he could forgive them for that.

Harry blinked in surprise. "They were the ones who did that?" He asked nonchalantly.

"You know they found you on the doorstep?" Sirius asked stunned.

"Yeah," Harry shrugged. Aunt Petunia always reminded him when she told him that they hadn't asked to be saddled with him.

"And it doesn't bother you?" His godfather demanded. He couldn't believe it.

Harry stared at him surprised and shrugged again. "Why would it? I don't even remember it and it's not like I would've known if they hadn't told me so it didn't affect me."

For some reason, that only upset the animagus even more. How could his godson not care?

His aunt ... again.

"This is amazing," Bill said impressed. "We can even hear her hitting the door like an echo behind the narrator's voice."

"It's more like the background noise on a phone call than a book," Harry said alarmed. "What's going on? Why are we hearing that?"

"Professor Flitwick's spell worked a little differently than expected," Hermione explained. "We can hear the characters' voices."

"They aren't characters," Ron pointed out with a frown. "Or we aren't characters. We're real people."

"They are characters, Ron," she replied, a hint of impatience in her voice. "They, or we, are just real instead of fictional, but characters of the books all the same."

"Either way," Arthur intervened. That summer he had got his first real look at what Ron and Hermione's arguments were like and he had learnt that they could keep going for hours. He had a new respect for Harry for putting up with that the whole year and not hex them into silence. "It's fascinating. Just like a cone fall, like Harry said."

"It's a phone call, Mr. Weasley," Hermione corrected gently, hiding an amused smile. You would think that after Harry and she had explained the Weasleys how to use the telephone, they would know how to say it properly, but it was a hopeless endeavour.

"That. A phone fall," Arthur grinned.

Hermione pressed his lips together to stifle a laugh. Mr. Weasley was awesome, but he could be a bit... there were no words to describe him.

"Up!" she ... the stove.

The twins frowned in confusion. They had been in Harry's room and they knew that it wasn't on the ground floor like the kitchen, but on the first one. How could Harry hear the stove? Unless he had become a bat overnight (and everyone knew that the only bat in the castle was Snape), it should have been impossible for him to hear it.

They looked at their brother, but Ron looked just as confused as them. They all turned towards Harry, but the black-haired boy was staring at the book with an intensity that was a bit worrying.

"Mate," Ron whispered, nudging him gently so as not to startle him. "You trying to make the book burst into flames?" He didn't receive an answer. "It would be much easier using your wand. I don't think it's gonna work just by glaring at it."

Harry stiffened, but he still didn't answer. He wished he could do that. Or turn it to stone like the basilisk did so not another page could be turned. Why couldn't he have got some cool abilities from when the basilisk fang had pierced his arm?

Ron stared at him in confusion, looking at the book and back. What was going on with his best friend? It couldn't be because of having fallen asleep, could it? Maybe it could be because of those things he had warned him and Hermione the night before?

He rolled ... same dream before.

"Not a dream," Sirius scoffed, pride unmistakable in his voice. "You did fly in a motorcycle before. I used to try to take you on a ride."

"You did?" Harry asked surprised.

Remus rolled his eyes, but a fond smile betrayed his feelings. "It used to drive Lily up the wall every time he tried."

"I thought she was going to kill me the one time I managed to sneak you out with me," Sirius said, eyes unfocused as he remembered those times.

"She would've, had she figured out a way to knock you off the motorcycle without harming Harry," Remus snorted. "The only reason she didn't cut your hands so you wouldn't be able to ride that motorcycle or hold Harry again was because of James' intervention and the grovelling you did for a week."

Sirius suppressed a shudder. "Redheads are scary."

"That's something I can agree with," Ron nodded vigorously. His mum was very scary and Ginny was learning from her.

"We all can," Bill said, looking at his mother and his little sister.

His aunt ... demanded.

"You could give him a minute," Seamus frowned. "Every kid takes a while to actually wake up."

"You would know, wouldn't you?" Dena rolled his eyes. "I'm still convinced that you sleepwalk through the first two periods every day."

"I do not!" Seamus protested indignant.

"Yes, you do," Parvati intervened tiredly. "I saw you drooling in History of Magic the other day."

"Everyone falls asleep in History of Magic!" He argued, his face flaming.

"Hermione doesn't," Ron chipped in teasingly.

"Everyone but Hermione falls asleep in History of Magic!" He corrected himself, sending his roommate a glare.

"And I saw you trying to repot the Devil's Snare with your eyes closed," Harry chipped in, unable to help himself. "It would've strangled you if Neville hadn't been there," he reminded him, sending a brief proud smile at a beet red Neville.

"I thought it was a Flitterblooom!"

"Even when it was choking you?" Dean teased him.

"I thought maybe it wanted a hug or something! Flitterblooms are supposed to be friendly!"

Dean sent him an odd look, part exasperated and part amused. "We have to find you a girlfriend if you're desperate enough for hugs to go to the Devil's Snare for one," he deadpanned.

Seamus blushed horribly, his splutters unheard over the cackles and snickers.

"Nearly," said Harry.

"Merlin, you sound so young, Harry!" Charlie exclaimed, caught by surprise.

Harry frowned. "Do I really sound like that?" He asked.

"Yes," Hermione smiled a little bit. Or he used to, at least.

"Not so much now," Ron grinned. He liked this spell. It was so weird.

"Well, ... Duddy's birthday."

"You know how to cook?" Katie asked surprised. She was rubbish at it, somehow managing to almost burn water the first time she had tried. She was proud to say that she could now heat the soup from a can without completely butchering it.

Harry shrugged uncomfortably. "Some."

"But you were eleven here," Angelina frowned in confusion. "And it was your cousin's birthday."

Harry shrugged again. "I was ten, actually. And Aunt Petunia was with Dudley and someone had to make breakfast."

Nobody liked the sound of that. Couldn't that someone be his uncle if his aunt wanted to dote on her son that morning? Why did it have to be the ten-year-old?

"When did you learn to cook?" Sirius asked with a frown. There was something about all this that he didn't like.

"A while before that," Harry answered, avoiding his gaze.

"How long is a while?" The animagus questioned, eyes narrowed.

"A while," his godson answered firmly, leaving it clear that he wasn't going to answer more questions on the subject.

"I think I'll stick to mum's cooking and Hogwarts' food. I don't wanna get poisoned with Harry's cooking. I'm sure to end up in the infirmary if he's as good in the kitchen as in Potions," Ron intervened before Sirius could try to ask something else, forcing a teasing grin on his face when he wanted nothing more than to snarl. He didn't need to know when Harry had started cooking to know that it had been when he had been way too young.

Harry grinned relieved and elbowed his best friend in the ribs. "I'm not that bad. The teacher has it out for me and you know it," he protested without heat.

"Maybe," Hermione conceded. "But you could still try to do better in that class."

There were twin groans from the other two occupants on the couch.

"Not now, Hermione!"

"We don't even have classes until we finish the books!"

Sirius' frown deepened. Those three knew something they weren't telling and it was something that he wanted to know. He would have to corner Harry later to demand an explanation.

Harry ... through the door.

"Technically, he hasn't said anything," Alicia pursed her lips.

"Does a groan count as complaining?" Parvati asked hesitantly. Harry's aunt sure was strict if she cared about those things. The way she herself saw it, it was only logical that Harry would prefer to spend the day celebrating his cousin's birthday with him than to cook breakfast.

"And how did she hear him through the door?" Dean asked perplexed. With the spell, they could actually hear Harry's groan and it was barely louder than breathing.

"She has sonar ears," Harry deadpanned, still glaring at the book. He already hated this and they hadn't been reading for ten minutes.

Sensing his worsening mood, nobody dared to comment further on the topic, but they were all curious. Harry's family sure was... peculiar.

"Nothing, ... put them on.

Ron shuddered violently, having the irrational feeling that he had dozens of those eight-legged monsters crawling over him.

"Merlin's pants, Harry, I really hope that you haven't brought spiders in your smelly socks to my room when I invited you this summer," he threatened.

Harry grinned amused, his bad mood and growing panic momentarily vanishing. "Don't worry, Ron. I made sure to leave all of them at the Dursleys to keep them company for the year."

Hermione had a grimace on her face. "Well, I, for one, am glad that you became a bit more organised when you came to Hogwarts," she said. Harry wasn't as organised as her, but he was much better than Ron, who was hopeless. "How could you let your room get messy enough to have spiders in it?"

Harry's easy grin turned forced. "I didn't have a lot of time to clean it back then," he lied through his teeth. It was not a good excuse and he knew it, but it had been the first thing that had popped into his mind.

"And your aunt didn't care?" Fred asked bewildered.

"Wasn't she a cleaning freak or something?" George asked, remembering how immaculate house was and how the woman had fretted over all the soot they had covered the living room in when they had come through the floo.

"Or something," Harry said evasively. "She doesn't come into my room if she can help it."

Harry ... where he slept.

The silence was overwhelming.

That couldn't be right. Flitwick's spell had got it wrong, or they had heard wrong, or these books were just a big, fat joke. It had to be a joke, right? The saviour of the wizarding world, the same one they all knew and whose name they grew up knowing, couldn't sleep in a cupboard under the stairs, could he? Any moment now, Harry Potter would burst out laughing and ask who had written these books and got it so wrong, right? He would laugh and his friends would laugh and the world would go back to how it was supposed to be.

Except that he didn't.

Harry Potter wasn't laughing. In fact, he seemed about to be sick.

"Well, I guess that's why your aunt didn't go into your room if she could help it," Ron tried to say lightly, but any kind of levity failed at the barely contained horror and pure rage on his face.

"A cupboard under the stairs?" Sirius whispered. Somehow, saying it aloud made it even worse than hearing it. His control over his emotions, which had never been the greatest and had only got worse after Azkaban, snapped and he rounded on his godson. "You sleep in a cupboard under the stairs?!"

Harry grimaced and resisted the urge to shrink away to hide from all the pitying and horrified looks. This was why he hadn't wanted anyone to know. He didn't want nor need pity or comfort or anything. It was in the past now and he didn't care.

"Not anymore, Sirius," he answered, feeling proud when his voice sounded normal. "Not since I received my first letter of Hogwarts."

"That means that you spent ten years in that cupboard," Remus said. He, on the other hand, couldn't recognise his own voice. He didn't know if he felt more guilt or anger.

Harry shrugged, trying to avoid everyone's gazes. "It wasn't that bad. I was small for a ten-year-old and I had enough space. And it doesn't really matter now."

Those words only made everything worse. It wasn't that bad? He was small for his age? It didn't matter now? That was how he was going to justify what they had done? Not that there was any kind of justification possible.

"Harry, mate, don't..." Ron began to say, but he was shaking with rage. He had never thought that he could hate someone as much as he hated the Dursleys right then. "If you don't wanna talk about it now, that's okay, but don't..."

"Don't make excuses for them, Harry," Hermione finished for him. Her hands were trembling, but she wasn't sure if it was because of the urge to go look for the Dursleys and turn them into cockroaches or because of the shock of finding out that her best friend's room had been a cupboard under the stairs. She was going to be sick.

Harry grimaced. "Yeah. Okay. Sorry."

"Not your fault," Ron cut him off almost before he could finish. He glared at him defiantly, daring him to contradict his words. He had an arsenal of arguments that would have made Hermione proud if Harry didn't agree with him.

"Yeah, I know," Harry said, looking at him in the eye so his best friend could see that he wasn't saying it just to appease him. Besides, if there was anyone he could bear to look in the eye after this had come to light in front of everyone, it would be Ron and Hermione.

Hermione grabbed his hand, waiting until he turned to look at her before talking. Her eyes were brimming with tears in spite of the fury shining in them and she pressed her lips closed, trying to keep them from trembling. After a moment's hesitation, she threw her arms around him.

"I'm sorry, Harry," she murmured, hugging him as tightly as she could.

Her best friend returned the hug gladly, holding her as tightly in return as she was holding him. "Not your fault, Hermione, nor Ron's. You didn't even know me back then."

Hermione pulled away and declared firmly. "You're coming to my house this summer."

Harry brightened a little bit. He had never been to Hermione's. "I'd like that," he said, even though he knew that it wouldn't happen. He would have to go back to the Dursleys and he knew it.

Hermione smiled in response. "You can both come," she said, looking at Ron over Harry's shoulder. She could see the anger in the redhead's face, but they both knew that this was not the place to deal with this newfound knowledge.

"Half the summer at yours and half at mine. I like that," Ron said, forcing a grin on his face. He didn't know how he managed to do it when all he wanted to do was to punch the Dursleys and then make them eat slugs for as long as his anger lasted. This time he had a wand that wasn't broken and wouldn't backfire on him.

"Harry," Sirius called him, his voice not allowing any arguments. He wasn't going to allow them to act like this hadn't happened.

The boy's grin flickered and disappeared as he turned to look at his godfather. "Sirius," he said neutrally.

"Harry, those..."

"Sirius," Remus cut him off, laying a hand on his shoulder to force him to turn to look at him.

"What, Remus?" He spat, swatting his hand away.

"Leave it," the werewolf told him. He knew his childhood friend was furious, he himself was so angry that he was considering staying close to the Dursleys the following full moon. But it wasn't the moment to approach this.

"Leave it? You want me to leave it?!" He snarled. He wanted to throttle Remus right then. "Those... those monsters, they..."

"I know," Remus cut him off again, before he could decide that to hell with it and he went to hex the Dursleys right then. "But not now, Sirius. Not now."

Sirius gritted his teeth. One look around at all the curious and horror-filled eyes explained Remus behaviour, but that didn't mean that he had to like it. He growled in frustration and looked at his godson, who was staring at him impassively.

"We're gonna talk about this," he said warningly.

"Not now," Harry replied. 'And not ever,' he added to himself. There was no way he was having this conversation with his godfather.

"This isn't exactly helping your image of I'm-not-a-murderer," Tonks pointed out with forced cheerfulness. Her hair had changed from her bright pink to white because of the shock at these news and then red with anger at those muggles. Only now was she slowly forcing it back to bright pink.

Sirius glared at her with an expression that reminded everyone that this man was a supposed psycho killer and his innocence hadn't been proven yet.

"Maybe I will kill the Dursleys and give everyone a real reason to call me murderer then," he snarled.

Oh, yes, this was exactly how they were going to convince everybody that he was innocent.

"Sirius!" Remus exclaimed in alarm and exasperation. He wanted to make the Dursleys suffer too, but this wouldn't help anyone, least of all Harry.

"Bugger off, Remus!" He bellowed angrily.

Harry sighed as the reading continued. This kind of reaction was another one of the reasons he hadn't wanted anyone to know.

When he ... racing bike.

"Excuse me, a what?" Ron interrupted with a confused expression.

Hermione sighed. "What are you talking about? The bike?" She asked patiently.

"I know what a bike is!" He exclaimed offended. "And you explained to me what the televizzy thingy was already..."

"Television, Ron. It's called a television," she rolled her eyes. Half the time she was convinced that he got the names wrong on purpose just to rile her up.

"That," the redhead said impatiently. "What's the other thing? The campoter thing?"

Hermione frowned in confusion for half a second before her eyes widened and she had to bite the inside of her cheek to stifle a giggle.

"A computer, you mean," she corrected, managing to sound remarkably serious. "It allows you to look for information and play video games. It has a screen, like a television, but it has many other parts."

She didn't know how to explain it better without showing it to him. The muggle-borns and some half-bloods were nodding in agreement, but the vast majority of the purebloods looked puzzled.

"Muggles invent the weirdest things," Ron declared finally. It was his conclusion almost every time Hermione tried to explain something about the muggle world to him.

The girl sighed exasperated. "Maybe, but they can be useful. It's much easier to look for information with a computer than in the library."

Several people gasped in shock.

"Blasphemy!" George screeched. "Hermione bad mouthing the library!"

"Who are you and what have you done with her?" Fred demanded, narrowing his eyes at the girl.

"Don't be stupid," she scoffed.

"They're somewhat right, you know," Harry teases her with a smirk. "You keep talking like that and Madam Pince won't let you enter the library anymore."

Exactly why... punching somebody.

"Oh, wait! Don't tell me! I can see it coming!" Fred exclaimed dramatically, covering his eyes with a hand.

"I know, brother! Me too!" George followed along.

Dudley's ... was Harry,

"I knew it!" They shouted at the same, punching the air like they were happy.

It couldn't have been further from the truth, but they were trying really hard not to let their anger get the better of them. Plenty of people were doing that already and Harry didn't need anymore anger on his behalf, but he could use some laughs. Besides, they could get their hands on the Dursleys later to use them as Guinea pigs to test their products.

"Shut up, you two!" Ron shouted, throwing them a cushion. He didn't hit them, but George did hit Ron square in the face when he threw it back. There was a reason they were the beaters of the Gryffindor quidditch team.

but he ... very fast.

"Of course he is! You can't be a seeker otherwise!" Dean laughed, earning chuckles and cheers from the other Gryffindors except those from first year, who hadn't seen Harry play yet.

Hermione frowned. "Technically, that Harry's fast on his feet has nothing to do with his ability in the air. There's nothing that supports that correlation."

"Hermione," Ron whined, glaring at her. "Don't try to take the fun out of quidditch. Harry's fast and that's why he's an awesome seeker. That's it."

Hermione rolled her eyes and crossed her arms over her chest. "You're all ridiculous," she stated. She was never going to understand their obsession with that sport.

"And you have no idea about quidditch," Ron shot back.

Perhaps ... skinny for his age.

"Maybe a bit," McGonagall said, her lips pursed in anger. She couldn't stop picturing the tiny eleven-year-old that Harry had been, and when she said tiny, she meant it. The boy was still small for his age. Even Hermione was a couple of inches taller than him.

"But not all of it is because of that," Remus said, forcing his lips to curl upwards. It felt more like a snarl than a smile. "James was one scrawny kid until he shot upwards like a weed in sixth year."

"He did?" Harry asked hopefully. That meant there was hope left for him.

Remus' smile became a bit more real and he nodded. "His mother, your grandma, was desperate because his trousers only fitted him for a couple of months before they were too short for him." He elbowed Sirius and sent him a pointed look. "Remember that, Sirius?"

"Yes, but even neither James nor Lily were as small as Harry is with his age," Sirius snapped. He was not in the mood for some old reminiscence. He could only think about how much he wanted to hurt the Dursleys, about how James and even Lily, as kind as she was, would have obliterated them for having treated their son like that.

Remus sent him an annoyed look. Couldn't he put his anger aside for a while until they could actually do something about it? Harry had looked so happy a moment before and now he looked so... disappointed.

"Oh," the boy said, deflating as he stared at the hands in his lap.

Something in his voice managed to catch Sirius' attention enough to momentarily snap him out of his mood. He only realised how his words had to have sounded in his godson's ears when he saw how dejected he looked.

"Harry, I..." He began hesitantly. He had no idea what he wanted to say. He hadn't lied, but he had been way too harsh.

"It's okay, Sirius," Harry interrupted, masking his pain at the comment. Somehow, it didn't surprise him that the Dursleys had managed to damage him for life physically. He had already known that he bore emotional scars that he doubted he would ever get rid of. "It's not your fault."

"But..." The animagus tried to say, wanting to make it better.

"Why don't we keep reading?" Hermione interrupted him this time. She was glaring at him with so much anger that it was a mystery how he wasn't a pile of ashes yet. In fact, she wasn't the only one glaring at the fugitive.

"Leave it, Sirius," Remus intervened quietly when his friend went to open his mouth again. He managed to sound neutral in spite of the annoyance he felt at the man. He knew that Sirius loved Harry and that he was rightfully furious, but he really had to get his act together if he didn't want to hurt his godson anymore.

He looked ... than he was.

"Not even clothes?" Lavander asked, glaring at the book like it was all its fault. "I mean, it's bad enough that he didn't have a proper bedroom, but they didn't buy him clothes either?"

"I always wandered why Harry usually wore the school robes, even on the weekends," Parvati mused, looking quite upset. Even now Harry was wearing his school robes.

"He doesn't just wear that," Seamus said. "I've seen him wearing jumpers and all that."

"Those were Christmas presents from the Mrs. Weasley, Seamus," Harry corrected him quietly, his cheeks red.

"Oh," Seamus frowned. Did that mean that the only clothes that Harry had that fitted him were presents from his mother's best friend? ...That... That was awful.

Harry ... bright green eyes.

"That's what everyone tells me, if I don't count all the gawking at the scar," Harry said, half fond and half exasperated. His hand unconsciously went to flatten his hair against his forehead to hide the scar.

"He's his father's clone," Fred said dramatically.

"With his mother's eyes, as green as a fresh pickled toad," George sang with a hand held to his heart.

Harry blushed furiously, but not nearly as much as Ginny, whose face clashed horribly with her hair. She looked a heartbeat away from hexing the twins to oblivion. It didn't help that many people who remembered that awful musical poem were snickering not so quietly.

"What?" Bill laughed, looking at the twins bewildered. "What are you talking about?"

The twins gasped in mock-horror, ignoring their sister's deathly glare. She couldn't do anything without making obvious who was the author of that... monstrosity, and they knew it. It wasn't often they had leverage over their sister and they were going to milk it for all it was worth it.

"Don't tell me you don't know, brother ours," George said.

"You don't know where that lovely poem came from?" Fred asked, an mischievous smirk beginning to appear on his face.

"That was part of a poem?" Charlie asked, exchanging a baffled look with his big brother before they both looked at the embarrassed Harry. "I didn't know people wrote poems about you, Harry."

"They don't," Harry said. He felt like his face was going to combust any moment now. He glared at Fred and George. "Not another word. Don't you dare," he threatened.

The twins studied him carefully. Harry was even more scary than their sister or their mother when he wanted to be. It wasn't wise to anger him. Besides, the poor boy was already having more than enough things that he would have preferred to keep buried being brought out to the open.

"But I wanna know what that was about!" Bill protested. He couldn't believe that the twins had backed off just because Harry had told them to stop.

"No way," Harry cut him off, shaking his head and glaring at him.

Thinking about it better, maybe the twins had been right listening to Harry. The black-haired boy seemed ready to draw his wand and begin to hex people.

"You know that it may appear anyway, don't you?" Hermione murmured in his ear when the attention went back to the book.

"But not today," Harry replied. It was his only argument. He could deal with that embarrassment the following day, or the one after that if they kept a slow pace reading.

He wore ... on the nose.

Hermione gasped, her hands flying to her mouth. "I remember that!" She exclaimed. "At the beginning of first year!"

"Yeah, I remember it, too," Ron said, scrunching up his nose as he tried to recall when he had met Harry more than three years earlier.

"But they weren't broken for long, were they?" Dean asked, trying to remember. Had it really been that long? Although, when he thought about it, he could barely remember what he had had for dinner the night before so maybe it wasn't so surprising that he wasn't sure how long Harry's glasses remained broken.

"No," Harry shook his head. "I learnt how to fix them as soon as I could. Reparo was one of the first spells I learnt how to do."

"Before Wingardium Leviosa?" Hermione asked, her eyebrows raised.

Harry chuckled and shook his head. "I asked Professor Flitwick to fix my glasses the first time."

"He did," the tiny professor nodded when many turned to look at him. "Then I taught it to him about a week after the first years learnt the Levitation Charm."

"It is a useful charm," Harry chuckled, sending his professor a grateful look. His glasses would remain permanently broken if it hadn't been for that spell.

The only ... a bolt of lightning.

Ron turned towards his best friend so fast that he almost got whiplash. "You liked...?" He gaped, pulling himself together quickly. "You hate that scar."

"I didn't know what it meant, okay?" Harry said defensively, but he was grimacing at his past self's ignorance. "I do hate it. It's annoying."

"Aren't you proud about it, Harry?" Colin asked from a bit further away. He had wanted to talk with his idol for a while, but he hadn't dared to when he had seen him surrounded by all his family and friends.

"Not really," Harry shrugged uncomfortable. "I didn't do anything. I just... got hit with a curse that didn't work."

Anything? Got hit with a curse that didn't work? That was what he had to say about the night that peace returned to the wizarding world?

He had ... don't ask questions."

"Car crash?!" Many bellowed incensed. They couldn't believe their ears.

"Filius, I mean no offense, but are you sure that your spell is working correctly?" McGonagall asked, her voice strained. Her eyes were flashing dangerously as she clenched her fists to try to stop them from trembling.

"No offense taken, Minerva," Flitwick shook his head. He was equally furious and upset at the lies that the young Potter had been told as a child. "I too wish that it wasn't working properly, but I've already checked twice since we heard about the cupboard."

"How dare they?!" Sirius screamed, wanting to punch something. He needed to hit something soon. "How could they lie about James and Lily like that?!"

"And to lie to Harry?" Remus added, his eyes flashing amber for an instant.

"Maybe they didn't know the truth," Arthur suggested unconvinced. He didn't want to think that Harry had spent ten years with people that would lie to him about his parents like that.

"They did," McGonagall intervened, having heard him. "I saw Albus leave them a letter with Harry. I saw it with my own eyes."

"I explained everything in there," Dumbledore said, his face heavy with disapproval. He sighed tiredly. "Maybe they considered that he was too young to know the truth..."

"Oh, Dumbly-dorr, don't even try to make excuses for them," Madame Maxime was, surprisingly, the one who interrupted him. "It's one zing to not want to tell the truz, but such lies sont impardonnables," she fumed.

"There, listen to the lady, Dumbledore," Sirius said, glaring at the headmaster. "There are no excuses. They could've told him that they would tell him when he grew up, or a watered-down version. Anything but lying about them."

"Did you even know about magic?" Bill asked, upset and angry.

Harry shook his head. He was having a hard time comprehending the indignation everyone seemed to feel on his behalf. Why did they care now, when no one had bothered to check on him in ten years? Either way, it was not the time to start asking those questions.

Don't ask ... the Dursleys.

"Well," Cho huffed. "That's not a good way to learn."

Harry blushed and ducked his head. He didn't know what to feel about the fact that his crush was reading everything about his life. He would have preferred that she never knew about it.

"I don't think Mr. Potter has ever asked me a question in class," Professor Sprout said quietly.

"The only time he asked me anything was to teach him how to fix his glasses," Flitwick said, looking upset. "Severus?" He asked, hopefully.

The Potions teacher raised an eyebrow. "You really think that Potter would ask me anything in class?" He asked dryly, making an incredible effort to sound as he usually did when he spoke about Potter. He hated how the past half an hour had completely shattered the illusion he had about Potter being pampered and doted on at home, and he hated even more that he didn't know how to feel about that.

"I suppose not," the Charms teacher sighed. He looked at McGonagall. "Minerva?"

The witch tried to remember, but it was true. She couldn't recall a single time in more than three years when Harry had raised his hand to ask a question in class. "I don't think so. Not in class at least."

"But he has asked you something outside?" The tiny professor asked, brightening up.

The head of Gryffindor swallowed, but she felt like the guilt was eating her from the inside. "Four times. The first time I, I brushed him aside. I'm pretty sure that it'll show up in the books so I won't bother telling you about it," she cut them off, seeing the questions coming.

"And the other times?" Sprout asked softly, sensing that her colleague regretted having ignored her student. They could talk about it when it came up in the books.

"The second time was at the end of his first year," McGonagall remembered. "He asked me if it was possible to stay at Hogwarts during the summer holidays."

The four teachers closed their eyes for a second, understanding why he would ask that after having read that tiny bit about his home life. No child would have wanted to go back to that.

"And I told him that it wasn't possible," the Transfiguration teacher said, covering her mouth with a hand to stifle a sob as she remembered that conversation. "But that he could ask the headmaster if he was that insistent."

Four heads turned to look at Dumbledore, who looked so old and so impassive at the same time.

"We know what his answer was," Snape sneered, his eyes flashing dangerously. Dumbledore had promised him that Potter was safe where he was, but nothing they had read so far spelt safe. That man better had his explanations ready for when he went to demand them as soon as they finished the reading for the day.

"What about the third time, Minerva?" Pomona asked, pushing down her own turmoil.

"It was in his second year, when I caught him and Mr. Weasley trying to sneak into the infirmary. He asked me if they could go see Ms. Granger," she said, her voice thick with emotions.

"Did you allow them to?" The head of Hufflepuff asked softly.

"Of course," the other woman nodded. "I couldn't tell them no."

"No, I suppose not. I would've allowed them to go, too," Sprout sighed. "And the last time? Did you give him whatever he asked for?"

McGonagall's face scrunched up in an expression of pure regret. "No, I didn't. It was last year. He asked me if I could allow him to go to Hogsmeade. He told me his uncle and his aunt had forgotten to sign the authorization."

"More like they didn't want to give him something he clearly wanted," Snape scoffed before he could catch himself. He gritted his teeth, inwardly berating himself. He was not going to begin to pity Potter now.

The other teachers didn't even tease him about how it was the first time he stood up for the boy. They were too furious and upset and generally miserable.

"And I told him that only a parent or a guardian could sign it," the head of Gryffindor finished, shutting her eyes tightly.

"Does that mean that this is going to be the second year the poor boy is going to have to remain in the castle while his friends go to Hogsmeade? All because those relatives of him want to make his life as miserable as possible?" Flitwick asked indignant. Oh, no, not on his watch. He was willing to go have a chat with those Dursley himself until they saw reason and they signed the damn authorization.

Snape pursed his lips. He wanted to say that he was almost sure that Potter had sneaked into Hogsmeade the year before, but he had no proof. They would tell him it was impossible with the dementors and all the security that had been around the castle. Maybe with these books he would finally find out how the blasted boy had done it.

McGonagall frowned in confusion. "I... don't think so. Unless I'm very much mistaken, Mr. Potter gave me his authorization at the beginning of the school year."

The other three teachers stared at her surprised, their eyebrows practically disappearing into their hairlines.

"Is that so?" Snape asked slowly.

"How?" Sprout asked puzzled. "Those muggles hate him. They'd never willingly sign it."

"I'm afraid I don't know. I didn't look at it too closely," the Transfiguration teacher confessed frustrated. "I just know that it passed the test so it wasn't forged."

"Do you think we'll find out in the books?" Flitwick asked curiously. He wouldn't even be upset if it turned out to be a forgery that had somehow got past his colleague. He was just happy that the boy could have something good from time to time.

"Maybe," McGonagall nodded, still thinking about Harry's authorization. She was going to have to take another look at it later.

Uncle Vernon ... morning greeting.

"Good morning to you, too," Angelina growled, shaking with anger. She couldn't believe that Harry, little Harry who was the smallest one of the team and was almost like a little brother to all of them, lived with these people.

"They're the politest bunch, Harry," Alicia said sarcastically.

"It makes me wonder where you learnt your good manners from," Molly said angry. She wanted to hex these people so badly for having treated a boy she saw as one of her children like that.

About once ... over the place.

"It's the Potter hair," Sirius laughed, his bad mood temporarily lifting as he remembered how many headaches that hair had caused on anyone who tried to tame it. "James' mum was never able to comb it and neither could Lily."

"She only gave up on trying when, as a one-year-old, you already showed signs of having the Potter hair and nothing she did made it behave," Remus chuckled. "It drove her crazy that no kind of potion or muggle remedy worked."

Harry grinned, imagining the situation. Had his dad really been as unsuccessful as him in trying to tame that mop of hair?

Harry was ... his mother.

"Eggs and bacon, Harry? You really know how to do that?" Fred asked, feigning mock-curiosity when he saw some people about to begin making angry comments, like, let's say, their mother.

"Or better yet, complete it to make a full English breakfast?" George asked, eyes wide with mock-wonder. He grabbed his stomach when there was a loud grumble. "Oh, great. Now I'm hungry."

Harry rolled his eyes, a tiny grin on his face. He was so grateful that they were able to treat the whole situation lightly in front of the school. "You can't be hungry," he answered. "We've literally just had breakfast. Not even Ron is hungry yet."

Ron rubbed the back of his head sheepishly, his ears turning red. "In fact..."

Hermione leant forward to send him an exasperated look. "Really, Ron? Really? I saw you eat four pieces of toast, two plates of scrambled eggs and bacon and three cups of pumpkin juice. You can't be hungry."

"Blame them!" Ron protested, pointing at the twins. "They're the ones that began to talk about English breakfasts."

Hermione rolled his eyes. "Sometimes I wonder if you really are a bottomless pit."

Dudley ... pig in a wig.

People snickered, trying to imagine Harry's cousin based on the description. It wasn't a pretty picture, no matter who was imagining it.

"A pig in a wig? Really?" Charlie asked, torn between laughing and not believing it.

"Unfortunately, dear brother," George said.

"We can attest that it's a very accurate description," Fred nodded. "Although the pig has fattened up since this happened."

George sent his twin a smirk that promised trouble. "Like a pig brought up for the slaughter. We can try so many products on him."

"A magnificent test subject," Fred agreed.

"Fred! George!" His mother scolded them. "You're not going to use Harry's cousin as a test subject to create more products! I told you not to make more of those things!"

Wisely, the twins decided not to answer to that. If their mother knew that they were still developing more and more products, she would go berserker. Besides, they still had to corner Bagman and now, with everyone in the castle trapped in the time bubble, it was the perfect time to do it.

Harry put ... last year."

Seamus choked on his own spit. "Excuse me?!" He exclaimed, his voice an octave higher than normal.

"Did he just say thirty-six?" Tonks asked stunned. "I think I just heard him say that he had received thirty-six birthday presents."

"He did, and he had received thirty-eight the year before that," Bill said with a grimace.

"How can he complain?" The metamorphmagus asked perplexed.

"Darling, ... Mummy and Daddy."

"Wait, I stand corrected," Bill said, rolling his eyes. "He received thirty-seven."

"I can't believe this," Charlie said wide-eyed. "Thirty-seven presents?"

"How can they buy him so many things?" Ginny asked shocked. Even though she sometimes wished that her parents could buy her more things, it revolted her that a child could receive so many things and then complain.

"If they always buy him more presents than the year before, they're going to run out of space and money at the rate they're going," Tonks said, trying to wrap her head around the idea of receiving so many things. What in Merlin's name would she do with so many things if she were in his place?

"Most of those presents don't last long," Harry explained. "He breaks them rather quickly, either accidentally or on purpose."

"He breaks them?" Mrs. Weasley repeated horrified.

Harry winced. He couldn't ever imagine damaging or throwing away a present he received, even less the ones he received from the Weasleys.

"All right, ... the table over.

"He would turn the table over?" Katie asked, half fascinated and half disgusted. This was like a specimen she had never heard of before, but, then again, she had never known that a child could be so spoilt.

"He would," Harry said with a grimace. "He had, in fact, and he has done it several times since that."

"Just how old is your cousin?" Angelina asked baffled.

"A bit more than a month older than me," Harry answered. "He was born on the twenty-third of June."

"So, it was his eleventh birthday, and he was gonna throw a tantrum?" Angelina asked, even more flabbergasted. Harry nodded. "How...? No, wait. I don't wanna know how they managed to utterly destroy a child like that."

"It makes me wonder if it wasn't Dudley who drew the short stick between the two of us when it comes to growing up with Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia," Harry snickered, only to be cut off by a slap to the back of his head. "Hermione! What was that for?" He asked, rubbing the sore spot. Hermione sure had quite an arm when she wanted.

"Don't you dare begin to think that your childhood was in any way, shape or form acceptable, Harry James Potter," she hissed, her eyes flashing dangerously.

"I'm not!" He assured her quickly, leaning away from her. "I just said that Dudley wasn't that lucky either."

Hermione narrowed her eyes even further, making him gulp nervously. Fortunately, she let it go.

Aunt Petunia ... all right?"

"More presents?" Charlie asked, not believing his ears. He had to be in some alternate reality. Was this part of some kind of elaborate joke from the twins?

"So, he threatens to throw a tantrum and she bribes him with more presents?" Molly asked incensed.

"That's no way to bring up a child," Arthur frowned disapprovingly.

"I guess that answers my question about how they could destroy a child so much," Angelina said faintly. "Can't they see the damage they're causing?"

"I don't think they see there's anything wrong with Dudley," Harry shook his head.

Dudley thought ... thirty . . . thirty . . ."

"Thirty-nine, you nitwit," Ron spat, losing his patience. He had very little to begin with when it came to Harry's relatives and this book wasn't helping them win any points with him.

"He's eleven and he can't add two?" Dean asked shocked beyond belief. He turned towards Harry. "Please, tell me there's anything that justifies this. He fell on his head as a baby or something?"

Harry smirked amused. "Not really. It just got swelled up too much. Now it can't fit through the doors and he has to leave it behind when he enters a room."

Ron snorted. "Good one, Harry."

"Thirty-nine, ... Dudley's hair.

"Don't encourage that kind of behaviour!" Molly screeched. She wanted to reach into the books and throttle Vernon and Petunia. They were ruining that child.

"Can you imagine having a kid like that in your class?" Flitwick asked with a grimace. He wouldn't even know how to begin to reason with him when he inevitably protested about anything.

"Oh, Merlin, that would've been a nightmare," Sprout said wide-eyed.

"Thank Merlin they didn't bring up Mr. Potter like that, uh?" McGonagall said, sending a sideway glance at the head of Slytherin. She had lost count of the amount of times that Severus had repeated again and again Harry was a pampered prince spoilt beyond belief at home and they shouldn't do the same at Hogwarts.

Snape refused to look at her. He knew what she was thinking. This kind of behaviour was the one he had expected Potter to have, not his cousin. He didn't know how many times he had said that Potter was an arrogant brat that had everything handed to him on a silver plate. How was supposed to act with said brat if all that wasn't true? What had happened in his class? Where were all the signs of arrogance he had seen, that arrogance that had reminded him so much of James Potter?

At that ... a VCR.

"Whoa," Ron whistled impressed. "I have no idea what those things are, but there are a lot of them."

"And they aren't cheap things either," Hermione added with a disgusted frown. So, they had enough money to buy their son all these things, but they couldn't bother to buy their nephew proper clothes that fitted him?

"When is he gonna have time to use all that?" Katie asked confused. Why did he want so many things if he wasn't going to be able to enjoy them? It made no sense.

"Somehow, he has time every year to use all of them and break most," Harry said with wry amusement. There was really nothing funny about it, but it was either that or become upset at the differences in the treatment he received and the one Dudley did.

He was ... angry and worried.

"Good," Sirius smirked darkly.

"Good?" Remus repeated with a raised eyebrow.

"Anything that angers and worries that woman is a good thing for me," the animagus explained, his smirk widening it.

Remus stared at his friend bewildered before snorting. "You're unbelievable," he huffed.

"Don't say it like you don't agree with me, Remus."

"Bad news, Vernon," ... Harry's direction.

"'Him'?" Ginny repeated disgusted. "He has a name."

Harry couldn't help but think back at his childhood, before he had begun school. For so long he hadn't known his name, believing that it was 'freak' or 'boy' or something like that. His relatives had never called him by his name before he had come to Hogwarts and they rarely used it ever since. He had only learnt his own name when Aunt Petunia had told it to him the very same morning he was going to begin his classes. He had been so ecstatic about it that he hadn't stopped repeating it in his head for days.

Nobody knew this, of course, and he really hoped that it didn't appear in the books or he had the feeling that the riot would demolish Hogwarts. He just knew that they would find a way to get out of the time bubble and get to the Dursleys to make them pay tenfold for everything they had done.

Dudley's mouth ... he'd planned this.

"He's ten," Angelina deadpanned. She was losing her patience with these people. "He can't plan things like that."

"He could've broken the woman's leg," Fred pointed out.

"He could've timed it perfectly so as not to have to stay with her again," George nodded mock-seriously.

"Fred! George! How can suggest something like that?!" Their mother exclaimed horrified. "Harry would never do that!"

"We didn't say that he would," George said.

"We said that he could," Fred corrected her.

Hermione snorted. "No, he couldn't have. Harry's plans don't work."

"Hey!" Harry protested.

"Wait, no," Ron said, making his best friend look at him hopefully. "It's not that they don't work. It's more like they work against him. Instead of that woman, it would've been Harry who would've ended up with a broken leg."

Harry scowled and gave him a hard shove. "Some friends I have."

"Oh, you know that it's true, Harry," Hermione rolled his eyes at his dramatics.

Harry knew ... and Tufty again.

Sirius grimaced. "With names like that, they sound like horrible cats," he said. "They must suffer every day for it."

"They're cats, Sirius," Remus sighed. "They don't really care what name they have."

"Hey! Just because I prefer dogs it doesn't mean that I can't defend cats and they deserve good names, like Minnie," Sirius said, grinning mischievously.

"Mr. Black!" McGonagall yelled, glaring at him as her glasses flashed dangerously. "That you're no longer my student doesn't mean that I'll tolerate that kind of disrespect from you!"

Sirius gulped. Maybe it was a bit too soon for jokes like that. Perhaps it would be a better idea to leave them for later, when she believed his innocence.

"You never learn, do you, Padfoot?" Remus sighed under his breath in amused exasperation.

"We could ... suggested.

"Holy Merlin, not her," Harry shuddered. "I would've rather stayed with Mrs. Figg than Aunt Marge."

"Aunt Marge? Who's Aunt Marge?" Sirius asked confused, but wary. Anyone who could make his godson react like that was bad news as far as he was concerned. However, he hadn't known that Lily had more sisters.

"She's Uncle Vernon's sister," Harry explained with a faint expression of hatred crossing his face. "She hates me and I hate her. Mutual relationship of hatred."

"Wait, is she...?" Ron asked, a grin slowly appearing on his face. "The one you...?"

Harry grinned amused. "Yeah, that one."

Ron burst out laughing. "Brilliant!" He exclaimed.

Hermione frowned disapprovingly at them. "It's not funny, Ron. Harry could've got in a lot of trouble."

"Oh, c'mon, Hermione," Harry smiled at her. "I promise that I didn't do it on purpose. Besides, she deserved it."

"What exactly did she deserve?" Sirius asked, not sure whether he should feel proud or worried. "What did you do to her, Harry?"

Ron opened his mouth to tell everyone enthusiastically, but Harry shut him up with a well-aimed elbow to the ribs.

"It was nothing important," Harry said. "I'd have to explain why it happened and it's a story too long to tell it now. And I'm almost sure that it's going to appear in the books, so it doesn't really matter."

"Harry," Fred whined.

"Don't leave us hanging," George said pleadingly. That smelt like an outburst of Harry's accidental magic and it was usually the best one. They got so many ideas from that.

Harry grinned. "If it doesn't appear, I'll tell you. I promise."

"Don't be ... hates the boy."

"See? Mutual relationship of hatred," Harry pointed out.

Molly sighed sadly and leant against her husband. "I don't understand it, Arthur. How can they hate him so much?"

Arthur wrapped his arms around her tightly. "I don't know, dear. I really don't understand it."

How could those people hate so much the same boy that their whole family would adopt in a heartbeat?

The Dursleys ... like a slug.

Ron closed his eyes and clenched his fists so tightly that he was sure to leave marks on the palms of his hands. He felt a nudge from his best friend, but he ignored it. However, Harry didn't let up and kept poking him.

"What, Harry?" He snapped finally, turning to look at him.

"I'm supposed to be the broody one with mood swings, remember? You're the one who supposedly has the emotional capability of a rock," Harry told him. His gaze softened when he saw the real angst in his friend's eyes. "What's going on, Ron?"

The redhead sighed and deflated in the couch. "I just don't like your relatives."

"Okay," Harry snorted. "Now there's two of us."

"Three of us," Hermione corrected, sending Ron a concerned look.

"Three of us," Harry nodded, correcting himself. "But we already knew that. You already hated them."

"But it's one thing to know that they don't treat you right and that they're... despicable," she said, pursing her lips. "And it's another thing to know it."

Harry frowned in confusion. "You already knew it, as you say. You just didn't know all the details."

"But we hadn't seen it and..."

"Technically, you're not seeing it now either..." Harry interrupted, earning himself exasperated looks.

"Harry, you know what we mean," Hermione said.

"They're... so much worse than I imagined, and I already thought they were horrible," Ron said, half disgusted and half afraid. "I wanna..." He trailed off, raising his hands in front of him half curled and squeezing like he was imagining the Dursleys neck between his fingers.

Harry sighed. "You can't strangle them, Ron. Well, maybe Aunt Petunia, but no Uncle Vernon or Dudley."

His two best friends stared at him like he had gone crazy.

"Why in Merlin's beard can't we strangle your uncle and cousin? You can't tell me you're fond of them deep down, right?" Ron asked, alarmed.

Harry snorted. "I haven't taken enough bludgers to the head for that," he reassured them. "But do you really think that you can wrap your hands around my cousin's neck? Never mind my uncle. That's a lost cause."

Ron and Hermione were staring at him like they couldn't believe what they were hearing.

"You're mental," Ron chuckled.

"For once, Ron's completely right," Hermione nodded in agreement, but her lips were twitching upwards.

"Exac- Hey! What do you mean for once?!"

"What ... go on Dudley's computer).

"Don't know why I bothered," Harry sighed, leaning back. "I knew there was no way they would leave me alone in the house."

"Good," Mrs. Weasley nodded firmly. "You can't leave a child that young at home on his own. What if something happened?"

Harry decided not to comment that the Dursleys would have probably been happy if something happened to him. He was sure that it would have made their day if they arrived home one day and he was gone from their lives forever.

Aunt ... in ruins?" she snarled.

Molly was turning red with anger as her temper rose. "That's why they didn't want to leave Harry alone at home? They were worried about their little house?" She spat.

Arthur wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close. "Calm down, Molly."

"It's not fair, Arthur," she said, leaning back against him as sadness began to substitute her anger. "They hate him."

"Mrs. Weasley," Harry called, smiling softly at her. "It doesn't matter. Really. I hate them too."

She returned the smile sadly, but she couldn't disagree more. It mattered. It mattered a lot to her and to her husband and to the rest of her family.

"I won't ... they weren't listening.

"Would you?" Seamus asked, looking at his roommate curiously.

"What? Blow up the house?" Harry asked surprised. Seamus nodded. "Why would I do that?" He asked, torn between shock and amusement.

Seamus shrugged, a vaguely disappointed expression on his face. "Blowing up things that you hate always gives you the best feeling. And I would hate that house if I were you."

Dean eyed his best friend suspiciously. "Just how many things have you blown up on purpose and let everyone think that it was an accident?"

Seamus' features schooled themselves into the vivid picture of innocence. "I have no idea what you're talking about. I'd never do something like that."

Dean's eyes narrowed even more. "If one of my posters blow up, I'm gonna take it out on you, Finnigan."

"Such little faith in me," the boy rolled his eyes. "In case you don't remember, it's Ron the one who usually tries to mess with your posters."

"I don't mess with his posters," the redhead scoffed. "I just try to make them a little livelier."

Dean almost had steam coming out of his ears. "If my posters are damaged in any way, I'm gonna make both of you pay for it."

"Hey! What about Harry and Neville?" Seamus asked indignant.

"They've never messed with my posters."

"I haven't even come close to them," Neville mumbled. He wasn't stupid.

"See?" Dean said triumphantly. "That's a good friend. Maybe Neville will be my new best friend from now on."

"You're ridiculous," Seamus rolled his eyes.

"I ... him in the car..."

"Please, tell me she's joking," Hermione cut in, her voice deadly in a way that hadn't been yet.

"You know they have no sense of humour, Hermione," Harry said slowly, studying her carefully. "Why do you ask?"

She whirled around towards him, her eyes blazing with fury and a hint of panic. "Children die when they're left in the car locked in, Harry. They die of heat stroke after a few hours."

"They what?!" Many shouted.

"They die in the car? Why?" Ron asked, paling rapidly even as his ears turned red with anger.

"The heat, Ron. The car becomes like an oven and literally cooks them alive," Hermione explained curtly, trembling with rage. This was the first time she heard that not only they had made Harry miserable, but they had endangered his life. She was going to make them pay.

"Remember what happened on the way to Hogwarts on our second year?" Harry asked. "Imagine that without air conditioner at all or water but in June instead of September."

The redhead blanched before his eyes hardened. "I'm gonna kill them," he declared. He said it so naturally, so calmly, that in that instant nobody doubted it.

"Ron..." Harry sighed.

"Don't, Harry. Don't," his best friend cut him off. "Not on this. I'm not joking. They wouldn't have cared if you died. There's nothing that can excuse that."

Everyone agreed with Ron, even those who weren't totally sure about what a car was. Letting a child die of heat stroke was something serious. They couldn't believe that these people would treat Harry Potter like this while the whole wizarding world idolised him. How close had they been to losing their saviour at the hands of his relatives?

"Ron, my magic would've acted up and would've probably opened the car," Harry tried to sooth him. He only made it worse.

"Your magic shouldn't have to act to save your life, Harry," Remus said through gritted teeth.

"And probably doesn't cut it this time," Sirius added, trying not to think that he could have lost his godson while he had been thinking that he was safe and happy. Why hadn't he tried to escape Azkaban before? Why hadn't he taken Harry with him when he had run away with Buckbeak? It would have been better than living with those animals.

"That car's ... in it alone..."

"That's their reason for not leaving you in the car?" Bill spat in disgust. His hatred and repulsion towards these people only grew with each revelation.

"They care about the car more than they care about you," Tonks said uncomprehendingly. How could anyone care more about an object than a person's life, especially a kid?

"They cared more about the house than about him, too, didn't they?" Molly said, her hands trembling as she tried to keep tears at bay. She wanted to scream and rage and cry and curse the Dursleys and sweep Harry into a hug and never let him go, promising him that he was safe now.

Dudley began ... anything he wanted.

"Really? Fake tears to go along with the tantrum?" Katie scrunched up her nose.

"How can she believe it? Can't she see right through the act?" Molly asked desperate. She couldn't understand the Dursleys. "She brought him up. She should know in an instant when he's hiding something."

"Mum," Bill said softly. "Not all mums in the world are like you."

"I reckon we were lucky, weren't we?" Percy chipped in, hating to see his mother upset. She was the person he hated the most to see upset about something.

Molly gave her a watery smile, melting in an instant when all her children nodded and murmured their agreements. Even Harry and Hermione were smiling in agreement. Merlin, she loved them, she loved the nine of them.

"Dinky Duddydums, ... arms around him.

"Spoil his special day?" Angelina bristled. "You've barely even opened your mouth and you've made breakfast for him!"

"His standards are high," Harry said dryly.

"High? High how?" She demanded exasperated. "What would you have to do so he would be happy on his birthday? Kiss the ground he walks on?"

Harry laughed aloud. "You really think that would work?"

Angelina softened when she heard him laugh. "Don't know really. Don't wanna know to be honest."

"Yeah, me neither. I'm not gonna try that," Harry chuckled. "I'd sooner try to freeze the ground so he would slip and fall on his fat a- butt," he corrected himself just in time, sending a quick glance at Mrs. Weasley. He had seen her scold their children for their language and he had no wish to have that anger directed his way.

Fred snorted. "That I'd pay to see. Especially because he probably wouldn't be able to stand up again."

George's face brightened. "Freddie, are you thinking what I'm thinking?" He asked.

Fred's face mirrored his twin's the next instant. "Oh, Georgie, I love how you think. It'd be an instant success, don't you think?"

"Fred. George," their mother began, beginning to give them the stinking eye. "You wouldn't..."

"Dream of doing something that would anger you, mum," George finished for her.

"We're just fantasising," Fred said innocently.

Molly didn't seem to believe it, but she couldn't be bothered to interrogate them right then. She could do it later.

"I . . . don't . . . ... his mother's arms.

"What a brat," Katie huffed, rolling her eyes.

"I think not even Malfoy would do that," Ron scoffed.

Hermione tilted her head pensively. "What Malfoy does is not that different, threatening everyone with his father like that's gonna fix everything. Neither of them is learning how to solve their own problems."

Harry smiled amused. "They are a bit alike, aren't they? Both just as spoiled and arrogant, bullying everyone around them."

"And both of them hating your guts," Ron grinned.

"Think they could start a club for Harry-Potter-haters?" Harry joked, a mischievous glint in his eyes. "Although, I believe they would argue too much about who would be in charge."

"And they would hate each other," Hermione added amused.

"That too," Harry snickered. "Perhaps they would manage to get over it because of their mutual hatred towards me, though."

"I don't see what's so funny about that," Colin huffed under his breath, rolling his eyes. Why would anyone want to create a club for Harry-Potter-haters? They should just try to make them come around.

Just then, ... Dudley hit them.

"Don't tell me. You were one of those whose arms he held back," Charlie said sarcastically.

Harry smirked sharply, which surprised just about everyone. "He did, but he usually ended up regretting it. I kick and I have a mean aim."

They all snorted and chuckled in amusement. It was good to know that Harry hadn't taken the bullying and the beatings quietly and hadn't gone down without a fight. But what were they expecting? The boy didn't seem to know what lying low and admit defeat were.

Dudley stopped ... cry at once.

"Oh, don't tell me he can't cry in front of his friends," Bill mocked. "Afraid about what his best friend would think of him?"

"It wouldn't surprise me," Tonks snorted in agreement.

Half an hour ... his life.

"What exactly is a zoo?" Parvati asked curious.

"It's a place where different animals are kept so people can go see them," Hermione explained quickly.

"They keep the animals locke'?" Hagrid asked in horror.

"Yes, but..." Hermione began, trying to stop the impending outburst. She didn't talk fast enough.

"They can't do tha'!" The gamekeeper bellowed, standing up like he intended to march right to the nearest zoo and free all the animals.

"Hagrid!" Hermione called, but Hagrid was too angry to listen to her and kept walking towards the door. She looked at her best friend. "Harry!" She pleaded. Hagrid always, always listened to Harry, never ignoring what he wanted to say.

The boy was already jumping to his feet to intercept the gamekeeper. "Hagrid," he said seriously, standing firmly between him and the door with his arms crossed and an unamused expression on his face.

"Harry, yeh don't understan'..." Hagrid fretted.

"Listen to Hermione, Hagrid," Harry said firmly.

"Hagrid, that animals are kept there doesn't mean that they aren't well looked after," Hermione said, walking over to stand next to Harry. "There are regulations to ensure that animals aren't mistreated."

She didn't add that there were places who didn't abide by those regulations. There would be no stopping Hagrid if she did.

"Yeh sure?" Hagrid asked concerned.

"Positive," she nodded confidently. Then she had an idea. "We can take you to one for a visit this summer if you want."

Hagrid brightened. "Yeh would?" He asked hopefully.

"We can all go," Harry smiled, looking back at the Weasleys.

"And would we have to use muggle money again?" Arthur perked up, a huge grin spreading across his face. "What about the ticket machines? Would we see those? I've heard they work with eclecticity."

Harry stifled a chuckle as they all went back to their seats. "I suppose, Mr. Weasley."

"Wonderful!" The man said, his face lightening up like a child's on Christmas.

"Settle down, dear. That won't happen until this summer," Molly said with a fond smile. She may not understand her husband's obsession with muggle things, but it was something almost endearing to watch.

His aunt ... taken Harry aside.

All signs of levity vanished immediately. Nobody wanted that man anywhere near Harry.

"If he harms a single hair on your head..." Sirius growled, clenching his fists tightly.

"Then you wouldn't be able to do anything about it now," Harry interrupted him, tired of all the pointless threats. "We can't get out of here and this happened more than three years ago. It doesn't matter now."

The animagus gritted his teeth, wholeheartedly disagreeing with that assessment. It didn't matter if it had happened three years before or twenty. He was going to break that man's hand if he laid it on his godson and he was going to follow with every other bone in his body.

"I'm warning ... now until Christmas."

"Six months?" Hermione calculated quickly, bristling in indignation. "He threatened to lock you up in your... in that cupboard for six months."

"He didn't follow it through, Hermione," Harry said soothingly.

"I'd hope so or he would've just been digging his grave even deeper," she scowled.

"I'm not ... make them happen.

"Accidental magic," Percy realised, his eyes going wide.

"Oh, Merlin, I don't even want to imagine how they would react to that," Tonks said, covering her eyes with a hand.

"Petunia had to know perfectly well what was happening," Remus scowled. "She grew up with Lily so she had to have seen it before."

"They didn't care about that," Harry shrugged uncomfortably. He didn't how to react to his ex-professor's anger on his behalf. He didn't need Professor Lupin's anger.

"But they can't blame you for your accidental magic!" Ginny protested. Really, what was wrong with these people? "They had to know it wasn't your fault!"

"More like they knew exactly who the culprit was," Harry corrected her.

"But that's not fair!" She exclaimed. "It's not something you can control!"

"Life isn't fair," Harry repeated his own words from the night before. "And life with the Dursleys even less."

Once, ... hide that horrible scar."

"They were that tired of that mop on top of your head that you call hair?" Ron tried to joke, but his voice sounded too tense.

"They blamed you for the Potter hair?" Sirius asked incensed. "How could they? I don't know of anyone who's been able to tame it!"

"Now that I think about it," Molly said, deciding to focus on something she could fix. "Harry, dear, you could use a haircut."

Bill almost burst out laughing. He wanted to cheer he was so happy that now his mother had someone else to bother about getting a proper haircut. Maybe then she would lay off him for a while. As much as he sympathized with what awaited Harry, he was going to sit back and enjoy the show.

Harry gulped and unconsciously leant away from the woman. "Mrs. Weasley, I appreciate it, really, but I don't wanna bother..." He tried. He should have known that wouldn't work.

"Oh, nonsense, dear. It's no bother at all," she said dismissively.

"But, Mrs. Weasley, you don't understand," he tried again. "When's the last time you think I got a haircut?"

The redheaded woman frowned in confusion. "I don't know, Harry. This summer, I suppose. What does that have to do with...?"

"Mrs. Weasley, I haven't got a haircut since I was seven, when that incident we've just read about happened," he interrupted her delicately, trying not to be rude.

"Seven?" Bill repeated, biting his cheek to stifle his guffaws of laughter. His mother was going to go nuts. There was no way that Harry was going to be able to escape now.

And he was right. Molly pursed her lips and frowned, eyeing the mop of black hair like it was her newest adversary.

"That won't do at all," she tutted.

"But, Mrs. Weasley, it doesn't matter," Harry pleaded, looking around for help and finding just amused faces. Traitors. "It doesn't change. It just stays like this forever and..."

"But it could look so much better, Harry," Molly cut him off. "You'd look much more handsome with your hair just a bit shorter. And maybe I can find a way to make it stop pointing in every direction possible... Mmm..."

Harry could only watch in horror as Mrs. Weasley continued to murmur to herself and she eyed his hair thoughtfully.

Ron snorted and patted his shoulder. "You've done it now, mate. She won't stop until she manages to comb your hair," he snickered.

"But she won't be able to do it," Harry said horrified.

"That won't stop her from trying."

Dudley had laughed ... taped glasses.

Many hid a wince. The baggy clothes and the taped glasses. According to Harry himself, those were the first things that he had tried to get rid off when he had arrived to Hogwarts. It must have really bothered him to have so many laughing at him for that.

Lavander and Parvati exchanged a glance. They wished they were a bit closer to Harry. This would have given them the perfect excuse to go on a huge shopping trip to find him clothes that fitted him. Unfortunately, they weren't that close with him. Maybe they had to fix that.

Next morning, ... sheared it off.

"Hah!" Sirius cheered triumphantly. "Told you. Potter hair. It wouldn't be that easy to tame it."

Remus bit his lip worried. He was sure that the Dursleys wouldn't like it as much as Sirius and Harry would take the blame for it.

"It's like even your hair's stubborn," Ron snickered.

Molly frowned heavily when she heard what had happened with Harry's hair. "That won't help at all," she muttered to herself. She may even have to use potions to control Harry's hair and morph it into something vaguely combed.

Bill elbowed his brother in the ribs and leant closer. "Mum looks about to have a fit hearing that," he whispered.

Charlie looked at his mother and stifled his laughter. "Poor Harry. Think we should rescue him when she tries to corner him?"

Bill seemed to think about it for a moment before grinning mischievously. "I wanna see what she tries first."

"You're just happy she has someone else to bother about getting a haircut," Charlie said knowingly.

"That too," Bill admitted, grinning unabashedly. "But I wanna see how Harry's hair resists all of mum's efforts. We can rescue him after she's tried for a bit."

He had ... back so quickly.

Any mirth present vanished.

"A week in the cupboard?" Remus growled through greeted teeth.

"He didn't do anything!" Tonks shouted, her hair turning a fiery red. "It was accidental magic and it didn't hurt anyone!"

"I'm gonna kill them," Sirius said, or more like promised. Nobody locked his godson in a cupboard for a week and lived to repeat the experience.

"I wasn't locked up the entire day," Harry tried to calm everyone down. "I was allowed to get out to go to the bathroom twice a day."

As soon as these words slipped past his lips, he wanted to take them back. It had sounded much better in his head. Looking around, he could see that it had indeed not helped at all. If anything, it had only made it worse as everyone's faces darkened.

Another time, ... Harry wasn't punished.

"Finally," Dean said, glaring at the book.

"I don't get it," Alicia said frustrated. "They blame you for the hair, but not for this?"

"Would you have preferred that they blamed him?" Angelina asked with a raised eyebrow.

"No!" Alicia exclaimed, glaring at her. "I just don't understand what kind of logic they're following. Why the hair and not the jumper?"

"As long as they could give those incidents a somewhat logical explanation, it was okay," Harry shrugged. "They'd rather pretend that magic doesn't exist than to punish me."

"Logical explanation?" Percy repeated sceptically. The jumper shrinking in the wash wasn't logical at all.

"I said somewhat logical," Harry pointed out.

On the ... the school kitchens.

"What?" Ron laughed. "You climbed a roof? Why would you do that?"

"You could've got hurt, Harry," Hermione chided with a frown. "What if you had fallen down?"

"Aren't you more worried about the fact that I could've been expelled?" Harry teased her gently.

Ron roared with laughter, much to the confusion of everyone but his two best friends. Hermione blushed and slapped Harry on the back of his head.

"Sorry, Hermione. It was a chance too good to let it go," he apologised, smiling sheepishly.

Hermione rolled her eyes and huffed. "You're impossible."

"What are we missing here?" Charlie asked curiously. He could see that no one but those three understood the obvious inside joke.

"Doesn't matter," Ron said dismissively, a massive grin on his face.

"And to answer your questions," Harry said, looking at his best friends. "I didn't climb to the roof. I actually have no idea how I got there."

Dudley's gang ... on the chimney.

There weren't laughs this time. They were too busy gaping at the uncomfortable boy squirming under all the gazes.

"Y-You apparated?" Ron broke the silence, eyes so wide that they seemed to pop out of their sockets.

"No clue," Harry shrugged again. "I have no idea what apparition feels like, remember?"

"But, but... apparition is very complicated," Percy spluttered in shock. "No child should be able to accomplish it.

"I don't know if I apparated," Harry repeated, gritting his teeth. "Maybe I flew or something."

Snape suddenly had a huge flashback about a small girl with fiery red hair jumping from the swing and floating to land several feet away delicately. He had to close his eyes to try to avoid the images. He refused to see Potter in anyway similar to Lily. As far as he was concerned, the boy had only got his mother's eyes and nothing else. That he hadn't had the grand childhood Snape had pictured him having didn't mean that the fame hadn't got to his head since he had arrived to the wizarding world and he wasn't as arrogant as his father used to be in Hogwarts.

"Flying is still pretty impressive, Mr. Potter," McGonagall said, sending her student a proud smile.

Harry beamed at her, his cheeks colouring at the praise. It wasn't often that one received such a compliment from the strict Professor McGonagall.

"I wanna fly too," Ron said enviously.

Harry snorted and gave him a shove. "Then get your broomstick. Even if I knew how to do it again, I wouldn't carry your heavy arse around."

Ron rolled his eyes. "Some best friend you've turned out to be," he grumbled good-naturedly, his lips twitching upwards.

The Dursleys ... climbing school buildings.

"Oh, dragon's crap," Charlie swore. "They won't like that."

"I'd bet," Tonks winced.

In all the shock of Harry's apparition/flying thing, they hadn't thought about the Dursley's reaction. If it had been bad when Harry's hair had grown back and nobody but them had known about it, it was was bound to be horrible now that there were witnesses.

But all ... of his cupboard)

"Again?" Sirius growled.

"Was it a week once more this time?" Remus asked, trying and failing to keep a level head.

"More or less," Harry answered, racking a hand through his hair and refusing to look at anyone. If it had been much more more than less —like, about two weeks more than that—, nobody had to know.

"Don't they know the kind of repercussions locking a child in such a small place can have on him?!" Madam Pomfrey shrieked, her control finally snapping.

She had tried, she had tried really hard not to say anything. Harry had spent enough time under her care to know that he would really hate to have attention drawn towards him in front of the whole school, but she had had enough.

"I'm fine, Madam Pomfrey," Harry said soothingly, with a hint of fear in his voice. If he didn't calm her down, she was going to drag him to the infirmary in a Body-Bind curse if she had to.

The witch pursed her lips unhappily. She was itching to check him for adverse effects that kind of environment growing up could have had on him, but she knew that he would put up a fight if she tried then.

"What if you hadn't been fine, Harry?" Tonks asked, harsher than she had meant to. "What if there was an emergency?"

"Exactly," Remus growled. "What if there had been a fire or something? What we're hearing makes me doubt if they would've remembered that you were there."

There were several sharp intakes of breath as people imagined this scenario. Harry would have been burnt alive (which nobody wanted to even consider) or he would have succumbed to the smoke.

"The door opened several times on its own. Sometimes I just had to lay a hand on it and it would open instantly," Harry tried to reassure them. "I wouldn't have got stuck in there. Besides, nothing like that ever happened."

Every excuse Harry made to try to make it look less bad only seemed to have the opposite effect. He should be furious and upset and have a total hatred towards his relatives. Why did he seem to only fit one of these things?

was jump ... in mid-jump.

"You may be a scrawny midget," George said, trying to ignore the anger shimmering around them.

"But you're not that light, Harrikins," Fred finished, as determined as his twin not to make this more difficult for Harry.

"I didn't know magic existed," Harry defended himself.

"You could've said that an invisible man had given you a push," Fred suggested, grinning amused.

"Muggles can't turn themselves invisible," Harry snickered. "So, it would count as magic."

"They can't?" George asked, a bit perplexed. "How far behind are they that they haven't been able to find a way to turn invisible without magic?"

"You say it like it's easy to turn yourself invisible with magic," Hermione scoffed.

"To be fair, it is easy for the three of us," Harry whispered so only Ron and Hermione heard him.

"Shut up, Harry. You know what I mean. Your cloak doesn't count."

But today, ... to go wrong.

"That," Seamus said, pointing at the book. "That's a jinx if I ever saw one. Who wanna bet that something goes wrong?"

"No one's gonna take that bet, Seamus," Dean scoffed, grabbing his still raised arm to pull it down. "This is Harry we're talking about. Trelawney wouldn't even have to pretend to see some catastrophe in his future for it to be true."

"It wasn't a catastrophe," Harry mumbled defensively.

"So, something did happen," Dean grinned.

It was ... his favourite subjects.

"Wait, that means he doesn't like Harry?" George asked in mock-confusion.

"I thought you were his favourite nephew," Fred huffed. "He's led us wrong the whole time."

"He is his favourite nephew," a voice said, making almost everyone turn towards her.

"Luna?" Harry asked perplexed. He had to have heard her wrong. Or maybe she had been asleep the whole time they had been reading.

"Hi, Harry," she smiled dreamily.

"Hi," he replied absentmindedly. "You say I'm Uncle Vernon's favourite nephew?"

Luna nodded, humming under her breath. "Of course," she said softly. "You're his only nephew."

Harry released a shaky breath. "I think that he would be much happier with no nephew at all, Luna," he said. "You can't have a favourite anything if you don't like either of the options."

"Then that could mean that you're both his favourite nephew and the one he dislikes the most, don't you think?" She mused intrigued.

Harry blinked and tried to find the words to answer. "I suppose..."

This morning, ... "It was flying."

Ron groaned and punched Harry's shoulder as hard as he could.

"Ouch! Hey!" Harry glared at him as he rubbed the sore spot. "What was that for?"

"Do you have a death wish or something?" Ron demanded, his ears red. "I know that you don't think before heading into danger, but that was just asking for trouble, Harry!"

"And here I thought we'd never see little Ronnie channelling mum," Charlie mumbled so only Bill and Tonks heard him. The three of them snickered under their breath.

"I know. I wasn't thinking, okay?" He defended himself, inching away from Ron. He didn't expect to receive a slap on the back of his head from his other best friend. He was beginning to feel abused. "Hermione!"

"Just checking it wasn't empty, Harry Potter," she said, shutting him up with a glare. "You aren't using it much."

"I was a kid! And I was going to the zoo for the first time! I was excited!" Harry argued, not knowing where to go to avoid being hit again. Maybe he should stand up and step away from the couch.

"Just... don't do that, Harry," Hermione sighed.

"I know," he said relaxing. "You know I don't talk to my relatives if I can help it."

"Then keep helping it," Ron ordered. "You have any idea how much of a hassle it'd be to avenge you if they killed you for having said something they didn't like?"

"I feel so loved right now, Ron," he replied sarcastically, rolling his eyes.

Uncle Vernon ... "MOTORCYCLES DON'T FLY!"

"Mine did," Sirius said proudly. "And it was wonderful."

Remus rolled his eyes. "Sure it was, Padfoot," he said, his voice heavy with sarcasm.

Sirius glared at him and nearly shoved him off the couch they were sharing. "Don't patronise me, Moony. It was wonderful and you know it."

Nobody noticed, but the twins almost had a heart attack right there and then. Had they heard right? Had they called each other Padfoot and Moony? Could it be a coincidence?

"Gred, you don't think..." George said quietly, so quietly that there was no chance of anyone hearing them.

"That it could be them, Feorge?" Fred finished faintly.

"A teacher?" George said, trying to picture one of those pranksters they idolized as a serious professor, even one that hadn't been half bad like Professor Lupin.

"And a supposed maybe-innocent psycho killer that wanted to kill Harry last year?" Fred added. It was impossible to put those two images together.

They turned at the same time to look at Harry, Ron and Hermione, but the three friends were engrossed in the reading. They were going to have to ask them since they were ones that seemed to know the most about Black. If those three, especially Harry since he had been the one they had given the map to, had known the identities of the Marauders and they hadn't told them... they better sleep with an eye open for a while now.

Dudley ... might get dangerous ideas.

"They think you need help with those?" Ron snorted. "Mental. The whole lot of them."

"My ideas aren't dangerous," Harry argued. "The situations I find myself into are dangerous. But I'm not there because of my ideas."

Ron and Hermione stared at him incredulously.

"You're joking, right?" Ron blurted out. Harry was pulling their leg, wasn't he? ... No. He looked as serious as ever.

"Harry, I don't think you've gone a whole month since we met when you didn't have a dangerous idea," Hermione said softly but firmly.

"Not true!"

"Too true," they replied at the same time.

Harry narrowed his eyes. "Prove it. Examples needed."

"Really? What about last year...?" Ron began.

"Ron!" Hermione cut him off.

"What?" He asked alarmed.

"Not here!" She hissed, gesturing around them, where dozens of faces filled with eager curiosity were staring at them.

"Oh," the redhead said sheepishly.

"Don't shut up because of us," Dean said, waving his hand to indicate them to keep talking.

"We wanna know what idea you're talking about," Seamus nodded. He could think up about three or four right then and there, but he was sure that Ron and Hermione knew several more.

"No," Harry shook his head, his jaw set stubbornly. "You'll find out if it appears in the books."

"And then I can point out every dangerous idea you've ever had," Ron said happily. "They'll all agree with me."

"Shut up, Ron."

It was ... lemon ice pop.

"Somehow, it doesn't surprise me at all," Katie sighed a bit sadly. She huffed in surprise when a cushion hit her in the face. "Hey!" She protested, looking around for the culprit. She found him quickly when she saw Harry glaring at her with his arms crossed. "You threw a cushion at my face?" She asked indignant.

"Be happy for me! I got an ice cream!" He exclaimed. "No moping just because something went right."

Katie gaped at him and snorted. "You're ridiculous."

"I'm ridiculous?" Harry raised an eyebrow. "Who's sighing all dramatically because I got an ice cream?"

"I'm not sighing dramatically! And it's not because of that!" She exclaimed, her cheeks turning pink. "You just shouldn't have been so happy just because you got an ice cream."

"You wanted me to sad about it?"

"No!"

"Oh, so then you would prefer if I were ungrateful?" Harry teased her.

Katie narrowed her eyes and threw the cushion back as hard as he could. "Shut up, Potter. Don't twist my words."

Harry caught the pillow easily and grinned amused at her.

It wasn't ... it wasn't blond.

Bill snorted. "I'm having a hard time picturing this kid in my head. I'm trying to blend a pig and a gorilla and put a blond wig on it and the result is a bit disturbing."

Charlie grimaced and sent his brother an odd look. "You're a weird one, you know that?" He said with another grimace. Now he was the one who couldn't stop trying to imagine a hybrid between a pig and a gorilla.

"If you wanted to meet the lovely Dudley Dursley, you should've come with to pick up Harry this summer," George smirked.

"They can always come when we pay them another visit, brother mine," Fred said.

"You know, Padfoot," Remus said quietly so only his friend heard him. "These comments and little remarks Harry makes in his head. You know who they remind me of?"

Sirius frowned in confusion. "James?" He guessed. But no, that wasn't right. James used more jokes and pranks and big gestures, not so much witty replies and sarcasm and all that.

Remus shook his head with a fond smile. "That's all Lily and you know it," he said. He snorted in amusement and looked at Harry. "I'm not sure if you've talked with him long enough to notice, but he's much more similar to Lily even though he's the spitting image of James."

Sirius frowned and looked at his godson. Was he really so similar to Lily? He hadn't noticed. He knew that he was as loyal to his friends as James had been and he got into just as much trouble, if not more. He was an amazing flyer and quidditch player, too. All that screamed James to him. It was true, though, that Remus had spent much more time with Harry than him (and he had to ignore the pang of jealousy that stung him at that thought), so maybe the werewolf knew something that he didn't.

Harry had ... of hitting him.

"They'd do that in the middle of the zoo?" Lavander asked appalled.

"I don't think they'd have a problem with that," Hermione scoffed, glaring at the book. "And it's not like there aren't places and corners to hide in a zoo."

Harry nudged her, trying to get her to lighten up. "You think I'd let them drag me there?" He asked with a raised eyebrow. "I know I don't have your brain, Hermione, but I think even I can understand that not everybody would stand aside when they see two boys beating up another one half their size. I made sure I stuck to places where there were always people."

Hermione blushed and elbowed him half-heartedly. "I didn't say you didn't know that. I meant that maybe your cousin and his friend weren't able to figure that out and would've beat you up anyway."

"Can we stop talking about people beating up Harry?" Sirius cut in, gritting his teeth.

Harry smiled bitterly. "Why? It's not like that'll erase what happened. And you were the one who wanted to know. I'm the one who warned you you wouldn't like it."

Maybe he was a bit harsh, but he was getting a little exasperated. They wanted to know, but just to know how much to beat up the Dursleys, not to help him. They demanded to know every detail, but then they didn't want it mentioned ever again, like it had just been to satisfy their morbid curiosity and they wanted to pretend it had never happened. Well, too bad. He was not a soap opera. They had wanted to know and they had got their wish. Now they had to deal with the consequences and, since they all knew about it now, he had no qualms about making comments or jokes about it whenever he felt like it. If it made them uncomfortable, they shouldn't have asked.

Sirius was taken aback by this. How could his godson treat this matter so lightly? This was serious. Of course, Sirius wanted to talk about it and he was going to get every detail from the kid once they finished reading for the day. He needed... He needed to know how bad it had been to make amends and to know how much he was going to torture the Dursleys. But all that would happen later, when they were in private, not with a couple of hundred of witnesses.

They ate ... finish the first.

Mrs. Weasley pursed her lips and took a deep breath to try to calm down. "Should I even bother to ask if they would've bought you some lunch otherwise?" She hissed.

"Probably not," Harry said lightly.

"Yeah, I guessed that much," the redheaded woman nodded, her expression darkening even more.

Harry felt, ... good to last.

"Told you he had jinxed it," Seamus said with a half-hearted smile.

"Nobody argued with you," Dean huffed.

"I know. Too bad they didn't. I would've won some money," Seamus said sadly.

After lunch ... was fast asleep.

"Wait, wait, wait," Ron interrupted, whirling around to stare at Harry with wide eyes. "Is this...? Was this when you...?"

Harry blinked in confusion and looked at Hermione for help. A moment later, her face lit up in comprehension like it did in class when she knew the answer to a particularly difficult question.

"You told us about it in second year, Harry," she said eagerly, trying not to give too much away. She was acutely aware of the dozens of ears listening to their conversation.

"Oh," he understood before laughing. "Yeah. This is it."

Ron laughed delighted and leant forward eagerly. "Brilliant! I've always known you weren't giving it the credit it deserves when you told us."

"Told you what?" Sirius asked confused and a bit frustrated.

"You'll see," Harry grinned, looking at his best friend amused. "I did give it the credit it deserves, Ron."

"I agree with Ron, Harry," Hermione huffed. "You never know how to tell your own stories."

"What stories?" Sirius asked again, more frustrated.

"You'll see," the three of them answered at the same time.

The animagus wanted to strangle them or growl in frustration. He settled for the latter. Now he understood why the Weasley girl —he thought she was called Ginny— had been so frustrated the night before when she talked about how those three never let anyone in. She was right.

"Sirius," Remus said quietly, laying a hand on his shoulder. "You have no reason to get angry."

"Don't I?" He replied in the same volume.

"No, you don't," the werewolf said firmly, squeezing his shoulder in warning. "We were the same, remember? We never told anyone our plans or our secrets."

Sirius blanched. "But it's not the same..."

"Isn't it?"

"We... We're Harry's family," Sirius argued, taking care not to raise his voice. "We were there when he was born. He..."

"Is a teenager with trust issues who loves his best friends more than anyone else in the world. I'm sure if you asked him, he would tell that he considers them his family," Remus cut in, looking at him with pained understanding. "We were just the same, Sirius. We trusted James more than anyone else in the world."

It hurt to be unable to say that they had trusted each other, all the Marauders, more than anyone. It would be a lie. There was a reason for why Sirius had doubted whether or not Remus could have been working for the other side or for why Remus hadn't believed in Sirius' innocence when he was accused. They weren't holding it against each other since they had both made mistakes and they had been talking during the summer to reconnect and make amends, but, deep down, they doubted they would ever be able to go back to how they had been.

Meanwhile, completely oblivious to the turmoil between the two Marauders, Harry kept talking with Ron and Hermione.

"Do you think someone from the Ministry...?" He trailed off in a whisper, looking at the aurors carefully. In a way, he was glad that Crouch (the imperiused one) wasn't here. That man had already accused him once of conjuring the Dark Mark and he had no intention of finding out what he would do with these revelations if he didn't know them yet.

Ron's face closed off. "Not a chance, mate," he sneered in a way that would have mortified him in any other situation because of how similar it was to Snape.

Hermione's eyes were sharp. "It's not something bad. They can't do anything even if they don't like it. And you know how everyone else here at Hogwarts got over it. This will be the same."

"It took them more than six months to get over it, Hermione," Harry reminded her gently.

Hermione pursed her lips. "I really don't think that anyone will care, Harry. But if they do," she continued before he could interrupt her. "They can't do anything about it either way. The oath will stop them from telling anyone about it and they won't be able to do anything."

Harry relaxed a little. That much was true, but it was still possible for some of the students who already knew and wouldn't be learning it from the books to talk about it with whoever they wanted. And his mind kept going back to how Professor Lupin had had to leave the school because parents had protested. Was parseltongue as bad as lycanthropy in the wizarding world?

Dudley stood ... at his father.

"As if that fat muggle will be able to force a snake to move," Tonks snorted darkly.

"He should've just left it alone," Harry said, scrunching up his nose. "The poor animal hadn't done anything to deserve having them bothering it."

"Merlin, Harry, was it your friend or something?" Seamus asked with a teasing grin.

"Uh, an acquaintance, more like it," Harry admitted, deciding that it didn't matter what he said since they were going to hear what had happened anyway.

"I thought you didn't like snakes," the boy tried to tease him again, but he sounded more puzzled than anything else.

"Some of them," Harry said uncomfortably. He didn't hate snakes, as in the animal, in general since they had never seemed that threatening to him, but he did hate many other snakes. Snape and Malfoy were at the head of that list. He couldn't stand them.

Some people sent him funny looks, but he didn't care. He disliked most of the Slytherin house and he made no attempt to hide it, but he didn't hate all of them. Some of them had never made fun of him or his friends nor had they tried to curse him, so they weren't that bad. Not that he was eager to make friends with them. He was not that crazy.

Uncle Vernon ... just snoozed on.

"Doesn't he care that he seems like a dog following his owner's orders?" Bill asked, frustrated and angry. He simply couldn't get over the lack of education the Dursleys were giving their son.

"I thought Malfoy was a pampered prince at home, but I'm sure his father wouldn't tolerate to be talked like that," Ron mumbled with a grimace. He couldn't believe he had said something that was almost nice about Draco Malfoy of all people, but it didn't make it any less true. Lucius Malfoy would ground his son for eternity if he tried to order him around like Dudley was doing with his father.

"This is ... shuffled away.

"About time," Dean huffed. "Now, if he could just stay gone..."

"It's good to dream sometimes, Dean," Harry grinned amused.

His roommate grinned unashamed and shrugged. "I could hope, you know. I don't know how long I can stand to keep hearing about him before I start to want to pull my own hair out."

Harry snickered. "You're gonna have to manage. I doubt they'll go away for a long time since I'm still living with them."

Dean's grin faltered for an instant before it came back, a little more forced than before. "Damn. And here I was hoping your bad luck hadn't kicked in until you had come to Hogwarts," he tried to joke.

Harry smiled, appreciating the effort to defuse the tension in the air.

Harry moved in ... the house.

"Harry, don't... Don't do that," Sirius said through gritted teeth.

Harry blinked perplexed. "Do what? I'm not doing anything."

"Don't compare yourself to an animal," the animagus barked, the anger making his voice harsher than he meant to.

Harry didn't know how to react. Part of him wanted to reach out and comfort his godfather, tell him that he was sorry for having thought that. But another part of him rebelled against doing that. He couldn't control his thoughts and he could control even less what appeared in the books. He had warned them that they wouldn't be pretty, that his life hadn't been a walk in the park, and they had been the ones who had insisted on being present to listen. He wasn't going to try to make it easier for them when they had been the stubborn ones and he wasn't going to feel bad for them if they heard something they didn't like.

It was kind of funny. He should be the one who should be the most upset at having his home life in the open and he was probably going to panic once he allowed himself to really think about it, but it was everyone else who was having a harder time dealing with it at the moment. It was like everybody had believed that he had the perfect home with the perfect family and no one had bothered to even consider otherwise, except for his two best friends and the twins. This was being a rude awakening for everyone else.

Even then, he could only think that, since they had wanted to know, they had to deal with the consequences themselves. They couldn't demand of him that he didn't think like that when it had been ingrained in him for as long as he could remember. They had no right to demand those things of him like that would fix everything that was wrong with him. Hearing that made him want to snap at Sirius and give him a piece of his mind, but he didn't want to open that can of worms yet, not in front of anyone. He could do that later, when his godfather inevitably tried to talk to him.

The snake ... winked.

Sirius blinked, snapped out of his anger as the impossibility of what he had heard sunk in.

"It what?" He asked baffled. Snakes didn't wink. Was it even physically possible for them to wink?

"It winked," Harry repeated, his voice inexpressive as he refused to show his fear. He hadn't thought that his godfather may not know about him being a parselmouth. Some part of him had assumed that Professor Lupin had found out the year before and had told Sirius or something. However, one look at the werewolf revealed that he was just as surprised as the animagus.

"Snakes can't wink," Remus said, voicing Sirius' thoughts.

"Well, they obviously can," George cut in, his cheerful voice carrying a steely edge.

"Since that lovely specimen is flirting with our dear little Harrikins," Fred said, wiping a fake tear off his eye like he was incredibly proud.

Sirius and Remus exchanged a glance and looked around. Only Tonks, the other Ministry officers and many of the younger students seemed surprised. They were obviously missing something important here.

Harry stared. ... and winked, too.

"Oh, Feorge, did you hear that?" Fred asked tearfully.

"I did, Gred," George nodded solemnly. "Harrikins is flirting back with the snake."

"Soon we'll lose him and we'll never hear from him again."

"He'll find some pretty snake that'll wink at him like this one and he'll be charmed forever."

Harry snorted, unconsciously relaxing at their stupid banter. It was good to see that they could still joke about him being a parselmouth like they had done when he had been in second year.

"He thinks we're joking," Fred said, looking at Harry mournfully.

"He won't know what hits him when the pretty snake winks at him," George nodded sadly. "So, we'll have to protect him."

"We can, can't we? Knights riding shining dragons or whatever muggles say. That's what we are," Fred nodded.

"It's knights in shining armours," Hermione corrected them with a snicker. She was ignored.

"We won't let the pretty snake take him away," George declared.

"Just shut up and let us finish this," Harry said, a fraction of his anxiety coming back.

He glanced at Sirius and Professor Lupin, who seemed confused about what was going on. They hadn't figured out that he could speak parsel then. He was sure that their reaction wouldn't be quiet then.

The snake ... all the time."

Tonks blinked confused and leant closer to Charlie. "That wasn't just a look, Charlie. That snake just talked. We heard it with the spell in the book," she whispered, narrowing her eyes at his unsurprised expression. "What do you know?"

The young man sighed tiredly. "You know why the snake just talked and we were able to hear it through the book. You don't have to ask me."

The metamorphmagus looked at Harry, who seemed incredibly uncomfortable, and back at her friend. "He's a parselmouth," she stated more than asked.

Charlie still nodded. "He is. He's a good kid, though, Tonks," he tried to assure her. Since he had heard, back when Ginny had come back from her first year in Hogwarts paler and thinner than usual, that Harry Potter had saved his little sister, he hadn't even thought wrong of the boy. And now that he had met him this last summer, he knew that he genuinely liked him.

Tonks glared at him and punched him in the shoulder as hard as she could. "Of course, he is, idiot. I've known that since last night. I didn't need you to tell me that, Charles Weasley. I'm not gonna judge him for talking to snakes."

Charlie smiled in relief. "Good. From what my younger siblings told me, he had a hard few months when the rest of the school found out. Harry didn't even know he was a parselmouth, or even what parseltongue was, until nobody dared to get close to him."

Tonks' eyes narrowed and she glared at all the students around her. "They did, huh?" She said, her voice as silky as a pureblood's best robes. She had little patience with those people who shunned those who had different abilities than them since she had suffered enough of that when she had been in school.

"They got over it after a few months, but they gave him a hard time until then," Charlie said, almost pitying those fools who had picked on Harry when he saw the look on Tonks' face. With her bubbly and friendly personality, it was usually easy to forget that her mother was a Black.

"I think Harry's more worried about how Black and Lupin will react than anything else," Bill intervened. He had seen the fleeting glance his little brother's best friend had sent the two men.

The metamorphmagus' head snapped towards them and she studied them with narrowed eyes. "They didn't know?"

"Doesn't look like it," Bill shrugged, watching their confused expressions. Lupin seemed to be catching on faster than Black, but they were both being slow, like they were in denial.

Tonks pursed her lips. "I don't really know my cousin or his friend, but they better keep it together."

"I know," ... snake nodded vigorously.

"Y-You... You're a parselmouth," Sirius said stunned beyond belief.

"I am," Harry said uncomfortable. How was he going to react?

"How can you speak parsel? Lily was a muggle-born and James was... I mean, no one in his family ever spoke parsel," Remus said dumbfounded.

"It's... complicated," Harry answered evasively.

"Is that going to be a problem?" Ron snapped harshly, glaring at them to get their act together. There was nothing wrong with being shocked, but they should hurry and get to the part where they reassured Harry that they didn't care, that there was nothing wrong with being a parselmouth. And they better get to that part, or he was going to practice every single one of the few hexes they had learnt in DADA on them.

"What? No!" Remus exclaimed offended. "You think I'd have a problem with that, knowing what I am?"

"Just checking," Ron replied unrepentant. He turned his gaze towards Sirius. "Is there a problem?" He asked again.

The animagus blinked. "No," he answered dumbfounded.

"Really? So, you don't care that Harry has an ability that's considered dark?" Hermione chipped in, sounding much too casual for her question.

"Hermione!" Harry hissed, staring at her with wide eyes. What was his best friend playing at? In fact, what were both his best friends playing at?

"Shush, Harry," she said dismissively, not taking her eyes off the animagus. "Well? Do you care or not?"

Sirius' gaze hardened and he glared at the girl. "I don't! How can you...?"

"Good," Hermione interrupted him with a nod. "Let's not allow that to change."

Sirius gaped at her confused. "I'd never..." How could they consider that he would care? He was friends with a werewolf and his family was as dark as anyone could get without becoming Voldemort, and some members still came awfully close.

Harry, meanwhile, was staring at Hermione with exasperation and fondness. "You're impossible."

"And you had to see that they wouldn't care to believe it," she replied simply, shooting him a smile.

"Where ... Harry asked.

"Of all the things to ask a snake, and you ask it where it's from?" Lee Jordan asked, rolling his eyes.

"What would you have asked then?" Harry asked defensively.

Lee blushed. "Me? I'm not the one who can talk with snakes, Harry," he spluttered.

"Right," Harry rolled his eyes.

The snake ... it nice there?"

"You always were a weirdo, Potter," Malfoy sneered, but it lacked his usual bite. Even he was having trouble getting over the truth of Potter's home life.

"Bugger off, Malfoy!" Ron snapped harshly. "Not a word against Harry!"

"I don't see why not," the blond replied. "Nobody knows what happened in second year. For all we know, he could've been the culprit of everything and he could've simply pretended to fix it to avoid having to go back to those muggles."

Harry unconsciously shrunk a little bit. That was way too close to what Tom Riddle had done to get away with it more than fifty years beforehand. Could more people think that he would do that? Was he that similar to that monster?

"How dare you?!" Fred saw red. "Who do you think you are to say something like that?!"

"In case you haven't noticed, his best friend is a muggle-born, you prick!" George shouted, gripping his wand tightly. He wanted to hex him so badly.

"And look how she ended up," Malfoy pressed on smugly. He loved being able to rile these people up like this. "Not that I'm surprised. A mudblood like her..."

He couldn't finish the sentence. A red beam of light hit him in the face with so much strength that the armchair he was sitting on toppled over and the blond ended up tangled in his own robes on the floor. Everyone turned in the direction the beam had come from and saw a very, very angry Harry Potter standing up with his wand raised.

"Don't you dare, Malfoy," he hissed, sending shivers down everyone's spines. "I can put up with you saying whatever about me or about how I speak parsel. I don't care."

Malfoy was staring at him from the floor, not daring to stand up again, and the rest were gaping at the black-haired boy. Some had been about to get their wands out to hex the blond themselves for the insult, but Harry had been faster than them. Now they were watching stunned as he trembled in rage after hearing the insult towards his friend when he had been stoically enduring the onslaught of rude comments towards himself an instant before.

"But don't you dare call Hermione that again," Harry kept talking. He held so much anger inside that sparks flew out of his wand. "I hear you calling her that again and you're gonna get much more than a Disarming Spell to the face. And you suggest one more time that I'd ever hurt her, or anyone, like that, and we're gonna get that duel you chickened out of three years ago, you understand?"

Once he was sure that his message had got across, he sat back down again and sighed. He looked up when he felt Hermione grab his right hand and squeeze it tightly.

"Thank you, Harry," she muttered, a touch smile on her face at the blatant show of affection on his part. She knew that Harry was always much quicker to rise to the defence of someone he cared about than when he was the one being picked on.

Harry smiled in return. "I would've tried the spell Ron used last time, but I didn't wanna risk ending up burping slugs like he did."

Ron's ears went red. "Yeah. Not a good experience. Besides, watching Malfoy fall like that was almost as good as seeing him as a bouncing ferret."

They shared amused glances. That was a good memory, even now that they knew that it had been a Death Eater who had hexed Malfoy.

The boa ... been to Brazil?"

"It's kind of surreal to hear him talk with a snake like that, isn't it?" Bill grinned amused.

"You mean how he's talking with an animal about where it's from?" Charlie asked sarcastically. "You don't think that's normal?"

"I'd like to be able to do that," Tonks pouted.

"I think what you can do is much better," Harry snorted. "It's certainly more useful."

"Not always," Luna intervened, smiling softly. "Harry, if you have some time when we can get out of here, my father's writing an article about snakes and he could use some help."

Harry almost choked on his own spit. "You want my help with an article about snakes?" He asked disbelievingly.

"Well, it'd be terribly convenient to have someone who could understand them when they answer our questions," the blond girl nodded.

"You're interrogating snakes?" Ron asked perplexed. Was he dreaming? Was this going to be a nightmare or just some weird-arse dream?

Luna nodded with a soft smile on her face. "Of course. How else would we prove that many snakes were people in another life?"

"People in another life?" The redhead repeated, his eyebrows rising to his hairline. The option of the weird-arse dream was winning more points. He didn't know whether to laugh or not. This girl was mental.

"That's not..." Hermione began with a frown.

"I don't mind helping," Harry cut her off. He had no wish to hear them arguing with each other and he knew, from what little he had talked with Luna, that the younger girl could be just as set in her ideas as Hermione. He feared that an argument between them could be as long as one between Ron and Hermione.

"Thank you, Harry," Luna smiled brightly.

"Who is she?" Fred asked, looking at the girl half like she was crazy and half like Christmas had come early.

"No clue," George shrugged. He too was staring at the girl pensively. Her ideas may be crazy, but it was always the craziest ones that were the greatest. "Harry seems to know her, though. We can ask him later."

As the ... WHAT IT'S DOING!"

"Oh, shut up!" Fred groaned.

"We wanted to hear more about the boa constrictor!" George agreed.

"It was awfully friendly," Luna said, surprising many people. She seemed disappointed that she couldn't get more information about snakes.

"Don't worry, Luna," Harry tried to cheer her up. "You can ask another snake later and I'll translate." He couldn't believe he had just offered that, but the girl had helped him earlier and he liked her.

Luna smiled brightly. "Thank you, Harry," she repeated her words from earlier.

"And we'll, of course, be there to ask some questions ourselves," George said, almost rubbing his hands together in anticipation.

"George, Harry's not a walking translator for you to use when you want," his mother chided him.

"But, mum, Harry would never deny us this opportunity, would you, Harry?" Fred asked, staring at the black-haired boy hopefully.

Harry rolled his eyes. "I s'ppose it doesn't matter a few more questions," he gave in. He sent the twins a pointed look. "You two owe me one."

"Of course, Harrikins," George nodded, a mischievous smirk on his face.

"Your wish is our command," Fred nodded eagerly. They were going to have so much fun with this.

"Mine too," Luna said.

"What?" Harry said, his eyes widening. "No, Luna, don't... It's okay. It's because they aren't gonna use what they learn for an article like your father. I don't mind helping you."

"Oh," the girl blinked. "Well, if you're sure, Harry."

Dudley ... on the concrete floor.

Harry had the air knocked out of him by surprise, leaving him a bit wide-eyed. His hand automatically flew to his ribs where he had felt his cousin's hit. This connection with the books sure was weird.

"Harry?" Hermione asked, having felt the boy's flinch. "You okay?"

"I'm fine," Harry nodded, the shock gone. "I just forgot about the connection or the link or whatever."

"You felt that?" Ron asked, glaring at the book. He was going to kill whoever had made those books and had linked them to his best friend.

"It was nothing," Harry rolled his eyes at the overprotective gazes he could feel directed his way. "I've been hit harder during a quidditch match and you all know it."

"That doesn't help much, you know? Not when we know you're probably gonna relive those matches," Dean said, trying to hide his concern.

Harry looked at him sheepishly and racked a hand through his hair. "Sorry."

What came ... howls of horror.

"What?" Katie asked, distracted from the different ways she could hurt the Dursleys and get away with it. If she got the team's help, she would certainly have a better chance of making them regret it more.

"Howls of horror?" Mrs. Weasley asked nervously.

"What happened?" Mr. Weasley asked.

"Nothing bad," Harry assured them with a grin of anticipation. This had been good.

Seeing him like that went a long way making everyone relax. If he was happy and amused, it couldn't have been that bad. The muggles must have been exaggerating.

Harry sat ... tank had vanished.

The gasps of surprise were soon swallowed by the noise of the roars of laughter. It was about time those bullies got the scare they deserved.

"The vanishing glass," Percy gasped in understanding.

"Uh?" Harry frowned in confusion.

"It was the title of the chapter. The vanishing glass," Hermione explained.

"Oh. Well, it was a fitting title," the boy grinned amused.

"It is," Percy nodded in agreement. "It makes so much sense now that we've heard the whole story."

Harry sent him an odd look, but he decided not to ask why it wouldn't. Asking Percy a question usually led to a long lecture about something he wasn't interested in.

"Not bad," Angelina smiled proudly. She felt like an older sister whose little brother had done something great. "Vanishing Spells aren't easy even when they're used on inanimate objects."

"What were you thinking, Harry, freeing a snake in the zoo?" Hermione asked, half exasperated and half amused.

"The poor animal had been in a cage its whole life. It deserved to get out for a while and Dudley annoyed me enough for my magic to do it," Harry grinned unrepentant. "I didn't want my cousin to hit the crystal again and I wanted her to be free and go to Brazil."

"And if someone had got hurt?" The girl asked, trying to remain stern and failing miserably.

"Nobody did," Harry shrugged.

"C'mon, Hermione," Ron whined. "Can't you just enjoy it? Harry's cousin and that friend of his deserved it. Besides, it's called accidental magic for a reason. Harry couldn't control it."

The girl gave in with a sigh. She couldn't argue with that logic.

The great snake ... Thanksss, amigo."

"Merlin's pants, it's so weird to understand a snake," Seamus said with a giddy grin.

"Even when we can understand it, it still sounds like it hisses," Alicia said in awe. She had never imagined that it could be like that.

Ron was grinning from ear to ear. He shoved his best friend lightly. "Told you you weren't doing it justice. This is so much better than you told us."

"Is it?" Harry asked with a raised eyebrow, but his lips quirked upwards.

"It's certainly much more entertaining," Hermione agreed with the redhead. "And you never told us that you vanished the glass keeping it trapped."

"I didn't think it was that important," Harry shrugged.

The keeper ... the glass go?"

"It disappeared," Fred said in a hushed voice.

"It was like magic," George nodded seriously, making people snort in amusement.

"Technically, I think we could say that the glass went into nonbeing. Or everything, if you prefer," Luna answered with a pensive expression on her face.

"What?" The twins asked confused.

"Well answered, Ms. Lovegood," Flitwick congratulated his student proudly.

"What are they talking about?" Ron asked bewildered. In fact, almost everyone seemed just as confused.

"It's a theory about where Vanished objects go," Hermione explained, mulling it in her head.

"Nowhere," the redhead said confused. "They disappear. You vanish them and they disappear. That's how the spell goes if it's done right, doesn't it?"

The girl sighed in exasperation. "But everything has to go somewhere, Ron. Many wizards and witches have theorized about where."

"Why does it matter?" Ron replied. "What matters is that they aren't where you don't want them anymore."

"It matters," she replied firmly, glaring at him before he dared to argue. "it's a fascinating topic to investigate."

Harry sighed and intervened before this could develop into a full-blown argument in the middle of the Great Hall. "And how do you know all this, Hermione?" He asked, hoping it would distract them.

The girl's cheeks turned pink. "Professor McGonagall mentioned the other day in class that we would be learning the Vanishing Spell next year and that it's one of the most difficult ones we will have to learn. So, I decided to read a little in advance to be prepared."

Harry was staring at her in amused exasperation, not surprised at all, while Ron had horror painted all over his face. Everyone else was just gaping at the girl.

"You're already studying for the spells we're gonna learn next year? What? All the work we have to do this year is not enough for you?" Ron asked horrified. "No, wait. You know what? I'm not even surprised. You're probably already reading ahead for the N.E.W.T.s or something."

Hermione blushed (nobody had to know that the redhead was right) and glared at him. "There's nothing wrong with being prepared, Ron," she argued heatedly. "Maybe if you did the same, you wouldn't be behind with your homework all the time."

Ron's ears turned red. "I'm not behind all the time!" He replied, even as he knew that it was mostly a lie. The only time he wasn't behind was the first week of school and this year had already broken that rule.

"Why don't we keep reading?" Harry intervened. He hadn't meant for another argument to start when he had asked Hermione that question. He should have known that Ron would manage to put his foot in his mouth and annoy Hermione somehow.

The zoo ... weren't you, Harry?"

There was an explosion of swears and curses aloud.

"That little snot brat! He just had to open his mouth and say that, didn't he?" Ron ranted. "Nobody asked him! And he's got Harry in trouble!"

"Like it was the first or the last time I've got into trouble, Ron," Harry rolled his eyes.

"He could certainly use a couple of lessons on when to keep his trap shut, couldn't he, Gred?" George asked, his eyes dark with anger.

"And a few about when not to stick his nose in other people's business, Feorge," Fred agreed.

"Maybe we could take it away until he learns," George mused.

"That would make him learn quickly, wouldn't it?" Fred nodded.

"You're not taking that boy's nose," their mother cut in firmly. As angry as she was with that boy, he didn't really know how much trouble he had got Harry into.

"Maybe an arm or a leg then?" Fred didn't let up.

"We could conjure a snake and allow Harry to set it on him. That would give him a chance to get his revenge," George suggested, only half joking.

"I'm not gonna set a snake on anyone," Harry rolled his eyes. He refused to use that ability to scare anybody. It scared people enough on its own without using it like that.

"Pity," Fred shrugged, not wanting to push him.

"But better for us. Now we can get revenge on his behalf," George said with a mischievous smirk.

Uncle Vernon ... a large brandy.

"No meals?! What did he mean no meals?!" Molly roared incensed. "He can't leave a growing boy without food!"

It was no wonder that Harry always seemed to eat much less than any of her children, even Ginny, if he had had meals withheld from him. She was going to have to watch him closer to make sure that he ate enough. He was too skinny as it was.

"Mr. Potter, I think you're gonna have to come with me to the infirmary when we finish reading for the day," Madam Pomfrey intervened. Her eyes were smouldering with rage and she had to curl her hands into fists to stop their shaking.

"What? Madam Pomfrey, this happened years ago!" Harry protested horrified. "I'm fine!"

"It was bad enough that you were kept in a small space like a cupboard for years, Mr. Potter. That could have grave consequences. But withholding meals..." She trailed off, her lips pulled back in a snarl that few people had ever seen on her face. She gritted her teeth and made an effort not to snap at the boy. "It's my duty as the nurse in this school to make sure that the students are healthy. I have to make sure that there was no lasting damage or anything that we can't reverse."

"But, Madam Pomfrey, you don't have to check anything. I'm fine," he repeated.

"No excuses," she replied in a no-nonsense voice. "You're coming with me tonight before you go up to your common room. I have to see if it's necessary for you to spend the night in the infirmary. And don't even think about trying to sneak away, Mr. Potter. Don't make me go look for him to the tower."

"But..." He said horrified. Spend the night in the infirmary for something that had happened more than three years prior? No way.

"No buts," she interrupted firmly, fixing him with a steely look until the boy gave in.

"I can't believe this..." Harry grumbled under his breath, staring at the hands in his lap.

"It's for the best, Harry," Remus said, trying to smile at him. It was difficult, though, when he couldn't help but keep thinking about how Harry hadn't been allowed to eat. "We just want to make sure that you're alright."

"I am alright," the boy huffed.

"Do it for our peace of mind then," the werewolf pleaded.

"It's certainly not gonna be for mine," Harry scowled quietly. He knew he was being rude, but, quite frankly, he didn't care. Nobody had cared for years and now he was supposed to be a good little boy and do as they said for their peace of mind. Even Sirius had said earlier that neither of his parents had been as small as him so they all knew that the Dursleys care had left its mark.

"Harry..." Sirius frowned when he saw Remus' face fall. He knew that the boy was angry and, knowing how he had been treated by his relatives, he didn't blame him. But he didn't have to pay his frustration and anger with them.

"Think they'll manage to find a way to make you... not a midget anymore?" Ron interrupted the animagus, completely ignoring him. He knew Harry had every right to be angry with the adults right then. A check-up wasn't going to fix anything except their curiosity. What Harry needed was for someone to heal any injuries he had, and he didn't have any more, and several good meals until he could grow an appetite and he put some meat on those bones.

Harry glared at him without heat. "I'm not a midget."

"Not a midget?" Fred said when he saw Sirius open his mouth again. He agreed with what his little brother was doing here. They were all being morons dealing with all these revelations and they weren't going to take it lying down.

"A squirt then?" George added before his mum could say something.

"Not a squirt either," Harry protested, but it had no bite. He was more grateful that they were guarding off all the comments and questions than annoyed with their teasing.

"He's says he's not a squirt, Feorge," Fred said with fake seriousness.

"Then he's delusional on top of a squirt, Gred," George said. "A delusional squirt. That's what he is."

"If you've finished this discussion," Hermione intervened when she saw the adults desist in their attempts to talk with Harry. It had taken them long enough. "We should continue reading if we want to finish any time this year."

"Uh-oh. Our favourite bookworm is getting impatient," George teased her.

"We better run before she throws a book at us," Fred grinned.

"Think they have a death wish?" Ron muttered, leaning closer to Harry so only his best friend heard him. They were both watching warily the glare Hermione was sending the twins. They were so going to get it if they didn't stand down soon.

Fortunately, they did. Maybe they sensed the danger or maybe it was just a coincidence but at least they didn't end up hexed.

Harry lay in ... some food.

"How would you? They locked you in, didn't they?" Tonks asked bitterly.

"I told you before. The door opened even when they did that," Harry sighed tiredly. "It didn't always happen at first, but then I could simply touch it and it would swing open."

They gaped at him. They couldn't believe this boy, talking so calmly about doing wandless magic before he had even known that magic existed.

"B-But what did your relatives said when they found the door open?" Neville dared to ask wide-eyed.

"It always closed again when I went back inside," Harry shrugged. "It worked the same way. I touched it and it would be locked again."

"Wicked," Dean grinned widely. He wished he could do the same, but he doubted it.

"Did he... Did he just say that he could perform wandless and silent spells before he came to Hogwarts?" Flitwick stuttered wide-eyed. Never mind that they were simple first-year spells. It was an amazing feat.

"I-I think he just did," McGonagall said with a hand on her chest in shock.

Snape was just as surprised, but he refused to show it. He was trying not to think about how Lily had manipulated her magic to a certain degree, too, making a flower open and close and flying off the swing. He didn't want to think that this was something else the boy had in common with his mother. He wanted to keep believing that the brat was just like his father. He needed to keep believing that.

"Do you think he could have controlled his magic in other ways?" Flitwick asked, the shock turning into awe and giddiness. Oh, how he would enjoy helping Harry learn how to do spells wandlessly and silently like that. The boy would be a force to be reckoned with if he could accomplish that and, from what the letter had said, he would need every advantage he could get.

"I have no idea," McGonagall said breathlessly. "But he should certainly try to do it more if he can."

"It would help him enormously," Sprout nodded, her thoughts going in the same direction Flitwick's had gone earlier.

He'd lived ... that car crash.

Any remaining awe at Harry's wandless casting vanished at the remainder of the lie the child had believed for so long, for most of his life in fact. It was unconceivable, but it was the harsh truth. That fact alone was enough to want to throttle the Dursleys and make them suffer.

There were many things you shouldn't lie to children about and the truth about their parents was the ahead of the list, especially when they had been murdered and everyone knew about it. It made their blood boil to think about how ignorant Harry had been about his own story because of the Dursleys.

He couldn't ... on his forehead.

There was a collective sharp intake of breath as the words sank in.

He remembered his parents' death?

No, that couldn't be possible... But, looking at his pained expression, no one could think that it wasn't true. It didn't matter that he should have been too young to remember something like that.

"You remember that?" Sirius asked. He felt like he was going to be sick.

Harry made an uncommitted sound. He didn't want to confess that he remembered much more now, that he remembered their last words now and he now knew exactly what the curse that had killed them looked like. It was something that only Ron and Hermione knew in detail and Professor Lupin to some degree, unless he had told Sirius.

"How's that possible?" McGonagall asked breathless. She felt like she had had the air knocked out of her.

"The mind is a curious thing, Minerva," Albus answered quietly. "Memories can only be erased with magic, not with time. Time can bury them deep down, but there's always the possibility that they'll come forth for some reason."

"Poor boy," Sprout said, her voice muffled by the hand over her mouth. He didn't deserve this.

This, ... them in the house.

"You didn't know how they looked like?" Angelina muttered horrified. She was having a hard time not staring at him with pity.

Harry gritted his teeth, hating every pitying look directed his way. "I didn't even know their names until I received my letter from Hogwarts," he said, more harshly than he had meant to. He felt a pang of regret when he saw her flinch and he softened. "I'm sorry, Angelina."

"Don't worry," she shook her head. "I get it." She didn't, not really, but Harry didn't want her to anyway and neither did she.

"I know how they look like now," Harry said softly, smiling when she relaxed a little. "I found out during the Christmas holidays of my first year and I have photos of them now. Hagrid gave them to me at the end of my first year."

The older girl sighed in relief. "Good," was all she could say. If she said anything else, she was going to go try to curse the Dursleys. She was probably going to help the Weasley twins with whatever plan they came up with in any way she could.

The conversation had helped calm everyone down a little, but the tension was still high in the Great Hall. They didn't know why they kept getting surprised by everything the Dursleys did, but they somehow did. How could anyone deny a child the right to know their parents' names or how they looked like?

When he ... his only family.

"I think we should be offended, Feorge," Fred said with forced levity.

"I think so, too, Gred. After so long and this thick-headed dunderhead still doesn't get it," George shook his head sadly.

Harry looked at them half amused and half confused. Why should they be offended? What wasn't he getting?

Ron rolled his eyes and slapped the back of his head. "You're family, idiot," he huffed. And people said he was the one who had the emotional capability of a brick. Maybe he should ask his parents if they could add a hand to the clock for Harry so his best friend got it.

Harry ducked his head. He didn't know how to react. What was he supposed to say when someone told him that he was family? Likewise? You too? Thank you?

"You're a Weasley now," Bill grinned at the younger boy. He had no problem having another sibling. What was one more when he had six already? Besides, Harry had saved his little sister and he spent half the summer with them so, as far as he was concerned, he was already an honorary Weasley. Heck, he had heard the twins and Ginny refer to Ron's room as Ron and Harry's room.

"The first not redheaded Weasley," Charlie grinned, enjoying the boy's shy embarrassment immensely.

Hermione grabbed his hand, smiling kindly at him when he looked at her blushing. She had already told him before that he was like a brother to her. She didn't need to repeat again for him to know.

Sirius watched all this not knowing what to feel. He was ecstatic that his godson had so many wonderful people that cared about him so much, but a small part of him couldn't help but think 'what about Remus and I?'. They had been his family first, even if Harry didn't remember it, and now... now Harry didn't seem to need them. A selfish part of him wanted to grab Harry and shout that they were his family, that there was no need for him to be a Weasley because he had them, but the shy and pleased smile on Harry's face stopped him. The boy hadn't looked like that when he had asked Harry to come live with him at the end of the previous school year. Did Harry prefer to live with the Weasleys rather than with him? What was he going to do about it? Why did he feel like he was losing his godson even when he was just a few feet away?

Remus ignored the pang in his chest at Harry's expression. One look at Sirius' face told him that the animagus was thinking along the same lines as him. However, he could understand where Harry was coming from. The boy hadn't known them for more than a year while the Weasleys were his best friend's family and he had probably spent many holidays with them. Of course, the group of redheads (and the bushy-haired girl sitting next to him. Let's not forget about her) were family to Harry. It hurt to think that Harry was probably never going to call them Uncle Moony and Uncle Padfoot like he would have had things gone differently, but they couldn't change the past. They could only try to show Harry that they considered him family, too, and that they wanted to be there for him like the Weasleys were.

Yet ... seemed to know him.

"Wizards for sure," Seamus said.

"And witches," Parvati glared at him.

"And witches," he hastily corrected himself. Merlin, girls could be scary when they wanted to be. He had just said wizards in general, as in 'people with magic', but that was much longer to say.

Very strange strangers ... closer look.

"I can't believe it," Katie huffed. "Were they trying to make you question your sanity?"

"There's no sanity to question, Katie," George said teasingly.

"Harry's gone crazy a long time ago," Fred smirked at the boy even when he was talking to the girl.

"I'm not crazy," Harry denied vehemently.

"Maybe a little, Harry," Hermione said, grinning a bit.

"I'm not!"

"You are," Ron contradicted him.

"Are not!"

"Are too!"

"Boys," Molly stopped them exasperated.

"Sorry, mum," Ron said automatically

"Sorry, Mrs. Weasley," Harry said at the same time. He waited until she looked away before elbowing his best friend and hissing under his breath, "Are not."

Ron glared at him, rubbing the sore spot in his ribs. He didn't have a chance of replying because his mother was staring at them suspiciously again while Harry was the vivid picture of innocence. Oh, he didn't know how people could think that Harry was innocent and a good and polite little boy, but he knew that the black-haired boy could be as devious as the twins when he wanted to be.

At school, ... with Dudley's gang.

"We were your first friends?" Ron asked quietly, his annoyance with his best friend already gone. Now, seeing him nod and stare at his lap, he only felt a lump in his throat. "You were my first friend, too," he blurted out without thinking. He just wanted Harry to stop looking so... ashamed or whatever.

Harry's head snapped up in surprise. "We were?" He asked, taking care to keep his voice quiet so his conversation stayed as private as possible.

"Mine too," Hermione confessed in a whisper.

"Really?" Ron asked surprised.

The witch didn't know how to react to that. Maybe she should be glad that he was surprised since that meant that he couldn't understand how no one had wanted to be her friend before. But both Harry and Ron should get it if they thought about how she had been before they had saved her from the troll.

Harry grinned amused. "So, you're saying that we're all a band of misfits?" He asked, finding it funny for some reason.

Ron rolled his eyes and shoved him away. "Shut up, Harry."

"If I could have everyone's attention for a moment, please," Flitwick's voice interrupted them. "We've finished the first chapter," he announced, pointing at the floating book, which was glowing with a yellow light.

"Should we continue with the next one then?" Dumbledore asked calmly, his eyes twinkling. He ignored all the stares in his direction, knowing that many people wanted to talk to him about his decision of leaving Harry with the Dursleys. They would have to wait until they finished reading for the day, though, and they were somewhere private. "We haven't been reading for long so I think that we can wait for a while yet before we take a break, don't you think?"

"I don't have a problem wiz zat," Madame Maxime nodded her agreement. She was shocked at the treatment the Boy-Who-Lived had received and she was certainly going to have words with Dumbledore, but she knew it was not the time nor the place for that.

"The sooner we finish this, the better," Karkaroff said with a bored voice. He just wanted to get back to the Triwizard Tournament.

"Well, then," Flitwick nodded, flicking his wand in the book's direction. It glowed green for an instant as the next page turned.